Dear Moderators,
I’ve been having a very nice conversation with Black_Elk, taamvan, Baron Munchhausen, and theROCmonster about how to identify and fix some balance issues on the A&A 1942 Second Edition map. We racked up over 100 posts with no insults or crude humor, and I thought it was a very productive and interesting conversation.
A few hours ago, Black Elk mentioned that the conversation is probably more appropriate for the House Rules section than for the 1942.2 section. That’s a reasonable argument, but I disagreed, and I gave three reasons why. Shortly afterward, the thread was moved to House Rules. I do not see any kind of note or explanation. It looks like someone made a unilateral, silent decision to move the thread despite my objections.
I don’t want to make too big a deal out of this – you guys run a good website, and I appreciate your work. However, when you move a thread that I’m participating in without explaining why or even posting a note indicating who made the decision, I feel dismissed and unheard, like my opinions about what section a thread belongs in are so irrelevant that they don’t even deserve a polite response.
Can someone please address these concerns?
Thanks,
Argothair
Ask IL. He should be able to move it back.
It was discussion of ideas outside the OOB rules, which means it goes into house rules. Nearly everyday threads either start like this or become this. So nothing happened and enjoy your thread… here is the link to help out.
Thanks for the link, but I had not lost the thread. My concern was that other people who might have been listening to the discussion would be surprised that it was gone and not know where to find it.
I don’t agree with your summary that “nothing happened.” Someone moved an ongoing conversation without asking permission, warning me, posting a notice, or explaining why. If someone did that with an article on Wikipedia, or with a discussion room on a college campus, or with a rec league soccer game in a public park, it would be incredibly rude.
If there is some kind of rule or policy about what kind of articles are allowed in a game-specific forum, I have not seen it. I don’t think our conversation was obviously off-topic for where it was posted, and I don’t see who is supposed to benefit when a moderator unilaterally decides to recategorize a conversation. The moderator’s opinion about a thread should not be more important than the opinion of the people who are actually posting on the thread. I think someone overstepped their role, and I would like an apology.
Oh oh
I can understand your frustration. But approve of it or not, this has been a common moderation practice ever since I’ve been on these forums.
The policy is basically that the 1942 board is for discussing the OOB game created by Larry Harris.
If you are talking about modifying 1942 to make it a different and/or better game then (according to the mod policy) that discussion belongs in the House rules section.
This is tricky in practice because tons of threads concerning game balance end up becoming game modification threads and may or may not get diverted to House Rules.
I wouldn’t take it personally.
Well - I have ended up “liking” both Argothair’s original post and Zhukov’s response.
I have felt Argothair’s frustration when I cannot find a thread that I started because it has been moved without so much as a short polite message pointing me at the new location.
Yet the policy of relocating threads when they clearly belong somewhere else is fine. It helps people find relevant material at a later date. And the issue of your thread having “disappeared” isn’t worth getting too upset about.
But a little politeness goes a long way. My guess is that with such an out of date list of moderators those that are actually active don’t feel that they have the time. Does the moderator list ever get updated?
I’m a believer that topics surrounding house rules, or topics that become dominated by conversations surrounding house rules… ultimately belong in the house rule forum. New members here to the site, and new players unfamiliar with the game of Axis & Allies will search through thousands of posts trying to discuss the official rules, only to become confused when they unknowingly read threads with house rules.
That thread started with house rules and was never an OOB discussion. Its in the correct location now. Lots of people LOVE starting threads in global because they feel their thread will go unnoticed. Reality is it will get more reply’s if it is in House rules because that section gets more views and is nearly more popular than global 40
Imperious Leader, I do not agree with your analysis, and I still feel that the tone of your comments is rude and dismissive. I don’t think either of us is benefiting from this discussion, so I am going to stop responding to this thread.
That said, Private Panic’s suggestion that the moderators may be overworked is very interesting. If anyone ever wants me to help moderate one of the forums, I would be happy to do so.
Hey crew,
Black Elk and Argo did have some good input in that thread. I kind of disagree that the post was originally about adding any house rule (other than trying to determine what bid might possibly address the massive imbalance in that version). The focus of the post was how badly balanced and playtested that version is, and how many glaring errors there are in the printed edition.
They responded initially with some suggestions on how to use the bid to mod the available openers (which cannot in this context be seen to be a ‘house rules’ discussion – it is a balance discussion), and that conversation then drifted towards some very helpful suggestions on how to re-tweak the game. Then, it became a House Rules discussion, I suppose, but since it did not really begin that way, moving the post…ended the conversation for the moment…
The exact same discussion (of noncom-before-game discussion) was going on in the G40 thread and the 42.2 thread, but one was moved and one not.
I appreciate the work you guys do as moderators. Moving posts according to some set of rules or preferences may meet one goal (keeping on topic) and fail at another (encouraging focused discussion and dialogue).
I’m happy to re-initiate the conversation by re-posting a fresh, non HR discussion. However, it feels as if that on the long analysis, that these games have widespread problems that are not going to be officially addressed, that every discussion must then be about how that should be addressed (and therefore be about "house rules’)
Although it was a very in depth and focused discussion that benefited the 42.2 community, it was riddled with talk of bids, and bidding is a house rule. I didn’t move the thread, but I support the moderator who did, and I advocate for all threads talking about bids be moved to the house rules forum.
New members and new A&A players go to the forums to learn and discuss the oob rules, and the word bid does not appear once in any of the rulebooks. The decision to move the thread may seem petty, and you may have a good argument for that case… but we must always think of new members and what they need to be introduced to the game properly.
If that is the case, YG, then that version (and others) are irretrievable and broken without modification or qualification; there is nothing left to say about the OOB setup except to criticize it.
Black Elk went a step further and offered at least 3 HR paths and 3 opener paths…so that thread basically contained an entire answer/response to his “Black Elk’s 42.2 Strategy Guide”, which was precisely the reason I wanted to engage him and the others (in the correct forum).
New players are free to struggle to win as the Allies, that is the design choice that they made. If anyone NEW tries to play that game (42.2) afresh, they will put it away after 2-3 plays as (correctly) as broken and riddled with errors.
Now, his valuable insight into options and openers is placed in a part of the forum that is not apt.
I understand what you’re saying, the game has serious problems, but no one member or collection of members have a monopoly on the solutions. I and others have solutions thought of to be better than a bid system… but we keep them to the house rules even though the idea of bids are discussed in regular threads as “popular law”. The truth is… many new members come here because they see the flaws in the game, and in some cases they’re researching what to do and will know to read the house rule forum for alternative ideas. But to declare open season on the forums for house rule ideas becomes confusing and intimidating to new conscripts, and bids are still house rules no matter how popular they are. So is the game broken?.. I think a lot of us have come to that conclusion long ago, but it doesn’t mean there’s nothing left to talk about in the oob forums.
well, at least most of us megafans are on the same page in multiple senses of the word
I’m still focused on keeping the game alive through discussion and live play. Viable live play has to include a balance (at least in G40, 42.2 and WW1), and viable discussion has to take that into account. The irony is that at this point I would probably rather play and break several other games of this same genre than continue to play AxA, but it is the game that most of my friends know best and insist on playing regularly.
Every substantive discussion on G40 pre-assumes a UK anti-Italy bid+taranto. Without that assumption, the game works poorly in completive play (though it is playable OOB, with 42.2 I might argue its not even that, with a <10% chance of allied victory).
We cant squelch that discussion simply because it has become advanced and evolved enough at this point to presume certain starting conditions (including ignoring the printed VC conditions as virtually unattainable and interjecting the bid)
Ultimately it’s up to David Jensen to chime in and outline how he wishes that the forums be organized… I will support his policies, but his policies need to be known. Perhaps the discussion of bids can be immune from the label of house rules to prevent these problems in the future… but it’s up to David, it’s his website.
All I can say is that probably G40 and 1942.2 are mostly on OOB rules and strategy but Houserule is a kind of sinkhole in which any related topic to a given forum is lost unless Forum title is at least inside the thread Title.
Any generic original nickname makes the thread much more difficult to be related to something more specific to a given game.
Submarine, for instance, doesn’t work same in 1914, G40, 1942.2, earlier game, etc.
Any closely related like a bid or balance talk is not about other games.
It is not easy to find better classification. But Google search cannot always help find all closely related topics.
If anyone has an idea to solve this issue, it is welcome.
Sometimes, auto-censorship (even if there is an urge to talk and tell our idea) seems the only way prevent a thread from opening pandora’s house rule box.
A house rule sub board within each board?
So If I talk about game strategy, in the real context of A&A.org’s competitive environment, league, and tournaments, I’m talking about HOUSE RULES if I mention a bid?
That’s ridiculous.
