RTW or Colloseum subforum suggestion

[Blodrast]

Louis, I have to disagree with you on the issue that there are hardly any threads discussing "technical" aspects of the game...there are quite a few, written by Tamur, Soulflame, Quietus, therother, and others that I may not remember right now. The fact that they are so hard to find and are very few in comparison to the rest of the threads only proves that something needs to be done about them.

Anyway, I agree with the idea that those threads could go into the Guides forum. They don't necessarily need a forum of their own.
The idea was to make them more accessible (or accessible at all, to be more precise. Currently most of them are as good as lost).

As for the amount of activity in the Guides forum, as far as MTW is concerned, at least, I've seen a serious amount of activity in it this very summer (i.e., a looong time after its release). I've only been here a short time, I know, but when I came in June the MTW Guides were few and far between. A _lot_ of stuff appeared during the summer. And I can give you specific examples if you like.
My point is that I don't believe the RTW guides forum will simply wither and die, just as the MTW one did not. On the contrary, it will probably take a while until people are experienced enough to produce guides for all the factions (do keep in mind that RTW is way more complex than MTW).
For the same complexity reason, I believe there are far more game mechanics issues than in previous TW games - I mean, if you only consider the 500k or so of text files, which do shed quite a bit of light on the game mechanics, there's a lof of issues that can be covered...
Since the game is more compex, the mechanics is more complex, and there will be more to discuss about it.

I agree with Tamur though, that if this is the solution that's gonna be adopted (i.e., have a specific place for that kind of threads, be it in an already existing forum (e.g. Guides) or their own forum), it looks like more work for mods.
A (partial) solution to this may be having people PM mods when a new thread that qualifies as "game mechanics" (or whatever you may choose to call it) appears, and all the mod has to do is move it him/her-self (without having to browse all posts all the time and keep track to see if this thread evolved into a technical one or not...).

Finally, I might well be wrong and you right, and there be a very low activity level or interest (or both) in such things (although things do not seem to indicate that right now). In that case, we'll only have the already existing great threads by the people I've mentioned above put in their own separate place, and they will server as great guides/info/whatever. Where's the harm in that ? If it ends there, it ends there. No sweat. But at least that very useful info is there for someone who _is_ interested in it, and is very unlikely to find it otherwise (please keep in mind the fact that search is not likely to be a feature...at least in the immediate future).


blodrast

[Blodrast]

someone mentioned an Archive forum: those already exist...
I'm not sure exactly what their purpose is, though, i.e. what kind of threads are supposed to go in there ?
The RTW Archive forum only has one thread in it...

[Sjakihata]

I am for such a sub-forum.

As I imagine it will work as a addition (constantly updated) to the manual but also as a valve/filter to the colloseum

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

There are threads discussing the mechanics of the game...

I think mods got to move them to Guides if they see fit... Mods also ought to trim them a bit, as they are a lot of useless comments in there. That's a lot of work for mods.
If a new forum is created where those topics would be discussed, we will just divide everyone attention, without creating a place where the real good stuff would be safeguarded... This new forum would be either ignored or swamped with useless questions, and we are back to square one.

The main difference between the Guide forum and a 'game mechs' forum is; who can create a new topic; if it is mod only, then use the Guide the forum. If anyone can, we will lose the real valuable stuff anyway, lost in the middle of all the other discussion and topics already seen a 1000th time (as in; how do I unlock faction? etc, etc...).

Let the discussion happen in general forum, and move it to Guides when convenient. Leave it to mod discretion. Either mod or main topic contributor can trim it and get rid of the noise once the topic would be explored; before that would be a good way to kill it. Guides forum is a kind of graveyard

PM ing mods; that's more work for the mods too... And I can see some interesting self promotion happening.

Louis,

[Blodrast]

well, the mods don't necessarily have to do the trimming, at least.
The people I've mentioned above did that themselves, by continuously updating and changing the first post in the thread.
This could work as some sort of responsibility: if you've created that thread, well, you also have the responsibility to update it (or someone else can volunteer for that).
But I'm fairly sure that this won't even be an issue; people who do research of their own will, will do that without anybody having to tell them about it.

You're right about self promotion, and at that I believe it will be at the mod's discretion (as usual). But a lot of them won't, and will simply be good threads.

Who can create the topics: I have no perfect solution, but as I've said before, a thread is either obviously a "technical/game mechanics" thread from the beginning, or evolves into one.
The first case is easy, will be obvious to spot for what it is, and will hardly need any checking from the mod. The second one is admittedly trickier, though. In that case we would probably need the "PM the mod" solution (or some other way).

As for the graveyard aspect of the Guides forum, I dunno. Right now it's the third most popular forum in the Guild, after Colosseum and RTW mods. It will probably decline, but not too fast. I expect new things will keep being discovered about RTW for a while now - and if an expansion pack comes along, well...
Don't get me wrong, Louis, please - you raise some good points that I have no solution for.
And yes, there are threads discussing the mechanics of the game, but the main reason we're having all this discussion is because most people tend to agree that they're relatively hard to find (no search function, very very high rate of new posts, etc). Besides, people new to the board may not even know they exist, so they wouldn't look for them (not that reading thousands of posts is something they are likely to do anyway...). The idea is to put some few (?) select threads in a place where the info (useful to many, not necessarily to all, of course) is easily accessible.

[Duke John]

We are planning to make the Entrace Hall mostly for new members to introduce themselves. This means that the rate of new topics in the EH will be added to the one in the Colosseum. IMO once a forum has an entire page of updated threads in a single day it is getting too much traffic.

The colosseum has general comments, posts about strategy and research. The latter are far more valuable in the long run, but they are also constantly being threatened by being pushed off the first page by general comments that only provide a "quick fix".

So besides a possible research subforum I propose a strategic subforum.

[therother]

There have been a number of good points raised here; I can't say that I've wholly disagreed with any yet.

But, FWIW, here's my summary, loosely based on what's been suggested in the thread thus far.

I'll quickly sketch out a number of possible scenarios:

1. Leave things as they are, and use searches and unofficial threads to index research in the forums.
2. Have an official index thread pinned in the Colosseum, probably maintained by a Senior Member or above. This could have sections for game research, strategy, official patches, mods, and so on.
3. Create a 'normal' research forum. By this I mean that it would have much the same rules/moderating any other forum.
4. Create a more restricted forum, similar to the current guide forums, in that only moderators can create threads. They would do so by request from members (e.g. via PM or a request thread). Co-opting an idea voiced here, it would be incumbent on the starting member to eventually produce a concise summary of the contents of the thread to eventually replace the moderator's initial post once the topic has run its course. The thread would be locked once the summary is done. This would require only limit moderator involvement, as the thread would develop naturally until the end, when the user would send the post, complete with markups, to the moderator. As we expect the volume of the fourm to be quite low, I don't think it should be too much of a chore for a moderator who has an incliation towards research in any case.
5. Create a more draconian (obligatory historical reference) forum, where either: the moderator deletes/modifies any post not directly relevant to the topic at hand; or the Admin creates a user group specifically for the research forum (if this is even possible), and membership policed much more strictly than in the Guild proper, or even both. Obviously this would require a great deal of moderator involvement, not to mention it would be harder to setup up and administrate, especially the 2nd part.

If we are to get a research forum, I'd personally like to see something like 4, but that's just me.

I think Duke John has a point about a strategy forum. It might be useful to have a similar forum for strategy and tactics.

Assuming the plans that Duke John mentions about reducing the scope of the Entrance Hall go forward, are we going to get the RTW and MTW guide forums moved to under their respective game sections? If so, bearing in mind that the research is primarily intended for compilation into guides, could not the research forum become a sub-forum of the RTW guide forum?