[Andreas Raht]

Hi everyone,

One of our biggest struggles here lies in effectively moderating our "Off Topic" forums. OT requires far and away the most moderator effort, and generates the most contentious threads, and 99% of all reported threads. It also contains many threads that can give new visitors to our forums a bad impression. As a result, we are making some changes to the way the Off Topic forum works.

There are two main changes:

OT Changing to "Opt-in"
First, we are turning OT into a "public user group" that by default will be invisible to new registered users. This means that by default, users will not see the OT forum anywhere. This includes the forum list, the "new posts" list, and search results. However, users can easily "opt in" to OT by selecting the group in his or her User Profile screen ("User CP").

OT Debate Subforum
We will also be adding a subforum within OT, expressly for controversial political and religious debates. The rules for that subforum are the same as they are for the actual OT forum. However, it will allow us to move the more contentious debates out of the main OT area where most users just do not want to see them.

So, what happens next?
Be aware that OT will soon become invisible for everyone. If you wish to see the OT forum, just open your User CP and join the user group!

We will also update the forum software again, so it's possible that the forum is not available for a few hours this week.

About signatures/avatars
We are also updating our forum rules to prohibit the use of political or religious statements in your signature or avatars. (This includes statements supporting your faith.) We spend a large amount of time attempting to adjudicate arguments about political or religious statements that are in sigs or avatars. Of course, everyone is entitled to their own views on such things. We're just saying that we can't support the use of sigs and avatars as a medium for sharing these beliefs, because it causes too many administrative problems that we don't have the resources to handle, and at the end of the day, this is a sports forum.

Offenders who don't respond to requests to change their avatar or sig will have their rights to use signatures and avatars taken away.

We want this forum to be similar to a virtual sports bar. You can meet people here with similar hobbies, and talk with them about whatever you want. If you don't want to talk about the subject any longer, you just go to another table, meet other friends and talk about other things. The above rule changes are designed to make our forums friendlier for new users and those who don't come here to talk politics or religion, while also preserving the ability for those folks to continue to use our forums.

We hope you all understand and help us support the spirit of these changes.

Thank you!

OOTP Developments Team & OOTP Forum Moderators