Ah, I see. I think it's worth a try just for the data alone.Nothing as complex. My idea is basically that you still have a thread for all your levels, but you're also free to make a new thread for a new release. It'd be a bit more cluttered, but if you link from the new level thread to the all-levels-thread and vice-versa, it makes them still easy to find.
The reasoning behind this idea is that I was wondering why replies to level threads have declined... and I thought maybe they're more seen as an author's blog for the most part. The presence of a new thread is also maybe a bit more enticing than seeing [new level july 2024] on an older thread.. I don't know if my assumptions are accurate, but I think with the level output nowadays we don't have much to worry about in terms of clutter, especially if LOTM is here to catalogue new releases, so it might be good to try it and get some data on it.
Fair enough. I realized I overanalyzed and took the lack of engagement in hosting events or judging as a sign of decreasing activity in the forums. It's a habit I recognized recently.It's true that there isn't much engagement for hosting events, but I think the form was also a bit of an overly bureaucratic approach. You point out the judging stuff in the announcement threads, and that's part of my push to lower the barrier to entry for helping out. We had the judge auditions previously, and in my opinion they took too much time, and judging isn't so serious as to need vetted experts. We're all here for fun, after all, so we should pave avenues for people to find out if they enjoy these tangential things that don't exactly relate to level design directly.
I felt something was off when I looked at the top of the page. I never guessed why until MrNameless mentioned the Featured Episodes and Graphics page. Originally, I wondered if it would compete with the X2 site's recommended episodes page. I retracted that thought because both pages, based on my memory, are distinct enough to avoid competing against each other. I honestly want to see them return because I never had the full experience. But I'm unsure they will since they were sitting in the forums abandoned for a long time before vanishing.1. Forgetting that they had been made unavailable to access in somewhat recent times, but I was talking about the pipes at the top of page (or at least the ones that were removed). While both the featured episodes and graphics hadn't been updated in years, they were a different way of showing off new additions to site or freshly released content like a more visual newsletter. While they only had a single thumbnail image to represent topic, typically that's going to generate more interest then scrolling through a sub forum which unfortunately, cannot display images unless you go into the topic. In that way, the creator is getting something they worked on shown off, and if people like what they see, when they click on the featured item it takes them to the topic, where they can and typically then tend to engage.
That clears it up. I was trying to imagine how the Assets Library would co-exist with the forums, but the TSR and MFGG comparisons help me picture it now. Thanks!2. So, from the beginning people asked if the site was meant to replace the forums. In short, no, that's not our intention, and I'd personally be against doing so. The easiest way to explain what it's meant to be like would like how TSR or MFGG operate. They have their forums for all forms of discussion, events, engagement etc with "assets" side of things being separate but also not. It's like how we've all agreed at this point that forums are really not be best way to organize and display things that have more visual purpose than text. Hopefully that makes sense, but just to be crystal clear, both the forums and asset site are meant to work together, not to try and be the other's executioner.
Statistics: Posted by Ness-Wednesday — Mon Sep 30, 2024 1:39 am