Forums Shake-up!

[czar]

I have to agree in part with lifepower. There is just too many categories and spread too thin. Very few posts for many of the topics.

e.g.,
It is unclear how say "programming graphics" is different from "design creative"

I would rather see sub menus if you wanted to keep so many categories.

Here is a reasonable idea.

You should be able to see all the categories on one screen (1280x1024). Any longer and you have too many major topics.

At least that way you can quickly see where the new topics are.

A little while ago there was a discussion about scaring new users away. I still think too much emphasis on topics that do not interest the majority of visitors.

[Sly]

Personally, I don't see the categories much. My bookmarked link to PGDev is set to the "View new posts since last visit" page. I only think about the categories when I start a new thread, and then that is usually in the Off-Topic category.

[czar]

That is a great idea. Thanks.

[WILL]

Ok well this gives me some good ideas. I will try something this weekend hopefully.

Also, I have yet to put up the new RSS Feed for the Forums. I think people will find this as useful as the View new posts since last visit feature.

[JernejL]

the forum is too big trying to cover too much, is too fragmented which makes browsing topics harder and unorganised, several forums cover same things (like "Game Design" and "Project Planning & Design"), i suggest these changes:

the forums should be reordered by the importance, for example sound is more important than AI (ok, we can argue about this but i hope you get the point)

Delphi, Free Pascal, Kylix, Lazarus forums should be put into an own subcategory "programming tools"

tutorials & help forums could be merged since they deal with same thing, tutorial topics could be pinned there.

network and input could be merged (since technically network is a method of getting input)

game design & getting started should be merged, since if you fail your game design when getting started on a project you're screwed up badly.

"Project Planning" & "Design technical & creative" forums and "Game Design" should be merged into a single "project design" forum

a new forum named "ART" should be created, this forum should have three sections:
3D modeling
2D texturing & sprites
Sound & effects