New Forums!

As the first step in our new strategy to transform atWar into a Reddit-style social media company, I've made some new forums -- check them out!

Any suggestions for other new forums we should add? Please let us know in the comments here!

I'm also realizing that there are too many forums already in some places, for example there are way too many atWar-related forums. I'm open to any suggestions for forums that we should remove, or combine.

Isn't it interesting that "Off-topic" is by far the most popular forum here, both by # of topics and # of replies?

Could you add number of upvotes visible next to the post, similiarly to how it is visible in the profile info? Also implement downvote, maybe?


Also, as for removing and merging forums, just do not touch 5 categories of maps and scenarios - they are perfectly separated.

If you add downvotes then you wont need mods anymore, the posts that are immoral won't be shown, just like on reddit

Scris de Oleg, 04.09.2024 at 18:52

Could you add number of upvotes visible next to the post, similiarly to how it is visible in the profile info? Also implement downvote, maybe?


Also, as for removing and merging forums, just do not touch 5 categories of maps and scenarios - they are perfectly separated.

I disagree, many of us farmed upvotes in SP Police forums.

Off topic is good and other fourms are good because this is a 4chan board not reddit

Scris de Dave, 04.09.2024 at 16:17

As the first step in our new strategy to transform atWar into a Reddit-style social media company, I've made some new forums -- check them out!

Any suggestions for other new forums we should add? Please let us know in the comments here!

I'm also realizing that there are too many forums already in some places, for example there are way too many atWar-related forums. I'm open to any suggestions for forums that we should remove, or combine.

I'm not sure if there's any room to combine the atWar forums. They each look like they all have a specific purpose that is well separated from the other forums. Combining or removing them may negatively impact the experience for new players, which may further cause issues with player retention.

Regarding the other forums, maybe new forums can be added if there is a very high demand for them. For example, if I write a book recommendation/review thread, it gets popular, and 30 other people post similar threads, maybe add a book review/recommendation forum. Really, though, I think you should replace the new forums(ignoring forum games) with tags that get added to the off-topic and forum-games threads. I wrote some ideas that I have on this in detail below.

Some website design recommendations:
If people seem to really like this, maybe make the off topic forum its own thing.
Maybe let players have an option that lets them change the community dropdown on the top, so that atWar forums and off topic forums are separate options(e.g. maybe have "forums" and "miscellaneous forums" as options. New players might prefer to look at these sides of the forums as separate things.
Note: This may be less useful if you use tags and remove some of the current other forums.

Regarding making off topic its own thing, maybe add a button to the atWar forums that take you to the other forums, and a button in the other forums that send you to the atWar forums.

A more useful option might be to make the different forum classifications collapsible with a +,- button. You can add a few db columns so that the website can store your preferences. Maybe also include a user option that disables this feature for people who don't want the forums collapsed when they get to the forums page.




My main recommendation is to add classification tags to the other forums(maybe also the atWar forums, but the forums seem to be more or less perfectly organized as is, and there wouldn't be much improvement to the preexisting forum threads, unless you were to have the mods go into each thread and manually add additional tags that would be relevant; it may plausibly improve future posts, though I doubt it. I suppose that there will need to be a tag for each existing forum so that people can search the atWar forum the way they search the other forums, and of course, the preexisting threads will need tags added to them).

Maybe restrict the number of topics to what you have now(or even remove all except for forum games and off topic, and move the current threads in the removed forums to off-topic, and add the appropriate tags), and use classification tags instead of adding new forums.

With classification tags, we can give a thread multiple classifications, allowing us to have our threads show up in more searches(e.g. I really love "The Armada" by Garrett Mattingly. If I wanted to write a book recommendation for it, that could go under book reviews or history. If book reviews become a topic, there are two places I can put it under, but people will only find my thread if they go to one of those forums. With classification tags, I can mark my new thread about his book as being under history, military history, and book reviews, meaning that someone who searches by any one of those categories would still see my post regardless).

I think that tags should work more or less like they do in stack overflow(I realize that it's a Q&A site, but the same idea applies: if you want to look at a thread about military history, search by classification tag, and you get anything about military history).

Doing this would mean that more people will read posts that fall under multiple categories, increasing the number posts and likes, and giving people a greater incentive to create new threads.

There should be a tag for everything that people are likely to write a post about. This includes all forums in the other forums right now, and then a bunch of other ones.

Maybe write a new thread asking people for all of the tags that they think should be added.

I think that the following tags should be added in addition to the ones related to the current forums:
-military history
-book reviews/recommendations
-film reviews/recommendations
-music reviews/recommendations
-uncategorized(a placeholder for preexisting off topic threads. Maybe have mods slowly add tags to them and remove that one. This would be a tag that users can't select when creating/editing a post themselves)
-probably up to a few dozen more.

Scris de Dave, 04.09.2024 at 16:17

As the first step in our new strategy to transform atWar into a Reddit-style social media company, I've made some new forums -- check them out!

Any suggestions for other new forums we should add? Please let us know in the comments here!

I'm also realizing that there are too many forums already in some places, for example there are way too many atWar-related forums. I'm open to any suggestions for forums that we should remove, or combine.

A scenario guide/ preset guide forum section. I know we have some solid scenario guides, but with a dedicate forum for easier access it will be easier for newer players to understand maps and not be intimidated as much. I would also propose maybe creating a role in-line with "supporters" for a few people to make new renovated guides.
We need forum guides/ map guides/ strategy guides/ game concept guides etc. etc., the list can go on. We have a lot of guides already out there, but they are spread out and lost in the chambers of forum spam or completely outdated.

I've taken some ideas from this thread and added a few more forums

Thank you all for your input. I may implement a few more ideas when I have more time.