For comment: splitting the Chatroom

[Sir Lüc]

Azul all, I brought up a few weeks ago the possibility of decoupling the dual roles of the Chatroom board into two separate boards, and I wanted to gauge public opinion and solicit comments ahead of implementing the change.

The Chatroom was first created in 2006 on Proboards Witt, to serve both as a private board for citizens only and as a venue for offtopic, nonTalossan posts, both serious (usually because of macronational politics) and light-hearted. The current Chatroom was created much in the same spirit, but its usage had already shifted somehow, as a large share of topics is now Talossan cultural activities which have no reason to be in a private board.

As such, I would like to gauge everyone's opinion about splitting the Chatroom in two:

• A public "Hobbies and Off-Topic" ("HOT"?) board (to more or less replace the current Chatroom as-is), which would be meant for our many cultural events and for offtopic stuff that people feel comfortable posting in public; it may also contain club subboards on request, such as the ones that were previously created way at the bottom in the Special Interests section
• A private board (to be created either as a subboard of HOT, or a subboard of the main Witt board, or as a top level board right below HOT) for discussions that should be privy for Talossans only, for any reason: either offtopic stuff that people do not feel comfortable posting in public (such as personal pictures, health, or anything else within the boundaries of Wittiquette), or discussions about Talossa itself that for any reason would probably be best left to the eyes of Talossans only.

 Prospective citizens would be allowed to see and interact with the HOT board, unlike with the Chatroom, but the private board would be visible and accessible by current citizens only.

Any and all opinions about any part of this are very much welcome! Even just some opinions on naming and positioning would help.

[M:sr Pôl dal Nordselvă, D.Div, M.Ed]

Is the purpose solely to manage activity by citizens and non-citizens or is it related to managing something growing out of control?

[Sir Lüc]

There's nothing out of control; I would simply like the current usage of the Chatroom to be reflected by the board layout and privacy settings.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Love the plan.

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

I am glad we are publicly discussing Wittenberg changes. This seems like a good change. I still think but we need to plan for the next stage of Wittenberg as I mentioned in another thread.

[Mic’haglh Autófil, O.Be]

• A public "Hobbies and Off-Topic" ("HOT"?) board (to more or less replace the current Chatroom as-is), which would be meant for our many cultural events and for offtopic stuff that people feel comfortable posting in public; it may also contain club subboards on request, such as the ones that were previously created way at the bottom in the Special Interests section
• A private board (to be created either as a subboard of HOT, or a subboard of the main Witt board, or as a top level board right below HOT) for discussions that should be privy for Talossans only, for any reason: either offtopic stuff that people do not feel comfortable posting in public (such as personal pictures, health, or anything else within the boundaries of Wittiquette), or discussions about Talossa itself that for any reason would probably be best left to the eyes of Talossans only.

I like the plan. Personally I think something like this might work best:

Xheneral
> Wittenberg
> HOT
    >> SIG boards go here, though whether "official SIG" boards -- College of Arms, Zouaves, etc. -- should join them is up for debate
> Immigration
> Landing Pier
> "Citizen's Lounge" or what have you

[Sir Lüc]

Small notice that unless I receive negative feedback I will go on and implement this in the coming days.

Wittenberg will be put under maintenance for a short while as I additionally update SMF to a new version (the first in many years, for some reason). The short downtime is also needed to make sure the Chatroom split doesn't leave any potential sensitive content, if any, in the newly public Hobbies board - aka to give me time to parse and move it in the private "Lounge".