SixPrizes.com Pokemon TCG Forum Info

Agreed, quality over quantity. If someone doesn’t have anything useful to post it’s better that they don’t post anything at all.

I don’t know what forum software pokegym uses but I do know there are plenty of FREE forum packages. So in my opinion there is no reason to spend $200+ on it.
Have a look at http://www.simplemachines.org. I used their forum software in the past and it’s really solid.

I appreciate your quality over quantity sentiment but there is no reason free forum software can’t be a part of that ;)

There is no hands down decision for this. I’m not sure if I would like the site how it is now or what you are planning, but I know that I don’t want to see this site end up like Pokegym, Pokebeach or 99% of message boards out there. Some people will take this change as elitist, but it is the opposite. If people are familliar with the aforementioned websites they will understand.

I think you’ve come up with a really good compromise Adam.

I’ll be honest: Everything you said on this vid sounds terrible. Rep systems are an abortion of a forum feature. A 6P forum will not be anything like Pokegym or Pokebeach, those are huge sites with a highly varying userbase, from the noobs to the video gamers to the seniors who think they figured it all out to the good players, etc. A 6P forum will have at most 200 members, and there’ll be hardly any noobs, as the first place they will go will be Pokegym/Pojo/Pokebeach, not a more specialized forum. If you want your tiny little heavily moderated caucus of censoring, that’s fine, but I’d rather be on HT where there’s absolute freedom of speech and actual good players instead of a mini-gathering of self-censoring semi-good Pokegymmers.

The rep. System i like is an awesome idea, i never knew a thing lie that existed. wish every forum was like that

Remind me and my 20 friends to negref someone we don’t like so they can get auto-banned.

:/

I think restricting membership but allowing anyone to view the forum is a good compromise.

I’d just like to voice my opinion on the side of forgetting about a forum. The site is great how it is, and it really stands out from the structure of other Pokemon communities as well as present a nice medium for articles and commentary.

I’d still come and chat if you moved over to forum-based structure, but I prefer the site as is Adam.

The only benefit I see to moving to a forum is that you can easily go to the “hot” articles about what’s popular and talked about, but I think there are other ways to get the same result.

I was assuming that the current structure would remain essentially the same, and the forum would be an addition. If the forum is going to replace the current format, I’m with nardd – don’t do it.

I think the forum would be an additional outlet of Pokemon TCG discussion apart from the current format, if I’m understanding correctly. So there would still be the “daily” posts that can be discussed everyday, but there would also be a forum where members could discuss more ideas as they please. I think the forum system adam suggests would work pretty well to reduce spam and useless posts we’re used to seeing on other sites.

Ok I’m going to respond to comments now…

@emile: I looked at simplemachines briefly, but most places say that vbulletin is the best software out there. This board is going to be around for a long time, so I’d like to have the best interface possible. That’s just how I do things. I appreciate the suggestion though. :)

@MOTL and anyone who doesn’t dig the idea…

You have to understand that making the message board available for everyone to sign up and be a member immediately will not make it any different than the other forums out there.

6P gets a lot more visitors than you think it does. There will be just as much spam as all the other boards out there.

The rep system and the exclusivity of getting accepted are the things that will keep it high quality. Having pressure to post something of value is a good thing! Why do you think so many people spam on the other message boards? They know there is no backlash to them posting junk.

I am not even sure if I will make is so that you are automatically banned if you have too much neg rep, but let’s be honest: If you have a lot of neg rep, you obviously aren’t contributing to the board and it would probably be best if you just read what others have to post.

Sure people could gang up on someone, I know it’s happened to me on a message board before. When that happens, it really makes you think twice about posting, which is good! On that message board, I always make sure to post something of value, hoping to get plus repped and to avoid getting neg repped. I’ve gone from being in the red to full rep.

This will be an interesting social experiment, if anything. I’m curious to see how it pans out.

One other aspect of the board I forgot to mention is that I am going to limit the number of categories. For sure I’ll have Deck Discussion, Single Card/Card Combos, Tournament Talk, Online Play, and General TCG news, but that might be it. No random topic, no video game talk, no trading, just TCG specific stuff. I don’t want controversial subjects to come up in a random topic center, plus they are usually full of spam topics anyway. I want to keep a focus on the TCG.

Not sure when I’ll be able to get this going right now. Maybe around Christmas because I should have the money by then to purchase the software.

[WELL, THE EDITING TOOL IS REALLY MESSED UP, AND I CANT DELETE IT FOR EITHER REASON.... SO HERES THE ORIGINAL COMMENT + THE EDIT]

One thing first that kinda irks me…
If you say that you feel ashamed to present a video after J-witts [which apparently has quite set the standard on quality on 6P], then why not set back and try to follow a new way to regulate and improve your video feeds? Ill be honest, everything you said in front of your whiteboard could had also been said on a little notice post here [Faster distribution of information rather than making us wait]. Ill be honest too, I closed the video at minute 4 after knowing what most of the discussion is… It just felt like a rant to me.

Short version: Write down what you plan to say on the site, post it on the site. Bigger articles that could use more attention or we could check when we arent on 6p [via YouTube subscription], could use the video option.

On to the forums idea…
Limited Registration? Sounds like a good idea… in theory. You just said that only 8 people have completed a survey, what survey? I didnt saw it on the main site and if this forum place is gonna be limited, why would I bother checking it out? Notice how your audience limits itself when it knows its limited?

Rep System… Read that comment above you, the one by Matthew R. Groups of friends could easily form a Mob [HAHAHAHAH, XD] and Neg*Ref people they dont like… So we are already planning to negate people we simply cant give a second look? Like Noobs who post something wrong or are simply annoying? Thats what MODS are for [and that little REPORT Button on most forums as well].

Think about it, If you limit your forums… Ill just go to bigger places that are unrestricted [Gym, Beach] and are better sanctioned. The 6P Crowd is mostly on those places, so I dont miss much… I am just here for the articles and J-Wittz’s Videos… What can you offer me that will make me want to come back and join the site in a more dedicated manner? What are the perks? [And no, Contests to find Collector cards isnt the ONLY way...]

PS – You can find FREE Movie editor software around, its just a matter of asking people around… [Avidemux, TMPGenc and MediaCoder are my favorites... Theres also the way of the Pirate to get some other stuff... But thats another story]

I can see your point in not wanting everyone to be able to join and post immediately, but I also don’t want it to come off as some kind of elitist forum, like some Team forums do.

Maybe simply implementing a waiting period of a couple of weeks to a month before a new member can make a post would work to weed out the people with nothing to contribute. Normally, they don’t last more than a couple weeks, anyway, since they just disappear and others take their place, but this could just stem the flow to a trickle.

I am very interested in seeing how this will turn out, and I’ll help in any way I can. This is one of my preferred discussion sites, since we have a higher average intelligence level than sites like ‘Gym or ‘Beach, and I don’t want to see it go the route of the n00b.

For what it’s worth Adam, I kinda like the campy videos that introduce news topics like this one.

If you’re looking for a social experiment, working with the ref system, hide everyone’s names. This way someone will only get props/slops based on what they contribute not who they are.

No forum. Six prize should just focus on doing what they are doing well and make it better. There are plenty of forums out there already.

I will not go into the logic thats between posting a video and posting a simple note on the website for such a simple notice… But I can guarantee that a note will be faster because I dont have to wait and let the video load [Unless I have fast enough internet to stream it directly]. I dont see how Word Press makes this “Blog” hard to update =D

As for the forum… I still dont think that a Rep system will work, or a kind of system that guarantees some sort of report system [I have helped set up, program and customize forums before] its simply backlashes at a later date. Also, just because some people who are regulars here seem nice and polite doesnt means that there will not be nasty people out there [And trust me, I hear some of the stuff that the Gym has and you dont need ANY of that =D]

Now, a ref system for comments… Hmmmm… Maaaybe.

[One last thing, I misheard 8 instead of 80... That wouldnt had happened if I was reading an update notice]

6P is the main site I use because were creative were not like the gym were everyone sees a deck and copies it or just posting almost the exact same articles. Were also open to ideas and most sites say this is wat it is and im not doing it. Like i was trying to get a kid to play speed stadium in a scizor deck and he wouldn’t even test it yet he kept complaining about dead hands. But best of all we are a discussion group so we see ideas and make ourselves better players because we help each other. The only reason I have accounts on pokebeach and gym is for the deck support.

I’ll start off by saying thanks for the props, man! As most of you know, moving from a twice a week to a once a week format means no video today :(, but the song will be a fun thing I’ll have up late tonight/tomorrow to hold you guys over. I know Adam might feel a little “embarrassed” posting a video after my productions, but than again, I sit in my room all day writing and talking about pokemon, while Adam spends his time managing the site. Without his easel I have nowhere to show my videos! I personally like to see Adam time to time, seeing as he is the bigtime regulator of all that goes on– whether rehearsed or not, I like seeing the good ol’ face of pokegym make his way to the site :D.

I don’t know how responsive I am to the idea of a forum. I guess it depends on what you’re trying to get out of the website. I’ll withhold a huge rant about how I feel on this one because my next Profit episode is all about the TCG website experience. I’ll talk about the gritty details then!

But I will say this–different players come for different reasons to the TCG websites. I personally don’t know what I’d do with a SP forum even if we had one. I like the format of having one or two main posts to look at and discuss on the big front page. That’s why I click on my little 6P button on my browser shortcuts every day! This site is incredibly slick and clean, and I always recommend it first to my pokefriends and people jumping into the game. I personally get the most out of this website the way it is right now. In the same way, I ONLY use pokebeach for its news feed- and that’s why I hit the pokebeach button every day on my browser. They have a relatively large forum and I don’t even use that ever. If I feel the need to ask a forum-based question, I take it to pokegym. I’ll also check pokegym if I want to know what’s winning the current tournaments, but I don’t constantly refresh pokegym because it doesn’t offer the same news of pokegym or large, quality articles that I get every day from here. It’s some kind of obscure poke-triforce for me.

Now, that being said, I know that Adam is trying hard to create a quality forum by installing the reps system, and I definitely do understand where he is coming from. If he wants to experiment with this, I think we can all at least give it a try. I definitely give props for trying to transfer the quality of six prizes into the normally quality-lacking forum atmosphere. I’d definitely pool my time to moderate if we do put the experiment through–I freakin’ love what this site is trying to do and I’ll support any wacky idea adam comes up with. Okay. . . maybe not ANY idea. . .

The idea is to create more discussion and bring more people to six prizes. That I think is something we can all agree is a good thing. That’s where this place is the tops– it has the friendliest community and the highest average total of brain cells per player :P. If you’ve been viewing Six Prizes on a daily basis, I encourage you to take your hand at writing up an article for the site. It can be about a deck, a combo you tried, even a well-written question you have that you’d like a community of well-spoken and intellectual individuals to respond to. If we saw a new article from a new poster every single day, we’d get a great variety of input, and more attention will naturally be drawn to the site.

La la la, looks like I’ve posted a large garble of text in traditional J-Wittz fashion! This is why I do videos, folks, and even then I talk too long in those! I hope 6P well and I support it all the way :D

Hey Adam i think somethings up with WordPress, it doesn’t give me a link to post anything, no -edit post- button, nada, any reason why this is happening?