If people could view it then they would simply base applications off of what they see, could they not?

It's not hard to tell a copypasta'd app from a genuine one.

i'm not sure why nonmembers should be able to view it. it's not /that/ hard to edit stuff to make it look like your own opinion or writing, especially if you're being asked about objective fact, not to mention that all it's going to cause is annoyance if people outside disagree strongly with what is being said inside. smashboards backroom is private, ours should be too.

Completely agreed. In fact, this was what I was trying to say just now.

As an example, one of the questions on the BR application is: Who do you think should be numer one on the tier list, and why?
Now, if all the BR stuff was released(including explanations) to the public, then people could just grab, and, as Tid said, make it look like your own stuff.

I would like it if it was moved here.

Not going to be involved if it's visible though. There are much larger problems than people being able to fake their way in through reading posts. The whole point of a back room is to be able to discuss things in private without being under the scrutiny of less experienced players. There's no real reason to have a forum where people can't post but can still read outside of making the people who can posts feel superior.

All important info is released or explained at request anyway, but the information is better communicated that way than through them reading the discussions and arguments that they probably won't fully understand themselves.

Outsider's perspective: It wouldn't be difficult for someone to use someone else's opinions as their own to apply; however, it would be extremely difficult for them to maintain that facade once they've been accepted. If somebody manages to get in like that, I wouldn't think it would take long for the people who know what they're talking about to catch on. Then they can be easily kicked out.

And I think it shouldn't be a hidden section. I feel like there's no real reason for it to be private other than to maintain a sort of elitist circlejerk (no offense intended). Competitive talk will turn people off of Smash Bros about as much as it turns people off of Pokemon; I don't think there's a concern there. And as I said, non-genuine posters would be relatively easy to weed out.

Jm2c

there's also no real reason to have a forum where people can't post or read it outside of making the people who can post in there feel superior

it's not like the mod section or the dev section, there's absolutely nothing that would be posted there that would require it to be hidden

It's not about feeling superior; it's more about controling the overall atmosphere of the forums. Casual and professional SSF2 discussion, IMO, are vastly juxtaposed, and mix roughly as well as oil and water. I don't think we should present the forum in such a way that one of the first things a new player sees is a bunch of jargon and frame-data analysis. In fact, I would suppose that such would take away from the new player's overall experience. By making the Back-Room largely hidden, chances are, we improve the overall presentation and ambience of the forumms.

or

they just don't look at that s***?

i'm sure that people could see you being autistic and just decide to ignore that and use the regular ssf2 discussion section

The same could be said about having a coffin store in the local food court. There's no need to go into it, really, if you don't want to, but it still has somewhat of an effect on the surrounding.

Also, on a related note, the Back-Room has a much more extensive forum structure than the current SSF2 forums, mainly because tier-making and stuff require a bit more organization. This results in the competitive community perhaps seeming larger than it actually is, and could lead to the false impression that the majority of SSF2 players are competitive (assuming that's not the case).

At first, I was fine with it being private, seeing as it'd be moderated by the global mods anyways, but the others make fairly valid arguments regarding the lack of need for it to be a private forum.

There is no private information within worth hiding.
The structure of this sub-forum will not imply a large competitive community, as one will solely have to look at the participants to see that it is in fact otherwise.
By no means will it frighten away new players.
I'm not entirely sure how or why backroom members are concerned about being scrutinized by those who could care less about competitive play.
Those who attempt to get in through copy/paste of information can and will be easily discovered as they will lack competence in discussion.

In essence, it is fairly similar to the Veteran RP section as it once existed. Those who want to discuss the game without being bombarded by the ignorance of those who are not quite up to their understanding of competitive play can do so in peace, and those who want to learn, but don't quite have the understanding can watch without making a mess of things.

On top of that, there is the added convenience of not having to go to another forum to discuss the intricate competitive details of the game.

Your thoughts Cleod?

Again, the entire point of a back room in concept is to be able to discuss and work on projects with other people without it being visible to the public. This goal is undermined by non-members being able to view the forum. Information coming out of a back room is first to be sussed out in private, then presented to the public once it is in a cohesive state, and converted to an understandable format. The goal is to have a clean, high quality product, which is a large part of why non-members aren't able to see the development process.

And no, it's not the same as the Veteran RP forum. When you're in an RP, a bad RPer can ruin the game for others, since everyone involved will necessarily have an effect on the game. This isn't the case when you're discussing a video game. I haven't had any issue having conversations in the public sections in the past - you can be brief with others and focus your replies on whoever you're having a more in-depth discussion with. If you don't agree that privacy in the forum is necessary, that's fine. But having a public BR forum is missing the point entirely.

As a side note, it's pretty clear that the idea would fail if you made it publicly viewable anyway considering that everyone who posted in this thread who is in or might actually be in the back room would prefer to stick with the private one. You'll either be left with a ghost town or have to fill it with people who don't really belong, neither of which seems like a valid use of a forum.

There's already a discussion for SSF2, and the "back room" discussion can be
squeezed in with the SSF2 discussion forum. Any thoughts Cleod?

What do you mean?

If everyone could see the tier list discussion in the BR, some people will inevitably complain about the way we're going about it in the SSF2 discussion thread, whining about how "it's all wrong". I wouldn't like that, and the SSF2 discussion section will turn into an unofficial BR of sorts. It just won't be the same, you get what I mean?