"Rules forums a step backwards ?" Topic

All of the threads about specific Ancients rules have been moved to the Rules Forum, and no longer appear on the board to which they were originally posted. I believe the same is being done for other periods.
I assume this means we are not now supposed to post or crosspost threads about specific rules to any board other than the board for the ruleset (although if this is the case it doesn't seem to apply to the editor as he recently started threads about FOG and Impetus on the Ancients Discussion board).
I think this is a step backwards. I think most people viewing the Ancients Discussion board would like to read reviews and comments about different ancients rulesets and now they can't. You can't even find these threads if you search from within the Message Boards.
Was the membership consulted about whether this change to having specific and separate Rules Forums was a good idea ?

Also some general threads seem to have been moved to the Rules Forum. For example, on the FOG forum are threads titled:
Mycenaean Swords
Can Chariot Wars be gamed historically
Rule Sets: New Versions
About Elephants
Firing from a chariot
Opinion on rules for 28mm warfare (big battles)

These all seem to have been moved from where they were originally posted (most likely the Ancients Discussion board) to the FOG Rules Forum, for no other reason that some of the posts in the thread refer to FOG.
What's the point in having an Ancients Discussion board at all if a thread such as "About Elephants" or "Firing from a chariot" gets moved from it.

I agree. Too much fragmentation, and a step backwards.

Yeah I think so too.

Agreed. Perhaps everything ought to automatically go into the Ancients Discussion (or WWII, Colonial, etc,) when submitted to a sub board.

That way everything will be in one place but if you know the post you want was specific to "sharpened sticks and heavy stones 3" you will have an easier time of finding the post in that sub board.

Yes, too much fragmentation. Have no idea where to find the rules forums, either.

I agree, a retrograde step. Curious to know what the rationale for all this splitting, moving and confusion was

Yes. To paraphrase one of our more famous quotes from the past, "Wonderful, more boards."

I was initially against it but, assuming that people find their way to the rules forum-boards via their home page, there could be some upsides.

I recently reconfigured my home page to show the Rules forum posts, so I see all the posts on all the rules forum boards (not that there are a great many, yet). This only took five minutes and it's much more useful to me now.

Upsides:- now that there is a board dedicated To the Strongest, I can post stuff there that I was worried would not be of interest to non-TtS! players- such as news of new army lists, new versions of the rules and so forth. I've made a number of posts there already. Here's the link to it, by the way, so you can bookmark it! ;-)

TMP link

Upside:- there are likely to be fewer spats between adherents of different rules because the posts are now in dedicated boards.

Downside:- a lot of posts may be missed because people don't reconfigure their home pages to see the rules forum posts. I think this needs major publicity by Bill (and some self publicity by interested parties such as the rules authors). My hunch is that traffic will diminish but it won't be for lack of trying by me! :-)

Downside:- those posts Mark mentions in the FOG Forum really should be in Ancients Discussion- that is quite worrying.

Whether or not it's positive or not will, in my opinion, depend upon how many people reconfigure their home pages; time will tell! In the meanwhile I'm making lemonade.

Best, Simon

Ooops, found the forum boards. *blushes*

I am missing some interesting posts, and I am sure others are as well. I like keeping my page on ancients discussion, I don't know why these these discussions have to be divided up.

If I see a post about a rules set I am not interested in, I will just skip it. Also, having things in one place might expose me to a rules set or topics, I never knew about. Honestly, I don't bother going to the rules forum much, I like things in one place. I never thought things were that cluttered.

I don't even see these posts. Do I have something turned off. Why have the boards become so complicated over last year? Who cares if I don't play FOW or BA. I still might want to read an AAR or steal scenario ideas for a game I do enjoy playing.

Rules Forum was a bad idea.

I thought the rules directory would lead to reviews not this. This is not like Board Game Geek.

I used to see all of the new posts to the rules forum on my home page; now I see none of them, even though I have it configured to show all. A TMP upgrade bug perhaps?

Time TravelI knew it!!

It reflects to my mind the increasing fragmentation of the hobby both within and across gaming periods. Whether it will reinforce that trend is not clear…but I don't see it helping reverse the trend. For me to find interesting content outside my usual subject-matter haunts, I now have to go looking for it, which means I'm likely to miss a lot. It also seems to make the hobby seem less vibrant when I look at the new rules forums and see that the latest posting in many may be a month or more old…versus general forums where there is new content posted almost every day.

Besides, I think most people play more than one game in their particular period, so would be interested in a variety of posts.

I've thought TMP has had too many different boards (many of which not very active) for about as long I've been frequenting the site, so naturally I think this is a step in the wrong direction.

What I don't understand is: all the forums for the incredible number of very obscure or OoP rules, many of which are 20 years old or more.

I thought at first it was an attempt to create discussion forums for games that don't have them anywhere else because they're old, obscure, or OoP. That might be a useful public service. But those boards are alongside popular and current games like Bolt Action, FoW, Warhammer, Frostgrave, and so on, which obviously are supported and have their own forums on their publishers' websites.

So I don't get it.

Yeah that mystified me too. I suspect a lot of them will remain dead space as it were.

I find the new rules forum to be un-helpful. As noted by several above it just fragments discourse.

Also some general threads seem to have been moved to the Rules Forum. For example, on the FOG forum are threads titled:
Mycenaean Swords
Can Chariot Wars be gamed historically
Rule Sets: New Versions
About Elephants
Firing from a chariot
Opinion on rules for 28mm warfare (big battles)

These all seem to have been moved from where they were originally posted (most likely the Ancients Discussion board) to the FOG Rules Forum, for no other reason that some of the posts in the thread refer to FOG.
What's the point in having an Ancients Discussion board at all if a thread such as "About Elephants" or "Firing from a chariot" gets moved from it.

I believe those topics originated from the former Field of Glory board on the main forum.

Yep. Incredibly unhelpful. That said, I'm not a supporting member, so perhaps I shouldn't opine.

I thought the rules board was a revamp of the original rules archive that listed the rules and gave a brief synopsis – a rules index?

Another vote against increased splitting caused by the rules forums.

I assume this means we are not now supposed to post or crosspost threads about specific rules to any board other than the board for the ruleset

Why would you assume that?

Having boards is functionally the same thing as tagging posts on modern systems. (Glad to see they have caught up with TMP!) When you "go to a board", you are not driving your experience to a specific part of the TMP infrastructure (the way a physical corkboard does). You are asking a database that contains all the posts to show you only the ones with the meta tag you specified – the board name.

The big difference between the boards and a tagging system is that the user is given a predefined vocabulary. That is a huge benefit. Ad hoc social vocabularies are horrible at best. Why do you think all the most modern media content that wants you to participate tells you what hashtag to use? Because, left to their own devices, people would tag the same thing thousands of different ways.

That's not to say there isn't any convergence. "Halloween" is probably a good example. Even if you don't live in a country that generally celebrates it, you likely know what it is. But the massively convergent terms are also vague and barely useful (except in the context of other tags as discriminators). If you want cute elementary school Halloween cupcake ideas, you probably don't want to wade through all the high-end gory make up stuff. And vice versa.

That said, since the rules boards are likely atomic level concepts – likely to overlap with other concepts but not likely to have entire other concepts embedded within them – an autopost to a relevant board or two might be useful. The Generic category of rules would not work for that.

Why would you assume that?

The good Marshal is not assuming; he is going by what his eyes have told him. That is, posts have been removed from the main ancients page and placed into separate rules forums.

If crossposting was to be encouraged, the posts would be in both forums.

Edit – and a little test has just shown that one cannot in fact crosspost from the rules forum into the main ancients forum, so the Marshal is indeed correct.

There do seem to be rather a lot….

Conquerers and Kings being one of the highlights for me… does the world really need a separate forum for 2 posts, the last one made over a decade ago?

For what it's worth, since I posted about new lists and an updated version of the rules on the to the Strongest board, I've had a good many downloads- so either some people are finding the TtS! board (or, I suppose, navigating there on the link above in this thread). If the former it's a useful way of disseminating information to interested parties.

Well, perhaps time will show it to be a good move, BRB. Mind you, it could be the quality of your rules that's the driver rather than the boards!

Thanks TlA!

I just feel that since we now have the boards we ought to try to make them work and see how it goes.

I have a Yuku forum for my rules and it is a pain in the posterior, up and down like a yoyo. Many rule sets lack a forum entirely. TMP rules forums might be a useful asset to these latter sets, in particular. It's also very useful to be able to see all posts about a given set of rules in a single place.

There are 292 different discussion boards. Insane.

Where is the rules forum? I don't see it listed anywhere?

Edit: nevermind- I found it.

I like the idea of posts concerning specific rules sets being catalogued in a rules specific board. Asking technical questions about a set doesn't really belong on the broader Ancient's Discussion Board. On the other hand, I do enjoy accessing discussion and battle reports concerning rules sets that I don't play and feel that they do belong on the Ancient Discussions Board (as well as their specific Forum.) So perhaps some aspect of cross posting would solve the problem?

The Editor said:

I believe those topics originated from the former Field of Glory board on the main forum.

Yes but I'm sure they were all crossposted to Ancients Discussion when they were originally posted as they are topics of general interest, not specifically relating to a ruleset. Now they are just in the Rules Forum.

There seems to be an overwhelming majority against the Rules Forum. You don't even seem to want to use it yourself Bill as you have recently posted threads about specific Ancients rulesets to the Ancients Discussion board !

Yes but I'm sure they were all crossposted to Ancients Discussion when they were originally posted as they are topics of general interest, not specifically relating to a ruleset. Now they are just in the Rules Forum.

Well, let's take your example, the "Mycenaean Swords" topic – it is about a FoG army list. Not of general interest at all.

There seems to be an overwhelming majority against the Rules Forum. You don't even seem to want to use it yourself Bill as you have recently posted threads about specific Ancients rulesets to the Ancients Discussion board !

Those were Poll Suggestions, and I'll move them over to the Rules Forum after the polls are run. I do it this way to keep all of the suggestions in one place.

It'a bad idea. Let's just admit it and go back to how things were. This is a classic example of an upgrade not being an improvement.

Has already caused me some grief….

It is overwhelmingly a bad idea. Which is why Bill will stick with it come hell or high water.

Let's make a separate board for each edition and revision, plus separate for each translation on each edition :)

It is overwhelmingly a bad idea.

Lots of people disagree with you, deephorse. Let's give it a try.

Let's make a separate board for each edition and revision, plus separate for each translation on each edition :)

You laugh, but we've already made separate listings for WRG Ancients v1 through 6 (one listing) and WRG 7th/Warrior (one listing). And there is a lot of feedback in favor of having separate listings for Warhammer and Warhammer: Age of Sigmar.

Count me as one who thought that the rules section was going to be updated like it was years before. That's what brought me here close to 20 years ago.

Count me as another who thinks this was not a good idea.

Do over!

Thanks,

John

Count me as one who thought that the rules section was going to be updated like it was years before.

Aren't we doing that?

In my experience, topical sub-forums are almost always a bad idea unless discussion of one particular topic is overwhelming a given board (to the point where half or more than half the topics are about it). Even then it can be worth sticking it out.

The ultimate result of creating boards with insufficient demand is community fragmentation and reams of inactive boards that people check and post in so rarely they are useless.

What Deuce03 said.

In my experience, topical sub-forums are almost always a bad idea unless discussion of one particular topic is overwhelming a given board (to the point where half or more than half the topics are about it)

In my experience, the creation of a board often serves as a green light for people to discuss a particular topic. It is like saying, "Yes, it is OK to talk about that, and here is the place to do that."

It also provides a bonding place for people of similar interests, with a club-like atmosphere.

Now, I think the Rules Forum is a special case. It is an appendage to the Rules Directory. The boards on that forum are a collecting place for information about that specific ruleset, and those posts have a relevancy regardless of the activity level of the specific board. That is not to say that the most popular boards on the Rules Forum will not eventually become as popular as the most popular boards on the main forum, because I believe they will.

Is there any point to this? Will anything change? I doubt it.

These added sub forums for rules are a bad idea and needlessly clutter the forum. What was wrong with rules discussion being on the "******* product reviews" forums?

Is there any point to this? Will anything change? I doubt it.

Nothing will change now, because this is the way I want the Rules Forum to be. Maybe you think I am crazy. Maybe I am a visionary. Either way, we will try it my way and see what happens.

These added sub forums for rules are a bad idea and needlessly clutter the forum.

Rules boards clutter the Rules Forum???

What was wrong with rules discussion being on the "******* product reviews" forums?

I would think the product review boards would be used for product reviews, not rules discussions. It seems unnatural to post rules questions, rules variants, and such things to a product reviews board, and less popular rulesets get buried under the topics for the most popular rulesets.

I would think the product review boards would be used for product reviews, not rules discussions.

So why have all the threads reviewing an ancients ruleset been moved to the rules forum for that ruleset ?
Here's a couple of examples:
TMP link
TMP link

I think the Rules Forums would be fine if they were purely for rules questions. That way, only the people playing those rules will need to go there. But every post including reviews, AARs, comparisons between different rules, have been moved to the Rules Forum, and these are the sort of posts that are of interest to a wider audience, not just current players of that ruleset.

What's the point of posting a review if it's going to get moved to the Rules Forum ? The audience for a review isn't people who already play the game – they know what it's like so don't need to read a review to find out about it.

Nothing will change now, because this is the way I want the Rules Forum to be.

Is it good business to do something the way you want, when virtually every one of your customers that has offered an opinion has said they don't want this ?