# Letter to Members



## Feanorian (Oct 16, 2003)

These are some suggestions from a former very active member. 
*Note the following suggestions are soley those of the author and have no corporate or verbal agreements with the messenger. Thus Feanorian (all names and titles trade marked) should be left out of all negative responses.  

Okay then....
#1

People seem to be leaving TTF a lot more frequently and impulsively now. Why? because some changes and disputes in the forum that they don't like! If you don't like it, deal with it. Stop reading those threads or discover something new in TTF other than politics and religion People shouldn't be leaving unless they've taken A LOT of thought to it, thought of the other options, and decided leaving is the best.

#2
The amount of stuff that doesn't belong at TTF.
Webmaster's made a great start by removing GoP and the GoR, but there's a whole entire site to tackle.
For one, the 'Other Guilds and Societies' section
Taken a look in there recently? It's all fan clubs! If people start a fan club forum, why can't they go to a new site for it? It used to be that that section would be the birth place of new and growing guilds-to-be. Then, there's Stuff and Bother. In every forum I've ever been at, the Stuff and Bother section was to get to know your fellow member. Is it that hard to limit it to that?
Finally, we've got the Green Dragon the Inns there are MEANT to be RPG like, so doesn't that mean they belond at merp? I thought that was the whole entire point for the move to the sister site

#3. 
I'm sorry to disappoint you all, but TTF is not Numenor, it is not dicintegrating, it is not crumbling into ruin. Take a break from these forums 'What's New' and 'Entmoot' for a while you'll find out that if you block these two forums (2 out of many forums) TTF is a very happy, knowledgable, and high-quality site. There's always contreversies at message boards. But what members need to do to maintain the message board is to have the contreversies take a back seat to the essence of the forum.

That's all folks


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## Aulë (Oct 16, 2003)

Concerning Letter #1:
A lot of members who decided that they were leaving, have changed their minds and returned (They were a tad hasty in declaring their departure  ).

Concerning Letter #2:
Taliern is clearing out those Guilds as we speak. About half a dozen have been archived so far, and she shall soon have it so that only legitimate Guilds and Societies remian.
The Green Dragon is going to be deleted, and probably replaced with an IRC Channel.

Concerning Letter #3:
Yes, there appear to be a half a dozen members who won't give up on the issue of the removal of the GoR and GoP. If only they'd shut up, this place would be a lot better off. The book forums are alive again, and the movie forums will be increasing slowly over the next couple of months as NLC's RotK approaches.


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## HLGStrider (Oct 16, 2003)

> Yes, there appear to be a half a dozen members who won't give up on the issue of the removal of the GoR and GoP. If only they'd shut up, this place would be a lot better off.



I think it would've been a lot better if the people who'd wanted it removed in the first place, who I am still not convinced are the majority though they are obviously more vocal, would've shut up. 

No, wait, I take that back. I wish they had expressed their opinion reasonably and then let it go instead of harping until not just the sections were deleted but the subjects were banned NOT because of the content of the subjects but because of the griping of those people. 

Just so that the other side of this gets heard.


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## Dr. Ransom (Oct 17, 2003)

Concerning letter 1#

Most of the people who have left in the last week have done so out of rash anger. The people who are legitimate tend to just slowly post less and less. The interesting thing about the advice given by this member (I really have no clue who it is) is that this person seems to be against the philisophical/theological discussions and yet is now telling us not to read threads that we can't handle. I wonder if this person is being hypocritical... :rollseyes:

Concerning letter 2#

I don't really care about the guilds. But at least some consistency is finally being applied.

Concerning letter 3#

TTF is a great site, and I think the present crisis (if you can call it that) is mostly just a leadership vacuum which hopefully will fix itself in time.


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## Lúthien Séregon (Oct 17, 2003)

> _Originally posted by HLGStrider _
> *I think it would've been a lot better if the people who'd wanted it removed in the first place, who I am still not convinced are the majority though they are obviously more vocal, would've shut up.
> 
> No, wait, I take that back. I wish they had expressed their opinion reasonably and then let it go instead of harping until not just the sections were deleted but the subjects were banned NOT because of the content of the subjects but because of the griping of those people.
> ...


 

In my opinion, no-one is currently "harping on" about the subject. Who do you think is doing this? Look at the posts in the thread ( Closing Fora ) which caused the subjects to be banned. There was no ranting, or harping on, the opinions were very reasonably expressed. After Webmaster had announced that the decision was final, the people who seemed to be more vocal about expressing their opinion seemed to be those who were against the decision ( Political and Religious Discussions ).

Just to clarify.


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## Dáin Ironfoot I (Oct 17, 2003)

Could this 'former very active member' be Wonko by any chance?

I'm just curious... I could be wrong.  What I dont understand is why this former very active member has to write a letter and then send it through Feanorian. Why isnt this former very active member able to come to the site by him/her self and post it him/her self? Why is this person not active any more?

Maybe some of these answers would have to do with the opinions expressed by the former very active member. Just a purely critical look at the matter. I just think if you can look at it knowing where this person is coming from, you can respect their opinion more.


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## Eriol (Oct 17, 2003)

*Clarifying the clarification*

Well, looking at the thread "Closing Fora", we see this record:

1) Webmaster changed the name of the Guilds and announced double warning points for offenders in those guilds;

2) Lots of harping;

3) Webmaster made clear that he would NOT ban political discussions;

4) Less (public) harping;

5) Webmaster banned discussions based on the amount of complaints and PM's he was getting about the issue (i.e., harping; look at (3), and at WM's post about it in that thread, and you'll see that he was very final when he said that);

6) Members who disagreed with the decision stated their reasons for it, and said they'd abide by it. 

7) Members who wanted to reverse the decision were told to "shut up" by other members who agreed with it; I don't remember that happening at step (4) . Some of the people who said that the others should "shut up" were prominent harpers at steps (2) and (4)... 

I just wanted to clarify the clarification. As Lúthien said, the posts are in that thread for all to see and draw conclusions.

I don't miss GoR/GoP as much as I miss the sense of community that we had here. It's gone, in my opinion. I hope it comes back. But there was a mighty shove in any position the C9 might aspire to have in TTF -- it was solemnly ignored in that 7-step process. As well as many other niceties...

Yes, TTF is a great site, and obviously will survive this "crisis", as Dr. Ransom puts it. Just wait for the release of RotK!



And yet... I preferred it the other way. Harping has taken its toll on TTF; at least as I see it. I hope I'm wrong; perhaps harping, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.


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## Confusticated (Oct 17, 2003)

Eriol, you miss something important. 

You missed that Webmaster first said he was closing the GoR and GoP. After he said that there was harping.

He then changed the names and locations of those forums. Which was not in keeping with what he said he would do. There was indeed harping. Mostly (by me, ithrynluin and Aule, at least) over the fact that this was not much of a change, and certainly no the change he said we was going to make. Harping that nothing had changed... not harping for those subjects to be banned.

Then, the subjects were banned. More harping.

I hope not everyone is missing the fact that those who harped about these guilds, both before the names were changed AND after, were not harping for those topics to be banned. Some harped to get them off the main page, others harped that they did not need their own sections and shoud be in with other off-topic stuff in S&B.. most of which said there should become a Lighthearted and Serious S&B.

Fingon harped when he couldn't find Maedhros.


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## Lantarion (Oct 17, 2003)

Maybe we should shut up about the damned *harping*!!!  (LOL at the Fingon joke)

I actually agree with all the points of that Letter. I'd also like to elaborate Point 3 in saying that there is no crisis on TTF, and there never has been. There have been some setbacks (losing excellent Mods, for many people losing the RPGs, etc.) but to make such a big deal out of the current situation is blowing it well out of proportion. 
If people are leaving, let them! If they see problems where there are none (or few), let them! Who are we to impose upon their conceptions?


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## Eriol (Oct 17, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Nóm _
> *Eriol, you miss something important.
> 
> You missed that Webmaster first said he was closing the GoR and GoP. After he said that there was harping.
> ...



I agree, mostly about the fact that the harping was not in favor of a ban on politics, but rather in favor of a more substantial change than the one offered. I don't agree that the first changes amounted to nothing, especially the double warning points proviso and the promise of stricter moderation, but that's strictly my opinion. 

Webmaster said he would close those two Forums (I still rebel against "Fora", it's too ugly), but the discussions would still be allowed. That was clear from his second post on that thread. 

So the clarification is even more clarified now .

As for harping, some harpers don't mind being harped at, and others do mind... I think that anti-harping harping is not a good thing. Pure harping can be done in many ways, some annoying, others not so much. As long as we try to live and let live, harp and let harp, without so much anti-harping harping, we'll be fine. 

Or else we should look for Maedhros.


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## Feanorian (Oct 17, 2003)

> Could this 'former very active member' be Wonko by any chance?




No its not......you can guess who if you'd like, but I will not comment again on if the person is correct or not.


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## Anamatar IV (Oct 17, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Feanorian _
> *No its not......you can guess who if you'd like, but I will not comment again on if the person is correct or not. *



No need to guess, Anamatar isn't far down the list alphabetically.

I relayed the message through Feanorian because I had already left TTF and, though it's no heinous crime, I wouldn't have thought it to be in best interest to make a post of suggestions to the forum after I had already left (especially after my stepping down post in the C9 Forum in which I said I can't think for the best of a Tolkien site when I no longer like Tolkien )

By the way, I like what you did with the name, Webmaster. the TOLKIEN FORUM . com...


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