Forum Consolidation
While I'm looking into the technical issues that need to be resolved, I've also been looking over some general site organization. What do you guys think of doing some forum consolidation? Forum activity breeds forum activity. An easy way to juice a board into some more activity is to consolidate forums -- actually, usually a forum is only added when forum volume is so much that users can no longer easily see the new topics in a specific forum. Here's what I see in the general forum sections (let's ignore the Groups for now)General - Rebel Cafe - Arts & Entertainment - News & Announcements - Databank Discussion - Communications In Character - The Battlegrounds - IC News & Propaganda - Astral Astoria - Biographies and History - OOC Forum - Research & Development
I think we could combine some of these and end up with fewer, but more frequently used forums. Maybe something like this:
General - Rebel Cafe - News & Announcements In Character - The Battlegrounds - Astral Astoria - Technology, Propaganda, & History - OOC Forum
A&E, Databank Discussion, and Communications could go into the Cafe, resulting in one general forum that is frequently used. News and Announcements is contextually different and published to the home page, so that has to stay separate.
R&D, IC News, and Bio & History could all be grouped into one forum, with the different topics distinguished by the use of [posttype] tags in the subject line. They're all non-roleplaying yet In Character thread types that exist more for informational purposes than for active use (ah for the days of a good old propaganda flame war), eg: contextually similar.
Whaddya think? Something like this would result in fewer, yet more active forums. It's a subtle effect, but I think it'll result in a boost to post frequency as less-frequent members stop by and see.
Comments
#24 2:09am 05/01/11
I found it in the vB issue tracker. Easy fix that just rephrased the query, a lot easier than the upgrade I thought I'd have to do.
#23 4:48am 04/01/11
If you can't find it, you should be able to go to the vbulletin site. As I recall it was an amazingly quick fix. At least to me. I find all this vb stuff to be very hard.
#22 5:31pm 03/01/11
I'll go searching for a fix you might have posted, thanks Sam.
I completely agree on the Bios, I have some ideas for how to leverage those better. There are a ton of things we could be doing to enhance that portion of our site.
#21 12:53am 03/01/11
There is a userCP fix, we fixed that long ago on our boards. From what I recall it's very simple. I can't remember where I got it from but I think I posted it here before.
As an observer (and erstwhile halfass RPer :P), in my opinion, bios need to be seen and in a forum or wiki. When I am on a site and deciding whether I want to place an ad there, I check for bios and make sure they aren't stupid. I would do the same if I were a random visitor who wanted to see how the writing is.
Most sites I go to hide profiles from unregistered members; we do it ourselves. If you make them visible, they show emails, IMs, etc. to spammers.
#20 1:57pm 30/12/10
Hm, I support the forum consolidation.
Also, fix the dern User CP. ;)
Also, hi Titus long time no see!
#19 1:43pm 30/12/10
Hmmm, I don't know about just one, but perhaps just two, one private, one public. Certainly as TNO for example, we don't need six.
#18 3:36am 30/12/10
[QUOTE=Smarts]I'm Smarts, and I joined TRF in '06.
That is all.[/QUOTE]
...why do I remember you arriving at the board like it was the other week? Geez.
But, as for the topic of this thread, I'd say making the board more streamlined is fine. I think we could even go a step further and simply break it down into:
In-Character (which would have all IC posting areas as sub-boards, including battlegrounds, propaganda, astral, etc)
Out-Of-Character (which has the rest, like the planets list, the character bios, etc, etc).
But, lately I've been a minimalist, so...
#17 4:50am 29/12/10
Do you REALLY need all those hidden forums?
Or do you just like having secret places where no-one can go?
:P
In all seriousness if you do fair enough.
#16 4:08am 29/12/10
I don't see the need to cripple groups like so. Yes, we have many unused forums, but the solution to that doesn't seem to be make every forum unusable.
#15 4:06am 29/12/10
Ha! I knew that would rankle your robes.
[QUOTE]No more Chau Ming Memorial?[/QUOTE]
Not if that one forum was the Chau Ming Memorial... o_O
#14 4:03am 29/12/10
Wait, what? One forum per group? No more Dental Plan? No more MCC? No more Chau Ming Memorial?
What kind of madness is this!
#13 11:14pm 28/12/10
I demand the Duel skin be updated/debugged.
#12 9:38pm 28/12/10
Oh and Smarts Rocks.
#11 9:35pm 28/12/10
[quote]A Bio should really be part of the username's profile, and not a forum.[/quote]Agreed. Could we not just do that for all bio's?
And with that in mind, is it possible to alter or change the various 'Criteria' or options within said user-profiles?
instead of the usual headings: Tell us about yourself, Name , occupation, etc...
Can we add / delete more ourselves? Also there aren't any silly restrictions on them are there? ie: how many characters.. etc
If we can just insert our bios into our user-profiles, it does free up a whole forum which can be removed, not only that but at this stage, other than to change a Custom title, the user-profile section is not really being used at all.
Kinda silly really, when its pretty ideal.
But of course for this to be utilized, we really need that user-profile bug fixed.
[quote]R&D should be static content with comments, a wiki page or some other structured page content, not a forum.[/quote]Agreed, we don't need forums for R&Ds.
[quote] Well, personally, I think a group should have only 1 forum. Members of that group have access to that forum. None of this 5 forums and 3 invisible secret forums for negotiations on the off-chance that some other group wants to talk.
Members of all ranks should talk in their group forum. Everything else can take place in the Battlegrounds, IC Propaganda or OOC forum (or even PM).[/quote]Agree with Omnae on this, (bear in mind I am the worst at this- though in my defence in the past, I have needed it, to ensure VC's survival, I kid you not).
One private forum per group should be enough, and whilst we are becoming more co-operative as a whole, TRF is still competitive, (very much so, haha)
[quote]The Astoria doesn't have much point unless we had a steady stream of new members. We intended on trying to funnel newbies through it before they hit the BG, a place they could post one-line posts without being called on it.[/quote]In that respects it sorta failed, mainly I suspect partly due to inactivity on my part, but also due to most noobs wanting to whack people over the head with lightsabers and immediately Kill Darth Vader and destroy the Empire all in one post.
That said, I like it, and would like to keep it going if possible, since there is definitely more to be explored in it.
Having it as a sub-forum within the Battlegrounds works fine with me, can delete the 300th floor , its not necessary to have (though please save the topics already within it first!)
I'm definately up for having an ebook version of TRF, if thats at all possible, if this can be added as an extra feature with fairly little hassle, then great! If not, Ce'st la vie.
Also, an RSS feed , as Om mentioned earlier I think would be a great extra function - (again if possible)
#10 6:05am 28/12/10
[QUOTE=Smarts]I'm Smarts, and I joined TRF in '06.
That is all.[/QUOTE]You make me feel old.
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