I think that's what Loco's original idea was. He isn't all-or-nothing like me, haha.Originally Posted by Bias reduX
To each their own.Yeah, I'm guilty.
...
I don't agree with bunching the arts and musics, though. I think we should expand on those. I think maybe if good art were displayed more often, people would think we're cooler and more populated than...well, than we are.
How about putting all FFVII related fan-art in with the FFVII forum...You joined later on, but we had a similar debate on ID back in late 2010. We have the exact same issues being brought up and the exact same solutions for them are. I'm just jaded because people can't see that. =P
As for fanart... I think people usually post their fanart in their own threads, right? If we had a thriving fanart community with lots of people drawing stuff for every FF that'd be something to do... but as it stands people rarely do it. Fanfics are about as rare, and music is even rarer. And we'd still have to have another forum for works that aren't related to FF and the like, so we wouldn't really be consolidating at all.
These are both search queries and bandwidth hogs. Further, the fact that I have to use a search to easily navigate the forums is a problem. I should be able to easily see that there is a new post from the index. As it stands, having to scroll through each and every forum on the index to find the few new posts TFF has in a day (or week) is silly. It's like finding a needle in a haystack.
I disagree. I think that it makes it harder.
This seemed like an issue to me at first, but around half of the most recent threads are well marked. Many make a habit of it regardless of whether or not the threads are categorized into forums, and people will adapt once the forums are reorganized. An admin or mod could probably fix up two pages worth of threads in 10-15 minutes easy.
I realize that you don't like the idea of consolidating the FF forums, and if this were 10 years ago I'd understand, but as it stands we have as many forums as we have new posts on some days. The board layout has changed little since I joined, but the number of posts we have is small fraction of what we used to receive. If there weren't search functions, I'd have an easier time navigating 4chan than here. It's really sad.
Last edited by SOLDIER #819; 06-09-2012 at 06:24 AM.
Honestly, it's a very intimidating looking layout, with boards for everything, sections, subsections and the like. It looks far more bureaucratic than an internet community should. Sure it's easy to navigate, but I feel like if things can be streamlined, it could be easier.
Hell, even going back to the S and N generation layouts could work
SOLDIERcHoSeNCrao Porr Cock8- Rebels, Rogues and Sworn Brothers
I don't think we need any consolidation of any of the Final Fantasy subforums. Really, what is clearer than having one for each 'number' of the series (each one containing relevant spinoffs and remakes). That is the most logical. However, if consensus is tending towards some kind of consolidation, I think a split by generation (i.e. type of console) is the most sensible.
As for merging ID and GC... I'm in two minds. I agree with Pete in another thread, who said:
But at the same time, I want nothing more than for more people to participate. While I still think that comes down to having members who aren't going to bite people's heads off in subtle ways (which is why I mooted 'better' moderation as a solution), as well as an interesting array of topics, I feel like we should perhaps try something new. As S was saying, we could experiment. If it doesn't work out, just revert.
Sorry my opinion isn't any clearer than that.
If we don't combine them, and need a new name for ID, I like Dranzer's 'Agree to Disagree' name the best. Topical Discussions sounds like the topics have to be recent news. They do not, and TD sounds even more like political discussions than ID.
My only problem, and it's with TFF in general is that anytime a truly thought provoking thread comes about in GC, and it gets a slew of well written responses, it gets tossed into ID. And through no fault of his own, people are intimidated to get into debates with people like Sasquatch.
It could be any number of reasons, but people back away from that forum, mostly because of the precedent of past threads, with lots of fact finding, mass quoting and the like. It takes effort to make truly good posts, and people will get called on their statements.
I think in a roundabout way, I'm trying to ask, what can we do to make ID more friendly or less intimidating, without losing what makes ID great? Alpha, I think we're very much on the same page with this.
Like I said before, I like the idea of each game having its own section, but it'd be great if we could make them all into 3 major groupings. Nintendo Generation (I-VI), Sony Generation (VII-XII), Next Generation (XIII, the future games and the like), and maybe something for other games in the series, like Tactics, Crystal Chronicles, Kingdom Hearts and such.
SOLDIERcHoSeNCrao Porr Cock8- Rebels, Rogues and Sworn Brothers
Rather than attempt to poorly quote a bunch of things from my phone, here is a generic response that should answer some of those questions directed at me. If I miss anything, I'll address it next time I'm at my computer.
For reference, I am personally opposed to consolidating the FF forums to anything beyond what I wrote in the OP. But, again, I am willing to weigh all opinions. And I'm just as happy with leaving them all spread out, but if we do that, I'm going to suggest we move our chat forums back up above the game room like they were four or five years ago. It made sense to change them back then (for those who weren't here, people would just post all of their FFVII questions in the general chat forum because it was up top and they didn't want to scroll down to the game forums). I think if the majority wants to keep full expansion of the current FF listings, we should go ahead and move the category back down so that there isn't a giant wall of text keeping people from where most of our topics truly take place.
But with mild consolidation of the game forums, even to the extent in the OP, it cuts that entire category in half, and the index is much cleaner.
And to whomever (cyanosuke?) it was that mentioned clicking multiple times to reach your destination, that is exactly what I'm against. What I'm suggesting is not creating forums and then moving existing areas into them as subforums; rather, I'm saying let's literally merge the forums together. Still just one click, butwith multiple topics at hand. I don't think the Bartz/Terra confusion that Michael (if I recall from skimming here) mentioned will be as commonplace as he expects it to be.
Please forgive any odd sentences. Swype doesn't always understand what I'm trying to tell it to type and I don't always read every sentence before moving on. :3
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reppin' SOLDIER since 2004 • CPC8 class of 2009Random;:
I know I'm double posting, but I don't know where the edit button is on Tapatalk.
Anywho, an afterthought regarding forum merger - I've seen on other forums before little drop boxes that allow you to pick a topic identifier when you are creating a thread. If I could find that mod, we could install it and try it out for a while. It would help to create a forum-generated label to separate your FFV and FFVI threads (using the referenced example above again) rather than expecting everyone to remember to put a number in their titles.
And if I can't find one or it doesn't work the way I'd want it to... Well, like S said (and I apologize if it was someone else but I already forgot), it would only take a moderator ten minutes to edit a month's worth of thread titles to include a number to specify which game they belong to. Not exactly a lot of work.
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reppin' SOLDIER since 2004 • CPC8 class of 2009Random;:
Select your post > Select more > Select modify > Select edit.
At least thats how it is on the iphone. It was better when you just selected your post and clicked edit.
Found it; not in "more" but instead an option in "mod." I now return us to our regularly scheduled discussion.
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reppin' SOLDIER since 2004 • CPC8 class of 2009Random;:
If you're unwilling to go to the multiple click route I suggest leaving the forum as it is.
I prefer separation.
I will suggest switching the TFF lobby and member lounge though.
That mod would be a really good if you could get your hands on it. 15 FF forums alone... it's a crazy big list.
On another note, maybe you should move the TFF Office category to the top, where it's more readily available to the ones who can see it? Not that most of the forums there are used very often anymore...:\
I don't know if vB can do this, but at the site I frequent most, Child/Sub forums have hyperlinks at the bottom of the forum description, for ease of access.
Would be handy if we kept them separate, but in 'Generation' forums, you know?
make political and intelligent; separate topics. I can ram a lobbyist or rush Limbaugh in your ass all day every day and tell you it's raining but politics is not a proven science with a world-wide consensus. Emotion and judgement have no worth in an intellectual discussion unless this is how TFF wants to portray it's beliefs and endorses it slogan. Are you worried the politics here will rise and that a sophisticated essence will die? These are not the two topics your want merged.
Last edited by Joxsjua; 06-10-2012 at 09:54 PM.
I was kind of talking about making the forum more appealing to lure in more members. Hmm, a bit off topic, wasn't I? Sorry, I'll save that stuff for another thread, then. Anyway, I get it now. Thanks for the explanation.
~I'm sorry I haven't been around very much~
The votes are in for the sketch contest. See who won the epic battle here:
http://thefinalfantasy.net/forum...12-voting.html
So how's that vote going up in the capitol? =P
No votes anywhere yet. This was meant as a discussion, and you'll note that I didn't specify some kind of timeline on this one. I was hoping more of the staff would chime in with their opinions though... *cough*
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reppin' SOLDIER since 2004 • CPC8 class of 2009Random;:
As long as this isn't forgotten like just about everything else, haha. I'm looking forward to less scroll time.
Merging the FF forums into sections as the OP mentioned seems like a good stop-gap for the current situation. Also, you can already add an icon when you create a post/topic so really all you need to do is to dump the corny emoticon ones and swap them out with custom images that are more FF appropriate.
Fantastic suggestion - and since the CP gives me control over which icons show up and in what order, I can just wipe out part of the list and have roman numerals highlighted atop the listing.
Community Manager; Forum Administrator
reppin' SOLDIER since 2004 • CPC8 class of 2009Random;:
Or kawaii FF faces that double as emotions so that I can spam Cloud crying like a bitch. ^_^_^_^_^
I'm not sure if there are good FF themed emoticons that small that actually look good and would be easily recognizable. I guess it is worth looking into.
Another option would be to have tags like Fark.com. Designer rectangles with "FFX", etc in it would look pretty cool to me. Of course, this all assumes people use the tags. Moving the Post Icons section of the thread/reply creation under the title might help with that.
Is it possible to make an icon/tag a necessary item to be selected in just the FF forums, like the title and post body of a thread in any forum? That way people won't stumble onto spoilers in untagged threads... since there wouldn't be any.
I'm going to try and get hold of some RPG Maker style sprites of FF characters to represent the different games. So far I have access to (main characters): Luneth, Cecil, Terra, Cloud, and Tidus. That's nearly half without any effort!
All are free to use, but a credit should be given somewhere on the site.
Banners and Stuff:
Last signature update: 02/08/2014
If you force people to pick an tag, the other issue would be having people actually pick a post icon that actually applies. How do you stop someone from making a FF7 spoiler thread with a FFX tag? I guess you could enact a rule around it, like it is a low-level warning or something. That would be something that would need to be fleshed out I think.
I'd assume that would work in the same way as posting an FFVIII topic in the FFIII forum, or something like that.
EDIT:
Just to give you an idea of what I was talking about vis-a-vis icons:
Last edited by Aerif; 06-22-2012 at 10:25 AM.
Banners and Stuff:
Last signature update: 02/08/2014
As Aerif said, it's an inevitability. However, I do agree that forcing them to post a tag/emoticon does change things a bit, so perhaps it would be better to use roman numerals/numbers instead of sprites for clarity. Years ago you couldn't mistake Cloud for Terra, but I'm not sure I'd be able to pick Tidus and Vaan apart.
Bump.
BUMP.
It looks like vB3 also supports thread prefixes, so we can move forward with that here before the conversion. Do we have any artists interested in making small rectangle representations for each FF game? I'm thinking dimensions similar to Drew Curtis' FARK.com. For example:and
. I can run a query to modify all the existing threads in each forum to have the correct prefix once we have them made.
Then we need to nail down which games should be grouped together. Once the forums are combined thread prefixes on the combined forums can be changed to mandatory. This means you have to pick which game you are posting about when you make a topic. It is super easy and would only apply to the FF games forums. Of course, if people are being retarded and putting the wrong game prefix they should be dealt with appropriately...
I'd be more than happy to give it a go. Actually, a little while ago a few other members and I talked on msn about holding a contest where members would make new banners and then we could all vote on the winners. That way it increases activity as well.It looks like vB3 also supports thread prefixes, so we can move forward with that here before the conversion. Do we have any artists interested in making small rectangle representations for each FF game? I'm thinking dimensions similar to Drew Curtis' FARK.com. For example:
Then we need to nail down which games should be grouped together. Once the forums are combined thread prefixes on the combined forums can be changed to mandatory. This means you have to pick which game you are posting about when you make a topic. It is super easy and would only apply to the FF games forums. Of course, if people are being retarded and putting the wrong game prefix they should be dealt with appropriately...
When will all these changes take place? Will there be down-time on the forum?
Looks like the dimensions for these things would be about 50x15. Alternatively, we could use simple gifs to spell out the names (i.e. FFI, FFX, FFXIV) in the classic FF font, which I think would be more elegant than what Fark has and more expedient overall.
No one who plays FF has trouble identifying a roman numeral or two, right?
Halie, you may want to move ahead with the banner contest. The forums will be having an overhaul at some point, but so long as we're clear on banner dimensions and a general idea of the desired color scheme (like, black with shades of blue, etc.), they should be ported over easily enough.
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