Forum splitting poll

[Arryn]

In light of the discussion going on in this thread , I thought I'd post a poll so that Shrapnel et. al. might get a better feel for general forum sentiment on the topic:

[Boron]

I voted other by even more than 3 subBoards .

I think a good reference how it could look is the board from paradoxentertainment for their games .

They have 5-6 subBoards like :
- Bug reporting
- Technical questions
- Mp
- AAR
- Modding board
- FaQ board

Those are the subBoards and the big board is the general board where the game is discussed .
All subBoards have several subBoards too like one for every bigger mod where only that mod is discussed .

It is probably too much work but I think Paradox's board design is optimal .

[Ironhawk]

Having many subBoards sounds logical, but socially it is a bad thing. It splits up the community too much, IMO. A forum split of any kind should only be considered if the traffic of any forum is being overtaken by one particular subject. Only then is it "cost-effective" so to speak.

BTW, Arryn I'm curious why you listed this as a forum split poll. Werent you going to do a poll on SP/MP to get a feel for what the makeup of the channel was?

[Arryn]

Ironhawk said:
BTW, Arryn I'm curious why you listed this as a forum split poll. Werent you going to do a poll on SP/MP to get a feel for what the makeup of the channel was?

Pickles actually made the poll you're referring to, saving me the trouble.

[deccan]

I vote for no split at all. The Dom2 community isn't that big. Personally, if the Boards had been split into an MP / non-MP areas, I'd say that I would have taken far longer to start joining MP games.

[Esben Mose Hansen]

I don't think the traffic warrants additional forums.

[Ivan Pedroso]

Lately i have come to think that page one of this forum is clogged with MP-threads. Three reasons to this comes to mind:

(1) The community has grown - sweet.
(2) The strategial nuances and the game mechanics of this great game has been discussed at length, and most of the exciting questions have been answored - that's great (and expected since the game was released a year ago).
(3) Some prominent forum characters have left: Zen, Norfleet, SaberCherry (some time ago), ... - this is sad, and might be related to (2) [don't remind me of ANY other reasons].

MP-threads a great, but ONLY when they are "open". If I look at page one now, I can count (stickies excluded):
17 threads in total.
9 of these are MP related.

of these 9:
2 are open (one is a plea fore a substitute, and not truly "open").
6 are closed (useless to non-participants more or less).
1 Esben's server thread (very important IMO).

I have a suggestion, split the forum in two.
(1) ongoing/closed MP game threads.
(2) all other, including open MP game threads.

People would then rename their thread when it is closed or a sub has been found (a little work), a moderator will now know it is time to move it (some work, don't know how much, but should be little). This will ensure that most of us will still read the main forum mostly, and therefore it shouldn't split up our small'ish community.

The only problem I can see is what to do with Esben's thread. I suggest leaving it in the main forum (it will attract people to MP), and putting a closed sticky with a link to it in the "closed"-MP forum for easy acces.

[PDF]

2 forums for me :
I prefer not to split the forums too much - the community isn't that large !, but I think all MP games discussion could be put apart from all "game topics" discussions.

[Alneyan]

One forum for me; as long as threads have explicit names (mainly for AARs and MP games), it should work out quite well.

[deccan]

Ivan Pedroso said:
MP-threads a great, but ONLY when they are "open".

Actually I even read MP threads that are closed and that I'm not playing. I find that much useful info can be gleaned therein. Not only strategies and such, but also individual player personalities and how they usually play and so forth.