Suggestions for a forum cleanup and upgrade?
BeyondtheTech
Member Posts: 809
While Gendai has put together a decent, custom forum server app, it's obviously going through some changes and upgrades. In the meantime, the moderators have been tasked to perform routine maintenance in cleaning up and moving posts where they would better be suited, generally helping out the community, providing feedback and suggestions on how all of this can be improved.
One of the things that I saw that could improve were different sections of the forum. A lot of posts ended up in "Working with GameSalad," but that is such a vague description anyway. Granted, it's broken down a bit, but I think it can and should be even more granular.
Also, I still believe competition is healthy and ultimately benefits the end-user, so there should be a forum for "Other GDKs" where we all can objectively compare and contrast GameSalad against other engines and development tools.
While I have submitted some change requests that Gendai is currently considering, I would like to get the rest of the community's suggestions and perspective to improve for all our benefits.
So, lay it on the table. What would you like to see here in the Forums section that you think would benefit yourself and your fellow developers? Inquiring minds really do want to know.
One of the things that I saw that could improve were different sections of the forum. A lot of posts ended up in "Working with GameSalad," but that is such a vague description anyway. Granted, it's broken down a bit, but I think it can and should be even more granular.
Also, I still believe competition is healthy and ultimately benefits the end-user, so there should be a forum for "Other GDKs" where we all can objectively compare and contrast GameSalad against other engines and development tools.
While I have submitted some change requests that Gendai is currently considering, I would like to get the rest of the community's suggestions and perspective to improve for all our benefits.
So, lay it on the table. What would you like to see here in the Forums section that you think would benefit yourself and your fellow developers? Inquiring minds really do want to know.
Comments
The search functionality sucks.
Can't see my previous posts if I want to back track and find what I wrote about a problem.
And just some basic Social networking integration.
2. I mentioned this before but an how about an Items for sale section - so we can sell old kit such as Macs, iTouches and iPhones etc to good Game Salad homes!
I mean, sometimes when I use it the 'recent posts' are from 1 year ago!
The ability to post the itunes info, i.e. TA style, when posting about your app would be cool.
Also make the announce your game section with more sub categories...such as:
GS Games in Progress
Published GS Games
Other Non-Game GS Apps
New GS Game Concepts
etc.
It would also be nice to have a button to "remove thread locally" to basically filter out threads that you aren't interested in.
only problem with announce your game subs. is it would require constant moderation to move games from games in progress to published games but i do like the idea
Oh and I think mods should immediately delete threads who post new topics with titles like "help!!!", "im Confused", etc...
instead of having 1,2,.............348 at bottom how about
1,2,3,4,......348 then if u click on 4 u get
1,...5,6,7,....348 that way u can advance more than 1 page at a time
It might seem obvious to others but many times you sous folks dial up some code, and it works but there could be a bit more help in showing people WHY IT WORKS, a tutorial that says, ok you do this now, and this is why, and now you do this and this is why this works. Its more work but in the end the code set for all involved would be much better. This is quicker than waiting for a definitive doc for GS, I use some code that works, its from others but I in the end am not sure why it works the way it does.
Ok I am a bit further along with GS than claiming I am a total newbie but WHY it WORKS would be a great section.
I think vBulletin would be an improvement, but that software is high maintenance.
...and signatures are possible.
______________
Michael Garofalo
http://photics.com
Tapatalk: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tapatalk-forum-app/id307880732?mt=8#
If they made their forum iPhone-friendly like their homepage does, I'd be using the board even more often.
2) It looks like a real signature to me.
3) bbPress is actually pretty good. There are some plug-ins that would make the forums better.
http://bbpress.org/plugins/
______________
Michael Garofalo
http://photics.com
It works fine on iPhone opera so don't think it's the phone
2) I see you editing out my link in your blockquotes.
______________
Michael Garofalo
http://photics.com
I'm too nice sometimes...
Dr. Sam Beckett never returned home...
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Quantum_Sheep
Web: https://quantumsheep.itch.io
2. Yeah, the links bother me. I don't want them in my posts. Haha
What I mean is each category has stickys along with the main page and each category has sticky's that are not also stickys on the main page.
So why not leave everything that is a sticky as a sticky but only in the category and not the main page. this will clean up the front page a ton and only having one or two stickys when a very important post is placed as a sticky it can go on main page for a week and then drop back to just its category. then all we will have is welcome/rules/guidelines sticky and a FAQ/how-to sticky.
Any other sticky would still show up in the main list if a post is made. so if there is really interest in that topic it will be visible, but after say a week or two of no input it will disappear from the main page but stay at the top of a category so if someone needs it they can find it. you could even link all of the category stickys in the FAQ sticky so it could be quickly referenced when some asks about publishing issue we can say look at the FAQ there is a link to a very in depth discussion on this and you can prob find your answer there.
Hope that makes sense. it would be nice to clean that area up quite a bit.
Oh and sorry for resurrecting an old post but hey its better than creating a new repeat one right?
I did notice someone finally dropped the old welcome sticky.
So in regards to the stickies.
Feature feedback requests - been closed a month and we've had 2 releases since that thread. it can prob go.
Big picture - again two releases have come out since that thread and the last post was two weeks
Working with GameSalad Publishing issues - Great information there unfortunately we still get constant new threads that could be solved by this. might as well drop it back to a working with GS only sticky
Cook videos Sticky - Again Great stuff in there drop it back to a working with GS only Sticky and link it in the FAQ Sticky and in the wiki
Global Game Jam - Done and gone loose the sticky
GameSalad Accelerator - Really not gone anywhere. Drop it back to an category only sticky or drop the sticky ll together.
New and Noteworthy - lately has mainly gotten sub category N&N listings (i'm even guilty of that) should be closed and only added to by sous-chefs if a game is N&N on a main page or main category. if not drop it off the main page stickies most people start a new thread anyway when they find their game featured.
GS tools sticky - Awesome stuff but should just be a market sticky.
GameSalad 0.9.2 should be monitored and dropped once its dormant for a few weeks.
I understand sous-chefs not removing GS stickies but maybe you guys could put some pressure on the Staff to do some clean up. these suggestions will immediately remove 8 of the 11 stickies on the main page and I feel are reasonable way to clean it up a bit without losing the threads all together. a clean up like this will make it much more obvious when something new and important comes along and is posted as a sticky.
Well theres my 2cents for the forum cleanup post this month hopefully we can look back in a month and see some results.
Thanks