thread: 2005-06-16 : The Forge and Me
On 2005-06-21, Adam Dray wrote:
I see a number of problems, a gap, and a solution.Problem: Many people are not clear what "The Theory" is on the Forge.
Problem: There are just too many posts on the Forge to figure out what "The Theory" is by reading post archives.
Problem: The rate of posting by uninformed readers outstrips the rate of posting by informed readers who can correct them.
Problem: The open web forum medium only makes the previously stated problems worse, though it's a great forum for chatting and finding likeminded people.
Gap: Web forums are not how the scientific community establishes theory. It might be, in some limited capacity, how theories (like sausages) are made but it's not how they're established.
Solution: Create a refereed game design journal, published on the web once every 3 months.
The informed Forgeites (really, aren't they Gamesmiths?) can review submitted material. Yeah, people who don't get selected will get pissed off and they'll make all the claims about elitism that people make today anyway. Because this is a web journal, however, there's not much limit on page count. We can publish anything that has merit.
The body of letters and articles will become "The Theory." Yes, we have a process that is very similar with the Forge Articles section but we can do more with this.
We can even use a moderated forum for the publication. In other words, only reviewers can post but anyone can comment. It focuses attention about "The Theory" on a small number of posts. People can still make sausage in the other forums but the finished sausages are showcased in the Reviewed Articles forum.
The biggest problem is getting informed posters to contribute their time (and political capital) to an endeavor and suffer the slings and arrows that come with wielding authority.
adam@legendary.org
