That should clear up everyone's questions, right? Good ...
As a development team and as a company, we know that the forums are extremely important to some of you, and we know that some of you have put a lot (!!!!) of effort into building up the community here, especially those who have written the more creative poetic stuff. C'mon, how many of you have > 5,000 posts, raise your hands. That amount of effort is *staggering*. Seriously, I think the highest post count I've seen was ~8400? Over 2.5 years, that'd be like 10 posts EVERY DAY since AG2 launched.
The effort of migrating that much data from AG2 to AG3 is almost as staggering, since the guy who wrote the AG2 forum software didn't make it terribly efficient, and the way we're linking accounts, etc., between the two systems might cause problems. Trying to migrate it to AG3 will be a pretty big job, and it will probably fall in my lap since I'm sorta the database guru around here, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's up to me whether I want to do it or not. If Dan says do it, I do it.
Whether we start over, and wipe everything, and build a new forum engine, or implement someone else's forum software, remains to be discussed internally because it's not a critical feature for us yet. That doesn't mean it's not important to us, it just means we have to get core features working like, y'know, logging in.
Will we migrate old posts into the new forum software? It depends whether we can find an easy way to make the old forum data compatible. Nothing's *impossible* but it's also not practical for us to spend development time (read: dollars) for us to spend a big amount of effort trying to sort stuff out so it's all perfect and pristine.
If we start over with forum posts, will we archive the old forums? Again, nothing's impossible, but I can't answer that right now.
What will happen to your armor points for forum posts? Well, since armor points are also up in the air regarding the same sort of "wipe vs migrate" discussions, I can't answer that question right now either.
Please direct people asking about the future of AG2 forums to this thread if they start asking questions in other forums/threads. I'll post updates to this thread as I have more information.
moderators can check that if the administrators put in something where tye can see all previous edits of a post.
That would be an efficient addition to the mods' toolbar. It's that, or nobody edits freely, and every time someone messes up a link, they're going to post it over and over until they get it right.
Editing freely > mods having to delete link fails.
I think they mentioned being able to add a poll to your thread under it. Such as if you look at the console wars sticky in the Video Games forum there would be a poll under that to vote for one. But that's all I remember them mentioning on that matter. You'll still need to create threads to discuss things, can't just rely on polls.
The rules should be different for opening posts. The opening poster should be able to edit their own opening post whenever they have to.
What if someone asked a question, but worded it wrong, and everyone answered the wrong question and then they changed it back? wouldn't that kind of kill the thread?
Now, the OP of the thread should be able to be edited anytime by the original poster.
Examples:
Let's say there is an Ocuppy Wallstreet Mega-Thread. The benefit of my above solution would be that if say, A new York citizen gets shot, the OP post could be edited to show the news. You should also be able to edit the name of the thread.
"Comments" on threads should be able to be edited within 2-10 Miniutes of the post of the post.
Here is a scenario:
You just post a detailed message to the OP, then you realize all your links are broken and your post is just a big Wall'O'Text. You edit it to separate it into a few paragraphs and you fix your links. Which makes your post a whole lot neater.
What we need:
Spoiler Tags: these would allow us to hide a big post, such as a conversation in just a spoiler. [spoiler]spoilertexthere[/spoiler]
Underlined words: Obvious, right? Words here
YouTube embedding: Do you really want to open a new tab everytime you want to see what's going on? [youtube]YouTube URL here[/youtube]
Text size: imagine everything useful with this. text here
Colors: use color codes to code features in an upcoming game, or something. text here
I hope these (or most) features are implimented in Agv3.
Cheers, Aeridani.
What if someone asked a question, but worded it wrong, and everyone answered the wrong question and then they changed it back? wouldn't that kind of kill the thread?
What about every forum that has an edit button? Is that a major disaster on those forums?
Edits should be able to be monitored, but I'm confused as to if you meant that the best option provided would be 5-10 minute window for editing, or if you meant that is the best that can be done, PERIOD. I don't see the problem with a permanent edit button. As Aeri just mentioned, most other forums are not disasters, so that is my 2 cents.
Edits should be able to be monitored, but I'm confused as to if you meant that the best option provided would be 5-10 minute window for editing, or if you meant that is the best that can be done, PERIOD. I don't see the problem with a permanent edit button. As Aeri just mentioned, most other forums are not disasters, so that is my 2 cents.
If an edit button is implemented, it would be better for the edited post to be displayed as well.
Let's say there is an Ocuppy Wallstreet Mega-Thread. The benefit of my above solution would be that if say, A new York citizen gets shot, the OP post could be edited to show the news. You should also be able to edit the name of the thread.
No, since it would make things more confusing in this case, with users who haven't debated all along suddenly jumping in and only debating on certain aspects. Creating newer topics is neater and more efficient.
No, since it would make things more confusing in this case, with users who haven't debated all along suddenly jumping in and only debating on certain aspects. Creating newer topics is neater and more efficient.
I love your idea of creating a new topic every time a new story about occupy wal street pops up! It will like totally not spam the forums.
Point to me ONE megathread on any forum with an edit button, that is a disaster.
Here is how it works: (usually)
Someone in the thread posts the news. Then the people are replying to the post that posted new news. The news also gets put in the OP. What's a disaster about it?
I love your idea of creating a new topic every time a new story about occupy wal street pops up! It will like totally not spam the forums.
Nope.
Day One: Thread on Occupy Wall Street, which leads to discussion on economic policies in general.
Day Two: Separate topic on NY protester being shot, which leads to totally different discussions, regarding human rights and police brutality.
It's only spam if multiple people create topics about the same topic, i.e Occupy Wall Street.
The news also gets put in the OP. What's a disaster about it?
It messes up discussion because some people will discuss the economics and others will discuss the shooting, entwining both discussions into a big ball of junk.
Apart from the vulgarities, half baked answers and spam, I would like to point out that AG's more relevant thread on Occupy Wallstreet discussed economics as opposed to human rights. Throw in an edit button that allows the OP to shove in the news on the shooting and both issues get mixed up.
The shooting in itself is a different matter from discussing the economics behind the protests and hence warrant different more specialised threads to focus debates. Is that so hard to understand?
