Opinions on the clan section

[HeavenWraith]

The discussion of this particular forum section has been very touchy since even Skulltag forum times. Why? I'd say most probably because nobody knows for sure what it is there for, there are dozens of different opinions and the consensus has never been reached.

Nowadays I personally find it tedious to browse the clan forum if I need to acquire some kind of information and the overall posting quality there is quite disappointing (I would ignore this normally, but since I'm one of those who have to clean up the mess, it gets annoying). Most of the posts are either emotionless clan member change announcements or crap of no use that usually doesn't even seem funny or discussion worthy. Moreover, since clan competition belongs to another forum section, this leaves the clan area with even less potential discussion material.

So my question to forum regulars (especially those who read/post in the clan section) is this: what do you think is the purpose of the clan section and why do you need it, if you do? How do you see the current situation and, if something needs changing, what would that be?

I guess I should also point out, that this thread is solely to satisfy my curiosity. I'm not posting this on behalf of the staff and I can't guarantee that all/any of the mentioned ideas will be implemented (should be obvious, but yeah, just to avoid unnecessary dissatisfaction in the future).

[Ivan]

Someone wants that section removed and it's not me.

[Mechromancer]

I personally thought it was there to somewhat gauge the community's clan scene, rather than having someone who wanted to join a clan have to get onto IRC and channel cruise until he found one to join... Although admittedly, some truly hilarious shit has come out of there

[Watermelon]

TH is dead, OSH has dissolved, DMU is dead, DN is dead, ARG is dead, TS-7 is dead, VGL is dead, DD is inactive as hell and might as well be considered dead with random logins every month. That pretty much leaves just a few main clans.

These could easily be merged into a single sticky thread and result in the clan forum being abolished. Now, I do read the updates there... seeing "member X left" is mainly what I look for. I can't see any other use for it. I remember back in the day being much more hostile, but doom is dying and it's only left us with a handful of competitive clans that know each other close enough that we all hang out on TS anyways. The clan forum will continue to deteriorate since we don't have an influx of any members for the clan scene.

Therefore, there isn't really a point to the clan forums for me anyways, the ONLY time I go there is to
1) See when a new clan is created
2) See which members joined/left S, since they're the only clan who I don't get streamlined information from by them being on TS

Which occurs once every month or two.

[Catastrophe]

I think its fine EXCEPT for how heavily regulated that section is. People can't have fun on their own clan thread.

[HeavenWraith]

I personally thought it was there to somewhat gauge the community's clan scene, rather than having someone who wanted to join a clan have to get onto IRC and channel cruise until he found one to join... Although admittedly, some truly hilarious shit has come out of there

Oh yeah, I remember it being exactly like this at some point in time. Would be quite awesome if it were the case now, but, sadly, it's not. Browsing the forum from the newcomer's point of view (this is only a speculation) there are dozens of threads that are not relevant anymore (dead/inactive clans), pile of posting, incomprehensible or irrelevant to the newbie. Stuff like that, I believe, makes it a tedious work for one to find anything, while it's a lot easier to just ask any guy with a tag in-game to join their clan.

TH is dead, OSH has dissolved, DMU is dead, DN is dead, ARG is dead, TS-7 is dead, VGL is dead, DD is inactive as hell and might as well be considered dead with random logins every month. That pretty much leaves just a few main clans.

These could easily be merged into a single sticky thread and result in the clan forum being abolished. Now, I do read the updates there... seeing "member X left" is mainly what I look for. I can't see any other use for it. I remember back in the day being much more hostile, but doom is dying and it's only left us with a handful of competitive clans that know each other close enough that we all hang out on TS anyways. The clan forum will continue to deteriorate since we don't have an influx of any members for the clan scene.

Therefore, there isn't really a point to the clan forums for me anyways, the ONLY time I go there is to
1) See when a new clan is created
2) See which members joined/left S, since they're the only clan who I don't get streamlined information from by them being on TS

Which occurs once every month or two.

Yeah, the current situation is indeed dire for the clan scene, which is unfortunate. The clan section serves the same purpose for me as it serves for you. Hence I personally find posts like "good luck", "XX on top" or "o u guys lol" annoying.

I think its fine EXCEPT for how heavily regulated that section is. People can't have fun on their own clan thread.

I'll take that as "having fun" is your proposed aim of the clan section. In that case I don't really see a point, because you can have that kind of fun in other sections as much. Why would you specifically need the clan section solely for that?

[TerminusEst13]

what do you think is the purpose of the clan section and why do you need it, if you do?

Clan announcements, discussions, roster changes, etc, really. I don't really see what's wrong with its current focus--it gives other people a way to be up-to-date on what's going on with other clans, rather than their own.

Then again I'm an OCD freak who likes keeping tally of rosters, so.

[BURZUM]

My point of view:

Of course it is tedious browsing the clan forum if it consist only of " xxx left the clan...xxxjoined us"
I thought the clan section would give every clan a bit of space to express it's personality (if you know what I mean).

For example: when we had a nice survival night I'd like to post a picture of this to have fun, talk about and show to other members - I did- the picture was moved to trash after 2 hours.

Just a few days ago someone writes in our clan thread: You guys are a very well known powerhouse... 1day later I find this in the trash - again.

If that's what the admins want - just dry information who is part of the clan or who left it- ok, you have it your way. I am really dissapointed (and I can speak for the majority of our members in this case)!
We thought, we could post and even discuss in our thread whatever we wanted to..and seriously...WHY NOT Isn't it alot more work to clean each and every phrase out, that does not fit into YOUR guideline?

So if you ask me: Why dont you give us more privetsphere in our clan section? We are here to have fun. This is still a game.

And I thought I am old :D

---

DD is inactive as hell and might as well be considered dead with random logins every month.

BTW: DD is not dead and can not be considered as dead. Just because we do not scrim, do not like most of the mods like gvh or stuff like; that does not mean that we are dead.
We play our survivals very regularly- as we always did - I'll tell you when we are dead.
We will be here when another 1000clans already died...as the last couple of years....

[one_Two]

Completely agree with Burzum. I can see why you wouldn't want a load of "good luck" messages clogging up space, but it's important people have a decent say in the clans forum. And some of the things moved to trash do seem kinda pointless, like perfectly good conversation and discussion that can't be added to because it's in trash. I think the clans forum should be left as is, maybe even a little more leeway on what's allowed.

[mr fiat]

TH is dead, OSH has dissolved, DMU is dead, DN is dead, ARG is dead, TS-7 is dead, VGL is dead, DD is inactive as hell and might as well be considered dead with random logins every month. That pretty much leaves just a few main clans.

These could easily be merged into a single sticky thread and result in the clan forum being abolished. Now, I do read the updates there... seeing "member X left" is mainly what I look for. I can't see any other use for it. I remember back in the day being much more hostile, but doom is dying and it's only left us with a handful of competitive clans that know each other close enough that we all hang out on TS anyways. The clan forum will continue to deteriorate since we don't have an influx of any members for the clan scene.

Therefore, there isn't really a point to the clan forums for me anyways, the ONLY time I go there is to
1) See when a new clan is created
2) See which members joined/left S, since they're the only clan who I don't get streamlined information from by them being on TS

Which occurs once every month or two.

don't point your fingers to clans you THINK are dead, DN isnt dead at all. you call everything that isnt ctf competitive dead.

[Watermelon]

DD is inactive as hell and might as well be considered dead with random logins every month.

BTW: DD is not dead and can not be considered as dead. Just because we do not scrim, do not like most of the mods like gvh or stuff like; that does not mean that we are dead.
We play our survivals very regularly- as we always did - I'll tell you when we are dead.
We will be here when another 1000clans already died...as the last couple of years....

I said borderline dead. I play on doom a lot and take active notice of who is in varying servers at random intervals, seeing DD members is very infrequent. The most active one is One_Two but due to inactivity of DD he's off playing with Q.
Not that I want DD to die though.

don't point your fingers to clans you THINK are dead, DN isnt dead at all. you call everything that isnt ctf competitive dead.

DN is so inactive that a dead clan stacked next to DN would show almost no differences. I never ever see anyone in your clan play, I see you once in a blue moon, your clan forums are down and your member list has been out of date/non-maintained for months. When is the last time DN did something together actively (got screenshots/proof as well)? Plus I think Teletha sort of got bored of this game after all the drama he caused and wants to lay low, though is impossible since it's been confirmed who it is.

[SpaceMarine]

There was clan called DELTA. I was the member for 3 or 2 months. Don't worry, its dead. The leader was inactive for like 7 or 9 months xD.

BTW, how many clans im seeing dead?

[BURZUM]

We should focus on the main subject! In my opinion the biggest problem is the difference between what the clan members/ users want and what the admins want us to want!

I'd like to see some opinions of admins or other players to the point of one_two and mine!


EDIT: Hey, whoever removed the last posts of the [DD] thread from trash back into our thread - THANKS MAN!!! (thx water??) Seriously ;-)

[Yellowtail]

Try to include content in your posts. Feel free to wish a clan luck, but try to contribute to the thread as well!

This basically means anything such as that would simply get removed.

Now, for other things, I don't see why they would get removed in the first place, as it doesn't specifically state so in the rules. ...unless there's another hidden rule in there that I completely missed or something.

[Torvald]

Considering the only time the clan thread gets updated is when a member joins or leaves, the concept of having a clan sub form becomes useless when a rule such as the one posted above is set in place. Like Watermelon said, the competitive community is so small, everyone is more updated over TeamSpeak than the forum itself, the ones that use the forums are highly inactive, if not dead.

There's really nothing you can contribute to a thread when the only posts are "x joins"/ "Y leaves". Even if there is something being posted, it's not too far from the generic "good luck" statement. Any clan wars/ scrims are made outside of the clan sub forum anyways removing the need for the sub forum even further.

I think it should just be abolished all together. The activity is so minimal that it borderlines a waste of space. I support the idea Watermelon suggested: Just have a sticky thread for the clans and forget about the posting.

[Tenchu]

I think removing the Clans section will permanently abolish the already barely-breathing clan scene. Word-of-mouth is good, but a centralized place for clans is a good thing, especially for new and out-of-the-loop players.

Also, waste of space? It literally takes up a few megabytes of storage on the webserver, and is just nice to have and to read up on.

[HeavenWraith]

My point of view:

Of course it is tedious browsing the clan forum if it consist only of " xxx left the clan...xxxjoined us"
I thought the clan section would give every clan a bit of space to express it's personality (if you know what I mean).

For example: when we had a nice survival night I'd like to post a picture of this to have fun, talk about and show to other members - I did- the picture was moved to trash after 2 hours.

Just a few days ago someone writes in our clan thread: You guys are a very well known powerhouse... 1day later I find this in the trash - again.

If that's what the admins want - just dry information who is part of the clan or who left it- ok, you have it your way. I am really dissapointed (and I can speak for the majority of our members in this case)!
We thought, we could post and even discuss in our thread whatever we wanted to..and seriously...WHY NOT Isn't it alot more work to clean each and every phrase out, that does not fit into YOUR guideline?

So if you ask me: Why dont you give us more privetsphere in our clan section? We are here to have fun. This is still a game.

And I thought I am old :D

I'm not going to try to justify or condemn staff's actions in the past, but I can see where you're coming from. The clan section could work as a place to post clan's achievements, discuss them, heck, even argue or criticize (as long as it's under control). Though, to my disappointment, posts like these sink in other posts like drama and "good luck"s and sometimes it's hard to draw the borderline.

We should focus on the main subject! In my opinion the biggest problem is the difference between what the clan members/ users want and what the admins want us to want!

I'd like to see some opinions of admins or other players to the point of one_two and mine!


EDIT: Hey, whoever removed the last posts of the [DD] thread from trash back into our thread - THANKS MAN!!! (thx water??) Seriously ;-)

Yeah, I moved that back, because it was split (not by me) for no apparent reason. That's besides the point though. You say staff and user base opinions don't match. But what I can see from this thread is that users don't agree on the purpose of the clan section either. I'm pretty certain that if the majority of the users would agree on a mutual vision of the clan section, the staff would gladly consider it instead of forcing their own views.

I think removing the Clans section will permanently abolish the already barely-breathing clan scene. Word-of-mouth is good, but a centralized place for clans is a good thing, especially for new and out-of-the-loop players.

Also, waste of space? It literally takes up a few megabytes of storage on the webserver, and is just nice to have and to read up on.

Why don't you read again the post you've just criticized.

Either way, I thank you all for your input in this matter. I got most of the information I needed, but if you still have something to say regarding the matter, don't mind me concluding the thread, just post away, I will gladly read it.

[Dark-Assassin]

I agree on removing it. Just move it to the Archive subforum.
Until the scene flies again, there isn't much need for it, especially with it's current strict rules....
I quickly changed my view. It just needs more activity and less nazi rules.

Also, http://forums.xonotic.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=8
They are doing it right. And overall, their rules aren't strict.

[Tenchu]

I think removing the Clans section will permanently abolish the already barely-breathing clan scene. Word-of-mouth is good, but a centralized place for clans is a good thing, especially for new and out-of-the-loop players.

Also, waste of space? It literally takes up a few megabytes of storage on the webserver, and is just nice to have and to read up on.

Why don't you read again the post you've just criticized.

I was only referring to one part of it, and you know that.

Without a Clans forum to post about it, players are going to be less inclined to start a new clan. Inactive players coming back won't have a place to read up on the newest clan development, other than word-of-mouth but again that only goes so far. Everyone keeps talking about how unneeded it is, but really it's just a nice thing to have and it isn't inconveniencing anyone by existing so why remove it?

[BURZUM]

Removing it completely? Seriuosly?

The only thread I read regularly containes the clan forum and the ban list sometimes ( pretty funny seeing good known names there ;-)

If you remove the clan fourm you can remove the whole zandronum forum. I dont need discussions like " what's your favorite doom- monster" or "youtube-thread"...