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[4Sword]

4Sword

Board Restructuring

Projects -> Development

We want to expand development on ZFGC to highlight more than traditional projects, and at this time Engines has the most potential to grow and more so if given an improved board structure. The main way we are going to do this is by dividing Engines based on the Zelda and Other focuses. This way is more practical in terms of activity and management than dividing it based on skill. This also allows for the GM Minish Cap Engine to be merged into the Zelda Engines board instead of being outside and above it.

There is also going to be an effort for the Contests board to be used more. The board itself will be open for anyone to hold the contests they want to so long as they have a solid contest plan and get a reasonable amount of interest in doing the contest from the community. We want there to be contests dealing with mini-game, engine, or graphics development. There will be some staff management of contests if there isn't a member drive to do them, but for the most part we want it to be a community effort. Things such as events will also be held outside of the Contests board which should increase their visibility. The Projects category is being renamed Development. The Contests board is being moved under the Development category, while events will be held in their own specific boards which will be placed under the ZFGC.com category when they are occurring.

Developer Rank -> Local Moderation

Also the Developer rank is hereby abolished. It isn't that the idea of the rank is fully bad it is just that keeping it filled as a rank is problematic. Its functionality though will be preserved through a system of local moderation, with all local moderators having access to the Staff board. Basically a local moderator position is given to someone when they are working on some aspect of development and giving local moderators Staff board access allows them to discuss things at the staff level.


There are still more changes in the works. Originally I had introduced a plan which other staff members had found some fault with, so I reintroduced a newer plan which sought to better conform to their perspectives. It seems to take forever to get responses though, so I am going ahead with the ideas which had mostly been agreed upon. I'll update this topic when and if I get feedback on that.

[FISSURE]

FISSURE

Re: Board Restructuring

Haven't actually been paying attention, the zelda and other engines used to be combined right?

Though now the zelda engine board has like 56 pages, while the other board has like 2 lol. Though i guess it is nice that they're separated now.

[4Sword]

4Sword

Re: Board Restructuring

I didn't separate the topics before mentioning the change because had I created a hidden board that I was moving topics to, there would have been vanishing topics that some people might have inquired about to which I would have to explain the change anyway. So yeah, moving of topics hasn't fully taken place yet. Although when going through all the topics, you are right there tends to not be as many Other Engines as I thought there would be.

After a few pages of topics that contain engines, the old Engines board yields a lot of properly titled requests, request topics that aren't marked as such, topics which contain good scripts, tutorials, and some engines. There is obviously a lot of Zelda engines, but many of those cover one or two features - which is fine, but what I am getting at is that the script stuff is just as useful or helping to coding development overall. I am now thinking that practically it would be easiest and most useful to just have it as Zelda Coding and Other Coding - with either there being stickied topics listing all engine attempts or good engine attempts.

Keeping the split based on Zelda and Other helps out in that it spreads request topics out between two boards, which means that both boards shouldn't be so cluttered. But a funny problem that has gone on during the history of ZFGC is that the same questions that were asked and answered in the past are getting asked again. It's hard to grow if we can't get past that, and new users would find a more organized system more appealing.

[4Sword]

4Sword

Re: Board Restructuring

ZFGC.com
- Staff
  - Management
  - Moderation
- Updates
- Feedback

Development
- Sponsored
- Contests
- Zelda Projects
- Other Projects
- Discussion

Resources
- Zelda Coding
- Other Coding
- Graphics
- Audio
- Recruitment

(Community Boards)

Explanation of Zelda and Other Coding

Zelda Coding is for programming stuff related to Zelda. Other Coding is for anything program related beyond Zelda; which includes other game series as well as general coding questions such as questions about how Game Maker functions work and how to program stuff in languages like C++. The setup is very similar to what existed in the Invisionfree days. Discussion is for concepts about games that might get made, game design topics, and questions about what tools to use for development. Something like asking what Blitzmax is would go in Discussion, whereas topics involving actually attempts at doing things in Blitzmax would go in Other Coding.

For the Zelda Coding and Other Coding boards, there will be a topic which has a listing of engines and tutorials. Both of those boards will have the possibility of being locally moderated by someone willing to work on updating those lists, helping out with answering questions if possible, and also to provide a voice in the staff boards as to the state of the coding boards altogether. The GM Minish Cap Engine will eventually be integrated into the Zelda Coding board, and Niek will be a local moderator of the board if he still wants to be. The progress of the GM Minish Cap Engine takes some time due to external and internal factors and having it act as a supplement to the Zelda Coding board rather than outside of it should decrease pressure on it.

Additionally, we should be going through all old request topics and gather statistics on what members are asking about how to do. From this we'd make sure we had that stuff covered in terms of previously answered topics, tutorials, or engines - and if not we'd make efforts to accomplish that stuff. We don't want people asking the same stuff over and over and we should want the accumulated knowledge here to work for us rather than just hogging server space.

What Happens to Completed and Concepts

Concepts is being merged into Dicussion as mentioned in functionality above. The reason for this is that what gets posted in Concepts either dies a weak death or what has gotten posted there recently could have been posted in the Zelda WIP or Other WIP boards. Nobody really wants to hear wacky ideas from someone who hasn't made the efforts to actualize those ideas, or from a person like that who is asking for others to do the work for them. However, the Discussion board will still be there for people who want to post stuff like that.

The Completed board is also being removed. Why is this getting done? Well for the obvious reason that there are not that many projects which get completed and the discussion which occurs in topics for completed projects lasts about a month at best before the topic dies. We would rather have the development of projects occurring in the Zelda/Other Projects boards so that the work on the project can be shown rather than just the result. We will still allow for completed projects to be posted in the Zelda/Other Projects board. If and when any project is completed it will be moved to Sponsored for a month as well as being added to a list in a stickied topic so that a future visitor to the board can find the completed project.

[Zaeranos]

Zaeranos

Re: Board Restructuring

For the Zelda Coding and Other Coding boards, there will be a topic which has a listing of engines and tutorials. Both of those boards will have the possibility of being locally moderated by someone willing to work on updating those lists, helping out with answering questions if possible, and also to provide a voice in the staff boards as to the state of the coding boards altogether. The GM Minish Cap Engine will eventually be integrated into the Zelda Coding board, and Niek will be a local moderator of the board if he still wants to be. The progress of the GM Minish Cap Engine takes some time due to external and internal factors and having it act as a supplement to the Zelda Coding board rather than outside of it should decrease pressure on it.

I don't mind being a local moderator to the Zelda Coding board. I do have one question. Do local moderators have access to any staff section or don't they. Because I am not seeing them anymore. This is just a check to see if nothing has gone wrong with permission settings.

[4Sword]

4Sword

Re: Board Restructuring

In an earlier version of the plan I didn't have a Staff board but instead just a Moderation and Management boards under the ZFGC.com category. I ended up dumping all of what was in a previous All Staff board into Moderation because of that. I later figured out that giving local moderators access to the Moderation board where user discussion occurred would be problematic, and also that having the All Staff board was better in the event the staff expanded in a non-moderation sort of way. Aesthetically, having the All Staff board made it so the child boards of Moderation weren't visible on the board index. And because there is no longer a Staff category, the All Staff board could just be renamed Staff.

I removed from the LModAccess rank from the Staff board's permissions because the board was empty and because DJvenom was using the permissions of the LModAccess rank (which was formerly the Site Staff rank) to have the ability to edit the news and post in Updates.

[Kren]

Kren

Re: Board Restructuring

I really like how stuffs are reorganizing I think that some other stuffs do need restructuring for example the Archives how I would organize it would be into three forums in which add everything one being Competitions, the other one being Abandoned Projects , and lastly  Other Stuffs ending like this:


Competitions

• ZFGC Character Competition 2008
• ZFGC Character Competition 2010
• ZFGC Character Competition 2007
• ZFGC Spring Sprite Competition 2007
• Super Smash Brothers Brawl

Abandoned Projects

• Project Updates
• MC Link's Awakening
• Scrapped Projects
• CP: King of Thieves

Projects

Other Stuffs

• Link's Quest
• Other Discussion
• Forum Feedback

I would also add the Submission Archive board from the contest forum into Competitions, but thats just me.

I do beleive that the top menu part (home/projects/resources/comunnity) can also be reorganized a bit and remove the parts that don't get use(zfgc-api for examplr) I dunno for me I beleive that the top part should be really simple and with the most basic and common stuffs to click and use but I guess thats just me.

In an earlier version of the plan I didn't have a Staff board but instead just a Moderation and Management boards under the ZFGC.com category. I ended up dumping all of what was in a previous All Staff board into Moderation because of that. I later figured out that giving local moderators access to the Moderation board where user discussion occurred would be problematic, and also that having the All Staff board was better in the event the staff expanded in a non-moderation sort of way. Aesthetically, having the All Staff board made it so the child boards of Moderation weren't visible on the board index. And because there is no longer a Staff category, the All Staff board could just be renamed Staff.

I removed from the LModAccess rank from the Staff board's permissions because the board was empty and because DJvenom was using the permissions of the LModAccess rank (which was formerly the Site Staff rank) to have the ability to edit the news and post in Updates.

that means that half of zfgc won't be able to enter the staff board ?!lol ;O!

[4Sword]

4Sword

Re: Board Restructuring

I like your idea about structuring the Archive - it makes it easier to look at. Sometimes there are boards which I have ended up placing there after they have been gutted so that I can use them later if a new board has to be created. I don't know why I do that, probably a quirk about seeing boards with high numbers. Also though, I will probably go through Scrapped Projects and gut that to, moving its projects to Zelda Projects or Other Projects. There isn't any difference between most of the projects there and the projects which are old and in the back of the Zelda/Other Projects board.

I also finished up sorting the coding stuff out of the Discussion board and moved all the Concept topics there. I'll be working out some of the Archive stuff and rule topics for the Zelda and Other Coding boards next. About the site stuff, that will have to be worked on later, I have some site stuff that will have to be worked out with the staff first.

[4Sword]

4Sword

Re: Board Restructuring

Update:

I went through and sorted all the projects in Scrapped Projects back into Zelda Projects, Other Projects, or Discussion. I also went through and moved all the topics in the old Forum Feedback board and child boards to Feedback. Additionally, I grouped together boards by type in the Archive, sorted non-moderation topics out of Moderation and into the Staff board again, and then altered the permissions of the Staff board so that those with the secondary LModAccess rank (those who are local moderators) should now be able to see the Staff board.

I still have to go through and add rule topics to the Discussion, Zelda Coding, and Other Coding boards. Sorting though took a while, lol. The Scrapped Projects board must have had close to 30 pages and either Discussion or Zelda Coding had 85 pages before that was all sorted out. Sorting Forum Feedback into Feedback was easier, the only thing besides mass moving with that was making sure to delete old moved topics for cleanliness (too lazy to use the administrator panel which had a quicker way of doing that, well maybe not wanting to mess something up and have to then sort stuff out of the Deleted Forum Posts board).

But yeah, I'll try and get to doing those rule topics sometime in the next few days. I still have a week of break left. Upon finishing up the rule topics, I will then probably move on to integrating the GM Minish Cap Engine into the Zelda Coding board.

[4Sword]

4Sword

Re: Board Restructuring

Update:

I am going to go ahead soon and moved topics from Completed to Zelda Projects and Other Projects, it takes a while because I have to put together a list of the projects which I can then post later. I am also going to move Recruitment under the Development category as most of the topics in it tend to be related to work done on projects, and the Sponsored board is getting moved to the Archive while I figure out what to do with it. It isn't that what happens in Sponsored is bad, it is just that promotion of resources in addition to projects doesn't happen as smoothly, while people vote on projects that get nominated no one posts in the Project of Month articles, and the Zelda Projects and Other Projects boards aren't too active to the point of taking away attention from the projects which are good.

This isn't to say that the Project of the Month concept is dead, but that it needs to be be evaluated and possibly managing it entirely out of the Updates board under ZFGC.com is a possibility.

[Martijn dh]

Martijn dh

Re: Board Restructuring

Changing the concept of PotM again? Seems unnecessary.
Although I would be okay with scrapping the resources from voting, because of the time it takes to include them.

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[4Sword]

4Sword

Re: Board Restructuring

I wouldn't say that it is unnecessary - there are aspects of the Project of the Month which are good but there are practical realities which could be addressed in regard to it and the whole board structure overall. Namely with the plans to have the GM Minish Cap Engine exist as a part of the Zelda Coding board, the Sponsored board ends up being most about a few projects which get moved their due to activity and the nomination topics which got them there. In some ways I was planning on Sponsored also being sort of the place a Completed project would first go too, but I then thought more along the lines that the Project of the Month might be better managed out of Updates board.

If it were managed out of the Updates board and there was no Sponsored board, there would be no need to move projects to the Sponsored board. Nomination topics could also be posted in a way which might draw outside guests viewing the site to consider posting their projects here. The Zelda Projects and Other Projects aren't too busy to draw out activity of the better projects, and the Project of the Month topic's location in Updates wouldn't change. It isn't so much that the Project of the Month stuff is changing, just that the inherent nature of the Sponsored board is starting to run out of a use to justify the existence of itself as a board.