agree with Neena and Cal's recent post! Not trying to start trouble here... just trying to think of things to make it easier for newbs espcially those first time rpgers. I had the same experieince as Neena did. I'd really lik to see us come to an agreement on at least an aspect of it. I don't think it's good to take a mentality of "well it's obvious" unless it really truley is meaning some random person can 'walk in off the web' and figure things out easy peasy which I dont believe they can. I think we've been working together as a collective to make that more obtainable and I think this should be another aspect we look at. And it's cool people dont want to delete threads- it was just an idea I didn't need the illustrations of tossing them off a bridge come on I now have a better understanding of why you dont want too. And there are quite a few truley ancient posts around here. And there are some threads that I know I have finished with my character and dont want anyone resurrecting. So hopefully we could at least decide to offer that idea to Lady J. If she approves we could always just PM the threads we'd like locked.

Of course, I could be doing all this blathering for nothing as she can just as easily say "nah"

Hm.
So, perhaps we can put aside the archive/no-archive/drowning-kittens question for a moment, and broaden the topic to how we can improve site navigation.

Here are some suggestions off the top of my head:
* Add a site map (that is, a single page listing all the boards and sub-boards and what they're for).

* Keep the tradition going of personal link-posts for each plot (like this one) and attach them to the main current-plot-summary thread

* Also attach a "must-read posts list" post to the main plot-summary thread... the idea is we add links to this post that are really important to understanding what's going on with the plot. This should be a small list, sometimes an empty one.

* Consolidate all the OOC stuff into a single board.

I love the way you thik Sonya

Sending a PM to a mod to have certain threads locked doesn't seem to be a bad idea, if the mod is willing to do that. Maybe it's just me (since I had already come from other forum sites to this one), I didn't have a problem seeing when threads were old/dead.

And about a site map....we have one, on the home page, every board/sub-board, if I'm remembering correctly explains what it is and what it's there for.

Concerning OOC's, if there was an OOC board with sub-boards like 'plot' 'characters' 'threads' something like that, I could understand it. But if not, then I don't see the point as cramming them all together would just be as bad as the site having too much 'clutter'.

Re: sitemap, just to clarify: What I had in mind was a single page that listed both the main boards and the sub-boards. That way (for example) if I know there's a place to post schedules, but I don't happen to remember that it's the "Member's Schedules" sub-board of "News and Announcements," I don't have to dig through all the boards to find it.

Re: OOC boards... yes, if we combine them we would have to re-org them.

I didn't need the illustrations of tossing them off a bridge come on

*grins* You didn't? *coughs, and moves on*

Agreed with all points on Sonya's thread. Especially the bit about the OOC boards--I'm always having trouble finding OOC threads, simply because there's so many legit places people can post them. There's a way to move threads from one board to another; I think we could do that, then ax some of the redundant boards (for example, "Idle Chat" and "Talk about anything" could probably be combined without any tears shed).

As to whether people wandering in off the internet would be able to find their way around here... I'd say yes. That's what I did, after all. I've only RPed once before this, and it was years ago, on a site set up much, much differently.

not everyone's going to have that same experieince though. I still think it's naieve for us to assume everything is obvious, and in the words of my 300 movie, book store manager, we should always be thinking of Kizan- the art of constant improvment

ALSO someone mentioned earlier of keeping track of what threads we're in, and I know some of us do for each plot but it would be great to see everyone do it. You could keep a link within your profile with the lists of relevant ones and past ones, would probably makes things easier too by the time it's time to giv eout points. Again, a lot of us do this, but would probably be good to get everyone on board.

Actaully, I've got a lot of free time this weekend (twelve hours with the rest of the family in London; me time to the max!) so I'll go backtracking through my threads and try to link them in my profile... but Ted's been all over the place, so it could be tricky lol. When I finally get Ted up to a thousands post and can apply for a third charrie, then with that one I'll keep track of all their threads from the beginning. We should probably persuade people to do that, as it'll be easier to set links of people's charrie's threads if they start at the beginning... if that makes sense :S

If you want to see a player's threads who isn't maintaining such a list, you can use the site's Search capability.

Select "Search for posts by:" and enter the account name, check "Threads" rather than "Posts" at the bottom of the search page, and set however many days back you want to go and how many threads you want to get. (for example, 365 days and 100 threads).

Of course, this is also useful when trying to build such a list for yourself, but it also makes it unnecessary. (I maintain such a list so I can keep track of who Sonya has met, in which body.)

If we really would like to encourage people to keep archives of their own back posts (personally, I'm finding my own archive exceedingly useful), I'd say we should ask Lady J to put a "Your Character's Archive" board up. Each character could maintain their own thread, where they list the threads they've been in. I think having an "official area" to put such things in would make more people aware that keeping them is a good idea.

*slaps Calley on the back* Spiffing good wheeze, wot wot? I say someone should send a PM to her admin-ness, asking for such a board.

does exactly what Ted just did only cuter* agree with Cal!

Just to check: has anyone sent that PM her Ladyship's way? Elsewise, I shall do that promptly. Just didn't want to burden her supreme inbox with our lowly redundancy.

Redundancy means that when something fails, it's got something to replace it. Or, it means that when something fails, everything fails

But that's a good question, has anyone sent a PM to the J-Boss-Lady?