Gregoshi... just a thought

[Jeebus_Frist]

Being a forum newbie has had me sniffing around the Entrance Hall sizing things up. I've begun to notice that almost every other thread is started by someone who either has a modding question or is seeking help with an existing mod. With the existing trial period for new members that does not allow posting in the proper forum, perhaps, for the sake of the simplification, it might be worthwhile to consider pinning a topic devoted to mods. In such a topic any newbie would post a request for help complete with the details such as the name of the mod, the specific question, and whether or not they are asking a specific person. This could be a potential boon to moderators, mod developers, and newbies looking for help by placing all of the requests in one permanent easy to find locale that would eliminate the chance of things slipping of the main page. All of this and the added bonus of cleaning up so many short threads... not that I'm saying the EH is... messy or anything http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/shock.gif

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Wellington]

Quote[/b] (Jeebus_Frist @ Oct. 02 2003,18:36)]Being a forum newbie has had me sniffing around the Entrance Hall sizing things up. I've begun to notice that almost every other thread is started by someone who either has a modding question or is seeking help with an existing mod. With the existing trial period for new members that does not allow posting in the proper forum, perhaps, for the sake of the simplification, it might be worthwhile to consider pinning a topic devoted to mods. In such a topic any newbie would post a request for help complete with the details such as the name of the mod, the specific question, and whether or not they are asking a specific person. This could be a potential boon to moderators, mod developers, and newbies looking for help by placing all of the requests in one permanent easy to find locale that would eliminate the chance of things slipping of the main page. All of this and the added bonus of cleaning up so many short threads... not that I'm saying the EH is... messy or anything http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/shock.gif

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
Not a bad idera, but the only caveat would be that you would effectively have a large thread that contained many 'sub-threads' and trying to follow such subthreads in isolation would be difficult/confusing.

At least with seperate threads any one perusing the EH can quickly see if the thread is related to something they know about or are similarly interestsed in ... providing the title is explanatory enough

Still, as the 'trial period' typically only lasts few days for newbies you should be able to post in the appropiate forum relatively quickly ...

... providing you can rapidly convince Greg your a nice newbie http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Gregoshi]

Thanks for the input Jeebus. Recently we (Org staff) had discussed possible re-alignment of forums. Regarding new patrons, a large percentage initially come to these forums with a tech question/problem or modding questions. This lead to a discussion about opening the Apothecary and Dungeon forums to new patrons. We eventually decided, for the present, to keep things as they are. To open up these additional forums would make promotion evaluation more complicated by having more forums to monitor and possibly more moderators involved in the process. These two important forums would also become cluttered with numerous repeat questions. By isolating such questions to the Entrance Hall, we keep the other forums less cluttered. Besides, moderators and experts from these two forums often come here to the EH to help out. Wellington above is a perfect example. He's helped out many new patrons with modding questions. Kraellin visits often to help those with technical problems. There may have been other reasons, but they escape me at the moment. So, bottom line, for the present we are keeping the forum alignments as is.

As for pinning mod topic at the top of this forum: the problem is, many new patrons with these types of questions decide it is easier to post their question rather than search for it first - even if the information is easy to find. What this then results in is a rapidly growning topic that is too unwieldy for anyone to wade through. It would provide an easy focal point for such questions, but it has its drawbacks too.

Regarding quick promotions: we try to get them done as quickly as we can. Since about the beginning of August, we've not been as quick about promoting as we had been. We'll have to see if we can quicken it again. We've all had real life stuff complicating our time on duty and therefore, the promotion process. Things seem to be settling back down again (finally) and maybe we can pick up the pace.

I appreciate the ideas. Let us know if you notice anything else we might wish to conside to improve these forums.

Oh BTW, the Entrance Hall is messy. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif