Proposal to Merge Some of the AC Forums

[MariOne]

Originally posted by Taz
And it would nice to have the views of somwe of the big hitters here.

MariOne - I saw you posting but no contribution to this process...

Well, with aging, and with balding, I more and more like oranised things. It must be the waning drive for generation and the increasing urge to fight entropia....

Of course:
a dedicated forum for a category helps focusing the attention and attractin the interested posters
OTOH
it also confines it in a sort of "ghetto", and prevents the occasionl reader to be serendipitously lured in something he might find interest in.

I think tho that if a category has low activity, or a decent activity confined however in few or a single thread, merging it with a forum generating 10 times the number of threads, olny makes it actually harder to make out the related threads for the occasional reader, as they'd easily sink.

Also, when I look for live issues about strategy or the last game mechanisms yet to be sorted out mathematically, I already have to endure to weed out the help requests about IP game or XP compatibility, which I'm not currently involved in NOR able to contribute...
Should I also have to parse thru Creation or Fiction posts, that would only mean added background noise (according to my very own personal preferences, of course).
If and when I want to read some amateur AC-fiction, I know that I can find it in the Fiction forum. If it's there, I can easily find it when I want to, and I don't need to read it when I don't have time or lust for it. Even if that forum only had 1ppq (one post-per-quarter ).
Besides, I think I have already sometimes expressed my own personal aversion for mods and eyecandy. I understand that the community might have a lust for it, but I like to have the option to AVOID it, if I don't want to mess with it.

To me, if Creation and Fiction are on the wane, as they both share a "creative" aspect, it could be useful to merge them the might even help spin each other.
But I like that they're SEPARATE from AC-General-strategy.
This is always of course my personal opionion expressing my very personal preferences.

Only other viable alternative for a subfolders (and spreadsheet) lover like me, is to change the posting interface.
The only condition under which I could supporrt a merging of all the AC forums, would be to ENFORCE a thread-subject PREFIXING:
That is, when you post a New Topic, there would be a REQUIRED radio-button field to fill, making you opt between:
TECHNICAL
STRATEGY
CREATION
FICTION
...
or something like that, and that tag would be automatically added in front of the thread title you provide, evenutally making it also a flag or field you could make a query/filter upon when searching...

But I understand that this would be a significant modification to the forum scripting, and it's not realistic to expect that.

[spartak]

Thank you for your thoughts MariOne.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

I would be against sub forums, radio buttons, or the like. 'Poly trafic is very heavy and at times prevents reasonable page download speeds. Anything that requires another load IMHO is needless and aggravating.

Like Mario, wading through other threads not of interest to me also is needless within an uber-catch all-forum.

So to those ends, I suggest leaving things as they are.

[Jac de Molay]

I agree. Especially with the strategy as Im fairly new to the game and just learning some of the tricks of the game.

[Main_Brain]

merge Fiction and General leave Creation alone?

[spartak]

I don't see the point of that main_brain as creating is rather dead right now...

[gwillybj]

LeaveItAlone.
My thoughts here:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=1526397#post1526397

[spartak]

Did you vote in the poll as well?

[spartak]

How many days do we think we should leav ethis poll before deciding what to recommend to the mods?

The overall figures don't appear to have changed in the last day or two.

[Method]

until we can bribe convince enough people to vote for the option we personally want, driving it into first place, of course.

[spartak]

I'm inlcined to leave the poll going for a week and then take stock.

What say the rest of you?

Agree?

[spartak]

^bump^ all looks very inconclusive.

[Mellian]

I rather that the forums are left alone...even thought i don't write in them much anymore...mainly because i was virtually banned

-Mellian

[Flare]

I would prefer to have the forums left alone. ~Shrugs~ However, I will bow to popular demand. ~Grins~ Thanks for what everybody has put on these forums.

-Kevin-

[spartak]

well, taking stock, it looks like there is a slight consensus for change but no consensus what change to make although almost 50% think we could merge Creation with General.

Frankly, I don't think there is enough support ot make any request worth while so I intend to drop the subject, unless of course there is a groundswell of opinion that we should plow ahead with changes...