As I mentioned at the AGM on Monday, I want to tidy these forums up a bit. There are two reasons for this:
a) to make them easier to navigate and find the best place to post your comment
b) to prepare for an upgrade to phpBB3 (the fewer forums to configure, the easier it is)
I intend to make some changes on the weekend 29-31 January 2010. The proposed new layout is:
General - Introduce yourself - New name for 'Who Are You?', specifically for new members (or prospective members) to say hello and ask any newbie questions.
- Club Business - New forum for all Monday night activity, club announcements, suggestions, etc. Club Finances would be a subforum of this (if a subforum is even justified), and the 'suggestions' forum would be swallowed up. I aspire to create a new thread each week of the format 'Monday 18th January 2010' to give a clear home for any messages for people wanting to check what's on, ask for a lift, etc.
- Social Events - This would be for anything going on outside the club, e.g. conventions (Conception 11 would be moved to be a subforum of this), nights out, meals, etc.
(In both cases above, I'd probably try and move any active old threads to the appropriate places) - Chit Chat - New name for 'General Banter'. Hopefully the name change will give people a nudge to see if there's somewhere better to post (given that such a place is now likely to exist).
- Technical - Replaces 'Access Requests', 'Website' & 'Working This Forum' to give one home for any posts to do with the website, wiki, forum issues, etc.
Gaming - RPGs - New name for 'Future Games', but now for any discussion of RPGs or campaigns that don't have specific forums below. Swallows up 'Freeform RPGs'. Posts from the general D&D forum will move here too.
- Board Games & Card Games - As current.
- LARP - Rename of 'Live Action Roleplay'.
- Online/Forum Games - Rename of 'Online games'. Swallows up 'Forum Games Discussion'.
Campaigns - D&D - Curse of the Crimson Throne - The Riddle of Steel (The two campaigns listed above are due to resume soon and will be the only active campaigns with their own forum - feel free to request any you want adding) - Archive - containing D&D - Tomb of Horrors, D&D - Savage Tide, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay & Call of Cthulhu.
The following forums are due to be deleted, due to extended inactivity (approx. 2 years or more):
Uknown Armies Online
Junta
Full Thrust
Over the Edge
Paranoia
Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay
Werewolf
Wild Talents
That's the bulk of it, I may do some other tinkering around the edges, but nothing significant.
So, any thoughts/queries/objections?
Shaphron
Mostly seems fine - I'd question whether D&D - the Curse of the Crimson throne needs to be separate - why can't it be a sub-forum of the RPGs board? Same with Riddle of Steel - but I'd double check that Ian wants/needs a separate board for this campaign at all (as I personally don't see the need).
I'd also ask why do board games and rpgs need a separate board - why can't people just be clear with their subject heading (which they usually are about games) as I don't think we have the traffic required to have 2 separate boards. I do agree that LARP and the online games should be separate for clarity.
Club Business is required, but I don't think you'd need it to have a thread for each week - I don't think that there's enough talk about each week to warent the effort it would take to remember to do that each week. Club Finances certainly doesn't need to be a sub-forum - we (I) can just put the info straight on the Club business board.
Yeah, so, to summerise, basic agreement, although I think the "campaigns" section is un-needed, and would be better as appropriately-named sub-forums of a games board, which is generally all games played at the club, only giving sub-forums to those campaigns which require them.
ian jones
would it be possible/ useful to have a section for whats playing now and future.
this would basically say currently running: bob doing d&d (2/5) (second week of five) fred doing streets of steel 5/5.
next week mike is running cartoon ninjas. 1/6
james is bringing in tomb
this would let perspective gamers know what to expect at the club, and also give people the opportunity to ask to join games if they know somthing is coming up.
paz
Shaphron wrote:
Mostly seems fine - I'd question whether D&D - the Curse of the Crimson throne needs to be separate - why can't it be a sub-forum of the RPGs board?
There are several problems with sub-forums:
- Can't see details of the last post
- Can't have sub-forums of sub-forums, as TROS has now
- When I run the upgrade all sub-forum relationships are lost anyway, they all get dumped into the main set of forums, i.e. more work
Your concern is the reason I put these at the bottom, so the only people who have to scroll to them are the people who care.
Shaphron wrote:
Same with Riddle of Steel - but I'd double check that Ian wants/needs a separate board for this campaign at all (as I personally don't see the need).
I'm just preserving what's already there; if Ian comments stating he wants it deleted, I'm happy to oblige!
Shaphron wrote:
I'd also ask why do board games and rpgs need a separate board - why can't people just be clear with their subject heading (which they usually are about games) as I don't think we have the traffic required to have 2 separate boards. I do agree that LARP and the online games should be separate for clarity.
Just to keep separate game types separate. It's very easy to combine later if that's justified; not quite so easy to separate out.
Shaphron wrote:
Club Business is required, but I don't think you'd need it to have a thread for each week - I don't think that there's enough talk about each week to warent the effort it would take to remember to do that each week.
Fair enough. But I reserve the right to actively police 'who's coming tomorrow?'/'What's happening on Monday?' type threads and rename them for clarity.
Shaphron wrote:
Club Finances certainly doesn't need to be a sub-forum - we (I) can just put the info straight on the Club business board.
OK, I'll dump the existing finance posts into the new forum. Or just rename the finance forum to 'club business' - job done.
paz
ian jones wrote:
would it be possible/ useful to have a section for whats playing now and future.
this would basically say currently running: bob doing d&d (2/5) (second week of five) fred doing streets of steel 5/5.
next week mike is running cartoon ninjas. 1/6
james is bringing in tomb
this would let perspective gamers know what to expect at the club, and also give people the opportunity to ask to join games if they know somthing is coming up.
I admire your optimism of how much info most people are willing to post! I've tried to organise this kind of thing in the past and it's been like herding cats.
If people are posting general info on games they might run to gauge interest, put it in RPGs (if it's RPGs you're talking about). If it's for logistics of who's coming each week to play what, put it in Club Business - that's part of the reason I suggested having a thread per week.
ian jones
paz wrote:
I admire your optimism of how much info most people are willing to post! I've tried to organise this kind of thing in the past and it's been like herding cats.
perhaps rather than rely on lots of cats being herded we could just designate one person to find out the details and post midweek.
at the risk of "getting involved" i would possibly be willing to do this if people thought it was a good idea.
Teflon Billy
paz wrote:
- Chit Chat - New name for 'General Banter'. Hopefully the name change will give people a nudge to see if there's somewhere better to post (given that such a place is now likely to exist)....
Fair enough, but I'm not that keen on calling it 'Chit Chat', it just sounds a bit naff.
ian jones wrote:
paz wrote:
...it's been like herding cats.
perhaps rather than rely on lots of cats being herded we could just designate one person to find out the details and post midweek.
at the risk of "getting involved" i would possibly be willing to do this if people thought it was a good idea.
Getting involved is cool .
But how would you find out? Wouldn't you just have the same difficulties but at one remove?
paz
Teflon Billy wrote:
Fair enough, but I'm not that keen on calling it 'Chit Chat', it just sounds a bit naff.
About as naff as 'general banter'... any better ideas?
ian jones
[quote="Teflon Billy"]
But how would you find out? [quote]
i have ways of making you speak!
alternatively i could walk around the club and ask "what are you playing, how long for?" or "what are you doing next week?"
Gileh
forum General Banter section names
LARL (live action real life)
Topics Sans Frontiers
Anything's Gone
Something Completely Different
A silly place
No Rolls, No Roles. (some rules)
Loose Threads.
Or Just General Banter, it aint broke
dead
ian jones wrote:
at the risk of "getting involved" i would possibly be willing to do this if people thought it was a good idea.
That sounds like a volenteer
I would prefer to have a ROS forum, and individual campaign forums as theya re useful to pass info on etc, especially when you have a campaign with a million extra characters. However I dont need the sub forums.
The idea of having a record of what is happening and what is coming up is nice but would be a lot of work, it was hard enougth doing it once or twice a year.
Ian
dedindahed
I like seperate forums for campaigns, makes it much easier to ignore for those not involved.
As a sub forum in RPG, you'd have to open the RPG forum before you realised a new post is not relevant.
Also not keen on chit-chat, I'd prefer General/General banter, or open to any good suggestions.
On the whole the new proposal looks good.
Shaphron
I'd agree with paz that general banter is possibly too braod - I know I owuld actually love to use the rpg forum for what games I'd like to run and such, but don't as I'm sure no-one ever checks it. So Chit-chat, or something that specifies only chatting etc would be a better name, so as to make people think maybe I hsould be talking about games in a different thread.
Actually, with that in mind, oculd you put Chit-chat (or whatever we call it) below the games boards? That way people would see if there was activity on them even before they got to the chatting place.
LARL is possible too geeky - we want people to know what it is, not have to work it out. From the name of a board it should be obvious what it's for, not display how clever the admin is. It#s usability, not design... (Although, it *is* a cool idea for something else, just not sure what...)
How about Chatter Box, Any Other Business, Talk Talk, or similar?
I will bow to the majority of wanting campaign boards, and now you put it that way Dave I can see that a sub-forum may be more problemtaic.
Shell
dedindahed
Ok, so there is some merit to coaxing users to find the relevant forum,
but thinking about it I'd prefer "chat" to "chit-chat",
something about the phrase chit-chat just sounds naff.
Whatever the name I'm still expecting most traffic to end up there, force of habit and all that.
Possible ideas...
General chat
Chat
Non-Gaming
Banter
paz
dedindahed wrote:
General chat
That sounds fine to me. I can make sure the one-line description below the name makes it clear it's for miscellaneous non-gaming chat.
ian jones
dead wrote:
The idea of having a record of what is happening and what is coming up is nice but would be a lot of work, it was hard enougth doing it once or twice a year.
I'm happy to trial this if nobody objects.
it would be 1)games currently running and rough timespan left.
2)games planned next week.
where would one like me to post the info?
paz
ian jones wrote:
dead wrote:
The idea of having a record of what is happening and what is coming up is nice but would be a lot of work, it was hard enougth doing it once or twice a year.
I'm happy to trial this if nobody objects.
it would be 1)games currently running and rough timespan left.
2)games planned next week.
where would one like me to post the info?
Club Business (once it exists).
paz
A quick update: I've made some of the easiest changes, such as deleting the long-dormant areas (to 'clear the decks') and will do the rest later on.
paz
It is done! The only thing left is to move some threads out of general chat that have obvious homes elsewhere.
