Work in Progress Rules Change?

[PyTom]

One think I've been noticing is that we're getting a lot of fairly content-free posting on the Work-in-progress forum. I'm thinking that a rules change, perhaps coupled with a forum reboot, might be in order. My general idea is that we should have two new rules:

1) In the first post of a thread about a game in progress, there must be some evidence that actual development work has commenced. Things like posting a breakdown, a reasonable amount of script, or some game-worthy art would count. Pre-production art is iffy. Simply posting a list of character names and descriptions is out. (Really, this is more enforcing the existing rule than making a new one.)

2) The following things are on-topic in a game's thread:

2a) Meaningful status updates. This should be something more than just a twitter-like description of what you did today, but talking about major changes in the game's status is okay - especially when you post about things in a tangible way, by posting art/code/text/music/etc.

2b) Requests for help and recruitment. Asking if someone can help you solve a game-specific development problem, or requesting people collaborate with you, is fine.

2c) Development, within reason. Using the occasional post to actually develop the game is probably okay, but if there's too much of that, it's best to use something other than our forum to collaborate within members of the team.

2d) Critical commentary. It's okay for people to comment on the game, but you need to give a reasonably precise explanation of what you liked or disliked, what can be improved and what works well.

We should discourage (perhaps to the point of removal) posts that simply exist to say "looks good!" and various other low-content statements. Those take people's time to read, and make it difficult to follow what's actually going on.


My thoughts are the way to approach this would be to archive the current WiP forum, and replace it with a new one. People should feel free to create new game-threads, where discussion would be conducted under these new rules.

Thoughts?

[dstarsboy]

Maybe make the current WIP thread more of a "recruitment" thread and make a new, more official WIP thread? I think almost all of the "summary + description only" WIP posts are looking for recruits, so there needs to be a place for that.

"Looks good" is also very encouraging and motivating to hear, it would suck if that was somehow taken away, but I can't think of a solution for that.

[Samu-kun]

The main problem is that it's hard to make critical commentary when so little material is actually made visible before a project is released. I've always been kind of hesitant on releasing the actual script, since it might negatively impact the surprise factor of reading the story for yourself once the game is released. But without the script, it's also impossible to make constructive criticisms of much of the project, since you don't know anything except a very general plot premise and a short summary of the characters.

We should discourage (perhaps to the point of removal) posts that simply exist to say "looks good!" and various other low-content statements. Those take people's time to read, and make it difficult to follow what's actually going on.

You don't suppose that you could implement a "like" system for the message board? If there's just a "x number of people like this idea" underneath the first topic, that'll let people show their support, while not taking anyone's time to read and causing disorganization.

[lucy]

OK how about this...

Projects Section

  Announcement
  Here, you announce your project. Brief description, a couple of screen shots
  You know, a place where you could build confidence, momentum (and ego).
  If possible, a link to an external website, blog, wiki on the project.

  Recruitment Center
  Section where you ask for help, recruit, find and share resources and other
  stuff like that. Strictly VN production related only.

  Crit Section
  Same as Announcement except here, you are asking for trouble. People will
  bash, disassemble, insult, and criticism. Before you proceed here, a disclaimer
  will pop-up asking you if you are emotionally prepared for a quick bashing.
  Hopefully, you'll get something good out of it and implement it in your project.
  The red exclamation button will not be present in this section...

"POOF" (Disappears)

[Wintermoon]

I think you're trying to polish a turd. Threads about unfinished games will inevitably devolve into inane chatter because there is nothing there yet to talk about. I propose you close the entire forum. People should be encouraged to finish their games before talking about them.

Recruitment threads are legitimate, but I think they deserve their own forum. If I was looking for a project to join, I would not want to read through a forum of works in progress looking for projects that are recruiting.

Direct requests for criticism are also legitimate, but they can be placed in other fora.

If you really to allow project announcements, you can make a single thread with the rule that every post in that thread must announce a project. If people want a discussion about their unfinished projects, let them post a link to their own forum in their announcement post.

Alternately, you can leave the forum as it is, accept that some people like it that way, and refrain from reading it.

However, I don't think that halfway measures will work. The line between useful criticism and "looks good" posts is so fuzzy that it cannot be enforced in a consistent and fair manner. Unclear, inconsistently enforced rules lead to confusion and resentment.

[Ramidel]

Didn't someone at one point (in the game-maker's corner) say that the WIP forum was there to provide a place for people to throw up their in-progress stuff so the rest of us can ignore it if we want?

Other than that, people who say "awesome" encourage the people who make WIPs to keep going on their projects, and it takes -slightly- more effort to do so than to simply click the like button. So there's a use even for that.

[IceD]

Rules are rules. You have to obey them or brake them and if so, you have to deal with punishment for doing so. On forums, it is only a matter of devoted staff and people who will seek to obey the rules and enforce them, so the place can be clean and nice for everyone. I've seen this forum isn't a really big one but maybe we should have few moderators with limited capabilities, who might encourage people to express in a more specific way. To be honest, there were no rules, up to now. I've see this a good start for this section. Other than that, a hole section for direct requests for criticism is absurd and this could make the forum even more messy, rather than help people to deal with their works.

As for the recruitment, I agree with Wintermoon - it deserves it's own section, but I'd rather wouldn't take out whole work in progress section. Applying those rules with 2-3 people that would watch over them being properly respected should be enough. Or propably make posts for this section to be determined by confirmation - It's not that hard to tell a good wip thread from bad one. The way Lucy proposes to divide it isn't bad either.

To sum up, I would agree with another thread in the developement section for recruitment or enforcing some rules for that on the WIP threads. I'd love to finally see some mods on this forum, I bet there are reliable and trusthworthy people that could do this job well. Don't take out the WIP section! I think it would be a mistake, such threads are needed. I'd say just to place proper rules and put whole section within moderation, as it should be. If people won't respect the rules, their WIP's will be deleted, that's all. Honestly, I'm tired seeing all of those "empty" WIP threads - it's great to see more and more people trying to make visual novels, but there should be more work made into it. Seeing those threads feels like those people just try to enforce themselves into making those novels Wintermoon has a point here - people should have the courage to make them, not just talk about how they're going to make them.

As for me, saying "awesome", "cool project", or "what a great idea!" isn't encouraging at all. Those words are empty and written only for the "sake of it". People should have something important and clever to say, if not - they shouldn't be saying anything at all here, because it's not what we are searching for. The same goes with WIP threads.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this with us, PyTom!

[Jake]

My general idea is that we should have two new rules:

On one hand, it does seem to me that this forum in general has a bit of a lack of decent constructive critique and too much "yaaay! XD" recently. So if you could actually move in that direction in a constructive manner, I'd be entirely behind it.

On the other hand, I think you'll have a lot of trouble enforcing rules like this, unless you're going to start ruthlessly going through threads deleting posts which don't conform.

Firstly, regarding the implementation:

We should discourage (perhaps to the point of removal) posts that simply exist to say "looks good!" and various other low-content statements. Those take people's time to read, and make it difficult to follow what's actually going on.

It's my opinion that if you do removal at all, you have to do it completely consistently across any and all such topics, or it's a) not worth doing at all and b) not fair in the least. And as Wintermoon says, you'll have to be very careful about what you do or don't censor, because some people have different opinions on what constitutes useful feedback.

Furthermore, if you do removal at all, it seems to me that you have to be prepared to keep doing it basically forever, becuase there's always new people joining and people coming back to the forum after a long break, and experience suggests that something like 95% of people don't read the rules of forums they're going to post in before they start posting. And a lot of people won't even notice that their posts have been removed unless you go out of your way to tell them, so it won't stop them writing the same kind of posts in other threads as well. It's not a thing you can spend a couple of months stamping out and then it'll be gone forever, it's a thing you're going to have to be constantly firefighting on. Be prepared to have to institute and enforce similar rules in Completed Games and the art forum if you want to make any dent in the culture.

This forum has a long history of basically not having any moderation at all, and as IceD notes, rules are pretty pointless if they're not going to be enforced. The recent attempt with the 'Skill Improvement' forum is evidence enough; it's basically exactly the same as it always was, with people posting their portfolio threads and the 'Art Dumpage' thread still being a torrent of works posted without comment on anyone else's stuff.





Secondly, regarding the spirit of the suggested changes:

It seems to me that there are two main ways to run a creative forum: the DeviantArt.com way or the ConceptArt.org way.

The DA way is to value participation above creative growth; a large proportion of the population doesn't bother to give any constructive comment on the work of others, and there is an element who seem to believe that critique is actually just malice in disguise, who don't seem interested in improving themselves at all. DA people thrive on "Looks fantastic XD" posts.

The ConceptArt way is to value creative growth above participation; people can expect decent and honest critique, but it isn't necessarily going to be delivered couched in glowing words of praise that soften the blow for them, and the population in general prefers the idea of getting better than the idea of having people tell them how great their stuff is.

It's no secret that the average posting artist on ConceptArt is significantly better than the average posting artist on DeviantArt. On the other hand, DeviantArt is the larger and more popular website by a long way. LSF is presently much more like DA than CA.org, to the point that it's almost becoming useless to anyone who wants to improve their VN writing or art.

If you make changes like these you're essentially beginning to push the community towards the ConceptArt approach, and if you go in that direction I think you can expect:

- An average higher quality of finished work will come out of the forum.

- A lot of the members with thinner skin and/or less actual work to back their pretty opening posts up with will get pissed off about the changes.

- Fewer people will post about or finish anything.

- There will be a bit less activity in general on the forum.

If you're not trying to push towards a more critique-oriented community, and not trying to change the culture, then you shouldn't make this kind of change, and instead try just gentle-encouragement through more-carefully-named-and-themed forums, IMO.



Personally I'd love to have a community that I could rely upon for useful critique to improve myself as a VN artist, writer, etc., and since LSF is the only large English-language VN development community I know of, I'm interested in any changes that make LSF useful in that regard.
(I don't generally bother posting WiP threads at all, 'cause it seems that they only attract that kind of "yay!" post and those aren't useful at all, and I don't tend to read very much in the WiP forum because the majority of it is contentless - both on the part of the people posting threads and the part of the people replying to them.)

Praise is not always bad, and it's certainly been rewarding for me to know that people liked a game I've made - that's the entire point of making games, after all! And it's my belief that people who are beginning in a new field and aren't certain of themselves need to be encouraged rather than just torn apart; even if they're producing crap, if you encourage them then they might push themselves and better themselves and eventually produce good stuff that interests you, but if you put them off creating then they'll definitely never produce anything worthwhile because they won't try.

On the other hand, praise ladled on projects which haven't even started yet sets a bad precedent if you're trying to run a community which encourages critique; creative improvement depends fundamentally on being able to recognise your problems, usually with the help of others giving useful critical feedback, so that you can work on improving those areas - and a praise culture just makes people less receptive to critique, in my experience.

[chensterrain]

I kind of like the idea of separate sections for announcements / recruitment / criticism - better that than closing / archiving the entire WIP section, as even 'inane' comments can provide motivation and possibly result in more finished games. If you start expecting everyone who wants feedback on their works-in-progress to create their own forums or blogs, this place is going to end up pretty bare... I agree that there needs to be fewer 'hey guys, I thought up an idea and some character names the other day, aren't they awesome'-type posts to slog through, though I think that sort of thing would be difficult to prevent without mods locking topics left right and centre. But hey.

It would be great if we could just have the best of both worlds, to be honest - a forum for the 'yay's and 'looks good's, and a forum for those looking for harsher critiques... though getting people to follow that sort of system might be pretty difficult. :B

[number473]

The way I see it there are two things required here. Firstly, a place to showcase your upcoming project and generate some hype about it. Secondly, a place to recruit people to help you in your project. And a possible third thing is a place to get feedback on a project that is in progress, although in this case I see very little point in throwing it open to public opinion, and would rather just give it to select people that I trusted the opinions of.

Well, three things then, and all three functions are currently held by the work in progress forum. So it's not that surprising that it's getting quite crowded!

I recommend splitting it into two forums - one where projects that are simply just ideas can be posted but where the main focus is on recruitment. It is primarily a recruitment forum. Of course, you might just be starting on the project and only have an outline and not much work done yet. The other one would then be a place for showing upcoming works, but with a substantial amount of work done already. In other words one would expect to see a few screen shots at least, and that the person would report some largish amount of the script done.

[Vatina]

One could also just be adviced to put a [Recruiting] bracket in front of their wip titles to make people know to look there if they want to offer their services.

All in all I agree with Pytom.
If, in the end, there is a split of forums, remember to note people and move topics when people inevitably post things the wrong place, or it will be pointless. Things are posted in the wrong places all of the times as it is.

[Deji]

I agree with Jake's example about dA and ConceptArt; deviantART is often seen as an ass-patting super-friendly social place, while CA is seen as the critique-intensive harsh scary place where people that actually want to be pros goes to.
I've always thought the ideal would be something in the middle, where you could expect to get critique while still being friendly and encouraging. If you could get that to happen here, it'd be amazing.

That being said, I support the idea of splitting the current WiP forums, like it's been suggested: one for recruitment, where you could get some "go for it! " comments and get some help, and one that showcases works that are currently under steady production, with screenshots, links to project-related website/blog/forum and all that.

[Chansel]

Honestly, I have always rather liked the short 'looks great!' posts.. They motivate me to keep going, because there are people following my project ^^
Why would you restrict people from saying that anyway? If that is their opinion, let them say it. I don't really think you can force people to write whole reviews or criticisms if they simply don't feel the need to do so. If someone likes the game/WIP fine as it is and just wants to voice their support, let them
That being said, who is stopping the people from giving decent constructive comments? If you'd rather write a huge review, then by all means, just do so. There's harldy any need to forbid other people from writing posts the way they want to.

I have to say though that I really like the idea to split the WIP section into Recruitment and Showcase. It would help make the forum easier to navigate, which is always a good thing.

[sayuri]

I think critiques are important in creating a better product, but if there is nothing to critique then short encouraging comments are appropriate. I think game makers should specify whether or not they are looking for constructive criticism. I think that the WIP should be left as is but game makers can put another thread in the Game Maker's Corner specifically for more detailed feedback.

[shahab96]

I support Jake's idea and also agree that since the current WiP thread is actually more of a recruition thread, there should be a separate thread for works in progress and there should be subforums included in them, also if you intend to continue with your idea of removing those "yay!!" posts, i would suggest that you get some of the more experienced people on the forum to moderate the forum. I used to work on a forum site called "Anime Rebellion" and there we had 3 moderators per forum. They were all volunteers or forum creators/co-creators/friends of creators or co-creators (my case but I was a media uploader). Anyway, I support your idea of removal of useless posts, however, I am against the archiving of the current WiP thread because if that happenes then at least 200 people will have to re-post everything they already posted and this will make the new posts lower quality since everyone will simply copy-paste or give a summary of their old posts, which is obviously not very useful for anyone. If the dude copy-pastes it, it will not be read by anyone since people already know what it says. This would probably make the person who posted it get discouraged since he/she will see that the view count is really low. Also less people reading means less people commenting which will mean that the person won't get any help from it. So I support your idea of new rules, and suggest that instead of archiving the current forum, rename it and create a new forum which is more specifically named. I definitely like the new rules though.