Proposed Changes To Forums was:Question Sub Forum

[Voltron]

I suggest having a sub-forum dedicated to questions.
Would help clear up general discussion.

[Derrick]

A good point, there is really a lot of different types of threads in Discussion. To me though it seems like we have a lot of different forums already. Maybe someone can suggest a more comprehensive rework of the forums?

We get a lot of template talk in there too. There's also quite a lot in the guides section that would be better off somewhere else.

[Voltron]

I really can't think of another way to put the forums I just think it would clear up General Discussion a bit if we did add a question forum.

Going to have to wait for someone else to throw you a template :X

[fooka03]

Give me a bit to think about it and I can throw you one.

By template do you mean changing overall look and feel of the forums? (color scheme, icons, etc) or just what forums and sub-forums there are?

[fooka03]

Below is a suggested framework for the forums. The key is: Bold for Groups/Categories, Underline for forums, and Italics for sub-forums. Any suggestions for layout, additions, or name changes are greatly appreciated.

NEWS

-Shard News
-Community Announcements
-Events (Possibly, pending less auto events and more "questy"/RP type events)
-Past Event Feedback
-Future Event Suggestions
-PVP Events

DISCUSSION

-Second Age General Discussion
-Suggestions & Era Accuracy
-Off-Topic
-Trash Talk (The Fire Dungeon Chats or The Hall of Eternal Flame if I were to rename it)

SUPPORT

-Guides & FAQs
-Server & Client Support (Replacing "Support" forum)
-In-Game Bug Reports
-Game Questions & Help (New forum, post requests for help on in-game topics not found in the above sections. Completed discussions here can be trimmed and moved to the Guides & FAQs section.)

COMMUNITY

-The Crossroads Tavern
-Screenshots & RPVs (ONLY for screenshots and RPVs that do not have a story to go along with them.)
-Guild Recruitment (For all guilds, not just RP)
-The Rowdy Pirate (or other such clever, taverny sounding name using the initials "RP" for "Role-Playing")
-The Trading Post
-Looking to Buy
-Looking to Sell
-Price Check
-Player Vendor Mall (Format: Screenshot and longi-lati coords; What is sold; Best contact in case of empty vendor)

Changes (Additions):

The biggest additions to this of course are the Events forum and the Game Questions Forum. From reading the forums I understand that there is an interest in scaling back the amount of PVP tournaments and having more PVM/RP events in the future. This area adds in an exclusive discussion area just for that plus feedback and a suggestions area. There is also an area just for all things relating to the current PVP events of course this can be expanded to include future PVP events. As for the Game Questions forum, this adds an area for people who are not all that familiar with the shard, T2A or even UO in general to ask questions about the game that might not necessarily be covered by the current guides. In this way it provides a beacon for new players to interact with vets and perhaps give ideas for future Guides/FAQs. A minor addition is that of the RP Tavern forum to the "Community" Group to have an exclusive area for RP communication, guild warring, etc.

Changes (Modifications):

A few of the forums have been modified for clarity and logical order. The "Discussion" Group has been trimmed to forums that are just pure discussion. Support, Guides, Bug Reports, Screenshots, and The Trading Post have all been moved. The first three to a new "Support" Group and the last two were moved to the "Community" Group. The News and Announcements forum from the "Community" Group has been moved (and renamed) to the "News" Group. The Trading Post has its subforums renamed, and had an additional subforum added for trading purposes (i.e. gold not being the majority of the transaction.) The Screenshots and RPVs forum has been demoted to a subforum of The Crossroads Tavern since most of those postings will be covered in that forum anyway. This will hopefully reduce redundant posting of screenshots and reduce forum load.

Some minor changes are mostly name changes to fit the content better. Guides was renamed to "Guides & FAQs" to facilitate future additions from the new Game Questions forum. Support was renamed to "Server and Client Support" to denote that non-game issues should be posted there. Bug Reports was renamed to "In-Game Bug Reports" to properly direct people reporting bugs encountered while playing. Suggestions was renamed to "Suggestions and Era Accuracy" since a large proportion of the posts in this forum seem to be more of the latter. Other was renamed to "Off-Topic" for obvious reasons, just a clarity issue. Optionally I would like to see Trash Talk renamed since the current name seems so inelegant and immature.

Changes (Removals):

The Tales of Adventure forum is to be merged with The Crossroads Tavern. The both serve the exact same purpose so why have redundant forums? The other subtraction of note is that of the Patch Notes forum. These patch notes should be either posted to the Wiki, or the main page. It is assumed that when the server is patched that the staff has already done lots of research into the changes plus taken input from the test shard feedback plus thoughts and suggestions from the forums. If there is a problem with accuracy, a suggestion to change a new feature, or a bug/mistake found within the patch they should be posted in their respected forums. This will hopefully make it easier on the staff to qualify which forums are "Must-see" if their time is limited instead of trawling through all of the new threads to see if something shard threatening has come up.

This is just a preliminary suggestion of a forum overhaul. Obviously I have no say in such things as to dictate to the staff here but I thought that I would provide some of the leg work for a more in-depth rework as suggested above by Derrick. If the staff expresses interest in this general layout I can take the changes requested and do a complete layout (complete with forum and sub-forum descriptions). I figure since I'm a poor college kid I can at least donate my time and talent where my money is lacking

[Edit]Removed upcoming events and looking for trades forums. 1-2-09

[Derrick]

I like this a lot. I'd like to see more discussion on this. Maybe make the original post a work in progress and fooka03 if you can edit as is necessary.
I'd really like to keep the patch notes thread largely because it's a very convenient way for me to enter them, and for people to search them. I'm not however opposed to making them read-only.

Thanks a ton for your work on this!

[fooka03]

sure, sounds like a plan.

though I would like to request you set a soft deadline for discussion to conclude so that we won't have this drag on for months. I figure 2 weeks is probably the max. I say soft so that we can give ourselves some wiggle room if talks conclude early, or if something important comes up that needs a few extra days to resolve.

[Voltron]

You want me to copy and paste that in my first post?

I'm really liking your setup, may need a little revision but it looks pretty well done.

[fooka03]

bump

so nobody has any complaints with my proposed forum changes?

[ukd]

actually, looks a lot easier to find things.

[RawToxic]

I agree that the new organization style would seem to make the forums flow a little better.

I would also like to see a separate patch notes thread. It would be alot easier to manage as a separate forum with individual patch threads for staff to post the server code changes and the discussion over them.

Also, due to the vast size of the Bug Reports forum, it would be good to separate those out and archive the old reported bugs that have prompted changes to the server code, ones that were cancelled, and ones that have been approved and are prompting upcoming changes in a future patch release. Although, it would require someone to moderate this forum. If staff would like, I would still be willing to help out in that area.

[Hemperor]

sorry i kind of skipped all the replies, but one thing I hate when I go to a site's forums is seeing WAY too many sub forums and boards etc...looks cluttered and messy, I like the way it is now, possibly add one board for questions.

[fooka03]

perhaps you could take a closer look at the layout proposal hemp? I plan on eliminating more forums than I would be adding.

[Voltron]

It still looks damn good to me but I think take out the Upcoming events and just leave the events forum, and also take out the looking for trade forum.

[fooka03]

Yea good call on both. Trades can just be posted in the selling forum and the upcoming events are posted on the main site anyway.