kitler53 said: Machina said: SmokedHostage said: 1.) Return the IM Chat 2.) Return the comments on game pages 3.) Return the photo section of profiles 4.) Remove the Activity section... 5.) Option 1 and Option 2 are ok 1 & 2 are definitely coming back. Not sure about 3 actually, would have to ask ioi. As for 4, you can simply ignore the acitivty feed if you don't like it, no? while i can and definetly do ignore the activity feed maybe you can explain one thing to me....why should i care about this section?  all i see is a bunch of people posting on other peoples walls.  but, without context of the conversation the information seems so...useless. example of what is on my activity feed right now. Machina wrote on CGI-Quality's wall Dealt with. Thanks. 4 days ago dealt with what?!?

duh it obvious there talking bout that guy with that heavy rain sig the one that says is my copy of HR broken or something like that

i wouldnt mind mary kate's or is it that ashley's? idea though, mentioned many posts back

ashley. xD

I initially said option 1, but as I read through this thread, a different idea came to my mind, based on some of the other posts made. I'll try to do this in a simple-to-read format, since a long paragraph talking about it isn't easy to read.

• Knock things down to 5 forum sections: Gaming, Sales, Site, Off-topic, and Hot Topics.
• Each forum section will have checkboxes, based on what threads you want to see. For instance, Off-Topic could be something like Forum Games, Religion, Politics, Sexual, Other; the Gaming forum could have Nintendo, Sony, MS, PC, Other. (Or you could even break it down by system, though that would incur more overhead.) Default for reading has all boxes checked, though your profile will remember when you uncheck a box. Unchecking this box removes posts that are only in that category. (For instance, a thread on Conduit would disappear by only unchecking Nintendo, but to remove GTA4, if properly tagged, would require removing both the 360 and PS3 checkboxes.)
• Within each forum, the create new thread also has these boxes, default UNchecked. A poster of a new thread has to choose which of the categories is relevant to the thread they are creating. Attempting to post the new thread without checking a box returns an error, asking the user to select the category.
• Moderators, in editing a post, will need to be able to change these checkboxes for people who mark the wrong category.
• Within the gaming forum ONLY, when creating a thread, next to the checkboxes, is an "Add game" button. Clicking on this lets users add related games to the thread, which could then be found through the game's own page. (Sort of a return of the individual game forums, if you will, but also findable in the main gaming section.)
• Hot Topics checkbox system will have only the 4 other forums; unchecking Off-Topic would remove all of those posts from the Hot Topic listing. Ideally, this will also be able to see what your checked preferences are for those forums, and filter those out, but those checkboxes must be accessed through those forums. (Otherwise, there are way too many checkboxes in Hot Topic.)

It may be convoluted, but it seems as though it may be the best way I can think of to let people see what they want, how they want. People who want to see only MS posts can, while someone else can see all the gaming threads at once, both on the same master forum: Gamrconnect. If I've not made something clear, or even if you think my plan is a logistical nightmare, let me know, and I'll see what I can do to clear it up.

It's an issue of potential viewers, imo.

Let's say you have three types of people:

• People who browse primarily via Hot Topics
• People who browse the forums individually, but rarely check PC gaming cuz it's usually dead.
• People who browse the forums individually, including PC gaming.

Let's say you have ten of the first, ten of the second, and five of the last.  That's 15 people that could potentially see and respond to a thread posted in PC gaming, but that's 25 people that would see any PC related threads in a single unified gaming forum.  You're trading dedicated forum space for a chance to be seen by more people, which is a wortwhile trade off, imo.

I would argue that we have "next to no PC activity" partly as result of the current forum structure.  We do have a fairly small number of active PC gamers, but some of our most prolific posters can be counted among them, like maxwellgt, khuutra, naznatips, and myself, and that theoretically should be enough to support a decent level of discussion.

The issue is that most people who don't use the Hot Topics probably fall under the "checks most forums but ignores PC gaming" category, including myself more often than not, simply because the forum is usually dead, so why bother checking it.  This, in turn, increases the forum's dead-ness.

But I understand where you're coming from, and I agree having too many threads in one forum has issues of its own.

Interesting idea, but most people would probably just rate fellow users based on how much they like/agree with them, rather than how constructive they are as a poster.  If rating was done on a post-by-post basis, people would be more likely to rate others based on the content of that specific post rather than simply because of who they are, but that also has issues of its own.

In the end, I think it'd just turn into a "favorite users" system, dividing the community even more.  Especially when you have two camps that dominate the site compared to everyone else.  I could see Sony fans using such a system to marginalize MS fans, for example. 

That being said, I'm sure only the more obvious fanboys/stealth trolls (users that can be annoying even though they don't necessarily break any rules, and thus haven't already been dealt with via banning) would attract the ire of others, thus allowing the more neutral and reasonable users to rise to the top, which would be a very good thing.

I assume you'd also want to keep the Online forum?  A forum for housing all league/clan activity is quite useful, and it doesn't detract from any of the other forums.

As for your checkboxes idea, it sounds somewhat complicated.  I think it'd be unlikely that most users would follow through on using the tags when creating threads, and it would be useless with older thread unless they're edited after the fact.  It would also probably be hell for TalonMan/ioi to implement.  I suppose SamuelRSmith's idea from ealier would suffer from similar issues.

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As an aside (though still somewhat related), I was never a fan of associating games with threads.  In theory, it sounds nice, but you end up with a bunch of stuff taking up space at the start of every thread, and you have confusion over exactly which forum a thread is in.  I'd click on a thread in Gaming Discussion that had been associated with Vanquish, and when I'd get in the thread, the link at the top would take me to the Vanquish forum rather than back to the gaming forum.  It was all really confusing.  Honestly, I think having one thread span multiple forums is just a bad idea.  You're never really sure where you are.

And I'm not sure if it was an issue with the game specific forums, or linking games in general, but I noticed very few people were bothering to link games with their threads after the first month or so, once the novelty wore off.

As a somewhat different take on Samuel's idea, we could implement a search bar at the top of each forum, one that searches the title and OP of each thread in that specific forum for any keyword typed in, organizing them by order of last post.  This would allow users to quickly see if a topic of interest has been posted recently, and would help with the issue of duplicate threads.  Of course, this would only be useful if each forum pertains to a specific subject (gaming, sales, off topic), otherwise it wouldn't be much better than a general forum search, given the potential overlap between multiple gaming boards.

For shame, Machina.

User Reviews!

Would you believe I didn't see your post before making mine, which said the exact same thing? ^_^

Where is my list of hot topics?

Label me as a casual poster if you want, but hot topics is the only way I get around on this site, and without it, I find myself not coming on here at all. I don't want to take the effort to check out 15 different boards to find interesting threads, I like a place where the hot topics from each board can be displayed in one place. It makes it easier for casual posters like me.

I mean this quite literally. Last time hot topics was removed, I stopped visiting this site almost entirely until I found out they were back. The same is happening again.

There should be a "rented" or "previously owned" option for game collections.

I think it would be very useful for renters.