Our boards have 4 categories: from Announcements to Free Chat.

I saw the post from Wingy and although it isn't getting out of hand (yet), it is true that the Custom Mansions Area has 11 boards now and that step by step it will increase. Each time that we feel that there is a real need to, we add a Talk / xxx.

We can NOT make subforums with this software. But ... we can make extra categories of course.

What we could do is splitting the category Custom Mansions Area in four new categories:
CMA / List of Completed Mansions (with the download-lists)
CMA / Talk about the Completed Mansions
CMA / Designing (with Art, Building tips and tricks)
CMA / Free Up- and Downloading (with experimental and unfinished stuff)

Question is: is these really of any help? It almost feels that the total list is only getting longer because there are more category-names and it doesn't change the total amount of boards.

Like to know your opinion.

I agree with Wingy that the boards for individual mansions, while not quite out of control yet, are getting there fast. I've noticed that there aren't very many posts in any given individual mansion forum, so I have to wonder if it's really necessary to have them as separate boards.

What's wrong with lots of posts about lots of different mansions in the Talk forum? It's not like we get much post traffic, or that it's particularly hard to find what you're looking for in the history of these low-volume forums. Just get rid of the boards for individual mansions, even (*gasp*) MMaM. Problem solved.

That's right, everyone agree with me!  :)

The previous boards learned that one single forum for all custom mansions also doesn't work. Nobody is looking for an answer on a question when there are a few hundred topics and a few thousand posts. Result: the same question reappears fot the 4th or 5th time.

More reactions from other forummembers?

EDIT: Talk has 57 topics now and the special "talks" have an extra 30 topics together. :-/

How about older completed mansions are moved back to "Talk?" after along time?  :-?

The only comment I have:

In the last week or so, I've noticed it gets harder and harder to see every new post and keep track of where was what etc. and the reason for this is that we currently have many discussions going on at once (a good thing) but spread out over many boards and even more threads.... so it can happen that similar things are discussed in two or more diffferent categories.

(e.g. Dominator related custom graphic tips.... or -more recently- the question for Jill's hair-color that showed up in two different threads).

What do I want to say with this?  I rather plead for less categories (resulting in more threads in each category) than the other way round to minimise the need of changing pages and the possibility of getting lost.

Also I think we should not create a category for an individual mansion, unless the post traffic for that resp. mansion is really getting out of hand. Like -in the old boards - M M & M really DID need an individual category. StarCraft for example, at this point of time, IMHO, does not.

aquaMat wrote on 26.02.2007 at 00:24:27:

... Also I think we should not create a category for an individual mansion, unless the post traffic for that resp. mansion is really getting out of hand. Like -in the old boards - M M & M really DID need an individual category. ...

It IS indeed very difficult to decide when we need to make a new board and when not. In the case of StarCraft we may have been too fast. But we know that Wingy is planning many more episodes. So that was why. For Dominator it is more or less the same. We are expecting a lot of posts. In the case of MMaM (on these new boards), on Vern's demand, it was only shown as an example. Not more. Although it has 13 topics now.

In my opinion a large amount of topics is much worse than a large amount of posts in one topic. Not knowing WHERE to start is more confusing than having to start in the right, but huge archive.

Wingy isn't making any more starcraft episodes, I'm afraid. But anyone who wants to, go ahead and it will go in as a StarCraft episode!  :)

Perhaps when you get a big mansion with lots of traffic like MM&M, "hints" and "room questions" can be prefaced by the room number (or maze name?) before any discussion. Then if you're trying to sift through 4 or 5 or more pages, you can at least look for the room in question rather than having to read each discussion. It was very frustrating in MM&M in the early days to go through every post - although they were great to read - to try and find something about a particular room or maze.

I visit quite a lot formus every day and my experience is, that most of them are dealing with a lot of categories.
For me it makes it easier to navigate and find quick what I'm looking for.
Just take a look at the apple.com forum for example.


My humble suggestion would be:

Coustom Mansion Category:
# Download mansions
# Talk
# Art
# Designing
# Free Up and Downloading

# A seperate category for the mansions with many posts.


# A seperate category for mansions with custom graphics

And another suggestion and a request:
The Sub forum where you store the data for the downloads - please put that somewhere else if possible. It irritates me since this forum started and I still haven't gotten used to it  :(
In many forums there is an administrator section where stuff like that is stored - at the bottom of the forum where it doesn't bother regular visitors.

Just my little input to that  :)

frost wrote on 02.03.2007 at 08:54:40:

My humble suggestion would be: Coustom Mansion Category: # Download mansions # Talk # Art # Designing # Free Up and Downloading # A seperate category for the mansions with many posts. # A seperate category for mansions with custom graphics

This or some other similar version might be a good idea.

frost wrote on 02.03.2007 at 08:54:40:

And another suggestion and a request: The Sub forum where you store the data for the downloads - please put that somewhere else if possible. It irritates me since this forum started and I still haven't gotten used to it  :( In many forums there is an administrator section where stuff like that is stored - at the bottom of the forum where it doesn't bother regular visitors. Just my little input to that  :)

You mean the CM's sub-forum?  But you are not supposed to use it.  To download a mansion you use the forum above.  I am not sure whether it is possible to move and wouldn't it irritate you whereever it is put?  I haven't seen the possibility for an admin section within the categories.

Quote:

You mean the CM's sub-forum?  But you are not supposed to use it.  To download a mansion you use the forum above.  I am not sure whether it is possible to move and wouldn't it irritate you whereever it is put?  I haven't seen the possibility for an admin section within the categories.

Oh, there is a little misunderstanding here.
I don't use the CM's sub-forum. It is just in the way so to speak. On my way to the Talk thread or to the Download thread I often click on the CM's forum.
My suggestion was to put it into a new category for Admins only on the bottom of the forum, so it would be out of the way. That was all.

OK we will look into this but no promises!  ;)

:) I really like to see suggestions coming from our forummembers about our boards.

Let us say that I am more or less responsable for the current construction of the MM-forums, but I have done it in a way by listening to everybody. And I encouraged that with this board: Forums Suggestions.

To answer a few questions from frost.

I was hoping that it was possible to make the board "CMs Sub-Forum" invisible. And yes, it WAS possible to hide it, but then the forummembers couldn't download the custom mansions anymore. So I was forced to place it somewhere. And I did it just below the Lists.

Of course we can make an Admin-category at the bottom. But for the same reason not invisible. Leaves the question: since we can't hide that board, is it important where it is?

Just what I suspected  ;)

It never bothered me the slightest bit !!

Freddy wrote on 09.03.2007 at 06:13:27:

Of course we can make an Admin-category at the bottom. But for the same reason not invisible. Leaves the question: since we can't hide that board, is it important where it is?

I didn't say anything about an admin-category being invisible  :-?
Below all the other categories  - that was my suggestion.

If it is an admin category then only admins have access to it.  Which means you don't.  Which means you cannot download the custom mansions.

I think there is a misunderstanding here.

brell: "In terms of the Forum Software an Admin-board is always hidden. And other forummembers than the administrators don't have access."

frost: "Create a (new) board as deep as possible on the boards where the administrators place their stuff, like the real downloadpages. With other words: move the current CMs Sub-Forum down to the bottom of the Forums."

And to answer that question. We will keep it in mind. When we have other reasons to rearrange the boards, we will think of it.

Freddy wrote on 10.03.2007 at 16:21:13:

I think there is a misunderstanding here. brell: "In terms of the Forum Software an Admin-board is always hidden. And other forummembers than the administrators don't have access."

Yes, that is what I said.