Topic: Major Forum Reorganization - April 4, 2019

[NWR_insanolord]

After a lot of discussion and input from the forum regulars, we've instituted some significant changes to the forum layout.

• Console and Handheld Discussion have been merged into one board, since Nintendo seems to have merged the two themselves and there wasn't enough discussion to justify both even before that.

• Gameplay Strategy, Matchmaking & Smack Talk, and Hardware & Wi-Fi Support have been merged into the new Nintendo Gaming board as well, since they're almost never used. Feel free to post anything that would have gone into those old boards there.

• Reader Reviews is now a child board of Nintendo Gaming.

• General Chat now has a board specifically for movies and TV shows, so we don't have to cram everything into two or three mega threads anymore.

Any feedback on these changes or further suggestions is welcome.

[BeautifulShy]

Thank you for all that worked on the forum changes.

I do like the changes with the child boards so there would be a more types of discussion in the parent boards.

Nothing is coming to mind for any more changes but if I think of something I will post here.

[UncleBob]

I, for one, support an upgrade of the forum software.

[BranDonk Kong]

Agreed. Good job trimming some of the lean though.

[NWR_insanolord]

I, for one, support an upgrade of the forum software.

I think we all would, but sadly that's probably a lot tougher to sell to the higher-ups. This stuff I could just do myself, but that would require more work from other people.

[UncleBob]

Where does all my Patreon money go anyway? 🤣🤣🤣

[Order.RSS]

Looks much better already!
I like how Reader Reviews are more spotlighted this way, should in theory lead to more eyeballs on this type of content people work very hard on (one day I'll read Evan_B's Xenoblade treatise).

Same goes for the movie/TV stuff. Those will probably be most useful to test the use of child boards, since they're high-traffic topics. If their engagement significantly drops over the coming weeks, then we'll know for sure if child boards get less visits. At the moment I mainly see potential for expansion towards several smaller topics, rather than keeping everything in a few giant threads.

I still think the Announcements and NWR Feedback forums could work as a single strand too, "Forum Rules, Announcements & Feedback" or something like that. But this'll do for now.
Is it possible to shift the order of boards around on the main forum page? I think it'd make more sense like this: Announcements - Gaming Section (2 boards) - Community Section (3 boards) - NWR Interactive (3 boards). The General Chat board is much more consistently active than NWR Interactive, and I imagine those topics mostly receive comments through the main site anyway? Just a thought, not sure if possible.

Every single board had new posts today!!! That hasn't happened since the Great Cattank Parade. Thanks a lot Insanolord and whoever's arm you twisted to make this happen, I think it'll lead to a greatly improved user experience.

[BeautifulShy]

To add to one of the things Steefosaurus said maybe instead of having a set order like he described maybe it can be something where it is changeable in the lock and layout portion of folks profile and change it that was for each user. 

[Mop it up]

Change is scary! But nice job.

[NWR_insanolord]

Okay, so looking into the software upgrade thing it actually doesn't seem that complicated, so I'm going to do my best to get it done. There's a new major version of the software coming out soon (we're on 2.0.8, the current one is 2.0.15, and 2.1 is apparently getting really close), and once that's ready I hope to be able to get us upgraded to that one. Based on the description on the site, it sounds like it adds a lot.

[nickmitch]

Hurray for change!

[UncleBob]

Okay, so looking into the software upgrade thing it actually doesn't seem that complicated, so I'm going to do my best to get it done. There's a new major version of the software coming out soon (we're on 2.0.8, the current one is 2.0.15, and 2.1 is apparently getting really close), and once that's ready I hope to be able to get us upgraded to that one. Based on the description on the site, it sounds like it adds a lot.

Yay!

[BeautifulShy]

You know one other thing I thought of just now is a section on the forum where we can enshrine certain historical forum topics that has been posted in over the years. 

[ShyGuy]

It's beautiful!

[Khushrenada]

You know one other thing I thought of just now is a section on the forum where we can enshrine certain historical forum topics that has been posted in over the years. 

I beat you to that years ago:

Finally, there is one more forum that might be worth adding. Whether you'd want to add it to the Community Forum or create another subforum for it altogether is your call but it would be the very bottom and last forum. I'd call it something like NWR History or Previous NWR Content. This forum would be a static forum. No topics created or replies allowed. The point of it is to just toss threads / concepts no longer relevant on NWR but that the site may not want to lose the history on. For instance, the March Madness child board attached to Talkback could be tossed here. Remember Hot Topic? To my knowledge, all those threads were deleted when that forum eventually ended. If we had this Previous Content forum, the threads could have all just been tossed into here. If you don't want to toss the old Wii and DS Friend Code child boards into the Matchmaking forum, here's the place to toss them. This way, these old concepts or outdated applications can still be kept around without cluttering up and bogging down the other forums.

What did happen to the Wii/DS and March Madness subforums?

[BeautifulShy]

You know one other thing I thought of just now is a section on the forum where we can enshrine certain historical forum topics that has been posted in over the years. 

I beat you to that years ago:

Finally, there is one more forum that might be worth adding. Whether you'd want to add it to the Community Forum or create another subforum for it altogether is your call but it would be the very bottom and last forum. I'd call it something like NWR History or Previous NWR Content. This forum would be a static forum. No topics created or replies allowed. The point of it is to just toss threads / concepts no longer relevant on NWR but that the site may not want to lose the history on. For instance, the March Madness child board attached to Talkback could be tossed here. Remember Hot Topic? To my knowledge, all those threads were deleted when that forum eventually ended. If we had this Previous Content forum, the threads could have all just been tossed into here. If you don't want to toss the old Wii and DS Friend Code child boards into the Matchmaking forum, here's the place to toss them. This way, these old concepts or outdated applications can still be kept around without cluttering up and bogging down the other forums.

What did happen to the Wii/DS and March Madness subforums?

I am glad you agree with me. 

[NWR_insanolord]

What did happen to the Wii/DS and March Madness subforums?

They were deleted. The Wi-Fi Connection is shut down, so the friend codes were useless now, and I doubt anybody really cared about the March Madness stuff at this point.

[Khushrenada]

Nooooo!!!! The March Madness was still good to keep. Sure the Wi-Fi stuff could be turfed but I'd rather have kept the March Madness frankly in a NWR History subforum as suggested.

[NWR_insanolord]

The March Madness threads were mostly just voting. There was a little of people arguing their case, but there wasn't much there worth saving.

[ShyGuy]

Somebody change Insanolord's tag to "The forums Marie Kondo"

[pokepal148]

Looks much better already!
I like how Reader Reviews are more spotlighted this way, should in theory lead to more eyeballs on this type of content people work very hard on (one day I'll read Evan_B's Xenoblade treatise).

A-hem!

(I really need to get back to that Monster Hunter thing)

[Mop it up]

But will a forum upgrade remove old posts?

[NWR_insanolord]

We'd be upgrading to a more current version of the same software, so it shouldn't affect the existing posts, just upgrade the interface and features.

[Khushrenada]

But will a forum upgrade remove old posts?

Only pokepal's.

[pokepal148]

It would have been neat to keep the friend code threads around in some form for historical purposes but I'm not going to loose any sleep over them.

[pokepal148]

One thing that would be nice is a dedicated child board for Retroactive discussion threads to have them all in one place and easy to find.

Also reader reviews should probably be under general gaming.

[Khushrenada]

I thought we were keeping Matchmaking as a separate forum. Just realized some stuff in there has now been tossed into Nintendo Gaming.

[pokepal148]

We have the discord now for matchmaking honestly. That subforum has been pretty inactive honestly.

[ejamer]

This is disgusting. I'm never posting here again.

[ejamer]

Eh, ok.  It's grown on me.  I take it all back.

[ejamer]

Good work, on making logical cuts.

[ejamer]

Also, I haven't slept in several days. That's not an excuse... but it kind of is.

[Khushrenada]

I don't know what to believe after that whirlwind journey.

[lolmonade]

One thing that would be nice is a dedicated child board for Retroactive discussion threads to have them all in one place and easy to find.

Also reader reviews should probably be under general gaming.

I agree on both of these.

But yes, I appreciate y'all taking time out of your schedule to trim the fat and make the forum front presentation a bit cleaner.  I don't know how much work goes into that, but I dig it!

[BlackNMild2k1]

I, for one, support an upgrade of the forum software.

SECONDED

Okay, so looking into the software upgrade thing it actually doesn't seem that complicated, so I'm going to do my best to get it done. There's a new major version of the software coming out soon (we're on 2.0.8, the current one is 2.0.15, and 2.1 is apparently getting really close), and once that's ready I hope to be able to get us upgraded to that one. Based on the description on the site, it sounds like it adds a lot.

Awesome!!
what's the new features we could expect, should this long overdue upgrade actually take place?

and one other thing.... do they have to be called "Child Boards"?
can't they be renamed to "Sub-Forum" or something less degrading....?

the other thing, I hadn't left the General Chat in about a week, so it took me a while to even notice the change to the boards. It wasn't till I reloaded a page on my phone instead of the computer, and couldn't find a thread I was just posting in, that I had to back out to the main forum and realized things were different.
50% of all the forums had disappeared. and all our Media talk had moved to a shrunken pocket dimension.

[BlackNMild2k1]

So... umm 9 months later.

Is NWR finally gonna birth this forum update or should someone induce labor on one of the mods to just make it happen already?
It's 2020, the software is like a decade old now.

[pokepal148]

SMF is dragging it's feet on that big upgrade Insanolord is waiting on.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Maybe since everyone is quarantined.... maybe someone can reach out to the SMF team and tell them to get to F'n work on the newest update/upgrade.

Or maybe we can just switch forum software?
Time for BIG changes around the country, why not here too

[BeautifulShy]

I just got a PM from Caterkiller about the Mafia game I was hosting in December.  He says he just got the notification for it today and he has even been on the forums since I sent it.   Fix the broken software and PM notifications!

[BlackNMild2k1]

So since we are apparently NEVER getting a forum upgrade... can we atleast update the old ass ugly emoji icons so I don't have to post, and then immediately go to my phone and edit to place a better emoji in place?

Or you know, just upgrade the software?

Who's manager do I need to speak to around here?
What needs to happen to make an upgrade actually happen? Is it a monetary thing? a time and effort thing? ...do we really need the upgrade to be SMF? There's gotta be better and better supported software out there.