Ch-ch-ch-changes! [HAPPENING THURS 10.30PM]

By **Admin**. 26/03/11, 10:17 am

In a few weeks, the Mod Squad will be making some changes to the layout of the CNZ forums. These changes will take place in an attempt to promote activity in more productive topics, to create a tidier layout, and to reduce spam posts. Our proposed layout is as follows:

Code:: >Important
->Introductions
->Announcements and Updates
->Forum Suggestions and Help
->Christchurch Relief Auctions (This will be taken down once all buyers have confirmed they have received their items)

>Cosplay
->General Cosplay Discussion
->Costume Help & Critique
->Wigs and Hair
->Make-up and Crossplay
->Photography
-->Photoshoot Gallery
->Props
->Skits

>Events
->AuckGeddon
->WellyGeddon
->ChChGeddon
->NZ Anime Event
->Doujin Overload
-->Auckland Cosplay Ball
->World Events
->User Run and Other NZ Events

>Usergroups
->Auckland Cosplayers
->NCIS: North [Central] Island Syndicate
->Wellington
->CSI: Cosplay South Island
->Christchurch Cosplayers
-->Christchurch Cosplay Club

>Entertainment
->Anime & Manga
->Literature & Comics
->Music
->Movies & TV
->Video Games

>Misc.
->CNZ Related (will contain things such as Wicked Thoughts, Your Signature, Secret Santa, SGB for Mod, some forum games, mini rants thread)
-->CNZ Contest (Yuletide contests, etc.)
-->Birthday Wishes
->Discussion (threads such as the sex thread, the baking thread - productive conversation)
->Marketplace
->Plugging (Threads such as Pics That Made You Lol will be moved here)
->Artists' Alley
->Graveyard

If you have any questions, problems, or suggestions to go towards this change, please submit them in this thread. The change will now be made at 10.30 PM NZ time, on the 14th of April, and the forums will be put into Maintenance mode whilst these changes are being made. Maintenance should not take longer than two hours, and an official tinychat will be set up and linked to with the down-for-maintenance notice.

Threads from forums that are being deleted will be moved to the Graveyard following the changes. The graveyard will then be unlocked so that if you spot a thread in the graveyard that you feel is worth saving you may try to convince us to keep it. After two weeks the graveyard will be emptied and all threads not saved will be deleted permanently.

As the mod squad, we aim to make the forums as friendly, accessible, and helpful as possible. We hope that these changes will assist us in doing so.

Yours sincerely,
The Mod Squad
Duckeh, Riven_, Tammy, JVCA, Aura, Seraphik, Admin, jpwise and Rowan

By PIe. 26/03/11, 10:36 am

I like the look of these changes and personally am quite pleased that the 'rant' subforum is disappearing.

By Pura. 26/03/11, 11:20 am

Yeah, it got to the point where if anyone posted a rant that wasn't in mini rants, I'd be like "WHY ARE YOU MAKING A THREAD!?!" lolol. And the rants section sorta stopped being posted in little by little once mini rants came in, so I think it's s great move.

I like the look of it! Although I don't think that the 'pics that made you lol' thread should go in pluggins xD (I see pluggins as links to other websites, where as the picture thread is just posting pictures, haha). But regardless, I don't really mind where it goes xDDD.

By azeria. 26/03/11, 11:27 am

Pura wrote:: Yeah, it got to the point where if anyone posted a rant that wasn't in mini rants, I'd be like "WHY ARE YOU MAKING A THREAD!?!" lolol.

Haha, this pretty much^

Keen for the discussion board Very Happy

By **JVCA**. 26/03/11, 11:28 am

@Pura: Would it be better perhaps in CNZ Related? It was one we had trouble placing, hahah.

@Azeria: Me too! :3

By Pura. 26/03/11, 11:38 am

I'm keen for the discussion board ... if it has discussion xD. There aren't enough of those threads.

@Jess I would think so, haha. To me, the pluggin is when you link to other websites, so with the picture thread it's more linking TO CNZ from other sites, not from CNZ xDDD

By Selphiroth. 26/03/11, 12:06 pm

Not like I'm all that active on this front, noticed that Mafia is now gone?

By **JVCA**. 26/03/11, 12:40 pm

We decided that Mafia is not active enough on CNZ anymore to qualify for its own forum. Any future mafia threads can go in CNZ related, and if it picks up enough to need a whole forum we may reinstate it.

By vefalasiel. 26/03/11, 12:55 pm

Thank god!

By sakkaf. 26/03/11, 01:00 pm

I was wondering if Mini Rants and Randoms could be merged together as one thread? Some rants were randoms and some randoms were actually rants. xD

By mystix-candy. 26/03/11, 01:05 pm

sakkaf wrote:: I was wondering if Mini Rants and Randoms could be merged together as one thread? Some rants were randoms and some randoms were actually rants. xD

I think half the posts on CNZ are in randoms and rants ;-; /unproductive
I think it's a good thing mini rants and randoms are going. That way, it gets more people posting about relevant things to cosplay.
Rather than just vent about their life orz. That's what Facebook's for.

By **JVCA**. 26/03/11, 01:10 pm

mystix-candy wrote:

sakkaf wrote:: I was wondering if Mini Rants and Randoms could be merged together as one thread? Some rants were randoms and some randoms were actually rants. xD

I think half the posts on CNZ are in randoms and rants ;-; /unproductive
I think it's a good thing mini rants and randoms are going. That way, it gets more people posting about relevant things to cosplay.
Rather than just vent about their life orz. That's what Facebook's for.

Exactly this! The current plan is to keep mini-rants and mini-randoms threads, but get rid of the forums 'rants' and 'random'. Merging them together may not be a bad idea. Once upon a time, we had an 'off-topic thread' in which anything could go, because being off-topic was the topic of the thread. Would people prefer we brought that back and got rid of mini-rants/randoms?

By Paul. 26/03/11, 01:37 pm

I think 'rants' are not in the interests of CNZ. All it seems to achieve is drawing people into negativity.
Mini-randoms is worth keeping as sometimes useful or interesting things are posted.

I would support bringing back 'off-topic thread' and getting rid of mini-rants/randoms.

Putting more focus on constructive cosplay discussion is a good.

By Selphiroth. 26/03/11, 01:45 pm

I am very glad to see Random and Rants board to go. Having said that I believe Mini-Rants should stay, just so it's a place that contains all the rants stuff and people don't end up having the rants taking over the other boards.

By Aikome. 26/03/11, 02:04 pm

:`3 I like the new layout, it's more focused.
Usually seems like Mini Rants is the most posted in thread :l I find it's similar to Twitter posts (or the Mini Randoms), seeing as people post in it whether they've happy, bad or moderate news. Not that I'm saying that's bad - merging it all together would be a good idea. Just a massive Off Topic kinda thread.. or something.

By GothLoli. 26/03/11, 03:47 pm

Change is good. Sounds great. (:

By Mischa. 27/03/11, 01:06 am

I like discussion Very Happy

because I love discussin'

**Guest** Guest

I looked at this thread three times before I realised it scrolled passed photography. When I thought it stopped at photography I though "wow, possibly excessive pruning" but now I've found the rest of it, I think this is grand!

By tashamanx1. 27/03/11, 08:34 am

@sakkaf: i agree with yoo about putting them together,i would miss seeing all the random things people put down!

By Highlander. 27/03/11, 10:32 am

JVCA wrote:: @Pura: Would it be better perhaps in CNZ Related? It was one we had trouble placing, hahah.

It's really a humour thread. It's one of those misc threads, but doesn't fit in any misc sub category. I don't know that a whole humour sub-forum is valid, but what about a humour thread being directly under misc. Or under a off topic forum? (Isn't the discussion forum essentially a off topic thread)? There probably needs to be room for off-topic threads/a general social/discussion thread? But while the rants section use to be helpful while CNZ was a young community I think that has changed and people are better off seeking support amongst friends, facebook, etc. Also it does seem like there is pressure not to start a rants thread and get ideas/support, instead to let steam off in mini-rants, which doesn't gain you any support/discussion anyway. So the question is what do you want, and what don't you want. The easiest for the mods is a cosplay focused forums with very minimal other stuff at all. But the entertainment, discussion, birthday wishes, etc will give room for people to know each other. I vote we dump all the rants threads entirely, and random stuff can go in a discussion thread. But then the mods will have to enforce a no rants policy! But it will make CNZ more pleasant.

The only other question is more one for the CCC. But we never use to have a CCC thread. As far as I can tell no one has even questioned that they haven't had a club meet in the two months before the quake. Quake aside was one actually being planned for Feb/March. Jan I can understand, but surely Feb if you plan on having on meeting/month! And now they possibly don't have a winter venue for free. Not that people are organising private cosplay events either. It seems they have their heads down, working on Geddon projects, or other things in life. But it seem like it may be an option to revert to the earlier model of private events being held vis the ChCh forum. That will take the pressure of the leaders for a while.

By **JVCA**. 27/03/11, 10:44 am

Highlander, the topic of CCC is completely irrelevant here. sweatdrop

If you wanna discuss Chch meet-ups and the lack of them, start a thread in the Christchurch Cosplayers forum.

I'm glad you agree with our decisions on the forum layout though. nodnod

By Highlander. 27/03/11, 10:55 am

If people want a discussion then the ChCh thread is the place for it. It just seemed if you are going dump a whole lot of threads, then now would be a good time to discuss removing that as well.

Just a question. How many threads are you looking at loosing, and how many will remain?

PS. If people want to play mafia they have other non-CNZ options. And I assume they are either not playing, or playing else where if the numbers have dropped.

By **JVCA**. 27/03/11, 11:03 am

The only threads that risk deletion are threads from forums that are being deleted (please note there is a scroll bar on the codebox in the first post - we're not just getting rid of everything after 'Props' Wink

). The Chch cosplayers and CCC forums are not being deleted, therefore all their threads will be left as is.

Essentially; only threads within Rants, Random, Forum Games and Mafia are up for review. Everything else will be fine. I hope this answers your question. Smile

By Mandie_Chan. 27/03/11, 11:09 am

(sorry if this is the wrong thread to say it in but I thought I should say it while it's on my mind)

Re: mafia subforum going
I think one day (who knows when) mafia will make a come back. Until then, I think the 'how to play/mod' threads in that subforum should stay~ (seen or unseen or on someones computer or something?). Otherwise I agree with the whole subforum being deleted~

Looking forward to the new layout!
Also where is the baking thread? Do we have a new one? xD

By Selphiroth. 27/03/11, 11:11 am

I agree with the dumping CNZ Mafia after what JVCA have explained.

I am still firmly in the "keep" camp of some of the social boards. yes, people can rant to friends on Facebook, Livejournal, whatever; but I can't ever pretend that what started me to meet the amazing people here was via the social outlets. I am not a fan of the idea that somehow, somehow the moment us older people have a foot in the door, we shut it for the newer ones.

New Zealand's cosplay scene is an incredibly social, supportive one. The one that we are not just interested in what people are wearing and making, but we also want to get know the cosplayers. Who are they? What are they interested in? That also include the bads, such as someone having a particularly bovine organic waste product day and there's this option of outlet. I think having an entire forum devoted to it is excessive, but having a thread and having it contained is manageable.

Not to mention, just how overworked will the mods be if a zero-rant rule is applied? Where do they draw the line? Would the idea of "rant" for one person matches up with another? Would it end up with "lol u ranting get out" with every post involving people unhappy with having to unpick an entire corset? It's just too difficult IMO.

Highlander, I am confused. Consider CCC is a different organisation from CNZ, how would discussing regard to how another club is run when we are discussing the change of format of a different club be relevant, whatsoever?

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