Simplify

I agree with that, all 13 of our secret/hidden boards should go at the bottom, as a collective.

edit: miscounted

There's a RMRK Advanced group?  O.o


How does on egain access to said secret groups? What if one has a secret password? Does this grant secret access?   

It's a group for advanced RPG maker users.

EA is kind of in a weird place now that you mention it. I never really thought about it. Keeping all the private boards at the bottom of the groups is a neat idea. I kinda like that.

I'm not sure about merging Computing with anything else since that is typically used as a troubleshooting board rather than discussion.

Hmmm...so more like this?:

Spoiler for:

-Community (merge with General Chat) = Community Chat

-Make Elitist Debate a child board to Community Chat

-Make In The News a child board to Community Chat. (moved from GC) *edit

-Merge Entertainment and Video Games

-Move all the private boards to the bottom of their section (or make them their own section?)

We can always try out that (if everyone likes it) and then see if there's any other ways to clean stuff up. B)

I still think there must be -something- that we can change with RMRK creativity, but that's a toughie.

I like that version best, so if my vote at all counts, I vote Yea!

As to the ongoing issue of merging the different arts.. I'm a little split on the issue. It makes sense to put them into one main forum, with all of the types of arts as sub-forums. Yes, this would create an empty parent board, but I think of it as the same type of layout as some of the folders on my computer haha.. Like my music folder. Empty, with a million artist folders =p  So when it comes right down to it, I think it would be a good idea, even though it really would look silly with an "empty" board. Just my two cents..

Categories are more like folders than boards are.

That said, I think we should also keep the Welcome board available.

Maybe it would be easier to just take a vote on how to handle the creativity boards?

Well, we could always find something to do with the parent board. I was thinking "everything else" might work, but that is a bit tacky, yeah. (Wait, did I already say that? Oh, well).

Or we can find a parent board for them (though I can't possibly think of what that would be right now). I'll make a poll.

We could move them under community maybe.

That's not a bad idea. =o Though it might start to look just a tad bit crowded under the community section with Welcome, Bean Bags, Forum Games, Ask A Stereotype, Elitist Debate, In The News, and the four of them. ;_; Unless we squeezed a couple things out of the community. It's going to start to look packed. ;_;

Maybe we can do this:

Spoiler for:

= The Community =

-Welcome
-Bean Bags
-In The News
-Auditorium
-Gallery
-Librarium
-Everything Else (Or Other Creativity)

= Forum Games =

-Ask a Stereotype
-Elitist Debate

Still a tad bit crowded. ;_; This is tough.

I don't think ask a stereotype or in the news is really needed anyway. And I think we all want to see forum games gone. :anski2:

new category

"Shit no one should care about"
Forum Games
Elitist Debate
Ask a stereotype
Nouman

Why do we have to move Creativity at all? With all of the other merging and cleaning up that will be done the boards will already be a lot more organized/easier to use.  I think Creativity should stay as it is. I like being able to access it quickly and easy when I want to find something. And it works as a stand alone category because of what it -is-. 

I don't think ask a stereotype or in the news is really needed anyway. And I think we all want to see forum games gone. :anski2:

I dunno about forum games, I rarely play them. And I rarely see anyone else play them any more.   News usually ends up in community, the sewers, or elitist debate anyways.  So I agree with this statement xD 

Hmmm... Why do we even still have forum games? =o Ask A Stereotype is somewhat useful, as it gives a way to introduce new members to the forums in a question-and-answer manner (when actually used correctly). That being said, it does get abused quite a bit lately. Maybe it just doesn't need to be its own child board?

As for forum games, I'd be okay with moving it to the archives.

What about this for the community (assuming it gets merged with General Chat)?

Spoiler for:

-Merge Elitist Debate and In The News to become "News & Debate"
-Get rid of Forum Games & Ask a Stereotype OR Merge them.

So it would look like this:

-Welcome
-Bean Bags
-News & Debate
-(?)Forum Games (now merged with AAS OR moved to archives)

(Creativity stuff still in debate)

Forum Games HAS outlived it's usefulness, I'm afraid. It's time is simply past.

I'm considering moving Ask a Stereotype to the archives, it was meant for a more humorous use, and just kind of degraded to a lot less interesting things. Nobody really uses it for a serious Q&A anymore.

Ask a Stereotype should have been moved to the archives years ago.

I went ahead and moved it to the archives. It isn't going to make sense merged with any other board due to the narrow topic selection of it, and nobody really uses it. So go ahead and plan any other mergers without it involved.

In that case, here's what I have so far (because I'm obsessed with organizing things ):

Spoiler for:

-Merge community and general chat to be "Community Chat"

-Merge elitist debate and in the news to be "News & Debate" OR archive one or both?*

-Merge Entertainment and Video Games to be "Games & Entertainment"*

-Move forum games to be a child board of Games & Entertainment? Or archive it?*

-Move all the private boards to the bottom of their section (mostly EA lol)

-Archive Ask A Stereotype

Should we go ahead with the above and then decide any further changes afterwards?

I think "Games and Entertainment" would work well

tv, movies, books, videogames, tabletop and board games could all be in there. if we wanted we could even make forumgames a child board or something if we decide to keep it around.

News and Debate will just become the "everyone bitches about politics, world news and religion boards"  like the respective boards are now. but then, i've never liked those two boards so i should have no say in stuffing them into a tiny corner to die.

Why do we have to move Creativity at all? With all of the other merging and cleaning up that will be done the boards will already be a lot more organized/easier to use.  I think Creativity should stay as it is. I like being able to access it quickly and easy when I want to find something. And it works as a stand alone category because of what it -is-. 

I'm starting to agree with this. I think we'd be better off waiting and seeing if the creativityforums need a revamp after we sort all the other stuff into better spots

I think "Games and Entertainment" would work well

if we wanted we could even make forumgames a child board or something if we decide to keep it around.

^ Both sound good to me. B)

News and Debate will just become the "everyone bitches about politics, world news and religion boards"  like the respective boards are now. but then, i've never liked those two boards so i should have no say in stuffing them into a tiny corner to die.

I agree about Elitist Debate being pointless (and wouldn't really mind it getting Archived), but I kinda think "In The News" should stick around at least. =o

It seems to be the general consensus thus far that RMRK Creativity should stay the same. =o

I think if Forum Games were to not be archived it fits best as a subforum of Community, since it's a community activity not really a general form of entertainment. I would vote for archiving it, though. When RMRK first started (and was crankeye.com/forums) those kinds of games were popular among pretty much any forum. 9 years later, nobody cares about that stuff. But I can understand keeping it around even still.

Elitist Debate is trickier. It's barely active, and the vast majority of the topics there are just aggravating and are the kinds of things that are pointless to debate because no one is going to change anyone's mind and you just end up with people getting angry because it's hard to separate "debating" with "arguing", especially in text format, even if the topic starter is well-meaning and intends for an actual intelligent discussion.. So that's a big reason to archive it and throw away the key. But every now and then one of those topics comes up anyway, so then where does it go? It seems silly to keep a board around just for the chance to have a place to put a topic once or twice a year, but it's also good to know that there is a place for it and the kind of behavior that is expected when you post there (as in we expect people to be mature and rules tend to be a little more strict there, whether or not any of that actually happens). I don't know, I feel conflicted about it. Either way is best for me.

I never understood the point of having In The News. I know it was to post topics about, well, the news - without the debating and everything that Elitist Debate brings about - but it seems like General Chat already served that purpose. Of course, if that gets merged into Community then In The News staying makes more sense, as those topics don't relate to the RMRK community, and since that seems to be what everyone is suggesting we do, then I'd vote to keep In The News and make it a subforum of Community.

I actually agree with what HotS stated. Pretty much 100%

general chat may have originally been for topics that weren't specific to the rmrk community but I think just having community works because why else would you post a general topic besides the chance to discuss that topic with the rmrk community.

so far it seems like

FORUM ANNOUNCMENTS
 -no change?
       We could maybe split the Discussion archives down into the EVERYTHING ELSE category at the bottom of the forum and just have an "Awards Archive" up here.

RMRK GAME CREATION
 -no changes unless we merge Game Maker into Other Game Making Programs as Irock suggested.
 -Keep private RM Boards up here, Like Advanced and UNNAMED GREEK THEMED JUMP AND RUN

RMRK CREATIVITY
 -no changes for now maybe later if necessary

RMRK GENERAL

Community Chat (general chat merged with Community)
    CHILD BOARDS
        -Welcome
        -Bean Bags
        -In the News
        -Maybe forum games.(unless we archive it)
-Community Chat stickies
 -Avatar and Sig Rating
 -Post your picture
 -post your Desktop
 -Fact File
 -What are you eating (could we merge the lunch, dinner, breakfast threads?)
 -unsticky everything else from those boards

games and entertainment
-Games and Entertainment stickies
 - online game info
 - screenshots
 - what are you playing
 - what are you listening to
 - what are you reading (for reading including manga) possibly merge this with this or just specify that what are you reading can include manga
 - (I don't think we have a what are you watching thread but we could have one i guess.)
(keeping these separate because they tend to result in more discussion about their respective topics)
 -unsticky everything else from those boards

EVERYTHING ELSE (or whatever we call it)
Move stuff like EA and other hidden boards to here at the bottom
-EA
-Trading card game
-hello shitty board
-RMRKMon could go here too.
-etc