# What the heck is CircvsMaximvs?



## JVisgaitis (Jan 14, 2007)

I've been coming around here a long time and I occasional see people mention this. What the heck is it? I gather its another online community. What's their schtick?


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## kirinke (Jan 14, 2007)

The Circus is basically the seedy underside of Enworld. It is the hole in the wall, the place where the rules need not apply. There, Eric's Grandma lets loose with a hot toddy and swings to the jazz band on the stage. Everything forbidden here is allowed there. Beware though, if you don't have a thick skin, it probably isn't the place for you.


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## JVisgaitis (Jan 14, 2007)

So like EN World without all the civil discussion? Interesting.


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## xmanii (Jan 14, 2007)

kirinke said:
			
		

> The Circus is basically the seedy underside of Enworld. It is the hole in the wall, the place where the rules need not apply. There, Eric's Grandma lets loose with a hot toddy and swings to the jazz band on the stage. Everything forbidden here is allowed there. Beware though, if you don't have a thick skin, it probably isn't the place for you.





Sounds like UnderMountain.


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## Belbarid (Jan 14, 2007)

JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> I've been coming around here a long time and I occasional see people mention this. What the heck is it? I gather its another online community. What's their schtick?




It's also a game set in FASA'a old TOG setting.  Based around the old Roman chariot races, and insane amounts of fun to play.


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## LogicsFate (Jan 14, 2007)

JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> So like EN World without all the civil discussion? Interesting.




 Yeah, There is alot of emphasis on cilvility. Doesn't always happen, of course. But you'll find these boards definitly on the tamer end of the spectrum. Which makes posting here all that better.


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## the Jester (Jan 14, 2007)

CM is great if you ever want to cuss and call people names. 

Otherwise, it is mostly similar in flavor to ENWorld, with a lot of the same folks.  It's very much a community- though exactly what kind of community is still being hashed out by everyone over there. 

I like CM a great deal; it's a place for me to go when I want to talk about something other than gaming, something not work safe (though there's no porn allowed over there), or when I want to just cuss and call people names.  Try it, you might enjoy it. 

http://www.circvsmaximvs.com/


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## Rel (Jan 14, 2007)

JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> So like EN World without all the civil discussion? Interesting.




I don't think of it that way at all.  There is plenty of civil discussion at CM.  Some of it is on topics that are not welcome at ENWorld (notably matters political, religious and sexual).

There are plenty of dirty jokes, stupid trolls and off color comments.  Some people enjoy that some people don't mind and some people have long Ignore lists.  It's all good.


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## James Heard (Jan 14, 2007)

JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> So like EN World without all the civil discussion?



Pretty much.


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## Yair (Jan 14, 2007)

the Jester said:
			
		

> CM is great if you ever want to cuss and call people names.



For me, CM is where I can discuss politics and religion with ENWorlders (which are great). I hardly visit the other fora, well except for the science-forum perhaps.


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## GwydapLlew (Jan 14, 2007)

CM is where Izzy goes to make friends.   

Seriously, it is a sister-site of ENW that doesn't have Eric's Grandmother. We discuss politics, religion, sex, sports, gaming, random questions, and how much we should drink at Gen Con. 

There is quite a bit of civil discussion, and there is likewise a fair amount of aggressive posting. Frequently, ENWorlders are invited over there to discuss threads posted here without the moderation - most of them stay once there.


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## Cheiromancer (Jan 14, 2007)

I like it because the "no religion" rule is suppressed.  And there are a great many good conversations there on other topics as well.


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## kirinke (Jan 14, 2007)

GwydapLlew said:
			
		

> CM is where Izzy goes to make friends.
> 
> Seriously, it is a sister-site of ENW that doesn't have Eric's Grandmother. We discuss politics, religion, sex, sports, gaming, random questions, and how much we should drink at Gen Con.
> 
> There is quite a bit of civil discussion, and there is likewise a fair amount of aggressive posting. Frequently, ENWorlders are invited over there to discuss threads posted here without the moderation - most of them stay once there.




Hay, I saw Eric's Granny there. She was sitting at the pub downing a hot toddy! Honest!


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## GwydapLlew (Jan 14, 2007)

kirinke said:
			
		

> Hay, I saw Erik's Granny there. She was sitting at the pub downing a hot toddy! Honest!




She wears earplugs while visiting, though. That way she doesn't get offended. 

/resists temptation to make NTL joke


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## Whimsical (Jan 14, 2007)

I saw Eric's Grandma making out with the saxaphone player...and he was clearly not Eric's Grandpa! But don't tell anyone else! This is just between you, me, and the rest of ENWorld, OK?


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## griff_goodbeard (Jan 14, 2007)

JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> So like EN World without all the civil discussion? Interesting.




It's more like a place where if someone is being a passive aggressive   , you can call them out for it without risking the wrath of the mods.


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## el-remmen (Jan 15, 2007)

I think this belongs in Meta.
_
/me waves magic mod wand_


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## J_D (Jan 15, 2007)

What happened with CircvsMaximvs with the mandatory registration, anyway?

When I first discovered the site around a year ago or so, I never registered or posted there but I still enjoyed reading the forums for the politics and opinion content which isn't allowed here.  Sometime around last summer, though, they changed things so that the forums weren't even available for reading unless you registered and logged in.  That _really_ annoyed me.  For what reason was that done?

I hope that never happens here.  I have been registered here at ENWorld for quite a while now, but I don't ever log in just to read - I only log in to actually make a post (like I'm doing right now).  The same thing applies to two other boards I'm on.  The quickest way for ENWorld to lose me as a reader would be to make me log in just to read the message boards.


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## GwydapLlew (Jan 15, 2007)

J_D said:
			
		

> What happened with CircvsMaximvs with the mandatory registration, anyway?




It doesn't require mandatory registration. There may have been a brief period where the system was requiring it, but I'm looking at it right now without being logged in.


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## Raven Crowking (Jan 15, 2007)

Right now:

You are not logged in or you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

   1. You are not logged in. Fill in the form at the bottom of this page and try again.
   2. You may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
   3. If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation.


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## Kax Tuglebend (Jan 15, 2007)

Belbarid said:
			
		

> It's also a game set in FASA'a old TOG setting.  Based around the old Roman chariot races, and insane amounts of fun to play.




completely off topic.. but actually that was called Circus Imperium ~ there was an Avalon Hill chariot game called Circus Maximus tho


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## JVisgaitis (Jan 15, 2007)

GwydapLlew said:
			
		

> It doesn't require mandatory registration. There may have been a brief period where the system was requiring it, but I'm looking at it right now without being logged in.




It did for me. I couldn't view the forum without registering first. Maybe that's a bug with Mac users or something, but I did try Firefox...


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## Belbarid (Jan 15, 2007)

Kax Tuglebend said:
			
		

> completely off topic.. but actually that was called Circus Imperium ~ there was an Avalon Hill chariot game called Circus Maximus tho




Nuts- you're right. <foreheadslap>


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## Aries_Omega (Jan 15, 2007)

*Interesting*

Hmm...on everyones recommendation I am going to go register. Sounds interesting.


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## J_D (Jan 16, 2007)

I go to the main CircvsMaximvs site and get the main page just fine.  I click on the Forums link and see the forums links just fine - the Senate, the Amphitheatre, the Coliseum, etc.  Then I click on the link to the Senate, and I see the list of thread links just fine.  I click on a thread link, though, and here's what I get:







> You are not logged in or you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:
> 1. You are not logged in. Fill in the form at the bottom of this page and try again.
> 2. You may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
> 3. If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation.



Now, if the people running CircvsMaximvs don't want just any anonymous person on the Internet hitting their server and reading their fora, that's fine (well, not really fine, but at least acceptable since it's their server to do what they wish) - I'll accomodate them by neither registering nor reading - but they should save everyone the time and effort by putting the refusal up top on the Forums link from the main page.  To tease me by letting me drill down through the links all the way to an interesting thread title _then_ refuse me access to merely read it, well, that just annoys me all to the lower planes! Makes me want to kick someone!

Oh, and it's not just a Mac issue - it does it to me on a PC platform in both IE and Firefox.


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## Crothian (Jan 16, 2007)

J_D said:
			
		

> To tease me by letting me drill down through the links all the way to an interesting thread title _then_ refuse me access to merely read it, well, that just annoys me all to the lower planes! Makes me want to kick someone!




Make you want to register there so you can cuss someone out?


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## Raven Crowking (Jan 16, 2007)

The amount of whinging on CM rivals the amount of thread wars here.  Be warned.


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## BOZ (Jan 16, 2007)

J_D said:
			
		

> What happened with CircvsMaximvs with the mandatory registration, anyway?




seriously - i haven't been able to browse that place nor NTL for a bit now.    makin me have to sign in and all...


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## J_D (Jan 17, 2007)

Crothian said:
			
		

> Make you want to register there so you can cuss someone out?



Never.
As I already said, I will not register with a site that I have to log in just to read.  My m.o. is to browse, read, then log in if I want to post a reply.

Too bad, too, because if things had stayed as they were over there I might well have registered in a month or two to contribute.  I'm not going to do so just to cuss someone out, though.  That won't change anything about how the site is run.

My purpose in posting here now was not _just_ to complain, though, but to get the question of my o.p. answered since I know many people here also are also active over there.  _Why_ did they do this?  What was wrong with the way they were doing things before, the way ENWorld still does things here?

Not that I post much here anyway - I mostly lurk - but if ENWorld ever adopts the same policy that'll be the end of my reading the boards here too.


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## Rel (Jan 17, 2007)

J_D said:
			
		

> My purpose in posting here now was not _just_ to complain, though, but to get the question of my o.p. answered since I know many people here also are also active over there.  _Why_ did they do this?  What was wrong with the way they were doing things before, the way ENWorld still does things here?




(EDIT:  I now think I misinterpreted your question which I think was aimed at the management not the userbase.  So you are free to read what I wrote below from a users standpoint but I don't think it really addresses your question.  I blame the lack of coffee in my system at present and promise to rectify that. )

I'll field this one but it gives only my perspective so I don't know how useful it will be for you.

My usage of ENWorld has evolved significantly over time.

When I first found the site (way back in early 2001 I think), I had just picked up 3.0 D&D and decided to give it a try after a dozen years of playing other systems (principally Rolemaster).  I had TONS of questions about rules interpretations so I almost exclusively posted in Rules.

After a bit I was in full swing as a GM and began to start browsing around for plot ideas and GMing techniques in General.  I did most of my posting in there, especially after 3.5 came out and I didn't shift to the newer edition immediately (because all the talk in Rules at that time was about 3.5, which I wasn't playing).  I also started a Story Hour so I was reading, writing and posting in that forum quite a bit.

A year or so went by and we got the NC Game Days started from a core group of posters here at ENW.  As I got to know people better, I began to post more in Off Topic because I was interested in knowing and sharing about stuff other than gaming.  In particular time just before GenCon 2005 I was hanging out in there.

After GenCon 2005 I had met loads of folks from here and felt much more like I "knew" them and my posting was much more focused on Off Topic.  Not long after that "The Nut Test" (which eventually became Circvs Maximvs) opened up and most of the people I talked to in Off Topic migrated over.

The atmosphere over there suited the off topic conversation better for me because you didn't need to make sure that your posts were not "over the line" with regards to certain topics or language.  I didn't go there with the express purpose of being mean or using foul language.  But on the occasions where such things were my response to the situation at hand I had no need to censor myself on account of any rules.

To me, ENWorld and CM serve two very different purposes.  ENWorld is to talk about gaming.  And the rules here serve that purpose very well because they ensure that conversations can focus on the topic rather than sniping at one another individually.  CM if for talking about other stuff (though I do discuss gaming over there some) because I can just say whatever I feel like saying without it being governed by external rules.  What I say IS governed by internal rules however and I don't use it as a place to be cruel to anybody.


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## J_D (Jan 17, 2007)

Rel said:
			
		

> (EDIT:  I now think I misinterpreted your question which I think was aimed at the management not the userbase.  So you are free to read what I wrote below from a users standpoint but I don't think it really addresses your question.  I blame the lack of coffee in my system at present and promise to rectify that. )



Yes, my question is why the management of Circvs Maximvs made their fora unaccessible unless the user logged in, thus locking out all unregistered people from even reading them.

My understanding is that both CM and EnWorld are run by the same people and many people are active on both sites, so that even if an admin did not answer there would be a user who knew why this was done.  The fora over there used to be available to all, and I expect that is the default setting for the message board software.  Thus, the point where it changed to logins-only reading had to have been a manual configuration setting - i.e. some admin over there said, for whatever reason, "Hey, it'd be cool if I could make it so only registered users who log in could read these fora" and flipped a setting.  I don't think it's really cool, myself, and I was curious about why that decision was made.  I know that there was some other new feature that went online about the same time last year that the fora became unaccessible to me, although I don't recall what that new feature was.  I didn't think much about the new feature at the time since I didn't think it'd affect me.  Since it was a pre-announced new feature, though, I had hoped there was some discussion among the users and admins at the time about why they now had to log in to read, thus some user there could tell me what that reason was.

Seems like either no-one knows why the login-only-read happened, though, or if they know no-one's saying.


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## Umbran (Jan 17, 2007)

J_D said:
			
		

> My understanding is that both CM and EnWorld are run by the same people and many people are active on both sites...




Yes, but they aren't the same place.  They have different moderators, and different character and feel, different policies and membership.

This forum really isn't the place to discuss CM's policies.  If you have issue with how CM is run, I suggest you try to contact Morrus or one of the CM mods directly.


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## Morrus (Jan 17, 2007)

J_D said:
			
		

> I know that there was some other new feature that went online about the same time last year that the fora became unaccessible to me, although I don't recall what that new feature was.  I didn't think much about the new feature at the time since I didn't think it'd affect me.




Yes.  It's so those with blogs over there can control the privacy levels of their blogs.


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## hong (Jan 18, 2007)

Morrus said:
			
		

> Yes.  It's so those with blogs over there can control the privacy levels of their blogs.



 Actually Morrus, there seems to be a bug with the blog permissions. See this thread over on CM:

http://www.circvsmaximvs.com/showthread.php?t=17473


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## J_D (Jan 18, 2007)

Morrus said:
			
		

> Yes.  It's so those with blogs over there can control the privacy levels of their blogs.



Thanks - that answers my question.  It would have been nice if the blog functionality could have been separate from the message boards, but if it can't then that's the breaks.  To paraphrase a famous quote, you have to go online with the software you have, not the software you'd like to have!      Tough luck for me, but I'll live.  Just so you know, though: it has cost Circvs Maximvs at least one potential subscriber.

I'm done with the topic now, and will honor Umbran's request by making this my last post in this thread.


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## Morrus (Jan 18, 2007)

J_D said:
			
		

> Tough luck for me, but I'll live.  Just so you know, though: it has cost Circvs Maximvs at least one potential subscriber.
> .




Fortunately for me, registration numbers aren't part of CM's goal.


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## BOZ (Jan 19, 2007)

quite the opposite, i'd imagine!


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