I like having no feeds in here, by the way. No interruptions by Obie.

@SQB Obie always reminds me of the guy who gets far too drunk at the party and sits slumped in the corner occasionally shouting things far too loud while everyone else is chatting.

Oo, new profile!

@CreationEdge Appreciate that! I am considering a co-RO but the only person I thought of without thinking (and who wasn't already a mod who didn't need RO powers) unfortunately preferred to stay all Harry Potter and reject the mantle of leadership.

@DVK-in-exile slytherincess?

@Adamant Private discussions probably ought to remain private :) I'm also highly tempted to make discussions of the room itself into being ontopic in a separate, Meta.ontopic room. Time will show if there is enough volume to make that worth the complication.

Signing off for tonight guys - thanks for the recommendations.

@DVK-in-exile ok, makes sense.

I would always be willing to help if you need someone.

Don't think I could cope with having a meta chat room. Too complex.

@Bellerephon The basic idea is that I would allow Meta (e.g. about the room itself) discussions here, without complaint, but after discussion is over, it gets bulk-moved to Meta room for archival to clean up the transcript for ease of reading.

@DVK-in-exile that sounds like a good idea.

This room is for discussions about "SFF Ontopic Chat" chatroom. Its function is similar to Meta Q&A site for main Q&A site.

Just to be clear - such conversations are ontopic and allowed in main "ontopic" room. But once they are concluded there, they will be bulk-moved here for archival, to clean up that room's transcript.

Any discussions about this meta room will be held in a future "Meta Meta" room. j/k

@Bellerephon So be it, Jedi! chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/42283/sff-ontopic-chat-meta

Ontopic room rule #1: Be Nice.

This includes not attacking fellow users. Not attacking anyone else.

Guess we can move this discussion there now.

It also means not attacking the works that others might like. "Star Wars Prequels suck" is bad form. "I personally didn't like Star Wars Prequels for reasons 1,2,3" is good.

Any disagreements must be handled on merits.

Ontopic room rule #2: No starting offtopic discussions

Wait, are these rules for this (meta) room or the main on-topic chatroom?

@Randal'Thor Main room. This room rules are similar except what's ontopic here is discussions about main room instead of about sff content. And I expect this room to be so low traffic and low use that spelling out rules isn't worth it.

Ontopic room rule #3: If ontopic chat drifts offtopic, it should wrap up or drift to offtopic rooms.

@Randal'Thor - since you're already here, would you terribly mind using your awesome Nightcrawler mutant powers and back-editing rule #1 to delete " Initial Room rules: " string?

If one of existing SFF chatrooms (Mos or other) wants a specific offtopic discussion, and it's a good discussion, it will get moved there. Otherwise, to Trash room.

Also, as a special case, any discussions ABOUT ontopic chatroom (aka Meta discussions) are allowed in main room, and ontopic. But once concluded they will be move-archived in this room, which is its main purpose.

@DVK-in-exile But shouldn't the rules for the main room be in the main room? Or are you going to direct everyone here to read the rules before participating in the main room?

If you make it too complicated for people, they'll all take the easy route and go to Mos instead :-)

@DVK-in-exile Your wish is my command.

@Randal'Thor I already pinned the rule summary there. But I didn't want to pollute the main room with detailed rule explanations etc..., so I want to post the full rules and guidelines here and post a link that's also pinned

@Randal'Thor FWIW, my goal isn't to poach people from Mos. If anyone wants to chat in Mos, power to them. Ontopic room is for people who want to participate, for whatever reason.

TIL: Starboard is reshuffled when a starred message is edited.

Hat/tip to @Bellerophon in main room for supporting this room's idea.

@DVK-in-exile Shouldn't be. It probably just reshuffled because editing forced a mini-refresh of the star-board and it was already time for the 2-starred post to overtake the 1-starred one.

@Randal'Thor - basically, I only want TWO rules messages pinned on main room (exactly, to simplify things) - first one is 1-line summary of main rules. Second one is a link here in case anyone wants to read more about the rules

@CreationEdge Why not just literally use different tabs?

@CreationEdge Would it help if the room name had META in front?

@DVK-in-exile Yes! With too many tabs open, the META disappears from the end and both rooms look identical.

OK, let's see if I have that power as RO

room topic changed to About/Meta for "SFF Ontopic Chat": Discussions about "SFF Ontopic Chat" room (no tags)

@CreationEdge - better?

← 15 messages moved from SFF Ontopic Chat

@DVK-in-exile And apparently moving those messages pulled a whole bunch of people into this room's user list who probably aren't actually here (and aren't even @-pingable).

@Randal'Thor - if you feel that Ontopic room merits a featured announcement on Meta.SE, feel free to do so. I'm not sure it does so I won't post the announcement on main Meta site, outside of editing the link to the room into my initial poll.

@Randal'Thor Ah. I apologize to anyone who got an unexpected invite into this room. I promise, no dragons, trolls, or second-hand Wizard smoke awaits you.

@DVK-in-exile Probably not? I mean, in a way it's just another chatroom, and quite a few people seem to have found it already.

I could pin a link in Mos, but that might attract the giffing, politics, and Pokemon squad :-P

@DVK-in-exile No trolls? Are you sure?

@Randal'Thor That's my thinking. I'll let the site mods decide if it's something worth explicitly highliting for all site users. I'm OK either way :)

@Randal'Thor I would make a "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality" joke here but I'm afraid I'll get booed out of my own room

@Valorum - welcome. I'm sorry you are prevented from chatting and will be extremely glad to hear from you when you are not all Neo-ed

@DVK-in-exile Harry Potter is off-topic in the meta room and should be migrated to the main room ;-)

@Randal'Thor Help! Help! I'm lost in a twisted maze of rooms, and can't get out!

@CreationEdge BTW, thanks for your offer in main chatroom to help keep the room clean! Greatly appreciated

@DVK Mind if I merge the "Room management technical questions" room into this one?

Just my OCD wanting to keep things tidy and organised :-)

@Randal'Thor Just delete that one. I don't think it has any information worth preserving.

I also deleted the "15 messages moved to Meta" in the other room.

@Randal'Thor I wish for... A sequel to "A Mother of Demons"!

@DVK-in-exile I grant you ... "A Mother of Dragons"!

@Randal'Thor I that GoT? I have a Donkey in that. I'm waiting till all 7 books complete

@DVK-in-exile Meh, don't hold your breath. GRRM is too busy churning out novellas and being full of himself to bother getting on with writing the 6th book.

When people want help with something that is off-topic for the main site, should I link to SFF-ontopic, mos, or both?

@Adamant You mean like recommendations and stuff? Your call. I'm fine with either of 3 options. I definitelty don't want to say "sff-ontopic" explicitly without explicit agreement from Mos that they want it that way.

Speaking of which, I'm contemplating if we should rename ontopic room to something meaningful (sff themed)

Topics for future Meta discussion (assuming ontopic room actually keeps working): (1) Room name ; (2) Do we want any feeds {{I suspect most people would not want Obie}}; (3) Popularizing the room (an ad on main site?); (4) How many ROs do we need realistically? I'm not sure me as sole RO is enough, but we also have at least 2 mod-powered superbeings active.