Forum splitting poll

Ironhawk · #1 September 14th, 2004, 08:15 PM

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 · #2 September 14th, 2004, 09:09 PM

Quote:

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 · #3 September 14th, 2004, 11:54 PM

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 · #4 September 15th, 2004, 04:33 AM

I don't think the traffic warrants additional forums.

Arryn · #5 September 15th, 2004, 04:52 AM

Quote:

Esben Mose Hansen said:
I don't think the traffic warrants additional forums.

{JOKE} Aren't you just a tad biased? After all, it's mainly your most-excellent web server that spurred all the MP threads that now "clutter" this once-tidy Q&A forum ... {/JOKE} [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Cheese.gif[/img]

Gandalf Parker · #6 September 16th, 2004, 10:21 AM

For me its not so much the traffic, but if people arent using the forums that are already here then Im not sure if splitting would help. I wouldnt mind one just for maps so that my threads didnt disappear so fast, but Im not sure that posting them somewhere else would help all that much if no one goes there and sees them.

For the people who DO feel there should be more forums...
Making a bunch of forums and having them empty is not really a problem. I can do that. Not like it would cause much extra load on the system to have them there. But what about the chicken/egg thing? (I dont post there becuase no one reads that one, I dont read that one because no one Posts there)
Does that mean they would be in favor of a moderator moving the AAR's to the PbEM forum which already exists? and move the OT threads to the Shrapnel.General forum which already exists?

Soapyfrog · #7 September 16th, 2004, 11:05 AM

Well most games with a vibrant community similar to this one manage to get by with well subdivided forums... and hoenstly if you like reading AARs for example having them all clustered in one fairly uncluttered forum is a really nice thing. Ditto if you are looking for maps/mods... having to search through 1000 threads to find them is no fun.

Thufir · #8 September 16th, 2004, 12:41 PM

Quote:

Gandalf Parker said:
For me its not so much the traffic, but if people arent using the forums that are already here then Im not sure if splitting would help. I wouldnt mind one just for maps so that my threads didnt disappear so fast, but Im not sure that posting them somewhere else would help all that much if no one goes there and sees them.

For the people who DO feel there should be more forums...
Making a bunch of forums and having them empty is not really a problem. I can do that. Not like it would cause much extra load on the system to have them there. But what about the chicken/egg thing? (I dont post there becuase no one reads that one, I dont read that one because no one Posts there)
Does that mean they would be in favor of a moderator moving the AAR's to the PbEM forum which already exists? and move the OT threads to the Shrapnel.General forum which already exists?

While I voted against splitting up the forums, I'm not all that strongly opposed to having a single MP game forum. I do think most people would use it as well. I'd bet that most of the posters on this board only play Dom2, and as such, we don't use the other forums that currently exist because we're really here to talk to other Dom2 players, not to other Shrapnel players (which is not to say Shrapnel is not a great company

).

If you create another forum or two under Illwinter, with a reasonable topic breakdown (such as MP Game forum or MP Game/AAR Forum), I think most players will use that forum appropriately. Inevitably, some will not, then it's up to the Moderators to enforce that as they see fit (personally I like it when Moderators enforce forum topics by moving threads, but I don't see it as critical). I don't think the chicken/egg thing will be too severe, if the new forum is under the Illwinter hat, and especially if we were to kick off the new forum by moving existing MP Game threads.

Arryn · #9 September 16th, 2004, 03:32 PM

Quote:

Gandalf Parker said:
Does that mean they would be in favor of a moderator moving the AAR's to the PbEM forum which already exists?

With a few exceptions, the AARs are not PbEM/MP games, so that would be an inappropriate action, IMHO.

Arryn · #10 September 16th, 2004, 04:10 PM

Quote:

Gandalf Parker said:
But what about the chicken/egg thing? (I dont post there becuase no one reads that one, I dont read that one because no one Posts there)

That issue would go away once you as the admin moved ALL of the MP threads into an MP forum. Granted, that's a lot of work for you, but once done the new forum would be far from empty (having dozens of threads). After an initial period where you'd have extra work moving MP Posts from people who're too stubborn/lazy to post in the new thread, and ditto for people posting Q&A in the MP forum rather than in the original forum, I think people would get the idea of where to post.

I guess the real issue is how much extra work you're willing to cheerfully take on?

(BTW, the ratio of MP to non-MP threads appears to be rising. I blame Cohen and Thufir.

)