Suggested New Boards

[CTxCB]

After taking a long look at the current boards on SCIProgramming.com, I thought I'd give some suggestions for extra boards that could be added, which would expand the range of things that can be done. As right now, it seems as if some things are a bit confusing, such as, where to post certain things that do not really meet the criteria of the current board(s) that exist. Here are my ideas:

SCI Programming:
"The SCI Lounge" (For discussing SCI Titles and / or Projects, for getting suggestions on how you can improve your SCI Resource(s) (Such as art, music, scripts, writing, etc.) and / or SCI Game(s), and for finding people to join your SCI Project(s) in "Key Areas" (such as art design, music design, scripting, writing, etc.); Topics in The SCI Lounge are distinguishable by a tag in square brackets at the start of the subject in block capitals: [DISCUSSION], [CRITIQUE] or [RECRUITMENT]. (Such as [DISCUSSION] Phantasmagoria Hidden Files))

AGI Programming:
"The AGI Lounge" (For discussing AGI Titles and / or Projects, for getting suggestions on how you can improve your AGI Resource(s) (Such as art, music, scripts, writing, etc.) and / or AGI Game(s), and for finding people to join your AGI Project(s) in "Key Areas" (such as art design, music design, scripting, writing, etc.); Topics in The AGI Lounge are distinguishable by a tag in square brackets at the start of the subject in block capitals: [DISCUSSION], [CRITIQUE] or [RECRUITMENT]. (Such as [CRITIQUE] Kings Quest III-Style Sprites))

General and Everything-Else: (Suggested Changes)
"The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff" becomes "The Games Room" (This seems like a much better name, since topics that fit either "The SCI Lounge" or "The AGI Lounge" would probably be moved into them to allow them to be found easier.)
"Everything-Else" becomes "Everything Else" (Just because it bugs me!)

[Kawa]

That makes sense, I suppose.

[Collector]

It already had so many subforums. Personally I dislike boards that I have to do a lot of scrolling just to see if there are any new posts. It is also low enough traffic that it doesn't really need sorted even more than it already is. And it was not that long ago that Cloudee redid the board. I just don't see any real benefit. But, in the end it is up to Cloudee.

[CTxCB]

It already had so many subforums. Personally I dislike boards that I have to do a lot of scrolling just to see if there are any new posts. It is also low enough traffic that it doesn't really need sorted even more than it already is. And it was not that long ago that Cloudee redid the board. I just don't see any real benefit. But, in the end it is up to Cloudee.

I can see that... But the point I'm trying to make with this, is that things like discussions, wanting critique, or wanting to recruit others, are all difficult, because there's no real place to allow these things to happen. So, thus, it all ends up going into "The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff", and then it seems to become a mess, especially since making a game for AGI or SCI are two separate processes are are almost unattached from each other, and both require different types of people to do (As in, somebody who makes resources for an AGI Game can't necessarily make resources for a SCI Game), and for the poster this could mean unnecessarily pointing out whether said project is either an AGI or SCI Game unless something alike to my idea was used. I also still think that "The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff" is a poorly thought-out and worded sub-forum name... It's way too long!     

[troflip]

If you want my opinion:

- I also agree with Collector that there isn't enough traffic to merit dividing things up even more. In fact, I think we should have less forums.

- I don't really like the names of the forums we have now. Development Tools, How To's and Syntax Help seem too specific. I find most of the posts I make don't really fit in those categories, and I just pick one at random.

For instance, my post on Documentation. I ended up putting in How TO's and Tutorials (I'm not really sure why). Syntax Help seems wrong. Development Tools seems like a better place (oops), but still not accurate because a lot of it is not SCI Companion specific.

I feel like "Syntax Help" and "How To's" could be combined into one (most of the posts in How To's seem to be syntax-related). I feel like graphics/sound/etc is quite different from code, so maybe those should be two separate forums. I'm not sure Development Tools needs to be a forum, since it overlaps with the others.

If I were designing the forums from scratch, I would have, for SCI:

- SCI scripting
- SCI asset creation (maybe that's a little to techincal... could be "Views, Pics and Sounds" or "SCI graphics and audio".
- Tutorials (currently there are three separate SCI tutorial forums... Tutorials, SCI1.1 Tutorials, SCI Community How To's and Tutorials - just combine these into one.
- SCI general discussion (always need a dumping ground for anything that doesn't fit - in fact "SCI asset creation" could probably be rolled into here.

BUT... changing forum names and re-categorizing stuff sounds like a lot of work. So if I had to change what we have now, I would do:
- SCI Development (combination of SCI Development Tools + SCI Syntax Help)
- SCI How To's (this stays the same - user-submitted code snippets and "here is how I do this" stuff)

Then maybe have another forum for "official" tutorials (not sure what makes something official - maybe follow up replies are not allowed, I dunno). The kind of the stuff that's in the "Tutorials" and "SCI1.1 Tutorials"... so those two combined.

[OmerMor]

I agree with troflip.
Regarding "official tutorials": They belong in a wiki - not a forum. There might be a pinned "offical tutorials" thread in the tutorials forum that links to the relevant wiki pages.

BTW - I usually just start in the recent page because browsing each forum is tedious - especially considering the low traffic.

[Collector]

I agree that the tutorials that are a work-in-progress should be done on the Wiki and once finalized could be published on the main site with the other tutorials. No need to clutter up the forums with half done tutorials. Most here already have accounts on the Wikis anyway. Especially since they worked out the server issues.

[Cloudee1]

- Tutorials (currently there are three separate SCI tutorial forums... Tutorials, SCI1.1 Tutorials, SCI Community How To's and Tutorials - just combine these into one.

  Troflip, those first two located in the staff area (sci and sci1.1) are actually the tutorials that are displayed via the tutorials menu option. They are not public areas. The How To's and Tutorials board is the public area for people to share how it is that they managed to do something. So except for the mods, nobody else gets to see those as part of the forums but instead as stand alone tutorials. Making a board for them does however allow the staff to add to, clarify, or fix any bugs that may be found in them.

Other than that though, the consensus seems to be that the board names need to change... Something along the lines of

• SCI Game Development
• SCI Community How To's
• SCI Lounge