Subforum for Dropped Mods

[Omolong 11]

This is just something I've thought about to help keep the anthology section tidier. Instead of having both Included and Dropped mods in the same list, there could be a subforum for dropped mods for each category. It'd make it easier to find out which mods are currently included and which mods were dropped in the past, rather than having to go through a long list including both.

[rootsrat 11]

Good idea IMHO, +1.

[Octopuss 29]

Oh that would make things a lot clearer! Great idea.

[TechAngel85 14]

It's a thought but it's not really that big of an issue either because once mods are dropped they tend to eventually drop to the end of each forum as they go without any posts for a good while. In this way they eventually sort themselves to the bottom of their respected forums.

[z929669 0]

It's a thought but it's not really that big of an issue either because once mods are dropped they tend to eventually drop to the end of each forum as they go without any posts for a good while. In this way they eventually sort themselves to the bottom of their respected forums.

I agree. Dropped mods tend to segregate naturally to irrelevance. Also, there are ways to get a list of the STEP mods. I will post some links to the Main Page so that users can get (and even download) a complete mod list for STEP:Core and STEP:Extended.

[Omolong 11]

It can take quite a while for the mods to go down to the bottom of the forum though, leaving mods that are still included on the second page for that forum, due to mods that might have been removed a few versions ago still sticking around. And some people will bump old dropped mods back up, which can bring them back from the bottom, pushing included mods down.

[rootsrat 11]

Also, the included mods quite often don't get any posts in them and are also pushed to the back of the queue. I think that separate Dropped subforum would make things nicely organised. With bulk-move-threads option that we have (and I'm sure it's included in IPB as well) moving dropped mods won't be much of a problem.

[z929669 0]

We'll figure it out once we switch forums. Much reorg to be done for that, might as well not complicate it further :P

[stoppingby4now 0]

I vote no for the sub-forum, and following is why (couple of tangents).

 

In a perfect world, the Anthology forum is renamed and no longer serves as a repository of mod discussions that are/were in STEP, but rather serves as the discussion point for mods overall. An automatic link would be correlated between the forum thread and the Wiki Mod page, and a mechanism for creating a base shell. This could either occur by creating the appropriate thread in the Forum, which then creates a base Wiki page, or creating the appropriate Wiki Mod page, which then creates a base Forum thread (It would probably be easier to create thread in Forum which then creates Wiki Mod page). This would also reduce maintenance tasks.

 

The Wiki should be the definitive source for mods included or not. By switching the Anthology forum to a centralized mod discussion hierarchy by category, it would not only continue to serve STEP directly, but Pack authors as well. With an automatic link between Forum and Wiki, a more appropriate single tag could be automatically applied to mod threads which are in the current version of STEP, replacing the current two tag system ("INCLUDED" and "DROPPED").

 

This also removes the need for the continued moving of threads back and forth based on recommendations and what is accepted or not. In general practice, the moving of threads should be an exception, not a rule.

 

This would also make any need for a sub-forum obsolete.

 

In regards to sub-forum's, they should be used as a means of categorization centered around continued discussion. The requests for single sub-forums with a justification of improving manageability is mostly a fallacy. It seems logical that it would improve maintenance, and it would today while the number of threads that get tucked away is small, but as the numbers increase, you're right back at the original problem you were attempting to solve. While doing this, it also adds unnecessary complexity to the forum structure which directly impacts users. KISS.

[z929669 0]

I agree with this concept (one mod forum to house all mods, including those in STEP). I also agree that it would be ideal to have a mechanism to generate a wiki mod page for any forum mod page created ... however, that could get very messy unless mod pages were only tied to thread creation (or edit) by an administrator that knows how to properly name the thread or complete the necessary info to generate a useful (and accurate) mod page.

 

The other issue is categorization of forum threads. People will not do this consistently, so we'd need to manage each thread and place it into the correct category. This is simplified if we simply don't do that unless a mod is entered into the testing phase or is accepted. not sure about the included/dropped tagging system though. Ar you saying that if a mod is included, it gets a category tag, and if dropped the tag is removed? Perhaps you mean somethng else, since once a mod is assigned to a category, it should stay there and the marker should remain on the thread.

 

This all sounds like dreaming right now. We first need to move to the new forums!

[stoppingby4now 0]

It is dreaming, i.e. a perfect world. :) But one I'd like to see. There would obviously be changes in how things are done. You are definitely headed down the right path, in that creation of a mod store (be it forum thread or Wiki Mod page) would be the single point of creation, and the follow-up would be automatically created. Whichever is designated to be automatically created would be left to that device and not allowed to be created manually.

 

Categorization should be done by staff, and not by the general public. It's the only way to insure quality and consistency. As for the tag for an included mod, it's a suggestion, but by no means required. You correctly stated where I was going, where such functionality would update a Forum thread for a mod with a tag of say "STEP" if it is included in the current release, and remove it if it was removed. Some of this would require on-going jobs on both sides to keep things in sync.

 

Automation should be on our list of things to think about and ultimately work on to help cut the fat of the mundane, while improving consistency and quality.

[z929669 0]

Good ideas. It will be interesting to see what kind of solutions may already exist in IPB-MW integration.