Mid-summer cleaning

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

We should probably start thinking about maybe consolidating a few forums and simplifying the Empire's forum/sub-forum layout.

There are probably too many sub-forums in the Imperial Outpost, and I don't think it'd be a terrible thing to merge a few. I don't see a need to mess with the private forums though, so those we can leave alone.

First though, what if we changed 'Imperial Outpost' to 'Imperial Center'? The Empire is still on Coruscant after all ;)

Then, maybe merge Recruitment and the Academy? And also merge the Barracks, Officer's Lounge, and the Hangar Bay into one sub-forum?

These are just initial thoughts, since I know others will have ideas of their own; I just want to get the ball rolling on this.

[Tear]

First though, what if we changed 'Imperial Outpost' to 'Imperial Center'? The Empire is still on Coruscant after all ;)

I likes! What if we also merged Imperial Holonet with Imperial Center too? I don't think they really need to have their own separate sub forums. Especially when one sub section is just lists of Personnel and Ships. Lump it all together so people don't have to go clicking through various forum sections to find something.



Then, maybe merge Recruitment and the Academy? And also merge the Barracks, Officer's Lounge, and the Hangar Bay into one sub-forum?

These are just initial thoughts, since I know others will have ideas of their own; I just want to get the ball rolling on this.

I likes all these ideas too.

Also, I know the Inquisitors are a big part of the Empire but do they really need their own section? Maybe just lump it together with the Officers, Hanger Bay, etc merged section.

So it could basically looks like

Imperial Center Forum

In character Section(With some suitable name):

- Featuring various In character role plays.

OOC Section(also with suitable name):

- *Stickied* Personnel Listing from the HoloNet Section
- *Stickied* Ship in Service listing, also from the HoloNet Section

Archived Section:

-Archived threads.

Imperial Command (Forum - Hidden, unless a member)

- Strategic Command
- Lab.

Does that work? Cuts down on space in a big way. Makes it simpler too.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Works for me :)

Would we want tags for the IC forum? Like one for 'Coruscant', 'Academy', 'Inquisitoriate', 'Intel', 'Army', and 'Navy'?

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Tags are a great idea, and help lessen the need for sub forums to keep threads in order. :):thumbup

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

I didn't have enough time yesterday to put some together, but I plan on doing that when I get home from work today :)

[Captain Untouchable]

Perhaps a COMPNOR tag as well? That would encompass the ISB, as well as any Moffs / Diplomats / Politics type characters that we have. :angel

[Travis North]

I like this streamlining a lot. I'd originally hoped the Holonet would have been put to better use since it's creation, however the wiki has proved to be the better substitute, and I'm glad to get that chunk of board cleaned up.

This is Tear's layout modified by myself.
_______________________

The Galactic Empire

-> Imperial Center (Main Board)
--> The Concourse (IC Forum)
--> Officers' Club (OOC Forum) A'la M*A*S*H was the only name that fit OOC which I could think of.
--> Imperial Archives (Archive Forum)

-> Imperial Command Network (Hidden Board)
*Blurb: Security Clearance Required: **********... Access Granted
--> The War Room (Top Level Discussion Forum)
--> Research and Development (R&D Forum)

_______________________

A few more suggestions....

- Combine the group access for the hidden forums into one group.
- Couple more Tags: New Recruit, Public Address, Project, Hangar Bay, Barracks, Downtime, Database, Imperial Palace, and Classified




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[Dasquian Belargic]

Is anyone open to the idea of just having tags like 'open', 'closed', and 'training'?

[Travis North]

Simple enough as long as they were stylized for the Empire.

I was suggesting the array of tags to make up for the loss of specific boards since the tag would define subject matter in replacement of the old forum headings.
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[Lilaena De'Ville]

Simple enough as long as they were stylized for the Empire.

I was suggesting the array of tags to make up for the loss of specific boards since the tag would define subject matter in replacement of the old forum headings.
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This is what I was suggesting as well. The Imperial forum tags (however many there end up as) would only be available in these forums so there's no reason not to have them say whatever you like them to. :)

[Tear]

I dig your forum names Travis. Well done ole' bean.

I think for topic tags simpler is better. We don't want members to have to worry about rooting through 6-7 tags to make sure they're choosing the right one.

Maybe something like : New Recruit, Open, Closed, Project?

Most of the other stuff can be defined in the titles heading for clarification. (COMPNOR, INQUISITORS, TECH ) etc.

[Dasquian Belargic]

I agree with Tear :)

[Travis North]

Refined Tag List Submission:

IMP (Standard Catch All and OOC Tag)
Open
Closed
New Recruit (or FNG, I like FNG better.)
Holonet (Database, Sticky, and Public Address all rolled into one)
Classified (Projects, missions, operations, the usual hidden board stuff)
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[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

I like those tag ideas. Firing up PS now :)


edit: open, closed, holonet, and classified

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

I also made two new recruit ones to choose from :p

[Travis North]

Awesome s'Il!
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[Dasquian Belargic]

The Galactic Empire

-> Imperial Center (Main Board)
--> The Concourse (IC Forum)
--> Officers' Club (OOC Forum) A'la M*A*S*H was the only name that fit OOC which I could think of.
--> Imperial Archives (Archive Forum)

-> Imperial Command Network (Hidden Board)
*Blurb: Security Clearance Required: **********... Access Granted
--> The War Room (Top Level Discussion Forum)
--> Research and Development (R&D Forum)



Is this the forum structure you'd like to go with?

If mods wanted to start moving threads into the appropriate new places, I can start uploading the new topic tags and getting everything rearranged/renamed.

[Travis North]

I'll work on that this evening, and tomorrow morning. Finally got a Pen & Paper session going locally so I'll be occupied most of today.

Edit: Question?

Should we archive most of what we have and start fresh with this new focus of operating in and around Cloud City?

We'd keep any active thread, stickies, and listings in current sections of course. This allows for a bulk transfer to archive instead of going through pages of older threads.

Edit: 2 ---- Change of plans: anything I said I'd do this evening, I'm doing tomorrow. I'll be on late, late tonight.
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[Lilaena De'Ville]

If the Concourse is the main RP board then we should have tags denoting Station(or other name) and Cloud City. If that's what we're wanting to do - dissolve the CC boards and absorb them here. We could archive the CC forums. (we should give the Concourse the CC style set :lol)

[Travis North]

The Galactic Empire

-> Imperial Bespin (Main Board)
--> Cloud City and Beyond (IC Forum)
--> Officers' Club (OOC Forum) A'la M*A*S*H was the only name that fit OOC which I could think of.
--> Imperial Archives (Archive Forum)

-> Imperial Command Network (Hidden Board)
*Blurb: Security Clearance Required: **********... Access Granted
--> The War Room (Top Level Discussion Forum)
--> Research and Development (R&D Forum)

---------------

Modified. If we're absorbing the CC boards we'll also need an additional tag for Bounty.
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[Dasquian Belargic]

Travis, what would you like done with the Recruitment Center and the Commodities Network?

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Looking great Jenny :D

What do folks think of renaming the archives forum into 'The Imperial Library' though? With the description being 'The grand Imperial Library houses the archives of times past and chronicles the exploits of those that came before.'?

[Dasquian Belargic]

:):thumbup from me.

[Captain Untouchable]

Would it be worth having an Imperial Center / Coruscant bit as an IC forum as well? That'd help collect threads between Miranda, her staff, aides, advisors, etc into one place, for easy finding. Would give me somewhere for my ISB / NCIS team to post too, once the ball is rolling on that. :)

Is it worth an Inquisitorate IC Forum as well? If we're starting up the <s>supe</s> secret research project again, it might make sense to have somewhere to clump those all together. The Maw Installation, perhaps?

Oh, and same suggestion I made in the Rebel bit - if we do have more than one IC forum, would it make sense to split the forums between IC / OOC? At the moment, if you're looking on the Empire/Rebellion (http://sw-fans.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=302) page, Imperial Bespin shows either the latest Recruitment, Cloud City, or Officer's Club post... a medley of IC and OOC.

[Allex Mcgraves]

Would it be worth having an Imperial Center / Coruscant bit as an IC forum as well? That'd help collect threads between Miranda, her staff, aides, advisors, etc into one place, for easy finding. Would give me somewhere for my ISB / NCIS team to post too, once the ball is rolling on that.

That would be great for the IBI as well.

(Wrong Mcgraves account.)

[Dasquian Belargic]

I don't mind having a Coruscant forum - but the Inquisitor's had their own forum before and it was very rarely used so I would be very reluctant to create another one, considering I just deleted one. Anything that the Inquisitor's needed to roleplay could feasibly take place in the Coruscant forum, or on the main RPing forum itself.

[Tear]

I don't mind having a Coruscant forum - but the Inquisitor's had their own forum before and it was very rarely used so I would be very reluctant to create another one, considering I just deleted one. Anything that the Inquisitor's needed to roleplay could feasibly take place in the Coruscant forum, or on the main RPing forum itself.

I agree with the Dasq. I'm also leaning away from having another IC forum. Maybe just have a -Tag stating Coruscant instead of dedicating an entire sub section?

[Captain Untouchable]

I think a single, nebulous IC thread would be unwieldy: if we're going to define everything purely based on tags, it'd only be marginally more organised than doing the same thing in the general roleplaying area.

Two makes sense, though: if nothing else, it provides a specific place for people to go if they want to know what the important / in charge people are getting up to on Coruscant... rather than having to sort first by tag for location, then skim through each thread looking for relevant names, etc.

And yeah - I guess the Inquisitors do / can have facilities and what-not on Imp Center, so that works all fine and dandy. :)

[Allex Mcgraves]

I agree with Dasq on the creation of Coruscant thread it should work well for all inner groups of the imps that are not stationed on CC.

[Travis North]

This was covered above I believe, by Tear. :p

Most of the other stuff can be defined in the titles heading for clarification. (COMPNOR, INQUISITORS, TECH ) etc.


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[Captain Untouchable]

Is that a pro- or anti-Coruscant comment? :huh


Lets say I'm looking for a meeting between Admiral North and some high-up at Fleet Command, where he's given his new assignment, or somesuch. I click to sort by tag, and then scroll all the way down past the "Cumulus", "COMPNOR", "Coruscant", "Empress", and what not tags until I find "Fleet". I'm then presented by every space battle waged by the Empire; every skirmish of Shadow, Hellfire, and Bloodfin Squadrons; potentially every drunken escapade of those three squadrons as well; any briefings in the lead up to battles; and more. Sometimes, titles are just titles, so I may have to look elsewhere for further information: if I'm lucky, Travis North will appear either as the thread starter, or the most recent poster, but if Admiral "generic name" had the first word and the last word, I have no clues, unless I know exactly what the thread's name is (and if I knew that, I could have searched for it directly).

Bit of an extreme example, but perhaps you can see what I'm trying to get at. At least if we split between Coruscant and Bespin, then we're going to zero in a little more on the "important" stuff related to either the Empire at large, or the Cloud City plot hub specifically... and we don't have to have tags that cater for dozens of different eventualities. :\

[Travis North]

This is Anti, though I don't intend to be on a side because I'll deal either way the wind blows.

In Response: It's just as easy as using the appropriate tag with the title: '[Location] Such and Such' or 'Such and Such (Branch/Character)'. In the case of Search using advanced search with the keyword or phrase and the elements available to refine the search you should be good - the system works well as far as I know.

That said, you wont be sifting through pages to find posts here either, unlike the mass of threads in the main board - which is where the bulk of roleplay should still be taking place. Cloud City and Beyond was, by design, to be the catch all for the usual one offs involving Imperials and the odd independent, just as any other group has an open IC forum.

I hope I'm not the only one who thought of it working this way. It was just convenient to merge the two ideas of the Imperial kick start with the overhaul of the Imperial forums to get a unified theme for the group in order.
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[Dasquian Belargic]

The empty forums have all been cleaned up.

Might I recommend pushing the personnel files into the library? That way, if people want to wiki them, they can. If not, they are still on the board somewhere for them to link to.

At Travis' request, I have added The Concourse as an Imperial only forum. This might be in a temporary basis, depending on how much activity the forum gets.

[Travis North]

Mission Successful! Now to get other stuff rolling.

Thank you s'Il for getting this mid-summer cleaning underway and providing us with new Tags. :clap

Thanks also to Dasq for helping get the layout of the boards settled. :cheers
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