Proposed Forum Structure

Friday, June 20th, 2008 | Behind the Scenes

So, tell me what you guys think:

We’re going to be streamlining the forums next week, and this is our proposed structure. It’s not set in stone by any means, so feel free to comment/criticize. I’m especially interested in hearing from you if you look at this list and say, “Noooo! How can you think about cutting out XYZ?” Now, don’t cheat, now. If you look at this list, and you can’t instantly tell what we’ve cut without checking the existing list, you’re obviously not that attached to whatever it is that we’re proposing to cut!

New Forum Structure

GamerDNA

Suggestions
> Put your ideas here

Support
> Used for user-to-user support

GamerDNA Life
> Showcase characters, stories, screen caps for all to see

Hello World
> Let new users introduce themselves

Developer Showcase
> Show off use of the API and ask questions. (When helix is launched)

Guilds

Guild News, Announcements & Recruiting
> Announcements about your guild.

Guild Leader Support
> Resources for leaders

Games (genre based)

Massive Multiplayers Online
> MMO talk

First Persons Shooting
> FPS talk

Real Time Strategizers
> RTS talk

MUDs and Interactive Fiction
> Text based gaming talk

Action Junkies
> Action/platformer talk

Retro titles
> Arcade/MAME talk

Adventurers
> RPGs/Puzzle gamers. Pixel whores are welcome!

Meatspace
> Sometimes you have to game face to face (for table top/LAN/Card Gaming)

General

Trading post
> Buy, sell

Hardware
> Hardware advice questions

Hodge Podge
> everything else.

Sam

I think we should change the wording from "Guild" to Group hosting. Since we're now multi-gaming and multi-platform, the usage of the word Guild to describe a group of gamers isn't really appropriate any more. We want to include both Guilds,Clans and groups of gamers :)

Methedras

Looks good to me!

Rev. Lazaro

This is all just my 2 cents, and doesn't really amount to a hill of beans. But what the heck:

I personally like the Games Category over Guilds.
Although I understand you're trying to encourage the community and recruitment aspect; Have you contemplated maybe putting Guild/Clan recruitments as sub forums to the games? (A Guild Recruitment section in MMO, a Clan in FPS or Strat, etc).

I only suggest that since we seem to have a lot of people not look at the recruitment boards and post directly in game forums, which may be an effect of the Games discussion being kept above recruitment.

Meatspace section is cool; it opens up the social games more than just RPG's, miniatures or cards -- It opens up all sorts of social gaming.

Trapper Markelz

I think we need a racing genre too... I left that out when thinking that up...

Any other genres missing?

Sensational

Works for me! More categories to troll.

samhain

Meatspace? Do you mean Meetspace? Meatspace sounds like a kinky-dirty singles type thing IMO.

Agreed, Guilds could be Guilds/Clans or something that defines player groups more generally as guilds usually exist only in MMORPG's.

You seem to be giving up the newly added (and seemingly popular) single player console gamers forum

Sports & Racing are huge genres with a huge market #'s. I would think those genre's are more in line with your target audience than MAME or MUD's and that's coming from a MAME junkie and former MUD player / content creator.

If the point is to consolidate forum admin, I would definitely suggest sports and racing over MUD/Mame. If its to make it more usable, maybe consider adding some more of the popular genre's not mentioned.

[BoA]Gert

Meatspace sounds wierd (even if it does have a nerdy meaning - first thing in conjures to me is Lexx ;)

Guilds renamed to a more open, generic term (Group, etc.) seems more in-line with directions mentioned previously.

As for the Trading Post - how will that work? Will it be user-driven or some moderation or...

One last thing, make Hello World the first forum to make it more friendly - why go down a few links to say Hi to people, it should be up front :)

Rev. Lazaro

Well, "Meatspace" is old cyberpunk terminology meaning real life (as opposed to Cyberspace). Besides if it did have kinky connotations it only makes it more fun right? Right?

Anyways it does seem kinda stretched too thin to put a Platformer action section separate from MAME/Arcade stuff.I'd say have a more general Single Player game space, maybe with a sub section for Arcade/Retro/MAME etc.

And Sports would have a big draw. I mean, lots of people play Fantasy sports leagues as well as console sports games online.

Vanel86

The guild news should not cover recruting, we already have and ad/lfg platform for that, otherwise it would be cluttered by recruiting ads like other platforms such as xfire where that part is a utter and complete mess.

tekhedd

Everything outside of the virtual world is just a bunch of meat, and if possible it would be best to leave it altogether. Classic cyberpunk. (Wasn't the core plot of Idoru about leaving the meat behind? What are they teaching them in the schools?)

Mr Achievement

I love seeing "Hello World" in there... I seriously felt lost when I joined and didn't see a Forum for Introducing myself.

The rest looks good to me... as long as you already read Comment #1. :)

DevsterC

The gaming headers are kinda forced in an effort to be witty:
Massive Multiplayers Online (what, they're fat? Gamers have a bad enough rep out there already...)
First Persons Shooting (Persons? [i]Really?[/i])

Sports should have it's own - especially since consoles and PCs have so many online games. There are full leagues and such for that stuff, look at FSB or DMP or RacingTexas.com for leagues around just online racing sims, let alone all the Madden and NHL leagues out there.

Retro being tagged to just arcade and mame - should also include "past generation consoles" maybe.

Meatspace, whether from cyberpunk or not, just sounds unsavory. I agree with samhain. Maybe this site is trying to pull in super hard core gamers who love Gibson novels, I don't know, but I (personally) don't like it.

Trapper Markelz

How can you NOT like Meatspace?!? It has it's own wikipedia entry!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meatspace

Touche on the Sports genre... you are right that is needed... and I think we keep it separate from racing... cause that is it's own genre.

There isn't a hard limit on genres... we will do whatever works and if they aren't populated... consolidate or delete them... we don't have to be married to it forever.

And I sort of like the witty game genre descriptions. :) It gives it a different feel than other forum genre titles... In the end that is the point with some of the crazy stuff like Meatspace... it becomes identifying instead of just calling it "Physical gaming" or something... much like Hodge Podge instead of Misc or Off Topic.

Sam

No one can accuse us of not having character Trapper! :D

Minsman

I like it. Looks like good coverage for what I'd expect in a gaming forum that is for all kinds of games!

Imran Malek

Personally I feel that we should avoid such granularity in the forum structure, it sort of segments the population in a weird way. I think the 1UP Forums had a good idea when they consolidated to "Game" and "Non-Game" forums (yeah, that's it). They had stickied threads for important topics that r rotated weekly.

Just my two cents.

DevsterC

Lotsa stuff has entries on wikipedia, m'man, doesn't make 'em good by definition. [:)]

The problem with the descriptions/titles are more that they seemed a bit forced, not that I'm against the use of witticisms. There could be misinterpretations too (however unlikely - for example, in my country, aboriginal people (native indians) are also sometimes called "first persons". So "First Persons Shooting" could be read with a different context. Not saying I read it that way, but it could happen.

Take Imran's point to heart - less is more. Define your posts per week thresholds for a forum to live before it gets combined - maybe the heavy churn genres stand alone, whilst other less trafficked ones are ruthlessly combined...