This is intended as a discussion-starter on new directions the org might eventually move towards.

It seems to me like the org has been running in a similar way for many years, while online culture has changed. I'd like to see the org keep up with some of those changes, since it's starting to feel a bit dusty. There are features I'd love to see on the org, and maybe other people feel the same...

If anyone wants to contribute to some idea-gathering, then great - maybe someday the org could incorporate some new structural ideas...

1) The popularity of FB has me wanting to "like" certain comments that orgers post. I'd love to see a similar feature on the org.

2) Chowhound has revamped its thread structure so that discussions are threaded - meaning you can easily see who's responded to exactly whom. Again, a nice feature.

2b) In fact, Chow/Chowhound split not too long ago into an edited news/columns site (Chow) and a discussion site (Chowhound). Doesn't seem like a bad move, to me.

3) The level of moderation here may have been in line with web norms at one time, but (to me) seems a bit heavy now. Many sites are going with less moderation and a more 'speak-your-mind' approach. A lighter level of moderation would seem more in line with web norms. I'd prefer it.

4) This may be trivial, but the number of animated gifs and emoticons seems very "web 2.0". I'd like to see the org move a bit more into current standards on this.

Just some thoughts. Some are certainly easier to implement than others. Hopefully more brainstorming can develop.

Peace.

I think we have to keep in mind a few things:

1) Ben is busy.. Very busy lately. This is a free site being offered by his limited resources for our entertainment.

2) Revising the org isn't so much about the interface, which I admit could use some tweeking, but about the community at large---this was the most vibrant Prince community on the Internet for as long as I can remember. This was due to the people here and the moderation. Prince.org is the only Prince website where you could talkl about 'ass eating', 'fisting', 'anal bleaching', etc. etc. and not have to fear that your thread was just going to get locked due to content. This caused the threads to be much more lively than anything you could find on other Prince websites.

If I could revise anything it would be:

1. That terrible chat interface. Why not just do away with it and create a skype 'room' or something.

2. The photo gallery. This I don't think will change. Prince is way too sue happy.

3. Moving org invasions back into general discussion. They are not PRINCE events. They are meetings of friends who frequent General Discussion, who often don't even like Prince and disdain his more devout fans.

SagsWay2low said:

I think we have to keep in mind a few things:

1) Ben is busy.. Very busy lately. This is a free site being offered by his limited resources for our entertainment.

2) Revising the org isn't so much about the interface, which I admit could use some tweeking, but about the community at large---this was the most vibrant Prince community on the Internet for as long as I can remember. This was due to the people here and the moderation. Prince.org is the only Prince website where you could talkl about 'ass eating', 'fisting', 'anal bleaching', etc. etc. and not have to fear that your thread was just going to get locked due to content. This caused the threads to be much more lively than anything you could find on other Prince websites.

If I could revise anything it would be:

1. That terrible chat interface. Why not just do away with it and create a skype 'room' or something.

2. The photo gallery. This I don't think will change. Prince is way too sue happy.

3. Moving org invasions back into general discussion. They are not PRINCE events. They are meetings of friends who frequent General Discussion, who often don't even like Prince and disdain his more devout fans.

Agree ~ always thought this myself

I don't understand - why would people have memberships here if they weren't into Prince?

No.

Spinlight said:

I don't understand - why would people have memberships here if they weren't into Prince?

This is a weird one, but several in GD (at the time the invasions were happening) were former fans who just didn't care for him anymore for one reason or another, but found the GD forum hllarious.

Others stumble upon it from other friends.

I know a few who discovered the politics forum and later migrated in to GD.

So, there are several folks, some of whom are/were quite popular in GD who aren't Prince fans.

twistee said:

1) The popularity of FB has me wanting to "like" certain comments that orgers post. I'd love to see a similar feature on the org.

Ben did update it a while back so that you can 'like' threads - I don't think that it's necessary to 'like' individual comments. Within the context of the thread itself would be cool I guess (ie. not a FB 'like', per se, but the same idea just within the thread), but certainly not a priority IMO.

Different orgers currently have different ways of showing their appreciation for a post (comments, animated gifs, emoticons, etc...) and I quite like that more individual approach anyway.

2) Chowhound has revamped its thread structure so that discussions are threaded - meaning you can easily see who's responded to exactly whom. Again, a nice feature.

Apart from potentially being a really substantial structural change (depending how the forum is setup behind the scenes) and thus being unlikely in the near future, I find threaded discussions can sometimes be quite labourious to wade through.

They're good if you just want to ignore any sidetracks in a thread, but they make more work for people that are interested in all the different branches. I quite like the simplicity of just scanning through a thread - you get a gist of who's responding to what based on who they are quoting and thus can skim past posts anyway.

The other thing is that sometimes people like to respond to more than one person in a post and that can get really confusing in a threaded discussion.

2b) In fact, Chow/Chowhound split not too long ago into an edited news/columns site (Chow) and a discussion site (Chowhound). Doesn't seem like a bad move, to me.

Much as I like this idea, I don't think the org is setup (on several levels) to be the news site you're describing. The front page has news articles and that's probably sufficient. There are other sites that complement Prince.org well in terms of providing a front-page overview of news and current events in the Prince world (something like Prince Vault comes to mind).

A very small and busy mod team are doing their best to stay on top of things like news as it is, so making that side of things a more prominent feature (requiring more regular and substantial input) could be a backwards step - ie. stale news sites are usually worse than none at all.

That said, the notion of some "org reporters" who are charged with writing up little news articles for the front page might have some promise. I know that currently, anyone can submit a story, but if certain members volunteered to regularly stay on top of the purple news, there may eventually be enough material to consider the sort of news mini-site that you suggest.

3) The level of moderation here may have been in line with web norms at one time, but (to me) seems a bit heavy now. Many sites are going with less moderation and a more 'speak-your-mind' approach. A lighter level of moderation would seem more in line with web norms. I'd prefer it.

This one is a little confusing to me. I think the moderation is pretty light at the moment, if primarily only due to the mods being a bit short-staffed. That might depend on which forums you're referring to though, I guess, as we all tend to frequent different ones. Certainly, I believe that members here are, for the most part, free to speak their minds, providing their minds aren't going for another poster's throat.

Obviously some aspects of moderation are unique to the situation, so regardless of what web norms are, anything that could draw the attention of Mr. Nelson's lawyers is still going to need to be monitored and moderated as necessary.

Despite not always agreeing with mod decisions, I'd hate to think what this place would degenerate into without them.

4) This may be trivial, but the number of animated gifs and emoticons seems very "web 2.0". I'd like to see the org move a bit more into current standards on this.

I do know who you mean (although I think it's even pre "web 2.0", whatever that really was). The thing is - and maybe this just makes me 'old' in web years - I really like that about this place

I like getting to know different orgers' online personas by what gifs and emoticons they use (or don't use) - of course, some overdo it, but that's par for the course.

I don't mean to sound so negative about your ideas, particularly given that I realise you just meant it as an initial brainstorming exercise. I guess I just feel that, of all the things that could be improved around here (mainly, as has been pointed out, to do with the community itself rather than the structure), these just don't strike me as priorities or even, in some cases, constructive

Regarding the chat interface, I've never been in there, mainly because anytime I look it seems deserted, but the idea of a Skype room appeals. I guess that doesn't even need to be managed by the org itself - it could just be a gathering of orgers, organised independently...which no doubt goes on already, come to think of it

Perhaps if one all-encompassing room (ie. open to all) was setup and became fairly stable, there could be a link on the front page where the chat login currently is.

There have been some good suggestions in this forum concerning the setup of the forums (ie. splitting M&M, etc...) and it sounds like those changes are currently under consideration. Other than that, I think the most constructive changes would be those that address existing problems, such as links not working as they should (yes, there's an easy workaround, but people post links without realising this) and some of the other glitches that members report here.

So... you want EVEN LESS moderation????

vitriol said:

So... you want EVEN LESS moderation????

yes...