Planned Forum Reorganization

[Ingar]

Some of you had already noticed it on the Tremulous main page: recently
my status got promoted  from Community Moderator to Tremulous Dev. I'd like
to thank everyone for their support, and the Dev Team for placing their trust in me.

Although most of you might know me as a mapper or from the radiant packages,
I have been appointed the task to administer the forums. Expect some reorganization:
some boards will move around, some boards might get merged. The idea is  to maximize
the forum pleasure for everyone: casual visitors, regular members and moderators alike.

Obligatory thought-provoking SCIFI quote:
If the universe puts a mystery in front of us as a gift, then politeness requires that we at least try and solve it.

[CreatureofHell]

I vote for Ingar! 

[Plague Bringer]

'Grats Ingar! I think we're in good hands. That being said, though... You say that the goal is to "maximize the forum pleasure" for us (mods, regulars, and casuals). Mods are doing the reorganizing. Are mods going to have the only says in how it's reorganized?

[F50]

Well that's better than letting everyone and their dog try to reorganize these forums xD. For Ingar!

[Ingar]

Are mods going to have the only says in how it's reorganized?

Well that's better than letting everyone and their dog try to reorganize these forums.

Mods have the final word on how it is organized, you are free to post suggestions
in this thread, but it won't be a democracy where there will be polls on the best ideas.

The reason is simple: to organize something, you need a vision. Suggestions and ideas are
usually limited to details, which is good, but the forum needs to be looked at as a whole,
as the sum of its boards.

What I have in mind so far

Basicly, there are too many boards to manage. I'd like to reduce the number of boards
by merging some lesser frequently-used ones, and regroup things so the most important
stuff appears at the top when you open the forum's main page.

Things I'm pretty sure about

-> reduce the number of mapping related boards to two (instead of three)
-> create a single 'Tremulous media' section with mapping. modeling and other media
-> merge the boards in 'other Tremulous media'
-> the 'Other Language' boards will probably dissapear
-> bring order to the 'Mods' section, most likely by moving the 'Mod Release Center' subboards
   one level up, and not limiting the discussion to releases.

We'd end up with a 'Tremulous Media' section containing 'Mapping, Map Releases, Modeling and Other Tremulous Media', and a section 'Mods' containing the modding boards.

The big puzzle are the 'General' and 'Community' sections: I'm not sure yet how the handle them,
but reorganizing the other sections should help to improve 'the big picture'.

[UniqPhoeniX]

I really don't agree with mixing sounds, lore, models and artwork... maybe artwork and models, but not the others. Yes, they are not as used as other boards, but they are totally different things.

About 2 mapping boards: I'd recommend keeping help section separate, with the other 1 containing WIP, competitions, released maps, etc.
If the map list was kept up to date & improved, it would be easier to find finished maps (tho something like this would do the job much better imo (maybe something similar for clans?), since forums are not ideal for this).

[Ingar]

I really don't agree with mixing sounds, lore, models and artwork... maybe artwork and models, but not the others. Yes, they are not as used as other boards, but they are totally different things.

About 2 mapping boards: I'd recommend keeping help section separate, with the other 1 containing WIP, competitions, released maps, etc.

I was planning on merging 'Map Help Center' and 'Other Mapping related material'. The 'other' stuff is basicly a contest
every now and then, and the WIP thread. I'd keep 'modeling' seperate from 'other Media' for technical reasons.
I expected some resistance to merging the 'other media', but from the Tremulous-as-a-game-community
point of view, it seems the right thing to do.

I'd keep 'Map Releases' seperate for a simple reason: released maps are of interest to anyone who plays tremulous,
'Mapping Related/Questions..' and anything else is if interest to mappers only. (moving the WIP thread only is not much of problem)

If the map list was kept up to date & improved, it would be easier to find finished maps (tho something like this would do the job much better imo (maybe something similar for clans?), since forums are not ideal for this).

A map repo is a beyond the scope of the forum itself, but if someone feels like updating the list of all maps
I will immediatly replace the old list. I can't seem to attach the original post as txt file, so I'll have to look into that

[UniqPhoeniX]

Finished maps are easy to find from map list thread if needed. However, mapping help related threads can't easily be put into a comprehensive list (and we don't need even more topics asking the same exact questions), and it's by far the most posted in of the 3 mapping related boards. Also, this way someone could post a WIP thread, and update it once they release, instead of adding a new thread in another board.

In the Mods section IMO the best way would be to have: HUDs; Gameplay Changing; Non-Gameplay Changing; Tools, Utilities etc, and split the threads in ideas / help to those 4.

[swamp-cecil]

foreign language board (a board for everything not english)?

Gratz ingar!

[your face]

foreign language board (a board for everything not english)?

Gratz ingar!

Tower of Babel effect.

[mooseberry]

foreign language board (a board for everything not english)?

Gratz ingar!

I don't think this will do anything to change the fact that there hasn't been a post in either section since July of this year. There may be a bit more content from the merge, but that doesn't change the fact that nobody uses them.

[Cadynum]

It would be nice with a quality controlled custom maps board where only moderators could create topics about maps meeting a certain criteria.

For example the map should be:

• playable
• meant for normal tremulous
• not extremely buggy
• no missing textures
• not overly unbalanced for one team
• no "gimmick map"

All in all it should be maps that are actually good.

[A Spork]

Thats actually a pretty good idea...

[Demolution]

Oh hi there:
http://tremulous.net/forum/index.php?topic=11574.0

>.>

[Ingar]

I'm moving stuff around. Bear with me... 

[Demolution]

Np

[Kiwi]

I'm moving stuff around. Bear with me... 

Looks good, keep up the reorganizing!

[jm82792]

Like it , keep it up
The more formal we get (to a point) the more people we can attract and in the end the better for Trem.

[CreatureofHell]

Hell yeah! Pink grangers are extremely formal! Fix them!

[David]

Heh, only 2 people use that theme

[CorSair]

Lol, was bit "whattaaa hell?" at first, but this seems more organized when inspecting closer.
Good job.

[CreatureofHell]

Heh, only 2 people use that theme

Maybe more would if it was better. 

[StevenM]

something like this would be neat, but perhaps too much:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[CreatureofHell]

Nice. I like how all the media posts are community posts 

[StevenM]

lol, printscrn, cropping, and moving were getting annoying so i just copied it lol.

you could even expand the idea to the general category, but obviously this would be alot of work, not sure if ingar wants to go through all of the frustration :/.

[prent]

yes please waste your time with reorganizing the forum and don't release tremulous.

[Teapot]

Yes, please waste your time posting on the forum and don't contribute to Tremulous.
Different people have different wants/skills and are free to act on/using those as they see fit.

I'm getting tired of these little brats who, while not contributing at all to the release, feel they're justified in complaining that others aren't contributing all the time.

[prent]

free to act on/using those as they see fit.

contradicting with yourself. priceless

[Teapot]

Just wow. It was clear my first sentence was a sarcastic parody of yours. But well done for picking up on that! (oh god, please let him pick up on this...)

[prent]

Just wow. It was clear my first sentence was a sarcastic parody of yours. But well done for picking up on that! (oh god, please let him pick up on this...)

nope. quote is from the second sentence and was a reference to the third. please stop being pretentious