Changing up the boards

[Kyreles]

It seems to me that we have a great community around ADOM and ADOM II. I propose that we change the way these fora are structured to promote comradery between members and perhaps to draw out some of the uncounted invisible stalkers who lurk around, reading, but not posting, as I suspect there are a fair few of them. I currently see this at the bottom of the page:

Currently Active Users
There are currently 20 users online. 1 members and 19 guests

I think we should get rid of the <iADOM>, <ADOM RPG> and <Release of the ADOM source code> fora unless anyone thinks there is more to say about the source or that iADOM and RPG actually need their own forum. It's been a year (almost exactly, actually) since the last post in the release the code forum. Everything has been said on both sides. I feel like the RPG forum could easily be just a thread in General. As for the iADOM, well if there are plans to release a mobile version of the game, by all means keep it.

What I'm actually proposing is to get rid of the ones we don't use and add a new one: Forum Games. I think the IRC channel is great for community building, but I believe it can be a bit unwelcoming (not the people, the nature of connecting to IRC) to new people or casually interested people. Having a forum games forum would be fun and involving. Compared to the YAVP forum (for example) where if you can only win by scumming you never really post. Or the general forum, where you may enjoy just reading. The games forum could encourage people to register in order to participate and lead to participation in other fora.

Wikipedia page on forum games
As examples check out the following if you like: XKCD, android forums and The Escapist

I'm not sure if anyone, other than The Creator, can actually alter the layout of the boards, deleting and creating new ones, but I'd like to see a new one created. Check out this thread (XKCD) for an example of a fun game.

Any ideas? Anyone interested in playing Nomic (wikipedia) with me? If I'm the only one who wants to play forum games with the ADOM crew, please disregard this post. But if you'd like to have some fun and get some new blood posting, let me know.

[JellySlayer]

A few quick notes.

-I could be wrong, but of the 19 guests that are currently online, it's probably a safe bet that many of them are spambots trying to register for the forums. Spambots have been a continuous problem for the last 2-3 years (maybe more). If there are really 20 lurkers reading the forums pretty much 24/7, well, I guess they should register.
-I believe that iADOM will be released around the same time as 1.2.0 for the PC. Whether or not that will be within the decade remains to be seen. Jochen has been fixing bugs, and a version of ADOM II has been released, so miracles can happen
-Only TB and (probably) Jochen have the power to change the structure of the fora, AFAIK. They don't pay all that much attention to what we do here, though.
-If you want to start a forum game, at least for the moment you can probably start right away in General. Or even in this forum, if the game is ADOM-related (speaking of which, it's Friday the 13th next week, so there'll be something or other happening for that).

[Laukku]

There are currently 20 users online. 1 members and 19 guest

That's a ratio you see on every forum. The lurkers vastly outnumber members currently logged in, everywhere.

Some subforums, like the source code release, I agree are useless. TB has pretty much decided against against releasing the source, so it should be locked. I don't think we need a new one for forum games however. But maybe for challenges such as Weakest Link.

[Kyreles]

As far as the ratio of lurkers to posters, I agree that it's likely some spam-bots, but I still think there are people who lurk these forums without posting, and that forum games are a fun way to get to know the group. For deleting the ones we don't use, not my main point, but I don't think we really need those right now, but it isn't hurting anything to leave them. We may not need an a seperate place for forum games, but I'd like one, just to keep it seperate. Perhaps with a name that would somehow include both forum games as well as private tournaments/challanges or whatever we're gonna call the group of roman republic, duel to the death etc. style games.

Well I think forum games are fun. If anyone wants to join me I'm gonna start a Nomic game. It'll be over in general for now. It's tons of fun and super easy to jump into at any time. If you guys don't wanna play it'll just die off on it's own I guess.