I suggest splitting the "Building" board. I don't have enough time to follow everything and most in that board doesn't interest me (questions, tutorials, copy builds, ...). I am however very interested to see truly new builds from the masters, so I suggest offering a board solely for introducing original work. Make it impossible to start a new thread in there unless you're in a certain user group (don't know the forum software well enough to say whether/how this works, but you get the idea). My name suggestion would be "Original builds".

I had thought about this already and just saw this question and thought about it again:
http://www.twistypuzzles.com/forum/view ... 24#p116524

Great idea!

I think having a board for original work would be great, although I am not sure restricting posting to a member group makes sense. How would one qualify for such a group? In the last year there have been a number of new members posting wonderful creative new works right from the start. Would (for example, there are many more) the Pentultimate not make the cut because io hadn't posted much about puzzle building?

In an ideal world we would have enough moderation bandwidth to manage this by having a moderator select "worthy" posts to move to a more restricted forum, so new work could be highlighted, but I don't see that happening at this point. Heck, it would be great to mirror this for all forums, so those of us who don't have time for reading all the forums could just check out a subset, selected by a moderator who might do some filtering for quality.

Also, what happens to threads that start out as unique, but eventually loose their novelty? I'll put up my Elemental:Neon thread as an example. I wouldn't consider myself a master builder, but I considered it a pretty unique when I first posted about a year ago. Three pages of posts later it is more of a blog of my latest experiment with mirror acrylic or paint pens. Still new in one sense, but derivative for those who are over the novelty of that topic. I guess with any thread there is the potential for it to deviate from the initial theme (see what happened to the 7.08 thread ).

I like the idea and think some discussion might lead to a good implementation. My initial thought, short of appointed moderators, would be to have people to post nominations on the threads for inclusion in a restricted forum, and our sole moderator use that feedback to guide a movement of topics. But that would place an extra burden of checking for such nominations on Sausage. PMs would remove the necessity for him to catch every nomination (reading through every response to every thread), but that could result in a flood of PMs which could also be a burden.

One final thought would be to just open the new forum and let community feedback drive posts to the proper place. But I could see someone proud of a new build (perhaps not of the best quality or most original work) getting flamed if they posted in the wrong place, and I wouldn't want a negative atmosphere around what I find to be a very postive place to hang out. So I think the proposal of moderation for such an area is wise.

Dave

After thinking somemore, I agree with DLitwin-
Maybe there should be an original work board, but not class-restricted. If you post non-original work it will be deleted

Hmm, interesting idea. I think I like it

Logistically, it would be quite simple to implement, once Sandy returns. All that needs to happen then is have a moderator or two assigned to the board, and no posts can be made without moderator approval. This would then allow anyone with a new build to post, and nobody to "chatter" in a manner that does not prejudice any one users history, or lack of it.

Stefan's post here reminds me of my original objection to a separate puzzle building forum. Looking back now, I can completely see why a separate puzzle building forum is appropriate. However to me it is still a real point of contention that new puzzles should be announced in the general forum. I've had threads moved to the puzzle building forum that frankly I did not appreciate.

However due to the steadily increasing size of the forum maybe a separate puzzle announcement thread would not be a bad idea.

Or if I have anything worthy to contribute in the future I think I'll just do what I intended to do long ago, and that is post twice with links to the other post if that is necessary.

I think this would be a good idea. A forum with a specific subforum?

I am quite fond of this idea.

My 2 cents: I disagree.
The best way to find out who is a master or which builds are worth a second look is to post the creations and afterwards let the unworthy ones go down the topic list.
Personally I think your earlier posted suggestion of a "ignore thread"-function will serve you better.

I like the idea of having all building in the same section where it's rough beginner builds or original items, and see everyone's work in the same spot. But happy to see what others think.

Small amendment to what I said earlier, I think a new-build *thread* would be quite a good idea, with the same locks on it that I outlined earlier. Depending on how access rights are able to be granted on this forum, the thread could be stickied and moderated, so that a moderator or three could be assigned write access to that thread only. That way, anyone could post a quick announcement in the "new-build" thread, but it would have to pass a really simple amount of moderation to actually be posted (i.e., is it in fact a new build?)

New puzzles could then be cataloged near the top of the board, without any sort of chatter.

What appeals to me about this idea is that there is quite a bit of "noise" on the forums these days, and I typically just ignore about 95% of it. What this means is that if I'm away for a while, new and intersting things pass me by. Case in point, Lee T. made a hollow megaminx sometime last summer, and I only noticed recently by chance--it would have been nice to have come back after my "break" and be able to quickly get caught up. The "noise" could go on being there, but I could then sort though it quite easily since I know what I'd be looking for.

But that's just my opinion

On one hand I don't understand why people just don't look at certain people's posts or threads. If you have an opinion of who's a master build then just look at their threads. I don't look at everything here. I probably look at less than 50% of people's posts.

On the other hand it sounds like a decent idea, but I don't see how a certain group should be allowed to post. This would leave it open to only two or three builders. Maybe it should be approved by the forum members before it can be moved to the special forum. Everyone can vote on it. That way some new member that may have a genius creation can have his post in the restricted forum.

The point of splitting it wouldn't be to only allow master builders. The point of it is to allow you to easily look at only new builds. If a newbie creates a new build then it would be allowed into the restricted forum.

A newbie to the forum, but maybe a master builder. there is a difference, isn't there?

I didn't mean a fixed set of "masters" but including new people as soon as they show something worthy.

However, I changed my mind. I believe with a clear title like "original builds" and a proper description, that people wouldn't abuse it. People asking general building questions or showing their first simple mod I believe are capable to not post it in "original builds". So I think this could work without system-enforced access rights.

Doesn't have to be a board, could also be an announcement thread. Just something that makes me not miss exciting developments while at the same time prevents me from going through a lot of other stuff.

Puzzle Buidling:

Where to start -> Tut's and people explaining how to create diffrent mods. What you need, such as fillers and saw's.
New mods --> Orginal builds and new thoughts about puzzles. (Do you have a thought or an orginal build that no1 have seen before?)
Regular mods --> All the ordinary mods (most posts will be in here)

As for me that are pretty new it would be truly lovely if the building forum had this layout. The search engine didnt always work and if was hard to find the right posts that explained how to make a specific mod.

I think it would be awesome

Alex

It's fun to think that not even a year ago, there was no puzzle building forum. It's interesting to see the evolution of this forum.

*cough*

What happened to the Puzzle of the Month Award?

Surly that would be a good way to keep track of all the new puzzles the community has been creating!

Sorry, but looking for employment took over.

Quite ok... However, I wasn't pointing fingers. Just a request to bring it back if anyone cares to do it.