Warfare HQ and Armchair General to join forces with new forum!

chrisvalla

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I'm all for it, O-club or not :thumb: (I'd just be griping about it for a bit, even if I was a member)... long-term it can only help enrich both groups. Short-term, we're bound to loose a few die-hards and... well, whatever the opposite is (live-softs?). If we lose a few stale fuddy-duddy's and kids who can't contol their enter key... oh well... there will be replacements and some of the 'softies' may even move on to become.... nevermind:bang:.

Sound charge and go forward....:horse:
 

gobeavs

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Originally posted by chrisvalla

Sound charge and go forward....:horse:
Amen. It seems we are all (both WFHQ and ACG) are worried about the same things. It will all work out in the end....hopefully :thumb:
 

Cheetah772

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Hello,

I think this has to do with politics. I've noticed that in here, it's a bit more conservative if only in foreign policy, while WarfareHQ is more decidedly liberal on most of political and military issues. Could that be the reason why some of WarfareHQ posters are afraid of the so-called merger of both forums?

Sorry, I didn't mean to bring politics into this discussion, but I'm just tossing in my 2 cents...that's all. Now, I suppose I'll have to run out of here. ;)

Dan
 

chrisvalla

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That's right take your common sensical middle-of-the-road-analytic approach and get lost... we don't allow for that here:laugh:

I think the middle-of-the-roaders try to keep the rapid right and loose left in their respective corners. Every now and then someone gets out and needs tranquilized:armed:... sometimes it takes a while... or a really good third-party-totally-off-subject post to get everyone to back down. I think Kerry's war record is probably the longest single political thread on here... apparently both sides had 30 years worth of stuff to copy/paste and type:rolleyes:

But yes, there is a pro-conservative slant on here given the military basis on the historical side as opposed to the gaming side of things... we'll just have to fix that in November...

VOTE FOR CURLY!
 

Richa333

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The merger should be fine. As a poster it'll be fun to meet some more thinkers.

Also we should remember that these forums are kept up by magazine subscriptions -- so sharing with this other forum should cut costs, thus allowing the forums to continue without popups or annoying ads in the forums themselves. (Although a few marginal ads wouldn't bug me too much.)

So if the merger helps this forum survive, given what must be a low magazine subscriber base - MERGE ON!

As far as the Free-Fire Zones: yeah, we need 'em, otherwise the primary threads go berserk & people leave. And we need the FFZ's moderated. AND Dr. S's creation of a "Jokes/Humor" sub-forum inside the FFZ was brilliant...helps keep the FFZ "on-topic" (whatever that may mean).

It'll be fun & interesting.
 
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Originally posted by richa333
AND Dr. S's creation of a "Jokes/Humor" sub-forum inside the FFZ was brilliant...helps keep the FFZ "on-topic" (whatever that may mean).
As much as I'd like to take the credit for this - I can't. It wasn't actually my idea, although I had a say in the discussions and I did push the implementation of it forward a bit, but other people thought it up.

Dr. S.
 
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Originally posted by Doctor Sinister
As much as I'd like to take the credit for this - I can't. It wasn't actually my idea, although I had a say in the discussions and I did push the implementation of it forward a bit, but other people thought it up.

Dr. S.
Dr. S., always properly footnoting his sources.............
 

Larkin

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Originally posted by gobeavs
Amen. It seems we are all (both WFHQ and ACG) are worried about the same things. It will all work out in the end....hopefully :thumb:
Well, hopefully it will improve the wargames forum on our own site. We hardly have anyone on it.
 

gobeavs

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Originally posted by Larkin
Well, hopefully it will improve the wargames forum on our own site. We hardly have anyone on it.
I beg to differ. The PC Wargaming forum is the 4th most popular board by post counts of all our forums.
 

Dr Zaius

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Interesting comments gentlemen. As some of you are already aware, I'm also one of the website editors here at Armchair General. I'm very active on the Warfare HQ forums as I run that site as a full time job, but I'm less active on these forums (there are only so many hours in a day).

You guys have already hit on some of the important and more interesting aspects of this proposed merger, thus I will leave it to you all to continue that debate. You're bringing out some good points and I would encourage you to continue to provide us with constructive feedback. It does help us.

Now, allow me to speak to some of the wargame-specific questions that have been raised here. To do that, I feel it would be appropriate for me to give you a tiny bit of background on WHQ and it's members.

Warfare HQ is currently about four years old and was founded by me. The staff consists of hand picked volunteers who have experience in their respective wargame. The Warfare HQ staff are not simply "mods" for the forum, far more importantly, they function as "Section Leaders" for our main website. They run entire portions of the website, set up and run major wargaming events, post news articles, AAR's, reviews, previews, and administer W.A.R.S. (the official WHQ ladder system for wargamers). In addition to this they frequently act as liaisons between our organization and developers/publishers. In short, they have more in common with the senior Armchair General staff than they do with the forum moderators here. Not better or worse, but they do have a somewhat different perspective in general.

The Warfare HQ membership has been carefully cultivated over the years, specifically for the purpose of mentoring and developing serious wargamers. There are many sites that cater to titles like Operation Flashpoint, Call of Duty, and Command & Conquer style games--but we aren't one of them.

All of our wargame forums are directly linked to sections on the main Warfare HQ webpage. We only support a very select group of hand picked games, but our aim is to be a premiere destination for these titles. The point is, our wargame sections consist of much more than a simple forum where people can talk about a particular title. We do not support a wargame unless it meets fairly specific criteria, has several dedicated volunteer staff members, a full section on the main webpage, W.A.R.S. support, etc. Our members are not your average wargamers, even among websites with a similar theme. A large percentage of our members have extensive experience in the military and a significant number of us (myself included) have actual combat experience or served as instructors. It's fair to say our members tend to be "hardcore" wargamers, better known as grognards. There are other wargame organizations out there who are more relaxed than we are and tend to stick to lighter wargame fare, but that's simply not our cup of tea. Warfare HQ is primarily oriented toward those wargamers with a serious interest in military history and tactics.

Okay, enough on that.

How would this merger work? In short, I am the chief architect of the Warfare HQ forums, although I am keenly interested in constructive feedback from both the staff and the general membership. If I didn't listen to suggestions and ideas, WHQ never would have become as popular as it is. I layout the structure and organization, I am the graphic artist, and I have the final word on the overall direction of the organization at WHQ. Brian, Eric and I have known each other for quite a while and have a very close working relationship. We're pretty much on the same sheet of music when it comes to wargaming, in fact, Brian and Eric met at Warfare HQ and things have simply progressed from there.

Now some of this may smack of elitism to some, and it might be fair to say that is true to a small degree. As I said, the Warfare HQ crowd are not your average wargamers as many have or are commanding military units from around the world. In contrast to ACG, we also have a very high percentage of Australians, Canadians, and Europeans among our ranks (about 50% to be exact). This does tend to add a very different character to our daily discussions. Warfare HQ was not created for the purpose of trying to be all things to all people, rather it was tailored for a specific design. It is fair to say the members there would react very negatively if they perceived I was attempting to "water down" our primary mission.

The announcement of the forum merge was authored by both Brian and myself. In hindsight, we may have miscalculated as to how much enthusiasm there would be for such a merger as we are currently discussing. We could have possibly gone about it in a different manner, but it's really a moot point now. The main question is: will Warfare HQ and Armchair General compliment each other, or will there be competing interests. That's a very difficult question and the answer appears to be somewhat more elusive than we originally thought. While we are sorting through all of this, we are asking the members on both site to please refrain from adopting a "us vs. them" attitude. That will not be constructive no matter which way things go.

As to the forum structure itself, we do indeed have a draft design (that took about three months to brainstorm), but it is not set in stone. In short, everything would be located within a single VBulletin, but major areas of interest would be divided by category. Due to the very large number of sub-forums that currently make up both ACG and WFQ, there would indeed be some heavy duty consolidation that would occur. We had the same problem at Warfare HQ, and I have done much over the last several months to restructure our forums and consolidate things with an eye toward the eventual merge. People don't like change, and as I have been running forums for about 6 years now, I'm well aware that not everyone would be pleased with the new structure. However, there simply is no way to change things while keeping them the same!

You feedback is useful to us and is helping us to determine the best direction to proceed.
 
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Originally posted by richa333
The merger should be fine. As a poster it'll be fun to meet some more thinkers.

It'll be fun & interesting.
So what is the minimum requirement on the "Super I.Q. Test" to be considered a thinker?
 

gobeavs

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Thanks for the post Don. I feel a little easier now... We are all probably just anxious about nothing.
 

gobeavs

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Originally posted by Doctor Sinister
Phew, Don didn't mention the cyborg plans. Looks like we got away with it everybody.
Wooohooo! Does that mean we can proceed to Phase 2? Or have you already done that?

BTW: I think these types of posts are what miffs the folks over at WFHQ. It seems like WFHQ is more of a forum, and we are more of a community. I am not a member of WFHQ, so I don't have first hand knowledge of this, I'm just basing it off of what some people have said in the merger thread about us. Correct me if I am wrong.
 

chrisvalla

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Remember they're the crafty type... not casual wargamers... they could be baiting you Dr. S.... and just when you think you've got them lined up for cyborg duty... all your plans backfire...:scream: might want to hold off for just a bit...:whistle:
 

Richa333

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Originally posted by Lance Williams
So what is the minimum requirement on the "Super I.Q. Test" to be considered a thinker?
In my book, anyone attempting to use their brain to create an argument with some basis in rationality, backed up by what they think is a fact, qualifies as a "thinker" -- thus 99.9% of all posters to ACG have passed the "Super IQ Test"!
:cool:
 
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Originally posted by richa333
In my book, anyone attempting to use their brain to create an argument with some basis in rationality, backed up by what they think is a fact, qualifies as a "thinker" -- thus 99.9% of all posters to ACG have passed the "Super IQ Test"!
:cool:
I would agree with that take on things, ...................especially since the lowest score any of the regulars had was 126.
 
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