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.
I have an idea about the 30 second rule in the forums. How about if your Reputation gets above a certain point, the 30 second rule is taken away, if not for all forums, then at least the 0 AP ones, and if not the Newcomer's Forum, then at least the Forum Games, where posting fast responses to someone's fast response (within 30 seconds) to your post is sometimes necessary to avoid getting ninja'd. (Did that make any sense?)
If your Reputation gets below that point due to people rating you down because you spammed with the no 30 seconds, you lose that privilege.
This could also work with game comments and profile comments.
What about the part of my post about opening posts needing to be edited?
I agree with Matrix that the OP should reserve the right to edit the first post especially for cases in the WEPR where the OP forgets to link the issue, or fails to establish a proper argument.
Here's what I'm aiming for:
A user writes their post, they have to preview it before they can post. That's where they look for spelling, grammar, links, broken images, whatever.
Once they post, they have a 5-minute window to edit their message, and then that's it, it's locked in.
With proper preparation, etc., I can't see why any OP would need more than that control, and it's custom code that we'd have to build in, and in my opinion is unnecessary.
If they forget, then they can post a follow-up. I'm not writing custom code to accommodate users who don't plan properly before writing a message that's viewable by 1.3M other users.
there are times when forum activity drops
That's irrelevant to needing a longer (or no) edit window.
how about some type of notification if someone responded to your forum post
the OP could use it to link to a more recent thread on the same topic
If they've made a duplicate thread, we'll moderate/delete it.
Maybe, but it depends on the forum engine we use and whether we can tie it into our existing 'growl' system or an activity stream post or something.
or some type of sound
You're kidding, right?
if your Reputation gets above a certain point, the 30 second rule is taken away
We've talked about *increasing* the 30-second wait if your Reputation is "bad enough" but that implies that your reputation could go down, which we're not doing in phase 1 of the Reputation system. I don't know that we would ever fully remove the 30-second wait though.
then at least the Forum Games, where posting fast responses to someone's fast response (within 30 seconds) to your post is sometimes necessary to avoid getting ninja'd
We don't place priority on forum games for writing entirely new code to accommodate having a timed delay between posts.
I can't see why any OP would need more than that control,
One example is my guide in the Game Walkthroughs sub-forum. It'd be nice to be able to update the opening post when I have new things to add to it rather than creating a new thread every time I have to add something to it. Some other examples could be stickied user created threads or even user threads where the opening post can be edited with more information.
If they forget, then they can post a follow-up.
Not sure what this means. Does this mean we may ask moderators to edit the post? Well, if it does, and if you deny opening posts not having a time limit, I guess we'll just have to ask moderators to edit posts often.
It means to make another post adding on to the OP like with your guide just add on to it in a new post.
So basically making a new post like we can now? That's pretty useless. If I were to post an update on page three of the guide, nobody would see it since most people just read the first page and the last page.
One example is my guide in the Game Walkthroughs sub-forum
We're planning a better game walkthrough area of the site that isn't forum-based, but yes that IS a great example of where it would be handy.
[quote]If they forget, then they can post a follow-up.
Not sure what this means. Does this mean we may ask moderators to edit the post? [/quote]
No, it means if you have something else to say, you can post another message. I don't know that we'd give Moderators the ability to edit forum posts.
will the forum be in the Beta?
No, we've said this several times.
there hasn't been a date set yet. (Unless there has, but we haven't been told yet or I missed it.)
We haven't shared a release date with anyone.
That's pretty useless. If I were to post an update on page three of the guide, nobody would see it since most people just read the first page and the last page.
Then your opening post should say something like "Please read through the forum to look for updates."
The only way to let users fully edit a post for an indefinite period of time is to allow all other users to see a history of what has changed in the message. That would get around the case where a user is abusing the edit system to change text on a controversial topic, etc.. But honestly, I don't know of a forum engine that allows that functionality, or whether we even really need it.
(*IDEA ONE*) Maybe somehow you guys can make a chatting system, kinda like facebook. If you and your friend are online you can chat with them while playing a game.
(*IDEA TWO*) Maybe have a link or a download bar to a free game maker, then they can upload there game to armor game which you both will make money.
