«

[Ramidel]

UFO-Enemy Unknown should be given its own dedicated subforum in the Abandonia Games section, instead of a 2800-post megathread, as it is bar none the most popular game on Abandonia and I'm almost certain the most discussed. Others with over 1500-2000 posts might also merit this if there are any.

It's next to impossible to read the whole thing as it stands, and such an immensely popular game and thread justify bending the usual rules

[TheChosen]

Hey! Thats not a bad idea.

[Icewolf]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ramidel @ Apr 20 2007, 12:09 PM) [snapback]287662[/snapback]</div>

UFO-Enemy Unknown should be given its own dedicated subforum in the Abandonia Games section, instead of a 2800-post megathread, as it is bar none the most popular game on Abandonia and I'm almost certain the most discussed.[/b]

Brings to my mind that tidying the threads might as well slenderise them.
Or is that a too tall order for the admins? (<- this is no criticism, I actually absolutely have no clue)

[The Fifth Horseman]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Icewolf @ Apr 20 2007, 01:05 PM) [snapback]287679[/snapback]</div>

Brings to my mind that tidying the threads might as well slenderise them.
Or is that a too tall order for the admins? (<- this is no criticism, I actually absolutely have no clue)
[/b]

This has been proposed and partially executed. You might not even notice that, but I've been removing garbage from the Games Discussion forum all year long.

However, at the current point the forum is seriously understaffed and... well, cleaning such a large thread takes more than one man to do.

I'm doing what I can to keep some semblance of order in Games discussion forum. If I was to clean up the UFO thread, however, it would take me several days of practically non-stop reading and removing posts from it.

[Sebatianos]

I hear you man. It's really hard enough to keep up with regular posts - let alone have to clean up the posts for the past.

Game disscusion is really one hell of a sub-forum to manage.

Maybe Ramidel's idea would help. Some silly questions like how do I run this game... is it compatible with... where's the manual... all these questions could be reduced to a minimum if each had a single thread - so the posts on the subject wouldn't get lost among the mass of other posts which could automatically turn people away from reading previous posts - asking a question asked a thousand times before.

There is a big problem though, if games (with let's say more then 500 comments) would get sub-forums on their own - somebody would still have to go through all the posts made about that game and classify them into threads within the sub-forum. I guess this would work better for the new games, but there's no need there yet, because games usually don't get over 10 posts within the first few days anyway.

I guess there's deffinetly a need for more moderators in the game disscusion forum.

Oh and Horseman - keep up the good job. Seems like you really are the only mod who's constantly on call for the GD forum k:

[The Fifth Horseman]

I do indeed agree wiht the concept - X-Com thread is going to be massive even after a really drastic purge (which I'm trying to do - all chit-chat, off-topic and zero-complexity tech problems are getting kicked into the trash forum - and it seems that we can reduce the thread size only by about 50-60% from the initial size)

Oh and Horseman - keep up the good job. Seems like you really are the only mod who's constantly on call for the GD forum[/b]

But then, I hardly do anything more than just sit on Abandonia all day... :P

[Japo]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sebatianos @ Apr 20 2007, 05:52 PM) [snapback]287719[/snapback]</div>

somebody would still have to go through all the posts made about that game and classify them into threads within the sub-forum.[/b]

Why? Each aspect of the game would have its own thread. Some people would post in the wrong one but that may happen with any thread.

It would be a great idea at least with X-Com. Its thread could be split into "Troubleshooting", "Strategy/Tactics" and "General Praise and Discussion", for example, maybe more. But granted that splitting the current topic would mean even more work than cleaning it.

[Ramidel]

Sebastianos: not a problem. If a game has a forum, there can be people like Fifth Horseman to pin up the idiot-box questions in one thread, while every other question simply gets asked and answered in one thread. It'll be a forum, not a set of threads, and it'll just take pruning on a now-and-then basis to clear out ancient threads, transfer questions to the FAQ...unlike the impossible job Fifth Horseman has right now.

[guesst]

You know, there are whole websites dedicated to the game with their own forums. Somehow or another this thread has just gotten out of control. But as long as the system can handle the mega threat I say just let it go. Either that or make your sub-forum and lock the old thread. Don't even attempt to clean it up.

[Sebatianos]

To Ramidel and Japofran:

I guess we're all just talking about the same thing. I'm not saying it's not possible or a bad idea, I'm just saying there would be a lot of work involved. If a megathread is already here it would have to be split into many other threads and that would involve a lot of work - but it could be really helpful.

To Guesst:

Yes, there are forums dedicated to the game... but still, we do have quite a few games here on Abandonia that are extremely popular and have many posts in the game disscussion forum (X-Com is just one of them, but games like the Princess Maker 2, Civilization... also have many posts to them).
The idea of breaking the games into different categories of subjects people would talk about could further develop the support Abandonia offers to the games that it features on the site (even if not downloadable) and that's one of the major features that got Abanodnia ahead of so many other abandonware sites (that, great selection of games equipt with reviews and many screenshots and regular updating).