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Should All Specific Game OTs go in the Community Forum?

I have to say I'm surprised at how willing people are to split the forum into further subforums, which I think is completely opposed to what this site has always been. It just brings a level of arbitrariness to the whole thing. Hey, that Steam sales thread is too long and hard to follow, let's send it to its own sub forum with the other deals threads...
 

Shai-Tan

Banned
i dont know about that. i think traffic to ot will drop drastically even if all new games get sent there- but I guess they are leaning that way. for me personally i dont come here for only news -- im not going to sit and refresh a separate forum. i like forums as a big nexus. i recognize mods need to be good stewards otherwise it can get cliquey or out of hand like some of the other free form forums like shack. however i think a nexus or grand central model has some positives that might get overlooked in the drive to put things in neat categories
 

legacyzero

Banned
I at least would like to see OT's stickied, or something to that effect. Especially the most popular ones at the moment IE: Batman Arkham City, Modern Warfare 3, BF3, Uncharted.

Just my two cents.
 

Gowans

Member
Im_Special said:
A big part of why no one checks the Community section, and why its known as the place where threads go to die, is because when threads get moved there the "flavor of the week game" has already passed its prime, the OT has already been in the main Gaming forums for weeks/months, and has slowed down already, only the die hard and LTTP people are still posting. If all OT were moved into there own OT section on day 1, they would still get visited by anyone where that thread is relevant, and would give older OT probably more exposure too, since if an old game shot up to the top of the page, maybe people would see that and wonder why and get interested.

Agreed.

I find it bonkers that people are also posting that if all OTs are moved to Community or a OT forum people would not visit and things would carry on as they do now.

I love OTs when done right but what I love more is being able to find out about the information that interests me most easily.
 
GitarooMan said:
I have to say I'm surprised at how willing people are to split the forum into further subforums, which I think is completely opposed to what this site has always been. It just brings a level of arbitrariness to the whole thing. Hey, that Steam sales thread is too long and hard to follow, let's send it to its own sub forum with the other deals threads...

It's the current system that's arbitrary. There's a Pokemon community thread on the gaming forum, why doesn't that belong in the community section? On the other hand, Dark Souls is a new, popular game with an OT that's been quickly consigned to that section.

If people had a clearer idea of what that board represented, they'd use it more. As it stands, it's all rather nebulous when some communities get to stay here and others simply seem to vanish; some people don't even know where those threads end up.
 

Gowans

Member
I think having all the OTs on one board would give a really good idea of what GAFS playing too, League or Legends and HoN is really popular there but if you don't visit Community you would never guess.
 
echoshifting said:
It's the current system that's arbitrary. There's a Pokemon community thread on the gaming forum, why doesn't that belong in the community section? On the other hand, Dark Souls is a new, popular game with an OT that's been quickly consigned to that section.

If people had a clearer idea of what that board represented, they'd use it more. As it stands, it's all rather nebulous when some communities get to stay here and others simply seem to vanish; some people don't even know where those threads end up.
That's what I meant I guess I wasn't clear. There's certainly an arbitrariness to splitting certain "gaming" threads into Community. It's especially arbitrary now as only certain ones seem to get banished.

But there's also an element of arbitrariness in just saying, hey let's single out OTs and put them in a different forum. I think no matter what people say, it would be unlikely to have a fraction of the traffic of the "Gaming" forum (which becomes a misnomer as you split gaming discussion threads out of it) and it hurts those threads.

I think inherently the concept that OTs are entirely "community" focused is flawed. Sure a lot of the same people post heavily in them, but they are also a source of information for people who are less familiar with the game. Separating them seems pointless to me.
 
I think the current formula works for now. Bottom line is that the gaming section is the most viewed and it's best not to move popular threads like OTs to a lesser viewed community forum so quickly. It seems like OTs have been moving to the community section after 2 weeks of the game's release. That works for me because all the hype, news and whatnot dies down and then it turns into more community discussion.

As for the Pokemon community thread, it will eventually be moved to the community forum but in order to gain exposure, it is in the gaming forum. Idk, I just feel that moving big threads like OTs would split the traffic, and possibly community. It works the way it does now where those threads move to community after a few weeks.
 

Macca

Member
The community forum should be for exactly that, communities.

Why not have say the gears 3 OT in gaming and a gears 3 community thread in that forum. That way the OT wont become like an irc channel but a community will still be able to grow.

New news does require new threads, I think it'll just take some time before the forum works out what is and isn't worthy.

Although the first thing in an OT should be a list of updates and smaller pieces of news that aren't thread worthy.

I think this would solve a lot of issues. Simply moving threads to the community section isn't going to make information easier to find in official threads.
 

Shai-Tan

Banned
i think it's a mistake to assume community is unpopular only because the forum doesnt have a clear purpose. im often drawn to threads because they are there in the general forum. i wouldnt often be trolling for that type of discussion specifically which is why i think a subforum for it will languish. many of the types of threads in general benefit from the more casual connection of people coming to read about and discuss games.
 

Coen

Member
GitarooMan said:
I have to say I'm surprised at how willing people are to split the forum into further subforums, which I think is completely opposed to what this site has always been. It just brings a level or arbitrariness to the whole thing. Hey, that Steam sales thread is too long and hard to follow, let's send it to its own sub forum with the other deals threads...

I agree. NeoGAF's success stems from its simple Gaming - Off Topic split, concentrating discussion within a handful active topics. Creating subfora for news and community type threads would needlessly segregate and harm discussion. I'd rather have mods dissolve Community entirely, merging it with Gaming.

Ideally, I'd like a personalized top in both Gaming and Off Topic, showing threads I've subscribed to instead of the stickied ones we have now in Off Topic. Although I'm not sure if that's technically possible.
 

Scotch

Member
I think either every OT post-release should be moved to the community forum, or none at all. The situation right now it too arbitrary.

I also think once all OT's are created in the community forum, it will no longer be "the place where threads die". Right now I never go there because it mostly has threads for older games. But if, say, the Battlefield 3 thread was in community right now, I'd click on it.

Still, I think I'd prefer to have just two forums again.
 

Aeana

Member
Scotch said:
I think either every OT post-release should be moved to the community forum, or none at all. The situation right now it too arbitrary.

I also think once all OT's are created in the community forum, it will no longer be "the place where threads die". Right now I never go there because it mostly has threads for older games. But if, say, the Battlefield 3 thread was in community right now, I'd click on it.
Yes. It has to be all or none. If it is only some,the community forum will continue to be a graveyard.

As it is now, it looks like when a thread is moved, the message being sent is "we are tired of seeing this thread on the front page, so let's bury it." which runs directly counter to the idea of "fostering discussion" that has been the goal all along.
 

ghibli99

Member
I didn't know the Community tab existed until it was pointed out here. I like things the way they are. The more tabs/clicks it takes to get to something, the more likely people will miss it.
 

Eggo

GameFan Alumnus
ghst said:
i wouldn't be totally adverse to a fourth forum which served purely as an lOTl cache.

Currently, GAF has three forums, but only two are used. If we went with Gowans007 solution, we're giving people a reason to visit the third, for the most part, unused forum. Fragmenting the user base into four forums when it currently isn't able to sustain three seems like a bad idea. Better to test whether GAF can sustain three separate forums which all have regular traffic instead. The third forum becomes OT's + Community/Online.


Tomat said:
Community is where OT's go to die.

That's what Gowan's idea is trying to fix. Giving people a reason to go to the third forum. Currently, there is no reason to go there. This reminds me of when GAF was only basically the gaming forum, and there was an off topic forum that was a ghost town. People speculated if you moved relevant threads like movie discussion, DVD releases, or tv shows to off topic, people would never go there, so all those threads were on the gaming side. We ended up moving everything over to Off Topic, and then that forum flourished.


Aeana said:
Then we are met with another issue. The "gaming forum" will no longer be about gaming, but about gaming news. Anyone who is actually playing a game will be sent to another forum.

Is this a bad thing? Some people want to read news without having to wade through 3-4 pages of topics that are not news-related. I think a lot of people (myself included) use GAF as a primary source of news.


Aeana said:
Yes. It has to be all or none. If it is only some,the community forum will continue to be a graveyard.

As it is now, it looks like when a thread is moved, the message being sent is "we are tired of seeing this thread on the front page, so let's bury it." which runs directly counter to the idea of "fostering discussion" that has been the goal all along.

Agreed.
 

superbank

The definition of front-butt.
Delete community forum. Move community threads to gaming discussion. Make a new section called news discussion.
 

Aeana

Member
Eggo said:
Is this a bad thing? Some people want to read news without having to wade through 3-4 pages of topics that are not news-related. I think a lot of people (myself included) use GAF as a primary source of news.
Well, let's think about it. What about news that pertains to a game that is already out? Does that then go in the OT, or does it go in the new "gaming news" forum (it would have to be renamed since no actual gaming will be done in the forum)? What about LTTP threads? These are essentially OTs under a different name. Sure, if it is about a game that already has an OT, it can go there, but people also make LTTP threads for games that either are too old to have one, or so old that their OT is impossible to find anymore. What about GAF Plays threads? Non-news threads like this very one we are posting in right now?

I think there comes a point when segregation over complicates things, and I've honestly never felt like OTs ever cluttered up anything.
 

WillyFive

Member
I think we should get rid of the Community forum and merge it with Gaming.

Everyone is in gaming if you want to talk games, they are not going to walk over to the Community forum. The thread will definitely die, and discussion will continue in gaming with LTTP threads that are probably not needed.

Only other way to do it would be to have a new front gate that shows all three boards at once like this:

10rpfy9.png


But that's silly.
 
Eggo said:
Is this a bad thing? Some people want to read news without having to wade through 3-4 pages of topics that are not news-related. I think a lot of people (myself included) use GAF as a primary source of news.
I think this is the crux of the issue. I think it is a bad thing (and there are probably many people on both sides of the issue). The "not news-related" topics to me are just as if not more important than the news posts. I would hate to see the game discussion devalued and GAF to turn into primarily a news feed (but as I said, that seems to be something people disagree on).
 

Man God

Non-Canon Member
Going by thread counts and views you'd probably want to leave all the OT nonsense in gaming and turn community into the news section...
 

Double D

Member
There's currently something like 4600 people currently viewing the gaming forum and 194 people viewing the community forum. I'm willing to bet that out of that 4600 number in the gaming forum, way more than 194 people are colloectively viewing OT's. But, when those OTs move to Community, they'll just drop off based on the fact that they are in the sub-forum.

And I read a few posts ago that the Gears 3 OT is already in Community? Wtf? I haven't even started the game yet!
 

Gowans

Member
On the same page Eggo.

I think it stands out for us who have been on GAF a long time now that we can see the issue of OTs and Mega threads actually diluting the information on here.
 

LuchaShaq

Banned
Honestly I avoid game specific OTs because anything outside of OMG HYPE is shouted down/flamed to hell gamefaqs style so there is no reason to post unless you LOVE the game.
 

Aeana

Member
LuchaShaq said:
Honestly I avoid game specific OTs because anything outside of OMG HYPE is shouted down/flamed to hell gamefaqs style so there is no reason to post unless you LOVE the game.
Nah. You just need to learn to ignore the big personalities. They'll get over it.
I love OTs because I love having an ongoing discussion with people as we all play a game together.
 

TheExodu5

Banned
superbank said:
Delete community forum. Move community threads to gaming discussion. Make a new section called news discussion.
I agree.

Gaming News
Gaming Discussion
Off Topic

The main issue with the Community forum is this: most people that are posting in those threads likely have the thread on Subscription and are never actually go to the Community section itself.

Personally, I have the option checked to subscribe to every thread I post in, and vary my time in between "Subscriptions" and the other two sections. I have no reason to visit Community.
 
Aeana said:
Yes. It has to be all or none. If it is only some,the community forum will continue to be a graveyard.

As it is now, it looks like when a thread is moved, the message being sent is "we are tired of seeing this thread on the front page, so let's bury it." which runs directly counter to the idea of "fostering discussion" that has been the goal all along.

gotta admit - this's the first (& only) thing that occurred to me when seeing the dark souls ot title change, particularly considering the extended lifespan of the (almighty) demon's souls ot. not really seeing any other rationale, & throwing in the facts that the game was released only 3 weeks ago, & is, for all its connectivity, still primarily a single-player experience, only makes the decision seem even more arbitrary...
 

Double D

Member
Aeana said:
Nah. You just need to learn to ignore the big personalities. They'll get over it.
I love OTs because I love having an ongoing discussion with people as we all play a game together.

Exactly. OTs are some of my favorite Gaf threads. They are a place to discuss a game that everyone else is playing. Which, at least in my case, is the reason I go to video game message boards in the first place. Everything else is just extra.
 
I do feel like this forum is getting flooded with OTs, megathreads, and community threads masquerading as news threads and the news threads are getting pushed back too quickly. Take the Phoenix Wright and Nova in UMVC3 thread for example. There's nobody talking about Phoenix Wright and Nova in there.
 

Aeana

Member
Oni Link 666 said:
I do feel like this forum is getting flooded with OTs, megathreads, and community threads masquerading as news threads and the news threads are getting pushed back too quickly. Take the Phoenix Wright and Nova in UMVC3 thread for example. There's nobody talking about Phoenix Wright and Nova in there.
This is why the moderation staff needs to get back to actively encouraging new threads for new news. Also, it might be good to realize that people do want a community thread for upcoming games, and having those might keep some of the nonsense out of news threads as well. Mega threads always breed insulation and they always go "off topic" as it were.
 

Eggo

GameFan Alumnus
Aeana said:
Well, let's think about it. What about news that pertains to a game that is already out? Does that then go in the OT, or does it go in the new "gaming news" forum (it would have to be renamed since no actual gaming will be done in the forum)? What about LTTP threads? These are essentially OTs under a different name. Sure, if it is about a game that already has an OT, it can go there, but people also make LTTP threads for games that either are too old to have one, or so old that their OT is impossible to find anymore. What about GAF Plays threads? Non-news threads like this very one we are posting in right now?

I think there comes a point when segregation over complicates things, and I've honestly never felt like OTs ever cluttered up anything.

The answer to this would be evaluate what happens when OT's are moved to the third forum. Essentially, you want to balance out the traffic so it's not lopsided like it currently is. If you're able to split the current traffic of the gaming forum into two different forums (Gaming + OT/Community/Online), then threads are given a better chance at survival, whereas now the current gaming forum moves too quickly. As long as the rules of what goes where are clearly defined, people won't get lost and will adapt.

To me, the Off Topic forum as it currently is is perfect. I only have to check 1-2 pages to get the feel for what's going on in Off Topic on any given day. If I want to see what's going on in gaming, I have to go 4+ pages deep, which is too much.
 

Snuggles

erotic butter maelstrom
I like what we have going right now. It's probably safe to say that most of us, aside from a dedicated bunch, don't care to see the Halo or WoW threads on the front page at all times. Those that regularly participate in the threads aren't effected, and it removes a bit of clutter for the rest of us. If anything, the Community forum encourages tight-knit, insular communities (that tend to talk about more than just the game/topic) so it makes sense to tuck them away since the average lurker or poster won't ever take part in the thread.

But with most OT's, I'd prefer to keep them in Gaming since part of GAF's appeal is it's lack of dedicated forums for everything. It keeps discussion active at all times, you'll never log into GAF and see stale threads on the front page. I keeps my two tabs open and I'm set. :)
 

TheExodu5

Banned
Aeana said:
This is why the moderation staff needs to get back to actively encouraging new threads for new news. Also, it might be good to realize that people do want a community thread for upcoming games, and having those might keep some of the nonsense out of news threads as well. Mega threads always breed insulation and they always go "off topic" as I were.

There's always some news that won't make it out of the OTs. Steam sales are a good example...you don't want a new thread created for every daily sale out there.

Snuggler said:
I like what we have going right now. It's probably safe to say that most of us, aside from a dedicated bunch, don't care to see the Halo or WoW threads on the front page at all times. Those that regularly participate in the threads aren't effected, and it removes a bit of clutter for the rest of us. If anything, the Community forum encourages tight-knit, "exclusive" communities (that tend to talk about more than just the game/topic) so it makes sense to tuck them away since the average lurker or poster won't ever take part in the thread.

But with most OT's, I'd prefer to keep them in Gaming since part of GAF's appeal is it's lack of dedicated forums for everything. It keeps discussion active at all times, you'll never log into GAF and see stale threads on the front page. I keeps my two tabs open and I'm set. :)

That's true. Moving only the big threads to Community isn't too bad since they don't really need the exposure. It's still a tough call as to what should go there, however. I think Dark Souls may be a tad premature, as discussion really hasn't devolved into the usual Community thread type discussion so far. Everything is still mostly on topic and there are a lot of newcomers to the game.

Halo? WoW? LoL? HoN? Gears? I think they're okay on the Community side of things.

I think the fact that Dark Souls is singleplayer is one thing that doesn't sit well with me. The game has a limited shelf life, and discussion will eventually die down to almost nothing. Putting it in the Community thread ensures that the thread will be largely ignored in a few months time.
 

Aeana

Member
TheExodu5 said:
There's always some news that won't make it out of the OTs. Steam sales are a good example...you don't want a new thread created for every daily sale out there.
News that comes on a regular basis, in a steady stream, deserves a thread dedicated to that stream, provided that the thread is easy to follow and navigate. That means if I go into a thread about Sfeam sales, I had better find information on Steam sales and not pages and pages of discussion with a new Steam sale posted every couple of pages. That is too much of a pain to wade through.
 

TheExodu5

Banned
Aeana said:
News that comes on a regular basis, in a steady stream, deserves a thread dedicated to that stream, provided that the thread is easy to follow and navigate. That means if I go into a thread about Sfeam sales, I had better find information on Steam sales and not pages and pages of discussion with a new Steam sale posted every couple of pages. That is too much of a pain to wade through.

We're kind of running into that issue with the Steam thread now. The mods threatened to move the thread to Community since it was getting so off topic. If it were to move to Community at that point, would we be expected to create a new thread on Steam News? It's a confusing situation.

To be honest, I'm mostly fine with how things are at the moment. I think we're in a much better situation now than we were 2 years ago, thanks to some much needed restructuring and the encouragement for creating new threads for new news.

Dark Souls is just nagging at me a little bit, since it's not a community focused game.
 
TheExodu5 said:
I agree.

Gaming News
Gaming Discussion
Off Topic

The main issue with the Community forum is this: most people that are posting in those threads likely have the thread on Subscription and are never actually go to the Community section itself.

Are you volunteering to solve whatever conflicts arise when the MLP:FiM topic is moved back into Off Topic under such a system?
 

TheExodu5

Banned
Gentleman Jack said:
Are you volunteering to solve whatever conflicts arise when the MLP:FiM topic is moved back into Off Topic under such a system?

I think I will recall my vote in fear of the consequences of such an action.
 

superbank

The definition of front-butt.
TheExodu5 said:
Gaming News
Gaming Discussion
Off Topic
Ah yes, that's a better name.

To explain further since my post was short but the idea I think is pretty good: Community is a tainted name. If we did move all OTs to community people would eventually move there but there would be a lot of complaining because of it's past. And community threads are actual gaming discussion (right?) as opposed to discussion about gaming news.

Mainly I use GAF as a gaming news site because I haven't really bought and played any new games in a while. A section where I can read just the news would be perfect.
 

Snuggles

erotic butter maelstrom
TheExodu5 said:
I think the fact that Dark Souls is singleplayer is one thing that doesn't sit well with me. The game has a limited shelf life, and discussion will eventually die down to almost nothing. Putting it in the Community thread ensures that the thread will be largely ignored in a few months time.

Yep, I'm with you on that. I was disappointed to see it's being moved, since I participate in the thread, but irregularly. I don't visit community often, so I'll probably forget about the thread all together once it gets deported. I'm assuming they're doing it because the thread is so active, but it's much different than a Halo or WoW thread since like you said, it's single player and there are new players getting on board almost every day.
 

Aeana

Member
TheExodu5 said:
We're kind of running into that issue with the Steam thread now. The mods threatened to move the thread to Community since it was getting so off topic. If it were to move to Community at that point, would we be expected to create a new thread on Steam News? It's a confusing situation.

To be honest, I'm mostly fine with how things are at the moment. I think we're in a much better situation now than we were 2 years ago, thanks to some much needed restructuring and the encouragement for creating new threads for new news.

Dark Souls is just nagging at me a little bit, since it's not a community focused game.
There was a period when new threads for new news were encouraged, but we have regressed dramatically. Now mega threads with title updates are encouraged instead.
 

TheExodu5

Banned
Now, I'm just brainstorming here, so feel free to reject my foolish ideas, but another possibility would be a sort of hybrid page.

You know how the Sticky threads and Gaming are two subsections on the same page? How would GAF react to the OTs being in another subsection at the bottom of the page. Or news in a separate subsection at the top.

It's probably a really dumb idea...like I said, I'm just brainstorming.

edit: a very obvious issue with this system would be that the number of threads per subsection on page 1 would be cut in half. That might be detrimental to smaller threads, as they would fall off the front page faster.

Aeana said:
There was a period when new threads for new news were encouraged, but we have regressed dramatically. Now mega threads with title updates are encouraged instead.

Hmmm...yeah I kind of see what you're saying. While I appreciate the title updates, it's not realistic to expect the mods to be in every thread at all times, and some news will certainly get lost in the mix.
 

KorrZ

Member
I think trying to ship OT's out of gaming section would just be detrimental in the long run. I don't really see the problem anyways, OT's are all over the main page because it's gaming discussion, I figure the main thing to talk about games is the actual games themselves. Take the Dark Souls thread, it's been a juggernaut and hasn't left the main page since it came out. Once it gets moved to Community on Friday it's probably going to slow down significantly.

One of the best parts about GAF is that you don't have to go to all different kinds of sub-forums to get to the stuff you want to talk about. What would gaming discussion really even have without OT's anyways? News...? I mean how many "best gaming soundtracks" etc. threads can you really have?
 

Macca

Member
I think a game like dark souls would do fine in the community forum and don't really expect much drop off. If someone wants information ob Dark Souls they will find the OT.

There are definitely games that would suffer. Take Alice: madness returns for example alot of people expected it to be bad, but were surprised to find it wasn't due to the OT. I can't see this happening in another sub forum. Same with a lot of Indie games.
 

TheExodu5

Banned
Aeana, I'm really starting to see your point on the megathreads issue. I just realized that Modern Warfare 3 comes out in 2 weeks and I don't know a single thing about it because all of the news is buried in a 2000+ post thread.
 
TheExodu5 said:
Aeana, I'm really starting to see your point on the megathreads issue. I just realized that Modern Warfare 3 comes out in 2 weeks and I don't know a single thing about it because all of the news is buried in a 2000+ post thread.
come on, that's not true at all.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=440227

all the information has been updated into the OP by the thread creator. That is the duty of thread creators.
 
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