...others don't.

Not that it's really important....  but sometimes there seems to be a rather random logic at work as to when mansions get their own forum.

While in some cases the amount of traffic is clearly so huge (e.g. MM & M), as to warrant a forum of its own, in other cases I'm not so sure......

For example "The Adventures of Ted" mansion doesn't even exist at this point of time and if you take a closer look at the single, rather long thread for Ted you quickly realise that half of the posts aren't about Ted at all, but completely different things.

On the other hand there are at least 5 or 6 different threads for DoD, some of them several pages long, but apparently it doesn't "qualify".....
Another example is Helter Skullter, which had quite an amount of posts, if I remember correctly.

NOTE: I am definitely NOT saying that Wingy doeesn't deserve his own topic, especially as I know he'll be proud of it  (BTW: Congratulations on winning the contest); it was just an example.


However, I'm generally not so sure if it's such a good idea to have too many individual forums/topics (outside of TALK), as it makes browsing new entrants definitely harder (more work) as you have to open more folders (categories).

This rearrangement is something the admins have thought about for a long time.  The reason why we haven't done it before is that we wanted to create a kind of news archive with the names of those custom mansions, which have got their own discussion boards.  We never found a way to create such an archive and thus made the locked "Hall of fame" thread.

Whether or not a custom mansion - any custom mansion - should have a special board is of course open to discussion.  I personally find it easier to browse these special boards than to look up big and/or multiple threads in the "Talk" board.

As people can see I moved the threads of some of these boards back to the "Talk" board because there had not been any traffic (i.e. posts) for at least 3 months.  The new custom mansions, which got their own boards, have had a lot of traffic lately and the last post is no older than 3 months.  (Perhaps that is too much but we had to start somewhere).

As for DoD, that mansion deserves to hit the newly established (and progressing) "Hall of fame".  If we, the admins, had done this work sooner, as we intended, it surely would have.  We want to thank aquaMat for pointing out to us the many threads of DoD.

One final thing:  The only mansion as for now, which always will have a special board is Catacombs.  Yes, even MM&M may one day find itself in the common "Talk" board.

I took the freedom to move this important issue over here, because we, admins are indeed very interested in all suggestions concerning our boards.

Btw, soon the name of this forum will change into: Forum Issues. That has to do with the YaBB-stuff. Discussions about YaBB-bugs can hardly be explained as suggestions ... ::) That leaves only Speaker's Corner to do that properly. But the "yabbies" are too important to be posted near Hyde Park.

So, after changing the name of this board, I will be back with some remarks.

To have no misunderstandings, first something about the used terms.

1° What we often call "our boards" has an official name: Midnight Mansion Forums. Plural.
2° MMF is divided in categories. E.g. "Free Chat".
3° Each category can have multiple forums or boards. Both words are synonyms. And a very popular example is "Talk". With this software one can NOT create subforums, what is a pity.
4° A forum or a board contains topics. Every forummember that is at least a Lost One, can start new topics.
5° When a member starts a topic or replies in a topic, he makes a post or a thread. Also synonyms.

The current issue has to do with our most popular category: "Custom Mansions Area". And especially everything that has to do with the oncoming or existing mansions. There are now already over 75 custom mansions created by nearly 20 designers. No wonder that 168 topics have been started, with a current amount of 1.963 posts. I don't think that the large number of posts is a real problem. But, from the point of view from a member who is searching for something particular, we have to deal we two important things.
1° How can we organize MMF, so that a member may find his/her way within 168 topics?
2° How can be avoided that the name of a topic doesn't cover the contents of all posts?

Suppose that MMF only has one forum to discuss all our mansions: "Talk". Then we would have a board with ... 50 pages? And it is not because a topic or post is old, that it isn't important. So we are forced to have a system to make searching for an item reasonable.

The very first thing that comes into my mind is that there is a serious problem with the topics-subjects. Very often one can't know what a topic is about without opening it. And that is assumedly the major problem. (Not only here, but in almost all forums.) With what we did in the past by creating a few extra forums like "Talk/Midnight Mazes and Monsters", we do not only have the problem with why (not) and when (not), but this way of further dividing also has an other side of the coin. When starting a new topic in this kind of forum, for obvious reasons, no one starts with telling about which mansion the topic is about. That makes bringing this topics back to "Talk" rather difficult.

As administrators we can do "everything". That means: manually!! Even making archives. A few examples:
1° each time that someone starts a topic we can correct the subject;
2° each time that someone makes a post we can check if it is completely to the subject and, if not, start cutting and moving.
No forummember is expecting that from us, admins. I think.

But that doesn't take the problem away. Suppose I want to know something about House of Coin. Do I need to open "Stuck in room 15933" or "... and again!"? And that brings me to aquaMat's remark that too many individual boards for custom mansions would make the browsing harder. He is right of course. But when I bring this issue in balance with the much bigger problem that even experienced forummembers have, when they want to see if a Q&A is already on the forums, I believe that there isn't much choise. And opening category-folders is less work than opening tons of topics to find out what they are about.

Giving all custom mansions an own forum would, for the time being, be over the edge. But to keep it reasonable, my final suggestion is to work with 19 forums:
- "Talk" for general issues and the only mansion of which no one so far could recall who the designer was (Knu's Infinite);
- one "Talk/...." for each designer and on the homepage you may see the names of the made mansions.
In this way, I hope that a (new) forummember may find faster what he/she is searching for.

Concerning the other question about topics that have posts not-to-subject, I think that once in a while we, active forummembers, need to remind each other about staying to topic.

I await all your replies. Don't hesitate, because, as I said at the beginning of this post, this issue is about OUR Midnight Mansion Forums, not the admins'!

Very well spoken, Freddy. You are right with all you've said !!

And of course I was aware of the basic discrepancies of both solutions, that's why I started this discussion.....and I think you proposed a pretty great "compromise solution", with your ideas of having the TALK sections based not on mansions but on designers.

Within the designers topics there can be individual mansion threads....that way it would be pretty easy to find things.

(The only downside: we must always keep in mind (or look up) which designer created what mansion, if we want to look up a certain bit of info. But I'm pretty sure that won't be too much of a problem......).

aquaMat wrote on 19.09.2007 at 04:13:22:

... we must always keep in mind (or look up) which designer created what mansion ...

If it is "look up", it is NOT that difficult. Since there is a list sorted by mansionnames.

I think it will always be the case that, if a mansion or designer is given his own forum category, other designers who didn't get this will be offended. Even if there was good reason to do this, due to the number of posts. I just leave it to the admins to try to do their best, and I'd like to remind everyone else they are not biased, and are trying to be fair to everyone, but at the same time, they're trying to make the forums more manageable. So if you don't see a special category for your mansion(s) and you do for other designers, try not to be jealous. There's no way to do this without offending people unless we just keep everything in Talk, which I think most people would agree isn't a good idea.

While you're right, of course, Vern, I have to assure you that my initial remarks were not made because of jealousy, but for the need to get clarified why some mansions do get their own forums and others, with equal or more posts / threads sometimes don't; and to get a discussion started on how to improve that system.

I still don't see much clearer now, I have to confess and while Freddy made some great suggestions on how we could improve the system no attempts have been made to put them at work, as far as I know.


EDIT: I just realised that the new inclusion of a forum for our new designer Nick (which I first didn't understand at all, as there weren't exactly many posts inside of it), might be meant as test-run to put the above-mentioned suggestions by Freddy into action. If so, well done.... and of course I have to take back the statement  I made above !!    (Edit made ca. 10 mins later)

Thx for your double reply aquaMat. We never felt offended about your post. In contrary! We have an open mind for other forummembers' ideas and appreciate everyone who thinks with us, admins, about the build-up of MMF.

The real reason that we didn't start yet with the reorganisation of Talk, is that we are awaiting for more reactions from our community-friends. The new board Talk/Nick is indeed a tryout. But in the sense that we hope to stimulate members to reply about this not unimportant issue.