Combined Forum?

[Brad K]

Please separate this into two forums, one historical, one fictional. Thank you.

[thehef]

Suggestion:

1) Dynasty forum becomes Fictional Dynasty Forum (as an example, the v23 Dynasty Forum seems to be primarily fictional)
2) Add Historical Dynasty Forum (as an example, this is mostly what the 23 Historical forum is)
3) Split this Historical & Fictional Simulations forum into:
a) Historical Discussions forum
b) Fictional Discussions forum

1 and 2 would be for reports on long-running sims. 3a & 3b would be for how-to questions, workarounds, and other thoughts on how to create & maintain games & specific scenarios.

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by thehef

Suggestion:

1) Dynasty forum becomes Fictional Dynasty Forum (as an example, the v23 Dynasty Forum seems to be primarily fictional)
2) Add Historical Dynasty Forum (as an example, this is mostly what the 23 Historical forum is)
3) Split this Historical & Fictional Simulations forum into:
a) Historical Discussions forum
b) Fictional Discussions forum

1 and 2 would be for reports on long-running sims. 3a & 3b would be for how-to questions, workarounds, and other thoughts on how to create & maintain games & specific scenarios.

I second this (e)motion, for what it is worth. But was equally happy with the way it was up to v23.

[Ktulu]

I think separating out the dynasty threads into one forum is a good move. The old organization was confusing. If you were trying to look up something about historical play in the historical simulations forum you'd have a bunch of dynasty threads in your search results.

One place for telling the story about your sim (dynasty forum)
One place for talking about historical play. How-to, settings, real players etc.
One place for talking about fictional setups. How-to's, settings, concepts etc.

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by Ktulu

I think separating out the dynasty threads into one forum is a good move. The old organization was confusing. If you were trying to look up something about historical play in the historical simulations forum you'd have a bunch of dynasty threads in your search results.

One place for telling the story about your sim (dynasty forum)
One place for talking about historical play. How-to, settings, real players etc.
One place for talking about fictional setups. How-to's, settings, concepts etc.

Yeah, that's possibly my bad. The Historical Forum was a bit of a wasteland when I started collecting saves whereas the Dynasty Forum was packed, so I jumped ship a few years back (all my saves are historically-based, so it seemed a better fit for them anyhow) and a few came on board after that to make it how it is today.

But TBH I still think there's the demand for a distinction to be made among the Dynasty Reports between Fictional and Historical. Not sure if you agree, or if that's how you want to go - but that's how I see it and how I'd like it to be if we're casting votes.

Obviously do as you wish, but that's where I stand on the matter. I doubt I'm alone in that mindset.

Thanks

G

[Brad K]

My Pirates Play Moneyball thread didn't work in dynasties because winning all the time wasn't the point.

[Charlie Hough]

Yes, we need a dedicated forum where non-dynasty-relayed historical play can be discussed on its own. Some users may be discouraged from asking questions about historical settings, customization and other topics because they might get confused and think the historical forum is for dynasties only. Similarly, a lot of good questions, tips and advice get shuffled down the forum rather quickly because there are so many dynasty threads.

[kq76]

Originally Posted by Ktulu

I think separating out the dynasty threads into one forum is a good move. The old organization was confusing. If you were trying to look up something about historical play in the historical simulations forum you'd have a bunch of dynasty threads in your search results.

One place for telling the story about your sim (dynasty forum)
One place for talking about historical play. How-to, settings, real players etc.
One place for talking about fictional setups. How-to's, settings, concepts etc.

This would get my vote. We probably don't want too many forums and I don't think there's a real need to split Simulations into fictional and historical (is anyone solely interested in reading one but not the other? I find both interesting), but there probably is good reason to split historical and fictional Discussions into their own forums. I'll direct Andreas to this thread.

EDIT: I've changed my mind. I now think you could get away with just 2: Simulations and Discussions. With both including historical and fictional together. I don't really think differentiating between hist'l and fict'l is important, but I do think it's important to separate Sims from Discussions. Of course, I wouldn't be bothered with whatever however.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by kq76

This would get my vote. We probably don't want too many forums and I don't think there's a real need to split dynasties into fictional and historical (is anyone solely interested in reading one but not the other? I find both interesting), but there probably is good reason to split historical and fictional talk into their own forums. I'll direct Andreas to this thread.

Dynasty is the wrong word Not everyone is playing to bury the opposition. The division should be fictional sims and historical sims.

Concerning How Do I questions being asked in the historical sims forum, many of those questions get asked in the general discussions forum where its often difficult to determine if a poster is asking about a fictional or historical sim and where the answers are sometime different.

You're right that its possible to have too many forums and its also possible to have forums that are too busy to be easily used.

[kq76]

Originally Posted by Brad K

Dynasty is the wrong word Not everyone is playing to bury the opposition. The division should be fictional sims and historical sims.

You're right. Sims is better than Dynasties. I was just repeating old names.

Why do you think there should be a Fictional Sims forum and a separate Historical Sims forum though? I doubt it much matters to most authors/readers. Or does it? Would someone be solely interested in reading one but not the other and bothered that they had to go through both to find what they wanted? In my mind, all our leagues are fictional to some degree and any can be interesting depending on what the author puts into them.

Originally Posted by Brad K

Concerning How Do I questions being asked in the historical sims forum, many of those questions get asked in the general discussions forum where its often difficult to determine if a poster is asking about a fictional or historical sim and where the answers are sometime different.

I agree. And I think it would help others to get into them more if they could more easily find the answers to their questions. Historicals, especially, I'm sure can be pretty intimidating.

I do wonder how much use a separate Fictional Discussions forum would get though. And I wonder that as a fictional-first player myself. I may be influenced by this old fictional forum however. I know, it's an old online league board and non-moderators probably can't see all the spam threads in it, but I swear the entire front page of it for me, except one lone thread, is all spam. Why it became a magnet for spam, I don't know, but I always found it a questionable choice to separate them while keeping its main board too.

Originally Posted by Brad K

You're right that its possible to have too many forums and its also possible to have forums that are too busy to be easily used.

I agree.

[David Watts]

Ugh, this is just change for the sake of change. I ask questions all the time in the historical forum and I always get answers. Sometimes my questions are aimed at getting a discussion going about methods of play, sometimes they are rants that lead to calmer minds setting me straight and sometimes they are just pointless observations. Thing is, I get great responses from people that play historical. The "people that play historical" is the important part. At the same time. having Brad's great Pirates report in the same thread is wonderful. Same thing goes for Luckyman's reports. At no time have I felt the presence of those reports hampered my ability to get answers or simply discuss the historical game. Separating long running sim reports from game play discussions is just another way of empowering the Forum Patrol Boys. The folks that like to dictate where and how things can be posted. Nobody knows each other in the general forums anymore, because heaven forbid someone go a little off topic. The minute it happens the patrol boys scream bloody murder and demand it be moved. At least when historical has it's own forum I have a place to go when I get tired of the OOTP should be a soccer sim crowd.

[italyprof]

Originally Posted by Brad K

Please separate this into two forums, one historical, one fictional. Thank you.

I absolutely agree. There is nothing less interesting about baseball to those of us who play almost only historical mode than fictional players.

Thanks. Please. Thanks.

[italyprof]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Ugh, this is just change for the sake of change. I ask questions all the time in the historical forum and I always get answers. Sometimes my questions are aimed at getting a discussion going about methods of play, sometimes they are rants that lead to calmer minds setting me straight and sometimes they are just pointless observations. Thing is, I get great responses from people that play historical. The "people that play historical" is the important part. At the same time. having Brad's great Pirates report in the same thread is wonderful. Same thing goes for Luckyman's reports. At no time have I felt the presence of those reports hampered my ability to get answers or simply discuss the historical game. Separating long running sim reports from game play discussions is just another way of empowering the Forum Patrol Boys. The folks that like to dictate where and how things can be posted. Nobody knows each other in the general forums anymore, because heaven forbid someone go a little off topic. The minute it happens the patrol boys scream bloody murder and demand it be moved. At least when historical has it's own forum I have a place to go when I get tired of the OOTP should be a soccer sim crowd.

I agree.

[Ktulu]

Originally Posted by Brad K

Dynasty is the wrong word Not everyone is playing to bury the opposition. The division should be fictional sims and historical sims.

You're right that its possible to have too many forums and its also possible to have forums that are too busy to be easily used.

I guess I missed when the word "Dynasty" started to be taken literally. Back in the day it seemed that forum was just for telling the story of whatever you were doing in the game. Maybe it changed when the "simulations" forum was added.

Too many forums can definitely lead to less discussion, a busy forum encourages posting while an empty one does not. It's usually best to create new ones when either demand requires or differentiation is important.

In any case I still think separating the storytelling threads from the question type threads is a good idea.

[Charlie Hough]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Ugh, this is just change for the sake of change.

Strictly speaking, people can get answers in the existing forums. But I'm a fellow forum veteran, and I've found it very annoying that there are so many career sim threads in the historical simulations forum. Yes, I can work around it, and I like to read about people's sims and stories on occasion, but originally the historical forum was more focused on historical game setup, settings, output, troubleshooting, etc. There seems to be much less of that since the dynasty reports have taken over, although that's a correlation and not necessarily causation.

We should also think of this from a new user's perspective, where reorganizing things would make it easier and more intuitive for someone who is new to jump in and understand the right place to post career sim reports and stories versus other topics related to setting up and customizing a historical or fictional game, tweaking settings, troubleshooting issues, etc.

Also, from a usability standpoint, when you have a bunch of dynasty reports mixed in with the those other topics, and a user wants to use the search within the forum, it means a greater risk of search terms being mentioned in those unrelated dynasty posts, and you can end up having to sift through more results to find what you need.

[Ktulu]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

Strictly speaking, people can get answers in the existing forums. But I'm a fellow forum veteran, and I've found it very annoying that there are so many career sim threads in the historical simulations forum. Yes, I can work around it, and I like to read about people's sims and stories on occasion, but originally the historical forum was more focused on historical game setup, settings, output, troubleshooting, etc. There seems to be much less of that since the dynasty reports have taken over, although that's a correlation and not necessarily causation.

We should also think of this from a new user's perspective, where reorganizing things would make it easier and more intuitive for someone who is new to jump in and understand the right place to post career sim reports and stories versus other topics related to setting up and customizing a historical or fictional game, tweaking settings, troubleshooting issues, etc.

Also, from a usability standpoint, when you have a bunch of dynasty reports mixed in with the those other topics, and a user wants to use the search within the forum, it means a greater risk of search terms being mentioned in those unrelated dynasty posts, and you can end up having to sift through more results to find what you need.

You explained it better than I did. 100% agree with this. I know I've gone to the historical sim forum several times to look up how to do something or if X is possible and it's frustrating to sort through mix of results. New users are also probably discouraged from asking questions when the forum is dominated by story type threads.

[Charlie Hough]

Originally Posted by Brad K

Dynasty is the wrong word Not everyone is playing to bury the opposition. The division should be fictional sims and historical sims.

I believe the "dynasty" term comes from the Front Office Football sim, where long-term career sims are called dynasties. If I remember correctly, Markus played that sim, and, when he created OOTP, he adopted the same terminology. He started calling long-term OOTP sims dynasties, regardless of the user's intent to build a "dynasty" in the traditional sense.

But you're right that this is probably a dated term, and since OOTP now describes this as career play or career mode in the game, it would make sense to call them "career simulations" or something similar.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

Strictly speaking, people can get answers in the existing forums. But I'm a fellow forum veteran, and I've found it very annoying that there are so many career sim threads in the historical simulations forum. Yes, I can work around it, and I like to read about people's sims and stories on occasion, but originally the historical forum was more focused on historical game setup, settings, output, troubleshooting, etc. There seems to be much less of that since the dynasty reports have taken over, although that's a correlation and not necessarily causation.

We should also think of this from a new user's perspective, where reorganizing things would make it easier and more intuitive for someone who is new to jump in and understand the right place to post career sim reports and stories versus other topics related to setting up and customizing a historical or fictional game, tweaking settings, troubleshooting issues, etc.

Also, from a usability standpoint, when you have a bunch of dynasty reports mixed in with the those other topics, and a user wants to use the search within the forum, it means a greater risk of search terms being mentioned in those unrelated dynasty posts, and you can end up having to sift through more results to find what you need.

It will be interesting to see how fast a historical forum strictly for questions and such withers away into oblivion. Then again, such a thread may draw the attention of the blow hards that don't play historical, but think they know the answers to all things OOTP related. Same folks love to voice their opinions on how historical should work and most of their opinions would ruin historical overnight if implemented. If that happens it could really take off and become a popular place to post. Of course, 90% of the posts will be utter garbage, but hey it won't have to do with people enjoying the game. I'm off now to run some tests.

[Charlie Hough]

Originally Posted by David Watts

It will be interesting to see how fast a historical forum strictly for questions and such withers away into oblivion.

That's what the historical forum effectively was for many years, and it did perfectly fine. I'm not sure why this seems like a doomsday scenario for you, but if this change is implemented, we will all see how it goes.

As it is, online forums have been effectively dead for years, and they have rapidly aged out as a way to discuss games and products. Everything has long since moved on to other platforms, apps and social media channels, for better or for worse. Inevitably, this means forums are going to decline in activity and popularity, no matter what you do. It's largely only the long-term veteran user base that continues to use them heavily.

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

That's what the historical forum effectively was for many years, and it did perfectly fine. I'm not sure why this seems like a doomsday scenario for you, but if this change is implemented, we will all see how it goes.

As it is, online forums have been effectively dead for years, and they have rapidly aged out as a way to discuss games and products. Everything has long since moved on to other platforms, apps and social media channels, for better or for worse. Inevitably, this means forums are going to decline in activity and popularity, no matter what you do. It's largely only the long-term veteran user base that continues to use them heavily.

Not doomsday at all. Life goes on and I will live with whatever decision gets made. It might actually be kind of fun giving the patrol boys more stuff to report to the mods and or demand to be moved to the proper place. I'm not someone that likes to do long running reports like Brad and Luckyman do. I suck at writing, I'm not creative and I'm a serial starter and stopper when it comes to leagues. One thing I do like to do is discuss things that happen in my leagues. Where do I do that to not offend a patrol boy? Back during 16, Actionjackson and I had a year long discussion thread that was nothing more than us comparing stuff that was going on in our leagues. Lots of folks joined in. Little did I know we were upsetting the masses by creating clutter. Oh and back in the day a certain forum legend Vanilla Gorilla got me hooked on Random Debut by posting some of the greatest league reports ever in the Historical Forum.