Sandboxification?

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Is the "sandboxification" of the forums something that should be corrected?

No: any such measures would end up discouraging newcomers
1
2%
No: this is a recreational forum, so it doesn't matter as much
6
13%
No: it is not actually that bad
2
4%
No: it would require too much work from the moderators
3
6%
No: other
1
2%
Yes: it fills the forums with clutter and makes them hard to read
11
23%
Yes: this is an academic forum, not a chat or microblogging platform
10
21%
Yes: these unproductive and off-topic posts can distract people or start uncivil arguments
9
19%
Yes: most of these unproductive posts should go in the Discord instead
3
6%
Yes: other
2
4%
 
Total votes: 48

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toroidalet
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Sandboxification?

Post by toroidalet » March 1st, 2021, 2:59 am

This is not intended to attack anyone in particular or at all.
People have different ideas about appropriate behavior (which newcomers often don't know), and this thread is a place to discuss them.


I have always* been annoyed by "useless" posts or threads, but I figured that I was overreacting. However, the recent situation in the Sandbox (58 new threads in 2021: 1 per day) and a remark from the almighty dvgrn have made me reconsider.
So I would like your opinion. Is this a problem, and if so, how should we fix it? Would we need stricter rule enforcement, or would a change in the forum layout be enough? (feel free to discuss related topics like the criteria for new posts/topics, the role of the Sandbox, going off-topic, etc)

*: Back in the day, I was an exceptionally bad "new user type spammer", and am still a frequent Sandbox denizen; I am not making any judgments here.
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Re: Sandboxification?

Post by Schiaparelliorbust » March 1st, 2021, 4:14 am

I see this rapid sandboxification as clearly bad. I'm not against there being a sandbox, I'm actually for it. It's a nice place to just chat and talk about miscellaneous subjects. But I think the biggest problem is that people are creating threads without asking anyone whether they will use it or not. This leads to a ton of (eventually) abandoned threads. I honestly get kind of irritated at users who almost exclusively use the sandbox and don't really contribute much to the academic part. Fine, 89% of my posts are there, but my most active topic is Word Chains (41% of my posts), so if we deduct those, around 22% percent of my posts are non-sandbox. In my opinion, the forum rules should be updated to cover the sandbox like "don't create a thread just for the sake of creating one" or "find other places to talk about very niche or unrelated subjects". The sandbox also affects the other forums in a way that makes them less serious, so that should be changed. I think that every post on the academic forums should be relevant to the topic and that rule 4 (not a chat or microblogging platform) should be better enforced, especially for people new to here. They just don't know much about CA so they make uneducated posts. My solution to this is creating some sort of mandatory tutorial along with some CA FAQ that newcomers ask (like about spaceship speed) and asking them not to create new thread for (simple) questions and use the thread for basic questions.
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wwei47
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Re: Sandboxification?

Post by wwei47 » March 1st, 2021, 8:34 am

I thought the Sandbox was our place to goof off?
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Re: Sandboxification?

Post by Schiaparelliorbust » March 1st, 2021, 9:32 am

wwei47 wrote:
March 1st, 2021, 8:34 am
I thought the Sandbox was our place to goof off?
Yes, it is, but it is becoming filled with inactive threads. I've changed my mind that it deteriorates the quality of the academic forums. Goofing off is good, and I have nothing to say about that. But there is at least one user who I will not name that has barely contributed anything to CA for a while and even on the Sandbox doesn't do anything CA related. Why be here anyway?
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Re: Sandboxification?

Post by Hunting » March 9th, 2021, 9:45 am

OK, I believe the consensus is established. Let's stop the sandboxification!

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Re: Sandboxification?

Post by dvgrn » March 9th, 2021, 9:54 am

Hunting wrote:
March 9th, 2021, 9:45 am
OK, I believe the consensus is established. Let's stop the sandboxification!
Okay, so who is going to bell the cat, I mean, hold back the shifting sands of sandboxification?

I can update the forum rules once there's some consensus about exactly what the new rules should say. So far we have these relatively specific suggestions:
Schiaparelliorbust wrote:
March 1st, 2021, 4:14 am
In my opinion, the forum rules should be updated to cover the sandbox like "don't create a thread just for the sake of creating one" or "find other places to talk about very niche or unrelated subjects"... My solution to this is creating some sort of mandatory tutorial along with some CA FAQ that newcomers ask (like about spaceship speed) and asking them not to create new thread for (simple) questions and use the thread for basic questions.
I'm not sure how the "mandatory tutorial" is going to work exactly, but at least it's easy to add links to the forum-rules thread, as part of a new rule that says that new users are supposed to run through the tutorial and look at the FAQs.

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Re: Sandboxification?

Post by goldenratio » March 9th, 2021, 12:11 pm

dvgrn wrote:
March 9th, 2021, 9:54 am
Schiaparelliorbust wrote:
March 1st, 2021, 4:14 am
In my opinion, the forum rules should be updated to cover the sandbox like "don't create a thread just for the sake of creating one" or "find other places to talk about very niche or unrelated subjects"... My solution to this is creating some sort of mandatory tutorial along with some CA FAQ that newcomers ask (like about spaceship speed) and asking them not to create new thread for (simple) questions and use the thread for basic questions.
I'm not sure how the "mandatory tutorial" is going to work exactly, but at least it's easy to add links to the forum-rules thread, as part of a new rule that says that new users are supposed to run through the tutorial and look at the FAQs.
I think the easiest way to enforce the "mandatory tutorial" (since I suspect many new users just don't read the rules) would be to create some forum for newcomers, which would have to post in that forum for a certain amount of times before being granted access to the other main forums (including the Sandbox.)
Pros:
-would stop newcomers from exclusively using the Sandbox
-would keep newcomers from posting in the wrong place, and probably thus eliminate toxicity towards newcomers
-would essentially eliminate spam outside of that forum, which would be easier to manage

Cons:
-new users who are already pretty experienced and ready to use the other forums would be restricted to the new users forum
-Might discourage some new users as they couldn't post in threads that they wanted to post in immediately?
-If only admins could grant access to forums (I'm not sure) and it isn't possible to automate it, it would create significantly more work for Nathaniel

Also, one thing which should probably be immediately fixed about the Sandbox would be for it to stop incrementing post counts. I suspect a lot of the chaotic nature of the Sandbox comes from a few threads being posted on loads of times while others barely being posted at all, so making the Sandbox not count towards post counts would encourage users to actually have fun in the Sandbox, instead of mindlessly post-farming in certain threads.
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dvgrn
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Re: Sandboxification?

Post by dvgrn » March 9th, 2021, 12:24 pm

goldenratio wrote:
March 9th, 2021, 12:11 pm
I think the easiest way to enforce the "mandatory tutorial" (since I suspect many new users just don't read the rules) would be to create some forum for newcomers, which would have to post in that forum for a certain amount of times before being granted access to the other main forums (including the Sandbox.)...
Hmm. This may sound "easy" if you're not the person setting up the new forums and maintaining the connection between the two forumses.

The thing is, the conwaylife forums in their current state come fairly close to running themselves. Moderators have to do some work to guard against spam, but it's a manageable amount. Nathaniel has to go through and delete spam accounts occasionally, but things keep working reasonably well in the meantime.

I will venture to say that suggestions that involve setting up new systems that work differently from the current system... are very very unlikely to ever actually happen -- UNLESS the suggestion comes from someone who is willing to provide the server resources and do the actual setup work, including (horrors) any adjustments needed to the phpBB bulletin board code.

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Re: Sandboxification?

Post by otismo » March 9th, 2021, 2:18 pm

let's just blame it all on covid...
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Re: Sandboxification?

Post by Hunting » March 10th, 2021, 1:41 am

dvgrn wrote:
March 9th, 2021, 9:54 am
Hunting wrote:
March 9th, 2021, 9:45 am
OK, I believe the consensus is established. Let's stop the sandboxification!
Okay, so who is going to bell the cat, I mean, hold back the shifting sands of sandboxification?

I can update the forum rules once there's some consensus about exactly what the new rules should say. So far we have these relatively specific suggestions:
Schiaparelliorbust wrote:
March 1st, 2021, 4:14 am
In my opinion, the forum rules should be updated to cover the sandbox like "don't create a thread just for the sake of creating one" or "find other places to talk about very niche or unrelated subjects"... My solution to this is creating some sort of mandatory tutorial along with some CA FAQ that newcomers ask (like about spaceship speed) and asking them not to create new thread for (simple) questions and use the thread for basic questions.
I'm not sure how the "mandatory tutorial" is going to work exactly, but at least it's easy to add links to the forum-rules thread, as part of a new rule that says that new users are supposed to run through the tutorial and look at the FAQs.
Let's have a rule to not create threads (in the OCA forums in particular) when the topic is not discussed a lot elsewhere. (Excluding articles - but then again I would like a seperate forum for articles.) Not like This and not like this.

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toroidalet
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Re: Sandboxification?

Post by toroidalet » March 10th, 2021, 3:42 am

A possibility for enforcing the "mandatory tutorial" involves a checkbox to the signup page saying something like "I have read the forum guidelines and understand that following these guidelines is a requirement for participating in this community" (perhaps in a less intimidating tone) and maybe a few questions like "Is it alright to post new still lives or 3,000-generation methuselahs in the Patterns forum?" It doesn't seem like it would make it too inconvenient. (though considering how many people actually bother to read through the terms of service...)
Alternatively, this could be delayed so that users could sign up without reading through the rules and then take a short "quiz" or similar to show they understand the rules in exchange for more permissions (which can and will be revoked at the discretion of moderators).

For unnecessary threads, potential solutions include restricting the ability to make threads (so that people would have to convince a "sponsor" of its worth) or requiring a certain number of people to support a topic proposal (found in a separate area) before it becomes a fully-fledged thread, but that might not be feasible with phpBB (while someone could potentially use sockpuppets, who would care enough about a junk thread to do so?).
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