The Board

mrpsbrk · Post by **mrpsbrk** » 02 Feb 2009 23:49

Freakzilla wrote:
mrpsbrk wrote:But i know i almost never look into the "General" forum just because it is too much trouble to sort amongst all the mess...
I just use "posts since last visit".

Which works perfectly, if you want to see all the posts since last visit, but, well, does not work at all if you want to see the posts that you might be interested in...

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 03 Feb 2009 00:50

For such were browser "Favorites" and bookmarks made.

SandRider · Post by **SandRider** » 03 Feb 2009 01:03

I agree that the forums that have not been heavily posted to should
be combined or re-ordered somehow.

This board is coming up on one year, right ? So now you have a much
better idea of how's it's being used and going to be used. An organizational
re-assessment at one year seems reasonable.

I'd like a subforum for (current) politics and also a forum
for straight bullshit. It might stop me from posting my
straight bullshit all over the board.

And Freak, I use the "latest" posts too - but that leads to me posting
straight bullshit on the same theme over a range of threads.....
(and that's my fault, but self-control ain't my forte ...)

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 03 Feb 2009 08:37

How about some concrete suggestions rather than hand-waving (and/or bitching and moaning)?

1. Top Category: combine the current five forums into

Board-Related: Rules, News, Announcements, Questions & Suggestions

Introduce Yourself/Test Forum

2. Dune Discussion: combine the current 12 forums into these 7:

The Bene Gesserit, The Bene Tleilax, The Spacing Guild, and The Ixians

The Landsraad and Emperor, CHOAM, and Houses Major & Minor

The Butlerian Jihad, The Fremen and Religions of Dune

Leto II and The Golden Path

General Dune Discussion

The Prequels/Sequels/Interquels/Whatever

Dune Media

3. Non-Dune Discussion: reorder thus:

Other Books by Frank Herbert

Ghafla, The Distraction

and maybe move the Bad Examples forum elsewhere?

4. Reading Group: This is Freak's baby. No change. Except maybe move up above the Non-Dune Discussion?

mrpsbrk · Post by **mrpsbrk** » 03 Feb 2009 10:30

SandChigger wrote:How about some concrete suggestions rather than hand-waving (and/or bitching and moaning)?

1. Top Category: combine the current five forums into

Board-Related: Rules, News, Announcements, Questions & Suggestions

Introduce Yourself/Test Forum

I like, FWIW.

SandChigger wrote:2. Dune Discussion: combine the current 12 forums into these 7:

The Bene Gesserit, The Bene Tleilax, The Spacing Guild, and The Ixians

The Landsraad and Emperor, CHOAM, and Houses Major & Minor

The Butlerian Jihad, The Fremen and Religions of Dune

Leto II and The Golden Path

General Dune Discussion

The Prequels/Sequels/Interquels/Whatever

Dune Media

But, according to the current thread-count, this re-ordering would still have this scores:

(27) The Bene Gesserit, The Bene Tleilax, The Spacing Guild, and The Ixians
(7) The Landsraad and Emperor, CHOAM, and Houses Major & Minor
(17) The Butlerian Jihad, The Fremen and Religions of Dune
(13) Leto II and The Golden Path
(148) General Dune Discussion
(131) The Prequels/Sequels/Interquels/Whatever
(45) Dune Media

Still heavily unbalanced.

What i think is the problem is that this division of forums is based on story elements, not in what is worth of being discussed (which actually should be what is collectively seen as worth of being discussed, but how to judge?). That's why i prefer a "Factions of Dune" kind of thing, which further transforms your 4 first entries into 1.

SandChigger wrote:3. Non-Dune Discussion: reorder thus:

Other Books by Frank Herbert

Ghafla, The Distraction

and maybe move the Bad Examples forum elsewhere?

4. Reading Group: This is Freak's baby. No change. Except maybe move up above the Non-Dune Discussion? ;)

I will second moving the reading group as up as possible, but this decision is up to the father of the baby hahahahahha.

I think if "Bad Examples" is to be moved somewhere, then it would be to "about the board", that is, what you called "top-category", but maybe it shouldn't be at the "Top" at all...

What i really think someone should do is to go through the "General" forum and split it in some 2 or three different forums. But i can't help there, for i am not a regular of "General" at all.

And, i must insist -- wasn't you, Chig, that bashed me very recently for confusing meta-universe (as in what it all means or what FH was preaching about) and in-universe? If that criticism applies at all, we should have a forum for meta-universe or the meaning of Dune. And i think that should certainly be way up in the listing, like before the "Factions" forums.

If it wasn't a "concrete suggestion" enough, i will make a list:

Dune discussion

The Meaning of Dune -- what Frank meant
The Factions of Dune -- BG, Guild, Ix, CHOAM, BT and everybody else
Dune's Plot -- GP, Jihad, religion & politics, and so
Other Books by FH
Everything else Dune

Reading Group

Gafla, the Distraction

Other Dune-related comunities
Other sci-fi
Real-world issues that mimic Dune (AKA flame-bait, let them burn themselves)
Everything else non-Dune

About the Board

Announcements
Rules, Questions & Suggestions
Bad Examples

I renamed "General Dune Discussion" to "Everything else" so subjectively people would feel more inclined to correctly seek to categorize their ideas...

Post by **Freakzilla** » 03 Feb 2009 12:21

SandChigger wrote:How about some concrete suggestions rather than hand-waving (and/or bitching and moaning)?

1. Top Category: combine the current five forums into

Board-Related: Rules, News, Announcements, Questions & Suggestions

Introduce Yourself/Test Forum

2. Dune Discussion: combine the current 12 forums into these 7:

The Bene Gesserit, The Bene Tleilax, The Spacing Guild, and The Ixians

The Landsraad and Emperor, CHOAM, and Houses Major & Minor

The Butlerian Jihad, The Fremen and Religions of Dune

Leto II and The Golden Path

General Dune Discussion

The Prequels/Sequels/Interquels/Whatever

Dune Media

3. Non-Dune Discussion: reorder thus:

Other Books by Frank Herbert

Ghafla, The Distraction

and maybe move the Bad Examples forum elsewhere?

Thanks for the suggestions. I think we can clean up some of the less used forums.

4. Reading Group: This is Freak's baby. No change. Except maybe move up above the Non-Dune Discussion?

Post by **Freakzilla** » 03 Feb 2009 12:25

When y'all suggest things, keep in mind that It is my daily prayer to any gods that may possibly exist, that activity in the Prequels/Sequels forum will eventually drop off to nothing once Kieth Hackerson milks this cash cow dry.

Spicelon · Post by **Spicelon** » 03 Feb 2009 13:37

mrpsbrk wrote:
Freakzilla wrote:
mrpsbrk wrote:But i know i almost never look into the "General" forum just because it is too much trouble to sort amongst all the mess...
I just use "posts since last visit".
Which works perfectly, if you want to see all the posts since last visit, but, well, does not work at all if you want to see the posts that you might be interested in...

You need to visit more then.

Boards with a zillion sub forums annoy the crap out of me. I'd be happy
with a grand total of two forums here: Dune and non-Dune. Oh, and a
third for Freak's reading group stuff. I mean, it seems to me that the
major unit of any board is the Thread. Organizing threads 8 ways from
Sunday just increases the likelihood that they get burried and forgotten.
So it really doesn't matter, to me at least, of 50+% of all threads exist in
a single forum. The merits of the thread itself will either keep afloat up
near the top - or it sinks a lonely death. This is why I like the Posts Since
Last Visit - if you visit often enough, you'll know exactly what is being
talked about, and that after all is why I bother to check in. I visit a
musicians message board thathas exactly one forum. 204K posts spread
over 9.5K topics. It's beautiful.

mrpsbrk · Post by **mrpsbrk** » 03 Feb 2009 14:44

Spicelon wrote:Boards with a zillion sub forums annoy the crap out of me. I'd be happy
with a grand total of two forums here: Dune and non-Dune. Oh, and a
third for Freak's reading group stuff. I mean, it seems to me that the
major unit of any board is the Thread. Organizing threads 8 ways from
Sunday just increases the likelihood that they get burried and forgotten.
So it really doesn't matter, to me at least, of 50+% of all threads exist in
a single forum. The merits of the thread itself will either keep afloat up
near the top - or it sinks a lonely death. This is why I like the Posts Since
Last Visit - if you visit often enough, you'll know exactly what is being
talked about, and that after all is why I bother to check in. I visit a
musicians message board thathas exactly one forum. 204K posts spread
over 9.5K topics. It's beautiful.

But, you know, i am guessing all the posts exist in a big database where every post resides in the same table. What i mean is: if you check the "visits since last" in effect what you get is one forum. In other words: the existence of many forums do not stop you from seeing it all as one big forum.

I do not know phpBB, but certainly there is a way to SQLize the database as one big list of forums and so there might be a way to select a "view" somewhere that makes your own experience of the board as just one big forum...

My preferences and yours do not have to clash...

GamePlayer · Post by **GamePlayer** » 03 Feb 2009 14:53

Build the message board based on the needs (not wants) of the community, not for the sake of organization/categorization. A dead forum is a dead forum and unless it serves some archiving/reference purpose, remove it and make the site easier to navigate. If there are no new posts in a forum for several weeks and this is a regular occurrence, just axe it. The way we go off topic around here, there's very little point in a lot of these forums.

Post by **Freakzilla** » 03 Feb 2009 15:09

GamePlayer wrote:The way we go off topic around here, there's very little point in a lot of these forums.

Yeah, but I had to try.

DuneFishUK · Post by **DuneFishUK** » 03 Feb 2009 15:18

mrpsbrk wrote: Dune discussion
The Meaning of Dune -- what Frank meant
The Factions of Dune -- BG, Guild, Ix, CHOAM, BT and everybody else
Dune's Plot -- GP, Jihad, religion & politics, and so
Other Books by FH
Everything else Dune
Reading Group

Gafla, the Distraction
Other Dune-related comunities
Other sci-fi
Real-world issues that mimic Dune (AKA flame-bait, let them burn themselves)
Everything else non-Dune
About the Board
Announcements
Rules, Questions & Suggestions
Bad Examples
I renamed "General Dune Discussion" to "Everything else" so subjectively people would feel more inclined to correctly seek to categorize their ideas...

I like this - it's brutal. Could be more brutal though

-

- Other books by FH, much as I love him, does not belong in Dune, and the post count is pretty low, so combine it with Other Scifi.
- A politics/SR-shit board would be good, and there is an argument, but General/Off-Topic isn't exactly overwhelmed... is it? Cut the Flame forum.
- As long as the Hack saga continues there will be discussion - we need a preeq-seeq board, if only to keep that shit separate. Call it Dune-Ghafla or something better. A place for preq stuff and Other Communities... so loose Other Communities.
- And if we're shuffling the Top to the bottom anyway - hell, why not combine it into one big NON DUNE lower half?
- I do like the separate Introduction Forum, keep that, but make Test Posts a subforum in it.
- Then make Bad examples a sub-forum of a new combined Rules/Announcement ultraforum and Robert is your father's brother.

I'm sure I can think of more to destroy

chanilover · Post by **chanilover** » 03 Feb 2009 15:24

DuneFishUK wrote:
mrpsbrk wrote: Dune discussion
The Meaning of Dune -- what Frank meant
The Factions of Dune -- BG, Guild, Ix, CHOAM, BT and everybody else
Dune's Plot -- GP, Jihad, religion & politics, and so
Other Books by FH
Everything else Dune
Reading Group

Gafla, the Distraction
Other Dune-related comunities
Other sci-fi
Real-world issues that mimic Dune (AKA flame-bait, let them burn themselves)
Everything else non-Dune
About the Board
Announcements
Rules, Questions & Suggestions
Bad Examples
I renamed "General Dune Discussion" to "Everything else" so subjectively people would feel more inclined to correctly seek to categorize their ideas...
I like this - it's brutal. Could be more brutal though -

- Other books by FH, much as I love him, does not belong in Dune, and the post count is pretty low, so combine it with Other Scifi.
- A politics/SR-shit board would be good, and there is an argument, but General/Off-Topic isn't exactly overwhelmed... is it? Cut the Flame forum.
- As long as the Hack saga continues there will be discussion - we need a preeq-seeq board, if only to keep that shit separate. Call it Dune-Ghafla or something better. A place for preq stuff and Other Communities... so loose Other Communities.
- And if we're shuffling the Top to the bottom anyway - hell, why not combine it into one big NON DUNE lower half?
- I do like the separate Introduction Forum, keep that, but make Test Posts a subforum in it.
- Then make Bad examples a sub-forum of a new combined Rules/Announcement ultraforum and Robert is your father's brother.

I'm sure I can think of more to destroy

I like these ideas. I think this place could do with a politics forum. Even if it does turn into a bitch fight, so what? We're all thick skinned enough on here to shrug that sort of thing off.

I really think the Prequel/Sequel forum needs to stay, as it serves a valuable purpose. Much like an e-toilet, it's stops all that shit spreading to the rest of the site.

GamePlayer · Post by **GamePlayer** » 03 Feb 2009 16:48

Freakzilla wrote:
GamePlayer wrote:The way we go off topic around here, there's very little point in a lot of these forums.
Yeah, but I had to try.

Is this something we want to change? Just asking, because the "off-topic" subject has been mentioned before.

As long as people aren't intentionally sabotaging the topic, I think it's okay to let the topic play out in it's own way. It's more like casual conversation and often goes off into interesting directions. Plus if someone has an interesting point, it's not like they can't jump in at any time.

Personally, I'm okay with off-topic stuff. But it's not my board. I just don't want the board to become over-moderated by on-topic rules to the point where it stifles relevant tangents and discussions.

Post by **Freakzilla** » 03 Feb 2009 16:51

I don't really care about going off topic as long as we stay on A topic.

I meant that I had to try to set up the organization and hoped people would use it.

GamePlayer · Post by **GamePlayer** » 03 Feb 2009 17:21

Ah, I see.

SandRider · Post by **SandRider** » 03 Feb 2009 19:03

Freak, is the One Year mark today or the 5th ?

Mandy · Post by **Mandy** » 03 Feb 2009 19:28

I don't think there's a need for a test forum at all. It's just another slightly spammy unused forum. You can see if your sig or avatar works the next time you make a post anyway.

Post by **Freakzilla** » 03 Feb 2009 20:15

SandRider wrote:Freak, is the One Year mark today or the 5th ?

I have no Idea, I guess it would be my joined date...

SandRider · Post by **SandRider** » 03 Feb 2009 21:13

alright then.

PARTY AT FREAK'S IN TWO DAYS !!

dunepunk · Post by **dunepunk** » 03 Feb 2009 21:43

I may be in the minority here, but I really don't think the board needs any real revision. I have no problem navigating it, and think that the forums are all useful classifications. Condensing them seems clunky to me. But then, I'm kinda okay with whatever.

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 03 Feb 2009 22:10

(I'm not entirely sure what the problem is myself, either. But then I'm shallow.

)

Post by **Freakzilla** » 04 Feb 2009 09:44

SandRider wrote:alright then.

PARTY AT FREAK'S IN TWO DAYS !!

BYOB, my welfare check hasn't come yet.

inhuien · Post by **inhuien** » 04 Feb 2009 10:38

Bring your own Bong!! All Righty!!

Eyes like dugs baws Big Man, Pure Magic!

Post by **Freakzilla** » 04 Feb 2009 10:46

inhuien wrote:Bring your own Bong!! All Righty!!

Eyes like dugs baws Big Man, Pure Magic!

I've always wanted to do that!