When we have the new creative-focused forum thing, are we still going to have a chill chatting section?





Will I still be able to run forum games? ;_;

Thanks guys, and of course we'll still have general hang out areas, our early intentions are to trim lesser used areas and promote the creative sections up a bit more. There will likely be a period of experimentation just to see how these changes impact the forum.

Well, I'll stick with this place til the end, dude. Hopefully at least.

By the way, now that Jeff is back, should we discuss whether we should relinquish the ban on deleting self-posts? I think it's been a hot minute since the incident, and after discussing with a few mods here, while there isn't much harm in keeping the system as it is, by principle I think the right to delete your own posts is warranted.

Anyways, just felt like we'd get the topic out there.

I think in the interim that should be fine. I'd like for things to be more fun and less strict around here anyway, since we're not trying to keep a large group of people orderly and it's easier to know when things have crossed a line. On that note if any of you do come across any rules that were put in place during a period of higher activity that aren't really necessary now, feel free to bring it up here. I'm going to be taking a hard look at the structure of the forums today to see if I can devise something new. We'll discuss it here first before anything is done.

Okay so here's my first draft of the revisions I'd like to make to the forum structure. I've included a bunch of notes and reasoning to show my thought process for each change. I want to get this changed soon because we're also sorting out the first cash prize competition and I think they should happen close together. Let's talk about this over the weekend and into next week, and as soon as we're confident in these changes I'll put them into action.

The Bat Cave
- The Bat Lounge
- Infractions
- Reports

StickPage Official
- News & Announcements
- Competitions
- Animations & Games

Creative - For sharing work and giving C&C
- Animation Den
- Artist Alley
- Writers Lounge

- Kitchen Sink (catch-all for lesser used mediums, use tags to identify medium type)
- Works In Progress

Skill Building - For learning and improving your creative skills
- Collaborate
- Challenges
- Resources
- Official Tutorials
- Community Tutorials
- Questions & Answers (Help)

Off Topic
- Introduce Yourself
- General Discussion
- Poll Central
- Trash Can

Stick War Universe
- Stick Empires

- Stick War

- Guild Hall

Rock Hard Gladiators
- Getting Started
- Character Registry
- Clan Registry
- Battle Zone


Notes and Reasoning:
- General and Off Topic are pretty much the same thing. They have been consolidated into one section that comes after creativity-focused sections.
- The debate forum isn't used and will be axed.
- Tutorials section is underused and too fragmented. We don't need tutorials per-program, especially when barely anyone uses some of those tools now. Right now I think we only need 2 tutorial forums: one for tutorials produced officially or promoted officially (Official Tutorials) and one for anyone to contribute to.
- Tutorials forums will use tags to identify tutorial subject (eg [Animation],[Coding],[Art],etc.)
- Tutorials section will be renamed to promote the idea of education and learning. Name not final.
- Help and Resources from the old General section will be moved to this new education section as they are related. Tutorials for learning, Help for asking questions, and Resources for sharing utilities and other stuff.
- Stick Empires section is not just about Stick Empires - renamed to Stick War Universe in line with branding.
- There are too many top-level forums that could be scoped better. Since Stick Empires refers specifically to the online community, and Stick War is for the single player games, we can just use these to scope forums into subforums. So, Stick War games will be found under the Stick War forum, Stick Empires general and strategy forums can be found under the Stick Empires forum. Guild Hall can stay top-level since it could span across games if they wanted.
- RHG section is moved to the bottom since we're only supporting the system superficially at this point due to the new system on it's way. The naming conventions of the section are all over the place, so I'm renaming them to be consistent. wRHG will be changed to line up with this
- Show Off could be renamed, may not ideally represent what the section is about (it's not just about dumping your shit and leaving)
- Animation Attack moved to the education section (since it's more about building skill than sharing your work) and renamed (again, name not final)
- We don't need the word "community" before every forum in the creative section. I like the name "Writer's Lounge" as being less formal, so let's give all the forums creative names. Names aren't final, let's talk about these unless they're fine as is. The naming convention of using the job title might be a little confusing.
- Writer's Lounge is set up a little weird, the forum itself doesn't really need an "Original Literature" subforum, the forum itself could serve that purpose at it's top level, with wRHG being a subforum.
- "Community Projects" seems vague. This is a dumping ground for WIP promotions and collabs? We could rename this to be more clear OR split these. I cannot decide which is better, since I don't think either would be used that much. For now I'm putting a WIP forum in the creative section for people to post tests, WIPs, or tease upcoming projects, and I'm putting a Collaborate forum into the learning section - simply because that section is about actually doing work and I feel it fits in better with that theme.
- "Community Animations" again doesn't need separate subforums per-program. "Animation" should be a general theme here, so we'll consolidate this section into one forum.
- The general heirarchy of the forum should go towards promoting creative-oriented discussion. The general forum is fine - and arguably a staple of SP - but it shouldn't be the first impression for visitors. In it's current place it sits as the first truly community-oriented forum that visitors land on. I am moving it down into the off topic section - because that's where it fits best. I am also moving it below the introduction forum so that new visitors are pointed there first to introduce themself.

Also do you all mind having Bat Cave at the top? Or would you rather have it at the bottom? I initially put it at the top so that we'd be forced to see if there are new posts here before moving on to other sections.

I actually prefer having the Batcave on top for that very reason, so yeah probably keep it that way~

In any case, I'm liking the changes. They seem fine, though I'll let the others speak about the other sections since I visit them less and focus more on mine.

I sort agree that the Show-Off section could use a name change to better represent the type of place it is. Maybe "Feedback Exchange"? It is basically a place where peeps go to get some opinions about their work, and ways to improve it from others so it fits quite well.

As for the Writer's Lounge, I don't think the name should be change. The name is fine as it is honestly. Although maybe it could be adjusted to refer to the whole group of writers like "Writers' Lounge", but maybe that's being too much. It's just that a lot of writers are just used to being called the Lounge, and I don't think I could find a better name to replace it with. Besides, I think it fits with the proposed names for the new Art and Animation sections (which I like a lot).

In any case, the changes to the Lounge makes sense and I agree with them.

Also I agree with the whole Community Projects section, honestly it's always confused me to what it is exactly. I think splitting it would be best? Though the plan for it for now is fitting for it. I think that's better.

Also fine with the changes to the Animation forums and Animation Attack (also I like it's name; I dunno I always had a funnny image of attacking someone with animation cells).

Besides those, I'm down with the rest of them~
o w o

Quote from acutelatios

As for the Writer's Lounge, I don't think the name should be change. The name is fine as it is honestly. Although maybe it could be adjusted to refer to the whole group of writers like "Writers' Lounge", but maybe that's being too much. It's just that a lot of writers are just used to being called the Lounge, and I don't think I could find a better name to replace it with. Besides, I think it fits with the proposed names for the new Art and Animation sections (which I like a lot).

Oh, I wasn't intending on changing the name. It's the only one in that section that I like. The others need to align more with it. Though, I went over a few times in my head which makes more sense: Writers Lounge, Writer's Lounge, or Writers' Lounge. I guess all of them technically work.

Quote from acutelatios

Also fine with the changes to the Animation forums and Animation Attack (also I like it's name; I dunno I always had a funnny image of attacking someone with animation cells).

Haha yeah, I don't mind Animation Attack but ultimately I want that section to be for more than just animation challenges. A big part of the new site is a focus on multiple mediums rather than just animation, so with these changes I'm aiming to establish that trend by not favoring one over another when we can just have one forum that includes them all.

Thanks for your input! Much appreciated :D

Just looking over things, how will we be dividing up our three sectional mods? Also, and this is half suggestion, should we start pruning the RHG section? I mean, we still have Cami's list (does she even come around here?), which is never updated anymore, and there are plenty of old RHGs that get bumped on occasion. It would help with preventing that, and make the section a bit easier to mavigate if we just got rid of the older ones.

We have 4 sectionals! I forgot Shadowkirby. ;~;

Quote from Jeff

Also do you all mind having Bat Cave at the top? Or would you rather have it at the bottom? I initially put it at the top so that we'd be forced to see if there are new posts here before moving on to other sections.

Yes I'd rather have it on top for that reason.

I'm still thinking about the Debate Forum and whether or not we should keep it. It's true that it isn't active, but the few times it is I've enjoyed the conversations that have cropped up.

We can just have debates in the Off Topic section. The extremely regulated debate-ness of that place is one of the reasons no one posts there. Allowing opinionated stuff, for better or worse, will make it viable to have in a general chat area.

I like the look of things a lot. I like that both Animations and Writing are at the top, and everything else seems like it will actually be used rather than 60% of the forum being extra stuff.

Can't wait to see the first cash prize contest. Will there be beginner contests as well for less money?

@azure we actually have 5 if you count oxob lol

If possible, I'd like for CJ to pay more attention to the SE section. I know he's busy and all, but the only semi-reliable way of contacting him is through AsePlayer, who's well on his way to being perma-banned and already receiving permanent infraction points.

Hate to say it since it used to be my home around here, but yeah get rid of the debate section. If we have enforceable [SERIOUS] tags for threads in off-topic I think that will serve the exact same purpose