Update/Change New experimental/suggestion process.

[Ben]

Alright, so what we're going to do (Lotus)...

I've reworked how the experimental system is going to work. The old method was getting a little redundant, and could stand to be streamlined.

As such, I've more or less done away with the entire concept of experimental forums. We still have the suggestions forum which has now been moved to the Forum Help section (which was moved to make the Game Help section more prominent, I didn't feel like making an announcement just to say I moved it).

Forum/Game suggestions that Crazy Jamie, Neo Matrix, and myself think will have a chance will now just be made as regular forums. Putting them in with everything else is no more work than putting them in the experimental section, and this promotes a little more chance that people will find what they are looking for (unless the forum is named "The Droids", perhaps.)

These forums will be subject to the regular standards of forum activity. To stay around, they must receive 10 posts every 30 days. The old scale of requiring 10 active threads for a forum to pass experimental just seemed a little off when we don't necessarily require that much activity from existing forums.

To compensate for the new forums now not being listed on the front page, I've made a new section above Game Help that will contain links to any recently made forums. Not just recently made forums, actually, as I've also added links for upcoming/recently released games that have existing forums for their discussion. The hope is that it'll help people find where to discuss those new games more conveniently. I'll rotate these out every few weeks.

Hopefully this will keep things moving a little more, and stop experimental forums from sitting stagnant for months.

[Steven]

Originally Posted by Ben

The old scale of requiring 10 active threads for a forum to pass experimental just seemed a little off when we don't necessarily require that much activity from existing forums.

It's this right here that makes me happy a change was made. Good job, Benji.

[!]

I actually like these new changes! I'm glad to see they were made!

[Spiner202]

This is an awesome change. Good work

Sorry if I missed it but does this mean that more forums are going to be given a chance? It seemed like a lot of game forums were being shot down before and this seems like a better system.

[!]

I hope it gives more of them a chance.

[Warp]

This seems like the most appropriate place to ask, so what exactly prompted the (re-)creation of a Tales forum? The PS3 port of Vesperia hasn't been confirmed for a North American/European release, whereas the Wii's Tales of Graces isn't due out in Japan until the middle of December. I don't suspect the forum will get any notable traffic.

Demon's Souls seems to be pretty popular in the PS3 forum, though it's all contained in one thread, so that seems more worthy.

[Ben]

Originally Posted by Spiner202

This is an awesome change. Good work

Sorry if I missed it but does this mean that more forums are going to be given a chance? It seemed like a lot of game forums were being shot down before and this seems like a better system.

Yes and no. We're now more so going to be making forums for up-coming games that we think are going to have enough activity, so for the most part people won't even have to suggest forums anymore as they'll just be made. However, that's also up for decision between Neo/Jamie/Me, so if you're really itching to have a forum made you should probably still suggest it.

Originally Posted by Warp

This seems like the most appropriate place to ask, so what exactly prompted the (re-)creation of a Tales forum? The PS3 port of Vesperia hasn't been confirmed for a North American/European release, whereas the Wii's Tales of Graces isn't due out in Japan until the middle of December. I don't suspect the forum will get any notable traffic.

Demon's Souls seems to be pretty popular in the PS3 forum, though it's all contained in one thread, so that seems more worthy.

Neo Matrix has been maintaining the release calendar, and has Tales Of Symphonia: Dawn Of The New World (EU) for release on November 20th. It was his suggestion, and considering there are apparently 20 games in that series I decided to give it a shot.

[shortkut]

i've always thought that experimentals should have twice as long to reach the active level since it takes time for the new forum to get noticed and build a base of members. by lowering it to posts instead of threads it seems to eliminate that need

[Jawni]

Originally Posted by shortkut

i've always thought that experimentals should have twice as long to reach the active level since it takes time for the new forum to get noticed and build a base of members. by lowering it to posts instead of threads it seems to eliminate that need

You could always still go by common sense and see if it actually has steady activity or only a random burst at some point after the forum has been made. It would be redundant to add a forum as an active one when they've gotten 30 something posts in 3 threads within a bit over a week, then it plummets to barely any posts for the next couple weeks. It clearly isn't an active forum.