[jr2]

I was kind of wondering what "serious developers" that were not being invited here were doing running off to the "Hard Light" topic immediately...

[SadisticSid]

what if these changes drive away active contributors?

What if not making them does? See what I mean about binary?

Where's the evidence of that? If people were tired of the forum organisation then why haven't we seen a single complaint or suggestion to rectify the problem before yesterday? I know they're falling into one camp or the other NOW, but that's only because the issue was raised in the first place.

Let's think about it logically - I KNOW that the majority of people check the Hard Light forum as soon as they visit the site, before the others, so it makes sense to put it at the top. It seems mad to try and shift attention from it, given that the majority of people post most regularly in there.

[jr2]

I think the point was to draw new people in, by focusing the members on modding the game, which is not a bad idea, but I'm not sure about the wisdom of the implementation.

EDIT: I'm sure most of the unhappy people will still be unhappy, but what if you put a button at the top to jump to the bottom of the page, or a toolbar with buttons for the 7 different sections, allowing a jump directly to that section?  Also a button at the bottom allowing for a jump to the top.

[Wobble73]

Looks like the reorganization of the forum index, made to prevent flame wars, unleashed a big flame war in this thread...

This isn't a flame war, this is the type of debate that I for one enjoy coming to this forum for.

As for the "non-contributors" I have one thing to say.....Although I cannot code, FRED, model, write etc. I believethat I do contribute to this forum, even in posting my opinions I am contributing. I contribute in encouraging those that "can do". By that I mean those that can code, FRED, model, write etc.

I came here for eye-candy for my most favourite game, I stay for the community and I value the opinions of everyone here. I may not agree with them but I do value them. I have learned a lot in the year or so I have visited these forums and continue to do so. I just hope that this forum and it's sub-forums continue

[jr2]

EDIT: I'm sure most of the unhappy people will still be unhappy, but what if you put a button at the top to jump to the bottom of the page, or a toolbar with buttons for the 7 different sections, allowing a jump directly to that section?  Also a button at the bottom allowing for a jump to the top.

Opinions?

[Flipside]

Considering Inquisitor works with Garage Games, I don't doubt he has the chance to meet other developers.

Look at it this way, if Inquisitor can point people here and say 'look at what these guys are achieving', it might benefit the SCP coders far more than simply seeing one of their favourite games being updated.

Basically, as Inq has stated on occasion, 'This is resume stuff', the SCP could be the tipping point between someone getting a job offer or not.

I 100% support the moving of the GenDis to the lower columns, that's fine by me, as far as the subdividing is concerned, well, I'm willing to give it a few days to cool off and see how things go, but personally, I don't think it was a good idea, testing will say whether I'm right or not.

Now, I know that HLP isn't just here to perpetuate the career of the SCP coders, but personally, the whole SCP is going to be taken a lot more seriously if the first forum with posts in that visitors come across isn't GenDis.

[Herra Tohtori]

What I don't understand is how this is such a big issue to some.

What does it really matter where a thread is? I for one rarely even see the main page of the forums. I go directly to "New Replies" and thereafter I check the unread stuff, and if there's some interesting topics going on, I go and read them.

So the biggest change was to rename Hard Light, create a new off-topic section for flamefest and move the General Discussion section below the topics that are originally the focus of HLP.

I for one don't really think that's a bad thing. I don't think it's a good thing either, but I lean to that side more than the other. So my opinion is positive neutral at the moment. The only suggestion I can make is to question the need for two off-topic forums, especially if the specified meaning of the other is to gather the zaniest pieces from the other, which is in my opinion a bit questionable at best. If it's off-topic and doesn't break forum rules, it should be in off-topic thread. If it breaks forum rules, the thread should be closed or violating posts moderated/removed. I don't see a reason to archive the fruits of foam-moathed flaming by sending them into Padded Cell. If they're that bad, why not just remove them or close the thread. :

[Inquisitor]

Rictor: Is that a lesson you learned from the constructive debates? End your constructive criticism in insults and sarcasm?
You do realize that is what I am on about right? That type of thing RIGHT there. That assumption that I think you personally are an idiot, that because things are a mess, or I (vehemnetly) disagree with your conclusions must indicate that I am an elitist asshole, a fascist, or I think you've got some congenital defect that makes your brain stop processing information. I think this is better, or at least going in the right direction. I think this gives the appearance of a site that might have some focus, that might have something to offer the rest of the internet in terms of unique content. I do not think that Rictor, Aldo, etc are illiterate morons. Quite the opposite. I just don't think the internet needs another site devoted to masterbating to the death of democrats or debating the merits of a comparison between GWB and Hitler. Apparently I am not alone in this opinion.

So, take that and put it aside, what is left? Some damn fine work by some of those self same people. Why on gods green earth wouldn't you want to brag about that? Why would you rather bury it, in favor of your endless threads about how the world has gone to ****?

The way it was WAS driving people away. Active contributors. Do they count? From what I am reading here, no, they don't. I'm not an admin. I don't want to be an admin. I want the admins to tell me what the site is for, and then I can make a personal decision whether to participate in that. I will offer suggestions, and if those suggestions sound reasonable, they may make use of those suggestions. If others offer similar suggestions, they may say "hmmm, maybe we should do something about this?"

That leaves us back at the binary question. I have little to no interest in lengthy debates on politics. I am intensely interested in the talents of people. I am intensely interested in new or old games, or doing interesting things with those games or the machines on which they run. I am intensely interested in game development, game quality art, and pursuits in line with that. I want a forum or community where I can participate in discussions about those things, something we can actually agree on, rather than how much of a twat Kazan is, or an0n's recent foray into prostitution.

That's what I want, a place that has those discussions. Leading with the "inane" is not what I want, personally. So the guys who run this site need to figure out which is the site they want to build and maintain. The one devoted to the "inane banter that comprises the Internet" or the site that used to bring modders together and showcases the accomplishments of those modders.

[jr2]

You have a point there.
Bring them together, then they will of course find the links for general discussion, if they want to.

EDIT: How about a drop-down link, sort of like the one for "Hosted Projects", that allows direct jump from forum main down the page to the start of the section?  Or a toolbar, like I mentioned before.

[aldo_14]

Rictor: Is that a lesson you learned from the constructive debates? End your constructive criticism in insults and sarcasm?
You do realize that is what I am on about right? That type of thing RIGHT there. That assumption that I think you personally are an idiot, that because things are a mess, or I (vehemnetly) disagree with your conclusions must indicate that I am an elitist asshole, a fascist, or I think you've got some congenital defect that makes your brain stop processing information. I think this is better, or at least going in the right direction. I think this gives the appearance of a site that might have some focus, that might have something to offer the rest of the internet in terms of unique content. I do not think that Rictor, Aldo, etc are illiterate morons. Quite the opposite. I just don't think the internet needs another site devoted to masterbating to the death of democrats or debating the merits of a comparison between GWB and Hitler. Apparently I am not alone in this opinion.

So, take that and put it aside, what is left? Some damn fine work by some of those self same people. Why on gods green earth wouldn't you want to brag about that? Why would you rather bury it, in favor of your endless threads about how the world has gone to ****?

The way it was WAS driving people away. Active contributors. Do they count? From what I am reading here, no, they don't. I'm not an admin. I don't want to be an admin. I want the admins to tell me what the site is for, and then I can make a personal decision whether to participate in that. I will offer suggestions, and if those suggestions sound reasonable, they may make use of those suggestions. If others offer similar suggestions, they may say "hmmm, maybe we should do something about this?"

That leaves us back at the binary question. I have little to no interest in lengthy debates on politics. I am intensely interested in the talents of people. I am intensely interested in new or old games, or doing interesting things with those games or the machines on which they run. I am intensely interested in game development, game quality art, and pursuits in line with that. I want a forum or community where I can participate in discussions about those things, something we can actually agree on, rather than how much of a twat Kazan is, or an0n's recent foray into prostitution.

That's what I want, a place that has those discussions. Leading with the "inane" is not what I want, personally. So the guys who run this site need to figure out which is the site they want to build and maintain. The one devoted to the "inane banter that comprises the Internet" or the site that used to bring modders together and showcases the accomplishments of those modders.

cheers for the implict insult, BTW.

 If there's one thing I've established here in the last few years it's that very few people give a **** about what I work on for freespace, and those that do know where to find me.

[CP5670]

Where's the evidence of that? If people were tired of the forum organisation then why haven't we seen a single complaint or suggestion to rectify the problem before yesterday? I know they're falling into one camp or the other NOW, but that's only because the issue was raised in the first place.

Several people have in fact complained about this in the internal forums before, but most will simply leave silently. I'm still here because of the abundance of Freespace content, but I would have left years ago if there was another Freespace site as active as this one. If you want another example, we have daveb of all people. He used to visit here fairly regularly at one point, but was turned off by the bickering like many others were.

There are also a lot of people who never bothered with HL at all. It has gotten to the point that there are almost two separate communities here, those who post in HL and those who post in the FS sections, with only a handful of posters going into both areas regularly. This is quite a departure from the situation when the site was started, and it's easy to see why.

[jr2]

To summarize, there are pretty much two viewpoints:

On the one hand, you have people who think that (some of) the discussion in Hard Light was an embarrassment to new people visiting.  They think the focus should be on Modding, not discussion.

On the other, you have people who think that the people above count their contributions as nothing.  (Let me assure you, this is not true. : )  They think that the Hard Light thread is the heart and soul of HLP, and that it should reflect that.

Am I missing anything?

How about this: put "Hard Light" back, make several Child Boards, including one labeled "Everything Else^TM"... Divide it into "Religion", "Science", "Politics", (You already have  "Gaming" thread), "Hobbys", "Sports", "Life", and other things... that way people don't see titles like these jumping out at them:

Evolution without sex?
Hate Democrats? Well Masturbate to this.
Look upon the face of stupidity
Cluster**** To The White House(TM)
Prepare to be indoctrinated!!!!!!!!!
Laura gets pwn3d
A pox on all you Londoners.
Fundies say the darndest things
Bill Clinton's new girlfriend?
Dirty
Redefining the word '****'
Nucking Futs!
Well, I'm pissed.

To the people in group 2: group 1 just doesn't want stuff like that jumping at newbies / sensitive people.  I see their point, but:
to the people in group 1: group 2 doesn't want to be censored, and this makes it feel that way, even if it isn't.  Labeling someone's opinion, no matter how nutso you think it is, as "Padded Cell" "Stupid Stuff" is just a little over the top, hmm?

I think having sub-categories (Child Boards) in Hard Light would solve or help solve this.  If people see that stuff, well, you were in the "Everything Else" section, which says in the description:

Everything that isn't in one of the categories above can be found here; the Good, the So-so, the Bad, the Ugly, and the Absurd.  You were warned.

  Or a religious person would expect to find stuff in the "Science" section (here I put in my 2 cents worth: "Falsely so called ") EDIT: Wrong place, wrong time, soz...  that may or may not suite their tastes, and they can discuss it there.  In the  Sports section, everyone should know to stay away from the Red Sox / Yankees discussion, unless they like BBQs.

How about that for an idea?

[aldo_14]

What the hell is wrong with 'Evolution without Sex' as a title?

EDIT; actually, i see the global warming thread and 'Hungarians demand ejection of Piresan immigrants' was moved to the spam forum as well.  This is simply ludicrous.  If you don't want any form of discussion, then just delete the new off-topic section altogether - don't lobotomize it.  If you wanted to split up debate or 'controversy' it's easy enough to keep it into a private forum not visible to new viewers, so why start moving perfectly valid topics - informative even - to the community trashpile?   

What is this supposed to achieve beyond censoring whatever the majority view happens to be?  Are we (we being people who like off-topic discussion) suddenly all expected to jump into the various FS forums and volunteer ourselves for projects because we've been labelled as worthless otherwise?  Is this supposed to rejuvenate anything beyond the use of the 'minimize' buttons on the forums groups?  I mean, for blimeys sake, part of the point of any forum is fun - and now it's being turned into work?

[Goober5000]

Not to mention that the last big thing that came out of the hosted projects was what, the BWO demo? Inferno R1?

Evidently you haven't kept up with the hosted projects.  Wing Commander Saga, Inferno Alliance, and several releases of B5 have come out since then.

Except now we have 2 cells for throwing debate.  And one example of something that was neither nasty nor a debate being moved to the 'bad' one of them.

I sort of did a mass move of threads, just by looking at thread titles, in order to prune out The Pub relatively quickly.  If I got a few threads wrong, feel free to let me know.  I already moved the "Evolution without Sex" thread back.

The point of the off-topic forums is to have friendly chatter in The Pub, civilized debate in The Meeting Hall, and raucous debate or flame wars in The Padded Cell.  Making the debate forum restricted-access has worked very well for Sectorgame, so I thought we could do the same here.

[Fury]

IMHO The Padded Cell and The Classics boards are totally unnecessary, as is Games and Gaming category. The two boards there could be moved to Off-Topic category.

Edit: What the hell? The general discussion board no longer counts posts? Isn't that taking things a BIT too far? Also, making Charismatic and Cobra the moderators of the spam board could be taken as an insult.

Edit 2: So now the ex-Hard Light board is not only divided into two boards, but three? Third being accessible only by request? That's so lame.

[kode]

NO! WE NEEDS MORES SUBFORUMZ! LETS HAVE ONE PER MEMBER!

[Rictor]

So the guys who run this site need to figure out which is the site they want to build and maintain. The one devoted to the "inane banter that comprises the Internet" or the site that used to bring modders together and showcases the accomplishments of those modders.

I see absolutely no reason why we can't have both. Think of it like a city - there are universities and there are red-light districts. Would you leave a city simply because a red-light district exists? It's a big place and there's room for everyone. People can choose where they go. And who is to say that the people in the university will not visit the red-light district every once in a while to let off steam, and that the people in the red-light districts won't pop by the university to expand their horizons and work on projects. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. You obviously have vastly more experience in the field of game development than I do, but I have trouble believing that even the most talented of developers are buttoned-down stoics who don't enjoy a good shouting match every once in a while, just like the rest of us.

I'm as saddended as the next guy that people, productive members, are being driven away. But is it desireable, or even possible, to sterilize HLP enough to accomodate these discriminating tastes? This is not GarageGames. It's not Gamasutra. And it couldn't be even if we all tried to make it that. The narrow focus means that the number of people and the output they produce is going to be limited. Which means that if the focus were shifted solely to the development/modding side of things, HLP would quickly start to resemble a closed think-tank of developers, almost like a monastery, instead of a populated, busy, loud, flashing neighborhood. I'm not calling you an elitist, and certain not a fascist. I check out the contributions you and others make to FS2 and even other games (for example, I downloaded the demo for your Iraq War vehicle shoot-em-up), and am absolutely thankful for them. Let's just be clear on that. To be perfectly honest, I haven't fired up FS2 in a while - something I think is true for many others as well. Does this fact make me a less important part of the community? Am I now outside of the narrow scope which we have chosen to focus on?

I can't speak to all those who've left, but to all those, yourself included maybe, who are contemplating leaving all I can say is: is it really that bad? Is the General Discussion, with all its uncivilized craziness, that hard to tolerate that you would leave all the good behind simply to be rid of the bad which you are not forced to even notice, much less participate in? What gives? You too CP. How hard is it, especially now with the new layout, to simply not click on any boards which you find uninteresting or offensive, and just pretend they don't exist. I don't know how to code, so I don't visit the coding board too often. I'm not offended by it, I barely even notice it. Simple as that. Like I said, HLP is fairly civilized when compared to the Internet norm. I find it hard to understand how people who have presumably lived for a long time with the Internet have such a low threshold for annoyance. Almost every forum, even the intelligent ones like TTLG, has an OT sections full of loud, opinionated, often abnoxious people. That's just the reality. And personally, I've learned to stop being enraged or annoyed by it.

[WMCoolmon]

I don't understand why people are so up in arms and writing these massive posts about how inconsiderate that everyone who supports the change is.

I'm not going to try to defend the forum moderation that's been taking place, because I don't agree with the split between the Pub and the Padded Cell, either, and I have no doubt that it's going to be different from what I would've done. So rest assured that not everybody is 100% in favor with everything that's going on, there is room for disagreement.

But I do support the idea that HLP needs to change before it just gets ****ed up. I can share some blame for the changes because I actually started a thread on the internal support system that more or less said, "This community isn't really going anywhere. Is there something that's going to change this community and give it a direction or purpose?" That was in January, and Inquisitor took the opportunity to post in that thread. My idea was quite a bit more advanced; the guts of it was pooling together everyone not significantly involved with the three major projects or projects close to release, and creating a large community-based project that would be able to get internet fame. Or at least the attention needed to get new blood in here, and start some new projects.

My reasoning for that is that this community is going nowhere. I've stopped really visiting Hard Light, and made a point not to post there, partly because I don't really care and partly because of the moderation issues that plagued it. Every single release that's made doesn't seem to really make a difference, but there's always promises of 'That will change'. Then the campaign of whoever promised change dies due to lack of interest, and because the staff evaporated.

Maybe everyone here is content to just watch things die off. Like the things that brought this community together and is the reason for its existence in the first place, and right now. Hard Light doesn't even have a community feel, thanks to all the jackassery and intentional jabs at person X or group Y. And this change really shows how banal it is. Thanks to moving the forums a whole two feet down, people are complaining about the eradication of the community.

Other than that, I really don't think I can do anything more effective than repost my response in the internal and let people compare it themselves to the rest of this posts in the thread.

I don't think that the new forum layout will change the focus of the site right away, but it's at least a step in that direction.

I think there are too many general discussion forums. We don't need 'The Pub', 'The Meeting Hall', and 'The Padded Cell'. All we need is the 'The Pub' and 'The Meeting Hall', and 'The Meeting Hall' should be publicly visible unless there's a good reason for making it an exclusive, secret club. (Posting privileges should still be on a per-approval basis)

Additionally, the forums have lost the organization that they had before with the reordering of the categories. Before, it was more or less a line from general, nonspecific forums (Hard Light) to ever-increasing specific forums. (SCP --> Freespace Forums --> Specific campaigns)

Voice acting also doesn't really belong with the Art and Gaming discussion forums. Neither of those are project-centered, Voice Acting is.

It seems like we have way too many Freespace forums. They would be a lot more comprehensible if there were fewer of them (There are far too many if this is supposed to be a general modding site). The wiki forum could be generalized, the campaign restoration project forum made a subforum of the Freespace Upgrade Project forum, and that forum in turn moved into the set of Freespace forums. Then the FRED and FRED Academy forums could be made subforums of the Missions and Campaign forum. Multiplayer could be a subforum of general Freespace (It's pretty small to be its own toplevel forum). An additional 'modelling' forum added to the Modding forum wouldn't be a bad idea at all, as long as it were easy to look up ship and model releases from it.

That leaves Gaming, Art, and Voice Acting. Voice acting I'm tempted to say should be lopped into the Missions and Campaigns section, since that's what it's most closely related to. It could also go in the 'Community Projects' section. Fan Fiction and Art...I think it would be interesting to put that in the 'Important Stuff' forum and see what happens. That gives new members some pretty artwork to look at right off the bat. Games and Gaming should be moved down to the 'Off Topic' section, and that section renamed 'Discussion'.

The Archive section doesn't seem like it needs its own category. It seems more useful to move those forums into the 'Hosted Projects' category as a subproject of an Archive forum.

Final Forum Arrangement
Important Stuff
News and Announcements
Hard Light Art
Support (...)

Community Projects
Freespace Source Code Project (...)
Hard Light Wiki
Voice Acting Guild

Freespace
General Freespace (Multiplayer)
Freespace Upgrade Project (Freespace Campaign Restoration Project)
Missions and Campaigns (FRED, FRED Academy)
Modding (Modelling, Scripting)

Hosted Projects
...
The Archive (The 158th Banshee Squadron, Unsung Heroes)

Discussion
Games and Gaming
Meeting Hall
HLP Classics
The Pub

EDIT: I would also like to add that I think that getting rid of a general discussion forum would be a bad idea. There wouldn't be any place to discuss things like Battlestar Galactica, which is relevant to the forums, but isn't actually a part of any of the projects hosted on HLP. It also gets rid of a 'relaxed' area, where people can go to just hang (Pardon the slang ) and socialize with others who have similar interests.

[Inquisitor]

I think people are confusing my angst with "the way things were" with me wanting no general discussion categories. So, I'll pull a WM and repost as well:

I tend to agree, splitting it further seems excessive. Its only a couple mouse clicks though to change these thngs, fluidity is not a death sentence. If this is the admins finding their feet, I am ok with that. As should now be obvious, a forum configuration is far from set in stone.

Is there a place for "general discussion" in a focused forum? Absolutely, someone suggested that the pendulum may have swung a little too far, that may be the case, this is a balancing act, its not easy, and nobody should think that any solution is permanent or perfect. Try things, just so long as it changes for the better (or at least doesn't slide you back too far), its good. There probably should be a Hard Light gendisc forum, lots of other forums manage to have gendisc without it being full of nonsense. The substance of that gendisc forum does depend somewhat on the actual focus though, and I am not sure we know what that forcus is. There are of things in that new "Pub" forum that probably qualify.

And you may have read an implied insult, but none was actually intended. If I am going to insult you, I won't bother with implied.

[Tyrian]

The new layout doesn't bother me one way or another, although I admit it was a shock to see everything changed all of the sudden. 

My only real objection is that the off-topic boards have been split up into "The Pub" and "The Padded Cell" and the fact that those boards no longer count towards your total.  The "Classics" board is fine where it is, those threads are so hilarious that they deserve to be set apart.  I liked it better when the Pub and Cell were under one title, "Hard Light" and it counted towards your post total.

The reality is that off-topic is where, IMHO, most of the posting takes place (at least for me).   I don't understand a whole lot of the modding stuff that goes on in the project forums, but being able to post on things that I do know about (like politics) in the off-topic forums and contribute to the community in that manner makes me feel more like a member.  Being able to watch my participation in the form of my post count going up is where that satisfied feeling of participation comes from.  It bothers me that you don't count posts from those forums, because it's a little like saying those contributions don't count, which contradicts the democratic ideal at HLP that everyone's typed word has equal weight, regardless of their modding skill. 

I think that the no-post-count regulation on the off topic forums should be lifted.  It detracts from the feeling of participation gained by those who don't have the strong modding background that many of our members have.  It could, in its most extreme form, end up alienating the members who come here for the social aspect more than the technical one.

EDIT:  Also, dividing people's contributions into "smart stuff" and "stupid stuff" (i.e.: Pub and Cell), just doesn't seem like a good idea to me.  It's not something that I can put my finger on exactly, but I think that splitting people's intellectual contributions like that could lead to some problems down the road.  It was much better when everyone posted in the same general forum; it gave everyone's word equal weight.