Sub-Forum Organization And Cleanup

[Viper3X 1056]

Greetings fellow roleplayers! Today I would like to make a rather short announcement regarding some reorganizing of the forums. The forums have become a bit messy with the addition of more and more sub-forums over time, and it's time for the annual cleaning season to begin. I will outline some of the changes below in the form of screenshots (as typing out each change became rather lengthy and time-consuming).

 

I apologize if this negatively impacts you, but the best suggestions I can give for the roleplay forum changes are this: If your sub-forum contains very little posts or activity (or only exists as a repository for information about your settlement/group), then chances are all of your threads can be merged into one mega-thread that contains all of the information that you need about your sub-race or city. The roleplay sub-forums were so categorized that even the main roleplay forums were lacking posts because they were spread so thin between the different categories. I read through some threads, and it's clear that a majority of them can be grouped under one forum.

For those of you who had pinned topics in the roleplay section, here are some screenshots of which ones were pinned. However, if you want to pin a bunch of topics that were in the sub-forums, it is required that you merge them all together into one thread. For example, rather than having a sub-forum dedicated to the Laws and Regulations of the Oren Empire, simply create one Oren Empire thread that has a post within it that contains these Laws and Regulations. I apologize to the Aesterwald playerbase, as you guys were the only sub-forum I didn't screenshot (as the idea came to me afterwards).

Oren: http://i.gyazo.com/5809552ca9b5e5eecbba185b84c9510c.png
High Elves: http://i.gyazo.com/6f05bfcb878b61a0c3077f4b8cc5b322.png

Wood Elves: http://i.gyazo.com/18754adbf58979d9999eaf2afe77ebb9.png
Dark Elves: http://i.gyazo.com/5dbb1cc85f23000cbaefb0af349c8efa.png
Dwarves: http://i.gyazo.com/e08141dd845a1f10c1fc032eb84c4563.png

      http://i.gyazo.com/7633b9f4e3e861f7daf52723e353e241.png

Shamans: http://i.gyazo.com/84fdd2678087c3544f4ed6dc699dce44.png

 

News and Announcements

Before: http://i.gyazo.com/0ed85e752828a40a0cf223ee335afc8d.png

After: http://i.gyazo.com/619ffe7108b82335da08545477be70ae.png

 

Whitelist Applications

Before: http://i.gyazo.com/e9e4e985ac6c353ea65501970445cea6.png

After: http://i.gyazo.com/fd4ba932193068a05f77740189e503f6.png

 

Tutorials and Guides

Before: http://i.gyazo.com/b78e2dddbf49ca7460b17d959d543684.png

After: http://i.gyazo.com/49c4f62e15a0da1924b5f9352bf3c58b.png

 

Roleplay

Before: http://i.gyazo.com/f4da3d6088970fa2c7526c1b38f2e678.png

After: http://i.gyazo.com/98c30f5681f08d7abb31c86e99007e0f.png

Screenshots and Videos
-Moved to "Out-of-Character" section
 

War

-Denied Warclaims was added

 

Your Ideas and Lore

Before: http://i.gyazo.com/2eeb6eca98fb09764b54cab58439dd9e.png

After: http://i.gyazo.com/d308ac945aa384117740a6fc03e68ec6.png

 

Support and Feedback (now Bugs, Support and Feedback)

Before: http://i.gyazo.com/b10d7a2a09f4ae99c0b889fe19122550.png

After: http://i.gyazo.com/6482095e20df3034703ca4e9ff7df342.png

 

Out-of-Character

Before: http://i.gyazo.com/f7b13b840334a0231e6e23b96a4b47d7.png

After: http://i.gyazo.com/ed6cc777b52477573755214671a3ea70.png

 

 

I don't really expect there to be much positive feedback regarding these changes (if any at all), but keep in mind that this cleanup was necessary. It took me about three hours to implement these changes, so please refrain from asking for this to be undone unless you want to find every thread that was in every sub-forum and reorganize them again -- which would take you days. If you would like a certain sub-forum re-created or a new one added, feel free to suggest it. However, this current setup appears fairly structured, so I'd rather not make any further radical changes unless they are supported greatly. If you want further reasoning for some of these changes, feel free to ask.

[Kardel 1054]

First

 

Also, good, i guess? I mean organization is always good.

[CaptainSheepy 317]

Second :c

 

Needed a bit of a tidy up I suppose! 

 

 

Edit: 

 

I'm not too sure about the Elven sub-forums all being merged into one. The elves are known for having quite distinct sub-races. The sub-races are all rather independent IC'ly especially after the whole Wood Elves taking Annil'sul etc. It may become cluttered reaaal fast.

 

Each sub race has many important threads which relate to their culture/military etc. New players would have a hard time finding the stuff required for them to learn and understand about a certain sub-race. Our pinned list would also be huge with the lore/culture posts of each sub race and the Elven Language thread etc. This would be rather daunting for new folks. Plus navigation would be a bit harder.

 

 

[Lima 774]

This negatively effects the dwarven clans thread, and the dwarven guilds thread. Both need to exist, but I recommend that holds of Urguan are put under the Guilds with them to represent hold Grayhaven.

Guilds are needed due to the guild reform in process going to be spamming up our main forum. There will not be the capacity to merge these into one thread because both Clans & Holds and Guilds exist with separate entities and populaces for each, with no unified structure. 

I do how accept we needed to lose our holds section.

 

So may we have the subforums for Dwarven Roleplay:

Guilds & Holds

Clans

[Viper3X 1056]

Also, just so everyone is aware, no threads were deleted (in fact, the only threads archived were the ones in the Application Support forum). A majority of the threads were simply moved up a tier.

[Guest]

For those of you who had pinned topics in the roleplay section, here are some screenshots of which ones were pinned. However, if you want to pin a bunch of topics that were in the sub-forums, it is required that you merge them all together into one thread. For example, rather than having a sub-forum dedicated to the Laws and Regulations of the Oren Empire, simply create one Oren Empire thread that has a post within it that contains these Laws and Regulations. I apologize to the Aesterwald playerbase, as you guys were the only sub-forum I didn't screenshot (as the idea came to me afterwards).

 

Aesterwald-nationalist Martin Winter shakes his fist at the skygods above.

[Eleatic 1033]

readd cloud temple monk subforum blease

[Samson Option 9652]

Re-add the Forum Roleplays to separate them from truly off-topic posts. Much obliged.

[Sky 0]

The need for sub-forums are purely for organisational purposes, without them we look unprofessional as well as very messy and that conflicts with what you were aiming for. Honestly, the number of sub-forums are never an issue as they are there to be used for organisation purposes and in the end, does it matter? Five sub-forums where threads are placed into appropriate areas look ten times better than forum category with a flurry of different themed threads. 

 

Bring sub-forums back, make an area where people can request sub-forum creation/removal and then go from there, obviously good reasoning must be put into both but I truly believe this would be much better, and hey if it fails just resort back to this.

[Cracker 4570]

Oren Church and Law subforums are really important for finding rp legislation quickly both clerical and secular, and having all the necessary documentation pinned to try and accomplish the same goal would bloat the main Human RP subforum a lot by having a good half of the first page be pinned threads. At the least, the Church should have its own subforum given that it is its own independent group from Oren and needs to document its own proceedings without wasting the general human RP sub-forum space. Would be nice to get those back, even those aren't updated often!

 

Imperial peerage was also good because it allowed a sub-forum just for people to learn about noble houses without having one thread for it, which would be unfair to people who posted in the middle of the thread as their house wouldn't have as much exposure. I think the old set up, at least for humans, was fine to keep out clutter, considering the sheer volume of human RP posts that are generally spread across three or four categories that matched well with its three or four subforums.

 

I think having anymore than 4 subforums is too much, but most nations need to distinguish areas to relegate topics of importance, such as prominent families and holdings, cultural groups or religious groups. Mashing them all together in one subforum is a lot harder to keep track of and makes the job of finding specific threads and documents more difficult, and is a lot less newb friendly. Before, if a player wanted to see what the sum of Church RP was about, he could just scroll through the subforum, which solely had to do with the Church. Now he has to rely on a sticky or scour through many pages tediously, being exposed to far less information and not having an easy subforum to glance through. 

 

It's also a lot more work on the player's end for us to make one thread which has a link to every single Church related post, versus us just getting a subforum for it. The issue with having one thread to encompass what normally would be an entire subforum is that if the OP of the thread is inactive, busy, or overlooks a certain post, he may not post the link to the thread unto the hub-thread and slowly this accumulates to entire RP posts being left out. With a subforum there is a definitive location for certain types of posts that don't need to constantly updated on a hub-thread.

 

I'd be willing to work with an FM move the posts back to Church sub-forum along with the other human sub-forums if need be anyway so please consider adding them back!

[bulgaria is white 461]

why fix what aint broken

[Sky 0]

Oren Church and Law subforums are really important for finding rp legislation quickly both clerical and secular, and having all the necessary documentation pinned to try and accomplish the same goal would bloat the main Human RP subforum a lot by having a good half of the first page be pinned threads. At the least, the Church should have its own subforum given that it is its own independent group from Oren and needs to document its own proceedings without wasting the general human RP sub-forum space. Would be nice to get those back, even those aren't updated often!

 

Imperial peerage was also good because it allowed a sub-forum just for people to learn about noble houses without having one thread for it, which would be unfair to people who posted in the middle of the thread as their house wouldn't have as much exposure. I think the old set up, at least for humans, was fine to keep out clutter, considering the sheer volume of human RP posts that are generally spread across three or four categories that matched well with its three or four subforums.

 

I think having anymore than 4 subforums is too much, but most nations need to distinguish areas to relegate topics of importance, such as prominent families and holdings, cultural groups or religious groups. Mashing them all together in one subforum is a lot harder to keep track of and makes the job of finding specific threads and documents more difficult, and is a lot less newb friendly. Before, if a player wanted to see what the sum of Church RP was about, he could just scroll through the subforum, which solely had to do with the Church. Now he has to rely on a sticky or scour through many pages tediously, being exposed to far less information and not having an easy subforum to glance through. 

 

It's also a lot more work on the player's end for us to make one thread which has a link to every single Church related post, versus us just getting a subforum for it. The issue with having one thread to encompass what normally would be an entire subforum is that if the OP of the thread is inactive, busy, or overlooks a certain post, he may not post the link to the thread unto the hub-thread and slowly this accumulates to entire RP posts being left out. With a subforum there is a definitive location for certain types of posts that don't need to constantly updated on a hub-thread.

 

I'd be willing to work with an FM move the posts back to Church sub-forum along with the other human sub-forums if need be anyway so please consider adding them back!

 

If we get it back, you have me on Skype and I'd be more than willing to assist.

 

[Emp 209]

 

Good intentions; poor execution.
Try some consultation next time you overhaul unnecessarily upon a whim.
Or common sense, idk.

"I don't really expect there to be much positive feedback regarding these changes (if any at all), but keep in mind that this cleanup was necessary. It took me about three hours to implement these changes, so please refrain from asking for this to be undone unless you want to find every thread that was in every sub-forum and reorganize them again -- which would take you days."

 

The impression given herein is that just because The Man felt like it, and put some work into something, the sheep must comply.

Effort is nice, but is not justification.

Effort does not guarantee reward, nor does it obligate compliance.

Sometimes it's better to simply admit that an idea was not so great.

 

[Varsatorul 18]

I haven't read page 2 but it would be nice to have a Forum Games section which has both games and roleplay threads, in the Off-Topic section.

[Viper3X 1056]

I believe people aren't reading into the OP enough. I said that if certain sub-forums were absolutely /needed/, we would add them back. However, I will not be re-adding sub-forums within sub-forums within sub-forums, which makes the forums a maze to find anything. If Oren requires its own sub-forum because it has enough roleplay to sustain it, then so be it. However, you don't need a sub-forum that only contains locked threads for reading purposes only, as that is what the wiki is for. If you complain that people don't use the wiki, then put the information that is in the pinned threads (which are in the OP) on the wiki and I will create a re-direct forum for you. If someone needs information about a dwarven clan, then the dwarves can put that information on the wiki and, again, I will create a re-direct forum for it. We do not need to clutter the forums with sub-forums within sub-forums to categorize information, when that is what the wiki is for.

 

I am willing to work with you guys, not against you. However, certain cleanups need to be done every now and then.