View source for Forum:Changes to Forum

{{Forumheader|Index}}{{sticky}}
<!-- Please put your content under this line.  Be sure to sign your edits with four tildes ~~~~ -->

Hey everyone! Hope you all are having a blast! Holidays here and there! <small>''Exclamation marks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!''</small>

This is simply a huge proposal to the administration team to allow me (and several individuals) to update the forum by making it more user-friendly, more accessible and more organised. The reason behind this is because of the absence of the Blog feature the wiki once had in the past. Since that feature is no longer available to the wiki/community, I am of the opinion that the forum should be restored and updated to something akin to Waypoint's.

With that said, the following are the proposed forum categories:
*Support Requests (for technical requests such as template fixing and what-not. A helpful place to learn wiki-coding)
*General Discussion (self-explanatory)
*Community Proposal (to allow the community to propose policies and what-not).

As always, the Administrators would be the moderators (duh!). We all know that Administrators aren't always around/do not have the time to update the policies, hence why Community Proposal category exist; this allows the community to decide on the general policies (i.e. Manual of Style) that should be changed/added/altered/removed. Of course, administrative policies (i.e. Blocking policy) are not to be discussed unless the policies are disproportionate/necessary to be updated/removed/added.

One major issue that might arise from this forum update is the status of the old forum threads; to put it simply, there's too many old and unneeded forum threads in Halopedia since its creation. Do not worry as I found a way to preserve them without having to delete all of them. All of the old threads will be moved to [[:Category:Index]] while the new threads will be under a new category. :)

So, what do you all think? Yay or nay? — <span style="font-size:16px; font-family:OrbitronMedium;">[[User:Subtank|<span style="color:#FF4F00;">subtank</span>]]</span> 09:09, 14 December 2011 (EST)
:<small>No need for a support/oppose section. We'll just refer to the comments and take them into consideration to improve the forum.</small>

==Comments==
Yay, it sounds like a great way to organize the site more, and make it the best it can possibly be (Especially with the Community Proposal section!) [[User:Iota Eta Pi|<span style="font-family:font; color:#B80000;">Ιι</span>]] [[User talk:Iota Eta Pi|<span style="font-family:font; color:#B80000;">Ηη</span>]] [[Special:Contributions/Iota Eta Pi|<span style="font-family:font; color:#B80000;">Ππ</span>]] 16:19, 14 December 2011 (EST)

Yay.--[[User talk:The All-knowing Sith&#39;ari|The All-knowing Sith&#39;ari]] 17:29, 14 December 2011 (EST)

Sounds like a good idea. Though it should be limited so that forums don't get as out of control as the blogs back on wikia did.--'''''[[Help:User Levels|<span style="color:green">Commander</span>]]''''' '''''[[User:Spartacus|<span style="color:green">Spartacus</span>]]''''' (''[[User talk:Spartacus|<span style="color:orange">Tenth Roman</span>]]'' ''[[Special:Contributions/Spartacus|<span style="color:orange">Battalion</span>]]'') 23:15, 14 December 2011 (EST)
:Hasn't it always been limited?— <span style="font-size:16px; font-family:OrbitronMedium;">[[User:Subtank|<span style="color:#FF4F00;">subtank</span>]]</span> 07:29, 15 December 2011 (EST)
::He may be referring to how they are now. Which is pretty dang messy... [[User:FatalSnipe117|<span style="color:green">'''pestilence'''</span>]] [[Special:Contributions/FatalSnipe117|<span style="color:green">'''Phil'''</span>]], ''[[User talk:FatalSnipe117|<span style="color:green">'''pestilence!'''</span>]]'' 08:30, 15 December 2011 (EST)
:::Exactly, I am coming across unneeded forums being created...e.g. ''who want longsword flying mission?'' as the whole text of the forum.--'''''[[Help:User Levels|<span style="color:green">Commander</span>]]''''' '''''[[User:Spartacus|<span style="color:green">Spartacus</span>]]''''' (''[[User talk:Spartacus|<span style="color:orange">Tenth Roman</span>]]'' ''[[Special:Contributions/Spartacus|<span style="color:orange">Battalion</span>]]'') 11:44, 17 December 2011 (EST)

Proof-to-point, he's right![[User talk:Maginot Sphere|Maginot Sphere]] 09:07, 19 December 2011 (EST)

Yay. And may I suggest a fourth category, something like a news forum, like the [[Halopedia:The Oracle Newsletter (disbanded)|disbanded Oracle Newsletter]]? Also, I agree with Spartacus on the forum with low (or ''no''<!--see what I did there? Oh gosh I have no sense of humour-->) traffic, for example, [[Forum: Potential Firefight Maps]], made by yours truly. —[[User:Spartan331|<span style="color:silver;">S331</span>]] [[File:Bubbleshieldhud.svg|14px]]<sub>([[User talk:Spartan331|COM]] • [[Special:Contributions/Spartan331|Mission Log]] • [[User profile:Spartan331|Profile]])</sub> 10:13, 19 December 2011 (EST)
:<s>I tagged two unneeded forums for deletion, so if someone could delete it that would be great.--'''''[[Help:User Levels|<span style="color:green">Commander</span>]]''''' '''''[[User:Spartacus|<span style="color:green">Spartacus</span>]]''''' (''[[User talk:Spartacus|<span style="color:orange">Tenth Roman</span>]]'' ''[[Special:Contributions/Spartacus|<span style="color:orange">Battalion</span>]]'') 00:46, 21 December 2011 (EST)</s>
::Disregard that comment, they were deleted.--'''''[[Help:User Levels|<span style="color:green">Commander</span>]]''''' '''''[[User:Spartacus|<span style="color:green">Spartacus</span>]]''''' (''[[User talk:Spartacus|<span style="color:orange">Tenth Roman</span>]]'' ''[[Special:Contributions/Spartacus|<span style="color:orange">Battalion</span>]]'') 00:55, 21 December 2011 (EST)

:A fourth category for news forum? I think we have such service in the past headed by CommanderTony, which utilised the Comment feature (now defunct). If we were to create this fourth category, then there is the question of who is eligible to post in it. I think it's better to post all news in the General Discussion category. If the news is of high-importance, we can always ''sticky'' it to make it appear the main forum list.— <span style="font-size:16px; font-family:OrbitronMedium;">[[User:Subtank|<span style="color:#FF4F00;">subtank</span>]]</span> 07:05, 21 December 2011 (EST)
::I think the fourth category should be limited to administrators (obviously) and anyone whose account is a certain age. Or similar to the Oracle Newsletter we had in the past, users could request to have the ability to post in this fourth category. We obviously do not want people coming in and making forums with terrible English and poor grammar. That would make it look unprofessional.--'''''[[Help:User Levels|<span style="color:green">Commander</span>]]''''' '''''[[User:Spartacus|<span style="color:green">Spartacus</span>]]''''' (''[[User talk:Spartacus|<span style="color:orange">Tenth Roman</span>]]'' ''[[Special:Contributions/Spartacus|<span style="color:orange">Battalion</span>]]'') 11:31, 21 December 2011 (EST)
:::Kinda defeats the point of a forum, which is to invite everyone to join in a discussion and not restrict them to a group of users. We could set up guidelines similar to HBO, whereby one can designate a forum as being OT (off-topic, normal spelling/grammar regulation), srs (serious topic, grammar/spelling regulation intensified) or not-srs (Not serious topic, hence grammar/spelling regulation relaxed). Of course, we shouldn't shut those that simply have bad spelling/grammar out of the forum. Some of our readers are not native English speakers. :/
:::Users can still post news to the wiki and request them to be circulated via [[Talk:Main Page/News]]. The only problem is that this talk page is not often visited by administrators, and as such news goes unnoticed.— <span style="font-size:16px; font-family:OrbitronMedium;">[[User:Subtank|<span style="color:#FF4F00;">subtank</span>]]</span> 13:50, 21 December 2011 (EST)
:::Yeah that is a good point. Though forums with the content eg: ''lawl i made a forum'' should not be allowed.--'''''[[Help:User Levels|<span style="color:green">Commander</span>]]''''' '''''[[User:Spartacus|<span style="color:green">Spartacus</span>]]''''' (''[[User talk:Spartacus|<span style="color:orange">Tenth Roman</span>]]'' ''[[Special:Contributions/Spartacus|<span style="color:orange">Battalion</span>]]'') 13:58, 21 December 2011 (EST)
::::What about a forum policy? It could be used to let users know what the guidelines for making a forum in each category are. It would be written so that everyone could see it. This would be similar to the blog policy we had on Wikia, just with different requirements.--'''''[[Help:User Levels|<span style="color:green">Commander</span>]]''''' '''''[[User:Spartacus|<span style="color:green">Spartacus</span>]]''''' (''[[User talk:Spartacus|<span style="color:orange">Tenth Roman</span>]]'' ''[[Special:Contributions/Spartacus|<span style="color:orange">Battalion</span>]]'') 14:06, 21 December 2011 (EST)
:::::Write one up and we'll amend it as we restructure the forum. :) — <span style="font-size:16px; font-family:OrbitronMedium;">[[User:Subtank|<span style="color:#FF4F00;">subtank</span>]]</span> 14:12, 21 December 2011 (EST)