Minor forums reorganisation

[andel]

The lomo'ers object to being moved - its been there forever and a day, it might as well remain - everyone knows where it is. To move it will cause confusion, cause people to think its gone and not bother coming back etc.

Please don't move us. Formal objection.

[orudge]

But one may argue that it's of more use for frequently-used sections to be nearer the top. Locomotion, alas, is not the breakaway hit we hoped it would be (which is why it was placed at the top). Anyway, I shall see. If I do decide to go ahead with it, and things really don't "work out", they can always be changed back.

[jonty-comp]

In my opinion if you can actually lose an entire category from the index page you don't really deserve to be reading it anyway. And besides, the OpenTTD users have scrolled down their page for the last however many years without complaining, and it does get rather a lot more use than the LoMo section.

[orudge]

Proposed reorganisation, then:

Code: Select all

Read These First
    News
    FAQ / Help Centre

General
    Forum Suggestions and Feedback
    General Transport Discussion
    Off-Topic
        Forum Games

Transport Tycoon
    General Transport Tycoon
    Transport Tycoon (Original)
    Transport Tycoon Deluxe
    Problems
    Screenshots, Scenarios and Saved Games
        Screenshots
        Scenarios and Saved Games

TTDPatch
    General Discussion
    Problems
    Suggestions
    Graphics

OpenTTD
    General Discussion
    Problems
    Suggestions
    Graphics
    Development

Chris Sawyer's Locomotion
    General Discussion
    Problems, FAQs and Tutorials
    Beginners
    Scenarios and Saved Games
    Graphics, Modifications & Tools

Transport Empire
    General Discussion
    Development
    Coding
    Graphics
    Development Archive

Other Projects and Games
    Simutrans
    Transport Giant
    Transport Unlimited
    3DTT (Trains & Trucks Tycoon)
    Zugspiel
    Railroad Tycoon Series

Archived Forums
    Owen's TT Station Forum (Archived Posts)
    alt.games.microprose.transport-tyc

[Plastikman]

Personally I don't care that is bumped down, This is a TT forum and it is not exactly a TT game, More like "the basturd cousin".

I know it sees a lot less traffic then the TTD sections of the forums. although I have noticed in the first 48 hours, many of my posts get a few hundred hits

My only fear that all the foreigners, infrequent guests and old timers returning to visit the site might think it is being considered a "dead product" and no longer being supported by the forum by shoving it down the ladder so fast.. "lets go bury it with transport giant and zugspeil!"

For that reason alone, I hope it is not moved. I am just thinking it might cause it to get so little trafic it might actually ~Gag~ .. "Die!"

Also, it would be nice if there was a mention of the screenshot section (or a sub section?). there have been a few "misplaced" screenshots in there recently.

[Ammler]

I do like the search function of TT-Forums too, I hope there will be a solution, so you see, in which category a Forum belongs. Else I would keep the OpenTTD in the every Forum and maybe also add TTDPatch ... Now, I know, Graphics is TTDPatch Graphics and the other one is OpenTTD Graphics. But how do I different that after?

Greets
Ammler

[Seelenquell]

why do you want to change everything? are there people complaining about it? i´m a bit confused. this is a TT-related site. the first forum is off-topic(?).. should it be at the bottom?

locomotion? who or what is that? never heard before. delete it. zugspiel has more potential. give it an own forum. on top please.

you know: "never change a winning team / running system"..

[Hyronymus]

What was the reason to create a general transport discussion section? In my opinion it can be merged with Off Topic now that Owen proposes to make Forum Games a sub-category. Off topic should then be renamed General Discussion, with a clearer description that mentions transport discussions as a part of it.

Also, "Read this first" is a non-name for a forum category in my opinion. Wouldn't a title like "Forum News & Feedback" be more fitting, with News, FAQ / Help Centre and Forum Suggestions and Feedback as it's children?

I'm not finished yet though . Suggestions and problems are now two seperate entitities in almost every category. You can consider to merge them into one entity called Feedback or Problems + suggestions. Just a thought. But what's really skewed is the Scenario section under General TT. It's flooded with OpenTTD scenarios! Pretty much the same goes for the Screenshots section. Wouldn't it be more fitting to create a new category Screenshots, Savegames & Tools, just before Archived Forums?

If Transport Empire really needs an archive, I propose to make it a subcategory of Development. Finally, Other Projects and Games can be more condensed by putting games that aren't being developped anymore in subcategories.

EDIT

why do you want to change everything? are there people complaining about it? i´m a bit confused. this is a TT-related site. the first forum is off-topic(?).. should it be at the bottom?

locomotion? who or what is that? never heard before. delete it. zugspiel has more potential. give it an own forum. on top please.

you know: "never change a winning team / running system"..

The mere fact that this forum is working well doesn't mean it's layed-out perfectly. People become adapted to a layout, even if it's dysfunctional. But even when it is functional you can always try and improve minor things. If it doesn't work out you must be willing to fix it back though.

Looking at my own suggestions I conclude that they are mostly made for reasons of anti-cluttering. I think there are too many forum categories at the moment or too many nearly similar categories.

[Illegal_Alien]

Just keep the order as it is. Besides, this wont be counted as a "minor" change.

[Hyronymus]

Just keep the order as it is. Besides, this wont be counted as a "minor" change.

So what, then we change the title to "some changes" .

[Dave]

I disagree with your proposal to re-merge transport discussion and off-topic minus the games Hyro, but I rather feel the rest of your suggestions are pretty good.

[orudge]

I do like the search function of TT-Forums too, I hope there will be a solution, so you see, in which category a Forum belongs. Else I would keep the OpenTTD in the every Forum and maybe also add TTDPatch ... Now, I know, Graphics is TTDPatch Graphics and the other one is OpenTTD Graphics. But how do I different that after?

Well, that's a possible problem. I'm not sure if there's anything we can do about that at the moment, I'll have to look into it.

What was the reason to create a general transport discussion section? In my opinion it can be merged with Off Topic now that Owen proposes to make Forum Games a sub-category. Off topic should then be renamed General Discussion, with a clearer description that mentions transport discussions as a part of it.

Well, a long long time ago (in a galaxy far away, Naboo was under an attack... ahem, sorry), the Off-Topic forum *was* General Discussion. I'm not quite sure why it was renamed, but it was. I think the General Transport Discussion forum is busy enough for it to retain its own forum. If Forum Games does become a subcategory, then that'll probably quieten down Off-Topic a bit, but there are still lots of other actual discussion topics there. Renaming it to General Discussion is possible, but I'm not sure if it's really of much use to do so.

Also, "Read this first" is a non-name for a forum category in my opinion. Wouldn't a title like "Forum News & Feedback" be more fitting, with News, FAQ / Help Centre and Forum Suggestions and Feedback as it's children?

Well, "Read These First" have a purpose, in that those forums should be read first. I'd like to reserve those for really only the most important topics.

I'm not finished yet though . Suggestions and problems are now two seperate entitities in almost every category. You can consider to merge them into one entity called Feedback or Problems + suggestions.

Why?

But what's really skewed is the Scenario section under General TT. It's flooded with OpenTTD scenarios! Pretty much the same goes for the Screenshots section.

The general "Transport Tycoon" category is for discussion of all Transport Tycoon games that are not specific to either TTDPatch or OpenTTD. ie, if you were talking about specific features in TTDPatch or OpenTTD, you'd use those forums, but if you wanted to know how to design a network or something, then that's not generally specific to one game or the other. The screenshots and scenarios forums were created there in an effort to integrate everything in one place for all TT-related games, and I think it's worked quite well.

Wouldn't it be more fitting to create a new category Screenshots, Savegames & Tools, just before Archived Forums?

What are these tools of what you speak? I'm not sure we really need another new category.

If Transport Empire really needs an archive, I propose to make it a subcategory of Development.

That's possible.

Finally, Other Projects and Games can be more condensed by putting games that aren't being developped anymore in subcategories.

Well, TU is the only one that's officially "closed", the others have had posts in them this year, if not all that many. Some sort of archive forum could be done, perhaps, I'm not sure.

[MjD]

Out of laziness I would say not to move Locomotion section further down, but in terms of what the forum is really about then the patch and OpenTT really should be up the top, and you saying that they are more used than Locomotion just adds further proof they should be nearer the top as I would presume that the majority of people come to the forum looking for discussions about Transport Tycoon and then find the patch and OpenTT.

One thing that I do really think should be moved is the Off-Topic as that is mostly used by members of the forums and as such I don't see the reason as to why it is the top section (apart from the forum news but I disregard that as that should be the top section and as such don't really count that as a forum as such). Many may argue that the Off-Topic section may die because of it moving down but I feel that people visit it because they want to, I for one rarely if ever take part in Off-Topic ramblings and I visit this place nearly every day.

Over the years of browsing this forum I have noticed many posts regarding variations of TT ending up in the Locomotion section which shows that 'newbies' are maybe slightly confused by the forum layout.

To summarise, probably best having a layout similar to :-

News

Patch

OpenTT

Locomotion

TT

Off-Topic

Others (Not just one forum, well maybe, but I just can't be bothered looking at the layout just now to see what's all there.)

MD

NB - Now to feel the wrath of Andel.....

[WWTBAM]

Wouldn't it be more fitting to create a new category Screenshots, Savegames & Tools, just before Archived Forums?

What are these tools of what you speak? I'm not sure we really need another new category.

There are some ive heard of that would either go here or maybe other forums, such as scenario creating utilities and maybe even grfcodec or it could stay in graphics. If the forums get reorganised, I agree that lomo should be moved down along with Off Topic. General transport should probably go above ot but below all the other forums. TT should be above patch on OTTD.

[jonty-comp]

A lot of forums I've seen have Off-Topic at the bottom. I'm not really sure which way I like it though, to be honest!

[WWTBAM]

I kinda feel it should be at the bottom. Is it possible to hide a forum for non members but have the option to show it, like hidden posts for people on your ignore list

[orudge]

It's possible to hide forums for guests but have them appear for members. With the exception of the private forums (which only appear to administrators and moderators), however, I have no desire to implement anything like this.

[Dave]

There's no need for that all, I think.

It's closing the community up if you're gonna force people to register for information.

[WWTBAM]

I was more thinking along the lines of the forum being hidden but still accessible with an extra click like when someone is on a users ignore list. So Off-Topic would be semi-hidden for guests and if they clicked a show forum link it would either show the forum in the index or go straight to the actual forum. It would save space and make it less noticeable for people that want to purely find TT/Lomo information.

[orudge]

Eh, well, I don't think the amount of forums we have is a problem. It's just putting them into a more logical order.