Board Thread:Consensus Track/@comment-24325144-20141001194150/@comment-17114085-20141002024322

I am back from College, and I see this thread is now super long. I was able to keep myself up to date on the thread using my phone. While doing so I noticed many of the same 'arguments' for removing the Board were brought up here that were addressed in the discussion thread. So I am going to address them again for people that didn't follow the discussion thread.

1) Addressing all the "The RP Board doesn't belong here.", "This isn't an RP Wiki.", "We don't allow fanon in our articles why should we in the forums." and other such arguments.

First of all, stating the obvious. The Elder Scrolls is one of the biggest and most recognizable Roleplaying game franchises ever. This is a Wiki for said franchise, as such Roleplaying in the forums isn't out of place. People aren't making articles about the RPs, they aren't rubbing them in people's face, they aren't even claiming their RPs are fact. Everyone knows they are fanon. If people see the RP Board and think we are trying to impose our stories on the Bethesda Canon then they are missing a few screws. Secondly, if we use the logic people use to argue the board should be here then half the Wiki's features should also be removed. What about the Mod Board and the Off-Topic Board? We don't allow Mods in our articles, why do we have a board dedicated to them? The Off-Topic Board is well...off-topic, most of the threads have little to nothing related to TES. What about all the Speculation threads? We don't allow speculation in our articles, why should we let them in the forums? What about all the Off-Topic, Speculation and Opinion Blogs? For the same reasons stated above why do we let them exist? Why don't we enforce a ban against off-topic conversations on the main chat? Why? Because all the above are things the community enjoys doing. If you are going to remove the RP Board because this isn't an RP Wiki then not removing all the above mentioned features would be hypocritical.

2) Addressing all the "The RP Board spams the recent edits." and other such arguments.

First of all, this isn't a problem. This is an inconvenience. If you want to look at the mainspace but the RP threads are cluttering the Wiki Activity simply press "Ctrl + F" and type "Edit" that will hightlight everything that is not related to the Forum, as the forum activity doesn't have "edited by" written on it. You could also go to the Recent Changes and unclick the Forum filters (The filters: Board, Board Thread, etc.). Problem solved, all it takes are a few clicks and the RP Board doesn't get in the way of people that are trying to see the changes to the mainspace. Now, if you want to see the Forum activity you can go to the Wiki Activity and press "Ctrl + F" and type "Board" or "" and it will highlight what you want to see. You can change the filters on Recent changes and then use "Ctrl + F" and type "Board" or "" to find the threads related to a specific board you want to check out. Or you can simply go to the Forum and click on the Board(s) you want to check out, all the threads are listed in order of latest edits. See, the major 'problem' the RP Board causes can be solved by a few extra clicks. An inconvenience shouldn't be a reason to remove such a large part of the community.

_____________________________________________________

Now for other things I wanted to discuss. I would like to point out that the vote is almost double for the oppose. Which I think is a good way for everyone to see just how large the RP community is(as 95% of the people that voted Oppose are a part of RP Board, if not more). I think that now all those people that said "If you remove the Board there will be a mass exodus, the Wiki would lose half its users." aren't sounding so crazy. The RP community makes up about 2/3 of this Wiki's active users, as in users that come on every day. The amount of traffic on the Wiki that would be lost if the Board was removed would be instantly noticeable. Whether some people like it or not the RP Board and the users that are a part of it make up most of this Wiki's active users, and we aren't leaving. This is our 'home' as much as anyone else's.

Another thing I'd like to point out is that even though the Board is staying it doesn't mean that some users can't adopt the 'Hub Compromise' should they wish to. If you want to know what the 'Hub Compromise' is read through some of the last posts on the discussion thread. Or you can ask and I will tell you.

Last thing. I understand where some people are coming from when they say they want the Board removed, but I don't think the inconvenience it causes warrants its removal. However should it grow considerably, like twice its size for example, in the next year or so then I think the Hub Compromise would need to be adopted. Since if that were to happen then the Board would probably become an actual problem.