MAJOR FORUM UPDATES THREAD!

[zeroh13]

1 hour ago, Sciread77 said:

It perhaps also doesn’t help that I’m largely relegated to mobile access. As mentioned above Tapatalk doesn’t work, and tbh it hasn’t worked for me for years due to its inability to access my account here. So if the features don’t show up as well or at all on the mobile Chrome or Safari it’s also harder. A lot of the screenshots of the site have never fully reflected my user experience in so any changes always seem to take extra time. 

The vast majority of my time on the forums is while on my phone. And yeah, the desktop screenshots aren’t the most helpful if you’re on mobile. Maybe it would be useful to have the how-to faqs include screenshots for both desktop and mobile?
 

2 hours ago, Jean said:

 

 

Using this as an example. Instead of that bar on the top that has Challenges, Discord, Activity, on mobile those things are in that tab thing in the top right corner. Where the notification bell is. Which is the only thing I ever pay attention to there.

[Sylvaa]

On 12/19/2020 at 9:37 PM, Scaly Freak said:

To be able to join a smaller guild and ease into the community can be very important. I also find it a lot more difficult to find threads started by my friends in the giant mass that is the holiday all-guild challenge, and I know it took over a week before I found everyone.  If eight different sub forums is too high a number, eliminating them entirely seems to me like it is going too far in the other direction.  I am also apprehensive about a system that relies on everyone remembering to tag their own threads correctly, but that's a separate matter.  

 

I just wanted to pop in here to say that similar concerns were brought up by GL's when we started this discussion (I'm on this same page). 

 

Personally, it's very overwhelming (and quite honestly, the size of the Ranger guild is one reason I've pretty much stayed away from them in general). I've definitely been vocal with Spezzy (who has been great about having conversations around this). So this is partly an assurance post that people with concerns like this aren't being ignored.

 

I wish I had a solution that would work for everyone (or the ability to bring in enough traffic to make it worthwhile to keep going as we had!). 

 

46 minutes ago, Sciread77 said:

Adventurers are perfect as is IMO; small enough to be intimate and large enough to have conversations.

 

I'd like to say thank you for this! It really makes me happy to see that the Adventurer's guild was working as intended.  

 

It is going to be different. It will look different. But from my perspective, the Adventurer's isn't going to change. I'll be tagging anyone who doesn't so that we make it easy to find each other and we'll still be involved in each other's live and conversations. The main challenge page will just have more threads. If you have the spoons to pop into threads you wouldn't normally - then that's awesome. But if not, you'll still be able to find a landing page similar to how you are used to. 

 

2 hours ago, Sciread77 said:

What’s more, while we make posts in Zero Weeks if I start my thread and someone already has 7 pages on their challenge, it feels hopelessly inaccessible. 

 

One thing the GL's have had some conversations about is around how we interact with threads. It's a personal choice, but there is some conversation around moving away from previous "quick posts" with a gif or emoji to show we are following and more about meaningful discussion within threads. There will always be some threads with a significant amount of posts because some people post more than others and some people will always have more popular threads than others (and to be fair to the vast majority of those people, they have cultivated that). But you may see a smaller number of these as we try to change our interactions. 

[Sciread77]

12 minutes ago, Sylvaa said:

 

I'd like to say thank you for this! It really makes me happy to see that the Adventurer's guild was working as intended.  

Our GLs have made it home and I love y’all for it. I know you lead active and full  lives and then make this place awesome too. 

 

12 minutes ago, Sylvaa said:

It is going to be different. It will look different. But from my perspective, the Adventurer's isn't going to change. I'll be tagging anyone who doesn't so that we make it easy to find each other and we'll still be involved in each other's live and conversations. The main challenge page will just have more threads. If you have the spoons to pop into threads you wouldn't normally - then that's awesome. But if not, you'll still be able to find a landing page similar to how you are used to. 
 

 

You’re a superhero. When I have more spoons I like to visit other forums. Heck, I’ve met a lot of people over the years. Its’s rewarding but energy-intensive.

 

12 minutes ago, Sylvaa said:

 

 

One thing the GL's have had some conversations about is around how we interact with threads. It's a personal choice, but there is some conversation around moving away from previous "quick posts" with a gif or emoji to show we are following and more about meaningful discussion within threads. There will always be some threads with a significant amount of posts because some people post more than others and some people will always have more popular threads than others (and to be fair to the vast majority of those people, they have cultivated that). But you may see a smaller number of these as we try to change our interactions. 

 

I’m all for that. Don’t get me wrong; a good gif is sometimes the best response. The interface here isn’t quite as easy for me to drop one as it is elsewhere though and I really like connecting with people, so this place has been quite different for me. It’s been a lifeline. 
 

I don’t even necessarily resent the large number of posts people have in our little community. But when, for example, I come into the all-guild the top few pages have big numbers already and I’ve gotta click a few pages to find my more normal posting people. 
 

And someone like Teros will spend the equivalent of 4 pages of typing for someone else on one post, but for some reason it doesn’t seem as utterly overwhelming? Probably because of less churn. 

Maybe another part of the issue is that I’ve used the forums for processing things and it feels a lot more personal for me than a forum should be? In any case, thank you to you all. 

 

[Mr_Willes]

1 hour ago, Sylvaa said:

moving away from previous "quick posts" with a gif

 

*Looks at above quote*

*Looks at personal title*

*Looks back at quote*

 

 

1 hour ago, Sylvaa said:

the vast majority of those people, they have cultivated that

 

*Looks a little more reassured*

 

A lot of the things described as reasons why this change happened hit home. So i can see the need. I also get a lot of the concerns replied in this thread. Especially the one with the cozy home and the table at the great hall. 

 

Personally i like how things have been shifted up and it works in my benefit. I'm having much more fun with the new format! And it seems likeminded people can find each other with more ease. 

 

The reason for this reply was to let "the powers of above" know that there are certainly also people that like the changes!

 

Okay that's more than enough seriousness now i have to get my regular programming....

 

Using all my grace to spread happiness around the forums with nutty GIFs

[Elastigirl]

10 hours ago, spezzy said:

 

We can create a way so that you can select a specific activity stream to be your default when you load up the forums, and that's on my list of things to look into further - but that's likely a next weekend project as I have some things on my evenings this week due to the holidays. 

 

For the recipes thread - couldn't we just have one across all guilds? Only 2 guilds had them in the first place, and we all have to eat.

That would be cool.Thanks for all the hard work you do. As for recipes, very good point. 

7 hours ago, Ann of Owlshire said:

I’m mixed on the whole thing, but one of the things I wanted to mention about the objections because I don’t think it’s being understood is that some people are concerned about losing the intimacy and preceived privacy of the small groups. When one is in a forum with only 5 active users, they may feel more intimate and that they can share more of their challenges—even if that forum is still public.. Sure, someone else can just wander into the forums as well, but that feeling of having your own room to talk in (even if the door is unlocked) isn’t the same as having a table in a huge crowded cafeteria.

 

So yes, one can filter things down so they only see their Guild members, but they are still in a very, very crowded great hall and feel less protected from the mass that is the Internet. 

 

I’m not saying right or wrong and I’m not even sure I have an answer on how to fix this while also continuing with the All Guild, I’m just commenting on this because I didn’t feel like this perspective was being fully communicated/understood but I know it’s the heart of concern of some of the objections.

 

Thanks as always to the mods for all they do for this great community. ❤️ 

Ah, now I have a bit of a clearer view of what people are saying

[spezzy]

 

5 hours ago, Sciread77 said:

It perhaps also doesn’t help that I’m largely relegated to mobile access. As mentioned above Tapatalk doesn’t work, and tbh it hasn’t worked for me for years due to its inability to access my account here. So if the features don’t show up as well or at all on the mobile Chrome or Safari it’s also harder. A lot of the screenshots of the site have never fully reflected my user experience in so any changes always seem to take extra time. 

 

I know this doesn't fix the problem, but FYI I've been in contact with Tapatalk every month since it broke, to the point where they finally have politely asked me to stop emailing them and start emailing the forum software people - who I have also been emailing often and have politely asked me to stop emailing them and start emailing the Tapatalk people. I have a feeling they're not getting along and neither one is willing to make the changes to fix it, which is frustrating (and I totally get you there - Tapatalk was how I accessed the forums when I wasn't at home for years). 

 

The forum software has released a beta version of their own mobile app, which is why I suspect that they aren't getting along with Tapatalk - and I was able to get our community into the beta testing for it a few weeks ago. However, I'm still unable to log in, and they're working on fixing that bug - and I figure that's an important feature to have working properly before we have it as an option to use it ? ? ? 

 

 

3 hours ago, zeroh13 said:

The vast majority of my time on the forums is while on my phone. And yeah, the desktop screenshots aren’t the most helpful if you’re on mobile. Maybe it would be useful to have the how-to faqs include screenshots for both desktop and mobile?
 

 

I can absolutely include mobile screenshots in how-to's, that's a great idea.  The site is responsive, so for the most part it's just more condensed. I am aware of some rendering issues with the responsiveness that I need to fix - but here's how to use the filters in mobile real quick - once you click on "Ranger" (or any guild), click on "Show filters):

 

 

 

and then you can select whatever you want, sort wise!

 

 

 

 

6 hours ago, Jean said:

I'll make a more thorough reply later (because damn is the Feeds tool powerful!) but in the mean time, may I request @spezzy (with no urgency whatsoever) that the default list of Activity Streams (shown below) be either customable (maybe it is, I haven't found it yet) or cleared? It's huge and my tiny screen can't access my custom streams with it.

 

I'm asking because Custom Streams are HUGE! You can basically shape what sections you want to show in the forum and further customize with tags, so you can have several of them saved to fit your various browsing habits and switch from one to the other when you're done with one (for example : one to browse Druids challenges, one to check for newcomers, one for specific themes with or without new messages, shown by topics or messages, ...). And the best thing? You can activate them, bookmark the page and access the forum with that particular stream on through your bookmarks tab/menu/whatever (of which you can, of course, have several).

 

 

Absolutely - the ones that are in there right now were really a test to see how it would work when I was adding the sorts to the all guild challenge We can absolutely clean these up and I think that the custom home page will add a lot of options to make it work exactly like you want (and my goal is that it is something anyone can set up for themselves in under 3 minutes easily, without being tech savvy, or spend some time if you want more customization, and is completely optional). 

 

I also want to make the default ones easier to use and find. 

 

3 hours ago, zeroh13 said:

Using this as an example. Instead of that bar on the top that has Challenges, Discord, Activity, on mobile those things are in that tab thing in the top right corner. Where the notification bell is. Which is the only thing I ever pay attention to there.

 

Absolutely - we can move things around a bit (right now, that's the general navigation bar, just condensed, since the site is reactive, meaning it just smooshes on smaller screens/browsers). We can even have the challenge related streams under challenges instead of activity - these are easy changes to make! We can't put it right next to the notification bell, because of how the software works, buuuuut easy to move things into easier spots for the most part

[Teros]

5 hours ago, Sciread77 said:

it feels a lot more personal for me than a forum should be?

 

I totally have treated this for the majority of my time on here more like a livejournal than some some of bujo-type of thing.  I think this place is what you make of it.  And while I was in school, I sort of went into mini-posts because mentally I just couldn't write anything.  But I know that in the process, I feel like I became disconnected from here and want to reconnect the way I used to be on here.  So I don't think it's a matter of 'should' or 'shouldn't'.  Not everyone is gonna connect to bujos.  Not everyone is gonna connect to a rant where I'm talking about depression or feeling like I'm losing motivation.  We're all different.  I personally want to be more open, honest, and 'raw' with what I'm talking about, as me doing that allows others to also let their guard down and be equally raw.  And doing that helps me feel a real connection and stay motivated to be on here.  Knowing someone did their lifts for the day?  Ehh, that's nice but that's not my style so I need to kick myself in the ass to post on here more overall. ? 

[spezzy]

12 hours ago, Ann of Owlshire said:

I’m mixed on the whole thing, but one of the things I wanted to mention about the objections because I don’t think it’s being understood is that some people are concerned about losing the intimacy and preceived privacy of the small groups. When one is in a forum with only 5 active users, they may feel more intimate and that they can share more of their challenges—even if that forum is still public.. Sure, someone else can just wander into the forums as well, but that feeling of having your own room to talk in (even if the door is unlocked) isn’t the same as having a table in a huge crowded cafeteria.

 

So yes, one can filter things down so they only see their Guild members, but they are still in a very, very crowded great hall and feel less protected from the mass that is the Internet. 

 

I’m not saying right or wrong and I’m not even sure I have an answer on how to fix this while also continuing with the All Guild, I’m just commenting on this because I didn’t feel like this perspective was being fully communicated/understood but I know it’s the heart of concern of some of the objections.

 

Thanks as always to the mods for all they do for this great community. ❤️ 

 

8 hours ago, Sciread77 said:

I would very likely have chosen Rangers if it wasn’t utterly overwhelming. I chose Adventurers because it’s smaller and active and focused on similar goals as the Rangers but with a theme. Which is also why I’ve done some challenges with the Scouts.  But the new tools aren’t going to filter out all that activity, so I can’t imagine tagging the Rangers. What’s more, while we make posts in Zero Weeks if I start my thread and someone already has 7 pages on their challenge, it feels hopelessly inaccessible. 

 

 

6 hours ago, Teros said:

100% on this man.  It felt for about a year now that when I posted, I was at the loser's table of the cafeteria while there all the popular kids already had this built-in friends list. 

 

 

6 hours ago, Sylvaa said:

 

 

Personally, it's very overwhelming (and quite honestly, the size of the Ranger guild is one reason I've pretty much stayed away from them in general). I've definitely been vocal with Spezzy (who has been great about having conversations around this). So this is partly an assurance post that people with concerns like this aren't being ignored.

 

 

23 hours ago, Aquarii said:

 

 

I will definitely miss the small subforums for similar reasons that others have already mentioned. I get overwhelmed with having so many threads in one place, which is why I intentionally chose to do the majority of my challenges in smaller guilds. But with the sorting features available, I think I will be able to use the new tools to create a system that works for me. Thank you for all the hard work that has been put into these updates. I am happy to see NF continuing to innovate and create a great user experience

 

17 hours ago, Aquarii said:

 

I think the biggest issue that some of us are having is simply that some of us actually preferred low-activity guilds with only a few members. When I finished with Level 1 ( Still the Rebels at the time) when I started years ago, I specifically sought out a low-traffic guilt because it was low traffic. I liked a more tight-nit team feel over the bustling activity of a heavy-traffic guild.

 

16 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

How do we work with the new format to recreate the low-activity small-community feeling? There's clearly a demand for it, and as nerds we are by definition smart and capable problems-solvers. How do we make this work for us?

 

Brainstorming session , begin!

 

Alright, I tried to quote everyone at once, but apologies if I missed you or quoted a part of your post that wasn't relevant to this ? 

 

So -

 

I don't think it's being lost that some people are looking for a more intimate, private feeling forum or groups. I completely understand that - and the desire, especially with the fact that a lot of our challenges and journeys are so personal, and many of us pour out our souls onto these pages.

 

It can feel safer. And I totally get that, and I hear you. I've felt it at points, too!

 

The bigger thing that's going on here is that the guilds aren't being used as they are intended. Instead of being chosen based off of fitness interests and goals, and for many people, they're being chosen based on how we want to interact with the forums.

 

Some people choose small guilds because they want the quieter, more private feeling atmosphere, and are not comfortable posting around so many people when they are new - others choose larger guilds because they like the hustle and bustle, or because they are afraid to sit at such a small table that already has an established group of close knit friends.

 

Regardless of which camp you're in, if you like the changes or not, or don't care either way - the system isn't working as it was intended. And while it's working the way it is for some - it's quite confusing, or not working for others.

 

Every guild is vastly different, from how it's run, to the size, to how the members interact, what resources are provided for its members - and a bunch of people would be in a different guild if we chose purely on the guild descriptions.

 

We have Guild Leaders who are super active, and Guild Leaders who have left the forums completely purely out of guilt that they don't have the spoons that moment to provide their guild what other guilds have, or because they feel like they failed their guild completely.

 

Having different groups like this is a great thing - we're all very different people and like different types of interaction, as we've seen from these discussions.

 

But the intention of the guilds is to group people based off of their goals and fitness interests, where every person coming in is provided with the same things, regardless of chosen guild (for this, I mean mini-challenges, chat threads, knowledge bases, etc.), and that it's beyond simple to get started.

 

These guilds, descriptions, etc. aren't unique to the forums - they're from Steve, what was used in his book, and what all NerdFitness products use - so it's important that we keep them consistent across the entire NerdFitness universe.

 

So we're trying something new - that brings the guilds back to what they were originally intended to be, gives people the ability to be in multiple guilds, and also allows us to provide a more consistent challenge experience, regardless of the guild you choose.

 

But that doesn't mean we can't create those smaller, safer feeling places for those who prefer them - just in a different way than we did before. Maybe it's that we change up the accountibilibuddies subforum and create something for people to create their own smaller groups (we can't have individual subforums for everyone's own groups, of course - that would get out of hand fast ? ) - but we're absolutely up for ideas here! Like ScalyFreak mentioned, as nerds we are by definition smart and capable problems-solvers, so instead of focusing on wanting to go back, let's focus on new ways to make a better system for everyone. 

 

 

Side note: To be very clear - our Guild Leaders are amazing, pour their hearts and souls into this community, and even if I talk about lack of GL bandwidth or availability, lack of consistency across the guilds, lack of mini challenges, etc - it is NEVER a knock on them - this is a volunteer position that they do out of the kindness of their own hearts, and the truth of the matter is - we all only have so many spoons, them included - and sometimes real life takes priority, and that's okay. We've tried having a TON of guild leaders, and only having a few - but even when we had 5+ per guild, sometimes, everyone had life stuff get in the way all at the same time - there's no way to prevent this.)  This new system will will help us be able to do more things, have more cross-guild leader participation and input (making better resources for everyone), and get way ahead so when life does get in the way, no one is affected negatively - members OR guild leaders. 

[Jean]

7 hours ago, Sylvaa said:

there is some conversation around moving away from previous "quick posts" with a gif or emoji to show we are following

Thanks for exposing our concerns in the guild leaders discussions. The part I've quoted isn't how I see things unfolding. To me, the new setup makes it even more imperative to post in threads just to have them followed (and yes, I know I can follow threads without posting in them). Following threads is one way to sort them via the Active Streams feature and while  I wasn't using it before, because the Druids have few enough threads that I was able to somewhat check on them all, marking threads as followed becomes a very attractive way to sort them with the new forum.

 

That just to say there will be more ninja emoticons, gifs and one liners from me. Not that that is a bad thing, but that is a thing with good chances to be.

 

 

50 minutes ago, spezzy said:

Guild Leaders who have left the forums completely purely out of guilt that they don't have the spoons that moment to provide their guild what other guilds have, or because they feel like they failed their guild completely.

I know most won't get to read this but I still want it to be known: this is what we are all facing in our common lives. You haven't failed us, you aren't upheld to a superhero standard. You are humans with a limited amount of spoons and that's alright because seeing people crawl with wathever amount of spoons they have left is inspiring. Get back when you want, post when you want, however much you want in however few or many threads you want. That doesn't make you a bad guild leader, that makes you a human being and true human beings are awesome to have as guild leaders. You are welcome and if dark clouds are telling you otherwise, I want you to know this, because it is true : we'll be very glad to have you back and if you do ever come back, you'll always be entitled to retreating in your shell whenever you want and get back out whenever you want too. No questions asked. I know this because that is the Rebellion I know and love and am part of.

 

 

50 minutes ago, spezzy said:

But the intention of the guilds is to group people based off of their goals and fitness interests

I may get out of place here but if guilds as they are working now provide meaningful value to those who use them in that way, maybe that is a good use for them? Like language that adapts to the way it's used rather than being set in stone.

 

 

50 minutes ago, spezzy said:

just in a different way than we did before.

My bet is that the battlelogs and dedicated subforums (nutrition, fitness specific and so on) will remain intimate safe havens for those who like slower interactions.

 

 

50 minutes ago, spezzy said:

our Guild Leaders are amazing

This. Totally this. Wholeheartedly this. Rock on, all of y'all!

[Sciread77]

2 hours ago, spezzy said:

I can absolutely include mobile screenshots in how-to's, that's a great idea.  The site is responsive, so for the most part it's just more condensed. I am aware of some rendering issues with the responsiveness that I need to fix - but here's how to use the filters in mobile real quick - once you click on "Ranger" (or any guild), click on "Show filters):

 

Merci beaucoup!

 

5 minutes ago, Teros said:

 

I totally have treated this for the majority of my time on here more like a livejournal than some some of bujo-type of thing.  I think this place is what you make of it.  And while I was in school, I sort of went into mini-posts because mentally I just couldn't write anything.  But I know that in the process, I feel like I became disconnected from here and want to reconnect the way I used to be on here.  So I don't think it's a matter of 'should' or 'shouldn't'.  Not everyone is gonna connect to bujos.  Not everyone is gonna connect to a rant where I'm talking about depression or feeling like I'm losing motivation.  We're all different.  I personally want to be more open, honest, and 'raw' with what I'm talking about, as me doing that allows others to also let their guard down and be equally raw.  And doing that helps me feel a real connection and stay motivated to be on here.  Knowing someone did their lifts for the day?  Ehh, that's nice but that's not my style so I need to kick myself in the ass to post on here more overall. ? 

 

I sort of followed your example there, and it’s part of why I feel close to everyone. The checkboxes are ok, and we can help support people with them and putting them on here can help hold us accountable. But the thing that makes this place special is getting kinda raw and being challenged and supported and not having to put airs on. It’s been good not just for physical health but mental health and support systems too.

 

[Sciread77]

Our guild leaders are freaking heroes and every single one I’ve ever met, past and present, deserves an award. 

[sarakingdom]

14 hours ago, spezzy said:

From a user standpoint (recipe / chit chat threads aside) - doesn't that achieve the same result? 

 

For me as an experienced user, probably. It'll take some time to know, because, frankly, I'm still in the stage of forgetting it exists. (The truth is, even as an experienced user, and as someone who has run forums before, I've never used anything other than the "next unread post" button to navigate content here. Not feeds, not tags. Can I? Yes. Will it be the same? I mean, probably. I'm totally willing to find out.)

 

For newbie-me who noped out of the site for a year after starting in a large guild based on fitness interest, and then tried again after browsing a smaller guild, probably not. I wouldn't have the knowledge to think about filtering, and the structure of all-guild versus separate guilds implies a preferred experience which, as a new user, I'd feel was the recommended one.

 

As another former new user who found the large group experience very unwelcoming and impersonal, I have doubts about this for new users. I think the experience I had in the Assassins, of being a needle in a haystack surrounded by social cliques as a single welcome-wagon volunteer made slightly humiliating "you can do it" posts once a week, would be made worse by an all-guild forum where some people were siloed inside a single tag. As an experienced user, I know my way around and I recognize familiar faces (and I'm frankly less socially intimidated by barging into new threads because don't you know who I am er like cats, I mark my territory uh, reasons).  

 

But as someone who gets the necessity of making changes for practical reasons when running internet things, and the desirability of experimenting with them, I'm largely on board. I think there are pros and cons to both small-guild and all-guild models, and I personally can probably work equivalently with the tradeoffs and find silver linings and so on. I'm fine with trying new things to see how they work.

 

On 12/19/2020 at 7:04 PM, spezzy said:

Consistent experience for everyone, regardless of guild.  Every guild is run a different way,  has different pinned threads, different challenges, and activity levels, etc,.

 

On 12/19/2020 at 7:04 PM, spezzy said:

For the threads that you're talking about - we  have done a full analysis all of those and their participation before these changes.  Two guilds have recipe threads (one of which has only been posted in 5x this year) - why not just have one across all guilds, or post in the nutrition section of the forums? The training tips threads - two guilds have those, and one hasn't been posted in since July.

 

These two quotes are the only thing that makes me angry. How guilds collectively manage their subgroups, how they form their identity, how they as a community curate their experience and subculture, is something that should be valued, not thrown away for a homogeneous experience that meets someone's idea of the right experience. Not just for the idealistic reason that valuing people and community-building is a good thing, but because the variety of mini communities and "local government structures" is what makes niches for people with so many different needs.

 

Is it optimized for maximum traffic, no. Is it their group curated history of their community participation and culture, yes. I just... cannot wrap my head around thinking that the personality and interaction culture of a guild is something that needs to be removed and replaced with a more standard out of the box product. It's like saying the people need to be replaced with a more standard out of the box product.

 

I understand forums need economies of scale to run, and too few guild leaders are stretched too thin. I understand people want to experiment with rebalancing to keep up posting energy. But I do not understand this. To deliberately want to depersonalize and disempower the community-building that even regular members could be active in.

 

Because...

 

17 hours ago, Rurik Harrgath said:

Admins and Guild Leaders alike volunteer hour after hour of their personal time to try and deliver everyone a cohesive experience in line with the Nerd Fitness vision

 

The thing is, we all volunteer hour after hour of our personal

time to deliver a service to forum members. While everyone's  got their own social sideline in stupid jokes and tracking reps, the fact is most of us are volunteering dozens of hours a week of peer counselling and coaching, often to near or complete strangers, and that's how the site runs. We mentor the new people. We help design workout plans. We teach skills. We counsel people through life crises. We reach out to the people who disappear. I love my guild leaders, and I also guarantee you, I've put in more time mentoring people on the forums this year than they've spent here total, and sometimes the people I'm mentoring is them. And I'm not the only member of my guild that's true of. We are not passive consumers of the NF vision.

 

That happens all over the board, not just in our guild. What is true is that it happens very deliberately in the Monks guild; we structure it as a virtual dojo with virtual dojo rooms, because we put on the dojo mindset when we show up, and that includes a shared understanding of our mentoring responsibilities to the other people who show up, whether they're new or old-school, and a shared understanding of how the responsibilities are distributed when people with authority don't show up to class. Will that get lost when the subforum is lost... yes, I think so. The culture will go with the shared control of the space and ability to shape the narrative about what our shared guild values are. We as individuals will likely remain the same and keep in touch, but we'll lose the metaphors to organise any new members around, the ability to decide and shape our priorities and interests, and the guild will be gone as a culture, and remain as a fitness interest tag.

 

It is what it is. Like I said, there are tradeoffs, but we'll work around them. There are benefits to consolidating those sorts of threads; I think we all want to share knowledge. If it works better for the whole, we'll make it work for us. But to actively want to throw that away because it's not a homogeneous user experience... like, I'm speechless.

[Rurik Harrgath]

5 hours ago, Teros said:

I totally have treated this for the majority of my time on here more like a livejournal than some some of bujo-type of thing. 

 

3 hours ago, Sciread77 said:

The checkboxes are ok, and we can help support people with them and putting them on here can help hold us accountable. But the thing that makes this place special is getting kinda raw and being challenged and supported and not having to put airs on. It’s been good not just for physical health but mental health and support systems too.

 

While I appreciate the forums have evolved into something grander than even the originators intended, we need to keep in mind this is first and foremost Nerd. Fitness.  So just because we treat it as livejournal in some cases can't dismiss the fact that these boards were intended for fitness primarily, that the Guilds designed as categories with fitness interests in mind.

 

I'm all for getting raw and I've done it myself before.  I've challenged and been challenged.  I'd hope no one feels like they have to put airs or any masks on.  And similarly I hope we're all getting our mental health exercise and support networks through the forums, the same as that, I don't think it is a fair statement to slam anyone else for using checkboxes or a bullet journal instead of favoring a steam-of-thought pouring of sentiment and experiences.  Why can't it be both for some folks and not for others?  I don't think anyone or anything in this entire thread is discounting anyone's usage for the forums nor how they structure their personal challenges, nor should any of us personally.  We have total freedom to guide the narrative and culture of our personal challenge threads, and similarly in our interactions with other members. Like has been said, that's the magic behind these forums which makes us so passionate about how they're handled going forward.

 

Quote

These two quotes are the only thing that makes me angry. How guilds collectively manage their subgroups, how they form their identity, how they as a community curate their experience and subculture, is something that should be valued, not thrown away for a homogeneous experience that meets someone's idea of the right experience. Not just for the idealistic reason that valuing people and community-building is a good thing, but because the variety of mini communities and "local government structures" is what makes niches for people with so many different needs.

 . . . 

I understand forums need economies of scale to run, and too few guild leaders are stretched too thin. I understand people want to experiment with rebalancing to keep up posting energy. But I do not understand this. To deliberately want to depersonalize and disempower the community-building that even regular members could be active in.

 

Consistent opportunity for everyone might have been better terminology.  As it's been, some guilds were barely running mini-challenges at all... shouldn't a new Druid recruit have access to the same opportunities to participate in a mini-challenge as an Assassin?  Shouldn't a Ranger be able to enjoy a recipe thread with a Scout and a Monk?

 

Even if our personal opinions are set in a certain way, whatever our desired experiences what they may be, there needs to be a certain equality of opportunity if not experience.  Shouldn't a Rebellion identity come first, a Guild affiliation second?  We're all members of the same forum after all.  Every challenge is its own mini-community too.

 

Quote

The thing is, we all volunteer hour after hour of our personal time to deliver a service to forum members. While everyone's  got their own social sideline in stupid jokes and tracking reps, the fact is most of us are volunteering dozens of hours a week of peer counselling and coaching, often to near or complete strangers, and that's how the site runs. We mentor the new people. We help design workout plans. We teach skills. We counsel people through life crises. We reach out to the people who disappear. I love my guild leaders, and I also guarantee you, I've put in more time mentoring people on the forums this year than they've spent here total, and sometimes the people I'm mentoring is them. And I'm not the only member of my guild that's true of. We are not passive consumers of the NF vision.

 

I don't think anyone is discounting the value of anyone else's time on the forums.

 

Just like I don't think that anyone is saying Guild Leaders' time is more valuable than any other member.  We are members of this magical place all the same, but with the added duties of managing the forums, expected activity levels, hunting for bots, spam, and moderating rules-breaking, as well as being visible contact points for any member new or old.  That said, one of my favorite things about this place is that it doesn't take an Ambassador, GL, or Admin to help folks through their struggles, to make workout or nutrition recommendations, or check-in on missing friends!   

 

I can't speak for your mileage on the forums this past year, only my own, and it's been considerable even if I haven't ran challenges all year long, so I don't think that sweeping generalization is very fair.  As a fellow member first though, I appreciate that these forums have people like you and many others to help folks survive this year, and as a moderator second, all I know is I'm thankful for anyone who steps up to mentor anyone else under any circumstances, because no one at all is saying your time spent mentoring isn't any more or less valuable than someone else's' regardless of their title, responsibility, or timeframe. 

[Aquarii]

1 hour ago, Rurik Harrgath said:

While I appreciate the forums have evolved into something grander than even the originators intended, we need to keep in mind this is first and foremost Nerd. Fitness.  So just because we treat it as livejournal in some cases can't dismiss the fact that these boards were intended for fitness primarily, that the Guilds designed as categories with fitness interests in mind.

 

I think this is where the disconnect really lies. I completely get what the original intent was for the guilds on this forum, I actually found the forum after reading Steve's book. But regardless of the original intent, each guild cultivated their own subculture and people started choosing guilds more based on culture than on interest level. I don't think the issue is as much about a loss of guild, obviously the guilds are still there, but rather a fear of losing the subculture that many of us originally joined a guild for. And that without individual subforums for guilds and a focus on encouraging people to choose their guild based only on fitness interests, that subcultures will eventually disappear. For some, that manifests in as a concern about losing a important thread, like a recipe's thread that was oriented around their subculture, for others it is a concern about the size of the group, because intimacy and being able to post on every thread in the subforum was a big part of their culture. 

 

[Scaly Freak]

1 minute ago, Aquarii said:

I don't think the issue is as much about a loss of guild, obviously the guilds are still there, but rather a fear of losing the subculture that many of us originally joined a guild for. And that without individual subforums for guilds and a focus on encouraging people to choose their guild based only on fitness interests, that subcultures will eventually disappear. For some, that manifests in as a concern about losing a important thread, like a recipe's thread that was oriented around their subculture, for others it is a concern about the size of the group, because intimacy and being able to post on every thread in the subforum was a big part of their culture. 

 

I think this is an excellent summary of why a lot of members of smaller guilds are unhappy with the changes.

 

So my question from earlier still applies... what do we need to do to recreate that sense of smaller communities and subcultures? 

[spezzy]

3 hours ago, Jean said:

I may get out of place here but if guilds as they are working now provide meaningful value to those who use them in that way, maybe that is a good use for them? Like language that adapts to the way it's used rather than being set in stone.

 

The guild descriptions are set in stone, because they're a part of the NerdFitness universe, and that needs to be consistent across all of NerdFitness (see more below )

 

2 hours ago, sarakingdom said:

 

These two quotes are the only thing that makes me angry. How guilds collectively manage their subgroups, how they form their identity, how they as a community curate their experience and subculture, is something that should be valued, not thrown away for a homogeneous experience that meets someone's idea of the right experience. Not just for the idealistic reason that valuing people and community-building is a good thing, but because the variety of mini communities and "local government structures" is what makes niches for people with so many different needs.

 

Is it optimized for maximum traffic, no. Is it their group curated history of their community participation and culture, yes. I just... cannot wrap my head around thinking that the personality and interaction culture of a guild is something that needs to be removed and replaced with a more standard out of the box product. It's like saying the people need to be replaced with a more standard out of the box product.

 

I understand forums need economies of scale to run, and too few guild leaders are stretched too thin. I understand people want to experiment with rebalancing to keep up posting energy. But I do not understand this. To deliberately want to depersonalize and disempower the community-building that even regular members could be active in.

 

 

 

2 hours ago, sarakingdom said:

 

That happens all over the board, not just in our guild. What is true is that it happens very deliberately in the Monks guild; we structure it as a virtual dojo with virtual dojo rooms, because we put on the dojo mindset when we show up, and that includes a shared understanding of our mentoring responsibilities to the other people who show up, whether they're new or old-school, and a shared understanding of how the responsibilities are distributed when people with authority don't show up to class. Will that get lost when the subforum is lost... yes, I think so. The culture will go with the shared control of the space and ability to shape the narrative about what our shared guild values are. We as individuals will likely remain the same and keep in touch, but we'll lose the metaphors to organise any new members around, the ability to decide and shape our priorities and interests, and the guild will be gone as a culture, and remain as a fitness interest tag.

 

It is what it is. Like I said, there are tradeoffs, but we'll work around them. There are benefits to consolidating those sorts of threads; I think we all want to share knowledge. If it works better for the whole, we'll make it work for us. But to actively want to throw that away because it's not a homogeneous user experience... like, I'm speechless.

 

 

7 minutes ago, Aquarii said:

 

I think this is where the disconnect really lies. I completely get what the original intent was for the guilds on this forum, I actually found the forum after reading Steve's book. But regardless of the original intent, each guild cultivated their own subculture and people started choosing guilds more based on culture than on interest level. I don't think the issue is as much about a loss of guild, obviously the guilds are still there, but rather a fear of losing the subculture that many of us originally joined a guild for. And that without individual subforums for guilds and a focus on encouraging people to choose their guild based only on fitness interests, that subcultures will eventually disappear. For some, that manifests in as a concern about losing a important thread, like a recipe's thread that was oriented around their subculture, for others it is a concern about the size of the group, because intimacy and being able to post on every thread in the subforum was a big part of their culture. 

 

 

4 minutes ago, Scaly Freak said:

 

I think this is an excellent summary of why a lot of members of smaller guilds are unhappy with the changes.

 

So my question from earlier still applies... what do we need to do to recreate that sense of smaller communities and subcultures? 

(sorry about the random quotes, but I think this one answer works better not all split up with quotes)

 

 

I think there is a disconnect here. I'm 100% not saying we should get rid of culture, or smaller groups, or allow subculture to curate, and we're not trying to get rid of that. 

 

But we do need to do a few things, when I say consistent experience:

 

1) When someone reads Steve's book, comes here from the Academy, talks about their guilds in the Prime FB Group, creates their character on the create your character tool, and decides they are a certain guild, our usage of them on the forums needs to match that. While these forums very often feel like they are completely on their own, we are still a part of NerdFitness. 

 

2) When someone comes in, they shouldn't feel like they need to change their guild and goals because of how a guild is run. Just like some people have posted here that they wanted to be one guild, but didn't like how that guild was, so they picked another, even if it wasn't their 'first choice' based on their goals.  A ranger shouldn't feel the need to become a scout purely because there are too many rangers, and a monk shouldn't feel like they need to be a ranger because there aren't enough monks. They should be able to be a ranger, or a monk, because that's what they want to be.  This isn't like a CrossFit where if we don't like that specific one, we have 10 other CrossFits to choose from in our area - each fitness interest has one option. 

 

3) For things like mini challenges, recipe threads, guild chat, and guild resources - if one guild has them, all guilds need to have them, that needs to be consistent.

Yes of course some guilds will have little things specific to their specific Guild (something like a lifting leaderboard wouldn't make sense for Druids, for example) - but for things that aren't completely unique to a Guild (social chat, general fitness discussion, nutrition, etc), that content should be available to every member, and it wasn't. 

 

The goal isn't to remove anything community related - or subcultures that have been built - just to offer everyone the same things to help them along their journey. Honestly, I wouldn't care if the Scouts run a 3 week mini-challenge in the Endurance forum or the Monks have a different one every week - we should embrace Guild differences, but there are separate, unused forums entirely for these sorts of things!

 

The problem is, right now, some guilds are having these opportunities while others don't get them at all (same with resource threads). When we initially split up into guilds, actually, the goal was to keep the resources for your relevant areas in the main forums (leaderboards in the lifting forum, upcoming races/triathlon prep in the Running forum, yoga resources in its appropriate forum...), not in the challenges. That's where the majority of the guild discussions were, and there were a lot of great ones - but at some point, people stopped posting in the main forums, instead sticking to the challenge forums without venturing into the greater forum at large.  Basically the forums have become one big challenge board now and everything else has fallen out of use, leaving the subforums dead.

 

While the challenges are a huge part of why we're here, they're far from the only part - wouldn't it be better to have all of these guild resources outside of the challenges so someone who doesn't want to participate in a challenge can stay informed and make friends, or even someone who wants to dabble in a new exercise can browse for ideas or ask questions? One further way we can branch the fitness forums and the challenges together is the use of the new Current Challenge and Battle Log links in our profile cards (as you can see on mine), so if you're chatting with someone elsewhere and want to check-in on their challenge - the link is right there without having to navigate subforums.  We're all about trying to work within what we have available to us now that'll improve user experience going forward.

 

Like I mentioned, I'm 100% in for looking at new ways to foster the growth of smaller groups that we can then join based off of how we want to interact with the forums. 

 

But when a new user comes in, they shouldn't have to decide on a guild based off of how active it is, or off of what resources are available for that guild, or if that guild seems to fit in with their personality more.  

 

Sara - what you say about the Monks guild, with creating a virtual dojo and with virtual dojo rooms - I think that's fantastic, and I absolutely love it - but does this have to take place within the challenges?  We combined the forums because, to be completely transparent, we had ONE new thread created in the Martial Arts (or general Monk discussion) section  of the main forums in all of 2020.  So if we had that - why not build the Dojo there? Is there a reason it has to be exclusive to challenges? That way someone who isn't feeling up for a challenge can still participate in the general conversations, too, we can encourage and make them feel comfortable to take part in the future, and there would be more opportunity for resource threads to help everyone along when they do a challenge. 

 

And with that - not all guilds have that with their challenges - I've gone in after a challenge has started and added the general chat threads because they didn't even have those because the GLs had no spoons - so that's what I'm talking about with offering everyone the same. It's not the same culture, the same people, the same everything - it's, like Rurik said above, the same opportunities. I think that's a better wording than I used. 

 

Couldn't we focus to build those guild communities outside of the challenges, in the main forum? No, it's not a "private" area - but it's not being used right now, so it's basically an empty room each guild could do what they wanted with. 

 

 

2 hours ago, sarakingdom said:

 

The thing is, we all volunteer hour after hour of our personal

time to deliver a service to forum members. While everyone's  got their own social sideline in stupid jokes and tracking reps, the fact is most of us are volunteering dozens of hours a week of peer counselling and coaching, often to near or complete strangers, and that's how the site runs. We mentor the new people. We help design workout plans. We teach skills. We counsel people through life crises. We reach out to the people who disappear. I love my guild leaders, and I also guarantee you, I've put in more time mentoring people on the forums this year than they've spent here total, and sometimes the people I'm mentoring is them. And I'm not the only member of my guild that's true of. We are not passive consumers of the NF vision.

 

I agree, and I don't think anyone was trying to say that any member doesn't volunteer time, that anyone's time is more valuable, or that this community doesn't belong to the community.  I owe literally my entire life to this community - and that's not just the guild leaders, or NFHQ, or anything - it's the entire community.  We all play a vital role in this community - every single one of us.  

[Scaly Freak]

3 minutes ago, spezzy said:

1) When someone reads Steve's book, comes here from the Academy, talks about their guilds in the Prime FB Group, creates their character on the create your character tool, and decides they are a certain guild, our usage of them on the forums needs to match that. 

 

Now you're speaking my language. This I understand, and this is all you had to say. I'm with you now.

 

And for the record, and to make sure it doesn't go unsaid: Thank you for taking so much time during the last week before a major holiday to give detailed answers to all the questions and concerns that have been voiced here.  

[Aquarii]

14 minutes ago, spezzy said:

1) When someone reads Steve's book, comes here from the Academy, talks about their guilds in the Prime FB Group, creates their character on the create your character tool, and decides they are a certain guild, our usage of them on the forums needs to match that. While these forums very often feel like they are completely on their own, we are still a part of NerdFitness. 

 

2) When someone comes in, they shouldn't feel like they need to change their guild and goals because of how a guild is run. Just like some people have posted here that they wanted to be one guild, but didn't like how that guild was, so they picked another, even if it wasn't their 'first choice' based on their goals.  A ranger shouldn't feel the need to become a scout purely because there are too many rangers, and a monk shouldn't feel like they need to be a ranger because there aren't enough monks. They should be able to be a ranger, or a monk, because that's what they want to be.  This isn't like a CrossFit where if we don't like that specific one, we have 10 other CrossFits to choose from in our area - each fitness interest has one option. 

 

I entirely get this. I think it is just difficult for us who came in looking for a specific culture, not a specific interest as we try to come up with a way to maintain our group culture. Encouraging people to choose their guild based on fitness interests alone will change the culture of that guild. Let's say, just as an example, that 10 members who have previously identified as Ranger in order to be part of an more active group suddenly re-identify as Warrior, which is more fitting to their fitness goals. Now suddenly the Warrior guild is twice as big, the new members who prefer the Ranger-style culture out-number the original members who prefer a Warrior-style culture, which will have a large impact on the culture of the Warrior guild.

 

I do think that people CAN maintain their smaller subcultures (perhaps through custom tags and accountabilibuddy options), but I don't think they will be able to do it through the guilds, since, if the intent of this change is successful, some guilds should see a lot more members with a lot of interest in the specific area of fitness but little interest in the formerly established culture (especially if the guild being small was a reason they were not interested before). Choosing a guild based on culture and choosing a guild based on fitness interests regardless of culture are at odds with each other.

 

I entirely understand the reasoning for the change. I agree with @Scaly Freak, for those of us who want to maintain certain subcultures, we will simply need to find new methods of maintaining those cultures so that the guild culture can move towards a more fitness-focused model.

[Scaly Freak]

37 minutes ago, sarakingdom said:

All the guilds have consistent opportunity. Everything  is made by people. A Ranger wants a recipe thread? They make one, if they don't enjoy sharing with the Monks. A monk wants a mini-challenge? They'll make one, if they don't like joining in another guild's.

 

And  when I want to share a recipe with a couple of Druids, should I put it in the Monk kitchen thread or in the Warrior Food thread? Or do I create a  Druid Kitchen Cooking thread, and add to the number of places to bookmark or search when I want to find a recipe to try out? There are community related benefits to having one single central location for sharing recipes and talking about them, one that is easy to find instead of buried three or four clicks into a list of links called "challenges"  - a word that doesn't make it obvious there are recipes behind it.

 

From a community management perspective, it makes sense to have all food and nutrition conversations in one single place that is easy to find. That's how those threads become noticed and used by people who are too knew to the forums to know that there are individual recipe threads in each guild. The more effort it takes to use something, the less likely the average person is to use it. 

 

37 minutes ago, sarakingdom said:

What is the opportunity created by removing participatory and collaborative creation? What is the opportunity created by removing agency over things one wants, or wants to do to help others? Because, IMO, the attitude that people's opportunities are the things that are supplied to them from above is kind of backwards for a level-up-your-life site. A culture of making opportunities seems much more useful, more democratic, and no more exclusive. Like, how damn helpless are we supposed to be, that pushing the "create thread" button is a serious obstacle to opportunity? 

 

How exactly does the removal of Guild subforums equate removal of collaboration and agency?  That is quite the leap, and not one that makes a lot of sense. In fact, all you are doing here is arguing against strawmen, and that's not like you.

 

I get that you are upset that the forums are changing the way they are. The change was unexpected, and it's one more thing we didn't want to have happen in 2020, that we can't do anything about. That it's happening to our sanctuary, to our haven that was the last place where we felt safe, makes it feel even worse. Of course the whole situation and all the changes are going to cause our emotions to run high. But the way to adjust and make the best of this change is not to post objections while those high emotions are at peak, and definitely not to make wild accusations to GLs and admins that they are sabotaging  the community by taking our freedoms away.

 

Deep breaths. Refocus. 

 

This is happening and there is nothing we can do to stop it. The best way forward is to find a way to adapt and make the new structure work for us. And that is not accomplished by raging at GLs for taking your agency away, when you know as well as I do that they have done no such thing, and never would.

[Aquarii]

I also second @Scaly Freak, thank you so much for taking the time to address our concerns and give thorough explanations, detailed intructions, etc. I know things are pretty crazy for everyone this time of year.

[zeroh13]

With the fear of losing the guild subcultures, I think we could consider using the accountabilibuddies forum to preserve that. As I understand it, that forum was meant as a place for smaller groups of likeminded people to come together. So, why not use that? Make a thread where the monks can come together. Or the scouts. Or any of the other guilds.

It would be a simple solution that works with this new way of organizing challenges. Does this sound like a reasonable one?

 

[Scaly Freak]

14 minutes ago, zeroh13 said:

With the fear of losing the guild subcultures, I think we could consider using the accountabilibuddies forum to preserve that. As I understand it, that forum was meant as a place for smaller groups of likeminded people to come together. So, why not use that? Make a thread where the monks can come together. Or the scouts. Or any of the other guilds.

 

How will that work for someone who wants to be a Ranger in how they exercise, but prefers the more laid-back culture of the Druids? Do we need to avoid naming the general threads after guilds?

[spezzy]

24 minutes ago, zeroh13 said:

With the fear of losing the guild subcultures, I think we could consider using the accountabilibuddies forum to preserve that. As I understand it, that forum was meant as a place for smaller groups of likeminded people to come together. So, why not use that? Make a thread where the monks can come together. Or the scouts. Or any of the other guilds.

It would be a simple solution that works with this new way of organizing challenges. Does this sound like a reasonable one?

 

 

8 minutes ago, Scaly Freak said:

 

How will that work for someone who wants to be a Ranger in how they exercise, but prefers the more laid-back culture of the Druids? Do we need to avoid naming the general threads after guilds?

 

 

I see two big options here that would be easy to implement:

 

1) We use the accoutabilibuddies subforum (remember we can rename, update descriptions, etc) and start really using that.

 

People can create their own groups of people. Yes, Scaly, we can use those names - but maybe it's "Rangers who CrossFit" or something like that, or "Rebels with lots of kids and no spoons". 

 

So it CAN be by guild, or it can be by interest, also. 

 

You could also just create a thread looking for a dnd style party, where you get one person from every guild!

 

I know a few people are doing RPG style challenges this way - though I can't find their individual threads, but i'm on my phone so I could just be missing it. 

 

The second would take longer, and be more of a process, but could end up being incredible (and what we wanted  to create a long time ago ) :

 

2) We build up the fitness specialty subforums to include everything that we want them to include - guild resources, chat, welcome threads, etc - and instead of moving all of those threads every challenge, we simply have a place where they live, forever, along with any sort of guild related questions, discussions, etc.   I mentioned above that I condensed these because no one is using them, but if the guilds started actually using them (we had one new thread in the martial arts forum, and 4 in the yoga forum all of last year, which is why they no longer have individual spaces), we could consider expanding them again. 

 

We have a link at the top of every specialty subforum that is the link to the activity stream of everyone in that guild and their challenges. 

 

We could also do both - so people could have their individual groups in accountibilibuddies, and we also have a built out resource / hangout area for every guild that is separate from the challenges. 

 

Challenges are just something people CAN do, but don't HAVE to do to be a member of a guild or to post, make friends with, or collaborate with other members of that guild. 

 

 

All for new ideas, but these seem the easiest to test out and try

[sarakingdom]

8 minutes ago, Scaly Freak said:

I get that you are upset that the forums are changing the way they are.

 

No, not particularly. I've run forums. Changes have to happen. Not all of them can be user-driven, however much one might wish it. And I've been around enough internet blocks to know that forum changes, without fail, cause distress ahead of time, but tend to be pretty much the same when everyone settles in.  I like the annual social mixer of the all-guild. It might be a bit much all the time, but it doesn't seem hard to work with that. In fact, I spent part of yesterday counselling people to sit tight and wait for the dust to settle before getting upset. I think I've been pretty clear: I see pros and cons to both small-guild and all-guild. All change is going to involve tradeoffs, and I think when the dust settles, we'll feel about the same.

 

I do react badly to feeling like I'm being treated as a corporate product rather than a person, and that often triggers when "we're doing this necessary business thing" gets communicated as "we're doing this purely for your benefit". Conflating the two creates some very mixed messages about how users are viewed. Doubling down on painting the banana red and telling me it's an apple is not gonna work for me. I'm okay with bananas. I hate people trying to tell me they're apples.

 

The standardisation of guilds, guild resources, and guild management has benefits in unifying site experience. It has drawbacks in putting limits on bottom-up user-driven subforum design and culture-building. Like, that's basic "these two things can't coexist". Users are giving up some agency in this change. They have to lose to ability to make local changes. That's not good or bad, it's just true. There are options to deal with that, and alternatives that can be found. It's not the end of the world. But if we pretend that no tradeoffs exist and adding those limits is actually bestowing the gift of opportunity on me, man, I'm really not going to be happy about it.

[Jean]

4 hours ago, Rurik Harrgath said:

shouldn't a new Druid recruit have access to the same opportunities to participate in a mini-challenge as an Assassin?  Shouldn't a Ranger be able to enjoy a recipe thread with a Scout and a Monk?

They should, and they could. Guilds were not rigid boundaries, even though some of us used them like that. There was nothing preventing me from registering in the Scout's mini (hey, I've done it before!) or discussing food with the warriors. It felt like we were entering another sub-community, so it could feel intimidating to some, but I've been very welcome everytime I've set a foot in another guild, and, as far as I understand it, that was the intent of it (for me to go to the Scouts to work on running and to the Warriors to work on lifting and so on).

 

 

2 hours ago, spezzy said:

The guild descriptions are set in stone, because they're a part of the NerdFitness universe, and that needs to be consistent across all of NerdFitness (see more below )

The beautiful thing is, the guild descriptions don't have to change, and they work. Warriors are lifters and there is a mindset going with it that has helped shape the ambiance of the Warriors subforum. Entering their hall wasn't the same as threading on Scout's trails and not the same either as reflecting in the Druid's Groove. Sure, the Druid's cabin wasn't as active as the Ranger's Guild Hall but there was/is RangerBrain for a reason: everybody was welcome to the Ranger's Guild Hall and not all of us find the need for an active guild chat.

 

2 hours ago, spezzy said:

1) When someone reads Steve's book, comes here from the Academy, talks about their guilds in the Prime FB Group, creates their character on the create your character tool, and decides they are a certain guild, our usage of them on the forums needs to match that. While these forums very often feel like they are completely on their own, we are still a part of NerdFitness. 

Time for me to come clean: it's totally possible that I am biased here and that my past experience of the forums clouds my mind as to what it feels for a newcomer. I may 100% be disconnected here, you are the ones who have to make this call and I respect you and respect the call you are making no matter how I personally feel about it. I am but one person, my experience doesn't encompass everything. That being said, didn't the Druids meditate and do yoga? Didn't the Warriors lift? Weren't the Assassins feet over their heads doing handstands and parkour? For the most part, it felt to me like the guilds were performing their initial target of gathering people around a set of activities and while I've been guilty of using the Warriors for their mindset more than lifting buddies, I was in the minority. There was fitness activity focused guild spirit and guild subculture, because the mind of a lifter isn't the same as the one of a martial artist, which made the Warriors' hall different from the Monk's dojo.

 

2 hours ago, spezzy said:

2) When someone comes in, they shouldn't feel like they need to change their guild and goals because of how a guild is run. Just like some people have posted here that they wanted to be one guild, but didn't like how that guild was, so they picked another, even if it wasn't their 'first choice' based on their goals.  A ranger shouldn't feel the need to become a scout purely because there are too many rangers, and a monk shouldn't feel like they need to be a ranger because there aren't enough monks. They should be able to be a ranger, or a monk, because that's what they want to be.  This isn't like a CrossFit where if we don't like that specific one, we have 10 other CrossFits to choose from in our area - each fitness interest has one option. 

This one is tricky, because I (and I hope other people) didn't feel like we had to change guild or that we were pushed out of our chosen guild for a reason. I had elected Rangers because of the imagery, and running, and strength training. I have discovered that I am a much more complete person than that. Scouts have taught me a lot and it was an eye opening experience to picture myself as the lightly armored scout whose purpose when they discover something is not to fight, no matter how small the threat, but to report back. Warriors have taught me a lot and picturing myself with the strength to carry mountains and overpower things gave me confidence I could have lacked otherwise. Druids... oh, Druids do they have taught me, and picturing myself as a shapeshifter was an experience that changed the way I'm facing problems that I wouldn't have experienced if I hadn't chosen to outgrow my boundaries and think of myself as someone else than Aragorn because, well, Aragorn.

 

Fitness is about shaping our body but Steve is not the last to write that it is also a lot about self discovery and feeling great. Getting to confront ourselves to different settings is an adventure I am very glad and grateful I got to experience.

 

2 hours ago, spezzy said:

3) For things like mini challenges, recipe threads, guild chat, and guild resources - if one guild has them, all guilds need to have them, that needs to be consistent.

There again, I am writing as someone who hasn't been afraid of boundaries and who would happily pop up in another guild to take part in their mini, but, why? For one, that's asking a lot of the Guild Leaders. They're human beings too and, sometimes, they'll just not feel like it. They're volunteers (thanks!) and need to be able to take a step back when they need to. Does the new experience mean that we'll get a yoga mini run by an assassin's guild leader if the druid ones don't do it? Or does that mean that everyone get's to hop on a rangers', scouts' or assassins' focused mini like we already could by pushing the door and saying hi?

 

I do understand that Nerd Fitness is a business and that Steve has both a vision and a business plan to share. I really appreciate what you have all done and how you've allowed for people to gather around that original idea and I can understand concerns of shrinking communities and maintaining consistency through the various mediums of the Rebellion but I don't think the experience is lessened by having different experiences on different media. Are people who joined Nerd Fitness Prime disappointed when they reach the forums? You have feedback that we don't have, is the concern a shrinking forum community or actual complaints from people jumping from one medium to another?

 

2 hours ago, spezzy said:

So if we had that - why not build the Dojo there? Is there a reason it has to be exclusive to challenges? That way someone who isn't feeling up for a challenge can still participate in the general conversations, too, we can encourage and make them feel comfortable to take part in the future, and there would be more opportunity for resource threads to help everyone along when they do a challenge. 

That I can understand and totally get behind. So, building guild's communities outside of the challenges and keep the challenges just for the challenges? I could get behind that, it feels... intriguing. That'd still leave different guilds with different opportunities and different spirits, though. It may move activity around in the forum but I'm not sure the main goal would be achieved. I'll have to try that (looking forward to it!).

 

1 hour ago, Scaly Freak said:

And  when I want to share a recipe with a couple of Druids, should I put it in the Monk kitchen thread or in the Warrior Food thread? Or do I create a  Druid Kitchen Cooking thread, and add to the number of places to bookmark or search when I want to find a recipe to try out?

Tag us and we'll come. I do understand your point and it's good to use the nutrition subforum more but people will still need to actively gather around those topics, so they/we'll probably need a nudge in the first place and there's no guarantee it'll stick. After all, we all have a limited number of spoons.

 

I think part of this endeavour is about refocusing forum activity and I'm not sure it will work. We are functioning as is because it has allowed us to optimize our experience with the limited number of spoons we have available. Handling things differently will not change the total number of spoons and the activity that would be diverted from the challenges toward the dedicated parts of the forum about dedicated topics/activities would come from somewhere. That's just my feeling, though, I'm willing to try it and see what happens.

 

That being said, I'm still intrigued by the new functionality. They work to actually hide whole parts of the forum to me, so I'm not sure it's a net gain but the tinkerer's part in me can't help but be fired up!