More Forum Sections/Subsection...

[Pony King]

Greetings, first I want to say that I'm really looking forward to the main site. ^^

The reason for this post is that I think there should be more forum sections & subsection to better organize the forums. I'll start with the art section and work my way up.

ART SECTION

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The following is my attempt at minimizing the number of forum sections/duplication names yet still making the forums more user friendly.

• Art Section
  
  • General - Section for art games and general art discussion.
  • Marketplace
  • Critique - critique and help section for art
    
    • Writing
    • Drawing/Painting
    • Photography
    • Crafts - Sewing, knitting, sculpture, other forms of art, etc.
  • Tutorial
    
    • Writing
    • Drawing/Painting
    • Photography
    • Crafts
  • Requests and Trades - Can probably get away with leaving this area open and not breaking it down further.
  
  

*General: There just needs to be a general section for any art related topics to go in. Like the art introduction thread started by Samael or the art game thread started by Gibby, which is currently in the Fandom section. The section should not be for just posting one's art! It should be community activities/games/discussion related to art. Not "LOOK AT MY ARTS", threads.

*Writing, Drawing/Painting, Photography, Crafts - From a user friendly standpoint having the critique/tutorial sections break down into different art categories just makes sense. People who don't care about photography or crafts don't want to sift through that sort of material. Bunching them together will just make things harder on your users.

** It also might be beneficial to separate the critique and tutorials section (like the above) as I can see it being annoying for someone who only wants tutorials to have to sift through critique threads as well. But, that could just be me over thinking things.

*** I forgot to add a 3d art section, woops.

The art section could also be split up like the following. I dislike this format simply because it then makes sense to have each art category have a general section that you enter by clicking each parent section. Which if I remember correctly (or am assuming correctly) Weasyl doesn't want to split up the art forms too much. Also with this format it makes more sense to put the the Request/Trades into each category as well. Which again, I'm apposed to.

• Art Section
  
  • General - Section for art games and general art discussion.
  • Marketplace
  • Writing
    
    • Critique
    • Tutorials
  • Drawing/Painting
    
    • Critique
    • Tutorials
  • Photography
    
    • Critique
    • Tutorials
  • Crafts
    
    • Critique
    • Tutorials
  • Requests And Trades

The General Discussion

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• Welcome Center
• General Chat
• Entertainment
  
  • General - category for any of the categories not specified below
  • Movies
  • Games
• Technology
  
  • Gadgets - PC's, laptops,tvs,mobile phones, etc, etc
  • Code - Section for coders of course :P
• Fandom
  
  • General - for any of the categories not specified below
  • Fandom 1
  • Fandom 2
• RolePlaying

*Entertainment - It would probably be beneficial to list at least the main three sources of entertainment. (movies, music, games)

*Technology - You guys might have better ideas, but I think the Technology thread should be split into a section for devices and a section for people who like to code.
*Fandom - To avoid drama it would probably be best to split this up into some general categories. Not too sure how you'd want to approach this, but having a singular fandom section is just too broad. I'm sure you could get away with just anime and furry. (Though I bet you'd soon have to add a Brony section. :P )

Perhaps, implement a system where users vote/petition for a fandom forum section and if enough people are interested it then create it? Otherwise you could list every fandom out there and it would just be mayhem. with entire sections having one thread.

Weasyl Discussion

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• News and Updates
• Site & Forum Support
• Site Discussion/Suggestion

The only thing I can think to add to improve the Weasyl section is to add "/Suggestions" to the end of Site Discussion to make it more obvious what the section is used for. Which, when the main site goes live you may need to split up into "Forum Discussion/Suggestion" & "Weasyl.com Discussion/Suggestion".

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** I've never used Vbulletin before so I'm not sure to what extent you can do things. How information can be split up on the root forum page, etc. If at all possible it might be more beneficial to have, as an example, the art section break down into their own entirely separate sections for critique/tutorials which then list the art categories right on the front page. Just a thought. ^^
*** Quick Note - The general section under each Category should be the list of threads you see when you click on the parent section. Ie. If I click on Fandom, I should then see a list of threads for the General Fandom section, and above it the option to go into sub-forums like "Fandom 1" or "Fandom 2", etc.

Anyways this was just my suggestion, if anyone out there has some better ideas you should contribute as well. :) (Oh and sorry for any typos/horrible sentences, in a bit of a rush atm and I wanted to get this up as soon as I could.)

[OnyxSerpent]

Maybe change "Crafts" to "Other Mediums" or somesuch instead? That way 3d is included.

[Kitten]

I don't think the forum really needs to be shifted at the moment, because it's just starting. I mean, as it grows and it becomes apparent that people latch onto specific subjects that would justify taking them and putting them into a separate forum, sure, but... idk, forums that have a lot of mostly- (if not completely-)empty sub-forums irk me, I guess.

[Demu]

I agree with Kitten - having too many subforums can really dissolve a community. I think things are fine the way they are now. When more people start coming about, maybe then we'll have a need for more subforums. :)

[Pony King]

hmm I can see your point. If anything I don't feel this needs to happen right now, but when the main site goes live there should at least be better forums for the art section.

[Taw]

Thanks for this post! We're actually looking into different possibilities to change the forums and such and we'll definitely keep this in mind. :3

[piñardilla]

To keep from making yet another thread on subforums, I'll say it here: I'd be interested in seeing a "Serious Business" (it doesn't have to really be called that) forum or possibly General Chat subforum for discussing news, current events, politics, etc.

Threadtags might also be useful in art forums for common types of threads, e.g. Buying, Selling, Critique, etc.

[Tiger]

To keep from making yet another thread on subforums, I'll say it here: I'd be interested in seeing a "Serious Business" (it doesn't have to really be called that) forum or possibly General Chat subforum for discussing news, current events, politics, etc.

I was actually going to suggest something similar to this. A Debate/Discussion subforum. I used to go to another forum and they had that as a section. It needed a lot of specific rules, but it was one of my favorite boards of the forum. It required posts that were at least 2 full paragraphs and encouraged citation of sources used, as it is important to back up what you are saying. Topics had to be legitimately be appropriate for a full discussion. Examples could be something like the current Presidential Race in the USA, the Greek athlete banned for a racist Tweet, the Trayvon Martin case, etc. It led to many in-depth discussions and I really enjoyed it.

Which, now that I write it, sounds exactly like Pinardilla's suggestion xD So ya, I totally support his idea.

[piñardilla]

I was actually going to suggest something similar to this. A Debate/Discussion subforum. I used to go to another forum and they had that as a section. It needed a lot of specific rules, but it was one of my favorite boards of the forum. It required posts that were at least 2 full paragraphs and encouraged citation of sources used, as it is important to back up what you are saying. Topics had to be legitimately be appropriate for a full discussion. Examples could be something like the current Presidential Race in the USA, the Greek athlete banned for a racist Tweet, the Trayvon Martin case, etc. It led to many in-depth discussions and I really enjoyed it.

Which, now that I write it, sounds exactly like Pinardilla's suggestion xD So ya, I totally support his idea.

I don't know that I like the two-paragraph rule. I'm typically pretty succinct, and like to make use of infographics and such to illustrate my point. A general no low-content posting would seem to be sufficient to me, though I could see having a two-paragraph rule for the first post in the thread.

[Tiger]

I don't know that I like the two-paragraph rule. I'm typically pretty succinct, and like to make use of infographics and such to illustrate my point. A general no low-content posting would seem to be sufficient to me, though I could see having a two-paragraph rule for the first post in the thread.

I think with the two-paragraph thing is that it allows for more discussion if a poster posts more material. There's really not much to talk about if someone posts just three or four lines.

But I do like the idea of infographics. Some people are better visual learners and I think having illustrations can be an excellent way to make a point.