Pastelland Forum

Anteroinen wrote:It's not all there. I did go through and WayBack a large-ish batch of it back in the day, from page 99 onwards or so, so about 30% might be there. With that thread the WayBack search is going to be trickiest, because WayBack machine treats the pinned threads on different subforums as separate addresses, so there might be a bit under f=3 and a bit in f=9 and a bit in f=11. That said, f=9 should be the most complete one.

Sublevel 108 wrote:f=9? f=11? Forum general folders and subfolders? You checked if the whole forum is saved to WayBackMachine, Anti? And general discussion folder, aka f=9, is the most complete?
I was considering only archives of missing MAT thread, but it would be cool if the whole forum would be saved to possibly eternal archive of internmet.

Apoc wrote: 2018 Forum Proposal

Introduction
The contents of this proposal are aimed toward any and all current members of Pastel Forum. Conversations and thoughts offered offsite and brought up on the forum are always appreciated, but decision-making should occur on the forum, ideally in this thread.

I've been on Pastel Forum for about four and a half years and have had a lot of great conversations here and made a few good internet friends because of it. For the past year or so, as forum activity has decreased slowly since coming off its last high point from the Submachine 10 release in late 2015, I have been active every so often but consider my time on the forum drawing to a close. As anyone can tell you, I have definitely stated intentions of leaving multiple times and have never been quite successful, as I always find a reason to come back (ref: CAD's Boomerang Law). I've also been finicky about considering being finished with spending time on the Submachine Wiki as well.

Throughout this year I've come to realize that a main reason why I have trouble moving on from these two places (never with any ill will, of course) is that I've mentally adopted these two websites as a sort of virtual "pet", in a sense. Because I've contributed large amounts to the conversations and information pages, there's been a sense of responsibility of maintenance and security that comes from visiting them. This has been much more pronounced on the Wiki due to my administrator role and due to the amount of time spent specifically reorganizing information to make a more coherent and up-to-date website that can be more easily navigable. There are two major tasks left that I've decided to chip away at before I can close my mental book on that website; that being the removal of walkthroughs from the mainspace as well as taking theories out of the mainspace and transcribing them here.

For the forum, after seeing it slowly fall into disuse with the rise of other platforms that community members are much more apt to use such as Skype and Discord, I've come to the conclusion that the bbpress format is just not popular enough to warrant everyone's attention. I feel it's sort of become dated in a sense due to how its structure doesn't allow for the as-quick flow of information and communication like these instant messaging features of Skype and Discord do. I still find the forum to be an extremely important part of the community, and I think it always should be treated as such. It sustained the community through years and years of discussions stemming back to its beginnings in 2005-06 and has seen many successful generations of members and versions of itself. Most importantly, it's a library of the thoughts and collective intelligence shared by the community over the years, archived and searchable to such lengths that Discord and Skype will never be able to match.

Therefore, before I'm willing to close my personal book regarding the forum I would like to offer one last attempt to revitalize it for people to visit and appreciate in the future. Parts of the forum have become unwieldy and flooded with disorganized conversations that I feel have the combined effect of drowning each other out. If there was a new system we could use to re-categorize threads and topics, I think new potential could be gained to introduce fresh conversation to the website and continue to build on its legacy.

The forum is an impressive temple, but its bricks are scattered all over the ground from years of erosion. If we can polish the bricks up and find new places to put them, maybe we can introduce back some of the shine the forum used to have.

I will now discuss an overview of how I would like threads to be categorized in the forum, as well as touch a bit on stronger rules for what I think each subforum should be used for. A full list is avaliable at the Drive link above.

the Submachines
I think this subforum doesn't need any changing. Submachine is the most successful franchise in Pastel history, and as long as it's used for containing core discussions for each new release I think it's serving its full purpose.

Daymare Town
Much like Submachine, DayMare Town has been the second most popular Pastel property, and it's always fostered a good deal of discussion to go along with it. If this continues to function like its Sub counterpart, I see nothing I'd like changed.

other games & comics
I would like several changes to be made here. This subforum contains threads that have overwhelmingly been for any other Pastel-related game, as well as a few threads related to Mateusz Skutnik's comics. Within this forum I would like there to be several points of re-organization, which I believe are possible to achieve through extended conversation with Vortex. This will introduce the concept of the "sub-subforum", which is just adding another level of sub-forums past the main six.

1. Rename and re-define the subforum. I believe the sole purpose of this sub-forum should be to discuss properties solely related to Mateusz Skutnik and/or Pastel games. There have been only a few threads that were started here that weren't specifically about MS/Pastel games, and I would like those moved to new locations detailed in the Excel doc. This should be an exclusive forum for the above properties and should be renamed to "other Pastel games and comics" to reflect that.
2. Create a sub-subforum for 10 Gnomes threads. This series is quite extensive, and even though it hasn't garnered the most discussion, new games are continuously being added via two different projects by Mat (one finished) and there are enough threads that I think they should be grouped together.
3. Create a sub-subforum for Covert Front threads. Even though CF only has four games, it has been a very popular game series. It is deserving of its own grouping of threads, though I don't think it has enough power to warrant being a main subforum.

The rest of the threads should exist on the same level as the two new sub-subforums. All other details and minor requests including renaming/moving/combining threads with others can be found in the Excel doc.

theories and suggestions
This subforum has been a hotspot for me and other Submachine fans for several years, and I think there are changes that should be introduced, especially with the Wiki decision to remove theories not found in the Submachine Universe.

1. Create a sub-subforum for theory threads. This should be the place where users theorize about Submachine and other Pastel games. Each user should have one thread that they use as their own space for all their work so as not to clutter the subforum with too many threads with one theory or thought each. I've detailed which threads I think ought to be combined under one user in the Excel doc. This sub-subforum is where many of the Wiki theories will end up.
2. Define the purpose of other threads in the subforum. Other threads should be used specifically for suggestions about current/future games by Mateusz Skutnik. This means topics that are suggested improvements/changes to the games, or suggestions for additions to future installments. Anything that amounts to discussing the games in a theoretical manner should be directed to the theory threads.
3. Move Wiki threads to General Discussion. The Wiki threads are about discussing actions on a separate website, and should be considered as a related Pastel topic. They should be placed in General Discussions "Pastel Topics" sub-subforum (discussed below).

The rest of the threads should exist on the same level as the new sub-subforum. All other details and minor requests including renaming/moving/combining threads with others can be found in the Excel doc.

general discussion
This is the one where I feel the most work should be done. Something to notice in the Excel doc with this subforum and the others is that I am setting a lot of threads aside to discuss their status as either being absorbed into the Off Topic thread or be deleted altogether. A lot of these threads I feel carry conversations that were never fully developed and don't deserve their own thread. However I couldn't figure out for myself whether I would want them saved for history's sake or not. There are some threads which I believe should definitely be saved as a combination with the Off Topic thread. There are also some threads which I think definitely should be deleted as they serve absolutely no purpose, have no replies or content in them, or are created to negatively impact the community. I expect this will be discussed at length among us.

1. Create a sub-subform for essential threads. These are the broad-topic threads which have been the central focal points of the subforum over the years and will act as good starting places for new members to get involved.
2. Create a sub-subforum for Pastel topics. These are threads that focus on the games and creations of MS and Pastel games but don't necessarily fit into the Sub/DMT/other games subforums. I also think the Wiki threads should go here.
3. Create a sub-subforum for birthdays. There are a lot of birthday threads, and condensing them in a sub-subforum will make them easier to manage.
4. Create a sub-subforum for collaborative projects. I'm defining a "Collaboration" as any thread that houses a conversation in where it's driven forward by multiple members of the community. Examples include forum stories most prominently, as well as contests, puzzles, and other games thought up.
5. Create a sub-subforum for personal projects. We are a creative bunch, and we always have personal projects that we are working on that we want to share with others. They should not be lost among several pages of unrelated topics. Whether that's collections of drawings, writings, or anything else that shows a creative aspect of who we are (minus theorizing), they should have their own spot.
6. Create a sub-subforum for other interests. These are where the threads about specific interests as well as discussions of media forms like books, movies, TV shows, etc. should end up.

Apart from the previous two subforums, I would like the GenDis subforum to not have many leftover threads.

A' L L U K I N

I think this should be a subforum or sub-subforum in whatever classification we decide to use for personal projects. Even though it is a project created by the admin, I don't think it belongs on the same level and apart from the other main subforums.

Other concerns
There are a great deal of threads that I feel should go into new threads that would take the form of the thread that was known as "M-A-T" where MS would bring things up to us that we would talk about with him. I will outline them in future replies in this thread as well as in the live stream video.

Please, please talk about this and contribute your opinions. I think this is going to make the forum a much nicer place for people to visit and take part in in the future.