Hello. I propose a suggestion to merge the MoparScape forum with the Moparisthebest forum, for a few reasons.
Firstly, as I understand it, one of the main reasons that installing mods to our forum instances is due to the current link between the two, and if this is not the major reason for the inability to install mods then I would be happy to be enlightened about the subject. Merging the two into one board would remove all problems with installing any mods that were developed for the current SMF version. Any of a recent version would require a small amount of patchwork to be usable, but nothing major. Being able to add in modifications whenever needed is an obvious benefit and I can see no way in which the ability to add in modifications can be detrimental. For reference, there are 58 unresolved suggestions immediately prior to posting this, and of the resolved suggestions there is an 82% denial rate.
Secondly, the Moparisthebest forum is very inactive. Unfortunately, the “Forum Statistics” page is linked between the two sites, but we can see that there is an average of 1,536 posts per day, whilst in the past month Moparinthebest has received around 8 new posts. If we take a month as 31 days, Moparisthebest is receiving 0.02% of the total traffic across the two sites. A serious consideration must be made to decide whether or not it is worth having a worse site at MoparScape to prolong the survival of Moparisthebest - should 99.98% of usage be affected negatively in order to benefit the other 0.02%?
Thirdly, a large portion of Moparisthebest’s discussion boards have been cloned on MoparScape anyway. Boards such as General Programming, Web Design and Development, Graphics, Reviews and Multimedia/Writing, Discussions and Debates, and General Discussion have all been brought from Moparisthebest because it was seen that the MoparScape community could benefit from having these boards. However this cloning could have accelerated the decline of Moparisthebest - with the boards they desire over here, why would people visit Moparisthebest if no one else does? Fewer people visit Moparisthebest and so in turn even fewer people visit. It is trapped in a vicious cycle of user decline because the site no longer has a way of attracting users. As the majority of boards already exist on here, and a large portion of people who still use Moparisthebest also use MoparScape (Yz85racer, Newty, Mopman, Pwnd) there would be no harm in merging the two - all “recent” discussions could be merged over actively and the rest could be archived.
Below, I have laid out a possible board structure that we could have following a merge. I also took the time to make a few other small changes to the structure, which people can discuss.
[code]Announcements
- MoparScape Announcements
Hidden Forums
- Any staff boards here
General Category
- Community Suggestions
-
- Resolved Suggestions
- General Discussion
-
- News
-
- General Questions
-
- Homework Help
- Debates
- Programming
-
- Game Development
-
- Web Design / Development
- Graphics
-
- Models
-
- Graphic Tutorials
-
- Graphics Requests and Help
- Reviews and Multimedia
- Technical
Gaming
- RuneScape
-
- RuneScape Guides
-
- RS2007 Discussion
- MineCraft
-
- Tutorials
- Other Games
RuneScape 2 Server Development
- Server Help
- Server Tutorials
-
- Featured Tutorials
-
- Snippets
- Server Development
-
- Development Teams
- Server Downloads
-
- Download Requests
- General Server Discussion
RuneScape 2 Client Development
- Client Help
- Client Tutorials
-
- Snippets
- Client Development
- General Client Discussion
RuneScape Classic
- Help
- Tutorials
-
- Snippets
- Development
- General Discussion
Server Advertising
- RuneScape 2 Server
-
- Server Status Page
-
- Sponsored Server Applications
- RuneScape Classic Server
- MineCraft Server
-
- Server Status Page
MoparCraft
- Discussion
- Infraction Reports
MoparClassic
- Discussion[/code]
[ul][li]I moved the Community Suggestions category to the top of the General category in order to potentially attract some more attention from anyone thinking of suggesting something, and also to show importance.
The News section was added as a child to the General Discussion section.
Debates was moved into one section - any “non intellectual” debates should be regarded as Discussion and put in the General Discussion section (a non-intellectual debate is just a discussion)
Programming was moved into the General Category and became the parent of Game and Web Development.
Graphics was moved into the General Category and became the parent of the Models forum. Modelling is a type of graphical work, and the move will attract artists who aren’t interested in RuneScape, boosting the popularity of the section.
The Reviews and Multimedia section was added to the General Category
The Technical section was added to the category, although I’m unsure if there’s really a use for this section.[/li]
[li]A new category called Gaming has been created
I do not feel that RS2007 deserves its own category outside of the RuneScape EOC section, although a child board would be more acceptable. Only 3.5% of the total posts in the two sections is in the RS2007 section, which I don’t feel warrants a separate board. For that reason, RuneScape has become a parent category to RuneScape Guides (which will host EOC and 2007 guides, as there were only 9 in total) and also RS2007 Discussion.
MineCraft has been added to the Gaming section, and has become a parent of the MineCraft Tutorials board (renamed to Tutorials for obvious reasons)
The Other Games (Talk about other games here) board has been moved and renamed[/li]
[li]The RuneScape 2 Server Development section has remained unchanged.[/li]
[li]The RuneScape 2 Client Development has gained a few sections. It has a Client Help section, a Client Tutorials section (Featured Tutorials are not needed at present but may be needed in future) which holds a Snippets section, a Client Development section and a General Client Discussion sec tion. These changes should improve the speed of our work on the RS2 client.[/li]
[li]The RuneScape Classic section has been given a layout more like the others and has gained a distinct section for Help, Tutorials, Development and General Discussion. The Tutorials section will be parent to a Snippets section (again, Featured Tutorials could also be added) and the General Discussion section can be used to discuss both RSC servers and clients.[/li]
[li]The last big section will be the Server Advertising section, although this could be moved higher up (above Gaming possibly). It will store all advertising in one place for anyone looking for something to play. It will store RS2, RSC and MineCraft advertisements.[/li]
[li]The MoparCraft section will hold MoparCraft Discussion and Infraction Reports to give MoparCraft a distinct place for all its discussion.[/li]
[li]The MoparClassic section remains unchanged.[/li][/ul]
Please look at this with an open mind and just add a comment with anything you feel warrants further discussion.