New Order?

[Barbarus]

Hi there...

I wanted to mention something that keeps bothering me and I wanted to see if there are others out there who feel the same way and if there might be a way to get rid of that problem...

The thing is: While I love the people and content in this forum, I find it really hard to navigate and find the coolest stuff because, frankly, it is hidden beneath/between a lot of unnecessary ballast.

I just find it really odd that new topics/threads are created for things that dont deserve their own topic/thread.

I mean: Often I see a thread and click on it and all that I find in there is sentence made up of less than ten words, referring to some blog post.

Kind of:
"Hey, I painted something new! Pictures on my blog: *link*"


And because of that a lot of interesting threads with real content are pushed to page 2,3 or who-knows-how-far back.

Wouldnt it be better to have some threads for stuff like this and stick them to the top of the particular sub-forum?
Something like an "Ideas & Inspirations"-Thread and a "Show Your Newest Miniature"-Thread... something like that.


So long,
Barb

[Agis]

I had bothered me too to be honest.

Maybe it is time for a "minimum content per thread" policy.

I also post pics of my painted minis, but I always give some explanations, what minis used and at least one pic.
iMO the barest minimum of courtesy to other forum members.
An even better example are the the Profs posting.

So maybe it us time for a ban of postings that just point to a blog?

[Captain Blood]

It's a fair point, and one the moderator group have considered several times.
Ideally, we would like people to post at least some content here, rather than just posting a link to their blogs. But so far, we haven't made that a forum rule.

I'm sure we will review the policy again in due course, and will of course take the views of members into account.

[Rhoderic]

It's always preferable (IMO) to post a "teaser" picture or three along with your blog link when you're making a new thread or post about updates to your blog, but other than that, on the whole, I don't really agree with you. What's the "ballast" that doesn't deserve threads? The example you give isn't what I view as ballast. On the contrary, it's precisely what LAF is supposed to be about; sharing the products of our hobby efforts. Keeping the content on blogs and linking to them is just a convenient way of sharing, especially for those users who are also active on other forums and want to share in those forums as well. I don't think the people doing that are being antisocial. They just don't have a lot of time on their hands and they have to divide what time they have between multiple communities.

Wouldnt it be better to have some threads for stuff like this and stick them to the top of the particular sub-forum?
Something like an "Ideas & Inspirations"-Thread and a "Show Your Newest Miniature"-Thread... something like that.

What LAF content wouldn't fall into either an "Ideas & Inspirations" thread or a "Show Your Newest Miniature" thread?

Maybe this is just my personal bugaboo, but I have an aversion to stickied threads that are hundreds of pages long. They're intimidating, and it's even harder to navigate them and find the cool stuff inside them than in the alternative setup of multiple threads.

So maybe it us time for a ban of postings that just point to a blog?

To be honest, I'm starting to hope for a ban on further bans. I suspect that some of the forum rules can feel a bit... draconic, to newcomers. "You may NOT do this and you may NOT do that, and you may NOT argue against these rules because we've had that argument with other people already and we're tired of it". Now, I do understand that each ban was put in place out of necessity. No more than one active thread in each marketplace subforum, for instance (keeps the marketplace in better order). Even the ban on arguing against bans can be necessary (as with the whole Nazi symbols ban - there's nothing to do about it so arguing doesn't help, and arguments about so complicated and flammable a topic as that often derail). But is a ban on blog link threads necessary?

Each additional ban tacked on to the forum rules will make those rules more scary-looking to newcomers. And do the mods really want to be in a position where they have to keep admonishing forum members for such an innocent "crime"? There would be many ruffled feathers, I suspect.

[Cherno]

I don't share the concerns of the OP because I exlusively browse the forum via the "Show unread posts since last visit" button, where I can quickly scroll through new content and ignore what doesn't interest me. In fact, this is the way I use all PHBB forums and those with similar functions (TMP being the sad exception). I visit LAF at least once per day, so maybe this doesn't work as well for more sporadic use, but you might give it a try instead of going to a subforum directly.

[Prof.Witchheimer]

We already have an official statement on Forum News on this:

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=29435.0

And that's the current state of things. No plans to change it and so no need to discuss it. Going to lock this thread now.