I don't like the changes to the board....

[Captain Goddammit]

I love mutant vehicles and for the little time I have to visit eplaya...

You pretty much answered it right there. There simply aren't any number of people posting M/V threads. Seems they're all to busy working on them.

[trilobyte]

I'm giving this a nudge over to ePlaya feedback, since that's a better fit for your feedback.

I'm sorry you don't like it, Colonel Monk. We tried having a separate section for mutant vehicles in 2012, 2013, and 2014 (there had never been an MV section before), and found that the response and participation was pretty dismal. It also led to some confusion with other boards, and gave some people the mistaken impression that there weren't going to be very many mutant vehicles on the playa.

All that isn't to say that we'll never have another mutant vehicle section on the board. Plans are in the works for reviewing the board's categories later in the year, and if possible I'd like to find a way to make it work.

In the meantime, ePlaya is hardly a newspaper without any sections. There are plenty of sections (categories and forums), and just like in years past threads announcing or updating people on their mutant vehicles are welcome in the same board as any other art projects.

[Jovankat]

Would it maybe be helpful to have a pinned thread in 2015 Camps, Art & Activities for MV folk to announce their plans to bring a vehicle sort of like the 6:00, 3:00, 9:00 etc threads?

[trilobyte]

No.

We do neighborhood threads so that camp organizers can connect (and in some cases share resources) with people in their neighborhood, and so that participants can get a sense of what camps may be in their particular section of town.

MV's are a vastly different thing and city-wide. Mutant vehicle builders are welcome and encouraged to announce and post updates about their projects in their own threads... creating a sticky thread to ask the MV builders (most of whom are not using the board to talk about their projects to begin with) to make additional posts for the benefit of those who aren't interested in browsing the boards is not a solution.

[Jovankat]

I just thought it might be a compromise. I genuinely thought the neighbourhood threads were just an announcement kinda thing, that's how they seem to be used. There are a lot more camps who've been mentioned in the respective neighbourhood threads than have whole threads to themselves.

Also your last sentence there kinda sounds like you're opposed to the idea of making the board accessible to folks who don't have the time to spend all day every day here. While our regulars are great I really hope you're not as dismissive of the needs of the casual user as that sounded.

[some seeing eye]

Hey Colonel, did you know there is a burningman.org email list for MV's? Not sure how active. And sure there are more social media forums devoted to art cars, mutating, film effect cars, even BM MVs. Social media is always shifting! Sure things will go crazy because of the recent big commercial movie. Don't know where you are geographically, but MV teams usually need plenty of year round volunteer help!

[trilobyte]

I'm sorry if you misread that as being dismissive, or jumped to the conclusion that I don't give consideration to casual users of the board (when that isn't the case at all). To simplify it a bit more, you can not fix a lack of participation by a group by adding another place where they would need to participate in order to appease the people who aren't interested in skimming the topic list.

[Jovankat]

Let me simplify what I was saying since you seem to have misread what I wrote jumped to the wrong conclusion. My suggestion wasn't about trying to increase the participation of MV folk, it was about making their limited participation more visible. Given that they don't post all that much their threads are now quickly buried in the combined camp, art and MV forum. I just thought having a pinned thread like the neighbourhood threads would help those looking for the MV content by being a quick reference to which users are MV folk.

[mgb327]

.

[Captain Goddammit]

Only 1% of burners have a mutant vehicle. The majority of those are decorated golf carts or decorated busses, ho hum who cares. So the pickins for anything interesting M/V related are real slim. You could make a relatively large increase in eplaya M/V discussion by starting a thread about one. If there were a few M/V threads, Trilo would have a reason to create a category.

[Eric]

I just thought having a pinned thread like the neighbourhood threads would help those looking for the MV content by being a quick reference to which users are MV folk.

But what would the thread be about? "Hey we have an MV"? "Help us build our MV"? "Here's pictures of our MV"/ "We have questions about building an MV"? It's not as easy as just pinning some vague thread, the thread has to have an actual reason to exist. Take the neighborhood threads, they exist to say "hey, we think we'll be camping in this area", and, yes, more camps post in them than create individual threads because it's not about recruiting or asking questions, it's just saying "here we are" (or, at this point of the season: "we hope to be here")

For an MV thread there just isn't any way to do a simple cohesive topic for a pinned post - they're all over the city, and they're all very different animals. Think about it - what do the Cupcakes and Robot Heart have in common other than wheels & motors? IMHO it would be worse than having it as part of a larger forum, because everything would just end up jumbled together, without even the convenience of threads to organize things.

This doesn't mean there will never be an MV section again, just that there isn't one now.

[Jovankat]

I was imaging it being about "Hey we have an MV" just like the neighbourhood threads are about "hey, we think we'll be camping in this area."

And just like posts in the neighbourhood threads do occasionally make mention of there being openings in a camp the posts in the MV thread would probably occassionally make mention of volunteers being needed to work on the vehicle. And just as the camp posts sometimes include a link to an external website or another thread the MV posts could do that too.

It just seemed like a pinned thread was the halfway point between having a dedicated section and the way things are now *shrug* I'm not super bothered either way, it was just a suggestion.

[theCryptofishist]

I said my peace

My inner proscriptive grammarian has itchy palms.

[Elderberry]

I said my peace

My inner proscriptive grammarian has itchy palms.

It's an interesting topic of discussion. Google it.