this "more important stuff needs to be moved higher" mindset is totally wrong, you need to group things that are somewhat similar or tend to be acessed sequentially near each other. the forums which are accessed most should (generaly, news/announcements is a logical exception) be highest. in addition things should follow a hierarchical structure starting at most general and moving to most specalised, this way it takes just as long to get to one specalised thing as it does another.
in this structural philosophy the site/community things should be near the top (most general, most used), but be highly structured as to have a minimal footprint. the freespace stuff should be below, this will place it directly in the center of the screen idealy, the 'general' material should not be so large as to push the freespace material out of view. the current subdivision of FS isn't that bad but (mainly) modding needs to be a little more centralized and organized.
Hosted projects being the most specalised, least visited (individually), and most numerous front end forums should be on the bottom.
If you want to promote some aspect of the forums, the best way to do that it to do just that, promote them, make more announcements/highlights, maybe advertise off site. breaking the forum's flow in some misguided effort to make them 'seem' more 'important' is just only going to backfire because a forum which is disjointed and unorganized is a forum people don't want to use. I know I've hardly used the forums since the change and my projects have suffered. it's all because everything is scattered and I have to go all over the place to find anything.
also I'd like to keep our general discussion forum named "Hard Light" it's been like that sence day one and connotes more of a community vibe, and I'm a sentimental tradition loving person. but it's not realy that important, just a more or less minor personal preference.
*General*
- News & Announcements
- Discussion (Hard Light)
-- Art
-- Gameing
-- Tech
-- The Meeting Hall (should be visible, as a subforum it's footprint will be small to those who don't care for it)
--- religion/politics (third tier subforum it's exsistance wouldn't even show up on the main index, figured there'd be enough of these to warent a subforum)
-- Thread Hell (alternative to locking/deleting, like the rift in WS allow people to make spam and say/do anything they want so-long as it isn't illegal. this allows heated arguments to peater out without disrupting general discussion. do not move things en mass as soon as you make it, just from now on if a thread gets (or continues to be) stupid/pointless/unresolvable move it here, be cautious about moving them there for the first few weeks untill everyone adjusts to the change)
-- The Classics
(**note** the above block is all subforums of Discussion/Hard Light, the *General* catagory only has three top level forums in it, this should place *Freespace* (or it's top level forums) right in the middle of the screen)
- Support
-- Feedback (visible to everyone)
-- Hosted Support
*Freespace*
-General
-Multi-Player
-FS wiki
-SCP
--its current subforums
-Modding (placeing this at the bottom will make it more visable, rather than being second or third with stuff above and below, it'll be the biggest forum and have a table break right below it, this does sort of break the general pattern though, so under general freespace may be a better choice)
--Finished Releases (maybe only allow some people to post topics here to ensure a good signal to noise ratio)
--Fredding (primaraly focused on missions)
---Campaigns
---Voice Acting
--Modeling
--Scripting
--FSU (might be better in hosted)
---FreeSpace Campaign Restoration Project
*Hosted*
-all current projects
-Dead Projects (forums here should all have a thread in them explaining who and how to get in contact with the origonater for the purpose of reviving said project if posable.)
what I think what would help out modding the most, however, is more of a content/service oriented main site. this is what built this community, sites like DC and PFS that had mod/mission databases and gave aspiring new modders a place to send there works, a screen shot of the day, tutorials, reviews, a tool download data base, that is what we need more than more efechent forums (note I'm not saying the forums should be left in there current state). but we need to make the process more automated, that was there downfall they relied on admin's continued enthusiasm too much, I think the admin responsibilities for our content should require no more than an approval to make sure someone doesn't start uploading warez and porn.
