New Doomworld Layout! Direct ALL complaints/suggestions/whining to Doomkid

[Doomkid]

I've rearranged the forums once again, this time so that Classic Doom actually has 2 dedicated sections, a "general" one and a "special interest" one.

 

This really was necessary considering that all 8 of the subforums are fairly active, but were awkwardly divided between areas. It also gave the "special interest" section an actual identity, rather than being this weird amalgam of Doom things and Everything Else - now Creative Works is down there in "Misc." with EE, where I always thought it belonged anyway.

 

As usual, direct your tossed rotten tomatoes in my direction! (In other words, direct all your complaints my way).

 

 

Old post below:

Hey friends, got an announcement to make:

For the last year or so I've had the plan to make a (in my opinion, much needed) change: separating "general WAD-related chatter" from "actual project threads, community projects, and WAD releases".

After sitting on it and mulling it over for some time, we're finally putting it into motion. This will make finding the type of content you're looking for far easier!

I spent at least 4 hours yesterday like Igor (lol) hunched over the computer separating threads into the appropriate areas and just spent another 30 minutes on it as well. Got over 90 pages of threads and over 100,000 posts moved in total..! Gotta take a break for now, but if you see any "wad chatter" threads that have accidentally been left in the "releases and development" subforum, please let me know.

Cheers!

 

[gwain]

cool

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

That's two thumbs up from me, boss! 👍👍

 

Thanks for the hard work Doomkid. This is a big improvement in my eyes.

Edited April 5, 2022 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[HavoX]

That's a great idea!

[Rayziik]

This is a wonderful step in the right direction to separating the content of this forums section, and all for the better of course! Keeping the actual project threads contained in one place allows better visibility for those looking for something to play, or for people to get feedback on something they're working on. And the discussion section will probably always be smaller, but the threads are always more active for good lengths of time, meaning they won't dominate the first page of wads & mods and push down any new releases or WIP stuff.

But I think the only thing that I could suggest is swapping the current positions of the main and sub category. Wads & Mods should be the place to go for exactly what it says on the can, Wads & Mods, and I think the discussions and clubs and such should be within the sub category. Not because they're any lesser mind you, but simply because going to the section titled exactly what someone is looking for and not finding it there seems just a bit disorganized.

 

I believe there's quite a few people who might agree with this sentiment, but otherwise thanks a lot for your hard work with this!

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

Awesome 👍😎

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

4 minutes ago, Rayziik said:

But I think the only thing that I could suggest is swapping the current positions of the main and sub category. Wads & Mods should be the place to go for exactly what it says on the can, Wads & Mods, and I think the discussions and clubs and such should be within the sub category. Not because they're any lesser mind you, but simply because going to the section titled exactly what someone is looking for and not finding it there seems just a bit disorganized.

 

I believe there's quite a few people who might agree with this sentiment, but otherwise thanks a lot for your hard work with this!

I actually agree with this, the way it is now you're going to have a bunch of newbies posting their maps in the Wad Discussion forum since it's the one that comes up when they click Wads & Mods. I think the discussion section should be the secondary forum.

Edited April 5, 2022 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[esselfortium]

I like this! I agree that the wad talk subforum should probably be the sub-subforum with releases and dev threads as the main one, not the other way around.

 

And I know it'd be more work, but it'd be nice to also have separate subforums for development threads and actual releases.

[Doomkid]

So, a fair bit of thought went into which one is the "big umbrella" and which one is the "small umbrella":

 

As I see it, releases and projects - while definitely the "star of the show" - are still technically a subset of the greater "broad discussion" of wads and mods.

 

If the main category were "WAD releases and development", it would not then be accurate in the strictest sense to consider "General WAD Chatter" a subset of that, whereas "Releases and development" most certainly are a subset of the greater overarching topic of Doom wads.

 

(I also feel like someone would have to be seriously illiterate to not understand that wads in development or being released belong in, well, "releases and development", but then again nothing surprises me anymore lol)

 

Just to be clear, I understand the counterpoint: Most people are here to either make or play wads, or so it would seem - but in reality, looking through the first 155 pages of threads in the old incarnation (before the split), it's clear to me that at least half of the people who post in the "wads and mods" are just looking for discussion, recommendations, etc - most are not here to make or release a project.

 

In other words - threads pertaining to releases and development really were only "about half" of what posters wanted to engage in, so which one got top billing was not as obvious as it may seem. From there, putting a specific aspect of wadding and modding as the "big umbrella" then the more broad topic of wads as the "small umbrella" just felt logically inverted for lack of a better descriptor. (I hope I've made the point in a digestible way, it's oddly not the easiest point to communicate clearly.)

 

A final point I wanted to make earlier and forgot to is that both are easily clickable from the index, so no extra time/obstacles/etc are in the way for those who could give a damn less about the chatter and wad clubs and such, and just want to dig into the wads.

 

EDIT, for clarity: If in 2-3 hours time, most people are still of the mind that they should be swapped, I'm absolutely willing to. Just want to give this a test run first!

 

9 hours ago, esselfortium said:

And I know it'd be more work, but it'd be nice to also have separate subforums for development threads and actual releases.

I would love this in future, maybe as a "from here on out" measure, but I can't imagine the sheer grueling amount of time it would take to go through the last few years and separate the finished from the unfinished. Some day..... but not today!

[RonnieJamesDiner]

Been a fan of this idea since I first saw it suggested, it's great to see it implemented. I was wondering if someone (or a team of people) had literally gone through each page, manually hand picking each and every thread to separate. You're an absolute mad man, and we appreciate the labor! 

[Dusty_Rhodes]

Wow this is nice. I wasn't expecting it, but I very much like it. Thanks Igor (heh)

[eharper256]

Nice change!!

Though I would still consider a seperate sub for levels and mods seperately (though that requires more igor hunching time for sorting, so I guess its not mandatory).

[Endless]

So that's why I couldn't find all the recently released WADs! Was about to fill a complaint :P Thanks a lot for your efforts, Doomkid. Glad to see forum improvements.

[Captain Ventris]

Good idea! Will make finding new content much cleaner as well as making nice space for discussions to flourish.

[Doomkid]

Hey everyone, because there's no clear "best option" as to which layout should be used, I've decided to take it to a poll.

 

I see plenty of merit to each approach, and swapping the two would be relatively trivial - please do weigh in!

[Nine Inch Heels]

56 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

If the main category were "WAD releases and development", it would not then be accurate in the strictest sense to consider "General WAD Chatter" a subset of that, whereas "Releases and development" most certainly are a subset of the greater overarching topic of Doom wads.

Hard disagree, because that's backwards-logic...

 

You need to have releases before there is anything in the way of discussions going on about anything that has been released. Adding to that, there are probably more than a handful of people, who just come here to grab something they can play, who aren't particularly interested in discussing "design-philosophy"...

 

And as if that's not enough, the downloads section has been broken for I can't even remember how long it was, and now, when there's an opportunity to make community content more visible, I am horribly against letting that opportunity go to waste...

Edited April 5, 2022 by Nine Inch Heels

[PasokonDeacon]

Count me in favor of making releases/development the main forum and general discussion the sub-forum. It'll accommodate most users' expectations for quickly skimming WADs & MODs to find new releases/updates while the sub-forum will still appear atop the page and get attention. Keeping the current setup for 2-3 weeks or so should be fine, though, if only to force some attention on these changes. Ditto with NIH on compensating for the currently broken downloads section by making new/updated content easier to see & skim.

 

Maybe the discussion sub-forum should be called "WAD Discussion & Critique" to emphasize the more generalized but detailed nature of most non-release thread discussions we currently have. It'll also have more distinction from Doom General that way.

[Shepardus]

Thanks for taking the initiative and putting in the hard work to sort through all those threads, Doomkid!

 

I agree with the others saying that the releases & development subforum would be better off as a top-level forum, but honestly I think even the discussion section has enough substance to it that they could both be top-level forums. So there's a third option for you. =P

[Salmon]

I have a feeling that making Releases and Development the main forum would lead to a lot more work for the mod team.  A lot of people aren't going to look at the forum descriptions and just dump their discussion posts in whatever the main forum is.  Mods will have to move those posts and people who are just looking for releases will still have to sift through clutter.  Not the end of the world but I don't see that being much better than the old format.

 

As someone who primarily uses these forums to find wads to play, participate in community projects, and share my own releases, I support having Releases and Development be the subforum.  People looking for that stuff are going to find it, especially since there is a direct link to it from the main page.

 

Really though, my preference would be for Releases and Development to be its own thing with no subforums and have wad discussion as a subforum of Doom General or another main forum.

[Meowgi]

+1 to actual wads and mods being the main forum, and discussion the "small umbrella".

 

I could type a long-winded paragraph about why, but others have already done that better than I could, and I agree with the overall sentiment.

[Doomkid]

18 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Hard disagree, because that's backwards-logic...

 

You need to have releases before there is anything in the way of discussions going on about anything that has been released.

It's really not. If "Wads & Mods" is our umbrella, both the topics of "wad projects/releases" and "doom mapping philosophy/recommendations/etc" both fall under that umbrella equally, however you MUST have thoughts and discussions about wads before they come to be: they don't "materialise" out of nowhere with the design philosophy somehow coming later. A map maker must think about what they want to make and what works before taking any action. Naturally they may even want to consult others first.

 

In much the same way as how chatter about "how we're gonna make these maps and what will make them good" probably filled the hallways of the id software office before the maps came to be, heh.

 

You can say the other option is more accessible, and I'm willing to agree there - but as soon as you say "wads exist before chatter about wads exists, and anything else is backwards", I have to point out that, in itself, is backwards.

 

In conclusion: No matter how the split goes down, it's a huge improvement. There is no potential for anything to "go to waste". Finding what you're looking for is exponentially easier with either of the new layouts than it was with the old one. So, regardless of how we end up doing this thing: Mission accomplished!

[Decay]

Both options blow because wads and mods should be it's own forum section for releases (so we don't have to trawl through tons of wip threads for actual releases) in-dev, and wad talk.

[PasokonDeacon]

12 minutes ago, Salmon said:

Really though, my preference would be for Releases and Development to be its own thing with no subforums and have wad discussion as a subforum of Doom General or another main forum.

Now that I think about, this sounds better to me too. If you look at the front page now, there's two main forums in a row with sub-forums. It looks and feels a bit smushed vs. having alternating main forums with sub-forums. Pairing general/specific discussion and play-threads for WADs with Doom General could also better meet regular/new posters' expectations for where you'd find such content. This would leave WAD Releases & Development to stand out on its own while anyone trying to start a casual discussion in Doom General might see its sub-forum and realize "hey, since I'm talking about specific WADs or a general set of them, let's move it here instead".

[Doomkid]

1 minute ago, Decay said:

Both options blow because wads and mods should be it's own forum section for releases (so we don't have to trawl through tons of wip threads for actual releases) in-dev, and wad talk.

 

Part of me agrees big time, but another part of me sees some issues.

 

If "Wads & Mods" was made into a proper category of forums, the way we have "Classic Doom" as a category now, that means all wads and mods would require down-scrolling at the index. People would have to scroll past "Console Doom", "Multiplayer Doom", "Speed Demos" etc just to get to the wads..

 

It feels like we'd be putting the main selling point of the whole site like halfway down the page, rather than right near the top where it belongs. At the same time, I am all for "wad releases" and "wads in progress" being separated, but that has a much larger issue of someone needing to go through thread-by-thread and try to discern what is complete and what isn't, then wait for Invision's slow-ass software to respond to your request to move each thread - let alone avoiding the older yet-unsorted threads!

[Decay]

1 minute ago, Doomkid said:

 

Part of me agrees big time, but another part of me sees some issues.

 

If "Wads & Mods" was made into a proper category of forums, the way we have "Classic Doom" as a category now, that means all wads and mods would require down-scrolling at the index. People would have to scroll past "Console Doom", "Multiplayer Doom", "Speed Demos" etc just to get to the wads..

 

It feels like we'd be putting the main selling point of the whole site like halfway down the page, rather than right near the top where it belongs. At the same time, I am all for "wad releases" and "wads in progress" being separated, but that has a much larger issue of someone needing to go through thread-by-thread and try to discern what is complete and what isn't, then wait for Invision's slow-ass software to respond to your request to move each thread - let alone avoiding the older yet-unsorted threads!

Why wouldn't you have the section at the top? That big paragraph is the most easily avoided problem in the entire thread. Tons of people complain about doom general, multiplayer is dead and belongs is "special interests" at best, consoles and ports aren't really a big selling point either.

 

Wad/mods

- releases

-in dev

- wad talk

 

classic doom

- general

-ports

-console

 

etc

[Doomkid]

I think that's a fine idea, though we're getting into levels of "forum overhaul" that I'll definitely need to run past @Mordeth, @Linguica and the other staff memebers first.

 

Also, the main issue I took was that someone will have to to go through thread-by-thread and try to discern what is complete/"release status" and what isn't, it is lightyears away from being an "easily avoided problem" lol

 

Even now, I think I separated maybe 30% of what should be separated. There's still tons of older "wad chatter" threads in the release subforum.. Making sure that even 80-90% of the threads are (eventually) put where they belong would be a multi-day task even for a small crew..

[Decay]

My bad, I read the first sentence of the paragraph and completely ignored the rest because I figured it would be relating to that!!!!

 

Separating things like that could either be done on thread creator request if unknown, or just organically let it fix itself after a while.

[Doomkid]

1 minute ago, Decay said:

My bad, I read the first sentence of the paragraph and completely ignored the rest because I figured it would be relating to that!!!!

 

Separating things like that could either be done on thread creator request if unknown, or just organically let it fix itself after a while.

It all relates to the greater subject of "wads and mods and their visibility on Doomworld", you can't just read the first sentence of a paragraph and know the entirety of its contents. No wonder you kept failing your students, you didn't even read their papers!!!!

 

It's an issue that would absolutely fix itself over time, but the idea of a bunch of "finished" wads just staying in the "in progress" section because moving them is such a monumental pain in the ass bothers me immensely.

 

People shouldn't have too hard of a time being able to tell which wads are in progress and which ones are released while browsing, but at the same time the extra organization would be nice. It's just so much work to get there - even a 1/3rd complete job of separating discussion from projects was so damn draining.

[Decay]

9 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

It's an issue that would absolutely fix itself over time, but the idea of a bunch of "finished" wads just staying in the "in progress" section because moving them is such a monumental pain in the ass bothers me immensely.

 

People shouldn't have too hard of a time being able to tell which wads are in progress and which ones are released while browsing, but at the same time the extra organization would be nice. It's just so much work to get there - even a 1/3rd complete job of separating discussion from projects was so damn draining.

Then name the current section "releases" and slowly move all the WIP shit. There's no easy solutions but that's how it be for a forum this old: work. There's only ways to make the transition less painful. Or just leave the small subforum divide I guess to make things easiest.

 

12 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

It all relates to the greater subject of "wads and mods and their visibility on Doomworld", you can't just read the first sentence of a paragraph and know the entirety of its contents. No wonder you kept failing your students, you didn't even read their papers!!!!

Introductory sentences to paragraphs tell me the topic of said paragraph, which should've been "placement of main selling point of the forum"! duhhhhhhhhh

[OpenRift]

Ooooooh, new layout!! I like this, definitely a move in the right direction. I will say, I think WAD development and WAD releases should be two separate subcategories, that way people (like myself) don't end up using their development thread as their release thread, allowing for a cleaner thread for beta test feedback and stuff like that.