FreeGameDev

Currently the featured projects are ordered alphabetically.

As the number of projects with a board continues to increase, it could be argued that more prominent forums (e.g. STK, RE) are being pushed down too far.

Does anybody have a good idea on how we should organize the featured projects? Does it even matter since most projects will link straight to their own forum anyway?

Alphabetic sorting is a curse of the open source. Package managers give you a visibility benefit if your project starts with "a" or "0".

I think it matters because I'm a forum user that uses index pages for orientation. I'm a tiny sample size of users though (1).

Right now, I would create two batches: featured projects with >5000 posts and the rest, this would make OD, STK and RE be at the top.

Then I would start a thread on the OD forums discussing the problem of the 10 subforums disturbing the forum structure and disorienting. I would suggest what subforums would be deleted/merged. Please write objections or suggestions on how to discuss this better(?).

What do you think?

Code, Game-Play, Administration -> OD General
Models & Graphics, Sound & Music, Mapping -> OD Art & Assets
Bugs & Feature Requests, Install and upgrade -> OD Help & Support
Misc Dev, Misc Player -> OD Misc (?)

... would be my suggestion.

Code, Game-Play, Administration -> OD Development
Models & Graphics, Sound & Music, Mapping -> OD Art & Assets
Bugs & Feature Requests, Install and upgrade -> OD Help & Support
Misc Dev, Misc Player -> OD General

... would be my suggestion.

Not sure if the ordering matters much yet. On my 1920x1080 22 inch display I can view all forum categories at once. But it could perhaps be nice in the future if the number of projects or categories should rise to several more. I'm not against doing it like you suggest already; just that it may not be urgent yet.

charlie {l Wrote}:Code, Game-Play, Administration -> OD Development
Models & Graphics, Sound & Music, Mapping -> OD Art & Assets
Bugs & Feature Requests, Install and upgrade -> OD Help & Support
Misc Dev, Misc Player -> OD General

Very nice upgrade to Skorpio's suggestion.

We need more input from people actually working on the OD forums.

Merging audio and graphics would probably make a rule to use [music] [model] etc tags, at thread starts useful.

rant: I consider "game play" to be "game design" which seems to lack attention in open source game development reality.

Arthur {l Wrote}:Not sure if the ordering matters much yet. On my 1920x1080 22 inch display I can view all forum categories at once. But it could perhaps be nice in the future if the number of projects or categories should rise to several more. I'm not against doing it like you suggest already; just that it may not be urgent yet.

Yeah, actually I don't see the reason why the structure should be changed. The difference will be minimal so we could as well leave it as it is.

Edit: I meant the OD forums not the featured projects.

Order them by the number of posts in every sub-forum for each game, descending. Done.

Well that can change. E.g. Red Eclipse might surpass SuperTuxKart in a while, and what to do if one week one has more, the next week the other, and back and forth? Alphabetic is at least very simple to determine.

Or we could use a lottery system to place a new one at the top every 7 days!

YAY!

No, we need a contest! And you win by bribing the judges/admins.

I can not be bribed. But I can be schmoozed! Cold beer and fresh pizza will be especially looked upon favourably!

Of course, no one will try to bribe the Admins .... but....interesting...I see some, lets say "possibilities" ....whats your favorit Beer or Pizza?