Future of the Forum.

[Bear]

So its comming to the time where our little forumite community of Ma3 fans its growing and expanding and flourish and our long list of general chatter grows daily. So therefore, its now time to think about the forum and what we, the forumites would like to see happening with our community of fans and friends.

The current proposition that myself (Bear) and Gisele have been discussing is to split the forum in two with a new 'General Discussion' section. The Menage a 3 section would remain realitivly unchanged, but become devoted purely to the comic with the new strips threads, fan-art and anything purely comic related staying there, while everything else such as the Picture Thread, Books, Mocies Recipies, Elder Cave etc being moved to the new general chatter section.

Now here is where you come in. Would you like to see this change, or are you happy with the status quo? Do you have any suggestions of your own for improvements or are there any more or new sections that you'd like to see?

You, the forum goers decide!

This has been a public service announcement from your friendly, neighbourhood Beary-mod.

Edit: Due to massive support, the forums have been sucessfully split into their seperate sub forums. Suggestions are still wanted and needed for what you'd like to see happening with the forum. More changes to come soon!

[Aren]

I was surprised that there weren't subforums when I arrived, frankly. Thumbs up.

[midgetshrimp]

The term "separation of church and state" comes to mind.

I'm not opposed to the change. I think it's appropriate to the current post-rate and user registration.It also applies an aesthetic factor, showing that the comic is successful and growing. I vote for change! :mrgreen:

[MerchManDan]

I fourth the notion!! This forum does seem a bit.....cluttered, at the moment. A General Discussion forum will be most helpful.

[Don Alexander]

New sticky! :o

Change!! Change!! Change!!

:lol:

No, 'tis a verily good idea.

I've noticed that there's a pretty large crowd of forumites who seem to post on the comic-related threads only. Seeing that quite a few "general discussion" threads have been strongly bubbling these last days and weeks, it's almost hard to find the comic-related strips, and they get submerged too rapidly to page two, and henceforth forgotten.

[Retiarius]

Should have been done that way in the first place, but hindsight is 20/20 and all that rot.

It should be relatively simple to do, if my memory of phpBB is correct. I use SMF (Simple Machines Forum) myself—it seems to be more robust and stable—so I don't know how much trouble it would be to split them up. But yes, it’s high time to split them.

[Aren]

This looks like PHPBB3, so it should be incredibly simple. A handful of clicks and you have your shiny new forum.

[midgetshrimp]

Yea, the last forum I Admin'd was this format I think. It's a really simple undertaking.

[Don Alexander]

Famous last words. Ninja-Kitteh presses red button during the second of transfer, and suddenly we're all n00bs with a clean slate in front of us... :lol:

[harbino]

I am for this change. Not only does it show that expansion is in mind, it also casts a good impression on the forum as the forum is tidier. The only problem is that whilst viewing this forum, you usually stumble accross other threads.

Also you may have to be more prepared, two mods may be required obviously to look after both threads, which would ease strain on you and other admins. Another problem may rise from the fact that the addresses for the sites are different.

[Aren]

Also you may have to be more prepared, two mods may be required obviously to look after both threads, which would ease strain on you and other admins.

Again, surprised that the forum doesn't already have this.

Another problem may rise from the fact that the addresses for the sites are different.

Not really, just make the new forum a subforum of the comic forum, or put it side-by-side with it. Not that complex.

[Don Alexander]

Yeah, see the xkcd forum. It's also phpBB. When you go to the forum, you get links to different sub-fora, with the pure comic threads on top. Then different science stuff etc. Of course, the xkcd crowd is pretty huge compared to us.

[Aren]

Yeah, see the xkcd forum. It's also phpBB. When you go to the forum, you get links to different sub-fora, with the pure comic threads on top. Then different science stuff etc. Of course, the xkcd crowd is pretty huge compared to us.

Yep. The thing is, there's absolutely nothing wrong with having multiple forums for us to spread out into, depending on our preferences. For example, it's nice to have a General Discussion forum for things that are non-controversial. But if you don't have an Extended Discussion/Debate forum, then you get a lot of pent-up hostility and anger over differing viewpoints.

If you're going to have an extended discussion forum, it's more lightly moderated than the general discussion forum (because the people arguing sometimes need the release of an ad hominem or other flaming); but you also generally have a 'spam' forum where people post stuff that is completely useless and not on-topic at all.

[harbino]

Yeah, see the xkcd forum. It's also phpBB. When you go to the forum, you get links to different sub-fora, with the pure comic threads on top. Then different science stuff etc. Of course, the xkcd crowd is pretty huge compared to us.

but you also generally have a 'spam' forum where people post stuff that is completely useless and not on-topic at all.

Like Forum Games and such....

[Aren]

Like Forum Games and such....

Well, generally forum games get their own forum so that spam is completely seperated from things like Mafia games (which are serious business).