Can we make forum suggestions here?

[Atreyu]

Or is a PM to an admin more appropriate?

EDIT:

Current list of suggestions made so far - this will be added/changed as more ideas are brought forward and resolved:

1. Merge Retro RP forum into SW RP forum (proposed by Atreyu) - COMPLETED
2. Move RP forums out of sub-forum onto the main forums page (proposed by Atreyu) - COMPLETED
3. Remove Collecting forum and merge threads into other forums (proposed by Atreyu) - COMPLETED
   
4. Rename SW Boxoffice & Other Media as simply Boxoffice & Other Media (proposed by Captain Untouchable) - COMPLETED
   
5. Merge all non-RP forums into one big mega forum (proposed by Captain Untouchable) - FAILED
6. Remove SW Amalgam forum and merge threads into other forums (proposed by Dasquian Belargic) - currently under vote in General Discussion
7. Remove Communications forum (proposed by Atreyu)- WITHDRAWN
8. Deciding what to do with Portal News (proposed by Yog/Atreyu) - still ongoing
9. Rename 'General Discussion' with a more SW-like name (proposed by Atreyu) - FAILED
   
10. Reorganising main forums page (proposed by Atreyu) - in favour (nearing consensus pending what forums will remain)
11. Add a new 'sports' forum (proposed by s'Ilancy) - in favour
12. Replace all 'general' forum names with more SW-like sounding names (proposed by Atreyu) - FAILED

LATEST UPDATE: updating for latest poll results and admin actions

[Dasquian Belargic]

Feel free to make suggestions here

[Atreyu]

Okay then.

My first query was regarding the future of the retro roleplaying forum. The 10th anniversary has been and gone, and aside for the odd post here and there over the last few months the forum has been sitting fairly dormant since March last year. Just wondering what plans are there (if any) for it? My suggestion was going to be, in the absence of any pre-existing plans, to simply re-tag all the retro threads with the 'Retro' tag, merge them into the SW RPing forum, then simply delete the (now empty) retro forum so we have one less dead forum floating around.

My 2nd query is of a more general nature, whether anybody would be open to looking at all the forums we have and see if we would to revise/add/delete/merge anything. The last time we did this was ... 2005/2006 I think (?), and we made a number of changes then (to remember what it used to look like just click the link to ClassicFans).

Two ideas of my own off the bat:
1. Determining the future of the Collecting forum (which has pretty much died to the extent that threads over 4 years old are visible on Page 1 ) - possibly merging with the BO & Media forum.
2. Pushing the RPing forums back onto the main forum list (a fairly late idea - I only really thought of this recently when a friend remarked that at first glance SW-Fans looked like a general SW site and you wouldn't know RPing was the predominant activity since it's hidden down the bottom and hiding in sub-forums).

Interested to know if anyone else has ideas (or not).

[Dasquian Belargic]

I think retagging and merging the Retro forum was originally the idea, and I agree that now would be a good time to shuffle all those threads over. If there are no objections, I'll get started on that later today.

Merging collecting into the BO Media forum also would make sense.

As for putting the RPing forums back on the front page... I have no objections to that either, but I'll let other staff and posters weigh in first

Good suggestions allround, IMO.

[Atreyu]

Yay someone likes my ideas.

If people were willing to go with my 2nd query/proposal I'd also go further and even propose revising the entire main forum page order, however that would be dependent on any changes (if any) we make to the forums listed in the first place.

[Captain Untouchable]

Just to make sure I understand you correctly... you're effectively suggesting that we have Star Wars Roleplaying / General Roleplaying / Roleplaying Discussion showing up on the main page, above "Roleplaying Groups"? That's a bloody good idea.

Couple of ancillary suggestions to go along with that -

- Rename "Star Wars Box Office & Other Media" to just "Box Office & Other Media". It's more non-Star Wars than it is Star Wars, and we do have the Amalgam thread for the specifically Star Wars stuff.

- Merge all the non-Roleplay forums into one blob. We'll only have five or six left; and that way, the predominant waiting of visible forums will be towards the Roleplay side of things.

[Kelly Perris]

I like these suggestions so far.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Collecting being moved might warrant a "collecting" topic tag, for the odd thread that might come up, and for tagging the old ones?

[Atreyu]

Just to make sure I understand you correctly... you're effectively suggesting that we have Star Wars Roleplaying / General Roleplaying / Roleplaying Discussion showing up on the main page, above "Roleplaying Groups"? That's a bloody good idea.

Yes, that's exactly what I mean.

Rename "Star Wars Box Office & Other Media" to just "Box Office & Other Media". It's more non-Star Wars than it is Star Wars, and we do have the Amalgam thread for the specifically Star Wars stuff.

I agree with this suggestion - I was going to suggest this myself if people were keen with invetigating a revision of all the forums we have here.

Merge all the non-Roleplay forums into one blob. We'll only have five or six left; and that way, the predominant waiting of visible forums will be towards the Roleplay side of things.

Wow, I thought I had some drastic ideas up my sleave but I think you've beaten me on that one.

I can see pros and cons with this:
Pros:
+ All non-RP traffic confined to a single forum, which would be a lot busier rather than have it all spread out over 5-6 separate forums.
+ Will put RPing front-and-centre as the main focus of the board (which it is in reality).
Cons:
- Can get a bit confusing having everything non-RP related in a single forum (as you'll have topics ranging from general, boxoffice, arts, gaming etc all in one area).
- Not everyone here roleplays; some visit only a particular forum or 2 (boxoffice in particular due to it's history with SW-Fans) - merging everything into one forum might risk alienating and pushing away these posters.
- Merging everything risks losing discussions on those topics - for example 'gaming' was barely talked about here until 'General Gaming' was added as a forum and people began to talk about stuff related to that. So if you were to merge forums like Boxoffice, Gaming, Arts etc together those discussions might decline.

(in case someone here retorts "but you're proposing getting rid of Collecting!" I'd qualify that suggestion by making the point that forum has pretty much given up the ghost so it's worthwhile investigating the removal/merge of it)

I think I'd be a bit wary of merging everything together at this stage - probably a bit too drastic. But I'd be interested in what others had to say.

Collecting being moved might warrant a "collecting" topic tag, for the odd thread that might come up, and for tagging the old ones?

That'd be a good idea.

[Atreyu]

BTW, I have posted threads linking to this discussion in Boxoffice (link), General Discussion (link), and RP Planning (link) to get more posters to way in on this discussion.

(I posted in those 3 forums to ensure we got the attention of a majority of people here, since I know there are some that stick to a particular area of SW-Fans)

[Dasquian Belargic]

Is a collecting topic tag really necessary, given how little collecting is discussed at present? All of the collecting topics can be covered by existing tags anyway, as they currently are.

I would prefer to keep the Box Office forum seperate to Gaming and General discussion, but there's no reason why the Star Wars Amalgam forum couldn't be merged into the other discussion forums IMO. We discuss Star Wars stuff in those other forums already anyway.


How about something like:

- Box Office
- Gaming
- General Discussion

- Artists Forum
- SW RP
- Gen RP
- RP Discussion

- RPing Factions

[Atreyu]

I think, in keeping with the fact we are a SW site, we should ideally have our SW-related forums near the top of the main page if possible.

So going by Dasquian's forum list, I'd propose the following arrangement:

- Operations & News

- SW Roleplaying
- General Roleplaying
- Roleplaying Discussion

- Roleplaying Groups

- General Discussion
- Boxoffice & Media
- General Gaming
- Starving Artists

My only concern with this arrangement is the Roleplaying Groups - having a big list of groups in the middle would look a bit tacky. Maybe we could have all the groups made as sub-forums under a single 'Roleplaying Groups' main forum? (in which case, rather than a separate category it could go just under the other roleplaying forums)

[Dasquian Belargic]

I'd rather not push Gen Discussion, etc to the bottom of the forum listing. If nothing else, they actually get more activity than the individual RPing groups forums.

I played with the layout of the RPing forums themselves already, so you should see a difference for the way they're set out on the main forum listing.

[Tear]

I'd rather not push Gen Discussion, etc to the bottom of the forum listing. If nothing else, they actually get more activity than the individual RPing groups forums.

I played with the layout of the RPing forums themselves already, so you should see a difference for the way they're set out on the main forum listing.

I liked Dasq's arrangement. Its simplified version of what we have now.

[Atreyu]

General Discussion certainly does - the other 'General' forums though, not so much.

Maybe we could retitle General Discussion into something more SW-like, and put it up the top?

I don't think we should list our forums in rank of popularity though - indeed by far the vast majority of message boards I've visited online have their most heavily populated forums near the bottom (no surprise, as this is usually where you find 'General Discussion' etc type forums located which always get the most traffic)

[Dasquian Belargic]

Like you said, I'm just wary of putting the RPing Factions in the middle of the other two categories, because it's such a bulk of forums. I don't really want to make them sub-forums either, because they are already full of sub-forums themselves... and without them on the main page, the forum listing is going to look a little sparse.

As for renaming forums.. if anyone has suggestions for new names, fire em off. Can't promise they will be renamed but there's no harm in hearing peoples ideas

[Sudoku]

SomethingAwful has it's general forum right at the top. It's really popular.

[Atreyu]

TFN has it's general forum in the middle - it's also really popular.

I think we had a list of possible alternative names for a general discussion forum way back whenever (like, 2001-2002):

Cantina
Anchorhead
Tosche Station
Echo Base
Rendezvous Point (this ended up being used by the then-GJO)
Docking Bay 94

... pretty much any SW location which would indicate a gathering of people was the overriding theme.

I don't really want to make them sub-forums either, because they are already full of sub-forums themselves... and without them on the main page, the forum listing is going to look a little sparse.

That's fair enough - I agree if you want to keep all the groups listed on the main page then my proposal won't really look right.

How's this for a compromise?

- Operations & News

- General Discussion (aka. Anchorhead, Cantina, Docking Bay 94, whatever ...)
- Boxoffice & Media
- General Gaming
- Starving Artists

- SW Roleplaying
- General Roleplaying
- Roleplaying Discussion

- Roleplaying Groups

[Yog]

Operations & News should probably not be at the top (a forum with only 955 posts), but other than, it looks good. I'd personally put Operations & News at the bottom. Your other ideas are good as as well. I like Anchorhead as a name for General Discussion. You could have poll for choosing the most popular SW sounding name.

Edit - actually, scratch that, you might as well put it in the general category, thus you get 3 main categories:

General
- General Discussion (aka. Anchorhead, Cantina, Docking Bay 94, whatever ...)
- Boxoffice & Media
- General Gaming
- Starving Artists
- Operations & News

Roleplaying
- SW Roleplaying
- General Roleplaying
- Roleplaying Discussion
- Roleplaying Archives

Roleplaying Factions
- The Hive
- The Jedi Enclave
- Empire/Rebellion
- Dark Mosaic

[Atreyu]

I thought it would be better on top, because otherwise it's be stuck way down the bottom under all the RP groups and get forgotten about.

Having said that though, do we even need Operations & News?

The Communications forum is pretty much only ever used to request name changes once every now and then, and Portal News is only there for the entrance page (so we can pretty much shove it anywhere - it's not intended to be used as a discussion forum). On the off chance someone does have a suggestion half the time its gets posted in one of the main forums anyway.

Maybe we can get rid of Communications, and push Portal News to the very bottom?

(I do think however if we keep Communications it's better on top than on the bottom - at the very bottom it's just going to be forgotten about).

EDIT: just saw Yog's edit - maybe although I think it still gets lost in the shuffle amongst the other forums (which again is probably why it barely gets used these days).