Recombining Forums

[jonesy]

http://theweem.com/enw.html

Huh. That looks really compelling. I was trying to click on the links, and then realized what I was doing. Doh.

I mean, you used the actual links, but they don't go where they say they go because they're not like that. Yeah.

 

[weem]

Huh. That looks really compelling. I was trying to click on the links, and then realized what I was doing. Doh.

I mean, you used the actual links, but they don't go where they say they go because they're not like that. Yeah.

It's just for looks, to give you a feel for how it would look on the page - i did not change the links to match, etc etc.

 

[jonesy]

It's just for looks, to give you a feel for how it would look on the page - i did not change the links to match, etc etc.

Which I noticed only after being compelled by the look to click on the links.

 

[pawsplay]

You will notice RPG Industry Forum is now Announcements. I love the idea of this because right now it's not a place to discuss the industry, as I feel the name implies. It is (or has become perhaps) a place to post promotional links or press releases. This is a good thing though. Those in the industry want to have places to do this - so EN World should offer it.

The thing is, other people want to do the same for their work who might not consider themselves "in the industry". I am a prime example of this. I want to post links to some things I do on my blog from time to time. And to be honest, I have done so there once or twice - but if it were simply "Announcements" it could have those kinds of things from industry people and non. It would be the obvious place for people to put those messages as opposed to putting them in General RPG, etc as happens occasionally now.

I would point to rpg.net's "Ads/Open Promo" for an example of such a forum. I post items there every once in a while.

Maybe things have changed, but the last time I checked, Ads/Open Promo was a place announcements went to die. I would actually prefer separating out Announcements and RPG Industry, where the latter is for more discussion-oriented threads.

 

[weem]

Maybe things have changed, but the last time I checked, Ads/Open Promo was a place announcements went to die.

I can assume that by saying they "go there to die" you mean that announcements are not successful there. In that case, our definition of "success" is not the same. Announcements, or Promotional posts are not defined by the amount of discussion that takes place (in case that was your measure of success), but rather by the traffic they drive to the desired destination. By that standard, they are very successful - people post there daily, not only at rpg.net, but here in the RPG Industry Forum. I have posted them as well (on both sites), and can tell you they do quite well.

You will notice people who make posts there tend to come back and do more - you don't waste time on that if it is not working for you.

I would actually prefer separating out Announcements and RPG Industry, where the latter is for more discussion-oriented threads.

Right now, there is no difference between those two - hence labeling it as such. There is no discussion in the "RPG Industry Forum" - there is only announcements and promotions. You will see, most threads have zero responses and to be honest most of the people posting in there would tell you (I'm fairly confident) that discussion is not what their goal is. The goal is to drive traffic - to inform people of something new and get them to check it out.

I think if you made an "Announcements" forum, and an "RPG Industry Forum" you would see all the posts from the latter, migrate to the former and you would have one very empty forum... and one with announcements.

But that's just my opinion - I could be wrong, but that's how I see it based on my experience.

 

[pawsplay]

I can assume that by saying they "go there to die" you mean that announcements are not successful there. In that case, our definition of "success" is not the same. Announcements, or Promotional posts are not defined by the amount of discussion that takes place (in case that was your measure of success), but rather by the traffic they drive to the desired destination. By that standard, they are very successful - people post there daily, not only at rpg.net, but here in the RPG Industry Forum. I have posted them as well (on both sites), and can tell you they do quite well.

You will notice people who make posts there tend to come back and do more - you don't waste time on that if it is not working for you.

In my experience, it neither drives traffic nor discussion.

Right now, there is no difference between those two - hence labeling it as such. There is no discussion in the "RPG Industry Forum" - there is only announcements and promotions. You will see, most threads have zero responses and to be honest most of the people posting in there would tell you (I'm fairly confident) that discussion is not what their goal is. The goal is to drive traffic - to inform people of something new and get them to check it out.

I think if you made an "Announcements" forum, and an "RPG Industry Forum" you would see all the posts from the latter, migrate to the former and you would have one very empty forum... and one with announcements.

But that's just my opinion - I could be wrong, but that's how I see it based on my experience.

Right now, the regular press releases pretty much strangle most discussions, as they quickly scroll of the first page. Mixing the two types of content, which have a much different life cycle, is not a healthy environment for discussion.

So in a sense I agree with you... RPG Industry is currently filled with posts that are not there to entice discussion. Once upon a time, there were several forums open to various industry talk, plus the OGL discussion list. The OGL stuff stagnated in the wake of a the Great Schism but in theory might in theory generate some discussion from time to time. The experiment with the ads system took a bite out of the freelancing section. You are basically saying, if I get you, "To heck with all that actual discussion of freelancing, publishing, the industry, licensing, design, and discussing industry trends, it doesn't generate traffic and no one wants it."

 

[weem]

In my experience, it neither drives traffic nor discussion.

That's a bummer

You are basically saying, if I get you, "To heck with all that actual discussion of freelancing, publishing, the industry, licensing, design, and discussing industry trends, it doesn't generate traffic and no one wants it."

Let me clarify before this (somehow) turns into an argument - I certainly don't want words put in my mouth.

I think "RPG Industry Forum" is currently an announcements forum - so I would (pretending my opinion shapes things here) simply call it that... "Announcements".

The discussion on the industry, freelancing, publishing, design, trends as far as I can tell takes place in the General RPG forum right now (like it or not, for better or worse, etc). You could certainly make a case for pulling that out of there - but the point of this discussion was to address the complaint that "General RPG is too quiet, therefore I think the site is dead, so I'm leaving" - pulling content out of there does not help accomplish this.

So what I'm getting at is that it does already exist, this kind of discussion. I'm not saying "to heck with it", it has a place (again, whether that is the proper place or not will depend on who you ask - but it seems fine to me).

Now, maybe Russ and others are being bombarded with requests to have a dedicated place to discuss licensing, design and more - maybe I don't see that. If they are, then Russ would need to decide whether or not to pull it out into it's own thing - but I wouldn't without a lot of evidence pointing towards that request.

That's just me though - your points are as valid as mine, maybe more so for all I know

In the end, I want Russ to do what he feels will work best and for EN World to be really successful. If that means my ideas do nothing for him, or don't spark any more ideas, then that's fine too - and I do appreciate your feedback as well - it helps demonstrate more possibilities and ideas

 

[pawsplay]

Here are some non-announcement-related threads, just to give you an idea what I'm talking about:


http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpg-industry-forum/272343-pod-rpgnow.html

http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpg-industry-forum/266463-open-content-then-its-not.html

http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpg-in...erial-violation-4e-gaming-system-license.html

http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpg-in...aming-license-crpg-implementation-issues.html

http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpg-industry-forum/264895-clip-art-stock-art.html

http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpg-industry-forum/265979-usage-d20-other-products.html

 

[weem]

Here are some non-announcement-related threads, just to give you an idea what I'm talking about:


http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpg-industry-forum/272343-pod-rpgnow.html

http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpg-industry-forum/266463-open-content-then-its-not.html

http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpg-in...erial-violation-4e-gaming-system-license.html

http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpg-in...aming-license-crpg-implementation-issues.html

http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpg-industry-forum/264895-clip-art-stock-art.html

http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpg-industry-forum/265979-usage-d20-other-products.html

That's interesting.

As I said, I know these discussions happen, I just think they happen mostly in General RPG at the moment (again, for better or worse I don't know really).

The threads you link to are from a year ago (Aug-Sep 2009), so I'm assuming that kind of activity there died down a while back? - perhaps because of the announcements burying them - and perhaps that's what drove those discussion to the General RPG forum. That certainly would be unfortunate to have happen, to have announcements trounce on good discussion, but here's the angle I'm looking at this from...

In order for a topic to warrant it's own forum, it needs to either a) be a very hot topic capable of producing a large number of topics on it's own, daily or b) be different enough from anything else that it just needs to be it's own thing.

That kind of discussion (RPG Industry topics), at least to me, fits fine in the General RPG forum. They don't stick out to me in that forum in a "what is that doing here" kind of way - in fact, they seem to fit right in. But that's my opinion. Maybe that's because the topic is not as near/dear to me as it is to you - so I may be bias in that regard - that would be fair to say for sure.

I guess the question is this...

1. Let's assume an "Announcements" forum was created.
2. Let's then assume that people with announcements then began posting them there, instead of RPG Industry.

Now, do you think people would move any of their "freelancing, publishing, the industry, licensing, design, and discussing industry trends" talk to the RPG Industry forum from General RPG?

I think SOME might. I think the Mods would have to move the rest, or regularly remind people of the separation of Industry talk from General RPG talk. So, again, my problems with this are that a) this re-org is meant to discuss getting more content into General RPG as opposed to removing it and b) while I think the topics you have linked above are great and have value, I'm not sure they don't fit into General RPG.

I would find it hard as a Mod to pick out those discussions for moving. In fact, your classification of these topics as "freelancing, publishing, the industry, licensing, design, and discussing industry trends" seem to me to be exactly that - General RPG discussion. If you say, for example, you want to talk about the RPG Industry, my response is that that is a pretty General topic.

 

[jonesy]

Here's archive footage from

2002:
EN World - d20 News & Reviews - powered by vBulletin

2003:
EN World - Morrus' D&D/d20 News & Reviews Site - powered by vBulletin

2004:
EN World - Morrus' D&D/d20 News & Reviews Site - powered by vBulletin

Anything past 2004 seems to lead right back to the current pages, so there's nothing on 2005-2009.

You can see the comparative sizes per threads and posts. Too bad the number of views isn't visible.