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[narhiril]

My point wasn't to attack anyone -  least of all you, Hugo.  My point was simply that arbitrarily drawing a line between who deserves a sub-forum and who doesn't is going to create a rift, and I'd be making the same point even if you and I were included in the sub-forum group.  I'm simply trying to say that we're drawing a line that would be better off not drawn at all.

You have a point. I do feel that MW would need some kind of separation between mods like your own and itself, not because it has more players, but because there are so many treads for it. It's like trying to contain an ant colony in a ziplock bag, while still trying to display the contents of the bag. There's just so much of it (minor threads, 'cause all the newbs to modding go right to the, "biggest and most popular," mod), that it drowns everything else out.

However, I do agree with both your point, and your idea of organization, as well as a Graphics & Tilesets board.

Edit: Actually, I think the MW players need to learn to ask questions in the thread for the mod. It could just go in the 'Major Mods' section, with the other mods.

Edited post to include gfx/tileset.

Again, I'm not trying to be an ass.  Deon, Meph, and Putnam put in countless hours of work into their mods and I have nothing but respect for that, and the fact that more people play and develop things for Masterwork doesn't bother me.  I just want everyone, including new modders or modders who maybe don't have that kind of time or commitment to get a fair shake, and I feel like it's better for me to start a brush fire now and show how personal sub-forums can ignite controversy rather than watch it get pushed through and wait for some terrible inferno of jealousy down the road.  Not to mention that Toady will inevitably have to deal with the torrent of requests for personal sub-forums.  It sets a bad precedent and creates a lot of problems that don't need to be created.

If we organized it by genre, the mods that are getting the most updates and feedback are naturally going to stay near the top without the need for any of that.  Plus, it does a better job of directing people towards what they're looking for - the people here for a tileset can choose to see only the tilesets, the people looking for little tweak mods get a list of nothing but minor mods, and the people here for a truly game-altering experience can just as easily find Masterwork or Genesis or Regeneration or whatever they like.

[Meph]

My reasoning for asking about a childboard was this:

Masterwork is always floating on the first page. Within the last year I have never seen it on the second page. Smakemupagus started Orc Fortress, and suddenly its two threads. Then I added Kobold Camp, three threads. Then there was the "Suggestions for Masterwork" thread that appeared and disappeared on occasion. Then Putnam asked about a possible Drow mod, Fire1666/Gamerlord/Guthbug worked/are working on undead race plugins, and Smake asked about Elf plugin. Thats another 3 threads. In the end it would clog up big portions of the modding board, at least the first 2 pages probably, with ~5-8 threads about just one mod.

I felt like that is not a good thing.

The second reason is that people still couldnt find the relevant information they were looking for. MDF3 had 15.000 downloads, of a single version in a month. DF has roughly 100.000 (from what I read online), so it occured to me that a splitting of information would be nice. A sort of mini-forum, with release, gameplay questions, bugreports, suggestions... just like for DF.

I approached Toady and he did not disagree, but brought up the point that people will start asking for child-boards of their own. Favourism, and he as judge to decide who gets a board and who does not. I agreed on that point, but both of us thought it might be worth a try, otherwise the Masterwork Childboard wouldnt exist. It has 89 Topics atm. I think that kind of proves the point. When I search for Masterwork on reddit I get 460 topics. Genesis 40. LfR 0.

I dont want to favour or disfavour anyone, and I did not expect to see a Deon&Putnam board. I expected a "Genesis" board... there is a reason I did ask about "Masterwork Mod", not "Mephs Stuff", hey, look at me, I am Meph, use my stuff. I wanted to give players of my mod an easier way of finding information, offer other modders that mod for my mod-pack space for their own threads, and to clean up the modding forum to help other modders. Narhiril, I have nothing of respect for the other modders, most of whom are here longer then me. I dont know if you know it, but I even link to all the other major mods, including LfR, from my launcher/Gui.

The problem modders have is that the publicity is missing. Yes, I do use caps-lock, and fancy photoshopped logos, and post many, many pictures, and use massive font-sizes and lists for my releases, because its flashy. People notice it. I made a template for what is advertisement for other people to copy into their signature... this stuff:

Signature:
 - If you want to help to spread the word, paste this into your signature:

Code: [Select]

[center][url=http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=125633.0]¤MASTERWORK¤ Dwarf Fortress - V.3 - [/url]
 - A comprehensive mod pack with 25% higher FPS -

Thats why Masterwork got so many players. I often wrote posts in profits list about adding this or that, or wrote new modders that they should post there. A poll of mine showed that 90% of the people found Masterwork through that list, because no one sifts through the very full and convoluted modding forum. That was pre-child board.

I stand with the idea that Mod-Releases (Maybe Minor/Major, Maybe Minor/Major/TotalConversion), Graphic-Packs/Tilesets, Utilities and MasterworkDf should have their own board.

I know that this sounds... maybe a bit hypocritical, but I dont know how to manage Masterwork otherwise. Info about it would be then found in the modding forum (developement/suggestions), the release thread would be found in major mods, the plugins/races would be found in minor mods, the masterwork tileset which I want to release within this month would be in graphic packs, and talk about the added GUI that I base of the LNP would logically go to utilities. Same with the custom dfhack scripts I added. It makes no sense for anyone who is looking for information about MasterworkDF.

On a personal note, I never understoof why LfR does not have more players. It seems to float on a stable number of always the same people.

So thats my 2 cents.

[narhiril]

Look Meph, I get that Masterwork is the most popular mod right now, and I get what you're saying about management.  I wouldn't be opposed to having a Masterwork child-board simply for those logistical reasons.  In fact, I think it's the most logical solution.  DFHack plugins could probably afford to have their own board as well.

I'm not here to attack Masterwork, or any other mod, for that matter.  If I didn't want Masterwork to succeed, I wouldn't have collaborated with you on parts of it.  This isn't some personal vendetta, I just think it could be handled better.  Right now it comes off as "Masterwork, Deon's stuff, Putnam's stuff, and then all of that other crap."  If we have to have a sub-board for a mod, it should be for a mod and not for a person.  It can be interpreted as a slap in the face to everyone else who has contributed to any of those projects.

From my perspective, I've got over 100k views and 3k replies on my mod's thread.  It may not be the level of success that Masterwork has reached, but when you start seeing other modders given sub-boards when, by the numbers, you've contributed just as much, it's very hard not to take it personally.

[Meph]

It is not the amount of users, mods, views or downloads, but simply the fact that deon and me asked Toady about a board. I can only assume that Putnam did the same, and I can only assume that there would be a Narhiril/LfR board is well, if you would have asked at the same time.

I agree that the current setup is not well thought of, but that is what this thread is for. Currently the feedback in this thread is:

• It is a good idea to have sub-forums.
• Seperating different topics for the ease of the user is a good idea.

Feedback in the Masterwork sub-forum was also good, the change was well recieved by the players of the mod. But that should not surprise anyone.

[Putnam]

Yeah, we all asked.

I think that, considering the amount of topics, Masterwork should keep its own; organizing other sub-boards based on DFFD would work well.

[CLA]

organizing other sub-boards based on DFFD would work well.

That sounds very reasonable.

[Toxicshadow]

This would be perhaps, the most interesting soap opera in existence. Not that I watch soap operas, but if the modding community for Bay12 had a show...

On-topic: DFFD organization would be really good.

[narhiril]

It is not the amount of users, mods, views or downloads, but simply the fact that deon and me asked Toady about a board. I can only assume that Putnam did the same, and I can only assume that there would be a Narhiril/LfR board is well, if you would have asked at the same time.

Yeah, we all asked.

Well thanks for including me, guys.  I really appreciate it.  *sigh*

Honestly, is it hard to see something wrong with this system?  Shouldn't we let Toady worry about more important things rather than all pestering him for our own boards?  Is it worth pissing off some of your most prominent community members to give a grand total of two people their own personal boards? 

[Putnam]

No.

It was a very ad-hoc thing and not thought through very well.

[narhiril]

No.

It was a very ad-hoc thing and not thought through very well.

Ok, that's fair.  I apologize for the sarcasm bullet.  I really don't feel like you guys went out of your way to exclude me.  I don't even really feel like anyone needs to apologize for it.  I'm just... really not okay with the way it's laid out right now, and I'm going to leave it at that before I let any emotions get the better of me.

[ggamer]

On-topic: DFFD organization would be really good.

On this note, who runs DFFD? I don't know anybody on the forums who does, and I don't think Toady runs it.

Again, I stand by my earlier statement. It seems like people are getting butthurt because all the total conversion mods aren't getting their own child boards, but the reason that these mods are getting their own boards is because of clutter. Putnam and Deon are both incredibly prolific, so it makes sense to have their own boards.

Once more, a Mod utilities board and a Graphic Packs board would be the only really necessary additions. The reason we don't have the mod releases board split up is because we already have a mod directory stickied on the mod releases board.

[MagmaMcFry]

On this note, who runs DFFD? I don't know anybody on the forums who does, and I don't think Toady runs it.

DFFD's About page says Janus, but he hasn't been on Bay12 for the last half year.

Again, I stand by my earlier statement. It seems like people are getting butthurt because all the total conversion mods aren't getting their own child boards, but the reason that these mods are getting their own boards is because of clutter. Putnam and Deon are both incredibly prolific, so it makes sense to have their own boards.

I'm kinda surprised about Putnam's and Deon's boards: To avoid having topics spread over multiple pages, we... spread topics over multiple pages? These topics don't even have anything that sets them apart from the other mod release topics, except that they were made by either Putnam or Deon, and if I was looking for some mods, I sure wouldn't appreciate having to browse three forums (even if two of them are tiny) instead of just one.

I know that popular mods tend to pile up in the front page, but the only efficient way to stop that from happening would be to split the boards into something essentially similar to "Popular Mods" and "Unpopular Mods", which is not a thing I would want happening.

[Putnam]

On-topic: DFFD organization would be really good.

Putnam and Deon are both incredibly prolific, so it makes sense to have their own boards.

(i personally think a board with less than ten topics made by at least 5 people total shouldn't exist at all, which is the current state of these boards, so...

[Meph]

I am still in favour of a seperation of "modding forum" and "mod releases", because it shows a clear difference between work in progress and a finished product. Most people will only be interested in mods they can play, not in modding, mod developement or modding questions...

[thistleknot]

sorry to chime in if I didn't read ALL the posts, but what this all sounds like is what type of subdir structure needs to exist for the modding forum.  I'm sure I'm not the 1st one to say it, but maybe there should be a formal request for subdir creation?  Possibly some sort of vetted proof (i.e. multiple threads covering a category) that a subdir should exist.