Cleaning up the forum

[Bob77]

I joined this site following a google link for player aids for global. I have found lots of useful stuff, info, and gotten rules clarification. I am grateful for this and like this site.
That being said, this site sucks.
1. There is a two tier search function. Most of us get the crappy google bar and there for post questions that have already been answered because its to tedious to find the answer.
How do we get the good search bar?
2. There are 168 threads in 1940 global and 158 pages in global faq. A lot of the same questions, answers, and info are repeated. i.e. scrambling is explained multiple times. Some of the info is obsolete. i.e. Krieghound notified us of a 2014 rewrite of the 1940 second edition rulebook. About two pages of the thread is was needed to get that info from krieg, but now that the info is there, those posts just add unhelpful volume.
3. There are threads that have been moved, due to posting in the wrong place. i.e.
MOVED: How to advertise TripleA and A&A.org more and/or better? Imperious Leader 296 Last post September 22, 2014, 02:41:39 pm
by Imperious Leader
MOVED: Can’t post Triple A to the forum 11/13/2012 Imperious Leader 0 368 Last post September 22, 2014, 02:41:05 pm
by Imperious Leader
Maybe these posts that are only notifying in the old spot, can be deleted after 3-12 months.
4. There is some idle banter/troll spam located here and there.
Delete it if not relevant.
5. There are some people that are rude and insulting. i.e. one of my firsts posts, i was called an idiot for posting on an old thread. Uncalled for. Old threads hold important info for some people and in many cases, the originator, participants, and others will see the new post and respond. Another example is the last 3 months pushing YG out.
The should be a 3 strikes rule. If you insult someone or cyber bully, you get warned first and second time. Third time…temporary ban. Happens once in first six months from return…temp. ban. Repeat offenders…three consecutive bans…lifetime ban.
I know this would be a lot of work for the over worked mods. I do appreciate all that our volunteers do, but I’d love for this site to be less cluttered, user friendly and non hostile.

[Gargantua]

Well Bob,

The mod’s have been great anytime I’ve asked for stuff to be moved or unstickied or whatever.  What really helps them is when you put information together for them to make their lives easier.  It works like a charm.

This is a community of volunteers - So how about you get started Bob?

Why don’t you sift through all 158 pages of the Global FAQ, and compile it into a master FAQ,  then it can be added to a single post in one location?  The Mods will be happy to copy paste it into place for you - or even give you some recognition, and make it your post.

If you’re not that ambitious,  compile player aids and maps together, into one place.

[Bob77]

Funny you should say that. I have a list of where the player aids im using came from and thought about going back thru to add all the player aid, but didnt want to go through that mess again. I dont know how the mods would feel about getting 20 delete msgs a day from me, when the post isnt offensive. Dont know how the deleting works on a persons post count. Do they lose post count when deleted? I have put in a couple of change requests it is.

[Imperious Leader]

They do lose posts as per count, most people don’t care a few do.

[Panther]

Wittmann and me took over the moderator job mid-August 2017.
We are doing it voluntarily and in our rare spare time.
Apart from being moderators we are simply members of this forum with a huge interest in rules questions (me) or gaming (wittmann) or participating in different related dicussions.

We do not monitor every thread, every posting 24-7.
We do not dig in old threads thinking about deleting them just because they are old. (Deleting threads decreases post counts by the way.)
We do not follow every discussion we might personally not be interested in.
We do not get a notice if someone is posting demands such as “moderators should do this” or “moderators should delete that”.

We often deal with situations that we personally become aware of. We moderate a lot using PM, discussing issues with the members involved.
We started to clean up outdated stickies and are happy to sticky threads if it appears reasonable to us.
We move misplaced threads to the appropriate subforum. Either when we notice it ourselves or when we get a hint.

If someone feels disturbed about certain postings or threads he can report it to the moderators who will take a look at it.

There actually is no one whose job it is “to clean up the forum”.

Or in other words: It is the job of all of us to contribute to this forum.

[baron Münchhausen]

Cleaning the attics is never an emergency task.
I may volunteer for little clean up task.

But where to start and how to clean things?
Where is the most needed clean up?

Is there some kind of way to archive posts in child forums somehow, so there is no erasing but just a cleanup of main forum?

And, there probably some kind of procedure to report to moderator a pack of threads or posts to be move.
So, there is no need to give me any Mod status at all.

[Bob77]

I personally, cannot clean up the forum. I have notified mods of possible threads to delete, with no result. I dont know if they arnt going to or just haven’t got around to it. I would love to go thru global and global FAQ and organize and downsize it. Example…there’s a great stick for neutrals, so i would move all neutral answers there that arn’t there and delete all neutral questions and repeated answers.
Can the g40 FAQ have child boards? If so, i would have 1 for SBR, subs, scrambles, transports and anything else i find multiple postings of. I’m just trying to make it easier for everyone to find stuff and i think getting rid of redundant posts will help a lot. Splitting the FAQ should help people find the relevant info easier, reducing the number of future redundant posts. Its a massive and ambitious under taking, and i too have limited time, but why bother if i dont have the blessing or assistance of the mods.

[Panther]

@Bob77:

I have notified mods of possible threads to delete, with no result. I dont know if they arnt going to or just haven’t got around to it.

Interesting, personally I have never got any notice from you. Exactly whom did you address?

Concerning the Global 1940 FAQ, everything in there is in the Rulebooks and the additional official FAQ, as Krieghund has already confirmed to you here: http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=28562.msg1702076#msg1702076

In the past this FAQ thread has been a source for the official FAQ. Many of the aspects discussed there have influenced the official FAQ and re-releases of the rulebooks.

We can of course unsticky old threads in favour of new ones.

So feel free to post your improvements as regards content and aggregation. Maybe those threads will qualify for becoming new stickies replacing old ones.
You do have “the blessing or the assistance of the mods” for this! Anyone can do this. It’s the nature of this forum!

But remember: This is a forum. Don’t mix it up with a lexicon or wiki-pages. There are Axis&Allies wiki-pages on the Internet.
Maybe consider creating and hosting your own wiki: It would be a lot easier to condense and restructure the content from the forum’s history from scratch.

Honestly, personally I don’t feel like deleting forum history (if not offending or disturbing).

PS: Moderators have no privileges to change the structure of the forum (e.g. creating child boards).

[baron Münchhausen]

I know you don’t have such privilege.
But, if you present a good case and method to clean overloaded forum, maybe DJ might accept.
With War room, he is probably going to work on A&A forum framework, anyway.

For instance, Global thread may be cleaned up by separating 2nd Edition rules and strategy thread from all past Alpha rules and First Edition rules and strategy threads.

I’m just throwing spaghetti on the wall.

Another issue which might rise when War room players gonna want to change setup or tweak anything, this will also be dumped into HR forum. Same like 1914 HR posted are dumped there instead of being usefully grouped in a different Sub-forum.

For example, there should be 3 majors HR forum in that case (War Room, 1914, all other games) because rules are very apart from all main product of A&A from Classic to Second Ed G40.
Dumping all HR threads focused on specific game is not respectful of people passion and creativity to make a given game more balanced, detailed, funny or simpler.
A given fan of 1914 will not browse through all not pertinent HRs to read 1914 specifically oriented threads.
Or trying to guess how are titled 1914 HR thread with Search tool.

This should be adressed somehow, to make a better more convenient A&A.org forum.
A “variants” child forum for 1914 and another for War Room might help players focus on their game.

And, as a player of 1942.2, I’m gonna be annoyed to see a lot of War Room threads dumped into HR.
It is not a way to keep things clean and organized.

Take a look at Gameboard Geek to see how they dealt with variant related issues.

[Panther]

@Baron:

I know you don’t have such privilege.
But, if you present a good case and method to clean overloaded forum, maybe DJ might accept.
With War room, he is probably going to work on A&A forum framework, anyway.

For instance, Global thread may be cleaned up by separating 2nd Edition rules and strategy thread from all past Alpha rules and First Edition rules and strategy threads.

Indeed, I am aware of that. But for good reason I am always careful commenting on requests for structural changes.
We will see…

[Panther]

@Baron:

And, as a player of 1942.2, I’m gonna be annoyed to see a lot of War Room threads dumped into HR.
It is not a way to keep things clean and organized.

Misplaced postings will be moved, as you know. You know how to address this to the moderators.
Again, we do not and cannot monitor all of the forum 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

[Witt]

Bob77: I don’t think you have contacted me about any of this.
I am happy to unsticky old, unused , threads, but we wouldn’t delete people’s posts .
I am sure this is something that Djensen would not want either.

As Panther says, however,  please suggest what you would like to see done  and Djensen can decide.

[baron Münchhausen]

@P@nther:

@Baron:

And, as a player of 1942.2, I’m gonna be annoyed to see a lot of War Room threads dumped into HR.
It is not a way to keep things clean and organized.

Misplaced postings will be moved, as you know. You know how to address this to the moderators.
Again, we do not and cannot monitor all of the forum 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Panther,
in the specific case I’m talking, it is moderators who will move threads from 1914 or War room into Houserule because the opening post would be talking about tweaking set-up, for instance.

Simply applying A&A.org politics on HR. Instead of cleaning, this politics will not help.
Larry Harris games franchise is growing, A&A.org have to accordingly.

[Panther]

Baron,

you can nevertheless contact me the ususal way if you feel something is wrong.

However, I have no idea what threads you are talking about, but we have clearly defined rules concerning House Rules:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=40353.0

So 1914 houserules (non-official tweaks are house rules) do belong there!

War Room does not, as it is not Axis and Allies. Though it is difficult to correctly place it at the moment, as I admit, so there might not be any better place just now.

But as already discussed we might have a solution for War Room soon.

Also be very careful about saying “moderators who will move” in this special case.
The only moderators actively moving threads at the moment are wittmann and me.
And I - for sure - have no idea what you are talking about.
Maybe you can point me out by PM which recent thread you consider being incorrectly placed there?
At a first glance I can’t see any related topics there - but you are way more familiar with the House Rules subforum than I am.

@Baron:

Larry Harris games franchise is growing, A&A.org have to accordingly.

No dissent here.

[baron Münchhausen]

@P@nther:

Baron,

you can nevertheless contact me the ususal way if you feel something is wrong.

However, I have no idea what threads you are talking about, but we have clearly defined rules concerning House Rules:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=40353.0

So 1914 houserules (non-official tweaks are house rules) do belong there!

War Room does not, as it is not Axis and Allies. Though it is difficult to correctly place it at the moment, as I admit, so there might not be any better place just now.

But as already discussed we might have a solution for War Room soon.

Also be very careful about saying “moderators who will move” in this special case.
The only moderators actively moving threads at the moment are wittmann and me.
And I - for sure - have no idea what you are talking about.
Maybe you can point me out by PM which recent thread you consider being incorrectly placed there?
At a first glance I can’t see any related topics there - but you are way more familiar with the House Rules subforum than I am.

@Baron:

Larry Harris games franchise is growing, A&A.org have to accordingly.

No dissent here.

Maybe I don’t understand properly this rule:

• Threads that start with House Rules but are opened in a game-specific forum will be moved to House Rules

However we understand the desire for better identifying which original game is behind which house rules. For this we ask everybody creating a thread in the House Rules subforum to assign a prefix to the title of his thread representing the original game the idea derived from:

[1914]

From my POV, House rule will remain big piles (pages) of disorderly classified threads.

[Bob77]

So the report to mod button is useless. Good to know.
Still dont know if you can child board under global FAQ.
Not much point for me to try to clean up if we cant delete. It is frustrating to have to go through 150 pages and keep seeing the same q&a. There are a lot of people that bluntly stated they arnt sifting through that mess, so sorry if its being asked again.
Im not asking for unique things to be deleted, just redundant stuff. And obsolete…who cares about fmg free shipping for christmas 2012!?!
Alas, the mods have spoken.

[Panther]

@Baron:

From my POV, House rule will remain big piles (pages) of disorderly classified threads.

No dissent here either, at least we have a classification of threads now.  :wink:

[Panther]

@Bob77:

So the report to mod button is useless. Good to know.

Is it? We will test it as soon as possible!

Best way to contact moderators is by PM, please.

[baron Münchhausen]

I sent a few Reports to both of you guys.

You may see if it works or not.

BTW, just take a look at 1914 forum, and ask for yourself :
how moving all these HR threads into HouseRule forum, will help the 1914 community players?

For my part, I prefer to read them all into this 1914 Forum.

Even a special bracket like: [1914 House Rule] meaning that is thread is wholly talking about House Rule, seems more appropriate.

I’m not quite sure that moving all these threads will be the answer at all to clean up the forum.

I’m not asking you to do it either.
Just to keep it on ice, for further discussions with DJensen.

[Dauvio Vann]

We should have the capability to delete our own post, and comments from other post.

I know I would like to delete some of mine.

8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-)