I know we've been loosly talking about this for a while, but I think I've come up with a workable re-organisation of the forum, which owuld make it easier to know where to put things, while allowing more use from what we have:
General:
- introduce yourself / who are you
- General Banter
Table Top Games:
- Current Games - each current game has a topic, or a subforum if requested.
- Future Games - place to put what you're planning on running and to get interest
- Past Games - where current games go whn they're no longer current. Would require either a moderator on the ball or people telling the mods when to move things.
- Conventions - each convention (eg Conception) could have a sub-forum, where we can discuss things directly related to such, like accomodation, costs and games planning to run there.
Note - I do not think we need separate forums for game systems (like Cthulhu or WFRP) instead this will be covered under when they are played. Otherwise you con't know where to put your post - in the system related board, or in the future games...
Other Games:
- LARP
- Board, Card and War Games - maybe a subforum for on-going campaigns for these? I know that CCGs can be run as a campaign, as can almost all war games, and some board games. It would be nice if we could encourage more of these....
- Online Games / Forum Games - With a subfolder for past games. I do not know if current ganes would also need a subfolder - I don't know how these work, but I don't htink you need 2 forums for them (as we have currently)
Admin:
- Forum stuff - info on how it works, and requests for new boards, access, ideas etc etc
- Committee info - who they all are, any announcements (so we don't have to put them in general banter), suggestions on how to inprove the club generall, and finance updates.
- Website
Do people think this would work?
Shell
metagaia
Hmmm, while I have no real objection to this per se. However, there are two obstacles to it being implemented.
1) The current forum do not seem broken as it stands. All the major topics are covered, just in slightly different areas. This means it is relativly low priority and thus will eventually be done when an admin has the time and can be bothered to do it.
2) Regardless of how many topics and how neatly they are organised, the majority of topics are going to end up in general banter anyway. The only two forums that really see any real activity are the GB and the LARP forum. It goes against the spirit of the forum that to start draconianally moving topics because it doesn't quite fit in that forum, so most threads will still remain in GB anyway, partially because it's what everyone reads as well.
I do think it is an improvement over the current though, and would remove a lot of the clutter from the front page.
My (more helpful) thoughts:
-Conventions and future games do not really belong in table-top games, as while they do dominate them, they are not unique. I would put conventions under a unique topic of "Future games and events"
-Past games as well might deserve it's own sections, rather than a subforum in each catagory, as it saves a lot of rooting around if you can't remember exactly what type of game something is but want to find it.
To summarise, I think it would work, and would be an improvement, just not a major one.
Death Jester
Is it really such an issue having this many front page topics?
Doesn't take long to see where your supposed to be posting. Thats all i'm thinking.
And conventions and Events would be a good one to have instead of conception 09
paz
Personally, I think the RPG forums are pretty much OK, but the non-game forums need some tidying up. I think a general 'club business' forum would help (replacing 'club finances' and possibly 'suggestions'), leaving 'general banter' for just that. When I get some mythical 'spare time', I will do the upgrade to phpBB3 first, as otherwise the forums will need to be re-organised twice (as the upgrade breaks some of the sub-forum links, etc.). Then we can come to a final decision on how best to have things laid out.
I was going to rename LARP to something more specific to clarify what's actually being discussed there, e.g. 'Lorien Trust' - is that the correct terminology?
dead
To be honest LARP is fine, we do talk about other larps from time to time.
Shaphron
What prompted this was me putting up an idea for a future game - the WFRP in the future games forum - and then thinking - well, should I have put this in warhammer fantasy, or in future games, or what? It is very unclear at the mo - whereas if you had it future games, current games and past games this wouldn't be confusing.
To answer points:
metagaia wrote:
1) The current forum do not seem broken as it stands. All the major topics are covered, just in slightly different areas. This means it is relativly low priority and thus will eventually be done when an admin has the time and can be bothered to do it.
Yes, it's low priority, I'm not saying we should do it now, just that I've thought of a way we could re-orgaise it, as I know this is something people have been talking about for a while.
metagaia wrote:
2) Regardless of how many topics and how neatly they are organised, the majority of topics are going to end up in general banter anyway. The only two forums that really see any real activity are the GB and the LARP forum. It goes against the spirit of the forum that to start draconianally moving topics because it doesn't quite fit in that forum, so most threads will still remain in GB anyway, partially because it's what everyone reads as well.
I know I would find it easier to use the rest of the forum if it was clear where things were supposed to be - as per my confusion with posting up a game I would like to run, and not knowing which place to put it in. We really *should* try to keep general banter for general things, and the games bit separate, so we don't lose game ideas in amoungst the rest. That is the point of having other parts of the forum. Also, it would be good if people diud start using the rest of the forum, instead of putting everything in banter, as it kinda defeats the point of having the rest if we don't use it...
metagaia wrote:
-Conventions and future games do not really belong in table-top games, as while they do dominate them, they are not unique. I would put conventions under a unique topic of "Future games and events"
Conventions are not uniquely tabletop, I grant you, but LARP conventions would be under LARP, and other conventions are more likely to be tabletop than anything else. I was aiming at removing extra topics from the front, so put them under tabletop as being the one they most fit. They oculd be else-where, but I don't see the point in making a topic for just one forum. Future games would be just tabletop - as if they were board games they owuld be under the board games thread, etc etc, tabletop is what we play the most as a club, and having future games under tabletop would meanthat only tabletop future games would go under there. What other kind of game would you want to organise so far in advance?
metagaia wrote:
-Past games as well might deserve it's own sections, rather than a subforum in each catagory, as it saves a lot of rooting around if you can't remember exactly what type of game something is but want to find it.
Past games had their own section for tabletop games, anything else is unlikely to have an on-going game (apart from forum games) so I was unsure if they even needed a past games area - board games and such are unlikely to need a current games area, so what is going to go in the past games? It's mor elikely to be rules queries and saying "can you please bring settlers on this date" kind of thing, not on-going. What else would you put in the past games section?
Death Jester wrote:
Is it really such an issue having this many front page topics?
Doesn't take long to see where your supposed to be posting. Thats all i'm thinking.
It's not a big issue, but it isn't always obvious where to start a thread - for examply, a future game which is also one of the systems which has a separate forum. It's not a big issue or a priority, just something I know Paz has been thinking of, and I thought I owuld make a suggestion, since I came up with a way which might work. Also, some people don't scroll down to the bottom, so clearing up some of the superfolous topics might make it easier for people to know what is what in each forum.
paz wrote:
Personally, I think the RPG forums are pretty much OK, but the non-game forums need some tidying up. I think a general 'club business' forum would help (replacing 'club finances' and possibly 'suggestions'), leaving 'general banter' for just that. When I get some mythical 'spare time', I will do the upgrade to phpBB3 first, as otherwise the forums will need to be re-organised twice (as the upgrade breaks some of the sub-forum links, etc.). Then we can come to a final decision on how best to have things laid out.
I was going to rename LARP to something more specific to clarify what's actually being discussed there, e.g. 'Lorien Trust' - is that the correct terminology?
As I have now explained (I hope) the RPG forums are confusing with having some systems and some others. I do not see the need to split it by system - just by timeline. This would clear up some confusion (of myself if nothing else). Club business is a great name - much better than committee info - I oculdn't think of a better name than that at the time... LARP may as well stay LARP. If we start doing something else then mayber promoting LARP to a topic and then having forums on LT and maelstrom etc, but so far we primarily do LT and don't get confused. This was just a suggestion on how it could be l;aid out - obviously it is one I like, but I am open to suggestions on how to improve it, and I'm not saying we have to do it now, just that I have thought of it now, and wanted to share.
PS apologies for spelling mistakes and length - I can't be bothered to correct everything, so I'm sure you can cope
