DISCUSSION: Forum Consolidation

[LocoColt04]

Eh, I think there are enough people doing their own writings that the "Written Media" category can still stand separate from the "Visual Media" category - but I don't disagree with your base sentiment.

What of consolidating the FF I-VI all together? It seems a little overkill to me, but that's why this is a discussion. Then maybe also VIII-XII, keeping VII, Online, and Tactics stuff separated? And XIII since it's the new deal? I still prefer the thought of a broad-spectrum FF discussion forum. Like... this below instead?



Game Room
• General Final Fantasy
• First & Second Generation: Final Fantasy I-VI
• Final Fantasy VII & Spinoffs
• Third & Fourth Generation: Final Fantasy VIII-XII
• Final Fantasy XIII & Spinoffs
• Final Fantasy Tactics Series
• Final Fantasy Online: XI & XIV
• General Gaming

And then the forum descriptions for all of them can be more explicit regarding what is discussed in each group?


There's already a topic regarding Intellectual Discussion and the OVERWHELMING majority opinion is to keep it, so that merger won't be happening.

[SOLDIER #819]

I'm just going by what the activity levels are. Literature has had 6 threads posted in within a little over a month's time. Art is in about the same shape. If you put them together you have a semi-active forum for user-created media. Your way is just as valid, but having Cloud fanart side-by-side with a discussion about Avengers seems weird to me.

I would agree with you on the FF forums if we hadn't tried something similar before with sub forums. If you remember, it ended up being really weird... it felt arbitrary and made things confusing. The only difference is that now we have even less activity.

ID was just me being hopeful. Seriously, no matter what people think, more moderation isn't going to change that it's just a forum for a handful of people. :\ The "majority" of those who voted don't even post there. There sure as hell aren't 16 ID regulars. It's just robbing GC of topics that should be getting more input than they are right now.

[Martin]

ID was just me being hopeful. Seriously, no matter what people think, more moderation isn't going to change that it's just a forum for a handful of people. :\ The "majority" of those who voted don't even post in ID. There sure as hell aren't 16 people who post in ID. It's just robbing GC of topics that should be getting more input than they are right now.

I don't know, I think the people in there aren't too abrasive or belligerent to the extent it puts people off posting in there - I think it's the lack of different topics which is what I wanted to address to begin with. That is what I'm getting at - if we jigged things around, made it a slightly less intimidating atmosphere (I don't see that myself but if that's how it comes across I understand) and at least made it friendlier then you'd have 16 people posting in there. You'd have more. There's a lot of intelligent people on this website that don't post in there and I think it's more because of a lack of variety than the people who post in there. I certainly hope I come across friendly enough.

I like your original idea Cesar. Doesn't compress the forum too much but not as much sub-division as there is now. I'd go with that.

[Cyanist]

ID was just me being hopeful. Seriously, no matter what people think, more moderation isn't going to change that it's just a forum for a handful of people. :\ The "majority" of those who voted don't even post there.

Yeah, I'm guilty.

I notice we seem to be talking about forum sub-divisions. I, too, consider it of high import to have the perfect layout in order to attract more members (it's like a business, right?)
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, and so on (or we could just feature one really good drawing somewhere visible every month)? Also, could we possibly put mini-forums of certain music threads into their corresponding game sub-forums? Like FFVII themes in the FFVII forum (and consequent discussions) ...etc?
Heheh, it's just an idea, though. I'm not devoted toward them or anything. I just came up with them on the spot, actually and I'll totally understand if they get trashed.

[SOLDIER #819]

Maybe a compromise. Instead of grouping two generations together, group them separately. That would make it easier to see what was posted in and what wasn't, but still consolidating the forums.

I think that's what Loco's original idea was. He isn't all-or-nothing like me, haha.

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...

To each their own. 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.

This is why there's "New Posts" in the bar at the top of the screen. So you don't have to spend time with useless clicking and scrolling. And there's also the "Today's Posts" in the Quick Links Drop Bar (also located at the top of the screen).

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.

The way things are right now make things easier for newer members to join in on everything at TFF.

I disagree. I think that it makes it harder.

Having forums grouped together would make things look cleaner on the outside, but if a person is wondering about whether Final Fantasy IV is a good game for example....

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.

[Mystyrion]

Game Room
• General Final Fantasy
• First & Second Generation: Final Fantasy I-VI
-I
-II
-III
-IV
-V
-VI
• Final Fantasy VII & Spinoffs
• Third & Fourth Generation: Final Fantasy VIII-XII
• Final Fantasy XIII Fabula Nova Crystallis
-FFXIII
-FFXIII-2
-Agito
-Versus
• Final Fantasy Tactics Series
• Final Fantasy Online: XI & XIV
• General Gaming

I like this consolidation the best.

Though for the reason Michael posted.
Couldn't we just have a sub forum for each game within the forum. (see bold)
It keeps everything nice and separated and gives us a smaller, neater look I guess.

Though with the HD version of X coming out, you might want to separate that from the third and fourth generation.

[Andromeda]

My memory isn't what it used to be with the forums. But I know we had the FF sections set up like you're suggesting Loco a while ago. I think we went through the same logic for combining it that you're going through now. So the question is why did we divide it up again? And what's to say that we aren't going to do that again. I enjoy order as much as the next person, but repeating something that we undid before seems like we are just repeating old decisions that we found not in the interest of the forums. But I can't remember the decision on why we went back to individual forums.

I agree Drawing/Painting/Digital Painting and Writing are both forms of art, but they are pretty distinctive forms as well. It's going to feel a little weird seeing writing next to the last drawing someone made. They are alike in a broad sense, but are two very divergent talents/skills. They probably should remain divide, it is only Art and Writing. Two forums rather than one isn't hurting anything and both have a fairly substantial archive.

I think mostly a reorganization is useful in bringing other things under the same umbrellas while maintaining their individual identities.