This has been repeatedly proposed and rejected, but I completely disagree with them. A segregated forum, or at least one with sticky posts, would be great.

Really? Repeatedly proposed and rejected? I'm shocked. Truly. This implementation would vastly improve their forum. If it's true that they are refusing to do it, I would hope they at least gave their reasons so we could know why such a positive thing for their website was being rejected.

Well the thread " ADVERTISE YOUR GAMES HERE" is really a brilliant idea, it wont solve the problem, but it will do for now. Its these things that can improve our forum, however I strongly agree with the new proposed forum.

agreed. even if they just linked to a vBulletin or an IPB site. the server is already running PHP and theres nothing that's stopping them from throwing it on there and just linking to it. no one would look down upon it, its not that difficult to do and it would encourage participation on the site and lead to more traffic and an increase in popularity

Why? If you want the forum changed write the code. I come to play dip not debate or chat or discuss politics, religion, world cup, etc. They are nice to have but not the main focus (I beleive). If those who run the site don't want to change why annoy them with demands to do so. Instead of suggesting THEY change, write the code and show them how easy it is to change, otherwise piss off.

I like all the topics being together. If I'm in the mood for a live game I might browse through the forums and I'll find a thread I'm interested in. I might be looking for a thread to post in, but find a game instead. I can't speak for everyone, but I like the balance between serious, advertisements, and just plain silly topics. These forums are just right for me (once the advertising live games thread catches on).

@Czech-

First off, thanks for coming in and being a complete douche for no reason. Really? Piss off? It was a simple suggestion that would greatly improve their site. If you notice, I said earlier that I hope they gave their reasons for not implementing forum upgrades as I believe that if we knew them, it would probably explain everything. Believe it or not, MOST people, myself included, come here to simply play diplomacy. However, searching through the forums to find posts about games can be tedious at best, and this upgrade would fix that. Oh and if you read closely, you'll see that I mentioned that I have virtually no knowledge of things like this, it was a mere suggestion in the hopes that people who do know would say "Hey that's easy, let's do it!".

"First off, thanks for coming in and being a complete douche for no reason."

You have a problem. He wasn't a douche in the least.

Oh, I didn't read his last sentence. Maybe just a little bit.

Yeah. He was most definitely being a douche.

What's a douche? Am I one too?

* warning. trolling attempt. Do not respond.

Yes, but that's beside the point. (*clearly joking)

The most important factor in the forum is that the user names in the forum MUST be tied to the user names in the games. So just plugging in some out of the box forum isn't going to work.

Second, the developers (Kestas for the most part) has had other priorities, both for webdip and outside of webdip.

Third, many people like having everything in one place. There isn't so much traffic each day that posts are flying by faster than you can keep track of them. It does take some searching if you are looking for something in particular or only care about certain kinds of threads, but it isn't horrible, IMHO.

Fourth, if you separate a forum into a bunch of categories, it can kill a forum. People will still post live games in the main forum for fear that posting in the ad forum won't get noticed. Then are the mods supposed to deal with that? Forums may suffer from disuse. The general forum population may get splintered so each individual forum has less audience so smaller community.

Fifth, a more powerful forum means more server resources means higher costs to operate a basically free website.

There are good reasons to have a more advanced forum as well, I'm just listing some of the reasons not to do so since several of the posters above aren't aware of these reasons. I'm sure there are a few more.

There has been talk of allowing posts to be categorized and then allowing readers to filter which posts they see based on the categories, but for those that want to see everything they would still all be in one place.

These are two past discussions about this topic, done where it should be done, in the developers forum. I'm sure there have been others, but I couldn't find them.

http://forum.webdiplomacy.net/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=495
http://forum.webdiplomacy.net/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=309

Here is the most recent attempt to change the forum on this site.

http://webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?threadID=545019#546551

Personally, I like it the (mostly) way it is, for various reasons stated in these threads, mostly the simplicity of it. As also mentioned, it conserves space on the server. Obviously some changes are necessary, but there are other priorities, and not many people willing to code.

I like it the way it is, having an overview of different topics without having to click through a bunch of links to check out various topics. In a way, the current implementation is very democratic - the most popular discussions rise to the top. OH....THAT'S why people don't like it! It's all those damned Socialists on here getting pissed off over the effective use of the democratic principle in community discussion!

(And the Czech wasn't a douche....he may have used douche-like language, but his point is that *the owners* of the site have rejected the idea for one reason or another, and in fact the insistence that the current implementation is so faulty is rather insulting to the guys that keep this thing running **for free** and therefore it is a rather douche-like thing to insist that it must be changed to be better.)

I think you know, but just so its clear, socialists are not anti-democratic. Its just that most examples of socialist countries are anti-democratic. So it would be more accurate to suggest that dictator supporters or monarchists are getting pissed off. I really don't want to start a discussion though, so lets just move on. :)

this has been brought up a good amount of times. not all has been rejected. the argument has been that a separated forum will create less of a community or something.
for example how would i be able to advertise the World Cup of Diplomacy tournament if people don;t come to this page looking for other things like a debate on religion or something. Now i do agree live games are getting crazy so maybe just put live games in a separate area. But a lot of people will avoid that page and for those who enjoy live games it will be hard to get a game going.

@ drano019 Whatever. You admit you have no knowlege of how to, but still want someone to, change the forum to make it better (for you). I'm happy with the service that's being provided. As far as being a douche, isn't that the puss* calling the bag. Maybe if there was a list "all complaints here" thread on the forum the whiners could leave the rest of the forum for more important discussions, like posting more live game notices.

@Czech - In fairness he's allowed his opinion. True he *should* have checked the dev forum, but he probably didn't know it even existed, and *should* have checked back in this one, but being honest who actually does?

@drano - I used to be in favour of splitting the forum, but actually it would kill it. As long as all the threads in use are on the first page I don't see a need to change format.

@ald - Implementation isn't an issue, most forum systems support use of your own user database either by plugin or hack. It really is an issue of choice.

Okay, I had thought that was a big issue, but maybe it isn't.

@figle - Thank you for at least pointing out that I'm allowed my opinion. You are correct, I didn't even know that the developer forum existed. And as for checking back in this forum, I have to agree that most people don't check back. And honestly, I think that gives weight to at least some forum rearrangement. I checked now, and the last time forum rearrangement was mentioned was 88 pages back in the forum. 88! Noone can honestly expect new players to go back and read all 608 pages of forum topics just to know what's been said before can they?

@Krellin- I touched on it above, but I'll go here again. The last topic on forum redevelopment was 88 pages back on the forum page, hardly a location where one can expect newer players to know about it. Therefore, is it really that bad to mention it out of a simple desire to improve the page? Is that hostile of a reaction (from Czech) really necessary? And as for the developer forum, I honestly had no idea it existed, if i was supposed to, I apologize. I just found the link to it hidden in the help tab for the first time. Not where I would expect it, but perhaps I should have found it earlier.

@Czech - I'm glad you're happy with the service that's provided, I really am. I honestly have no issue keeping it the way it was, I merely thought I would at least throw the idea out there for a different way since I didn't see it anywhere on the recent posts. Was it really necessary for you to come in so hostile to someone simply trying to offer up an idea?

I think the forum on this site is great the way it is.

It ain't broke, so don't fix it

This issue is recognised in the FAQ: http://www.webdiplomacy.net/faq.php

I am happy with the forum as it is.

I get why there's only a single page on the forum and it doesn't need more functionality - but a search function would solve a lot of the issues that throws up. I know this has been raised before; I believe the official answer was 'use google' but that doesn't really cover this well enough.

The idea about tagging posts to categories, though, is a fantastic one. If you could have relevant posts flash up the way relevant game news is selected when you hover on a game, that would be amazing...

@ Krellin:

It's not democratic at all - if it were democratic, we would vote on which threads to keep up here. Instead, most live game threads "hold the forum hostage" if you will, just to keep their thread on top. They continually bump it, when the community isn't interested in it.