Suggestion: Sub-Fora in Critical Failures

Jazzman84

The TableTop gaming forum seems a little jumbled right now.

Could we have separate sub-fora for [MtG], [D&D], [Pokemon], [WoW], [Warhammer], [Warhammer 40K], [OOC], and [IC]?

I think it would help to make the forum easier to read, and it should be relatively easy to maintain since tabletop franchises start up far less frequently than electronic games.

Moe Fwacky

I don't think having six sub-forums at the top of the CF screen will make things "easier to read"

Pony

seriously it is like people see square brackets and their eyes glaze the fuck over

take a minute and check the labels

they're quite clear

Arrath

That would be more sub-forums for CF than there are On-Topic forums you realize?

Jazzman84

I'm just saying, if you play Warhammer, but not D&D, having the first two Warhammer threads separated by twelve D&D threads gets a little tedious.

Also, you shouldn't have to sift through several pages to find all the topics that are relevant to you.

DevoutlyApathetic

Honestly give things about two weeks. Right now things are so jumbled because 4th edition D&D just hit and we're in the initial furor over it. A little time and things will calm down.

Jazzman84 wrote: »

I'm just saying, if you play Warhammer, but not D&D, having the first two Warhammer threads separated by twelve D&D threads gets a little tedious.

Also, you shouldn't have to sift through several pages to find all the topics that are relevant to you.

Click your User Panel. See that bit about subscribed threads, use it.

What you want is already hard coded into the board, you just need to use it.

DevoutlyApathetic

Well, it seems we mortals can't delete posts in the Circus. My apologies.

Pony

People used to be like "Phalla is more popular than anything else on CF it needs it's own forum"

No it doesn't.

Jazzman84

What about just breaking it down into Roleplaying Games, Card Games, and Miniatures?

Honestly, what prompted this is that I went to a MtG thread and it was 112 pages long. When I started reading it, I saw that there was a new topic every three posts or so.

I think that by having more focused sub-fora, we can get users to start new threads instead of posting off-topic.

INeedNoSalt

Jazzman84 wrote: »

What about just breaking it down into Roleplaying Games, Card Games, and Miniatures?

Honestly, what prompted this is that I went to a MtG thread and it was 112 pages long. When I started reading it, I saw that there was a new topic every three posts or so.

I think that by having more focused sub-fora, we can get users to start new threads instead of posting off-topic.

Welp, D&D 4e really skirts the line between RPGs and Miniatures.

We've got like four or five threads for miniatures -- WHFB, WH40K, and we used to have a Warmachines thread but I'm not sure if it's still there.

We've got like, one MTG thread and no other card game stuff.

Maybe you could make a case for making a subforum for actual games vs game discussion, but even that would be unnecessary.


kill all phallas

Jazzman84

INeedNoSalt wrote: »

Welp, D&D 4e really skirts the line between RPGs and Miniatures.

We've got like four or five threads for miniatures -- WHFB, WH40K, and we used to have a Warmachines thread but I'm not sure if it's still there.

We've got like, one MTG thread and no other card game stuff.

Maybe you could make a case for making a subforum for actual games vs game discussion, but even that would be unnecessary.


[SIZE="-1"]kill all phallas[/SIZE]

Actually, we've got at least two MtG threads, and the one I poked my head into essentially starts a new thread every three posts. If the threads for other games are like it, then you could easily fill some sub-fora.

In terms of other CCGs, I saw LO5R and WoW threads there, plus the Pokemon sub-forum.

If we make just a few new sub-fora, we could have more, smaller threads and hopefully make it easier for people to find pre-existing discussions.

Monoxide

why don't you just encourage people to stop being terrified of the new topic button

you aren't required to post in the giant MTG catchall thread

MKR

Monoxide wrote: »

why don't you just encourage people to stop being terrified of the new topic button

you aren't required to post in the giant MTG catchall thread

The "Redundant thread" rule might be confusing to some people.

EvilBadman

This is terrible and I am surprised Tube hasn't publicly informed you of this fact yet.

Drez

Jazzman84 wrote: »

I'm just saying, if you play Warhammer, but not D&D, having the first two Warhammer threads separated by twelve D&D threads gets a little tedious.

Also, you shouldn't have to sift through several pages to find all the topics that are relevant to you.

Why shouldn't you, exactly?

Even if there wasn't an easy-to-use, working search function that could easily bring up all threads relevant to the keywords you mention in your original post and even if there wasn't a "subscribed threads" function available to you via your user panel, why exactly are you entitled to only see threads that cater to your desires?

While that may sound snarky, I'm genuinely curious.

Gabriel_Pitt

Essentially, there's no reason to divide up CF into sub-forums. If you only want to follow certain threads there are already options available to do that. If you don't like the number of threads... well, tough, I guess. This is a forum, people will post stuff, and occasionally you'll have to read the thread titles to see what's what. The only one I can really see a use for might be for games in progress so that people playing by post have all their threads in one place not distributed out through the regular topics.

Thanatos

Right now, with the forum as busy as it has ever been (far busier than it has ever been, actually), it takes twelve hours for a thread to drop off page one, and over two days for it to drop off of page two. 4th Edition just came out, so odds are, it's going to drop off significantly from there. Not only do we not need eight subforums for it, we don't even need two.

dscrilla

The only sub forum I see any need for is maybe PbP games, as they are not "discussion" Even that doesn't seem really justified at this point.

Whiniest Man On Earth

Personally, I think that forum should do away with all [IC] and [OOC] threads, but that's just me. PBP games clog it up miserably, and really don't bring anything good to the community because they're for such a minute number of people each time. I think if people want to do PBP, they should do it on another forum.

gtrmp

defrag wrote: »

I think if people want to do PBP, they should do it on another forum.

:^:

Thanatos

12 hours to drop off page one. 2 days to drop off page two.

There isn't really too much of anything cluttering up Critical Failures.

INeedNoSalt

defrag wrote: »

Personally, I think that forum should do away with all [IC] and [OOC] threads, but that's just me. PBP games clog it up miserably, and really don't bring anything good to the community because they're for such a minute number of people each time. I think if people want to do PBP, they should do it on another forum.

But we want to play with other Penny Arcade regulars, and lo, Penny Arcade is the best place to do that.

Rend

Thanatos wrote: »

12 hours to drop off page one. 2 days to drop off page two.

There isn't really too much of anything cluttering up Critical Failures.

I don't see what everyone's all in a fuss about.

My Call of Cthulhu thread gets posted in during 2 days a week, tuesday, and one random day someone decides to ask a question (because it's not a game thread, it's more like a game HQ thread).

After the week, I just look in the first half of page 2, and whaddya know? It's there.

Our topics are not going anywhere. I think your issue is less that there's things clogging other things up, and moreso that there's not enough going on there for you.

...

...I can empathise.

Pheezer

Creating 500 sub forums in the least popular forum of all isn't going to make it more popular.

Tube

thanks eddie always good to have your input