Introduction Forum

[Maljonic]

I saw a web site this morning that combines avatar/sig testing with an introduction forum and thought it might be a good idea to have something like it. We could have it right at or near the top for all newcomers to see, even have a sticky post inside with our brief posting rules if we like?

[Electric_Man]

I think we're creating too many forums here, the web-site will be a huge mess of loads of orums if we create too many. Introductions can be in general discussion, or maybe the avatar thing as you said. I also feel the member news should be in GD, not in it's own forum.

[Buzzfloyd]

I was going to say yes, but Ben's post swayed me. Introducing ourselves should be in the main GD forum, where everyone will see it. If it's in a forum that only newbies look at, there doesn't seem much point.

However, I do think we should have a technical/testing area for things like avatars and sigs, and for working out how to use the UBB code - that sort of thing. People could ask questions there if they weren't sure, without cluttering up other fora.

Also, Ben, I don't think things will be that cluttered - bear in mind that we won't be keeping the fora we have at the moment if we go for something else.

[Maljonic]

The only thing is, if you have an introduction forum you can see it right away, if it's inside another forum you wont see it unless you go in there. We are voting on a lot of stuff, but we haven't really come up with that many forums, I don't think it would be messy if we had say:

[b:e31ba78ddb]Introductions and Avatar Testing[/b:e31ba78ddb]
Use this section to say hi, tell us about yourself, read our simple posting rules, test your signature or avatar.

[b:e31ba78ddb]General Discussions[/b:e31ba78ddb]
Talk about anything and everything to do with the Discworld, Terry Pratchett or whatever you like.

[b:e31ba78ddb]The Watch Book[/b:e31ba78ddb]
Discussions on Guards! Guards! Night Watch.....

[b:e31ba78ddb]The Witch Books[/b:e31ba78ddb]
Discuss Witches Abroad, Equal Rites...

[b:e31ba78ddb]Wizard Books[/b:e31ba78ddb]
Magic, Rincewind, Ridcully and so forth...


[b:e31ba78ddb]Message Board Polls and Elections[/b:e31ba78ddb]
Vote and make decisions on how the Unseen Message Board is run...


[b:e31ba78ddb]Moderator Discussions[/b:e31ba78ddb]
For moderators to discuss current board issues...

I think we could add a lot more without it looking messy, the last one could be in a section all on it's own if we want it to be? Of course these are just examples and we can word them any way we like, and change things around if we don't like the look of them as we go along - see what works and what doesn't.

I've seen something similar to the introduction forum on another site. It works quite well. If you want to find out about a poster, it's easy enough to look there. In the past on the site we've had numerous people join up and start their own welcome thread. Very few of them seemed to hang around after that.

I'm in two minds at the moment, so I'll save my vote for later.

[Electric_Man]

I think what Mal said plus one more for "Miscellaneous Books" that you can't pigeon-hole, like Small Gods, Pyramids and The Amazing Maurice.

I don't think we should have anymore for certain topics of discussion, maybe for a new book, but that would be it.

[Maljonic]

The votes are half and half on this, I'm not sure if it may have been better if I'd made the first post a bit more clear. When we've had the vote on the name for the General Discussion forum, I could just set all the forums up and we can see what they look like, then chop and change them if they don't look right?

[Buzzfloyd]

Sounds good, Mal.

[Cat]

[quote:ad2ee92372="Buzzfloyd"]Sounds good, Mal.[/quote:ad2ee92372]

What she said.

[sampanna]

The usual name for a test bed forum is a sandbox .. you can try out whatever you want there.

Edited to add: I don't think the books should be in separate forums, or did I miss a poll about that? Putting them in different forums just increases the number of forums (I think) unnecessarily.

Edited again: An edit doesn't show up as an edit? :? There doesn't seem any way to make sure that the post isn't original.

[Maljonic]

There's something about that somewhere too; edited posts only show up as edited if you change them after a few minutes has past, so you can edit them quickly if you spot a mistake.