RTW or Colloseum subforum suggestion

[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?

[RedKnight]

Thanks for the invite, therother - I'm honored.

Many good ideas have been proposed - they all have their plusses and minusses. The biggest underlying problem with any "focussed" or "tuned" threads (or forums) is, who is going to be spending the time tuning or focussing it. Cheetah, Frogbeastegg, and many others made valiant efforts with the MTW Guides forum. But there, even I contributed "unfocussed" ideas in the sense that I commented on Russia's strategies a lot, earnestly at the time, then later realized I had been missing a lot, when I played a lot more. Now that we look back on that Guide forum, we see that it has a lot of focussed material - but also, a fair amount of thread drift. It gets back to the question of, is someone willing to spend the time to "tune" the threads? Who has the time? Do we really trust someone to do that? You've all voiced variations on these ideas in what you've posted.

Every idea has it's plusses and minusses. I for my part am curious about an idea that's new (to me) of the Wikipedia entry discussed here (Wiki here). To me it seems clear that a quantum leap in this complex issue could sure use a new approach, which the Wiki concept might (might) be. The existing wiki has barely been touched, but if folks really started unloading on it, it could conceivably become primo.

In the future, there might even be money in this sort of thing, as discussed here. But that's the distant future, when downloads that cost a nickel don't need a second thought, or making a new account, etc.

So I haven't really said much that's new. Or maybe I've concretized things, laugh.

When all is said and done at the end of the day, "90% of the work is just showing up" - be there and do something.

Enjoy the game! I recommend slavery over extermination, frankly - since I'm pulling off the best slaves for myself.

[Morat]

Could I ask what the current status of this idea is? There doesn't seem to have been much activity lately. Has it been dropped?

BTW, I think therother's 4th idea sounds about the best. But I'm not sure about locking the thread afterwards.