Forum Consolidation Proposal

Wes

Administrator
Staff member
Hey guys,

Due to low activity levels, I think that we seem to have too many forums for the amount of actual posts we are getting. Put simply, it makes us look dead. So, I'm proposing a sort of consolidation of the existing forums so that all of the forums left are forums that are active.

Here's what that would entail:
  • Merge all the RP forums into one in-character forum - all threads would be tagged prior to the move by genre (e.g. scifi, fantasy, etc) and you can filter the forum to show only those threads.
  • Merge the OOC forums (Peanut Gallery and Reflection Pool) into one forum
    • Might keep the Chronicles separate
No posts will be deleted with the deleted forums, they will only be tagged and moved into a more general forum. We can always add forums back when the site grows.
 
I can't say I see the point in consolidation concerning the forums in general. Unless the purpose is to combine forums in an attempt to garner general input from various special interests into the general area much in the same way that Ayenee was an amalgamation of all genres across the board. It would seem to me, however, counter-productive to consign the various alternative forums to deletion while transferring the threads into the general free-form forum when many of those threads outside of free-form either abhor magic or technologies dependent upon forum and player preferences. By combining the forums you add in the demand for an ooc thread through which rules for each storyline become argued or generally stated and often referenced by people joining them. I am all for streamlining the forums with reason but I am not sure I am seeing the reason for the idea. It seems like more work for staff (you and I) and generally more hassle for the players. As for the OOC forums That one I just honestly don't know. I could see the consolidation of the Reflection pool and Chronical into one forum, and the Gallery as its own kind of master forum of random insanity. Of course, the support forum should be kept alive as a means through which grievances or issues can be noted and addressed directly.
 
I think he means to consolidate like forums with like forums in an attempt to conserve space and make the sections that are being used stand out. That way we do not appear like we have one or two forums with activity and others that have been dead for months or even years. Take for instance realm of fantasy last post 2013.
 
It looks like and sounded like the idea was to combine all ic forums together and then allow them to be sorted via tags which would, in essence, allow them to be filtered by subject matter. That, however, seems akin to the general in character sub-category as the primary heading of a forum all of its own, without division save for the filtering aspect. Eseer, I guess for me I would rather see people see forums that are generally sleeping and create storylines in them instead of whitewashing them for the appearance of more activity.
 
Forums are only worth having if they have activity in them. We simply don't have enough RP to justify more than one RP board. Using XenForo thread prefixes would give us the best of both worlds. The default view would show all RP threads, and the sorted views would show all the threads of one type, making a sort of virtual subforum (and the sorted views are linkable too). Later, if the activity goes up again, and we feel a genre has grown enough that it needs its own subforum, we can select relevant topics by those same prefixes and select those topics to move back into the separate subforum.
 
I would be forced to disagree with you upon that point Wes. At least in my view, the purpose of the forums are to act a means for people to tell their stories together and interact. Then those stories remain archived for posterity, or future continuation. In times where activity is low, I have never once thought it was mandated to close down the sections lacking new input. Although had I pursued that approach originally, the only forums that would probably exist upon New Ayenee when you pulled it out of the fire would have been the moderator action archive, the lobby, and the peanut gallery. That would be part of my reasoning for why I disagree with the concept of trimming them down for the appearance of high levels of activity, where we have two or maybe three concurrently running threads all based within a single forum. Although I suppose another facet of that application would be the new post counter on the side which might show the narrowness of open active and new threads. It's entirely possible I am just being stubborn upon this point because I have become set in my ways, but I do not think we will garner much, if any, of an improvement of numbers of threads or members by slimming down the forums to three sections as IC, OOC, and Staff respectively. It also to me seems deceptive to pile all threads together so that we appear more active than we are. I do know if I wanted the forums to just appear active I would not have locked as many of the older threads as I have to prevent a certain summoner from necromancing the whole of the forum screaming for someone who always seemed to be talking about milk tea.
 
So is that 3 for, and 1 against?

I was kind of hoping to win you over, Mith.
 
That makes two of us Wes I was hoping to win you over as well as Eseer and Varsinax. Although an idea occurs to me that might operate as a middle ground between my disdain for the consolidation and the streamlined idea. Which is something of a folding file tree idea with the forums keep the sections but make them more or less compressed through hidden filetree optics. Which I think I might be explaining poorly. Alright so What about having one forum always visible. Like "New and On-going Rp's" However the section below that on the same page you have the other forums under an expansion button where the forums remain but allow the forums to look more streamlined...maybe a stupid compromise
 
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I think maybe setting up something like the old ayenee.com would work. There was a present, past, and future section for rps and maybe an other section for things that didn't fit into those three categories. Then there was a general discussion and an art section. That's really all any forum needs. Most ooc can fall into general discussion as well as rants and invites to games or just people talking about whatever. The three rp sections with time eras help separate the chaos that having them all in one creates. You could even assign times to those sections and help map out a timeline that way.

The art section was just for poems, short stories, and signatures or whatever the masses created and wanted to share. Since Ayenee.com died off it shouldn't hurt to take an idea they had and improve upon it by narrowing it down as I did.

You could probably keep the lobby for new comers to post.

We don't need a news forum, if someone has an announcement they can just do it in general discussion.

The rp sections we have now could be turned into those four I mentioned as they are now they might as well just be three forums all dedicated to fantasy. Ayenee is a fantasy rp, farthest reaches is basically a fantasy/scifantasy section, realms of fantasy really don't have to explain that. The library seems out of date, no one really posts chat transcripts anymore. Keeping it for sentiments is something, but in all honesty whatever is salvageable there should be plundered and the library should be sealed off and blasted into space.

The out of character section has way more than it needs. Just have a OOC Section and have general discussions and Roleplay ooc for people to question or apply to current stories.

There is an ancient formula passed down over the ages that has always blessed anything it touches and it is called keep it simple. The roleplay can be the complex part.
 
Well Eseer, the news forum was never intended as an actual forum, it was a showcase for the rules both member and moderator alike that was locked from new posts altogether. That was its intention instead of sticky-ing the rules on the top of every forum and sub-forum. As for Arts that would be The Chronicle forum. Anyhow I am getting morbidly depressed so I'm going to go.
 
I'm just saying given the amount of people we have posting, which is not a lot, we probably don't need extensive forums for genres at this time like we used to.
 
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