Another Major Forum Restructuring

[Siblesz]

We're organizing the forums a bit better... have patience. This will probably be the last major change in the forums.

The New setup is as follows:

I: Total War Community

a.) Community News

b.) Picture of the Day

c.) Help Center
-Tutorials and Walkthroughs
-Game Fixes
-Do It Yourself (DIY)

II: Total War

a.) TW: Collective Discussion
-Newb Alley
-Medieval: Total War General Discussion
-Field of B@ttle

b.) Rome: Total War General Discussion
-Battle Planning
-General Sun's Tent
-Eagle Standard

c.) Workshop
-Modification and Conversion Projects
-Skins, Objects and Animations
-Featured Artist Gallery

d.) Major Community Projects
-Age of Hellas (AOH)
-Europa Barbarorum (EB)
-Punic: Total War (PTW)
-Rome: Total Realism (RTR)
-SPQR Total War (SPQR-TW)
-The First Triumvirate (TFT)
-The Hun Invasion (THI)
-The Successors: Total War (TS-TW)
-Zulu Total War (ZTW)

e.) The Trivium Organization:
-Projects
-The Cantus Congregatio (CC)
-The Modding Academy (TMA)

III: Common Community

a.) General Discussion
-The Political Mudpit

b.) The Symposium

c.) Fingerprints of the Past
-Historic Arts and Literature

d.)The Basement

IV: Administrative Forums

a.) Curia (TWC Government)
-Curia Vote
-Prothalamos

b.) TWC Downloads

c.) Feedback & Suggestions

d.) Cemetery

e.) Staff Forum (hidden)
-Hexagon Council (hidden)

[Crandar]

I am not 100% sure that this latest restructuring is a good fit because it may well create more confusion.

The first problem is that: Total War: General Discussion and Rome: Total War General Discussion are far too close together and when we have lots of participnats who can't or don't read English well we are asking for more trouble with this configuration.

The second concern is that tucking the -Newb Alley in underneath the forum titled Total War: General Discussion would seem to imply that the new alley subforum is now seperated from Rome Total War and intended to serve a more general purpose. I feel this may be a bad configuration since 99% of all newb alley type questions end up being RTW related.

With this latest configuration change it is perhaps appropriate to note that the Help Center is a great thing but that perhaps the competently written tutorials on modification, file structure, and battle strategy should really by placed more closely to the source of where they should be used. It is very apparent that most users are not looking in the help center sub-structure when they have questions that should be about modification of the game files that they feel would be discussed in the workshop.

I applaud all the efforts to make things easier to find but think this latest change may not yield the desired results improvement.

[Spartan]

I agree with the name conventions issue, there are too many "General Discussion" titles.

As to the "Newb Alley" it should be for the TW series not for the Rome title. I know the case can be made that is it the currently the only product but for consistency sake it should be in the TW GD forum. Again my thinking is function based.

I agree with your position on the Help Center in principle. Unfortunately the forum software does not allow for sub structures below the 1ts forum level, which is why we had to give it 1ts echelon status. Furthermore we should be thinking about the franchise as the primary guide and not the title. Additionally the current arrangement is a compromise/balance setup as it is a community service.

Anyway, if I was the webmaster the following constitutes my idea for an optimized consolidated structure based on functionality. I also tried to account for none native English speakers ability to deductively understand.

Site Forum outline.

=Total War
Collective Discussion
Rome Discussion
Workshop
Help Center
Major Community Projects
The Trivium Organization

=Common Community
Picture of the Day
General Dialogue
The Symposium
Fingerprints of the Past
The Basement

=Administrative
Curia
Downloads
News
Feedback & Suggestions
Cemetery


-Spartan

[Siblesz]

The news and POTD have to be in the top where everyone can see them. Besides that, I agree with the name change for the TW Gen. Discussion. I'll change that now.

[Spartan]

Maybe it's just me but I view the News and PotD from the website side not the forum side. That is why I do not see a need for them to be at the top of the site index.

-Spartan

[Justinian]

Yeah, on the home page the POTD is in the upper right corner and the news is under the recent topics list.

[Necrobrit]

Many people simply jump straight to the forums via bookmark, so the forum index ends up serving as a second front page.

OT: speaking of the front page, is there any way it could be re-ordered so that the mini-forum-index thing doesn't get pushed down so far by the articles sections? its been slowly migrating south....

[Hexagon]

OT: speaking of the front page, is there any way it could be re-ordered so that the mini-forum-index thing doesn't get pushed down so far by the articles sections? its been slowly migrating south....

Yes... we're gonna work on that too.

[Marshal Qin]

rather than 'collective', how about 'TW franchise', or 'TW games'. It sounds like the Borg have started assimilating the forums...

[Spartan]

I choose "collective" as it is the most appropriate word as all prior titles will end up in this section as the franchise progresses. However "Franchise Discussion" would also be fitting. It's not entirely accurate but it would be fitting.
-Spartan