intfiction.org

ahh i see - the playing category has all been merged into a single forum. Is that right? No reviews, or getting started, or help me i'm stuck?

I think it collapses. Try clicking the "+" sign beside it.

nope, tried that. it goes to its own forum when you click on the category title, like the general one.

I don't know. This forum seems to carry a pretty steep learning curve. I think it's way too much for novice users, especially if we're to attact people who can't use newsgroups. To some degree, using a newsgroup would be easier for newbies than this version of phpBB.

How about we replace it with phpBB2? Less features, but far easier to use. I mean, in this one, there are links all over the place. It took me some time just to figure out where they'd moved the "Register" link. Or can some of those features simply be disabled?

Nice forum. But I must say I prefer the simpler design. There's no way to simplify it?

Oh, and Hello =D.

[quote="Merk"]
At this point, I'm pretty satisfied with the forum divisions. I'd still not separate Tads and Inform, but I guess it doesn't hurt anything. I'd suggest renaming "General Talk" to "General and Off-Topic Talk".
[/quote]

General Talk renamed, I removed the Inform 6 and TADS 2 forums - the Inform 7 and TADS 3 are subforums of Inform 6 and TADS 2 discussion now.

[quote="Merk"]
One other thing, I guess. This forum -- Administrative Announcements. Is there a way it can be renamed to something... softer? Maybe "Community Announcements" or something? I'm afraid this is going to perpetuate an "elite" kind of mindset with visitors, where everybody who's not admin or a moderator will feel like they're just a visitor, not part of the community. Obviously it can't just have open moderation and everybody can't be made admin, but I'd rather the whole thing be phrased more along the lines of a "community" where possible.

I'm afraid it's going to feel like somebody's private board, instead of a community board.
[/quote]

Done.

[quote="essell"]
and I think the Playing category should be first on the page, then the authoring, then the other two.
[/quote]

Changed this, as well. The Playing category now comes before the Authoring one.

[quote="essell"]
Where've the Playing IF forums gone?
[/quote]

[quote="Merk"]
I can still see the Playing forum. But those +/- symbols out beside the groups are a little wonky. They don't seem to work right for me. I wonder if we'd have been better off sticking to phpBB version 2 instead? Also, it seems like the "Management" group is visible when you're not logged in, but the announcements forum itself is hidden. I don't know. Maybe I'm just too used to the prior version. It's a little quirky to me so far.
[/quote]

[quote="essell"]
ahh i see - the playing category has all been merged into a single forum. Is that right? No reviews, or getting started, or help me i'm stuck?
[/quote]

The problem here was that for some reason the permissions of the registered user on the forums were not set. It should now be fixed, and if said problem again shows up, just let me know.

[quote="Taz"]
Nice forum. But I must say I prefer the simpler design. There's no way to simplify it?

Oh, and Hello =D.
[/quote]

Hello, and welcome!

We're trying to get some kind of an agreement on what a suitable layout for the forums would be. I'd prefer to work with this, Mike is thinking of us downgrading to phpBB2. We'll see what we end up doing.

Please simplify the forum to the point where I can see the front page and a list of all the boards and activity without having to scroll.

Is there another "view" for messages, like the tree view in google groups,
or is it all based on a flat list?

There's no reason for a 200 pixel high banner logo at the top.
There are too many buttons everywhere, and so much junk text,
banners, headers, dividers, separators. Not to mention the very
confusing navigation and general information overload.

And, please no [b]BBCode[/b], smiley icons, fat signatures, [color=#BFFF80]colored [/color][color=#BF8000]text[/color]
in messages, or avatar icons.

I think we should move to a better forum engine.

I like the ruby forums, they are nice and simple, as well as snappy
and responsive:

http://www.ruby-forum.com/

The typophile forum looks nice, but is slow as molasses.

http://www.typophile.com/forums