Signing off USENET

With 2011, I'll no longer be reading this (or any other) USENET group. I'll still be on boardgamegeek, so feel free to post rules questions there. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/forum/31522/vampire-the-eternal-struggle/rules

[ quoted text not captured ] > http://www.boardgamegeek.com/forum/31522/vampire-the-eternal-struggle... Well, I guess that's that then. How's the new VEKN discussion forum coming together? I suppose we could all just migrate over there. I realize that BGG has the advantage of having visibility for people who aren't already drinking the kool-aid, but personally, I really dislike the interface and flashing adds and whatnot. -Peter

LSJ wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] and that's just the sort of push i needed to get signed up there. account created, vtes section bookmarked, forum thread rss feeds added to my blackberry's rss rader. :) -- salem (replace 'hotmail' with 'gmail' to email)

[ quoted text not captured ] > http://www.boardgamegeek.com/forum/31522/vampire-the-eternal-struggle... May we ask why? New Year's Resolution? Tech change that makes it less palatable? Changing role wrt VTES? Jeff

>> With 2011, I'll no longer be reading this (or any other) USENET group. >May we ask why? That's exactly what I'd have asked too. And in addition: Is BGG as reliable, archiveable, searcheable and universally accessable like USENET uses to be? This kind of feels like a bad sign to me. Marks an end of an era, even. <big exhale> Cheers Alf <insert clever quotation here>

[ quoted text not captured ] > http://www.boardgamegeek.com/forum/31522/vampire-the-eternal-struggle/rules Not even via Google Groups? Sad news indeed; the way Usenet does threading in discussions, with such a variety of front-end views, is unmatched. Finding any official rulings on BGG, as much as I love the site, is going to be difficult. I guess this leaves floppyzedolfin as the definitive source of information on the newsgroup... Will you still be reachable over email for questions? Are they letting you keep the "vtesrep" address?

Jozxyqk wrote: > LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: >> With 2011, I'll no longer be reading this (or any other) USENET group. >> I'll still be on boardgamegeek, so feel free to post rules questions >> there. > >> http://www.boardgamegeek.com/forum/31522/vampire-the-eternal- struggle/rules > > Not even via Google Groups? this question strikes me as odd. I guess Scott's situation might be that he doesn't want to bother with running newsreader software anymore, but I suspect it's more just to do with consolidating where he spends his time, and if he's already at BGG for other stuff, he may as well stick to that for VTES. suggesting he might use a non-optimal way to interface with this usenet group instead of a better method (newsreader) seems to miss the point. > Sad news indeed; the way Usenet does threading in discussions, with > such a variety of front-end views, is unmatched. Finding any official > rulings on BGG, as much as I love the site, is going to be difficult. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/spsearch.php?objectid=2122&objecttype=thing&q=&searchauthor=%22L. +Scott+Johnson%22&forumid=66&searchfield=all&displayresults=excerpt&B1=Submit Use the 'search' button while in the 'rules' sub-forum of the vtes forum. Put "L. Scott Johnson" in the username field. Although I do love usenet, the searchability is more google's doing than usenet being cool. You could probably search BGG using a custom google search too. eg: If I want to find rulings on 'weapon' at BGG just put all this in to google: site:boardgamegeek.com "L. Scott Johnson" "Vampire: The Eternal Struggle" weapon could do a little mix and matching to pull results from both the usenet group and BGG with a little bit of effort. Someone might even be nice enough to put together a webscript to do it all and all you have to do is enter the keywords for the ruling you're looking for. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Dec 29, 3:18 am, Alf <tree.beard.DO.NOT.SPAM...@gmx.de> wrote: > >> With 2011, I'll no longer be reading this (or any other) USENET group. > >May we ask why? > > That's exactly what I'd have asked too. And in addition: > > Is BGG as reliable, archiveable, searcheable and universally > accessable like USENET uses to be? Yes, Yes, Yes, and moreso, yes. It also has less spam, more signal, and admins to cut down on the flaming trolls.

salem <kell...@hotmail.com> wrote: > Although I do love usenet, the searchability is more google's doing than > usenet being cool. I wasn't talking so much about searchability, as threadability. BGG discussions are difficult to branch off into tangential interesting topics that end up leading to rulings unrelated to the original question, which happens all the time on the newsgroup. I'm sure we'll survive. I'm just resistant to change. Get off my lawn.

On 29 Dez., 14:04, Jozxyqk <jfeue...@eecs.tufts.edu> wrote: > I'm sure we'll survive. > I'm just resistant to change. > Get off my lawn. ya know, there's a new cool lawn, just over there :-) -Alf

On Dec 29, 8:04 am, Jozxyqk <jfeue...@eecs.tufts.edu> wrote: > I'm sure we'll survive. > I'm just resistant to change. > Get off my lawn. Yeah, I just went over there to poke around based on this discussion, and man, it is slow and flashy and klunky and each page open takes a significant amount of time to open. I don't know that I can stomach the interface. VEKN discussion forum? Anyone? -Peter

On Dec 29, 9:10 am, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > Yeah, I just went over there to poke around based on this discussion, > and man, it is slow and flashy and klunky and each page open takes a > significant amount of time to open. I don't know that I can stomach > the interface. Aggh! So I was just giving BGG a whirl. And looking at the VTES forums from the link LSJ posted above. And decided to sign in, in case I wanted to post something (having a pre-existing registration). So when I sign in, it takes me out of the VTES forum and just leaves me on a blank page. And I just spent 10 minutes trying to get back to the VTES forum and failing at every turn. Except when I go back to a page in my history, except when I do that, it un-logs me in. That place. It is a pain in the ass. Someone. Please. VEKN forum? Ready to go? Anyone? -Peter

[ quoted text not captured ] So you're saying we can have a normal discussion there, unlike the threadjacking flamefest that used to be "Changes in the Game"?

El 29/12/2010 15:23, Peter D Bakija escribió: [...] > > That place. It is a pain in the ass. > > Someone. Please. VEKN forum? Ready to go? Anyone? The VEKN forum is fully operational: http://rating.vekn.de/index.php/forum/ -- Damnans http://www.almadrava.net/damnans http://www.vtes.net http://es.groups.yahoo.com/group/vteshispania/ http://iuturna.sorcery.net (IRC channel: #vtes)

[ quoted text not captured ] I, for one, welcome our new BGG overlords. Let's not continue to hide away in our own corner of the internet. If you want VTES to continue more than another year or two, bring it to a high-traffic area *with a high concentration of people likely to try the game*. It's about damn time. -- John McGlynn those vekn forums look pretty cool, too

[ quoted text not captured ] That's one of the "pro"s, yes. Well, people can still threadjack and flame, but there would be consequences for that content-free sociopathic stuff, since there are moderators/admins on BGG, unlike the free-form peer-based USENET.

On Dec 29, 9:10 am, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] Meh. I don't notice any slow-loading there, but you can always just sign up (subscribe) to the vtes forum and get emailed links to new topics (and new posts to topics you ID as being interested in).

On Wed, 29 Dec 2010 06:23:17 -0800 (PST), Peter D Bakija wrote: >So I was just giving BGG a whirl. And looking at the VTES forums from >the link LSJ posted above. And decided to sign in, in case I wanted to >post something (having a pre-existing registration). So when I sign >in, it takes me out of the VTES forum and just leaves me on a blank >page. And I just spent 10 minutes trying to get back to the VTES forum >and failing at every turn. Except when I go back to a page in my >history, except when I do that, it un-logs me in. >That place. It is a pain in the ass. Agreed. To get logged in usefully, I follow these steps: 1) Hit bookmark: http://boardgamegeek.com/forums/thing/2122/vampire-the-eternal-struggle 2) Login 3) Hit bookmark. http://boardgamegeek.com/forums/thing/2122/vampire-the-eternal-struggle Its always been a useless bit of extra work that competent forum software can handle, i.e. log you in and get you back to the page that caused you to want to log in....

The Lasombra wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] after logging in, back button to the page you started on followed by 'refresh' should also work. I haven't tested it on BGG, but it's worked for me on other forums. [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] running adblock in either firefox or google chrome should also help with page speed. I turned if off to see what the site looks like without it and it gets pretty messy. But with adblock on, it's a fairly reasonable site. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Dec 29, 12:28 pm, Damnans <damnansv...@ono.com> wrote: > The VEKN forum is fully operational: > > http://rating.vekn.de/index.php/forum/ Hmm. Well, there you go. The VEKN forum has the advantages of being much more reasonable to look at, not plagued by flashing ads for tic- tac-toe and pancakes, and much more reasonably organized than the BGG forum. But is a place that will only be frequented by people who are already drinking the kool-aid. The BGG forum has the advantages of being a place that is visible to new/dabbling/possibly interested players. And is where LSJ has stated he is going to frequent. Given the choice, I'd lean in the direction of the VEKN forum for completely aesthetic reasons. But if that is shooting ourselves in the foot, the BGG is the way to go. Gah. -Peter

Peter D Bakija wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] I've signed up to both to see which way the wind blows. one thing I found with BGG is you need "geek gold" to upload an avatar. I have no idea what that is, but it seems to be tied to how much realworld money you donate to BGG? [ quoted text not captured ]

salem <kell...@hotmail.com> wrote: >one thing I found with BGG is you need "geek gold" to upload an avatar. I >have no idea what that is, but it seems to be tied to how much realworld >money you donate to BGG? No, you can earn GeekGold by contributing content. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/GeekGold Many of the rewards are approved by admins, rather than automatic, to prevent you gaming the system, I guess. e.g. getting points for uploading useful pictures is good, but uploading every V:TES card individually probably isn't what they're after. You can _also_ gain it through money. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D YOU ARE IN ERROR. EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 NO-ONE IS SCREAMING. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

[ quoted text not captured ] Please note that there is a new V:EKN website: http://www.vekn.net It is close to the public release, but forum is already fully functional. While BGG is a good idea and will also spread visibility of the game, I think and suggest that the core of exisiting players will find themselves there and information will flow between BGG/vekn.net and newsgroup. Johannes Walch Chairman of the V:EKN

On Dec 30, 2:44 am, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > salem <kella...@hotmail.com> wrote: > >one thing I found with BGG is you need "geek gold" to upload an avatar. I > >have no idea what that is, but it seems to be tied to how much realworld > >money you donate to BGG? > > No, you can earn GeekGold by contributing content. > > http://www.boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/GeekGold > > Many of the rewards are approved by admins, rather than automatic, to > prevent you gaming the system, I guess. e.g. getting points for > uploading useful pictures is good, but uploading every V:TES card > individually probably isn't what they're after. > > You can _also_ gain it through money. And you can get GG through tips (every post has a built-in tip jar, so that other users can tip content they deem extra worthy). But you can also use Boardgamegeek with no avatar and no GG (just like Google Groups :-) ).

James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > You can _also_ gain [GG] through money. If you're willing to give real money to get GG, now would be a good time to do it. If you donate $15+ during their Support Drive (before the end of the year/week), you'll get a huge bonus of GG.

On Dec 30, 12:16 am, salem <kella...@hotmail.com> wrote: > I've signed up to both to see which way the wind blows. > > one thing I found with BGG is you need "geek gold" to upload an avatar. I > have no idea what that is, but it seems to be tied to how much realworld > money you donate to BGG? Yeah, I discovered that last night. And then spent 15 minutes digging around trying to find information on what is or is not "geek gold" or how to get it. And couldn't find any information at all. And again got irritated. -Peter

[ quoted text not captured ] http://www.boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/GeekGold

On Dec 30, 5:03 am, Johannes Walch <johannes.wa...@vekn.de> wrote: > http://www.vekn.net > > It is close to the public release, but forum is already fully functional. > > While BGG is a good idea and will also spread visibility of the game, I > think and suggest that the core of exisiting players will find > themselves there and information will flow between BGG/vekn.net and > newsgroup. Well, I guess what the big determinant is is if LSJ will frequent that forum (as opposed to just BGG) and if that forum will become the default location for posting tournament reports for the TWDA or not. Having to navigate between two forums (VEKN and BGG) is less optimal than having one forum that is the defacto "official" forum. -Peter

Jozxyqk wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] and I just spent 15 minutes trying to find how to rate a game. But failed. And got irritated. :) but I'm ok now. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Dec 30, 7:57 pm, salem <kella...@hotmail.com> wrote: > Jozxyqk wrote: > > Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > >> On Dec 30, 12:16 am, salem <kella...@hotmail.com> wrote: > >> > I've signed up to both to see which way the wind blows. > > >> > one thing I found with BGG is you need "geek gold" to upload an avatar. > >> > I have no idea what that is, but it seems to be tied to how much > >> > realworld money you donate to BGG? > > >> Yeah, I discovered that last night. And then spent 15 minutes digging > >> around trying to find information on what is or is not "geek gold" or > >> how to get it. And couldn't find any information at all. And again got > >> irritated. > > >http://www.boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/GeekGold > > and I just spent 15 minutes trying to find how to rate a game. But failed. > And got irritated. > > :) > > but I'm ok now. Go to the game's page, scroll down to the bottom and click "Record Information" (in the "User Information" section).

"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote in message news:7ef73f39-52d1-4cb3...@t35g2000yqj.googlegroups.com... [ quoted text not captured ] VEKN discussion forum? Anyone? -Peter Well I find it difficult to locate anything Vtes related there. I think a specific room or forum needs to be created. Raille

"LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:05a850b2-432f-4a1e...@v17g2000yqv.googlegroups.com... [ quoted text not captured ] It would be great if I could just find the Vtes Forum. Have a hand link? Raille

On Dec 28, 7:14 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > With 2011, I'll no longer be reading this (or any other) USENET group. > I'll still be on boardgamegeek, so feel free to post rules questions > there. > > http://www.boardgamegeek.com/forum/31522/vampire-the-eternal-struggle... There isn't a deck list sub-forum?

On 12/29/2010 5:46 PM, salem wrote: >> >> Meh. I don't notice any slow-loading there, but you can always just >> sign up (subscribe) to the vtes forum and get emailed links to new >> topics (and new posts to topics you ID as being interested in). > > running adblock in either firefox or google chrome should also help with > page speed. > > I turned if off to see what the site looks like without it and it gets > pretty messy. But with adblock on, it's a fairly reasonable site. > Here's where I went to find AdBlock for FF. http://adblockplus.org/en/installation chris

On Dec 30, 9:25 pm, "Raille" <rai...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Well I find it difficult to locate anything Vtes related there. > I think a specific room or forum needs to be created. Go here: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/forums/thing/2122/vampire-the-eternal-struggle The forum and sub forums exist and aren't that difficult to navigate. But are difficult to find in the first place (I found it by clicking on LSJ's link in the first post, getting to the main Forum index for VTES, and just bookmarking it; when I went looking to find the Forum cold, I too was completely incapable of finding it...) -Peter

On Dec 30, 10:05 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > On Dec 30, 9:25 pm, "Raille" <rai...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > > Well I find it difficult to locate anything Vtes related there. > > I think a specific room or forum needs to be created. > > Go here: > > http://www.boardgamegeek.com/forums/thing/2122/vampire-the-eternal-st... > > The forum and sub forums exist and aren't that difficult to navigate. > But are difficult to find in the first place (I found it by clicking > on LSJ's link in the first post, getting to the main Forum index for > VTES, and just bookmarking it; when I went looking to find the Forum > cold, I too was completely incapable of finding it...) > > -Peter ? Search for Vampire The Eternal Struggle, go to the game page, and scroll down to the forum section.

On Dec 30, 10:23 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > Search for Vampire The Eternal Struggle, go to the game page, and > scroll down to the forum section. Huh. When you put it like that, it seems really obvious. But when I was looking, I tried all sorts of things, and failed to find what I was looking for. Probably due to that main VTES page having that really long list of expansion symbols in the middle of it. -Peter

This is sad news for me as I can't access boardgamegeek forum from my work as it is tagged as games. Have fun there.

[ quoted text not captured ] try the new vekn forum, that might not be as vekn is not a recognised game term...

[ quoted text not captured ] Ah. Yeah, that's what you get with user-edited content on the main game page. Most games have nice, short descriptions.

"XZealot" <xze...@cox.net> wrote in message news:c4aabdf5-f3c6-4bf8...@f8g2000yqd.googlegroups.com... [ quoted text not captured ] Why yes it is! Thanks. I'm bookmarking the sub forum and have subscribed. I do have to say, that as a place that is assumed to provide info to new players and expand the base, its is not easy to locate. I fear the end has not been stopped, but only shifted back. Maybe we will be lucky and another company will eventually re-establish the game. Raille

[ quoted text not captured ] These two geeklists are a great help for people new to BGG http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/30286/change-it-up-making-bgg-in-your-image http://geekdo.com/geeklist/41134/new-users-want-to-know-who-what-where-when-and-why

LSJ et al I own www.vtes.org and will yield the domain name if someone wants to run a better forum than I have up. If someone also has a better software, I will happily upgrade. Best David Wilson

[ quoted text not captured ] >LSJ et al [ quoted text not captured ] The problem with any new forum is content. If you don't have enough people creating content, you don't have a living forum that keeps people coming back to read it and eventually add content of their own. The newsgroup has a great deal of content, if you can moderate out the spam and undesirable content. You can incorporate the newsgroup in your forum/website via a Fast Uncompromising Discussion forum. http://fudforum.org http://sourceforge.net/projects/fudforum/files/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FUDforum PHP forum system with MySQL, PostgreSQL or SQLite backend that supports USENET and email list archiving. Ability to load USENET and E-mail list messages and sync forum replies back to these groups and lists.

On Dec 31, 11:21 am, The Lasombra <TheLasom...@hotmail.com> wrote: > On Fri, 31 Dec 2010 10:00:02 -0800 (PST), Wilsoros wrote: > >LSJ et al > >I ownwww.vtes.organd will yield the domain name if someone wants to > >run a better forum than I have up. If someone also has a better > >software, I will happily upgrade. > > The problem with any new forum is content. > > If you don't have enough people creating content, you don't have a > living forum that keeps people coming back to read it and eventually > add content of their own. > > The newsgroup has a great deal of content, if you can moderate out the > spam and undesirable content. > > You can incorporate the newsgroup in your forum/website via a Fast > Uncompromising Discussion forum. > > http://fudforum.orghttp://sourceforge.net/projects/fudforum/files/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FUDforum > > PHP forum system with MySQL, PostgreSQL or SQLite backend that > supports USENET and email list archiving. > > Ability to load USENET and E-mail list messages and sync forum replies > back to these groups and lists. Thanks lasombra, I will take a look at these and see if I can't get something worked out. I don't personally have any issues with BGG due to using it for other games, but I don't think it is intuitive.

[ quoted text not captured ] Everybody should do this. Let's give the game a rating it deserves. Go for the 10, mates.

On Dec 29 2010, 12:35 pm, John McGlynn <john.mcgl...@gmail.com> wrote: > It's about damn time. > Ayyy-Men! DZ AW

On Jan 3, 8:04 pm, Atom Weaver <atomwea...@sbcglobal.net> wrote: > > It's about damn time. > > Ayyy-Men! And yet the legions of BGG loving VTES fans are yet to show up on BGG and flood the boards with exciting VTES talk. Mostly, the only active discussion going on over there since LSJ posted this is, well, the thread I started about how we were apparently living there now... -Peter

[ quoted text not captured ] Well I honestly wasn't expecting a genuine mass-exodus. I suspect there will be a lot of people who doggedly stay with the Usenet Group and I have no idea if BGG would ever become the central location for VTES... Just can't tell. The Australian VTES Board has been full of crickets (not the sport Cricket) for a long time...

[ quoted text not captured ] Any reason why people are not going to the new Forum at VEKN? I am not going to BGG any time soon. Scott is free to do as he pleases, but I see more benefits to the game if he goes to VEKN, than him going to BGG. The visibility argument is moot, because if people go in-mass to the VEKN site, it gets much more hits altogether and if those statistics came out, that would be a much better reason to have someone invest in the game VS. some marginal hits in a gaming board forum. Tiago

On Jan 4, 11:10 am, Brum <tiago.br...@gmail.com> wrote: > Any reason why people are not going to the new Forum at VEKN? People are doing that too. But there isn't much going on over there, either. -Peter

On Jan 4, 11:10 am, Brum <tiago.br...@gmail.com> wrote: > The visibility argument is moot, Well, not really. Mind you, I'm not, like, outright claiming that BGG is better than VEKN or whatever, but the argument of "more non VTES gamers will see VTES discussion happening on BGG than on the VEKN site" is completely sound--no one is going to go to the VEKN unless they are already invested in VTES. On BGG, discussion of VTES shows up on the non VTES related list of things being talked about, at which point people who are on BGG, interested in VTES, but unaware that discussion is going on have the potential to see that it is happening and join in. Such a potential doesn't really exist with the VEKN site-- unless you are already going to specifically look for discussion about VTES, you aren't going to be going there. > because if people go in-mass to the > VEKN site, it gets much more hits altogether and if those statistics > came out, Where are those statistics going to come out? People Talking About VTES Statistics Weekly? I mean, again, don't get me wrong here. I'm certainly pro discussion on the VEKN site. But if one's argument is "if we go to BGG, people who aren't that invested in VTES, but have to potential to become invested, will see the discussion", that holds up. -Peter

On Jan 4, 4:17 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > On Jan 4, 11:10 am, Brum <tiago.br...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > The visibility argument is moot, > > Well, not really. Mind you, I'm not, like, outright claiming that BGG > is better than VEKN or whatever, but the argument of "more non VTES > gamers will see VTES discussion happening on BGG than on the VEKN > site" is completely sound--no one is going to go to the VEKN unless > they are already invested in VTES. On BGG, discussion of VTES shows up > on the non VTES related list of things being talked about, at which > point people who are on BGG, interested in VTES, but unaware that > discussion is going on have the potential to see that it is happening > and join in. Such a potential doesn't really exist with the VEKN site-- > unless you are already going to specifically look for discussion about > VTES, you aren't going to be going there. You're right. To attract a non-VtES gamer to our side, BGG is by far the best way to promote the game. I didn't mean that and I didn't explain myself well. Sorry. What I mean is that an interested company/investor in VtES might see the hits and vibrant community in VEKN as a sign that the game keeps a loyal group of followers. It was only to those statistics and to that specific use I was writing about. In this case I think VEKN is better than BGG. > > because if people go in-mass to the > > VEKN site, it gets much more hits altogether and if those statistics > > came out, > > Where are those statistics going to come out? People Talking About > VTES Statistics Weekly? I mean, again, don't get me wrong here. I'm > certainly pro discussion on the VEKN site. But if one's argument is > "if we go to BGG, people who aren't that invested in VTES, but have to > potential to become invested, will see the discussion", that holds up. > > -Peter The VEKN has a Director of Marketing. He or anybody else can spread the word in places such as the BGG, future articles in online gaming magazines, conventions, etc. To attract passer-bys? BGG is the best. To care for our own community and to strengthen what we already have? I believe VEKN is the best solution. I agree that there is not much discussion in VEKN at the moment, but it is in growing pains. It would help this kind of discussions moved there. Yes, I know what I'm writing. The end of newsgroups. What is keep us coming back here? Me: TWDs, rules questions, event news and discussions such as this. Would it be worse to have all of this nice and tidy in a forum? How about fusion with other international forums? Just a few thoughts :) Tiago