Should the forums be reorganized?

[Mooshi]

Let's see if the polling booth description fits and see democracy in action!

Should the forums be reorganized? Give your reasons why or why not.

I think they should. Some boards are vague and I don't think I'm the only one who doesn't pay much attention to the subforum area at the bottom. If you guys are like me, you hang around the top of the forum and look at the right side to see the newest topic instead of digging around everywhere.

Here is what I think should change:
general furry discussion/furries on furry/ furry lite could all be merged into a single furry dicussion board.

Artwork techniques should be a subforum under artwork announcements.

Furry fiction and poetry corner should be merged into one literary board.

RPG section under subforums should be deleted since furry role-playing makes it redundant. Any board that hasn't had activity in literally over a year should be axed off honestly. Or at least have an archive board and move those posts there instead of having dead boards.

If this happened, I believe the forums will look much cleaner and also to fill up the free space, some sub forums should be taken out of obscurity and placed near the top! :3 Seriously..why is a tech board so dead and hidden when furries are known to be geeks? It makes me sad. ;.;

[Serra Belvoule]

I think a cleaning could make wonders :3 But overall I'm ok with the topics and orders.
I just wished for an obvious way of knowing if a post I posted in has replies that concern me or quote me directly...

[Arbutus]

I've moved this down to the Suggestion Box because that's the best place for you all to, well, provide your suggestions. So feel free to vote!... although it would actually be more valuable if you can make a post providing specific suggestions for what you'd like to see changed. Otherwise we won't know what people want.

In the meantime, though, I'll give you some background. The subforums used to be a way more integral part of Furtopia than they are now. Furtopia started out as a web hosting site, and the forums were just a place for furs with webhosting accounts to come chat. A lot of them signed up for their own subforums to give them a place to share their art with others. Groups of furs soon started getting together to request their own subforums where they could talk about niche topics that interested them. (That's how Tech Talk and Foodie Furs happened, and those still get some good use.)

Nowadays, we have the opposite situation. The forums have totally taken over, and the webhosting is a much smaller focus. You can still request a forum to show your art, of course, but it's become much less popular over the years. (Neonlux is the only person I can think of who's requested a forum since like... 2007?) Most of the people who requested their own subforums have long ago disappeared, and only a handful of people still use most of them anymore.

The main option we've been talking about is somehow closing and archiving the subforums - or, rather, closing those that are mostly dead and moving the ones that still get activity to a more prominent spot. There are a whole lot of ways we could potentially do this, and we haven't decided on one. However, keep in mind that this is a huge amount of work on our part. Every subforum was requested by someone, so we'd need to first try to contact all the people behind the artist boards (at the least) and ask them what they want us to do with their art... and even if we didn't do that, we'd still need to figure out where to put all the old posts (as we don't permanently delete anything from these forums). Since we're all just volunteers for whom real life comes first, that's a pretty huge task that's pretty low on our priority list.

As for merging two forums, I've never actually looked into that. It could be possible, but I don't know. However, I would probably disagree with most of the merges you suggested, other than perhaps one involving "Furries on Furry." That's the only board you mentioned that doesn't have a distinct purpose.

[Mooshi]

I see your points. Do think archiving would be a smart option, though. Keep everything all tidy in one section.

Artist tecniques under the primary art forum does make sense to me, as does a unified literary section instead of one for fiction and another for poems. Tech Talk and Foodie furs would be right at home in the same cat. as the general discussion and life problems, methinks.

[Serra Belvoule]

I like the archiving idea, I have to say.
I'd also think an alternate coloring for furtopia could be nice, my eyes strain on the blue against blue and black X3

[Shim]

Other than Furries on Furry and General Furry Discussion pretty much being the same thing, I don't see any reason to change anything.

I've wondered if its possible to just lock every thread that's dead, so people wouldn't grave-dig, but I realize that project will probably take months, and the staff probably don't want to deal with it 

[Mooshi]

OR You could just archive really old topics and place them in a read only forum, Shim. Would be so much faster.

[Shim]

OR You could just archive really old topics and place them in a read only forum, Shim. Would be so much faster.

Either one would involve selecting a giant group of things to move somewhere else, or lock, no?

Putting myself into the perspective of the guest, (and not me, because I do this anyway,) I would rather read what people are saying NOW, rather than bring myself to click on the archives, which have threads from god-knows how long ago, and who knows what's changed?

[Mooshi]

That's the whole point of an archive. To save old messages in case A) something valueable was posted. (could be useful info or just a really funny thread) B) old members wanna have a case of nostalgia. C) New members/Guests wanna read about the forums past.

No real reason to have bits scattered everywhere that has no relevance today. Sure it will time, but well worth it. Dead topics that are years old in a ghost forum never look good if said forum isn't a strict archive. I guess it's who I am. Whenever I used to run communities, I liked balance in the boards. The strictly furry boards far out number general for example.

[Shim]

That's the whole point of an archive. To save old messages in case A) something valueable was posted. (could be useful info or just a really funny thread) B) old members wanna have a case of nostalgia. C) New members/Guests wanna read about the forums past.

No real reason to have bits scattered everywhere that has no relevance today. Sure it will time, but well worth it. Dead topics that are years old in a ghost forum never look good if said forum isn't a strict archive. I guess it's who I am. Whenever I used to run communities, I liked balance in the boards. The strictly furry boards far out number general for example.

If you were to look on the "Who's Online" list, you probably wouldn't be surprised at just how many people are looking at ridiculously old threads. While yes, some of them are spider-bots, you find a lot of threads being looked at by guests. Say I was a guest, which I was, for a couple of weeks before I joined this forum, I looked at an old thread, and then another, and then another, where I realized "Wow, this stuff is old."

If you were to put those all in an archive, wouldn't the guest think "hmm..I'm not sure if I want to go there.." when its perfectly good information, or art?

[Mooshi]

Think of how marketing is done. All it really needs is a well written description. Something like "Graveyard for dead posts" sounds way too grim and not very attractive. "A collection of topics past - check out our history, you might learn something new!" on the other hand might make you go "Hmmm..I wonder what's inside!' Dontcha think so?

[furtopia02]

I like the archiving idea actually.. if its old enough to get in trouble for grave digging it, it may as well archive, imo. I also voted to reorganize things.

[Shim]

Think of how marketing is done. All it really needs is a well written description. Something like "Graveyard for dead posts" sounds way too grim and not very attractive. "A collection of topics past - check out our history, you might learn something new!" on the other hand might make you go "Hmmm..I wonder what's inside!' Dontcha think so?

I never said archiving was inherently a bad idea. My question now, is whether or not each of the dead threads on each board gets its own archive board, or if its just all thrown together.

[Mooshi]

Just for the sake of looking clean, I vote all grouped together in one board. Having a subforum for every little thing in an archive will bring us right back to square one with the excess of dead subforums. I can only think of 3 boards out of all the subforums that gets use off the top of my head and that is tech, foodie furs and Old  Rabbit's subforum.

[Shim]

I wasn't even thinking of the sub-forums here...Has that been the topic of conversation the entire time?

I would put most of the sub-forums under whatever it is that specific thread is about. If it was some peron from 2004's art thread, I'd stick it under the "Archived Art" subforum.

[Arbutus]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, everyone. Let's not run away with the archiving idea. What we can do on that front will be limited by what our forum software can actually handle, and frankly, I haven't looked into that yet. Paaaaaaatience.

I can tell you, though, that we've considered but turned down the idea of having threads auto-lock after six months, because there's no way to ensure that pinned threads and ongoing threads (e.g. fursuit tutorials and such) wouldn't also auto-lock - and those are threads we want to keep constantly open for members who are looking for help.

[Mooshi]

Hold a donation drive to pony up the cash for Vbulletin? (is kidding, but that would also be cool at the same time!)

[Shim]

I can tell you, though, that we've considered but turned down the idea of having threads auto-lock after six months, because there's no way to ensure that pinned threads and ongoing threads (e.g. fursuit tutorials and such) wouldn't also auto-lock - and those are threads we want to keep constantly open for members who are looking for help.

Also, that the word-games are permanently open, right?

[Arbutus]

^ That's true too, though I wouldn't really be too perturbed if an unused word game were auto-locked, to be honest.

[Choky]

Here is what I think should change:
general furry discussion/furries on furry/ furry lite could all be merged into a single furry dicussion board.

Artwork techniques should be a subforum under artwork announcements.

Furry fiction and poetry corner should be merged into one literary board.

 This. A gazillion times over. PLEASE!

 Most significant change in that list is the first one. Topics in furry lite and furries on furry,just belong in General Furry.
 I have always thought this and have voiced this a few time too,but I guess the way to get it actually heard is to make a poll,thank you Mooshi!
 Ever since furry lite and furries on furry were introduced,I just think it just looks like we're trying way too hard. I have been confused more than once on which one to put a topic in,and no matter which one you chose,the thread normally gets moved anyway...too vague and quite pointless in my opinion,if I could vote for only one change it would be without a doubt to put all three(furry lite,furries on furry,and general) into just the one: General Furry Discussion.

[Sky Striker]

Yeah, combining General Furry Discussion and Furries on Furry would be fine, although I believe that Furries on Furry is mainly for more personal topics that don't quite belong in Life Problems & Help.

And archiving is a wonderful idea. There are a lot of sub-forums that aren't touched anymore but still hold good information. Deleting them completely would be a shame. It would also be good for preventing gravedigging (or necros as I call them) but that isn't much of an issue here, especially compared to another forum I go onto where two year old topics are necroed at least once every month. Oh jeez and the spambots there! We don't have captchas or anything on that forum.

But anyway, I think the forums are pretty good. I first thought that trolling would be a major problem here but I have yet to see one troll. These forums are great, just a little housecleaning would be nice.

[Shim]

Even so, with everybody's comments, including my own, furtopia is still the most organized forum I've EVER seen  .

[Yip]

I completely dislike the idea of archiving old threads if it means moving them. Whenever I have looked for old threads I usually don't quite remember what the title was or things like that, but I have an idea what section it was in and that helps me find it without having to dig through too many non-relevant threads. If they were all moved into an archive, it would greatly hamper such searching.

I would say that I never quite understood the distinction between "furry lite" and "general furry discussion".

I could see room for minor improvements, but for the most part, I like things how they are.

[Mooshi]

There is a search function ya know. That should help somewhat. Even if you don't remember the title, you could use a vague term that is relevant.

I wonder if you're like me, Var. Sometimes I have things scattered, but it's an "organized mess". (usually on my pc) Whenever I do clean up, I sometimes go to vague folders and forget where I moved stuff. I eventually adjust no biggie.

[Yip]

There is a search function ya know. That should help somewhat. Even if you don't remember the title, you could use a vague term that is relevant.

Yes, I was talking about the search function. Knowing the likely section(s) helps narrow the search.