Forum Layout

[JulyForToday]

I already posted this in the thread here. But I figured I'd repost it in it's own thread. I think the layout should be expanded to allow things to stay a bit more organized.


Ideas for how to set up more specific divisions, and some subforums:

News:
(don't see a reason to change much here)

GoW Facilities Department: Site and Forums
-feature testing
-feedback and requests

General Discussion
- Watercooler/personal stuff
- GoW internal discussion
- The other guilds and their projects

Story Department
-project proposals

Art Department
-concept art

Construction Department
-help
-tips and techniques
-projects

Sound Department
-music
-sound effects

Programming Department
-plasma
-plugin
-tools
-scripting

ShowCase Gallery
-completed Ages/projects
-WIP

Project Forums (this area is going to get messy no-matter how you cut it...)

-project1
-project2
-project3.. ect...



Blue suggested that the story and art sections could be merged. I don't see why they can't be. We just need a bit more room to work with.

[Pryftan]

Personally, I don't see a reason to split the music or programming sections until we get swamped by threads in them or something. There have been very few posts in both forums, it's not hard to find your way around. But I did think there should be some division of "General Discussion", and maybe a more specific area I could have put my project proposal for Tromegahl instead of here.

I don't want to hide our posts in a hundred subsections though, so here's what I'd do:

General Discussion:
- GoW internal discussion
- Watercooler
- Project Proposals (I'd put this here for the same reason I put my Tromegahl post here.. it's some story, some art, some building.)

Storytellers

Artists (I would move the mention of "verbal descriptions of an Age" to storytellers though)

Builders
- Tips & Showcase (change 3d Showcase into this)
- Help

Musicians

Programmers

Project Forums (I wouldn't worry about moving completed Ages to another area until we have completed Ages)

[Paradox]

The few problems that I see are as follows:

The Artist forum is supposed to be entirely for concept art. Having a subforum for concept art would mean that the main forum would be empty, thus defeating the purpose of a subforum.

I agree with Pryftan than splitting up Sound and Programming would be pointless at this point, but it's not difficult to split things in the future and shuffle threads around.

As for finished projects, we can always add a "Completed Projects" section and make all finished projects as subforums of that. If the finished projects start to take up too much room (which shouldn't happen for a long time), we can always export archives and post those.

[bluewyvern]

I really think that "project proposals", "art" and "storytelling" all tend to mix and have the same basic purpose -- people throwing out ideas, whether it's concept art, maps, models, storylines, verbal descriptions of landscapes/cultures/features/themes or entire Ages, in all degrees of detail and depth. Whatever form the initial ideas take, they will be joined or modified by others, in different forms, with different degrees of thoroughness. Someone will say, "Iceberg Age!" and then someone else will say, "Carved with tunnels inside, and an abandoned temple at the center!" And someone will model a temple altar, and someone will draw a map, and someone will propose a puzzle. Once the collection of concepts gains enough detail and interest, then it might be adopted as a workable project and moved to the Project forum, or it might just sit and stew, or inspire other projects.

Couldn't we just have a "Concepts" or "Brainstorming" category for this process, the primordial soup where we can just dump ideas, whatever form they take, whether visual or verbal?

Single-skill forums I think are better left for things that require technical skill and feedback, like modeling and programming and music. But I see no reason to keep words and pictures separate -- it's all design work.