"I myself don't appreciate using the search function just to see if there is a certain records thread for me to post in. That's more work for me." But how this relates to strategy data and information: that's exactly the wiki's job.
I'd like to think of the wiki as the platter where we display the work we have finished. It's not a really good place for collaboration as it requires a higher entry level as someone would say. TC forum visitors rarely check the wiki's recent change, user pages, or talk pages. By moving the workplace to the forum, we will have more contributors outside of the wiki regulars. People will have a place to ask questions and will feel less intimidated in pointing out small details.
But you were talking about someone who's just looking for info, not someone who is already knowledgeable about stuff and wants to contribute. Person who's just looking for info will go to the wiki like he should, not the forum. Like you said, the forum is better for tailoring ideas rather than presenting.
What I said applies to the purpose of the records section in response to the amount of work you need to do to find them. The other stuff I keep rambling on about is the purpose of the strategies subsection. 1. It makes things easier to find. 2. It attracts a larger TC audience. 3. It encourages contribution more than the wiki because of lower entry level. Not everyone that wants to contribute will go onto the wiki and start putting things down on the articles themselves or on talk pages. That's so much more work than just simply replying in a thread to ask a question or point out something. The strategies subforum will act as both a place people can look to for knowledge pertaining to strategy and a place to further refine information on the wiki.
Sorting through long threads for one speck of info is not easy. The wiki is there for that. The forum is for open discussion. One shouldn't replace the other. I still don't see why simply having a subforum would attract a larger TC audience. What we should aim for first is to encourage interest. A visitor passing by every once in a while seeing new and fresh threads for a variety of subjects is effective for this.
You misunderstand me. The subforum does not seek to replace the wiki but to complement it. What I meant by attracting a larger TC audience is that the forum itself has more visitors looking through the active threads. The wiki doesn't have that luxury. Only wiki regulars tend to look at the recent changes, user pages, and talk pages. They are the ones that mainly contribute, so much of the work that you might as well say all the work. As such, the wiki is not community focused but individual focused. "what we should aim for is to encourage interest. a visitor passing by every once in a while seeing new and fresh threads for a variety of subjects is effective for this" THAT's what I'm saying this subforum will do. Those that are not up to posting on the wiki will post on the forum. Wiki regulars will then add that info onto the wiki. We get more perspectives this way.
well all this discussion gave me the idea. and no i'm not leading you on. it's not going to happen with the subforum.
i kind of like things the way they are. if we split the forum a bunch of ways we'll form clans and stay within them, not even paying attention to tetris variants and topics we "don't think" we'd like. well, i used to hate olives until i had them on subway sandwiches (yummy), and i also used to hate TGM until i played it more, thanks to motivation from people around here. hey, check this out: http://tasvideos.org/forum/index.php maybe they need all of that subdivision because of the size of the community, but we're much smaller still. if TC was like that we'd get lost looking around and would be crying for our mumsies.
I know personally, when I'm visiting a forum for the first time, often if I see many sub-forums all with very few threads - I just figure the entire forum is not very active. Also, like caffeine was saying, I think splitting up the discussion makes people avoid looking at topics that they would have maybe otherwise seen/contributed to if it was listed in the sub-forum they actually view. I'll use an example with something I'm familiar with. On many Linux boards, for example, there will be a problems/help sub-forum. I think this has an overall negative effect on the forum, particularly if it's one of the less active ones for a less mainstream distribution of Linux. The problem is, not many casual browsers will click on the "Problems" sub-forum looking to answer people's questions - even if they might know the answers - they'll more often than not only go there when they themselves have a problem. I think this would be the same with a strategy forum here. I would consider myself a casual browser - if there was a strategy forum, I probably wouldn't be going there looking to contribute strategies (because I'm just far too new to Tetris to have that kind of knowledge/confidence) - I'd be looking there just to look up strategies (which wiki articles could provide). Thus I would probably not actively post on a strategy forum, and would only go there to look up strategies. It's true it may provide an easier method for non irc/wiki(discussion) browsers to monitor the strategy discussion, but I don't know how much it would do for attracting a bigger base of contributers.
Really, I don't think we have enough activity here to merit spreading it out over several boards. The place would just feel too dead. And I sort of get what you say Digital, about how people are reluctant to post threads about strategy and the like, but I don't see any huge reason why they really should be reluctant. And if they do, other people who maybe wouldn't have read the threads, might read and reply to them, because the threads are in their faces, rather than labelling an entire board as something they won't ever want to visit.
The point is that DIGITAL wants to post a couple dozen topics rapid-fire, and they need a place to go. Then the answer might not be to expand the forum but to promote the wiki. Perhaps organizing something like Wikipedia's "WikiProjects" with a sticky topic on the forum listing the active WikiProjects? What you could do is log in then "View posts since my last visit". Say what? You need to register to post to the forum. You don't need to register to post to the wiki. I have a problem. But I don't want to look like a n00b. So I answer the questions that I can, in order to demonstrate that when I do have a question, I have already RTFM, and my questions are for real. And then I get hooked, and I end up with 10,000 posts on forum.gbadev.org.
"View posts since my last visit" i keep meaning to do that. thanks for reminding me. some habits are harder to start than others.
