[CnC] Forum Restructure

R · Dec 7, 2014

SuF said:
This is a very interesting approach and I believe you've hit on the right sort of approach for reform. I'm not sure that it is going to help Sythe as much as it needs to.

There are a lot of things we need a change in - I agree on a lot of things brought up recently. Time to start the slow change it will be, but hopefully we can cover all grounds.

SuF said:
For instance, live streaming is basically a completely inactive section with only a handful of threads active in the last couple of weeks.

What is the purpose for the gaming media section? I'm not sure I understand the intent or what sorts of things would go in there.

With RuneScape dying, we need new focuses. My only idea as to what that would be is livestreaming/competitions/advertising. Why not tie all three? n4n0, I believe, was trying to get a livestream page added with all the currently live streams on it; which would be found through streamers names and so on.

The section is currently "Livestreams and gaming media", I basically just broke up what we already have - not set on keeping it there really.

SuF said:
I like the idea of the sandbox being higher but I'm not sure that it necessarily fits with the sections its grouped with. Is there a larger theme for that section that I am missing that makes it more clear?

Following above; livestreaming/advertising with streamers kind of goes hand in hand with competitions and tournaments (I thought). It's all sort of community interaction/participation based.

SuF said:
My first thought about the RS section was the lack of any discussion forum. I only found the sections once I had opened up the subforum view and saw numerous places for discussion. Are the different Runescape games so distinct as to require their own sections now? I haven't played since the week '07 came out so I really have no idea. Perhaps a tagging system for threads would be more beneficial so that people could view all the discussion threads in one place instead of having to go to multiple?

You could be right. Both aren't very busy and it wouldn't be overwhelming to join them both probably. The main differences are a completely different combat and monster system, as well as things like new updates only being relevant to RS3.

Tagging is a good idea; then we could just have General discussion like the other game sections.

SuF said:
I know nothing at all about LoL but the sections all seem very active currently so I think you've made the right choice in making them all front page sections. That really should stress those sections more which is exactly what we want.

Aye, shifts the focus from RuneScape a bit, growing in different directions is what we need to do.

SuF said:
I'm not particularly fond of having WoW be on its own as I recall us removing the discussion forum for being dead long ago (and it had been dead for a long time but Verts and other WoW players thought it was good to keep it so we did for quite awhile).

Could always stick it under Other MMO's: I've never really visited so I didn't know if it had lots activity or not so much.

SuF · Dec 7, 2014

Superfluous said:
There's been CDT discussion about looking to get more involved with streamers (not sure if I can disclose what we talk about in there publicly?), so I think it's a result of that?

It certainly does not help to not be public. I'd say it actually actively hurts whatever you are trying to do. I'm not into the whole streaming thing and really do not see the appeal. What would be put in the section other than advertisements for streams? I really just do not understand what the purpose is for it so I can't really understand why it even exists.

Superfluous · Dec 7, 2014

SuF said:
That would be really swell but I'm not sure its possible with Vb without some modding or losing some of the front page sections that we want and cluttering up a few massive sections. Perhaps it could be put on the wish list?

It's possible... instead of the "our community" / "rs markets" / "other markets" etc. breakdown on the homepage I'm just suggesting broadening those to "sythe" / "market" / "off-topic" etc. so that we collapse more at once. This will probably require more subforums within each of those categories (like RS might have 15 or whatever), but the end result will be very similar. And if we can do sub-sub forums, we're totally fine.

R · Dec 7, 2014

Ghast said:
How does making the forum even smaller help it?

I think a better word would be compact? So that you aren't scrolling endlessly to find what you're looking for. I mean, in ways it's bigger, just less on the homepage, and more subsections.

Shin · Dec 7, 2014

SuF said:
Doesn't WoW get a new expansion every other second? I feel like they come out all the time. The market seems plenty active right now but discussions have never magically appeared when a subsection has, so I'm hesitant to think that it will this time.

They release a new expansion about every 2 years.

The section used to be a bit active, but during the end of expansions many players are not around anymore and the majority of discussions that were once a "thing" become less involved as everything regarding the expansion has already been spoken about or investigated. When new expansions or huge content updates are released, it should generally spark a huge discussion as there are so many "what ifs" going about, in addition to many questions people may have regarding the expansion / the game in general (primarily for new players).

R · Dec 7, 2014

Superfluous said:
Can we possibly get things structured such that we can collapse large portions of the homepage? That way stuff doesn't end up as "close to the bottom" as it currently does. Or even letting us personally reorder them with a sort of "drag-and-drop this section above/below that section" sort of setup.

What crossed my mind was different "themes" like the "market theme", "gaming theme", "fun theme" (lol), ordered in a way that suits all types of users.

If possible that would be the best way to structure it so everyone's happy.

SuF · Dec 7, 2014

Roary said:
There are a lot of things we need a change in - I agree on a lot of things brought up recently. Time to start the slow change it will be, but hopefully we can cover all grounds.

With RuneScape dying, we need new focuses. My only idea as to what that would be is livestreaming/competitions/advertising. Why not tie all three? n4n0, I believe, was trying to get a livestream page added with all the currently live streams on it; which would be found through streamers names and so on.

The section is currently "Livestreams and gaming media", I basically just broke up what we already have - not set on keeping it there really.

Following above; livestreaming/advertising with streamers kind of goes hand in hand with competitions and tournaments (I thought). It's all sort of community interaction/participation based.

You could be right. Both aren't very busy and it wouldn't be overwhelming to join them both probably. The main differences are a completely different combat and monster system, as well as things like new updates only being relevant to RS3.

Tagging is a good idea; then we could just have General discussion like the other game sections.

Aye, shifts the focus from RuneScape a bit, growing in different directions is what we need to do.

Could always stick it under Other MMO's: I've never really visited so I didn't know if it had lots activity or not so much.

I still just don't understand how livestreams / competitions are going to drive forum activity. I've always loved the idea of them so that it gives people a bonding experience and something to stick around for but I just don't understand how they are supposed to directly drive forum activity. For instance, what is supposed to be posted in either Live Streaming or the gaming media sections. If I were to post a thread in either of those I would have no idea what I was supposed to be posting. That's what I don't understand. Also not entirely clear on what the purpose of the sandbox is, other than a slightly less "faggoty" spam forum.

I would think that a general discussion would work much better. Less tabs to open and more threads to look at in one place so people are more likely to post on multiple. Tagging would be like [RS3] or whatever. It could be done by posters or mods could just take a look at the thread and change the title to include it.

Wonderland · Dec 7, 2014

Roary said:
I think a better word would be compact? So that you aren't scrolling endlessly to find what you're looking for. I mean, in ways it's bigger, just less on the homepage, and more subsections.

How many times are we gonna "compact" the forum? It's unnecessary and doesn't help at all. There are yearly statistics of activity to prove that.

SuF · Dec 7, 2014

Unb4nn3d said:
They release a new expansion about every 2 years.

The section used to be a bit active, but during the end of expansions many players are not around anymore and the majority of discussions that were once a "thing" become less involved as everything regarding the expansion has already been spoken about or investigated. When new expansions or huge content updates are released, it should generally spark a huge discussion as there are so many "what ifs" going about, in addition to many questions people may have regarding the expansion / the game in general (primarily for new players).

Ah yea I see how that could drive a lot of discussion. Perhaps sticking it in a larger discussion forum and using a tagging system so that when there is little WoW discussion going on people still have other things to look at and more people would see the WoW discussion and potentially post on it.

SuF · Dec 7, 2014

Ghast said:
How many times are we gonna "compact" the forum? It's unnecessary and doesn't help at all. There are yearly statistics of activity to prove that.

I mean we grew it a lot whenever it was that we did the marketing restructure.

Wonderland · Dec 7, 2014

SuF said:
I mean we grew it a lot whenever it was that we did the marketing restructure.

Free trade happened.

SuF · Dec 7, 2014

Superfluous said:
It's possible... instead of the "our community" / "rs markets" / "other markets" etc. breakdown on the homepage I'm just suggesting broadening those to "sythe" / "market" / "off-topic" etc. so that we collapse more at once. This will probably require more subforums within each of those categories (like RS might have 15 or whatever), but the end result will be very similar. And if we can do sub-sub forums, we're totally fine.

My only issue with that would be not being able to break up the larger sections into subsections. I like that we can see a distinct difference between RS and say Other Games Markets. I'd like to retain the ability to close only one of those. But I do like the idea of being able to hide larger portions of the front page more easily.

SuF · Dec 7, 2014

Ghast said:
Free trade happened.

What? I'm not following.

Wonderland · Dec 7, 2014

SuF said:
What? I'm not following.

Which restructuring are you talking about? I think there has been 3-4 forum restructures in the past 3 years.

Events like free trade and the return of oldschool are the reasons why the site rose in activity. That's blatantly obvious.

SuF · Dec 7, 2014

blade bro4 said:
You know I believe that gaming is the future of Sythe, and I'm pretty much in complete support of this. I agree with Farcast that Streaming/Twitch are a HUGE market right now, and we're wrong to not be there. Sythe T-shirts for streamers, referral programs, contests sponsored by streams where they (And us) both retain profit. There are so many ways that we could benefit, the only problem is the stigma of our site being a ToS-violating group of scammers.

Overall, it's a good idea. SOMETHING needs to be done. Roary if you're in need of assistance, let me know. I restructured the entirety of Tribot, i should be able to be of some use.

While I love the idea of pushing streaming and stuff more I'm still not clear on how streaming will drive forum activity, like posts and new threads. Do you have any insight?

R · Dec 7, 2014

@Ghast:

People constantly ask me where to put shit; so in my eyes a more compact/sensical homepage with subsections is more user-friendly.

I mean, do feel free to suggest alternatives, mine is just my personal feeling.

SuF said:
I still just don't understand how livestreams / competitions are going to drive forum activity. I've always loved the idea of them so that it gives people a bonding experience and something to stick around for but I just don't understand how they are supposed to directly drive forum activity. For instance, what is supposed to be posted in either Live Streaming or the gaming media sections. If I were to post a thread in either of those I would have no idea what I was supposed to be posting. That's what I don't understand. Also not entirely clear on what the purpose of the sandbox is, other than a slightly less "faggoty" spam forum.

I would think that a general discussion would work much better. Less tabs to open and more threads to look at in one place so people are more likely to post on multiple. Tagging would be like [RS3] or whatever. It could be done by posters or mods could just take a look at the thread and change the title to include it.

Sandbox is where I think we'll stick all forum competitions and events, and was meant for such - it's just positioned shitly for that purpose because nobody sees the events we put in there so we've been using comm general.

How I thought about it was
> Livestream page brings in streamers
> Streamers host events/competitions
> More community participancy follows; more of the old 'community spirit' we used to have

I may just be going off on the wrong thing, but aye.

SuF · Dec 7, 2014

Ghast said:
Which restructuring are you talking about?

Events like free trade and the return of oldschool are the reason why the site rose in activity. That's blatantly obvious.

Oh, are you actually a newfag and not a vader / new accounter? If you are, awhile ago the market was in one front paged section: http://www.sythe.org/community-general/1460515-need-input-market-redesign.html

We just had:

Code:

Market
->RuneScape Markets
->WoW Markets
->Star Wars: The Old Republic Market
->Diablo III Markets
->Guild Wars II Market
->Other Game Markets
->XBOX Market
->Non-Virtual Items
->Digital Currency and Non-Game Items
->Guide & eBook Sales
->Software Market
->Vouches Forum
->MiddleMan Forum

on the front page and that turned into what we have today. Here's a voting thread: http://www.sythe.org/community-general/1465235-community-voting-market-redesign.html

So everything you see there passed and got implemented and the front page grew substantially.

Wonderland · Dec 7, 2014

Roary said:
@Ghast:

People constantly ask me where to put shit; so in my eyes a more compact/sensical homepage with subsections is more user-friendly.

Making the forum smaller hinders activity and makes it cluttered. The forum is fine the way it is. The only change it needs is additions, not subtractions.

If you want to make this site less Runescape oriented, tell Matthew to change the default donor ranks.

Tyler · Dec 7, 2014

Thanks for atleast listening to the community, it looks nice roary

R · Dec 7, 2014

Maybe jus combining livestreaming/comm general/sandbox is better

Making the forum smaller hinders activity and makes it cluttered. The forum is fine the way it is. The only change it needs is additions, not subtractions.

If you want to make this site less Runescape oriented, tell Matthew to change the default donor ranks.

It's not 'smaller' - there's just as much content. It's just organised better.

Donor ranks aren't the be all and end all, and if you want dat trust you're gonna donate regardless. But that's little things to be fine-tuned. Like I said, I'd like to see different mod ranks, so donor ranks would probably tweak too.

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