can we please do some sort of forum consolidation?

Reply #1 March 30, 2010 6:13 PM from

YOU are the one who has 5 OD threads.
if you were to post all your questions in just one there would bw no need for consolidation...;)

Tell me which ones you prefer removed.

Reply #2 March 30, 2010 6:26 PM from

WinCustomize Forums Top

Oh, crap...make that 7.

All you need is "Questions regarding OD2"

...and then itemize them...in the one thread.

If you do that you will get consolidated responses as well...;)

Reply #3 March 30, 2010 8:08 PM from

WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting Jafo, reply 2

Oh, crap...make that 7.

All you need is "Questions regarding OD2"

...and then itemize them...in the one thread.

If you do that you will get consolidated responses as well...

ok, i will do that for now on, but i posted about these as i found them and had questions, if i saw all of that at once i would of posted like that. and that really has nothing to do with what i'm asking about either.

Reply #4 March 30, 2010 8:39 PM from

WinCustomize Forums Top

and that really has nothing to do with what i'm asking about either.

Yes, but you need to concede that you haven't exactly helped with 'consolidation' by posting 7 separate threads all relating to queries about one product....;)

Reply #5 March 30, 2010 10:20 PM from

WinCustomize Forums Top

well for sure, if that is how a stardock rep wants me to do it, then no problem. i was trying to make it clear and keep each thing separate, since it's a beta product and so it would be easily visible to others that may be looking for something similiar, instead of having to open the thread to find out exactly what is in it.

i have 0 problem doing it the way you want, and that is what i will do for now on.

Reply #6 March 30, 2010 10:54 PM from

JoeUser Forums Top

I think the man has a legitimate point about forum consolidation.

http://forums.demigodthegame.com/
https://forums.elementalgame.com/
https://forums.galciv2.com/
http://forums.impulsedriven.com/
https://forums.joeuser.com/
https://forums.politicalmachine.com/
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/
https://forums.stardock.com/
http://tgnforums.stardock.com/
http://forums.vistathemes.com/
https://forums.wincustomize.com/
http://forums.xpthemes.com/

Reply #7 March 30, 2010 10:58 PM from

WinCustomize Forums Top

The only time Mumblefartz ever made me smile

Reply #8 March 30, 2010 11:12 PM from

WinCustomize Forums Top

I think the man has a legitimate point about forum consolidation.

Oh...so you really mean SITE DELETION.

Much of those are the same forums, only accessed from different sources [sites].

Reply #9 March 30, 2010 11:24 PM from

WinCustomize Forums Top

Just have to love this, that's why the only forums I visit or post a thread in is WinCustomize, if it gets cross posted I can't do much about that.

Reply #10 March 31, 2010 7:58 AM from

JoeUser Forums Top

Much of those are the same forums, only accessed from different sources [sites].

Yes and no.

There are "invisible" forums that are not on any sites top forum list and cannot be navigated to by any conventional means but when and if new threads get created in them or replies added to existing threads they scroll by on a number of sites recents posts lits.

There many strange duplications of close but not exactly the same forums. There are forums that seem to be related to one topic on one site due to their placement in the forum heirarchy and are placed in a totally different area on other sites.

There are major forums on one site with perhaps 20 subforums and sub-subforums and on another site that forum will be a lone subforum obscured deep into the hierarchy.

The dulplication of forums across the multiple topics of OS Customization on one site and object desktop on another and Personal Computing in a third site is strange. Stranger is the choice of why one particular subforum that exists on two of three related sites doesn't exist on the third.

We have the general Off-topic forum (412) that's spread across most sites but then there's also the Off-Topic forum (capital T) (forum 349) that get mistaken form one another.

The Off-Topic (capital T) forum is a subforum of the GalCiv II forum on the GalCiv2 site and also a subforum of the Stardock Games > GalCiv II forum on the Stardock but on JU is just another "off topic" forum under the Misc forum that exists seemingly in parallel. So on GalCiv2 or Stardock one would assume that that Off-Topic forum is specifically related to GalCiv2 but on JU it's just another Off-Topic forum.

Basically I tried to categorize it once and it's just so messed up I couldn't make sense of it. If you have an Object Destop forum that exists on one site with 20 realted subforums then *if* you feel you need that same object desktop forum on another site shouldn't they be compatible? shouldn't the same forum directory structure exist on both sites? At least it should be similar. In any case randomly dropping and adding a different set of subforums from one site to the next is very confusing.

Plus there are probably over 100 forums that haven't had a new post since 2005. Are they really necessary? Are the "invisible" forums necessary?

Obviously this forum structure has grown over time and simply evolved without a whole bunch of thought and planning about how the directory structure should look.

If you take an honest look at it you will have to conclude that's it's simply a mess. Last time I checked there were over 755 forums spread over 12 sites of which 393 forums were unique. I'm sure it's worse by now.

Reply #11 March 31, 2010 8:05 AM from

WinCustomize Forums Top

Yes, it has 'evolved'....and is very likely going to look totally odd, particularly to someone with a UserID in the 2.5 million....having thus missed much of the sites' [plural] developmental history.

Can it be simpler?

Probably.

Does it NEED to be simpler?

Probably not.

Once in a blue moon [Oz just had two in two months] someone finds a link which leads them to believe it's all just WRONG.

Mostly, however...it isn't....;)

Reply #12 March 31, 2010 8:11 AM from

JoeUser Forums Top

Look here.

http://forums.demigodthegame.com/forum/484 Demigod News

or here.

http://forums.demigodthegame.com/forum/485 Game Journals

Try to find out "where" you are.

Or on any site use the following link to see what "invisible" forums exist on that site.

https://forums.galciv2.com/forum/0

Hey, it's your choice whether or not you want to do anything about it. I certainly wouldn't want to be Bara and have to do this myself. But you can't pretend that the forum structure has been logically planned out, it just *is*.

Reply #13 March 31, 2010 9:13 AM from

Stardock Forums Top

it would be nice to have 1 place to access them all. i get why game forums are on impulse, and not wincustomize, sure, that makes sense, but to have different skinning forums on impulse that are not on wincustomize for instance, makes no sense. i'm thinking that the stardock or impulse site should be a master forum listing, then the other sites have what is applicable to them, that makes sense to me at least. but to have the same named forums on separate sites that are actually different forums makes it harder to get help and help others, because many people browsing that forum that may have an answer, may not see the post depending on the site.

the newsgroups were better lol, back in the day when you had them

Reply #14 March 31, 2010 12:15 PM from

WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting Mumblefratz, reply 12

Look here.

http://forums.demigodthegame.com/forum/484 Demigod News

or here.

http://forums.demigodthegame.com/forum/485 Game Journals

Try to find out "where" you are.

Or on any site use the following link to see what "invisible" forums exist on that site.

https://forums.galciv2.com/forum/0

Hey, it's your choice whether or not you want to do anything about it. I certainly wouldn't want to be Bara and have to do this myself. But you can't pretend that the forum structure has been logically planned out, it just *is*.

The forum structure is planned out for what makes the most sense for any specific site.

For example, on the ImpulseDriven forums, it makes sense to have a category for Impulse Games and show every publisher under that category. On Wincustomize, however, it may make sense to show Impulse Games as a stand-alone category without all of the sub-categories related to publishers.

In other words, if the forum structure matched across all sites, you'd see a ton of unrelated categories on sites that don't need them (eg, an "Electronic Arts" category on Wincustomize wouldn't make much sense, but it's parent category might be general enough to work on wincustomize).

I'll agree that it's been taken to an extreme due to how different the forum structure is for each site, but I don't expect that to change anytime soon. What I will end up doing, however, is making it more obvious where you are and where people are posting from. Perhaps that may help to reduce the confusion with the forum structure.

As far as why there are forums missing that should belong on specific sites, point them out to me and I'll resolve them.

Finally, as far as the Off-Topic (capital T) forum is concerned, that was likely created BEFORE the Off-topic (lowercase t) was created and was specific to the GalCiv2 site. A more general Off-topic forum was likely needed for other sites, but the one on GalCiv2 had too much in it related to GalCiv2, and so it wasn't used as the "General" off topic forum. Hence, a new one was created and used everywhere. If it's really that big of a deal I'll remove the Off-Topic forum (capital T) from GalCiv2 entirely to reduce confusion (and possibly merge the posts to the Off-topic forum (lowercase t)).

Bara

Reply #15 March 31, 2010 1:08 PM from

JoeUser Forums Top

If it's really that big of a deal I'll remove the Off-Topic forum (capital T) from GalCiv2 entirely to reduce confusion (and possibly merge the posts to the Off-topic forum (lowercase t)).

No one thing is a "big deal", heck even the cumulative total of all these things are not that big of a deal.

In the case of the two off-topic forums I do think merging and deleting of forum/349 probably does make sense.

Also did you go take a look at the two forums I pointed out? These are forums are inacessible by normal means although there are a couple different ways to find them. There are probably another 20 or so forums like this that have been similarly "orphaned". But does this really matter? Probably not. Does it matter that there may be close to 100 forums that haven't had a new reply in 2 or 3 years. Again not really.

I'm just saying the forum structure could be cleaned up and made a lot more concise and understandable if someone had the time and the inclination to do so. Does the GalCiv II forum really need 14 total subforums and sub-subforms? Definitely not. But are they actually hurting anyone? Hardly.

What I will end up doing, however, is making it more obvious where you are and where people are posting from.

That would be a big improvement and one I've been asking for for at least two years now.

Reply #16 March 31, 2010 6:37 PM from

WinCustomize Forums Top

What I will end up doing, however, is making it more obvious where you are and where people are posting from.

That would be a big improvement and one I've been asking for for at least two years now.

Mumbles.....

Compare your UserID with mine...and guess how long I have been asking for the same thing.

Hint - Wincustomize.com just turned 9.

Reply #17 March 31, 2010 7:09 PM from

JoeUser Forums Top

Hint - Wincustomize.com just turned 9.

Then you must be familar with the oldest thread in the database.

https://forums.galciv2.com/51

Of course your experience predates the database but as far as "recorded history" on these forums that's pretty much defined by the database.

There are outlier forums that precede the unification of all the forums into one consistent database. The GalCiv 1 site for example (a very sad place to visit) or the Galactic Council (of which I was a member for a short time prior to it becoming defunct on the GalCiv2 site) but in essence everything begins with the unified database.

Because of this I know all about AW Trespasser and his 6 million point GalCiv2 game and how that forced scoring changes into both the metaverse and the GalCiv2 code itself.

I find history interesting like a grandmother's closet. You never know what interesting piece of history you can uncover if you're a little bit clever and a whole lot persistent.

Reply #18 March 31, 2010 7:26 PM from

WinCustomize Forums Top

By Draginol Posted August 18, 2003 7:41:38 PM

There were posts well before that one, too....;)

Reply #19 March 31, 2010 7:35 PM from

Elemental Forums Top

(deleted)

Reply #20 March 31, 2010 7:46 PM from

WinCustomize Forums Top

I only need one forum, it's called 'recent posts'