Unburying TWC

[GrnEyedDvl]

I think that is what I want, especially in grid view. IWTE and Project Ren need dev groups. And I need to find all the relevant IWTE stuff and move it.

Mak, if you or wild want more forums in there just say so. I also enabled all the thread types in the main IWTE forum. You can create Articles there and when you want to promote them to the main Articles section if you want.

If the EOP guys are interested in posting on TWC again they can have a slot there too.

EDIT: I am moving the IWTE forum now. Should have just done that up front.

EDIT 2: Ok now I think I have what I want. The 2 placeholders have posting disabled, and we can remove or repurpose them at anytime. I just wanted something to fill the space for demonstration purposes.

Most of the forums in the General Gaming area now have Polls and Questions enabled. I did not go through them all yet.

 

[makanyane]

Mak, if you or wild want more forums in there just say so. I also enabled all the thread types in the main IWTE forum. You can create Articles there and when you want to promote them to the main Articles section if you want.

Actually "IWTE Tutorials" might be useful - I can then split the threads

We definitely don't need a private dev forum

I think I might need to leave home before wilddog finds out it's acquired a 'suggestions' forum! Any chance that could just be Tutorials instead? We get quite a lot of suggestions on discord already, and not many of them get a polite answer... nvm. he said something on the lines of he doesn't mind, because it'll be me that's answering them

I will need to change its description a bit to specify its for RTW/RR/M2TW only, on that subject how are we doing with tags?

 

[makanyane]

I'm not sure yet where you're going with the individual games sections, I'm still unconvinced about expanding all of them

at least Shogun and Medieval v1s could be in an
'Early TW Games'
section and maybe just Med 1 get its modding section split out so they make 3 grids

For options for skins, I want to have a look at a gridded version that doesn't have the pics in and takes out as much padding as possible to see how compact we can get it whilst still looking OK, I'll try that and some other stuff on a non-selectable version

EDIT: the unselectable skin (which isn't a copy of Wide Chocolate because I can't get 'import' to work) has the boxes tightened up a bit and the threads stats hidden

Spoiler

EDIT2: actually that looked so much better without the Threads/Messages numbers I've hidden that off TEST ONLY too

 

[GrnEyedDvl]

Actually "IWTE Tutorials" might be useful - I can then split the threads

Done. I made that an Article format. Only IWTE members should be able to create new threads there, but anyone can reply. I will test that with @GrnEyedBot later.

I think I might need to leave home before wilddog finds out it's acquired a 'suggestions' forum! Any chance that could just be Tutorials instead? We get quite a lot of suggestions on discord already, and not many of them get a polite answer... nvm. he said something on the lines of he doesn't mind, because it'll be me that's answering them

Its there for now, if you guys do not want it I can remove it. I wanted the chance to show how some of the new forum features work as I suspect most people have not used/seen them yet. It has the standard prefixes I used in the Q & S Suggestions forum.

I will need to change its description a bit to specify its for RTW/RR/M2TW only,

You have admin rights to forums here right?

on that subject how are we doing with tags?

0%. This is one of the things I hoped some other people would step up for as it does not require admincp access, just rights to create tags.


Also I made a few changes to you and wild. The Local Moderator thing is going away, it runs off old Access Mask stuff from vBulletin which just is not that efficient. I removed that and gave the IWTE user group (you and wild) a bunch of rights like Move and Stick and Delete (soft) and most importantly Promote to Article and Blog. I will make @GrnEyedBot part of your group later and make sure everything works as intended.

I'm not sure yet where you're going with the individual games sections, I'm still unconvinced about expanding all of them

Ever hear the old line about soldiers jumping out of airplanes? You don't gotta like it, you just gotta do it!

Trust me this is going to look better, for those that like the grid layout. For those that do not like the grid layout nothing will make it look better. They can use a skin with the standard layout.

at least Shogun and Medieval v1s could be in an
'Early TW Games'
section and maybe just Med 1 get its modding section split out so they make 3 grids

That is a pretty good idea. Total War - The Early Years

For options for skins, I want to have a look at a gridded version that doesn't have the pics in and takes out as much padding as possible to see how compact we can get it whilst still looking OK, I'll try that and some other stuff on a non-selectable version

EDIT: the unselectable skin (which isn't a copy of Wide Chocolate because I can't get 'import' to work) has the boxes tightened up a bit and the threads stats hidden

I asked earlier what the smallest vertical size a grid could be was but I think you missed it. I think the answer is Discussion & Debate. No subforums so it only has the forum title and the latest thread info. Without the Thread and Message totals those are barely bigger than a standard forum list block, which is perfect. The Discussion and Debate section is now smaller vertically in Grid form than it is in List form. Pictures or not I think that is the smallest size and I think it works great.

EDIT2: actually that looked so much better without the Threads/Messages numbers I've hidden that off TEST ONLY too

I agree, but definitely leave them on List view. They are still there currently on the Firefox browser I have open as a Guest. I need some way of looking at a forum and judging traffic without running a query and one of the things I use for that is the Threads and Messages. As long as I can get them in one skin I am happy.

 

[GrnEyedDvl]

Shogun and Medieval have a new setup.

 

[GrnEyedDvl]

I am rearranging M2 now.

EDIT: Ok the workshop needs a complete rethink. We have duplicate forums because we have a Tools and Tutorials section that has 5 forums under it named the same as the actual Workshop forums. I am thinking the Tools and Tutorials should be one forum not 6, and use Prefixes instead and avoid some of the confusion.

Other than that I like this layout, and the main forums and subforums have the Questions and Poll thread types added. Going through all the hosted mods to get that done will take some time.

 

[GrnEyedDvl]

Total War Saga
Why does Fall of the Samurai link to the Shogun 2 forums? I have not played any of these, but Steam clearly states that Shogun 2 is not required to play FoTS so I am confused why that link is there instead of having a forum for the actual game. I broke the rest out into the grid layout but left that last one alone for now.

 

[makanyane]

Total War Saga
Why does Fall of the Samurai link to the Shogun 2 forums? I have not played any of these, but Steam clearly states that Shogun 2 is not required to play FoTS so I am confused why that link is there instead of having a forum for the actual game. I broke the rest out into the grid layout but left that last one alone for now.

Wikipedia has it as a 'standalone expansion' of Shogun II. People do tend to think of it as an expansion (like Barbarian Invasion for RTW). Then I think it got pointed out that it's technically a 'Saga' so it ended up with the permanent link back from that section, but I don't think it had enough content to warrant a split forum in Shogun II!

erm, probably an @Gigantus question - I definitely didn't have forum permissions at that stage!

 

[Dismounted Feudal Knight]

FOTS was put in there a very long time ago and I suppose it's a match thematically and gameplay wise. But if there's no dependency it could be split.

As far as M2 goes, this is why I want to do away with workshop subforum splits completely in favor of prefixes. No workshop has the traffic that any one recent workshop thread is gonna get buried. If that becomes the case, simply sort by prefix.

 

[GrnEyedDvl]

FOTS was put in there a very long time ago and I suppose it's a match thematically and gameplay wise. But if there's no dependency it could be split.

Wikipedia has it as a 'standalone expansion' of Shogun II. People do tend to think of it as an expansion (like Barbarian Invasion for RTW). Then I think it got pointed out that it's technically a 'Saga' so it ended up with the permanent link back from that section, but I don't think it had enough content to warrant a split forum in Shogun II!

There may not be enough content to keep the forum at all. But that might be our fault for directing it into Shogun 2. All of those Saga forums are pretty empty though. I removed the Hosted Mods section from each, they all had 0 posts. If they do not have a hosted mod by now they are not likely to get one.

As far as M2 goes, this is why I want to do away with workshop subforum splits completely in favor of prefixes. No workshop has the traffic that any one recent workshop thread is gonna get buried. If that becomes the case, simply sort by prefix.

We are somewhat in agreement here. I like the basic splits but its far too granular in the M2 workshop at least. I will mess with it some more in a bit. Trying to sort out a CF issue now.

 

[Dismounted Feudal Knight]

If nothing else we can just add a hosted mod forum for places that need it when they come up.

I like the basic splits, I'd just like a newer tool for the job...

 

[GrnEyedDvl]

I will give Test Editing and Scripting as an example as that is by far where I have the most experience in that forum. Leave that forum there and create prefixes like
Buildings
Campaign Script
Battle Script
Traits
Ancilliaries
etc

 

[Dismounted Feudal Knight]

I can accept that and see how it turns out.

----

Hopefully got this in soon enough, just got my head out of some lower sections and properly glanced at the index.

Seeing the index now, how saga titles are laid out is closer to what I'd like for each game, where the games themselves are what is listed on top navigation, and modifications/hosted mods are links within that alongside general discussion and workshops. With three kingdoms as an example, having them with released/unreleased subforums (not to speak if they might be used for each game) is the same amount of burial while still expanding the index, vs having all games laid out pretty much as so. This is also why I am narrowly focused on workshop subsplits as prefixes and not full on subforums. The way three kingdoms is laid out greatly increases index consumption and imo loses any savings we might get by using horizontal space. What I'm suggesting reduces forum volume, presents each game consistently, and I also believe is better for maintenance longer term since it avoids hairs nest both in ACP and in browsing by forum.

 

[GrnEyedDvl]

The way three kingdoms is laid out greatly increases index consumption and imo loses any savings we might get by using horizontal space

Increases it in List view, by about triple maybe a little more. In Grid view its about double the vertical height but has all the main forums visible because of the horizontal so we actually gain visibility in Grid. A lot of visibility.

The one to really pay attention to is M2, since its the biggest section by a fair margin. Yes, its taller in List view too. But Grid view is actually shorter than list view by quite a bit and exposes all the main forums nicely.

Why don't you take Shogun2, Napoleon, and Empire and lay them out how you are thinking. Then we have a direct comparison right there by just scrolling up and down a bit in both views. I will not touch them so we can all look at them for a few days.

While you are in there try to add Questions and Polls to the main forums so at least that is consistent since we are messing with everyone on everything else!

 

[makanyane]

TWC Wide Chocolate now does this if you're in relatively wide screen

borders could do with some tweaking, but hopefully it's better than ever increasing, length on the list view
standard view with the forum stats will come back if you squish your browser window down.

 

[makanyane]

Done. I made that an Article format. Only IWTE members should be able to create new threads there, but anyone can reply. I will test that with @GrnEyedBot later.

the article format didn't work for what I wanted to do, which was shunt the existing tutorials in there

Spoiler

so, after you pointed out I had forum access, I renamed that one articles, and made a new tutorials one with normal forum setting

I'm not worried about restricting posting in the tutorials section, so long as we have 'move' moderation ability we can just shunt any misplaced things back out into the main area (and quite a lot of the valid tutorials were actually written by others)

 

[Axalon]

Well, well….

I can only say that I find it really disappointing to see the main index revert to the ‘ol “lets bunch up the old games into one section” and while every other full TW-game has its own/unique dedicated section on the site. It is little else then a big fat “You are not welcome sign” to the folks that likes those games and perhaps don’t care much for the other and newer games, or any people interested in those two games (at any given time). It will probably result in the loss of traffic related to those two games, yet again (as essentially every other time this sort of “solution” has been attempted on the index, both here and elsewhere). If it did not end up that way again - it would be a first…

Now, I have - several times - fought for granting both TW Shogun1 and Medieval 1 separate sections here at the TWC. With that in mind - I think the only acceptable way forward is essentially twofold - either you guys start bunching up several other full TW-games in to shared sections – this is an option I do not support or recommend in any way, shape or form. Or, you simply restore shogun to its own – very much separate section – and do the exact same to medieval 1. As it was before, and this I do recommend and support…

Anything else will just be open unbothered discrimination of those two games and the crowd that like those two old games. In the event that things end up like that – people like me would not feel very welcome, nor would I bother to support this site and especially those two former sections the way I have repeatedly done in the past. I would see little alternative but to take my business elsewhere were these two games are more appreciated and treated with the basic respect they deserve. For a long time the TWC has been such a place. And because of that, I and a few others have been supporting those sections and the site for that very reason, as we see the value in that. …I can only pray to the gods that be that the TWC will be such a place once again and the current thing is fully reversed.

***

If you guys decides to stick with the current “lets bunch up the two old TW-games strategy” - all that effort and all those many battles I have (repeatedly) fought for those two old games and their own dedicated sections – will have been for nothing here at the TWC. Way to inspire further engagement and loyalty to this site, at least on my part. The TWC is a niche site, TW-games are the niche in question - and - both Shogun 1 and Medieval 1 just happen to be full TW-games, so nothing strange there, for such a site, right?

Of course, this is not my call - the only thing I can do is to state my case for those two games (Shogun 1 and Medieval 1), which is exactly what I have been trying to do above, right now, right here (yet again, it seems)…

- A

 

[makanyane]

So, what we're trying to do is make more use of the horizontal space in the forum index, and depending on view and screen width you currently get different effects, some other games, e.g. the Sagas including the recent Pharaoh release are grouped, this is how they look on a wide screen view on the default skin currently

If we go with the pictorial node option (viewable using TEST ONLY skin currently) it looks like this:

In either option Med I actually gets more space on the index page than it did previously due to having the discussion and modifications split into two 'level 1' nodes (pics will get adjusted as I get around to it)

and combining Shogun and Med I, was my idea, so you can shoot me on that one...

 

[PikeStance]

Istated this before, combing the two games isn't really doing anything. You still need to scroll with the fingers almost as much regardless.

Just curious why is Med2 the only one with the subforums divided up? Is this something you have to physically create and you haven't touched the other forums yet?

 

[makanyane]

The dividing of forums is a work in progress, for DFK and GED. I'm just trying to adapt the styling for the likely end result.

 

[Dismounted Feudal Knight]

It takes a lot of rearranging to redo the internal structure of forums, which is why I did GED's request in the faster and more malleable inspect element method. Here is my concept, just imagine all total war games are listed since I only changed the saga block for demonstration. Latest updated or released games on top, last releases on bottom. Cold turkey and list all of them like so. It may be too radical and I also went with greatly shortening forum titles below the main game title. I feel the extended titles in every space contributes to a view of clutter which is not something we want to introduce people to. It doesn't look awesome, I think it would sell better with actual graphics.

I'm really trying not to test stuff like this using live forums, at most I would be fine recreating on the test site. I would have preferred such layout experiments occurred on the test forum and were shown like this for the site poll on where it goes next.

 

[makanyane]

Btw. As an example of all games in one category, if you find Paradox Interactive forums, you'll see they have a flexible node per game layout for landing page, but when you click the game you want you get a conventional forum layout

I'd give a link to it. But useless at copy,paste on mobile!

 

[Dismounted Feudal Knight]

Here it is. More compressed than I feel would be best for TWC given our subforum complexity, but definitely in the direction I'm thinking.

 

[PikeStance]

I actually like that better. I am not so sure that is that complex are we are choosing to be that complex.

 

[GrnEyedDvl]

Anything else will just be open unbothered discrimination of those two games and the crowd that like those two old games.

Discrimination? Really? Are you going to compare it to going to jail next? Or to having your car stolen? if you want to be taken seriously then do not write stuff like that.

The ONLY thing my change did to those forums was put them next to each other in Grid view and closer together vertically in List view. Oh and make the Mod Workshop visible on the forum index. Its no longer one layer deeper. That is it.

We are talking about a pair of forums that have 8,000 posts between them and you use a term like discriminate? Fine, I will be just as ridiculous. The other forums of TWC can no longer afford to subsidize low traffic areas. Maintaining them in their previous form was an indirect tax on the other forums of the site because as you know inflation is a factor when it comes to premium space. The actual adjusted gross income of those now three forums is 125 posts annually each.

 

[GrnEyedDvl]

It takes a lot of rearranging to redo the internal structure of forums, which is why I did GED's request in the faster and more malleable inspect element method. Here is my concept, just imagine all total war games are listed since I only changed the saga block for demonstration. Latest updated or released games on top, last releases on bottom. Cold turkey and list all of them like so. It may be too radical and I also went with greatly shortening forum titles below the main game title. I feel the extended titles in every space contributes to a view of clutter which is not something we want to introduce people to. It doesn't look awesome, I think it would sell better with actual graphics.

That does not "unbury" anything. All that really does is remove the Category levels, the exact same subforums are visible as the ones visible under vBulletin 4 here.

 

[Dismounted Feudal Knight]

I think we may have approached with different expectations, I'll try to restart where I'm coming from.

The index as it is has more than enough 'going on' right now, it is a pain point. What I'm concerned of, I will sum up as two things. 1. buried subforums; it is inexcusable to have flagship projects like SSHIP, ITWE, EOP buried so deep in the tree. This doesn't necessarily mean making them immediately index accessible, but if I went to the med 2 workshop and that's where EOP goes, that should be a quick stop and bam. At the stage of SSHIP's development I would give it an exception to not be deep in the largely defunct SS forum, and instead place it alongside. This is what I mean with unbury. The index should give easy access to the meat of content, and it generally should be no more than two clicks to reach the vicinity you are looking for. This, in my mind, results in a lot of trimmed forums, and indeed it puts the otus on us to clean up the fluff so certain sections are not too huge. Med 2 hosted mods are due for a mighty trim anyway. What I do not like is adding even more container categories, which is happening as compensation with your model for three kingdoms. Now there are three forums for zero projects (3k hosted mods, released, unreleased). This should not occur, and I think distinctions in hosted mods we make trying to split them down this tree or that will be mostly arbitrary as most mods will have some sort of release at this point. If they do not, we might need to reconsider them at this stage. The unburial comes in the decluttering in this example. This is the meat of the issue I've been slowly working up to in cleaning up areas of the forum. For workshops I remain convinced our path forward is to explore prefixes and to do away with extraneous pieces in our 1000+ forum megastructure.

 

[GrnEyedDvl]

I think we may have approached with different expectations, I'll try to restart where I'm coming from.

Possibly! But that's ok.

The index as it is has more than enough 'going on' right now, it is a pain point. What I'm concerned of, I will sum up as two things. 1. buried subforums; it is inexcusable to have flagship projects like SSHIP, ITWE, EOP buried so deep in the tree. This doesn't necessarily mean making them immediately index accessible,

Certain things like that need to be on the index in my opinion.

but if I went to the med 2 workshop and that's where EOP goes, that should be a quick stop and bam. At the stage of SSHIP's development I would give it an exception to not be deep in the largely defunct SS forum, and instead place it alongside.

Sub mods of submods of submods is definitely a problem and they can be raised up to be siblings not children.

This is what I mean with unbury. The index should give easy access to the meat of content, and it generally should be no more than two clicks to reach the vicinity you are looking for.

And this is why I broke it down earlier into what people are looking for when they hit the index of the site. They basically want 3 things.

• More game info
• Find a mod
• Learn to mod

Those 3 should be right there. So I took the Three Kingdoms and used that as an example, and broke it into 4 pieces instead of 3. I didn't want to use a bigger forum like M2 because moving them around a lot as a test will just confuse people.

• Game info
• Minor mods
• Hosted/major mods - I know there aren't any right now and probably never will be, that was proof of concept and that set is already marked for deletion in my mind.
• Workshops

Btw all of the AAR link style forums need to go away. AARs can now be posted as Blogs and have a Category for it, and we can add more categories there if needed. We will need to archive all the AARs existing and maybe put them in a single forum separated by Prefix.

.Now there are three forums for zero projects (3k hosted mods, released, unreleased). This should not occur,

Agreed that one looks bad but its going away anyways. I just had to have something in it and was trying to think of a way to prevent 150 forums showing in one block, and was not thinking that the M2 Hosted Mods was already broken down into M2 and Kingdoms so the problem was actually already solved. You can consider the Released and Unreleased proposal dead.

For workshops I remain convinced our path forward is to explore prefixes and to do away with extraneous pieces in our 1000+ forum megastructure.

I like the basic breakout we have with Workshops. The Tools section in M2 is a bit nuts.

 

[makanyane]

It's 2am and I now can't sleep... The Test Site is currently getting a 'Total War Series' category

 

[PikeStance]

There is a little too much concern about what is "buried." people know what they are looking for and all that is required is intuitive navigation. Popular mods and submods will be find, if not intuitively navaigating, then through google search results. There are also booksmarks.