Status update & new forum structure

[Locutus]

Forums that get more than zero posts are still useful. We are often the only site on the web to still support these games, so people still come here to ask questions, and we still have plenty of vets that can and do answer those questions. RoN, CtP, GalCiv, etc all still get a trickle of traffic every month and as long as they do we will continue to support them. MoO is probably the most dead of all the games we cover but even that had a post only yesterday about an upcoming mod if you can believe it (and it was still somewhat active until about ~6 months ago, which is recent enough for us to not give it up yet, if we ever will). These forums take up no server resources and very little space on the forum page in a place where they're not in anyone's way, so again, if you don't like them, don't visit those forums.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Locutus
Forums that get more than zero posts are still useful. We are often the only site on the web to still support these games, so people still come here to ask questions, and we still have plenty of vets that can and do answer those questions. RoN, CtP, GalCiv, etc all still get a trickle of traffic every month and as long as they do we will continue to support them.

Why not put all of those forums within a single Other Games category? Right now there's a whole lot of main page real estate taken up by single-forum categories, and so a big chunk of the page has a very low activity to space ratio.

That would also give you somewhere to stick Spore, which seems out of place in Off Topic.

[Solver]

Yes LS, that's what we wanted to do as per the draft. It's quite probable that we will make it so soon.

[Locutus]

That's how we originally proposed it here, but we had a little miscommunication about different draft proposals and Dan isn't online right now (end of the day it's still his call). We'll figure out what we want with this over the next day or so once we clear things up with all admins. Odds are we'll revert back to that solution again, but nothing's final without Dan's say so

[Provost Harrison]

[Petek]

In the Alpha Centauri forum, Creation was moved under AC General/Help, but isn't listed there on the main forum page. Also, the AC Democracy Game is still listed under AC Multiplaying, but has been archived (and the one active thread moved to AC General/Help).

Finally, several forums in the Archive aren't locked.

Petek

[Solver]

We're working on those minor things right now. That and hopefully some of the 1-forum categories should be fixed tomorrow.

[Locutus]

Yes, we're not quite done yet, I'm going through every forum right now to fix naming issues, links to subforums, etc. Just finished Civ3, moving down the page. Will let you know when I'm done in case you want to point out any more such issues I may have/will overlook. Tomorrow and later in the week we'll also have to look at CivGroups that may have to have their associated forums moved, topped threads that may need to be dealt with, the default "from last # days" setting, etc. We're not done yet, this is a big operation

Hadn't noticed the archive issue yet though, thanks for pointing that out.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Locutus
Asher,
As you are well aware, we will be upgrading to vB3 when we can, which is when most of the issues you mention will be fixed, that's not what this thread is about.

Most of the **** I've mentioned I mentioned 3-4 years ago. It would take seconds to fix.

THE BUTTONS! FIX THE BUTTONS!

The Off-Topic > Off-Topic thing is a pretty minor nitpick, but if you have an elegant solution by all means let us know.

How about re-naming the category? I'm not upset with having categories, it's just mind-numbingly stupid to have a category called "Off-topic" with a forum called "Off-topic" inside it. Clearly one of these names is not completely accurate.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
It's amazing what people find to complain about. Off Topic > Off Topic, who cares?

Jesus wept...

Are you familiar with the concept of "standards"?

Some of us have them.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Locutus
the default "from last # days" setting

Which you could set to the beginning for the least active forums so that they show at least some activity.

-Martin

[Solver]

We aren't going to change any vB2 code now that we are upgrading to vB3 and hope to be rid of vB2 ASAP. And specifying a different style might not even be so easy with software that has been around since before WinXP.

Off-Topic > Off-Topic surely is redundant, but feel free to suggest a better name then.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Solver
Off-Topic > Off-Topic surely is redundant, but feel free to suggest a better name then.

If you don't come up with something better, what about: Miscellaneous?

-Martin

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Asher
How about re-naming the category?

That's what I asked you. Rather than just whinging like a stuck pig suggest something constructive that says 'Off Topic' without saying 'Off Topic' and we'll change it if we like your (or anyone else's) suggestion.

[Solver]

That's what we had. Does it fit for a category if there's only one item in it?