Merging of Gaming Discussion and First Play

[charlesr]

It has again been suggested that we merge the two folders. This now seems to make more sense than the last time it was considered a few years ago. Anyone for or against, with reasons please?

[Brad]

For.

Posts tend to cross pollinate anyway and traffic isn't high enough here to support the split.

[chopemon]

Wow, quick action on this. I'm for it with exactly the reasons Brad says.

[fuse]

I think a thread per game, that evolves from "here's some news and a trailer" into "it's out now, what do you think" is fair enough, but that doesn't mean I won't miss the distinction between pre-release hype and people actually having hands-on impressions. We already get quite a lot of people posting thoughts in gaming news rather than starting first plays, so I accept that if anything it feels like just formalising the way a lot of folks seem to naturally post. Would it also not make sense to include the import gaming subfolder in this?

It'd be good to understand what happens to old threads though - I feel attempting to merge existing threads could end up a bit of a nightmare? Also what would happen to more general news threads that don't relate to a specific game? I almost feel like they need a separate area, so like one subfolder where everything is specific to one game (be it import or otherwise) and another where more generalised news/discussion threads go?

[charlesr]

Can you elaborate on what those folders would be called [MENTION=3822]fuse[/MENTION]?

[chopemon]

I think for the existing threads, they should all get moved into one folder with no attempt to merge existing threads as that will probably get messy. Then over time we'll migrate naturally to existing threads or new threads. It will probably require renaming old threads or starting fresh threads. For example, there was a recent Yakuza 8 thread. Not sure who bets to decide this but we either let that naturally fall away off the first page or we rename it to The Yakuza Thread and just put everything related to the Yakuza games in there. Unless we want to get someone to go through and do loads of admin work upfront, we'll probably just need to start consolidating threads as the need arises and let legacy threads shake out over time.

I answer to the question about generalised threads, would it make sense to just keep them in the same folder as everything else? I know it is slightly messy but we can pin threads like the general news thread but it means we're not delineating anything between a news folder and a non-news folder which makes people second guess where it should be posted.

Since I'm the one that suggested this change, I am happy to take on the admin changes around this if Charles wants to give me limited mod powers. I don't want to be a full mod but I also don't expect to just suggest a huge change with a load of work and expect someone else to handle it all.

[fuse]

Maybe something as simple as "Games" and then "General Game Discussion", with the little descriptions underneath making clear that the former should be used for specific games? Not particularly precious about any of this, more just throwing ideas out there.

[Neon Ignition]

Quickest way I guess is to make First Play a subforum like the football one, like an archive that's less visible so it eventually dies off.

And fix the D in Discussion

[teddymeow]

For. Like wot Brad said

[kryss]

For, just like the number of games I will have completed by the end of 2021.

[MartyG]

Against - as always. There's so little discussion on playing games on the forum now that actual posting about the playing of games will get lost in the complaining about them.

[Asura]

Would it not make more sense to merge import gaming into something? I kinda feel the old distinction doesn't make a lot of sense these days.

[Neon Ignition]

I guess we're talking about something similar to the simplified Era/GAF model:

-General Discussion
-Retro Gaming
-Off Topic
-Music, Movies and TV

As the four primary sections, then the rest would effectively be sub-forums

[briareos_kerensky]

Against, for pretty much the reason as Marty's. Actual gameplay posts would be lost among everything else.

[Wools]

I'm in favour of this.

I always felt that when the 2 were split, it meant that if anyone was enjoying an older game and wrote down their thoughts, their was little traffic and the posts died. But in the old days, if an old game got bumped, it got more discussion.

Also, I'm not sure if anyone has the stats to hand, does news / discussion get more traffic than first play?