Should there be sub forums in the "WADs and Mods" category?

[mxrgan]

Ive heard some people say things about there needing to be sub forums in the Wads/Mods category. I personally agree, There should be one section where you can post finished wads, and another where you can post your wip stuff. This will help finished wads gain more attention and more people can play the wad and give things like criticism.

 

EDIT: Are any mods seeing this??

Edited November 4, 2020 by PSI Boredom Ω

[Redneckerz]

We had Post Hell for things like that.

 

In more seriousness bring it up with the staff, see what they will say.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

Agree, there needs to be a section for WIP wads. I don't see why it would hurt, in fact I think it would greatly benefit both mappers and people looking for something to play/test/review.

[mxrgan]

47 minutes ago, Redneckerz said:

In more seriousness bring it up with the staff, see what they will say.

Can you give me some staff names? I just dont know any off the top of my head.

[Redneckerz]

2 hours ago, PSI Boredom Ω said:

Can you give me some staff names? I just dont know any off the top of my head.

Fraggle, Linguica, Ichor.

[Phobus]

I agree that there needs to be some sort of split. Perhaps a three-way split might make the most sense:

• WADs and Mods general - for all of the question threads and stuff like the DWMC
• WADs and Mods releases - self-explanatory
• WADs and Mods development - again, does what it says on the tin

That might help with new release threads (particularly by new mappers and their first maps) being so prone to dropping off of the first page so quickly. It'll also make it a lot easier to find new releases without having to sift through play-through threads and all the rest of it.

[Doom-X-Machina]

Yes I think separating completed WADS/Mods from those in development will help to clean things up and make threads easier to find.

Is there the ability to remove a WIP thread once the WAD/Mod is completed and posted in the completed section?

[Biodegradable]

It could definitely use some greater sense of organisation given how popular the section is. Giving it a couple of subforums similar to Doom Editing would be a good idea. I second Phobus's suggestion for three subforums: Development, Releases and General.

[SilverMiner]

Actually it should be separated WADS and MODS sections IMO

[taufan99]

Exactly what Phobus suggested.

[kalaeth]

another agreement with Phobus' suggestion. 

[DSC]

4 hours ago, PSI Boredom Ω said:

Can you give me some staff names? I just dont know any off the top of my head.

Adding to the ones named by @Redneckerz, there's also Mordeth and esselfortium.

[P41R47]

Subforums will surely help a lot.

There are a quite large number of projects that are almost instantly dethroned from the first page and rarely see the light of the day again. We have to be grateful to the never ending stuffs the community develope.

But a lot of really good projects are forgotten or completely overlooked because of this.

 

There is no good solution to this.

Subforums will help people find new things. Yes, thats true.

 

But inside those subforums there will be no change. Latest projects or the ones with recents post will be on top.

I probably sound like a broken record by now, saying always the same, but really great projects were almost completely overlooked this year.

And so, new voices are harder and harder to be heard, even when they are screaming with all their might.

 

Slowly, people are aknowledging these projects, but even when there are people that like to dig deeper and deeper unto the opened threads, some still does not get much attention.

 

Best example of this are three projects awarded last year.

-Finely Crafted Fetish Film, even when it was made by multiple award winning Ribbiks, it doesn't receive much attention at it release.

-Noye was the same, not much people play it or know it.

-Doom Zero got three new updates since the awards mentioning.

 

But a lot of other good projects that didn't receive any recognition were released, too.

 

Vorpal's Wad Picks 2020 and 2019 are good thread where to search for good stuff, but also those has a lot of content not covered or dismissed by the author, like a lot of my firstwad projects or others he didn't enjoyed or find uninteresting.

 

So we need something like what @Vorpal made, constantly updated during a year period, and objetively including everything that is post for both categories, Released and WIP.

 

As these list will not be affected by being recently released or by new posts, people will have the opportunity to look, search, and try wads as long as his/her curiosity allows them.

[Doomkid]

I've thought this was a good idea for quite a while now:

On 4/4/2020 at 3:34 PM, Doomkid said:

My guess would be because things only stay on page 1 of wads & mods for about an hour these days. The forum is in desperate need of two separate sections, one for wad releases and one for works in progress.
 

As it is now, some threads get 0 replies because they’re on the first page for such a minuscule amount of time... I try to throw in a courtesy reply to some of them just to give them 5 more minutes to catch more attention, but it’s just not sustainable as-is.

 

The suggestions/"broken Doomworld stuff" thread has been dead for over a year now though, which leads me to believe maybe the staff just doesn't have the time for the proposed updates. After all, there's still the issue of the desync between the downloads section and the actual idgames database on gamers.org, as it is there's over a year's worth of content that can't be accessed/reviewed/etc on the download section. Maybe adding subforums is an easier task overall, though.

 

I also respectfully disagree with some of the points @P41R47 has brought up here. I think the main reason these projects are overlooked upon release is because most people who don't make wads and just want to play them probably rarely check out the Wads & Mods section, since it's 90% development stuff. If there was one clear subforum for people who are just players to go to for browsing/commenting on new content that's actually released and ready for public consumption, I feel like players would feel less like they're "wading through threads" just to find playable content.

 

Regarding curation, we already have the Cacwords and numerous "wads I like and suggest" threads. I understand the proposal of such curated content is to avoid projects being ignored, but I fear the opposite if the actual subforums were sorted that way - that it will result in certain wads being unfortunately missed for whatever reason. Sorting by latest post just seems the most objective, even if perhaps not the most elegant..

 

Regardless, a "WIP", "Releases" and "General wad chatter" division like Phobus suggests sounds swell to me in theory!

[Trupiak]

I strongly disagree. I hate the concept of creating useless subforums at people's whim that only confuse the newcomers and also splitting the activity into four subforums so doomworld feels like it has less traffic. I like how doomworld is right now and I don't think much needs to be changed.

[P41R47]

41 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

Regardless, a "WIP", "Releases" and "General wad chatter" division like Phobus suggests sounds swell to me in theory!

Oh, don't worry, mine was just and idea, pal!

But maybe i wasn't clear as i intended, i also support what @Phobus proposed.

Just maybe adding a pinned list inside the subforums with all the projects inside the subforum, separate by years, just to facilitate the search.

41 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

I think the main reason these projects are overlooked upon release is because most people who don't make wads and just want to play them probably rarely check out the Wads & Mods section, since it's 90% development stuff.

Hmm maybe our experiences differs here. And i hope my answer is took as polite as yours ;)

Take the case of @Biodegradable, as far as i know, he is no mapper, yet, or for the time being doesn't opened a thread with a project made by him (or i miss it). But he always lurks the Wads&Mods forum, helping developers with feedback and just having fun playing new wads. Me too, i'm just a player and sometimes help developers with feedback or graphics, and always searching for new and not much reviewed content.

 

So i think that whoever come here, mapper or player, will look into the Wads&Mods forum and check what is displayed there.

 

Maybe i'm missing a section of Doomworld entirely, but beside the download section and the cacowards, is there other place to look for what to play?

 

[Doomkid]

Well, for me, I've always considered the go-to place for new releases to be the bottom of this page: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/

[P41R47]

1 hour ago, Doomkid said:

Well, for me, I've always considered the go-to place for new releases to be the bottom of this page: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/

Well, you will be surprised to know that i stumble with a good number of members here that didn't knew Idgames at all, or don't use it because they don't understand it/shady strange old looking site/virus warning all the time.

Not just new members.

And they only checked the Wads&Mods forum for releases and wips.

 

I dunno... Maybe it would be better to make a flashy signal for the download section. Something like the McDonnals logo :P

 

Back on topic, sorry for derailing it a little.

[Chris Hansen]

I'm thinking the moderators have already discussed this before or there's another reason why the subforum hasn't been split up. And probably a good one too. They don't strike me as being lazy or absent. Until we know for sure might I suggest that people use some sort of marker in the title of the thread like for instance a tag using brackets []. I noticed someone do it and did it recently. Examples could be [WIP], [Release] or [Open test] etc. I thinks this helps overview immensely and if you use [WIP] and later finish it then edit the title to [Release]. The problem is of course that there'd have to be some sort of consensus on what to put in the brackets. If we write all sorts of things then it kinda defies the purpose and it all turns into a mess again :)

[mxrgan]

2 minutes ago, Chris Hansen said:

I'm thinking the moderators have already discussed this before or there's another reason why the subforum hasn't been split up. And probably a good one too. They don't strike me as being lazy or absent. Until we know for sure might I suggest that people use some sort of marker in the title of the thread like for instance a tag using brackets []. I noticed someone do it and did it recently. Examples could be [WIP], [Release] or [Open test] etc. I thinks this helps overview immensely and if you use [WIP] and later finish it then edit the title to [Release]. The problem is of course that there'd have to be some sort of consensus on what to put in the brackets. If we write all sorts of things then it kinda defies the purpose and it all turns into a mess again :)

 

5 hours ago, Phobus said:

I agree that there needs to be some sort of split. Perhaps a three-way split might make the most sense:

• WADs and Mods general - for all of the question threads and stuff like the DWMC
• WADs and Mods releases - self-explanatory
• WADs and Mods development - again, does what it says on the tin

That might help with new release threads (particularly by new mappers and their first maps) being so prone to dropping off of the first page so quickly. It'll also make it a lot easier to find new releases without having to sift through play-through threads and all the rest of it.

 

 

I agree with both of these. For the few people that say the subforums can be added with the expense of the expense of simple navigation, Chris Hansen's suggestion is a great alternative. Though I would love to have subforums, as it would actually simplify navigation imo, and Phobus's ideas are perfect for that. I really am supprised at the discussion that came up while I was sleeping.

[seed]

3 hours ago, Trupiak said:

I strongly disagree. I hate the concept of creating useless subforums at people's whim that only confuse the newcomers and also splitting the activity into four subforums so doomworld feels like it has less traffic. I like how doomworld is right now and I don't think much needs to be changed.

 

Same here.

 

Adding more subforums would essentially be fixing what ain't broken in this case, IMO.

[mxrgan]

18 minutes ago, seed said:

Adding more subforums would essentially be fixing what ain't broken in this case, IMO.

I dont personally think that there's anything broken imo, but having added subforums will greatly benefit mappers as then they dont have to fight to have their new wad stay on the first page and not be overshadowed by a lot of discussion on another, more popular one. With a new subforum dedicated to just sharing finished maps, new maps can have a lot more attention and more people can play and give feedback and criticism.

Again, I think its just adding some organization that could benefit people, not fixing what was not broken to begin with. That is your opinion though, and I respect that.

[seed]

I see where you're coming from, but in that case, then a split in two categories - discussions and works -, would probably be better.

[LexiMax]

I'd be in favor of a sort-of "tagging" system where you could tag a project thread as WIP or Finished and maybe filter the subforum based on that tag  Maybe something like the old vbulliten thread tags.

 

But splitting the forum in two risks reducing visibility in one or both of the newly-split subforums, so that's a hard disagree from me.

 

EDIT: If multi-tagging was supported, even better, since you could apply multiple like [WIP] [Limit-removing].

Edited November 3, 2020 by AlexMax

[DNSKILL5]

I agree that this would be a good idea, too. I would support this change if the moderation and administration teams were to do something like this. 

[LexiMax]

A quick google search reveals that Invision does indeed have tagging support:

 

https://invisioncommunity.com/4guides/how-to-use-ips-community-suite/content-discovery/content-tags-and-prefixes-r72/

 

It might've already been enabled in a subforum I wasn't paying attention to, but in any case this feature is one I'm a fan of, not splitting the subforum.

[HQDefault]

I don't really think that we need to separate wads in development from finished wads, that's never been an issue for me.

 

What is an issue is clustering in "Wad discussion" with "Actual wad releases". It's combersome and they don't belong together.

[Doomduck12367]

yea i like that idea

oh maybe there could be another how about the trash wads

but that's a really good idea  

[P41R47]

1 hour ago, AlexMax said:

I'd be in favor of a sort-of "tagging" system where you could tag a project thread as WIP or Finished and maybe filter the subforum based on that tag  Maybe something like the old vbulliten thread tags.

 

But splitting the forum in two risks reducing visibility in one or both of the newly-split subforums, so that's a hard disagree from me.

 

EDIT: If multi-tagging was supported, even better, since you could apply multiple like [WIP] [Limit-removing].

 

1 hour ago, AlexMax said:

A quick google search reveals that Invision does indeed have tagging support:

 

https://invisioncommunity.com/4guides/how-to-use-ips-community-suite/content-discovery/content-tags-and-prefixes-r72/

 

It might've already been enabled in a subforum I wasn't paying attention to, but in any case this feature is one I'm a fan of, not splitting the subforum.

Good idea!

this could probably make thing easier and faster for everyone without the need to change into sub forums.

Remember seeing this on other forums, too. Don't know why i didn't bring it... oh yes hahah, because that was like 15 years ago hahahaha, no clue it wasn't on my mind :P