Sythe University

Sythe University is an idea for a new forum that is designated specifically for intelligent, knowledgeable and experienced users to directly teach other users in their area of expertise. Before going any further, I would like to note that Sythe University(SU) is inherently separate from the user-created guides section insofar as that the posts made in SU are not guides, in the strict sense of the word. They are more closely related to lectures created and posted by users of the site who are experts in any particular field(s) of study. For example, a user-created guide is more or less a one-off post instructing others on how to perform a certain task. SU "lectures" are akin to an online classroom that exists for an indefinite amount of time, creating an environment for direct teacher-student communication, discussion, questioning, etc.

Basic Guidelines:

• You may only create a thread on something you are very well-versed in.
• Your initial post will be reserved for further elaboration and explaining your expertise to other members.
• In this forum the OP is the professor, and the starting post is the class/lecture.
• Subsequent posts are for general questions and explanations between the OP ("professor") and his fellow members("students").
• No question, request, or casual discussion threads are to be posted here.

A more developed and detailed ruleset can be defined if there is sufficient interest/approval.

 

Do you really think there are enough people in the sythe.org community smart enough in their respective fields of study to make this viable?

 

Perhaps. This section would require rather strict moderation and would more than likely be quite slow, but I think the potential benefits would certainly outweigh any difficulties experienced in starting this up properly.

Users who come to mind that I think would be excellent at this: Sythe; Matthew; Govind; n4n0; Unb4nn3d; SuF; Dialatic; MoonGlare; so on and so on.

 

The average sythe user is fucking stupid, the rest aren't much better.

I think it'd be interesting, and I wouldn't care if it were made. But I feel that it'd be dead within days once a few have made their threads, and the rest have spammed whatever the post count they can on them.

 

This is my sentiments, not to mention I doubt many would actually take an interest in said "seminars"

no support

 

This section is most definitely not for the average Sythe user, nor would there be any tolerance of irrelevant/useless/spam posts or threads. As I said, strict moderation is required. Whether or not the section is "active" is more or less irrelevant. It could even be taken so far as to make it read-only and require moderator approval before threads are posted, like archived/stickied posts that have been locked and are used only for the information contained within the OP.(Just a thought)

I think with people who are knowledgeable in fields like programming and graphic design this section could not only help out inexperienced newcomers and cut down on useless threads being made asking questions that have already been answered 10 times over, but set a standard for increasing the overall quality of posts/content in sections like General Discussion, Something For All, etc.

 

This is very open to hosting incorrect information. When you're specialising in a very particular field at a very high level, there's not many people out there with the capability to tell you "That's wrong.". One elaborate troll post could go undetected for months and there's really nothing you could do about it until someone points it out.

Surely GFX & Programming have their own places on the forums already?

 

While the possibility of hosting incorrect information to users is a valid one, I feel again I should be stressing the aspect of no threads being released for public viewing without thorough investigation by the appropriate staff members. Sure, someone could write up a 2 page discourse on organic chemistry that's complete horseshit, but:

A) It would take a very dedicated and intelligent troll to pull that off without immediately being noticed
B) There are online resources one could use to verify potentially incorrect facts with the right research
C) Seriously who does that?
D) Would it really affect you to a substantial degree?

Also, as far as Graphics and Programming having their own place, yes they currently do. The environment we would be aiming to cultivate in SU is vastly different than general topic forums, and to be honest those were just the first two examples that came to mind. Not to mention people like SuF, Dialatic, MoonGlare and Farcast(?) could contribute some very worthwhile information on those topics.

 

If you were to use SU, I would imagine you would be using it because you are studying in that field and wish to know more. So if that information is incorrect and you rely on its correctness, then it will have quite a large impact on the individual.

It's the internet and people do all kinds of things nowadays. I'm not sure staff would be willing to spend hours on end trying to understand advanced particle physics in order to make a thread public either.

 

The fuck..

The most popular community forum isn't active, what makes you think this will be?

 

While I see the potential in such a forum, it is heavily dependent on high quality user-driven content.

 

Would get trolled REALLY hard. There are very few people here who are experts at much of anything here, even fewer who care enough to teach others.

However, I am a professional carpenter and Deltasquad is a professional welder/boilermaker. I personally love teaching others facets of my trade, Delta seems to as well (i'm an amatuer welder and he went as fair to mail me his old schoolbooks!). I am sure there are a few others of us who could be assets.

Im conflicted about whether I support this as I see a fairly equal amount of pros and cons. Cons are pretty much the FACT that it'll be trolled, often and that psuedo-intellectual self proclaimed experts will no doubt come out of the woodwork.

 

I said multiple times already this forum will more than likely be very slow, it is no way based around how much activity there is. Maybe you should read threads before you post in them.

That's the idea. The Sythe.org community is on a very obvious downward slope. I think a forum of valuable information for users, by users could potentially coax some of the more quality-posting individuals into actively doing so.

The more I read these responses and the more thought I give to this, the more inclined I am to heavily agree with you. The trolling would be hard to keep out, especially given the site's user base. Pseudo-intellectualism is something that can be ironed out rather effectively by simple screening of submitted threads. This would more than likely cause a large backlog of submitted threads waiting for screening and approval, but if the section is as inactive as it is proposed to be this won't be much of an issue and will alternatively give moderators something to do instead of posting dumb shit in the spam forum.

 

It wasn't in the first post. You have to be naive to think this would be a positive thing.

 

Your posts are so blatantly aimed at getting mod that its ridiculous.

This sounds like a warped version of UE. Which also sucked. Meh

 

The key word was thread. And no, it's not a good thing -- there's really no two-ways about that. However, I don't see it as an actively negative aspect. Like I said, archives are completely inactive but still useful to the interested user, as well as locked guides and stickies that are currently floating around the site.

I'm not denying the cons of this section at all, just trying to be optimistic.

And yes, the trolling would be very real lmao.

Yeah, you caught me. Maybe I should just skulk off back to shit posting in SF about Sythe-drama with the likes of you, right? As if anyone gives a shit.

This is similar to UE, which I enjoyed thoroughly, but I wouldn't use the word warped -- more like improved. Different perspectives I guess.

 

Its a good idea, I wouldnt see much activity being put into it though.


No support.

 

There is no obligation to read all posts in a thread, when all you have to do is read the first one. Your suggestions aren't reasonable when you look at the activity around the forum.

Eg; http://www.sythe.org/denied-suggestions/1753228-new-section-suggestion.html

 

No obligation, but it would be wise to do so before commenting something that has already been said more than once. Just common sense around most forums.

No activity/too much maintenance seems to be the general consensus. This thread may be closed at the staff's discretion.

 

I wasnt around for UE, why did it fail?

Also OP the more I think about this the more hesitant I am. The section would be constantly battling plagarism and false statements presented as truths. To screen every post and every thread for this would take a good while and present an increased workload for staff.