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[Mephansteras]

Hmmm. Looks like we have three major goals right now:

1) Keep the suggestions forum friendly and don't scare off new people just because they have the same idea everyone else did
2) Keep the suggestions forum from being totally flooded with repeat suggestions
3) Keep the suggestions in a format usable for Toady's development

#1 is easy individually and hard to enforce overall. I can keep myself from being a jerk, but I can't stop anyone else from being a jerk. Best we can do here is make sure that jerkish behavior is called out and that people are politely informed of what to do. We've been pretty good about that recently, I think.

#2 is really not that big an issue right now. Until the forum gets so big that Toady has issues dealing with it, I really think we should just get in the habit of ignoring any repeat suggestions once the person has nicely been directed to the other threads

#3 is really up to what Toady wants to do. But I think with our current framework the consolidated threads, like Underground Diversity, are the way to go. People with ideas that repeat ones in there can be politely directed to the ongoing discussion, and it keep everything in a reasonably easy-to-dev from list. Only downside of this is that a lot of basic suggestions never get their own consolidated thread.

Maybe we should just gradually start these consolidated threads and encourage people to start taking their ideas there? Even if a given idea doesn't have anyone willing to put in giant amounts of effort to keep it all tagged in the OP, it would at least keep everything in one place for later use.

That also makes index threads easier to manage, as there is a single go-to point for most things.


Hmm...another idea is for Toady to start and Sticky threads that deal with each major Arc. That way people can focus all their discussion in one place. And when people decide to do a major gathering and organizing of ideas they can post it there, and Toady can periodically just copy/paste stuff into the OP as he goes through the thread.

These also have the advantage of encouraging people to do more then just say "Wait for the Magic Arc!" Or "Wait for the Caravan Arc!", since there would be threads dedicated to discussing ideas for those arcs.

[Deathworks]

Hello!

Granite26: Well, I always like to give people the benefit of the doubt, and I do believe that sometimes people may not initially realize what they sound like. Sometimes, I realize myself a day later that a post I did was relatively aggressive - even though I didn't think so when I wrote it. This is why I made the appeal for people to think about what they are achieving and what they actually want.

No doubt, there are probably those who simply enjoy shouting at others (as it takes many different people to make a world or community), and I don't really think that appeals will reach them. But I believe there may be those who genuinely believe they are actually helping. It is those latter I think we should worry about the most, if anything, as something like that is probably the saddest thing you can get.

Please allow me to clarify about the "secret door" issue: The thread I am referring to was started by Captain Mayday in December 2007, and when you look at the opening post, you will see, albeit his description slightly differs exactly the same idea as I have proposed. What miffs me really about the incident is that the title of the thread contained the words I had searched for, so it should have been in my search results, meaning that I probably failed to notice. I have to admit that I was thoroughly embarassed, but since my thread had already drawn some constructive ideas by others, I didn't know what to do. So, in that case, I do believe I really goofed up.

SirHoneyBadger: O.o
That is quite impressive. But then again, if you are really interested and have the time to do so, it is possible, I guess. And you are right, of course, that it is very interesting. From what little I have seen of the sugestion debates, things range from practical solutions to highly philosophical debates about scientific/natural basics with little impact on the actual game with lots of real world information and evidence exchanged (at least in the more heated debates).

Footkerchief:
Well, I think with the Wiki idea, we might get at least somewhat close to a comprehensive list. Or at least a list that claims to contain those people will readily notice as classics. As was pointed out, a wiki can be added to many people, so the various experts could easily point out their respective specialties.

In addition, I think the wiki also offers additional formatting/linking that might help with the search for the relevant entries. The more I think about it, the more appealing this becomes.

I know it is somewhat cheap to advocate measures you don't participate in yourself, but in my defense I can only say that I really know very little about the suggestion section as a whole, only occasionally looking at topics that have a title catching my attention.

Deathworks

[Mikademus]

[... I'll admit that I usually end up reading the entire "20 something pages". ...] On one hand, that's incredibly time-consuming, and a little pedantic, not to mention annoying/frustrating, to have to read through the whole thing.

You mean, like Dwarf Fortress?

[Toady One]

I remember that someone was uncomfortable jumping into megathreads -- an active megathread can be too active, so consolidation might not be the only answer.  That's why I was looking for a multithread alternative, though really, that part of the equation is all for you guys and not so much for me.

In that sense, yeah, the wiki summary idea might work out.  My issue with wiki dev is that the wiki, as a non-static information repository, isn't ideal for my dev notes.  I don't have time to read all of the discussions that go on anymore, especially as they are going on -- so I note down the threads that I think seem interesting and then move on sometimes, with the notion of revisiting the threads when I get to a topic (as you'll see with the squad/training improvements this next release).  If the thread morphs, those notes aren't as useful.  However, as a guide for discussions occurring on the forum, wiki pages might work very well -- there doesn't need to be a competition of ideas there if people are just linking, though there might be some quibbles over precedence.  It's also something you guys can set up however you like without me having to cludge around with various threads and sub this and thats.  If you guys want to set up some type of summary/thread linking pages on the wiki, I will sticky a thread here referring back to it.  Does that sound good, for thems that wanted to have things organized a bit?  I don't see the harm in that, and it doesn't require as much work out of a single OP, and it could be done immediately.  It would just be important to keep the actual suggestions on the forum, if you want me to read them.

A few more thoughts on something like a magic subforum that was suggested?  I agree that if it is in big letters and sitting right there, the broken subforum search function won't matter.  Would that free up clutter at all?  How many magic pages are on the front right now...  if it's not that many, maybe it's not a problem.

[Draco18s]

Instead, I suggest that, when correcting a person who has made a redundant thread, posters should be expected to politely provide a link to what they consider to be the best, still-viable discussion of the topic.

I would say "I do" except that I usually link to the search results for his thread title (or concept) and let him decide which of a dozen relevant threads is best.

Depends on how many results there are.  If only one (or two) I'll link the threads.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Toady One: Regarding the wiki suggestion, that is exactly what I wanted to support. An information page powered by people interested in the suggestion forums providing help for other people who have suggestions so they can find the best place to share their ideas and also can easily check up on what is there. At least I did not consider it an option for your development notes or actual exchange of suggestions.

Deathworks

[Tormy]

If you guys want to set up some type of summary/thread linking pages on the wiki, I will sticky a thread here referring back to it.  Does that sound good, for thems that wanted to have things organized a bit?  I don't see the harm in that, and it doesn't require as much work out of a single OP, and it could be done immediately. 

That is a good idea yeah, I fully support it. Many [new] users won't care about it too much, but ah well...that is the best what we can do I guess.

[Faces of Mu]

Using the wiki to organise indexes = /signed. Toady's right in that NOT having 1 OP with both control and responsibility for the thread is important, and having a continuous flow and turnover of contributors is invaluable in this community.
I know Toady's dev log overlaps quite a lot, but I suggest making such a wiki index use Toady's dev as some sort of index, or is clearly and heavily referenced to it. Perhaps the suggestion categories could grouped by Arc (rather than reqs, bloats, cores, or power goals) from both the "Coming in the next year or four" and "Far future". The problem with these two is that they also overlap a lot and the Far Future ones tend to look like bloats rather than arcs. However, they provide the general direction that Toady is heading. By using these headings, and stating out in the wiki clearly what bloats and such he has linked to, it can summarise his ideas and then list the links for the threads associated.

These are the headings from those two pages (notice Magic is not an arc, but a far future dev item):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

BUSTLING TOWN ARC:
FIRE AND LIGHTING ARC:
BURROWS, TRANSPORTION AND AUTOMATION ARC:
ADVANCED HELP ARC: 
CARAVAN ARC:
COUNTY ARC:
ARMY ARC:
NEMESIS ARC:
RELATIONSHIPS ARC:
DIPLOMACY ARC:
GHOSTS ARC:
AFFILIATION ARC:
COMBAT ARC:
SCENARIOS ARC:
LIFE CYCLE ARC:
ARTIFACT ARC:
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT ARC:
ADVENTURER SKILLS ARC:
ADVENTURER PARTIES AND ENTITY:
DUNGEON ARC: 
HUMANOID ARC:
PRESENTATION ARC:
LANGUAGE ARC: 
RANDOMIZATION AND RAWS ARC:

HIGH LEVEL PLOTS AND DIPLOMACY:
LATE GAME: 
EARLY GAME:
HUMAN TOWN: 
GOBLIN/KOBOLD/CAVER: 
ELF FOREST RETREAT: 
MONSTER: 
MERCHANT:
MAGIC:
CONTROL A WIZARD ENTITY:
DEITY: 
WORLD GENERATION PARAMETERS:
TERRAIN/WEATHER/SWIMMING/FLYING/BOATS:
PLANES: 
EDITORS:
AND MORE, AND WORSE:

If a wiki editor has trouble figuring out which heading to reference it under, then they can simply ask the OP in the thread or message them.

[Granite26]

New users won't have a good understanding of the arcs.

Here's a mockup of what I'm thinking.  Feel free to move stuff around if you want

The key point is to make the main page CTRL-F searchable for lots of keywords, but to keep the total length under 2 pages.

[Neonivek]

Just remember that the goal is to decrease the number of redundant topics not to eliminate them.

[Aquillion]

It consisted of a pack of  wannabe mods, vigilante flaming a newbie into the ground, for posting a redundant thread. The OP swore to never return to this elitist forum, where fresh faces are clearly not welcome.

Yeah man, I hate those wannabe mods, always posting telling other people what to do and getting up on their high-horse about how the forum should be and lecturing everyone angrily on their behavior and all that.

I think we should stop wannabe mods by ignoring them.  People who respond to them are as bad as the wannabe mods themselves, and anyone who replies to a wannabe mod is just contributing to the problem.

Also, people shouldn't reply to the people replying to people who reply to wannabe mods, because that's also contributing to the problem.

What I'm saying is, the suggestions forum is for suggestions about Dwarf Fortress.  Not the forum.  Loudmouth wannabe-admins just post 'suggestions' here because it's heavily-frequented they like hearing to themselves speak.  (Er, reading themselves posting.  Whatever.)  Suggestions about the forum do not belong here.

Pointing out my hypocrisy in telling people how to post by telling them not to tell others how to post would, incidentally, also be continuing the problem.   

[sproingie]

Pointing out my hypocrisy in telling people how to post by telling them not to tell others how to post would, incidentally, also be continuing the problem.   

Stack overflow.  Your recursion broke my brain.  It's yours now.

[Toady One]

I'm going to continue the discussion of forum organization in another thread.  With the OP here the way it is, we'll continue to be redererailed by posts that ignore the current topic.

edit: http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=31510.0