Where should "5e House Rules" and 5e "Character Builds & Optimization" Posts Go?

[Trickster Spirit]

I'd also note that since we're just beginning a period of migration, plus a period of mass-transfer of large amounts of content, what happens in the next couple of months is not useful data at all. I don't plan to make any major decisions on forum arrangement during atypical periods. After Oct 29th might be a better time to start looking at trends.

Eh, if that is the case then essentially I'm going to get limited use out of ENWorld until the end of next month.

It's probably my lurker roots shining through, but my typical daily visit to ENWorld is a two-step process - A, I visit the news page to see if there are any interesting articles or announcements, followed by B, visiting the 5E general forum and browse through the new posts made to threads I've been following or to see if there are new threads I'm interested in following.

Since the merging experiment began I've found myself basically skipping B. I gave it a go for the first several days, but for me the "identify a promising new thread" process was typically low-effort - I'd skim ~20 thread titles and see if any sounded interesting. Since a significant portion of those are now topics I personally find uninteresting, I'm no longer able to do that and have essentially abandoned the 5E general board now. I'm not currently following any of the threads there and without a "feed" of new topics to replace them I'm only visiting the front news page these days. Interesting comments on a news article might occasionally bring me over but that's about it.

I'm not saying it's got to be my way or the highway and I'm sympathetic to the reality that segregating those threads in their own ghetto starves them of views and posts, but I don't see an easy compromise as without the ability to filter out content folks aren't interested in, you'rr essentially reducing the available amount of content folks ARE interested in. Sure, the threads are still there, and I could find them if I was willing to spend 2-3x the amount of time looking for them, but... I'm not. And I think that effect will have repercussions on the quality of the discussion down the road as well. If enough folks are put off by having to dig through content to find something they're interested in, those posters won't end up contributing to said threads and the quality of the conversation decreases over time.

A good analogy might be a party with lots of "areas" - you've got folks talking sports by the bar, folks talking politics over by the snack table, folks discussing Game of Thrones and playing pool by the pool table and folks talking about their favorite movies on the patio. If you remove all those landmarks and mix everyone up in one big room, I've got to navigate past a lot of other conversations about other stuff in order to find someone else who wants to talk about Game of Thrones. The same folks are there but I've got to put in more work to avoid conversations about politics (ugh) or sports (Why yes, I do think the Green Bay Patriots will win the penant this year). I wouldn't ask the host of the party to censor the other party goers in favor of my GoT convo, but if I'm having trouble finding a group talking about something interesting at the party I'm probably just going to go home early.

Just my two cents.

 

[Gadget]

I must agree with others who dislike the new experiment. The 5e General forum is so cluttered and overwhelmed with house rules and char-op/home brew classes that I found it hard to navigate/use or enjoy. If anything, this time of migration is the worst time to start this experiment, as we need the newcomers to get used to the 'normal' situation before we attempt to change things around to see what is most efficient.

I personally almost never visit the home brew /house rules forum because I'm not interested in the content there, by and large. If it is a worry that these forums were not getting enough traffic (the proverbial 100 sub-forums with one or two posts a day mentioned above) the results of the experiment don't seem to bear that out. The 5e general forum is currently overwhelmed with these posts. There is not, to my knowledge, a way for me to filter out the posts from another sub-forum that I don't want to see, unlike those who got to the house rules char-op forums now.

 

[mellored]

Can you have more then 1 tag?

i.e.
5e, and char-op?

If so, then maybe "eliminate" the forums, and just use tags?
i.e.
Someone can get all the 5e threads, all the homebrew threads, or all the 5e homebrew threads.

 

[Trickster Spirit]

Can you have more then 1 tag?

i.e.
5e, and char-op?

If so, then maybe "eliminate" the forums, and just use tags?
i.e.
Someone can get all the 5e threads, all the homebrew threads, or all the 5e homebrew threads.

That would be the ideal solution to satisfy all parties - make everything filterable so that you can include or exclude content as you see fit - but unfortunately it sounds like it's not technically feasible for a vBulletin forum.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Greg K]

Add me to those that don't like the new experiment. I like house rules, but I prefer them to be in their own section to reduce clutter in the general forum. As for CharOP, I don't want to be bothered having to sort through them to find the things that interest me. Let those that want CharOp go to the CharOp area.

 

[Mistwell]

So, in this rather limited poll, the least popular response is for the system that was in place prior to this experiment. Only 13% like those all-edition sub forums for house rules and for character builds.

 

[steeldragons]

So, in this rather limited poll, the least popular response is for the system that was in place prior to this experiment. Only 13% like those all-edition sub forums for house rules and for character builds.

Correct. Followed by the second least popular result of 17% for having them combined but separate from the 5e discussion. For a total 30% who want to keep them out/separate from the 5e "general discussion."

Taken with those that want them kept separate, from each other and all other editions, you get (13.04 + 21.74) 34.78% who want to make sure Charop and Homebrew stay separate...but also want there to be MORE subforums because the 5e ones should have their own.

In general, the above limited sample as of 9/23/2015, after both Umbran and Morrus have basically said this isn't really going to be accurate or go anywhere at this time (likely and thankfully killing a whole lot of participation), shows that a whopping 65[ish]% want MORE subforums than we have now...not less/larger.

So...yeah. There's all of that. Should be interesting to see how things shake out down the road/after the "end times" of the WotC forum when a poll on this topic can be attempted in earnest.

 

[Mistwell]

Correct. Followed by the second least popular result of 17% for having them combined but separate from the 5e discussion. For a total 30% who want to keep them out/separate from the 5e "general discussion."

I voted to keep them in a rules forum, separate from the general forum, myself. I was pointing out that the system that existed before we tried a change appears to be the least popular, at least according to this limited poll.

 

[steeldragons]

And I am just pointing out that what you voted for is only marginally more popular than what I voted for (to leave well enough alone, with Charop and Homebrew forums separate from each other and general discussion, but not necessary to make "5e only" versions of them). Again, according to this limited poll and the options therein, the majority of folks actually want there to be MORE broken up subforums than either we have now or the "larger/less" proposition.

I am not advocating that. I don't think it's necessary to make 5e charop and 5e homebrew their own separate forums, when we already have Charop and Homebrew forums for everything else (and would still need to have those!). That's just a matter of searching through the tags for the ones you want or changing your forum view to only show the edition/game you want to look for. It doesn't require a whole separate "5e only" charop and a separate '5e only" homebrew forums, in my view. That is not going to be beneficial to the threads therein or guarantee a significant boost in views or comments.