EDIT: that should read "deal with THOSE people", obviously.

I guess this might be contentious, but I'm starting to wonder if it's still necessary to have a separate "Shadowrun" forum and "Shadowrun 4" forum? There isn't all that much difference in the content these days, and personally I'm finding it harder and harder to remember what threads are going on where! Still I can see arguments either way.

Just wondering if the admins had been thinking about this, or if anyone had strong feelings on the subject. Keep the status quo? Merge the forums? Or keep things split, but differently ('rules questions' and 'setting questions' maybe? Or do those two run together too often? *shrug*)

I really liked the old way, with one forum on each book...

Well I null voted as you didn't give enough choices.

The reason in my opinion for a seperate forum is so people who wish to still play SR3 can post questions while those playing the current version can do so in their own fourm with out having to decide is this person posting about 4th or another edtion.

Granted. I'm just not seeing many posts like that in the Shadowrun forum these days.

I like it how it is. The number of SR3 only questions has dropped down to almost nil, so we don't really seem to need an SR3-only section. The number of general SR questions, as opposed to SR4-only questions, is still pretty high though. 90% of the SR4 stuff I'm not interested in (with the remaining 10% mostly being posted in the wrong forum), so this at least lets me separate the chaff from the wheat.

What I'd REALLY like is a way to filter out my 'view new posts' so I don't see the SR4 forum and the Welcome to the Shadows forum.

I get the impression most people just look at the SR4 forum, and don't bother with the other- perhaps assuming that the SR4 forum is the main one for general Shadowrun chat, and SR is just for SR3 and old-timers.

If somebody can't read, and posts to the wrong forum, that's their problem. Granted, you could put "General Shadowrun" on there in place of just "Shadowrun", but it's pretty clear that Shadowrun 4 is for well, SR4 stuff.

I'm for a split. 95% of what gets discussed in SR4 is completely worthless to me, and as was mentioned, I don't want to have to spend a bunch of time trying to figure out what edition somebody is talking about when they don't think to make it clear.

Maybe there should be a "Shadowrun World" forum, and a "Shadowrun Rules" forum.

Which rules? 1st Edition? 2nd?

I voted to keep them separate. SR3 and before has a definite rule base, and SR4 has its own as well. Rules related questions should be sent to their respective forums. The general stuff can go in either, but those playing SR3 will probably tend to stick with SR3, etc.

I did not like how the choices were worded either, but I still avoided the null vote because ai thought it was a good poll.

We've been planning to merge the two forums since SR4 was announced. However, with the lack of books following SR4's release, we held off.

Honestly, I don't really see the point of the "divided forums". Besides perpetuating the SR3 vs SR4 stuff, the majority of the threads in the SR3 forums are not really rules, or even edition specific. And heck, there's a fair bit of stuff in the SR4 forum that's not really rules specific as well.

Right now, there's not enough traffic and daily postings to really require us to create a bunch of sub forums for things like Rule, World Discussion, etc. The "Book specific" forums proved that to us. So I doubt we'll do anything along these lines anytime in the near future.

Plus, I don't personally like the fact that we have that split between the two forums right now. There's plenty of crossover posters, but there are also a lot of folks who are only posting and reading one of the two. Which means that for the "general" discussions, we're potentially missing valuable input. Just because someone hasn't upgraded to SR3 doesn't mean their opinions about Shadowrun are any less valid (And vice-versa).

Chances are at some point in the future the two will be merged, but there's no real time frame for it. It's definately low on our priorities at this point.

Bull

Thanks Bull.

I think after this discussion I'd now favour just changing the names and order of the existing forums:

Shadowrun 4 becomes "Shadowrun: general discussion and SR4 related questions"

Shadowrun becomes "Shadowrun Legacy: discussion specific to SR3 and earlier rules and settings"

I had thought about that, but I decided against suggesting it when my brains responded with "that would be an annoying pain in the ass".

The advantage of such a method is it would allow viewers to only display posts with tags that they *wanted* to see, or, alternatively, hide all threads matching certain tags.

And, of course, it would only be mandatory for creation of new threads, not new posts. How many new threads does someone create in a day?

Well, for some…

I like that idea. It would probably be best implemented with a five-level granularity (SRClassic Rules, SRClassic Setting, Edition-Agnostic, SR4 Setting, SR4 Rules).

As a side-effect, it would probably nuke the spam we've been seeing lately.

~J

I don't know. What you're proposing, Adam, almost seems like it would mean a ridiculous amount of reworking the forums. I'm not familiar with the Invision stuff though, so I could be wrong.

As far as fine level goes, if you're doing things that way, there's no end to the possible levels, and no selection is going to "fit" everyone. I suspect that a large number of users would just select to view everything, and that doesn't take care of the issue at all. In fact, since what is desired (at least by some) is getting users more involved across the forums, it would be completely the opposite, I think.

Hmm.

Would be cool if you could do it, though.

It would be a large re-working of the forum, yes.

And there would be no end to the amount of customization you could have, but there would certainly be default settings available [obviously necessary for users who do not have an account or are not logged in].

There are a lot of options beyond rules/setting stuff too -- tagging threads as "GM", "Player", "In-Character", etc etc. Theoretically, there could be an unlimited number of tags, just like the way post-tagging works on blogs and blog services like technorati.com

Yes, I can see that. I'm a member of The Miniatures Page, and Bill does something similar, in that you can individually choose which boards show up on the home page by using check boxes.

And with visible tags (not just behind the scenes placement tags), you could just leave everything viewable, and at a glance you'd be able to decide whether to read something based on its tags.

That's assuming that what you're talking about is something like:

Shadowrun 4 Rules (forum title)
[GM] How do I make a security guard tough? (post title)

Or are you talking more like:

[SR4][Rules][GM] How do I make a security guard tough? (post title)

Both get the point across, but I worry that using the latter in a bloggy type format would lead to missing posts, since all posts would be going to one "forum". (I'm not sure that's what you mean, I'm just thinking in type.)

Ideally, you'd be able to use tag structures to make your own forums.

Posts might have their "primary" tag display as part of the thread title, but I wouldn't want to clutter up the display with 3 or more different tags in the header.

Also ideally, I'd really like to de-clutter the layout and presentation of topics and threads in general. Take a look at http://story-games.com/forums/ -- it's perhaps TOO minimal, but there aren't a ton of images and colors and clickable things distracting you from the actual content.

I am, also, just thinking in type; no final decisions have been made.

Yech. Yeah, avoid their example.

I suppose you could just offer different tags at different levels.

First, one level that allows you to create your own forums. (Personally, I love the way DS looks now, so if you could do it while retaining the visual model currently present, that'd be ideal in my opinion.)

Then, offer say, two? tags per post? One? None, since you're creating your own layout?

Again, it leaves you with choices to make about what is available overall. For example, default of

SR 4 Rules
SR 4 World
SR Legacy Rules
SR Legacy World
General SR Version Agnostic (to quote Kage)
DS Forums
blah
blah
blah

And add the ability to turn them on or off individually. So mine might look like:

SR 4 World
SR Legacy Rules
SR Legacy World
blah
blah.

And then there's adding the ability to position the elements. Order them as you like, etc.

I don't think that this is going to solve the "posting in the wrong forum" thing though. People would still have the ability to post a SR 4 rules question in the SR Legacy Rules forums, etc.

Then we're back to having to tag individual posts, which I still wonder about. You have to look at user friendliness in here, too.

You'll need an 'I love the new DS design' tag and an 'I hate the new DS design' tag.

Don't have time to reply in-depth, and don't want to turn this into a back-and-forth thread, so I'm gonna stop posting for awhile and let other people have their say, but I'll just point out that poster names would, of course, still be visible. However, if each post had an invisible tag that was the poster's name, it would make it possible to do such features as ignore lists, or having a list of "priority" posters who's posts would show up in different colors, all threads starting by a certain poster [including yourself] floating to the top of the display, stuff like that.

[Not that these features aren't /possible/ now, but they aren't present.]

Ah, I had misunderstood you.

I don't like the forum view either, and would want to modify it heavily. No worrries there.

I took a closer look at the example you gave, Adam, and I noticed something. I had used the word "post" earlier when I meant "thread".

At the top level, I still don't like the way it looks. Now, a lot might just be their implementation, but having to choose a "category" (forum area equivalent, from the looks of it) of discussions to look at, and that choice excluding the other threads? You would have to choose a forum to see posts specific to it's intent, and otherwise you see every thread all willy-nilly? That doesn't appeal to me at all. I much prefer the "traditional" (for lack of another word) "see the whole forum, where new posts are, what areas there are, and all I have to do is scroll" model.

After further study of the posts and how they're done, I find myself agreeing with Kage on the feel of the "flow".

Yeah. I know we're just throwing opinions back and forth, but that's mine.

If it comes down to it and you actually want more than me and Kage poking out heads in, you'll probably want to move this to SR instead of DS Forums.

Well, I have to say, if your mental model is pretty much "current DS + the features you've listed", then I'm all for it.

I'd just hate to see the visual appeal (arguably just as important, if not more so than the content) go the way of...that example board.

What? anyone on DS whine? no, doesn't happen

I too am not too impressed with the other site.

What I didn't like was:

The thread page, well all the little lines undre the thread title were distracting, specially as they were almost the same color as the background.

The separation between the posters, I prefer to have a solid colored line between posts

Didn't like the way the time set up was done, I am not fond of post 2 hours ago, etc..
I much prefer to have the site date/time stamp on the post.

Actually, I rather like the area under the name of the poster on DS, with a bit of information about the poster (what they choose to reveal about themselves).
I could take or leave the "joined on this date" section, but would prefer it to be on the poster's info page rather than on the side.

My two cents worth for the moment

Just popping in to agree with Mistwalker on the signature section.

I like having join date easily available—it gives me an idea of whether or not I may have seen someone before, and gives a hint as to how familiar someone might be with the general content of the board and its usual style.

~J

But the date joined can lead off in the wrong direction

I was a long time lurker before I joined up. But like I said, have no objection to it being there

Well, yeah. It's still an indicator, though, just not an infallible one.

~J

Personally, I'd like to see more of that info make optionally invisible, but it does have some uses, yes.

As for part of the earlier comments about which version the rules question is for, well, I like the suggestion of having each new thread have to choose between something like:
SR4 rule question
SR3 rule question
Not applicable

If people are able to filter out the rule question that they don't want to deal with, the annoyance becomes moot.

I too believe that the setting and general flavor questions are the same for both rule versions.

You may believe it, but you're wrong. Just take the otaku/technomancer difference, for example—they aren't more than remotely the same thing. In SR3 and previous, many things need to be implanted for effectiveness, while in SR4 a number of them can be external.

You might think that's rules, but when you think about a simple question like "what equipment should Security Guard Z have?", you end up with totally different answers because it's easier to have reusable equipment in SR4, for example.

~J

I think you're starting to stretch a little to make your point, Kagetenshi. admittedly, your example is an accurate depiction of an exception to the general rule that the Sixth Wold is contiguous throughout editions. I don't think that the rare occasion that this problem comes up would be that great of a deal in the long run though. In fact, it wouldn't be that hard (and sometimes quite informative) for one poster to respond with, to take your example, a list of SR3-appropriate items for the Z-Zone defender, while another posts an equally valid (or not so, on a poster-by-poster basis ) list if gear fit for such an unlucky guard according to the SR4 ruleset.

I'll try to come back to this with a more complete explanation during the weekend when I have time, but I reject your premise that the Sixth World is contiguous 3rd -> 4th.

~J

My premise is that the Sixth World is contiguous 'in general' throughout the 4 editions. There are certainly small things that are out-of-place in certain editions, but these can usually be overlooked or even explained with little trouble and a bit of imagination, if the need ever arises.