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^ By me and my SS *squiggle hugs*

I get what you guys are saying about the index being slightly overwhelming, but I have to admit that I think people would be more confused as to where things are located if they didn't see them right away. For someone completely new to the concept of a forum, it can be very confusing, and having to search for specific subforums will only add to that confusion. As for people who have been using forums long enough to know how they work, I don't think they mind the index page being cluttered, so to speak.

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by Lembas

This is based off of Darkie's suggestion.
I took out the LotR-related gaming and put it in the general gaming forum under RPG and gaming. This would be inconsistant in that the rest of the forum is seperated in LotR and non-LotR...

Also, generally I'm not a fan of having 'hidden' sub-forums that only show up when you click them.


Announcements
The Halls of Mandos (Announcements) + "The Tower of Ecthelion (Member Awards)" and perhaps "Parth Galen (Polling)" Perhaps as sub-forums only visible when you click on "Announcements"??
Dwimorberg (Suggestions and Comments) Or more like Suggestions, Comments and Heeelp!!!

Introductions
The Prancing Pony (Introduce Yourself)

Book Discussion
Bag End (The Fellowship of the Ring)
Helm’s Deep (The Two Towers)
Minas Tirith (The Return of the King)
The Hobbit New
Doriath (Other LotR-Related Book Discussion)

Movie Discussion
Bagshot Row (The Fellowship of the Ring)
Ithillien (The Two Towers)
Mount Doom (The Return of the King)
The Lonely Mountain (The Hobbit)

Miscellaneous LotR Discussion
The Grey Havens (Soundtrack Discussion)
The Party Field (LotR Gaming) Put it under "LotR and non-LotR Gaming"
Imladris (Languages)
The Misty Mountains (Completely Miscellaneous LotR) Minor detail, but simply call it "Miscellaneous LotR"?

RPG & Gaming
Caras Galadhon (LotR RPG)
Sharky’s End (Non-LotR RPG)
The Barrow-downs (New Characters) + Osgiliath (Help and Ideas) I'm not a roleplayer, so tell me if it is a criminal offense to combine the two!
(LotR and Non-LotR Related Gaming) This would include "The Party Field (LotR gaming)"

The Actors
Dol Guldur (LotR & Hobbit Actor Discussion)
Caradhras (Miscellaneous Actor Discussion) Includes "Miscellaneous Actor Discussion" and "Non-LotR Actor Discussion" and "Swoon Board"

Life Outside LotR
Mirrormere (Movies & TV)
Michel Delving (Literature)
The Golden Hall (Music)
The Green Dragon (Your Life)
House of Bombadil (Miscellaneous Randomness)

World Wide Web
Dwarrowdelf (Favourite Tolkien Sites) Rename to "Tolkien Sites" and have it include member Tolkien sites too?
Haradwaith (Favorite Non-LotR Sites) *Perhaps combine "Favorite Non-LotR Sites" and "Your Site"?
Bree-land (Your Site) *
Amon Hen (Site Help) + Orthanc (Resources and Tutorials) Combine the two?

Fan Section
Bucklebury (Fan Art)
The Hall of Fire (Fanfiction & Poetry)
Numenor (Requests)
Dale (Resources & Tutorials)

Other
The Glittering Caves (Clubs)
The Old Forest (Contests)
Parth Galen (Polling) Could be moved to Announcements
The Tower of Ecthelion (Member Awards) IMO "Member Awards" doesn't need to be displayed on the main forum index but only when you click the Announcement board?

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If Announcements is going to include other things than announcements from the mods, would it be an idea to rename the section and include "Introduce Yourself"? Because if we think the index is cluttered, taking up space to have a whole separate introductions section seems kind of unneeded. Also, isn't introducing yourself an announcement of sorts?

Other than that I think your suggestion looks good, Eä

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by Lembas

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^ By me and my SS *squiggle hugs*

*pats JF*

I'm so glad this is still being discussed. I especially like Darky's idea posted above [by Eä], and I also like Ana's idea about combining the Announcements and Introduce Yourself forum. And of course, JF, we won't forget about Misc LotR.

Alrighty, so as you probably know, I'm trying NOT to be the main person in the revival, which--because all of you are doing such a great job taking care of Stuff--is working out really well so far. I feel like we've gotten stalled with the forum organization, though, and I don't really want to be the one to make the final decision on how things are organized.

Can those of you who have been involved in discussing how the subforums should be ordered / which ones should go etc. put your heads together, via PM or this thread or wherever, and come up with a clear list of what should go where? I know this has been done several times on this thread, but I feel like it's always been a little waffley - i.e., maybe this should go there, or maybe we should get rid of this - and there are usually a couple disagreements. So if we can get a clear list sorted, I can go ahead and make the changes, but it would be really great if you can reach a consensus by yourselves

P.S. Ellie wants his video game section.

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^ By me and my SS *squiggle hugs*

That's exactly it That forum is built with the same software as A-U, so any options they have, we should technically be able to have.

For "nested" subforums, the way it should work is that we can decide whether members can post on the first board (the way there are a bunch of threads under Request Celebrity Address) as general topics, or have to choose a sub-forum to post in first (in which case it would look like viewforum.php?f=53 ). Like the site to which you linked, while the sub-forums aren't listed in nice friendly letters like normal boards, you do have the option to list them as Subforums: Forum 1, Forum, Forum 3 on the index page (again, just as how Not Found is listed under Request Celebrity Address).

For example, we currently have setups like this:

Category: Book Discussion --> Boards: FotR Discussion, TTT Discussion, etc.

We could set it up as:

Category: LotR Discussion --> Boards: Book Discussion ( --> Sub-forums: FotR Discussion, TTT Discussion, etc., with any misc. topics taking place on the main Book Discussion board), Movie Discussion, etc.

So basically you can go as many nested levels deep as you want to. It's like Inception, except slightly less dangerous. Make sense?

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^ By me and my SS *squiggle hugs*

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^ By me and my SS *squiggle hugs*

Looks good, thanks for the visual example.
Here's a couple of inputs for tweaking it... sorry for a long post, I tried to make it reader-friendly...


RPG & Gaming
I think it's crucial that we get opinions from active RP'ers on whether we can combine 'New Characters' and 'Help and Ideas'. Either drag a couple of them over here to have a look or post a thread in the RPG-section to get a yay or nay. There's currently being worked on attracting more RP'ers so we need to support them the best we can.

Minor detail: I'd suggest displaying the sub-forums like this with the actual RPGs first in order to show them off in stead of sandwich them in the middle.

Caras Galadhon (LotR RPG)
Sharky’s End (Non-LotR RPG)
The Barrow-downs (New Characters) + Osgiliath (Help and Ideas)
(LotR and Non-LotR Related Gaming)


Concerning the World Wide Web section. I agree members should be able to post own sites but the reason I would take out 'Your site' is simply based on the deadness of the board, it's a graveyard at the moment. And as such members sites might as well fit under LotR-sites or Non-LotR sites. However, there's a slight chance people will start updating their old sites/create new for the Hobbit... What'dya think?

Minor thing: I'd move the 'Fan section' up above 'World Wide Web' and have WWW as the last board. Simply based on current activity... A-U is a massive board and there's a lot of scrolling. And I think it fits nicely and logically under 'Life Outside LotR.


Something that has bothered me is that we have a lot of the same threads in the Club section and the Actor section. I mean we talk about Alan Rickman's movies and his sexiness equally in the actor thread, the actor's movies thread and the dedicated club thread (and Swoon board).

Idea 1: Ditch the Actors-board completely and have all fan-swooning/discussions going on in the club section.
Idea 2: If we want to keep especially the LotR-actors board to honour LotR yadda yadda we could put it as a sub-board under Clubs - easy to find.
Idea 3: Move LotR-actors to Misc. LotR like this:

The Grey Havens (Soundtrack Discussion)
Imladris (Languages)
Dol Guldur (LotR & Hobbit Actor Discussion) <-- Here
The Misty Mountains (Completely Miscellaneous LotR)

And ditch the Non-LotR board (probably dissolve it in Club-section)


Add the Clubs to either Life outside LotR or Fan Section


So my revision

Announcements
The Halls of Mandos (Announcements)
Sub-forums: "The Tower of Ecthelion (Member Awards)" + "Parth Galen (Polling)" + "Dwimorberg (Suggestions and Comments)"


Introductions
The Prancing Pony (Introduce Yourself)


Book Discussion
Bag End (The Fellowship of the Ring)
Helm’s Deep (The Two Towers)
Minas Tirith (The Return of the King)
The Hobbit
Doriath (Other LotR-Related Book Discussion)


Movie Discussion
Bagshot Row (The Fellowship of the Ring)
Ithillien (The Two Towers)
Mount Doom (The Return of the King)
The Lonely Mountain (The Hobbit)


Miscellaneous LotR Discussion
The Grey Havens (Soundtrack Discussion)
Imladris (Languages)
Dol Guldur (LotR & Hobbit Actor Discussion) Them LotR-actors!
The Misty Mountains (Completely Miscellaneous LotR)


RPG & Gaming
Caras Galadhon (LotR RPG)
Sharky’s End (Non-LotR RPG)
The Barrow-downs (New Characters) + Osgiliath (Help and Ideas) Combine?
(LotR and Non-LotR Related Gaming) Sub-forum: "The Party Field (LotR gaming)"


The Actors
Dol Guldur (LotR & Hobbit Actor Discussion)
Caradhras (Miscellaneous Actor Discussion) Includes "Miscellaneous Actor Discussion" and "Non-LotR Actor Discussion" and "Swoon Board"


Life Outside LotR
The Green Dragon (Your Life)
Mirrormere (Movies & TV)
Michel Delving (Literature)
The Golden Hall (Music)
The Glittering Caves (Clubs) Here?
House of Bombadil (Miscellaneous Randomness)


Fan Section
Bucklebury (Fan Art)
The Hall of Fire (Fanfiction & Poetry)
Numenor (Requests)
Dale (Resources & Tutorials)
The Glittering Caves (Clubs) Here?


World Wide Web Moved
Dwarrowdelf (Favourite Tolkien Sites) Includes member Tolkien sites
Haradwaith (Favorite Non-LotR Sites) Includes member non-LotR sites
Bree-land (Your Site)
Amon Hen (Site Help) + Orthanc (Resources and Tutorials)

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Banner credit: Shadowcat & Nurrantiel Mashiara

Woops! I think I've missed alot of this conversation, as I've been very busy with exams.. But I just scanned over Eä's post and the word RPG caught my intention.

I think the New Character and Osgiliath subforums should not be joined together. Why not? Because they are two very different sub forums, which now might seem dead, but hopefully with a revival of the RPG section, both might revive again.

Some RPGers do not really care about bios and stuff but there are many dedicated players that have the most awesome thread with character bios, and though many may have left the forum, I think their threads can still provide as inspiration or examples to others. I think almost every RPer has a character thread and at some times their are updated and sometimes not, but by joining it with the other sub-forum it would become one big mess.

The Help& Ideas subforum is the place where new ideas can be pitched or where plotting threads of existing RPGs are created. So all in all there are also a great many threads which are actively used.

So by joining two subforums which are completely different and have the potential to be quite active in the future I say no to this fusion!

And I will try to catch up on the other things you discussed, but I just didn't have the time yet.

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Children, rejoice, rejoice..



It doesn't matter you don't believe in God, He believes in you.

I have a minor suggestion. . . Wouldn't it make sense to have The Hobbit book discussion above FotR, as The Hobbit is basically the prequel to LotR? Just a thought.

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^I agree with Harthad, but it's a minor detail.

And I think Eä's suggestion looks good, but again I'd suggest moving Introductions somewhere else, like Announcements. Also, I think Clubs can be moved to the Fan Section, as that's where I think they fit best, even if not all of them are fan-related.

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by Lembas

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^ By me and my SS *squiggle hugs*