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
Yum! Talk about food, post pictures of food you ate or made, etc.
given that there's so much stuff in GD/OT, it makes sense that in the current format there would only be one 'megathread' for each sport.
Although Melody is right, Sports may not be popular enough to warrant its own subforum. Just an idea though. I for one would like to have dedicated forum to talk more about sports, as I would like to discuss foreign sports I am know less about with friends across the pond. Threads like that would get swiftly buried in GD/OT, for example.
I for one feel way more comfortable bringing up more specific threads related to different topics given that there's a dedicated place for it. If half the food threads were in GD people would complain they can all be in one thread or something silly, or that it wouldn't fit.
Perhaps the attraction of new players is a bit of a stretch, but I don't really understand why some people are freaking out about this very minor aesthetic change that allows for more diversity.
No one likes sports on EM or I'd be like the front runner for sports considering I love it.
deletedalmost 10 years
Honestly I don't see why you guys think everything has to solve a problem all the time. Sure, we could have done something productive to increase forum activity, but then again, it's fun. Fun is good. Steven I think you need a breather of this is stressing you out because it's probably not going to change any time soon. You're being anti-fun.
The way this was gone about totally wrong and should have been in discussion longer, along with more community opinion, but in the end it isn't a harmful update and it's okay that it's here.
Ideas for subforums that appeal to a wider teen audience: - Rollerblading - Beats By Dre - The Lord of the Rings - Gatorade - FlatFace Fingerboards - Pics of Germatron eating a bag of Doritos
can't make more than 10 subforums. I think a "Sports" one would be a good addition if one of GD / OT gets axed or if Welcome to EM gets re-merged down the line.
And no the forums are not freaking more active. Instead you got the same people that post here to post about food cuz it seems like the cool new thing to do.
And if you think this is not having any negative impact on the forums then why don't you put them below bug reports and see the activity half
Dude no, this is stressing me out like you have no idea. I don't want the epicmafia forums to turn into a food fest
deletedalmost 10 years
Duke: Great idea, but it requires lucid and lately he's been quite the busy guy. Even if he did come back he'd have to look at all the bugs first.
deletedalmost 10 years
Steven I think you need to stop worrying about sole problems for a minute and just think about a rather fun and small addition that didn't take a lot of time to implement. You are completely wrong if you think this didn't spark any forum activity because I guarantee you that there were not going to be that many food threads if there was not a Food and Drink subforum.
TL; DR: Just have fun and post food it isn't hurting anything.
its not like people dislike discussing these things, it just makes to front forum page cluttered.
IMO the best way to implement forums like this would to be make sub-categories like phpBB boards have.
General discussion would be a tier above food and music. you can click on food and music links that are directly under the GD heading (smaller font size). the GD recent post alerts would include food posts and music posts
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alternatively (easier for lucid to implement) you can add a category tier above the current forum tiers. this wont really help the clutter problem, but it will be more intuitive. currently you have a bunch of things not related to the site in between things that are
eg
+Community
++Welcome to EM! ++Epicmafia ++Complaints ++Bug Reports
+Other
++General Discussion ++Forum Games ++Games ++Music ++Food and Drink ++Off Topic
Why do mods keep saying this as if it's any good thing? People talking about food and drink in an epicmafia subforum solves absolutely nothing.
The people that are posting on these subforums are the same people that have always posted on the forums. You guys are just diverting the attention towards (no offense) but dumber discussion.
And let's be realistic, half of the threads and posts there are of people intentionally trying to make the forum alive.
But go ahead, and look at the 20 new threads with 2 pages about food each as if it somehow solved all of epicmafia problems. Hint: it didn't.
There's a reason why all other respectable mafia sites (or gaming forums in general) don't have a food and drink subforum. I really don't think you guys know what you're doing here. Everyone gets excited about "new" things at first, this is just going to keep getting worse.
edit: i've added a tldr for those who got turned off by the op
deletedalmost 10 years
GD vs OT is easy. GD is for good threads. OT is for sh!tposting
deletedalmost 10 years
I think the forums are at a steady pace but will remain a niche unless something drastic is done. That's just what it boils down to at this rate
A less more perhaps drastic solution is fixing up Welcome to EM to threads that cater specifically to newbies as they don't all need to be guides or stickies revolving around the competitive nature from what I've seen
I originally disagreed with the addition of the sub-forums, 'Welcome to EM!' aside, thinking that it would be cluttering up the forums page - but it's been five days and I have still yet to see anything very negative come out of it. In fact, it seemed to have promoted a more diverse discussion which was the reason for implementing this in the first place.
Having said that, I do agree that there should be more clarity in the difference between GD and OT. We are currently discussing on how to do this, but any feedback from you guys would be extremely helpful.
Thanks for your patience! x
deletedalmost 10 years
I'd start off by creating a ground rule of what is appropriate and not appropriate in which sub-sections by the form of a sticky and letting people know what their punishments are. There really isn't rules for the forums so there isn't a lot of objective viewpoints on them.
You don't have to be a dictator about it either, just make your intentions clear and I stress that you involve the community say in this first before making any drastic change and you'll find that things will be a lot easier for you.
