The staff have been discussing a reorganization of the forum for a while now. The objective of this reorganization would be to make the system more efficient; making it easier for people to find what they are looking for while simultaneously reducing the creeping 'sprawl' we are experiencing due to the endless addition of new fora for each TW game. The main proposed structural changes are as follows:
1) Use of an single Total War Legacy section to reduce the amount of index space devoted to older games. As you can see below, the proposed method of doing this reduces the actual space for each page, but does so in a manner that keeps all of the important game subfora accessible from the index. This has been done by making the parent forum for each game the current SP forum, instead of the current system in which the parent forum is just an empty category placeholder with no purpose except labeling. The disadvantages of this system are (1) it requires renaming the themed fora (i.e. Citadel, Colosseum) to more utilitarian names to enable new members to find what they are looking for (2) the sub-sub-fora get dropped from the index. The most recent game (currently TWS2) remains separate from the TW Legacy section, as it is the forum that most new members are arriving to look at. Once a new game is released, the new game would take the current TWS2 spot, and TWS2 would join the rest of the TW games in the Legacy section. This kind of system would significantly reduce the amount of forum lengthening that we experience with each new game release.
2) The creation of a new Modding category, which is designed to increase the visibility of the modding community, particularly the Hosted Mods, which all retain top index listing with this section, something which would not be possible if they remained as game-specific subsections under the TW Legacy section. This category is also headed up by a Modding Boiler Room, which is designed to be a single forum for modders across all fora to communicate. Input from modders indicates that the actual modding sections themselves should remain under the individual game fora, so the other modding fora stay where they are under the TW Legacy section, but they also get links off the Modding Boiler Room for ease of access (and the modding subfora within TW Legacy will also have links going the other way, for the same reason).
3) Major consolidation of the TW General Forums, Miscellaneous, and Tavern topics, to make them more comprehensible to new members. This involves multiple steps. First, all three forum gaming fora (Throne Room, Gameroom, Chapter House) are grouped together. Second, all other fora are placed into a single off-topic category, to clearly mark that they are not TW-specific. Third, the Hard-and-Software forum and the Apothecary are merged into a single tech forum which handles all tech topics, whether TW-related or not.
In addition to this, there are two separate proposals about how the Forum Gaming and Off Topic sections should be handled. One proposal gives them full forum index space, while another significantly reduces the amount of room they take up by having them listed as subfora.
I have prepared very rough mock-ups of the proposals below. Please note that these mockups do not include all of the forum renaming that would be needed, nor do they include all of the links that would be needed to make sure everything joined together in a sensible fashion. The below is focused on demonstrating what the index would generally look like, and how it would be organized.
Here are the mock-ups for the proposal for the TW related sections:
As noted above, for the Forum Gaming and Off Topic sections, there are two proposals. Here is the proposal with full forum index exposure:
And here is the much shorter version:
Here are some numbers on how these proposals compare to the current listing, in terms of length:
For the proposal with the full forum index version of the Forum Gaming and Off Topic sections, the layout takes up a total of 26 individual 'forum lines' (a 'forum line' being an entry that receives a forum icon). By comparison, our current setup takes up 35 individual 'forum lines'. This roughly represents about a 1/4 reduction in forum length. Also, keep in mind that those screenshots are with the TWS2 skin, which uses larger than normal icons for the fora. The scrolling length would be reduced on any other skin, by an amount that is about equivalent to three to five 'forum lines' (depending on skin) on the TWS2 skin. For example, on the Guild skin, the fora end at about where the Tavern Backroom is on the TWS2 skin.
For the proposal with the abbreviated forum index version of the Forum Gaming and Off Topic sections, the layout reduces the Forum Gaming and Off Topic sections down to two 'forum lines' from ten, resulting in a total reduction of eight lines. The cost of this is significantly reduced exposure for all Off Topic and Gaming sections. With this arrangement, the total forum size is 18 lines, which is almost exactly a 50% reduction in size from the current version.
Please provide commentary and criticism on the above proposals. Nothing is finalized yet and we very much want to know what the members think about these possible setups. Please remember that we are trying to balance the needs of the existing members with the needs of new members who are coming to the Org for the first time. Once again, I want to emphasize that the above screenshots do not include all the minor tweaks that would be required, such as some forum renaming, added links, and cleaning up some of the mods that are listed as Hosted Mods but which are dead and were never released as a usable mod.
Thank you in advance for your input.
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