Possible forums reorganization

[Hyde]

Do you mind if I do a bit more forums organization (or ask you to do it)?

OR ... and this is 100% fine ... assume that any non-AO forums content is going to be hosted on separate portals and each game only gets an individual forum here that points to the portal forum.

Otherwise its going to be REAL easy for non-AO players to get very very lost in our forums, as they are implicitely about AO

I'd like to see:

* "AP outside of Anarchy Online" as a main topic header (like "General Forums")
* "Anarchy Online" as a main topic header
* All AO-specific main topics (and there are a TON of them) all go under "Anarchy Online" ("Org Life and Activities", "Org Management and Departments", "Guides", "Mutual Help".
* Possibly add "AO: " to the above AO-specific main topics just for a bit more clarity.

Then any additional needed sub-forums for particular games easily fit in the "AP outside of Anarchy Online" main topic and non-AO players can easily see that other forums that already exist are AO-specific

NOTE: it isn't that these same topics wouldn't have some value in other games ... but ... first they are probably more detailed than will be needed for other games UNLESS AP fully moves. Second, they are currently AO-specific and I'm not sure you would want to have info on multiple games in each subform confusing thing (in fact, I'm sure you wouldn't).

And again, if we choose to host AP-not-in-AO forums elsewhere and point people there ... it avoids all of the mess that the above is trying to cure and is possibly easier for non-AO players to compartmentalize. However then it begs the question of ... are they really AP if they don't have login access to this forum?

PS. Just as in AO, many people in other games will virtually never use forums. MOST will sign up on their portal once though. So ... again ... do we want to require that to be here ... or there?

[Chrisax]

I was already on it. Good points indeed. I'll start the thing and then then I'll be really glad if you help as there will be many improvements and changes to do in the future, even close future.

General remarks (agreeing with Hyde's BTW):

• - I think we need a central AP web location, as we ALL are AP's, and, then, clear and immediately "sections" for each game so people can easily find what they need. Call that a "root" with branches maybe.
  
  - I think that, with a "root", members will be able to know better what is happening with AP as a whole and what is happening in the games they don't play (but might want to join some day)
  
  - I also think that if we have full control of the our web presence, it will be technically much better than having to deal with various services we don't really control.
  
  - On the other hand, I believe we should use all opportunities (and technical features) offered (like forums supplied to guilds by game publishers themselves), even if it's just to redirect the audience to our central point.
  
  - I think we have to start with a reorganization of our forums here BUT I am almost sure that the web site framework I started to build for AP could be ideal to manage several universes, either with one single forum OR several forums but all accessible from the main site general menu (hence a much easier forums search feature), etc. I'll try to propose some draft, just to get an idea. Well... that's for the future; let's already prepare basic things.
  
  Picture of the site framework in the making:
  

I'd like to see:

* "AP outside of Anarchy Online" as a main topic header (like "General Forums")
* "Anarchy Online" as a main topic header
* All AO-specific main topics (and there are a TON of them) all go under "Anarchy Online" ("Org Life and Activities", "Org Management and Departments", "Guides", "Mutual Help".
* Possibly add "AO: " to the above AO-specific main topics just for a bit more clarity.

Totally! It's on the way.

I assume that when you say "add AO: " to ""topics" as in "All AO-specific main topic" you mean "forums / sub-forums / sections" names?
Because adding "AO: " to all existing topics (threads) titles would encounter several technical problems. (Could only be performed by a direct SQL script on the MySQL database and would cause issues with the titles that already reached the max number of characters.)


Edit:

PS. Just as in AO, many people in other games will virtually never use forums. MOST will sign up on their portal once though.

Yeah, old issue. I still WTB ideas to make people use the web more but I do believe that

- we need to have an info feature / database people need to read often and that will attract them. Information DO attract people because it's useful. (Our Albtraum trade-skills and items guide-which is one of the vey best- got close to 8000 visits and is linked to by several other organizations, and it was never advertised or put in a very visible place. Other posts like Hyde's Lost Eden Research FAQ or Grind's bumping also got thousands of veiws and they are lost among many other posts.) implants, etc.
It's a bit late for AO now as some others exist but could be done for TSW and SWTOR maybe.

- TSW might help us as TSW should use the web for some mysteries to solve and investigations to perfom.

[Hyde]

I assume that when you say "add AO: " to ""topics" as in "All AO-specific main topic" you mean "forums / sub-forums / sections" names?
Because adding "AO: " to all existing topics (threads) titles would encounter several technical problems. (Could only be performed by a direct SQL script on the MySQL database and would cause issues with the titles that already reached the max number of characters.)

Just the higher level forum names (like "Life and Org") should be fine. Anything that is a container rather than an actual sub-forum. Sub-forums would be useful (for search results) when you have time but I know that's a lot of forums. Threads? Noooo.

BTW, the SWTOR.com free guild forums were apparently only for pre-launch ... they're removing them once game goes full live. So a portal is the way to go for ALL guilds, not just a few.

I'm trying to figure out which of the major free guild portals are looking the best for our portal. If we want "free" it will have the portal service name as the domain name. Later, if it is deemed worthy to pay for the site for additional features or to remove ads, we can have a name like "swtor.athenpaladins.org".

Or we could iframe in the entire content of the other site on a virtual server we host for "swtor.athenpaladins.org", too.

[Chrisax]

MUUUUARRRRGH ! Done a first part of the revamp.... Next time I'll send Hyde to the galleys, as he kindly offered. TBH, it was much more complicated than I thought.

And, yes, it's not final and it can't be final. Also, feel free to speak and make suggestions.