Jump to content

Forum Re-arrangement


Chris

Recommended Posts

Remember when we last re-arranged the forums some of you started to complain that having virtually all of the forums shown on the forum index means a LOT of scrolling? Well I've decided to re-think the layout of the forums, and have been considering adding a few more subforums to allow us to expand, and to split up some crowded forums.

Some of these changes I will definitely be going ahead and doing with immediate affect, some I'll wait for comments from you, and the new subforums will be trialled to see how much discussion we actually get out of you. i.e. if no one uses them we'll get rid of them and go back to how we originally were. The news and announcements forums and all the forums on the GTA games are all staying the same, there aren't any changes to be made to them, the changes concern the rest of the forum, and I've outlined what I plan to do below.

First of all, changes I am making right now:

The gang forums aren't used by everyone, and secondly, they aren't the main focal point of the forum, though they are of some importance to the community. The gangs category will be organised as such

  • Public Gang Chat - this will house Gang System Announcements, Trading Stalls, Gang Recruitment and Gang Chat
  • Private Gang Chat - no changes here, it simply holds discussion forums for the big official gangs
  • RP and WarZone - again no changes, used for flamewars and for gangs to RP, and well as normal members to RP

Changes to the General Discussion forums. I've had a few thoughts about these, and I'm sort of reaching a compromise between two thoughts I had. Splitting these forums up into two or three main areas. Making it appear like so...

  • General Discussion
    • The Lounge - for general chat about anything that doesn't belong in any of the other forums
    • Serious Chat - For more important topics regarding politics, current events, environment, the world and what have you.
    • Fun and Games - forum games and other random spammy stuff

    [*]Creativity

    • Graphics - for showing off your works of art, things you've made in photoshop, or paint...
    • Writer's Lounge - for those of you who write fanfic's and such, show them off here.

    [*]Lifestyle

    • Gaming - games other than GTA
    • Music - for discussing your interests in all things music
    • TV and Movies - for discussing TV programs and what's on at the movies, the films you've seen etc.
    • Sport - so most of you are lazy gamers, but you have interest in some sports right? I'm sure you watch them on TV, you can talk about them here
    • Vehicles - here we are all fans of Grand Theft Auto, most of us have an interest in vehicles in real life too, just take the amount of cars in our download database, people love getting real life cars in the game, so I'm sure this forum will be of great interest to many of you. The forum will contain discussion about real life vehicles and motoring.
    • PC Chat - for everything hardware and software, programming etc. it all goes here

NOTES

Writer's Lounge - this new forum will be made to split up the creativity forum which currently has both writing and graphics, two great forms of expression, but very different. The split would make it easier for members to find what they are actually there for.

Splitting the Entertainment forum - this forum has a lot of topics in it. A lot of interests flying around for all different mediums. We think it would be better to have dedicated forums for Music, and TV & Movies. This would make it much easier for members to find topics on specific things

Sports forum - not many topics in the entertainment forum revolve around sporting events, or sports in general. But it's a pretty large thing that is in nearly all of our lives whether we take part or just watch. This is a trial forum. We will see how much people use it and decide in a couple of weeks or so whether it is needed. However, with the split up of other forums, The Lounge would seem the only appropriate place to keep the topics that are posted in... so it would actually be easier to keep it anyway... then again if it really isn't used, this won't be too much of a problem.

Vehicles forum - This is another forum I am creating just to trial it and see how it goes, I expect it to be more popular than the sports one above, and the reasons for it I like I said in the descriptions. We are all fans of Grand Theft Auto, most of us have an interest in vehicles in real life too, just take the amount of cars in our download database, people love getting real life cars in the game, so I'm sure this forum will be of great interest to many of you. The forum will contain discussion about real life vehicles and motoring.

And that's about it. So what we have is a splitting up of the General Discussion area into 3 separate areas, each with a few subforums in, so the discussion is more channelled.

Please give us your comments, I want to know whether you like or dislike the changes, and hear any other thoughts you've got on the matter. Please don't leave it until after we've made the changes to voice your opinion... that would be stupid wouldn't it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Glad to see you suggesting some changes. Although you forgot PC Chat and Gaming Chat.

Sorting the gangs into public/private/warzone is a good way of doing it, allowing for full access as well as not too much on the board index.

The Sport forum is the one I'm not sure would work. After a few searches, it seems we don't have many sport-related topics. I can see us having a few discussions about different sports around the world, and a few topics about the well-known sports, but there really isn't that much we have in common internationally. A discussion about Premiership football would leave most non-Britons out in the cold (as well as a lot of Britons). No offence to the gaming community, but I don't see sport being one of the main things we talk about. Having said that, the sport category is very diverse, ranging from ball sports to raquet sports to athetics to motorsports and other such stuff, so everybody should have something to talk about, but I'm just not sure whether there's much to talk about with other people. Would be interesting to find out, so I think it's worth a try.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok that's cool, all of you seem to like the idea so far.

The gang forums have now been re-arranged. I've also added the Sports and Vehicles forums. I also just spent ages going through the lounge and entertainment forum moving all sorts of topics around, I found quite a few relating to sports, only a small amount for vehicles though, so get posting about some nice cars!

Entertainment will be split shortly into Movies & Tv, and Music.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think Ents needs to be split - If you take away the "What are you listening to right now?" topic, there are only 3,045 replies in that subforum, making it even less popular than the graphics subforum.

I also think PC Chat should be extended to include other aspects of technology, discussion about phones, mp3 players and stuff as well as modern/upcoming technology etc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry Chris but i hate this, i honestly do. Whats the use of less scrolling if i have to click like hundred times to see if something is going on in for example in ''the Lounge''? Back in the good old days it took me only a glimpse at the general forums page to see that there are new posts in many forums. I hope you understand what i mean.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry Chris but i hate this, i honestly do. Whats the use of less scrolling if i have to click like hundred times to see if something is going on in for example in ''the Lounge''? Back in the good old days it took me only a glimpse at the general forums page to see that there are new posts in many forums. I hope you understand what i mean.

I do understand what you mean, but it's only 1 additional click. Also, the other members who have commented on this have all regarded the change as positive, so I'm afraid you're a minority as it stands.

We also hope that by making this change, members will be more encouraged to actually check out the other subforums, as they tended to be neglected before with people just scrolling past, or only looking in the lounge for example.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry Chris but i hate this, i honestly do. Whats the use of less scrolling if i have to click like hundred times to see if something is going on in for example in ''the Lounge''? Back in the good old days it took me only a glimpse at the general forums page to see that there are new posts in many forums. I hope you understand what i mean.

I disagree - if you look BELOW the main title heading, you'll see you can click on the lounge, entertainment etc as before, it just looks neater.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree with what QuickDeath said. You could see all the new posts in the individual forums and in what topic those posts were made. That said, it's no great loss, especially as most people seem to like the idea.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
this isnt good for a forum. this think fills my history. it complicates things so much. i hate it. i dont go to the forum as much now. is there an option to change it back?

Explain how this complicateds things and fills your history.

To everyone wanting bookmarks, WTF, just use the thread subscription tools, that's what they are for. It's a function nearly all board software has. If it's different then please do explain how your bookmarking would work...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...