The subforum shuffle

Good daycycle forumites!

I've been incessantly harangued by a very nice chap who would like something along the lines of a "stuff you made" subforum. The basic principle'd be creating a home for things like the writing, doodling, gift exchange, and user-made videogames threads, allowing scope for people to create their own personal art/music/writing/other creative endeavour threads in future, as well as having specific threads for specific group projects.

I'm keen for it too, save for a couple of logistical problems I'm seeing. Ignoring the the "over-organisation of the forums might be violating the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' rule" dealie, I know we already have a subforum called "shit you can do". While I'm pretty sure I understand the distinction between Something a Little Somethings + roleplays + thread-based game adaptations AND all that stuff I mentioned above in my head, I'm having some trouble thinking up an intuitive way to organise and label it all.

On top of that, we could quite clearly use a Media subforum at some point (for Lets Plays, Eagle Clans in online games, threads for specific games), but that makes me worry I'm taking forum-running tips from MSPAF.

So, yeah. I mostly want to keep things intuitive and tidy for the people who actually use the forum (that's you dudes), so hearing what you'd like changed/kept the same/borrowed from familiar forum grounds/adapted to our requirements would be fantastic.

This certainly won't be an urgent restructuring, and we'll give plenty of warning and tweaking before we settle on anything more major than a single subforum split.

I'm pretty much okay with whatever.

"Stuff you made" seems pretty useful, we have a fair number of general-purpose threads for that and it could definitely be useful to have threads for specific users' works. (Like those silly stories I've been putting in the Writing thread; I could have a thread specifically for those.)

And a Media subforum isn't too uncommon; the main difference across sites is whether it's divided into further subforums (such as the split some months back between Video Games and Everything Else on MSPAF). A general Media subforum seems more suited to the current state of the forum, although it's hardly immediately necessary - the only non-general thread I can think of is the one Pines made yesterday about Notch's new game.

We may want a Completed Things/Archives subforum at one point, although all we'd have to put in it are completed things from other sites (such as the first Nopor Puss adventure) and Grand Failure, and maybe finished Mafias/other games if people think those should qualify. That's pretty much the only other forum with particular use that I can think of at the moment.

The moment someone makes a media subforum I am making a cucumber quest thread NO MATTER WHAT

in more serious note, I think that a media subforum would be neato! I don't think that we need to be very specific, no, but I think that a crafts/art/creation subforum would be used very well, yes.

The differentiation with it and the gamular type things could get skeevey, but I think that we have enough common sense to realize that one is for forum type things that are being run while the other is things you are making????

I don't know, I don't think that there is that big of a grey area there but I make assumptions to easily and I am also not thinking about the future at all.

That said, that said, I like our little forum as it is right now perfectly fine but I could see how splitting things might possibly encourage some more threadmaking(>which leads to activity)???

I think it's a good idea, although not inherently necessary at this point.

I don't know, it feels quite unnecessary to me, and I'm always against more subforums by default.

But I'm all for encouraging the kind of stuff that'd go on a "stuff you make" subforum, so I have a little proposal (maybe?).

Instead of having a Forum Games subforum, we could have something along the lines of "Collaborative shit you can do" and "Shit you can do on your own". So Games, collaborative projects and gift exchanges could go on the first ones and writing/doodling/CROCHETING would go on the second one.

This has the advantage of allowing some of the media stuff to be sorted between this two subforums. (Clans on collaborative shit, Let's Plays on own shit). Or maybe this is a disadvantage????

I think the reasonable course of action here is to just let the forum grow organically, and create new space as it is needed.

At the moment, if anyone wants to post things that they have made or make a thread to showcase their writings, they can do that all in general chat. In fact, a few people already have. The "chat" banner is broad enough that anything people can talk about can go there.

Once we get an influx of threads that would fit in a "stuff you made" subforum, then we can scoot those over into their new category.

You shouldn't hesitate to make a thread simply because you feel like there isn't a place for it! If you want to talk about or show something, go ahead! This forum is meant to be a hang-out and gathering place. It is for us and what we want to post is what should be posted.

I'm not too keen on dividing things up by the number of participants btw. I think that discourages collaborative endeavors by corralling them into one big mess.

I'd start a "Stuff you made" thread but I'd probably flood it with dumb sketches

I'll wait for someone else to start it so it's less of an ego trip.

There's already a fairly well-populated doodles you made thread, if that's what you are after

MEHGA'S ACE HARDWARE SOFTWARE JUSTRIGHTWARE NIGHTMARE FORUM PLANS

Top o' the page: Eagle Time Forums, for all your administrative needs

Middle o' the page:
Forum Adventures (This place was, at least in part, founded on a split from MSPAFA. Adventures are the face and core of Eagle time, and we don't need to mix it in with anything else. It deserves to be special and given special attention and taken out to a nice restaurant)
Forum Games (In my decade of experience at internet forums, trying to mix forum games with anything else is an awful bad idea. Trying to take them out once they're in, is also a sign of being tightwadded. And I know we ain't no tightwadders here. Our wads are as loose as a five year old's shoelaces)
Various Other User-made Medias (For musics and game makes and non-adventure doodlers and the like and such and forthwith. We don't need to flood ourselves with subforums, but it would be nice to have a place to put these things. I would make a thread for it!)

Bottom o' the page:
General Chat (FOR CHATIN ABOUT GENERALS)
MYSTERY SECOND ITEM??? (General Chat seems lonely down there :c. In case of any growth in membership, a various other medias [non-user made] could make itself needed. Clearly not needed now though, and frankly I would just as hardily welcome a sort of jokey sub-forum I mean if you're into that sort of thing.

jokes.)

And that's the end of the technique!

If you're worried about general chat being lonely it could always be:

Top o' the page:
Eagle Time Forums, for all your administrative needs
General Chat (FOR CHATIN ABOUT GENERALS)

Bottom o' the page:
Forum Adventures (This place was, at least in part, founded on a split from MSPAFA. Adventures are the face and core of Eagle time, and we don't need to mix it in with anything else. It deserves to be special and given special attention and taken out to a nice restaurant)
Forum Games (In my decade of experience at internet forums, trying to mix forum games with anything else is an awful bad idea. Trying to take them out once they're in, is also a sign of being tightwadded. And I know we ain't no tightwadders here. Our wads are as loose as a five year old's shoelaces)
Various Other User-made Medias (For musics and game makes and non-adventure doodlers and the like and such and forthwith. We don't need to flood ourselves with subforums, but it would be nice to have a place to put these things. I would make a thread for it!)



I mean I think genchat is what probably gets the most use anyway

i think we should have a g0m dictatorship subforum as he suggested. also yes on the thing we don't have a snappy title for yet. "What You Done Did"?

also yes on the thing we don't have a snappy title for yet. "What You Done Did"?

EAGLE DROPPINGS



okay maybe not

For The Birds

And we now have a shiny new subforum (courtesy of Pines) with literally the worst description ever (courtesy of me). We'll keep names and location and such as they are unless people want something more sensible/intuitive later.

Ronald Reagan Memorial Arts Subforum, I stick with it.

Personal musings threads/columns are remaining in Chat for the time being; I will happily move them on request.

I also think that and as I mentioned on IRC, I'm agin it

I don't see the issue? Mostly I don't see what it does besides encourage the creation of more threads that would go in there.

It would be a different matter if this were a new forum for discussion on a narrower topic - in that case, yeah, I can see it being inconvenient if there aren't enough threads popping up to justify its existence. Then it would basically do very little except make people wonder where certain possibly-borderline threads would go. There's an implied message of "talk about this stuff goes here", which is, at the least, awkward if there isn't that much talk about whatever it is.

But here, the split is between "general discussion" and "things users have made or are planning to make". There's a pretty clear difference there, and the implied message of a subforum for the latter is "do more of this stuff".

At the very least, I can think of threads that I'd make there that I'd have second thoughts about making in General Chatter. Namely, if I wanted to make a "Fogel Writes Silly Stories" thread, and if I want to write something more serious and get feedback on it, I can make another thread. Or if I decide to work on my feeble art skills, I can make a "Fogel Draws Terrible Things And Hopefully Gets Better (Eventually)" thread.

Basically, I can have different threads about different sorts of projects I'm doing that don't fit into Adventures or Forum Games, and not feel like I'm monopolizing a generalized thread, or feel at all weird about posting silly stuff and more serious stuff in the same thread. While I could technically have done such things in General Chatter, it doesn't feel to me that those are in the spirit of that subforum.

The community here is largely made up of artists and writers and crafters and musicians and game programmers, and people who fit into more than one of those categories or others that I'm missing off the top of my head. If you give them a subforum for creative endeavors and say "put stuff here", then they will. It may take time, but it's going to happen.

At worst, it's a bit silly and premature. But I don't see how it could have actual negative effects.

I think we need a subforum for disguising ourselves as scooby doo villains

I think we need a subforum that Mehga is only allowed to post in.

Whoa whoa whoa I understand sentence structure, don't try to skip that past me

Fogel, I would like to see both of those threads!

The Elephant Graveyard (Be Prepared)

Big Bone Lick State Park


Jefferson Proving Grounds

oh wait I am late. late for a very important date. Not a prune or a grape but a date.

Funny story, I live really close to there.

You all should come visit me, and we'll all go together.

Well uh

Bone vacations aside, it seems to me like we're going to be fine as we are for a long while. Any more subforums would be unnecessary or cluttered or both.

i think we need a subforum for human toiletries. people shampoo, toilet paper hands, finger razors etc