Org Promotion

[ReluctantSamurai]

Just for information, this is what people who visit the Org are accessing (since Jan 2016):

Backroom (Political) 148770

A sad indictment, IMHO, on what the Org has become...a local "bar & grill" to visit and trade BS on the latest news

Might be an idea to have off-topic forums on the top, then hosted mods, then expanded game list. Seems silly the most active areas are near the bottom than at the top.

Putting the "bar & grill" at the top would only feed more into what is already happening. Most gaming sites that I frequent (though not all), place off-topic discussions at or near the bottom of the index.

Let me illustrate this clearly... We get a big fat monitor… On it, we open up a page of the Org-index and a page of the TWC-index on the monitor – side by side. Now we call in “visitor X” who has no prior relation to either site, and who’s fave TW-game happens to be - say MTW2 (or whatever) - and have her seated in front of the monitor. Now we ask her “which of these two places will you go? To get your average MTW2-info and fix? …The site that offers its own dedicated section for this game, and some 5 sub-sections, directly visible on the index (the TWC)? Or will you go for the site with no such dedicated section for this game and 1 sub-section for it, directly visible on the index (the Org)? Which one would you prefer to go to?

Agree with this. Everything related to a particular TW game should be in one place. That means general discussion, guides, mods, technical information....everything. I don't want to have to visit several sections to find what I want. As an example: MTW. There's parts of the game in Historical Total War Titles, Hosted Mods, and Hosted Mods (Archive). Someone looking for Redux or Samurai Warlords will only visit Hosted Mods/Hosted Mods (Archive) if they are specifically looking for them. A new visitor may not even realize that those two mods even exist (granted SW is STW ported to MTW).

I missed all the discussion back when the index was changed but I would certainly have voted against it (if my vote even counted). I don't see the problem with structuring the index much like TWC, though we certainly don't need to be mere copycats.

Most everyone here agrees that our decline began with TWC's rise. Any good organization takes a long hard look at what the competition that is kicking its' a$$ is doing to be successful.

Oh, and I agree that attempting to attract CA back here is a waste of time and energy. If the site becomes something more attractive than it is, they might stop in of their own accord. They stopped coming here for a reason....the Org isn't relevant and thus not worth the time.

And here's an idea: according to Org statistics we have 28,678 members total, but less than 1% of them are active members. Why don't we poll the other 99%+ as to why they don't come here anymore? I'm sure the #1 reason will be that they now have a life/family/career and don't have time/interest in gaming anymore, but surely there will be a list of other reasons that might be helpful in identifying why the Org is no longer a destination