# Our new forum structure - coming in a day or two!



## Morrus (May 23, 2008)

We've thought a lot about how to structure the forums once 4E is released, and while we realise there's no way we can please everyone, we've come up with a structure which we hope will at least be acceptable to the majority of people.

Our aims here: to ensure that 3.x players are still given enough attention, and to highlight a few things like Pathfinder and the like by not "burying" them in a ghetto forum.  We hope that this structure will mean no ghetto forums!

Thank you to everyone who made suggestions - we hope that this is a reasonable compromise between the many differing viewpoints.

So, here's the new structure; we'll be reorganising the forums at some point this weekend.

*General RPG Discussion*

*General RPG Discussion* - non rules discussion about ANY game, including D&D, Pathfinder and other d20/OGL stuff; it's basically gonna be system-neutral stuff plus releases, etc.

*General RPG Rules* - rules discussion about anything that's not D&D, as above.​
*D&D 4th Edition Discussion*

*4E Rules

4E House Rules*​
*D&D 3rd Edition & Older Discussion*

*3E Rules

3E House Rules*​
The only flexible option at the moment is the possibility of separate forums in 3E and 4E for Conversions, but we'll look hard at the traffic levels before we decide.


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## EricNoah (May 23, 2008)

Thanks!  

I'm assuming you will watch General over the next couple of weeks to see how it's going?  I suspect that "15 threads per page" plus "4E excitement" will equal "anything that's not 4E getting washed away to page 2" within 10 minutes, but maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised.

edit: I guess it's more like 20 threads per page, isn't it?


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## Morrus (May 23, 2008)

EricNoah said:
			
		

> Thanks!
> 
> I'm assuming you will watch General over the next couple of weeks to see how it's going?  I suspect that "15 threads per page" plus "4E excitement" will equal "anything that's not 4E getting washed away to page 2" within 10 minutes, but maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised.




I think that - for General in particular - it being temporarily dominated by the big news of the moment is a realistic expectation.  So, at the beginning of June, it will be 4E dominated, although a lot of the 4E posts will belong in Rules and House Rules; but we hope that, for example, when _Pathfinder_ is released, we'll see it represented heavily for a period of time.  General, I think, should reflect the general subjects of conversation on peoples' minds at the time, which I'm sure will ebb and flow continually.


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## Arnwyn (May 23, 2008)

Looks good!


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (May 23, 2008)

Seems like a good solution to me.

...going to be odd to look at though...


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## EricNoah (May 23, 2008)

Morrus said:
			
		

> I think that - for General in particular - it being temporarily dominated by the big news of the moment is a realistic expectation.  So, at the beginning of June, it will be 4E dominated, although a lot of the 4E posts will belong in Rules and House Rules; but we hope that, for example, when _Pathfinder_ is released, we'll see it represented heavily for a period of time.  General, I think, should reflect the general subjects of conversation on peoples' minds at the time, which I'm sure will ebb and flow continually.




Totally understandable.  It will be interesting to see how it works out!


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## el-remmen (May 23, 2008)

I find that limit on the # of threads per page a lot more inconvenient than I ever imagined it would be and I had not considered how that new limit would effect the usability of the new combined general forum.

Is this something we are going to have to wait for ENworld 2 in order to go back to more threads per page?


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## EricNoah (May 23, 2008)

If you compare the two forums as they are now... General currently is showing threads as old as about 16 hours old on page 1.  4E, by contrast, is showing threads about 1 hour old on page 1.


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## blargney the second (May 23, 2008)

Looks good!
-blarg

ps - Thanks for letting us know how you're redecorating the house.


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## Agamon (May 25, 2008)

I'm all whoa!  Who moved the couch over there?   

Looks good!  A place for everything and everything in it's place!


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## Graf (May 25, 2008)

Your hearts are in the right place. Hopefully the community will accept and respond.
On a personal note I hated having general one place and 4e general another.


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## TheAuldGrump (May 26, 2008)

Not liking it. Not even a little bit.

It is now much more difficult to find topics that I had been following. Placing D20/OGL topics in General bloats that topic, and makes it harder to tell at a glance what is up with folks who, like me, are not updating to the new system. Pathfinder topics get lost in the shuffle, and General also suffers as it is expanded.

All in all it makes me glad I did not renew my Community Supporter status. Had I done so I would have been very annoyed. 

The Auld Grump


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## Moon_Goddess (May 26, 2008)

I know it's your site and I should give I a try, but as a customer I'd like to voice my opinion


I don't like it.    I don't see any indication that the General forum will stay non-dnd.   Especially since it's the first forum on the list that's where most posters will go first.    That means things like d20 Modern will be buried under DND posts.    I completely understand the rest of the restructure, but why did the OGL forum have to be killed?   That always been my favorite place on the boards.


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## Morrus (May 26, 2008)

DarwinofMind said:
			
		

> I completely understand the rest of the restructure, but why did the OGL forum have to be killed?   That always been my favorite place on the boards.




It wasn't.  It had it's name changed and moved up a few rows on the list.  It's still there, an still has exactly the same threads in it that it had yesterday.


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## Thanee (May 26, 2008)

Don't mind the changes. It's just a little different. Makes sense to do a little reorientation there along with the 4th Edition. 

But that banner on the right side is incredibly annoying, especially with the white background. It's extremely distracting.

Bye
Thanee


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## Moon_Goddess (May 26, 2008)

Morrus said:
			
		

> It wasn't.  It had it's name changed and moved up a few rows on the list.  It's still there, an still has exactly the same threads in it that it had yesterday.



 Ah, now that you say that I found them.  Still not my optimal placement in my eyes but it works,


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## Morrus (May 26, 2008)

DarwinofMind said:
			
		

> Ah, now that you say that I found them.  Still not my optimal placement in my eyes but it works,




You preferred the forum lower down the page?


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## TheAuldGrump (May 27, 2008)

Morrus said:
			
		

> You preferred the forum lower down the page?



A better solution might be to give it a better name - if folks looking for OGL and D20 material need a descriptor longer than the forum's heading in order to find it then the name is likely at fault.

The Auld Grump


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## Moon_Goddess (May 27, 2008)

Morrus said:
			
		

> You preferred the forum lower down the page?



 actually yes,  the lower placement brought less traffic and that's a better feel for me, but hey, now that i know where it is and it's all still there there I'll give it time and we'll see. 

I agree with the name change idea.


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## TheAuldGrump (May 28, 2008)

Possible new names...
Grumps, Granddads, 'n' Grognards
Auld Tyme OGL
D20ld for this *Scatological Expletive Deleted*....
Move Over Diaglo, Give Old Monte the News...

The Auld Grump


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## Orius (May 28, 2008)

Looks pretty good, except that the 3e D&D forum's name is a bit misleading.  Maybe it could be called "Classic D&D or something (though I'm sure some grognards would object to calling 3e classic)?


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## TheAuldGrump (May 28, 2008)

Orius said:
			
		

> Looks pretty good, except that the 3e D&D forum's name is a bit misleading.  Maybe it could be called "Classic D&D or something (though I'm sure some grognards would object to calling 3e classic)?



Or 'Classic D20 and OGL' to be more serious than my above recommendations.

The Auld Grump, who kinda hopes that 4e turns out to be New Coke....


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## JRRNeiklot (Jun 4, 2008)

So where do I post an AD&D rules question?  In 3e rules?  It'll be buried in 5 minutes.  Juat make a forum called OOP D&D, please.


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## blargney the second (Jun 4, 2008)

Toss it in 3E Rules - the traffic's slowed down a lot in there since they opened up the 4e Rules forum.


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## Orius (Jun 5, 2008)

Besides, you can just mark the topic as OD&D/1e/2e or whatever that label is, and people will be able to pick it out.


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## JRRNeiklot (Jun 10, 2008)

Except that it will be on page 9 in ten minutes.


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## Angel Tarragon (Jun 14, 2008)

I love the organization. It's exactly as I hoped it would be. My only beef is with the number of posts per page.


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## Nyaricus (Jun 27, 2008)

Reveille said:


> My only beef is with the number of posts per page.



I REALLY dislike the new, lower, number of posts per page. I haven't had the chance to see if ENW2 can change the options, but I sincerely hope I can, or that I will eventually be able to. I miss the 40 posts a page; now things get skipped over very quickly it seems 

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Now playing: Ahab - Below The Sun


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## Elephant (Jun 28, 2008)

Nyaricus said:


> I REALLY dislike the new, lower, number of posts per page. I haven't had the chance to see if ENW2 can change the options, but I sincerely hope I can, or that I will eventually be able to. I miss the 40 posts a page; now things get skipped over very quickly it seems
> 
> ----------------
> Now playing: Ahab - Below The Sun




I agree 100%.  15 posts per page forces me to click to a new page WAY too often.


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## Michael Morris (Jun 28, 2008)

Since the server is behaving itself now it's back to 30. If it starts acting up again though it will go back down.


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## xmanii (Jun 28, 2008)

Michael Morris said:


> Since the server is behaving itself now it's back to 30. If it starts acting up again though it will go back down.




Is there, or will there be an option for us to change that, per individual tastes?


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## Nyaricus (Jul 1, 2008)

xmanii said:


> Is there, or will there be an option for us to change that, per individual tastes?



Yeah, that would be sweet! Thanks for bumping it up to 30 per page in any case! That's a HUGE improvement!

As just a thought exercise, why not have lurkers set to 20 posts per page, ENW account holders set to 30 with customising ability between 20 and 30, and CSer's set to fully customisable with a top-end of 40? I imagine it would simply be easier to put the settings to "everyone sees the same number of posts", but that would be a nice distinction, IMO.

cheers,
--N

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Now playing: Arsis - The Face of My Innocence


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