Epicmafia

New Sub-Forums

almost 10 years

This week saw the addition of the latest subforums 'Music', 'Food and Drink' and 'Welcome to EM' with 'Off Topic' being re-implemented. These new sub-forums were put in place by Jasprar (with the consent/recommendation of other members on the mod team) in an attempt to open up the forums to appeal to a wider range of current players whilst also making it more accessible to new players who want to broaden the knowledge of the game and also make friends within the forum community who share similar interests. Although 'General Discussion' encompasses these elements, the addition of the new sub-forums makes everything feel much tidier whilst also sign-posting threads to newer players by making certain areas of discussion more prominently accessible. The previous subforums were more centered around mafia related topics with the exception of video games which proved to be a popular forum, inviting users to discuss and share opinions on a non mafia-related topic. The success of this thread highlighted that niche subforums can attract a wider community, hence why the decision was made to implement sub forums which are more interest based to make the forums more attractive to new players.

TLDR? Start here:

We are not currently looking to delete the new subforums. They are still in the stages of being tested however we are always looking to improve so constructive criticism would be much appreciated to let us know what you think. There is currently deliberation into the merging of certain subforums and also the addition of a media-related subforum so thoughts on this in particular would be extremely helpful. Whilst the deletion of the existing subforums is not priority at this point in time, ideas about how the new subforums as they exist currently could be improved are also welcome if expressed constructively.

This thread should not be about bashing the Food & Drink subforum as a result of what has been said above. It is important to remember that the aim here is to try and utilize the idea of subforums to find ways of making the forums more accessible to all whilst catering to a diverse range of interests.

Obviously the forums cannot be improved or expanded without input from the people who keep it thriving, so ideas that relate to the philosophy that was expressed in the OP are very much appreciated.

deletedalmost 10 years

i bet he didnt even need to copypasta the description.

Sims

almost 10 years

i bet steven goes on gaia

Sims

almost 10 years

do people over 12 actually use gaia

deletedalmost 10 years

you dont see great topics like this every day.

deletedalmost 10 years

this turned out to be a swell topic.

Steven

almost 10 years

IMO so many forums will only confuse new people, who get lost at all the threads they can read at one time. Hard to keep up so they go back to playing.

Steven

almost 10 years

Peta says

Katie says

to be honest, the forums could simply just be Epicmafia, GD, Forum Games and Feedback

Do this

And games

Steven

almost 10 years

Welcome to Gaia's forums, where millions of members gather to discuss random stuff, make new friends, complain about life, argue about nothing, laugh at dumb pictures, discuss serious issues and/or curse like sailors. Come join in already!

Please don't turn EM into this. I don't think Gaia forums are at all comparable to EM, and even if they were they are big enough to have like 40 subforums (not counting). And they STILL don't have a food and drink forum from what I see. Out of the 10 subforums that EM can have, why in the world would you pick that

Peta

almost 10 years

Katie says

to be honest, the forums could simply just be Epicmafia, GD, Forum Games and Feedback

Do this

Duke

almost 10 years

well, social interaction based games like gaia have several sub-forums that arnt "game related"

i guess its just a matter of what this site is. is it a competitive game or a social hangout?

Steven

almost 10 years

The video games subforum should honestly not have existed if not for the fact that we hold video games tournaments all the time here. Discussing video games isn't as important but organizing people for playing risk or bgo is something that happens all the time. The "games" merge was the best (and only good) idea you guys had.

If bugs and complaints were merged, and GD and OT are also merged, food and drink removed, then I agree a combination of "media" (music tv and all that stuff) would be acceptable, so as to have GD, that, and Games

deletedalmost 10 years

Suave Skepticism flip-in.

deletedalmost 10 years

Shivv says

BearGuru is the best. I look up to him. BearGuru is also bored right now. Let him find a way to get out of this boredom. You are my champion, Bear.

...touching...

deletedalmost 10 years

Off-topic is good but yeah, scrap the rest.

Katie

almost 10 years

just a few things that i think personally

honestly i don't see the point in off topic so i think that should be merged back, all the threads in there are basically GD anyway + if i was given the job of moving threads into off topic when it was re-created i wouldn't have known which to move so that kind of suggests it's unnecessary (to me anyway)

i've never liked food and drink as a subforum at all and i was really against it mostly because it has nothing to do with mafia whatsoever and also it sticks out like a sore thumb. a foodie wouldn't think to post in forums about a java mafia game so it doesn't make any sense to me that it's there

in terms of additions i think that music shouldn't warrant its own subforum but instead music, film & television seems to me like more of a logical addition alongside the video games subforum; the internet is a media platform so why not introduce a subforum for other media platforms. if these seem illogical then surely the video games forum should also not exist

also i think that bug reports and complaints could be merged into feedback, but i think that's just me liking a shorter list and not having to scroll all the way to the bottom of what is now a very long list. to be honest, the forums could simply just be Epicmafia, GD, Forum Games and Feedback but i guess it's down to different people's aesthetic preference

.

deletedalmost 10 years

Don't like productive change your mom.

Steven

almost 10 years

Ty shivv

deletedalmost 10 years

Stellar opening by the People's Scribe Steven.

Steven

almost 10 years

Rutab says

Steven: It's not incredibly false actually, I have yet to see more people who disagree with it than who agree with it. So far it's a small group of the same users who don't like productive change.

Don't like productive change your mom. All I see is you guys listening to only your own inner circle and ignoring everyone else because they're complaining.

In all my years in epicmafia, this is the change that has made me the most upset, and even more so because of your stubbornness. I'm legitimately not interested in staying in the EM forums anymore, the only reason I'm still here is to try and bring some sense into you guys, but if every time I try to explain why this idea is dumb you guys respond with stuff like "sorry, we are not going to remove the subforums", then there's nothing I can do.

Forget about all the bad things this is doing by cluttering the forums, forget how completely useless "food and drink" talk is in an EM subforum, forget that in the past cluttering the forums has always led to reverting the changes, forget that talking about these things is what we have TWO subforums for, and forget that literally no other gaming forum does what you're trying to do. No, you're smarter than that. Talking about crepes is exactly what the forums need to bring more users, nevermind encouraging talk about what we all have in common instead: epicmafia.

I've tried to say this nicely, insultingly, condescendingly, everything. You guys just don't want to be wrong. YES, it's a negative impact on the site. But you know what? At /best/ it's completely useless. Whether it's easy to revert or not is completely itrelevant if you guys refuse to do it.

Duke

almost 10 years

that story keeps getting better and better

Peta

almost 10 years

Brakes's Tinder date locked him out of the hotel room in 2013 and he's been sitting in the hallway F5'ing the EM forums ever since

Duke

almost 10 years

epicmafia user plato, formerlyknownas brakes

deletedalmost 10 years

Nope.

Peta