Community Poll: How would YOU organize our forums?
TappedOut forum
Posted on May 25, 2015, 10:29 a.m. by Epochalyptik
We're discussing how our forums—particularly our format forums—might best be organized. We're looking for a layout that's user friendly and logically grouped.
Here's the list of our current forums:
Site Updates
Deck Help
Spoilers, Rumors, and Speculation
Economics
Lore
Standard
Modern
Legacy
Commander
Limited
Pauper
The Kitchen Table
Online Magic
TappedOut
Social
Gear
General
The Trading Post
Challenges and Articles
Custom Cards
The Blind Eternities
Here are some questions to guide the discussion:
- Do you think we can group these thematically or categorically?
- Do forums need to be added?
- How do you use the forums?
- What sort of visual layout would be most helpful to you?
Another forum that I've wanted added is Block Constructed. I've never had a discussion on those, but I love making BC decks, and that is something this site could also expand upon.
May 25, 2015 9:08 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #3
I think we should touch briefly upon the relevance of certain formats going forward.
The conversation that sparked this thread was about how we don't have a Vintage forum. We lack a Vintage forum because interest was never really expressed in the format by the community; there wasn't a perceived need for such a forum.
To a certain extent, it's fair to say that people may be interested in a Vintage forum and might not be expressing that interest, so it goes ungauged. It's also fair to say that the existence of a Vintage forum would serve to promote discussion.
However, we should also avoid unnecessary clutter if possible. IF a format doesn't really have a large following, it might be possible to group it with other formats in an "Other" forum of some kind and avoid the need to add more forums.
May 25, 2015 9:16 p.m.
ThisIsBullshit says... #4
The only Vintage decks that I tend to find are casual ones that aren't legal in any other format, and I haven't really seen anybody express interest about it.
After much thought (lol) I think that instead of splitting up all the format forums, why not just have a "Formats" tab (it whatever it's called) and then Modern, Commander, etc. under it? I don't think anybody will have a serious issue scrolling through the page, and I think just adding extras would make it unnecessarily complicated.
May 25, 2015 9:47 p.m.
I don't think I saw anybody specifically mention it before but I would like to see deck help integrated into its format subforum. I have seen too many discussions turn into deck help and vice versa and as somebody who likes to give deck help, but on a particular day is only feeling like talking Commander or modern or whatever there is a lot of scrolling.
Maybe you could implement some sort of flag option. So basically the end result would be the deck help post still ends up in the Commander subfolder but has a flag "help" instead of "discussion". That way people could either filter for the help flags or could filter them out. and I could do a site wide filter to get all deck formats or I could specify by first going into the subfolder.
May 26, 2015 3:48 a.m.
There is a slight blurring of the boundary between deck help and the format forums, because people often discuss theoretical card choices in tier decks in the format forum. So a common post in Modern would be something like 'Bitterblossom in BW tokens'. This /could/ be a deck help thread but in a more general sense it is a discussion of a particular card in the meta and where it could be used to success and where it could not.
The issue I occasionally have, specifically, is if someone says something along the liens of 'I have this BW tokens deck (link) and I was thinking of putting Bitterblossom in it. What is Bitterblossom like in the meta? What does it do well? What does it do poorly?'. The reason I struggle with that is because it is specific deck help but it's phrased in such a way that it's looking for generic advice about the format.
Perhaps I am overthinking things, but it is something I struggle with.
May 26, 2015 5:13 a.m.
And that's why it should get left up to the OP to flag. Either way, I feel like deck help on a modern deck and a discussion about modern stuff both belong in the modern forums. I also think that people will offer more help if all of it is grouped by format.
My two cents at least.
May 26, 2015 6:19 a.m.
Didgeridooda says... #11
Chronoloco not sure there would be enough traffic to justify it's own forum, but I am sure you could start a thread about the format under the kitchen table forum. Then if there is enough traffic/interest in that, I am sure they would make a forum for it.
May 27, 2015 12:52 p.m.
TheAnnihilator says... #12
Trying to devide the format section into "Competitive" and "Social" isn't helpful, as any format can be played competitively or socially (regardless of the majority representation of the players of that format).
I second ChiefBell's Singleton/Non-Singleton/Limited groupings.
May 27, 2015 4:30 p.m.
TheAnnihilator says... #13
Oh, well what do you know... there's a second page... And on a different topic too! xD
May 27, 2015 4:32 p.m.
Personally, I don't think the formats need any more subgrouping. Just have them under the "Formats" heading. Within each of those forums should be a Deck Help subforum for that particular format.
As far as casual/competitive goes (for topics like deck help), just ask that forum users preface their posts with [Casual] or [Competitive] in the thread title. That seems like the easiest fix to me.
May 28, 2015 1:04 a.m.
canterlotguardian says... #15
@BuLLZ3Y3 If you're going to implement something site wide that people have to live with, you don't want to give them a reason to disregard that. (I.e. we have to live with forum titles, but more often than not you'll have people saying "fuck it" and not putting the "Casual" or "Competitive" tags in the deck title.)
May 28, 2015 8:14 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #16
Asking users to do something is basically a no-go from a design perspective. People don't even read warnings.
May 28, 2015 8:18 a.m.
CharlesMandore says... #18
Otherwise I think it's laid out all pretty well; people when posting could probably be a bit more educated, but that's a separate issue.
May 28, 2015 9:01 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #19
Is highlander not sufficiently addressed by the Kitchen Table forum? I don't think it's popular enough on this site to necessitate an additional forum.
May 28, 2015 10:34 a.m.
CharlesMandore says... #20
I suppose, but then again from my perspective the "Portuguese Forum" just kinda appeared. I don't understand all things going on here. I guess highlander is fine.
May 28, 2015 11:58 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #21
Ignore the Portuguese forum for now. Plans for forum rearrangement should not be predicated on precedents set in the past.
May 28, 2015 noon
what about a singleton-other-than-EDH for the rest of them
May 28, 2015 12:05 p.m.
CharlesMandore says... #23
No no, I believe that's the purpose of Kitchen Table. Okay, aside from that all personally I feel the forums are organized just fine.
May 28, 2015 12:10 p.m.
SwaggyMcSwagglepants says... #24
I am soon becoming a Mono Tiny Leaders Player with 1 EDH deck, so I'd really want to see a forum for TL. Also, the places that play Highlander (Germany, Australia, Victoria, and I think its called Melvin?) have probably been wanting a forum. But I think you'd have to have it be a singleton forum like ChiefBell said.
May 28, 2015 7:20 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #25
We've had maybe five to ten threads in the past four years (this is my recollection, anyway) concerning generic highlander. There isn't much community interest in it, and there's no reason highlander threads couldn't go in KT.
In contrast, Tiny Leaders is a popular format, and it has a following on the site, so it deserves a forum first.
The goal here, though, isn't really to add forums. We can add forums if there's significant and reasonable demand, but we really are concerned with organizing what we have or might add into a more presentable, navigable structure.
May 28, 2015 7:23 p.m.
Have you ever incorporated a "live chat" room in this site? If so, how did it go?
I've noticed in some sites it works out great, in others it sucks. It seems to just always depend on the type of audience. The worry here would be people just trying to link their decks and ask for help, which is not what the chat room is for.
Then again, you could grant some forms of administration privileges to users to moderate the chat room. Just thinking out loud.
May 29, 2015 12:37 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #27
We have a draft chat. Also, this is not the place to discuss additional features. If you have an idea for an additional feature, please post it in a new thread.
May 29, 2015 12:40 p.m.
I asked because it is VERY MUCH related to this discussion.
Way too often do I see discussion unrelated to the forum topic, cluttering the actual thread. Simply put, this could help reduce a lot of unnecessary posts for people wanting to just quickly discuss things.
I apologize if you really thought it was that off-topic to make a point about.
May 29, 2015 1:19 p.m.
Didgeridooda says... #29
I think he is saying if you start a thread about it, we could discuss it there. I think it is a topic that could make for a good amount of discussion, so it would be best to have it's own home.
May 29, 2015 1:21 p.m.
Please add a Tiny Leaders forum! Or maybe a forum devoted to miscellaneous formats.
May 29, 2015 3:55 p.m.
I'd like to tackle the TL issue. Is it just that you want a specific place to post TL or is it that you're looking to follow a specific singleton format and want updates when people create new TL discussion?
May 31, 2015 3:14 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #32
@Dreno33: The basic gist of your post was "should we have a chat room?" whereas the basic gist of this thread is "should we rearrange our forums?" If you're trying to make a point, please be more explicit about it. That said, even your followup post is tangentially related at best. We're not discussing unnecessary posts; that's an entirely different issue. This is about organizing the forums to make them more accessible and usable.
To your point: I started several format-specific "chat" threads that serve exactly that purpose. But anyone wanting to have an actual discussion about a particular topic can still post a new thread.
May 31, 2015 5 p.m.
ThisIsBullshit says... #33
Have we ever considered putting deck help under the format for it? So it'd be like:
Modern
Deck Help
Forums
Or something like that, so that way we don't have to scroll through all the deck help threads that are for formats we're not familiar with.
May 31, 2015 5:06 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #34
@Tibbles: See post #5.
Basically, it's doable if we have a hierarchical setup for the forums. But if we don't get that working, I don't want to split our current DH forum up into X new forums that all get top-level listing alongside everything else.
May 31, 2015 5:11 p.m.
yes, that division is coming as soon as the format problem is solved. its a bit ambiguous to me at this point.
May 31, 2015 5:12 p.m.
CaptainCaveman says... #37
I would really like to see a "search" feature to sift through different threads. The other day I was trying to look up a specific thread I had accidentally deleted from subscriptions and it was painstaking to try and remember the user that wrote it and kind of piggy-back from there until I found it. If there is already a search feature, for the life of me I could not find it.
June 1, 2015 2:46 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #38
There's a search feature already. Click the magnifying glass icon in the header.
Once again, this thread is NOT for discussing other site features. It is ONLY for discussing forum arrangement and grouping. Other feature requests should be posted in separate threads.
June 1, 2015 2:59 p.m.
NoviceMagician says... #39
I very much like the groupings outlined by Epoch, but I do agree that the formats could simply go under "Formats" without any division.
June 2, 2015 6:47 a.m.
I think we'd have to do it by format or else they're all just jumbled under format.
June 2, 2015 6:50 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #41
You mean have a separate family for each format? That sort of defeats the purpose of having the groupings.
June 2, 2015 6:54 a.m.
NoviceMagician says... #42
What about organizing them in terms of popularity around the site?
For example, Modern, Legacy, Standard, and EDH seem to be the most popular around the site. Whereas I see little enthusiasm for Vintage, Pauper, and Vanguard amongst the decks.
June 2, 2015 6:54 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #44
It does, but it doesn't do much to help the top-level presentation. The advantage of grouping forums into larger families is that you provide more organization and an opportunity to clean up the forum page with accordions or even just shorter family summaries. And putting all of the formats at the top level is not functionally different from putting all of the formats into the same family. It just doesn't produce the same level of organization.
June 2, 2015 6:59 a.m.
NoviceMagician says... #45
Okay, I's gets its.
I saw that it was talked about, but the only way I see splitting it, would be Singleton/Non-singleton/Limited. There are faults of course, but it is the only way that seems to make sense.
June 2, 2015 7:09 a.m.
Well deck help should be organized by the same format structure eh?
June 2, 2015 7:14 a.m.
JexInfinite says... #47
A current issue is that if you click the 'Forums' button, you just get a list. It doesn't tell you where the most recent posts were. Forums could be more streamlined with a 'Recent threads' in the actual forum section, in addition to homepage.
In regards to the order, you should go (assuming Deck Help is separate) with constructed first, as it is the most popular sub-forum, with the most popular sub-sub-forum at the top, and least at the bottom. After constructed, go with limited, because you want to keep the more serious and Magic related things on top.
BE and non-Magic related stuff belongs at the bottom, and everything in between belongs in between, in sub-forums, like MTG Salvation has. The ability to click on the particular sub-forum you want, then find threads in there is very convenient, and makes it look organised.
June 2, 2015 7:40 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #48
I'm envisioning a three-tiered system where the formats are all grouped into one forum at the top level, then deck help subforums are grouped into the new format subforums.
June 2, 2015 9 a.m.
JexInfinite says... #49
That's logical, with formats being grouped together, and non-formats being shoved to the bottom. Should general be at the top, though, or do we not need it?
June 2, 2015 9:41 a.m.
CaptainCaveman says... #50
I knew i would get flak for my above post. Anyways, I do have a suggestion. Irregardless of how you decide to rearrange the forums. I think something to keep in mind is the use of just basic alphabetization. I presume one of the main reasons to even contemplate changing things is to make it easier to navigate and basic alphabetization is something that is ingrained in most of us. You can go by popularity but that's subjective.
Epochalyptik says... #1
I mean, it would be effortless to slot Bell's format organization into my structure. That's what I've been asking about for a few posts now. But it only makes sense to do so if that's the most logical grouping, and there's disagreement about whether the format subgroupings even need to exist.
May 25, 2015 8:30 p.m.