Anyone else feel these forums are too big? I can't help but feel intimidated when I come to this site because of the over-abundance of forums. Don't get me wrong, I love this site and all it's members, but I think we have way to many forums that neccessary.

Counting all the forums and subforums we have 25 forums, not including the recycling bin and the dev studios. It's my opinion that some of these are barely even used and aren't really even needed.

For instance, the Chat forum. That whole area is 5 forums. I think we could easily get by with just the "Chat" forum, we don't need that AND 4 subforums, especially when the "Every Day" subforum and the "Chat" forum are, at least in my opinion, the same thing. Generally most opinionated things that go in the "opinion" subforum are also "news & media" subforum material as well. And theres also the "entertainment" subforum, which could be lumped in with the "media" aspect of the "News & Media" subforum.

It's annoying to have to look through 5 forums of "off-topic" threads to see if what your about to post has already been posted. What to post something that has to do with the news? Maybe you don't see a similar topic in the news forum, but there was one in the opinion forum. Or maybe you want to talk about a TV show, is that news & media or entertainment? This is more confusing than helpful to newcomers and veteran's alike.

We also have a "Banville" forum, a place where people we ban because they break the rules CAN post. Now maybe I'm wrong, but don't we ban people because they are unfit to be in the community? Then why would we want a forum where they can still post in? Then when they post we just lock the topics. Seems like a waste to me

For the Dev. studios, we have the "Dev. Studios news" forums, which not only includes it's own forum, but all the dev studio sub forums. While this isn't a problem, we have a separate, "Dev. Studio Discussion" forum as well. Now correct me if I'm wrong but couldn't we just use the "Dev. Studios news" forum, not the dev studios forums' themselves, but the actual forum for discussing the Dev studios instead of having a separate forum?

If I had to choose a layout for this site, I'd make it more simplistic and user friendly, it doesn't need to have 25 forums and subforums for every little thing. We could just have:

For "Forum News":
Rules
-For posting the rules of the forums
Tech Support
-A place to ask questions or get help with the site
Annoucements
-For all the RPGMM annoucements, only one place to look.
Suggestions
-For suggestions and improvements to be made to the site.

For "RPG Maker":
RPG Maker Dev. and Help Forums
-Subforums for each of the different RPG Makers, this is where help or discussion of various games could be discussed
Submissions
-A place to submit games
Development Studios
-The forum could be used for asking for a dev forum, talking about the dev forums, etc. Then have subforums for all the dev. studios.
Issue Contributions
-Preview & Review forums could be in this one, since they go in the magazines anyway, anything else that wants to be added to the mag could go here as well.
Wiki Discussion
-For help, discussing the Wiki

For the "Community":
Chat
-No subforums, everything not relating to RPG Maker, the site, video games, or art goes in here. One location to look for everything non-RPG Maker.
Video Games
-For threads about video games
Creativity++
-For all art and user-created stuff (non-rpgmaker)
Community Relations Center
-Same as it is now

And then an archives or recycling bin for old stuff that we want to keep.


I want to end by saying that everything in the above post is a suggestion. I'm not suggesting this cause I hate these forums. I love them. I just want to, in my opinion, make them better. The way they are now just doesn't seem logical/professional to me.

Finally, thanks for reading, I know it was a huge post

i agree with you. as far as the chat goes, i don't see how it really needed to be split into more than two forums. it's ok as it is, but we don't really have enough members to keep all of those forums busy.

though i'd suggest splitting the chat into everyday life/discussion, or something similar. though to be fair, that was the original idea, to split the Chat forum in two.

i think that when the issue was raised for public discussion (i assume at the fireside chat), the members seemed to want it being split into 4 sub-forums?

am i right? iunno. at any rate, i don't think off-topic is a good thing to bring back. i think that reducing the number of subforums might be good for livening them up again.

so yeah... you raised an interesting question there. i have to admit that i agree with you.

I meant off-topic as in general chat, not spam. I was thinking of the pavilion's "chat" forum.

I think that the main chat forum should get dumped into "every day."
And leave it those 4 sub forums.

As far as banville I think its good. Some times people do bad things but does not mean there going to be gone for ever. Its kinda like when you send a kid to his room for a while because hes been bad.

I think there should maybe be more sub-forums and make a shorter Index page.

I gotta say that since it was split like that it's actually been more active in number of topics total than it was before. Even the reason that I did eventually split it was that it was getting active enough to handle more than one forum. Which was what I had said about in that Fireside Chat. Honestly though it probably doesn't neccessarily need to be four.

The every day stuff could more than likely go into the main forum since it didn't end up really being used for anything.

Definitly no off-topic. Too much like spam, we're over and done with spam.

How does everyone else feel about it? Is it too big, intimindating? Cumbersome?

Again, I didn't mean off-topic like spam I meant off-topic as in off the RPG-maker topic, like a chat forum. I'll modify the first post to prevent further misunderstanding.

I also agree, needs to be a little shortened around here.
Kinda feels crowded.

@Phoenix - sorry. I actually typed all that before you posted after Regal. I was just way slow XD

I must also agree.

I think the chat area is too much bother sometimes to seek the new posts.

I sometimes stop by on my breaks at employment. Using a laptop. Just changing a page can sometimes waste more time than reading it!

I would suggest only isolating the opinion section, as that one seems to be the one where feathers get ruffled.

Merge the rest of chat together.

Other areas may benefit from such treatment, but that seems to be the big one from my somewhat demented perspective.

I think reducing it down to just one or two forums is a good idea also. However, I must admit that I don't go in there very much anyway.

I do like how well organized the chat topics are. Only if theres a way to maybe keep it looking organized and have it be all on one page.. hmm.

Aside from the Dev studios themselves, everything posted in the Dev Studio news forum are automatically shown on the Mag's front page. The Dev Studio Discussion forum is for general discussion that isn't news-worthy.

So have we decided on a verdict? I'm with Sumi in thati f everyone's ok with the way things are now we can keep them they way they are, after all we want the mag's appearence to reflect the desires of it's users.

I'm not trying to "bump" the topic, but since I haven't heard anything from Ix or Feros, only Sumi, I'm still wondering what their take on it is.

No, there was definitely talk about this recently. However, the consensus hasn't been reached yet.

But, I have combined two forums for the P/Review crews and put them under Issue Contributions.

About Announcements, each forum has a different function. For instance, in Front Page, all of those posts go to the front page. Which would be bad for announcements, since we have many more announcements than front page posts. I'm going to get rid of User-Submitted News, as it's a confirmed dud.

But yeah, we're working on this.