Forum suggestions

[Malebolgia149]

Firstly, as a new user, hello warlord world.

The technical aspects of web building and design elude me, but as a frequent visitor of other forums and social media, particularly in the video and tabletop gaming sphere, I do have a few suggestions or a wish list in no particular order.

1. User accessibility: the forums are relatively uncomplicated but accessing the subforum you want could be made easier, either with a true front page, larger and more distinct text or fonts, artistic pictures with backdrops for each subforum path or other, more aesthetic improvements. The current solution is obviously workable, but a little bland and, with everything in shades of whites and yellows aside from the ads toward the top and bottom, it all somewhat blends together. Color options, a dark mode, some flair or more distinct profiles could go a long way. Definitely not a priority though

2. Each subforum should have it’s own curated news. This is more of a content concern rather than a structure one. It’s always good to hear chatter from developers but having one big news thread with multiple titles usually leads to it getting ignored. Crossover between games is good but I’m not sure if news is where that should be. This could include future release dates, what’s in the pipeline, and other hype generating topics. Possible concept art and the like.

3. Game, Rules, List, Art: Each game should separate these catagories into different branches so one doesn’t have to spend ages scrolling or worse, page changing. This is a first world problem and only a mild gripe, but having each category dated helps ensure the more recent of each of these is toward the top as well. For example, if new rules for a particular unit were to suddenly drop, how would I access that information quickly? There might be recent discussion involving it, but it’s buried beneath list criticism and lovely paintjobs and the like, and while I could post a new thread, what if there’s an already identical one further down the line? Some people paint and model and could care less about the game, give them a space. Vice versa, many in my groups play with greys and want only the most competitive lits possible for tournament play. All of these players are vital, but having all of them waste their time scrolling through a single “general” forum is a disservice. Rather than forcing tags on people, I’d rather it just get posted in a correct forum in the first place.

Might respond with more later.

[Richard Coates]

It’s probably about time I did an update on this, as it’s almost a month since my last post here. We appreciate the support and the constructive criticism that has been posted since then.

The focus of recent posts here seems to be the visibility of the forums, which could definitely be improved. On this site, the Forums are listed right at the top of the page. On the webstores, they are only in the slide-out side menu. Space at the top of the webstores is at a premium, but we could replace the ‘Deals’ tab perhaps to get the Forums up there.

We could definitely do with more linking between the forum and Facebook etc., and some information that’s posted to Facebook should be posted here too. That’s a little outside my remit but I’ll talk to the relevant people and see if we can do more there. We do have moderators, but I don’t know how many of them are still active as I don’t deal with them directly, but it’s something I can chase up.

The multiple accounts is not ideal, but we are looking to merge more services into a single place and move everything to a single account. The new Membership Scheme, for example, works off the same login as the forums, and this is going to be customers’ main account in the future – but that’s still a little way off. The point about how your name is displayed is a good one; you should be able to change this yourself, but that might have been disabled, so @tuco74 I’ve changed yours for you.

We have been making some speed improvements on the forums and on the website in general; the biggest improvement is on the forum pages which list all the threads – I hope some of you have noticed that. We’ve made plenty of smaller speed enhancements – and still have more to do – so watch this space for more improvements there.

One of the speed efficiencies we’ve made was to take Gravatar compatibility off the site (where a profile picture linked to your email address automatically shows on the forums without you having to set it here). That was really slowing things down on the forums, so we took the decision to stop using Gravatars for the time being. I’d like to bring them back once further enhancements have been made; for now, given the feedback we were getting from you all on forum speed, it just seemed like something we had to do. You can of course still add your picture in your profile here, which hopefully you’ll agree is worth doing if it means faster forums for all.

Thanks again for listening and taking the time to feedback; there’s plenty more we need to do, especially on images, and hopefully the next updated will have some good news on that.

[Richard Coates]

@Malebolgia149, I didn’t see your post until now. Agree with most of what you’re saying, a lot of this falls outside my remit re content, but I’ll talk to the relevant people and see what more we can do.

[Koin-Koin]

Thanks a lot for all those updates.

I noticed the speed up browsing lately and I’m more than happy to trade the gravatar feature for this kind of forum experience.

If I may suggest something for the forum visibility/appeal, why not try to ask the FB people to animate a “it’s time to share your hobby update” thread as the post they do each week?

There’s already the monthly challenge but it only goes up if someone remember it’s existence.

[invisible officer]

Old fashioned me has no intention to use Facebook. I never did and so any Facebook linking of the forum is nothing that would make it better for me.

The speed? I started with internet so long ago that I remember real slow forums. 😉

The only thing I would change is that uploaded pics should show without having to log in. I sometimes tell peoples about articles that are no members.

[Greg S]

The forum needs a report button, so we can report the current crop of spam.

[Gareth]

Agree on the report button if somebody is online regularly to take note of it and remove it ?

[Richard Coates]

Yes, a Report button is on our to do list for the forums and we’ll do our best to get to it soon.

[Richard Coates]

We had a small window available in our web development schedule so we’ve now added a Report post option as requested. This will allow you to report spam or other inappropriate posts to us quickly and easily. Any feedback you have on that or anything else is of course appreciated.

[Koin-Koin]

Thanks for adding this really useful button.

[elcee]

It has been mentioned before, but i would really like to edit posts, outside the “edit time window” we have right now.

[Richard Coates]

The Edit Time window has been increased to 1 week; hopefully that will solve any problems.

Richard

[elcee]

Another suggestion:

Add a subforum name to the “recent topic” window on the right hand side.

Like:
[Bolt Action] Topic name 1 by XY
[Cruel Seas] Topic name 2 by YX

[Felix]

is there a way to delete answered / old topics? would be good if we could at least declutter our own posts.

and what people say about rule questions is very valid. broken up into its own kinda forum with each topic being a thread.

[Craig]

Thankyou elcee, your subforum suggestion has been added to Recent Topics.

Deleting of old topics/posts is unfortunately not possible. Also remember that old topics serve as a reference for anyone seeking the same information.

Craig

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