Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

So often, for various groups/guilds on this forum, I have found that the private guild forums are hard to go through. Usually (again, for most that I have been in), they are cluttered and do not utilize subfourms in order to organize information in any way and instead clutter all their information onto the central forum. If I find it difficult (or at least troublesome) to sift through information, then, I am certain some DMs do as well.

Thus, if this is possible, I propose the following. Upon creation, guilds will be granted a guild forum with the following pre-build subfourms. Guilds can alter these at their discretion, but they start with them for the benefit of their members and the DMs who are to find information in them. Each subfourm will be sticked with posting rules based on the purpose of the subfourm. Again, this is only if this is easy to do. If it is not easy to create a template that is easily distributed, then we can make this the guild's job to do. But, if a template is easy to create and distribute, I think it would be a huge benefit.

The template would have the following:

(OOC) Discussion: For miscellaneous OOC discussion by group members regarding the group.
(OOC) Guild Member Bios and Roster: For links or guild-specific biographies for guild members. Information is not necessarily known IC, just like regular bios. As well, for a list of Guild Members.
(IC) Plot Interaction: For guild interaction with the ongoing metaplot, archived when a new metaplot starts. Threads should be marked in brackets with the year of the metaplot.
(IC) Plot Interaction Archive: For previous metaplot interactions, that are now obsolete.
(IC) Contacts: For enemies and allies of the guild who have been documented.
(IC) Guild Information: For information related to the guild, its objectives, etc. Guild 101.
(IC) Guild Objectives: For guild members who are working on guild specific objectives, and threads related to this.
(IC) Independent Objectives: For guild members who are completing independent projects that are still done in the guild or are related to the guild.

I think if its possible to create a template like this, then it will kickstart guilds who don't manage their pages as well into doing so, and it will enable guild members to easily find information (as well as allowing DMs to easily find what they need to see).

Again, if its not easy to do then leave it as is. But, if a basic template for guilds that are created can be done, this will just make this easy for everyone.

What do you folks think? Perhaps if you forum-handy minds can chime in, does anyone know if creating such a template is doable?

My vision would work like this:
1) Guild is created.
2) Guild forums are given, with an automatic template with subfourms like the one above.
3) Player Admins of the guild fourms keep the template running, and players are responsible for placing or moving information into the correct subfourms. Stickies would exist in each subfourm with posting 'rules', so that players know what goes in each.
4) Players and DMs alike will have easy access to the information they want.

If #2 is not possible, then I suppose this isn't feasible and it should then be left up to the players to organize.

Or volunteer as a moderator in said guild forums and ask your guild leader if you can clean things up a touch

yea... guild leaders can just mod their forums and ask for sub folders to be added if needed

Do you wish to order my guild pages like this for me?

Tsidkenu wrote:Or volunteer as a moderator in said guild forums and ask your guild leader if you can clean things up a touch

I usually enjoy doing this! But I figure if its doable on the automatic, it might help for future guilds.

If its not doable on the automatic, that is fine as well. Just a thought!

Either myself or another forum admin usually has to create the subforums manually. It takes between 10-20 minutes to do, depending on how complicated the request is.

I'd rather not automate it, though, as every guild has their own way of organizing their information (and some do so with a lot of character and wit). Some are also extremely organized, while others prefer only a main page or an archive subforum to toss in all the no-longer-relevant threads, so that users can get right to the meat of the information without having to navigate multiple sub-forums.

yea depends on the guild, one of my old guilds has a LOT (for a forum, think like 5-6 when i was still in) subfolders that are all actually used for different rp, my other two guilds are very causal tho and just have the main page and archive for old stuff

the difference is the old guild does a lot of forum rp, like way more than my other two combined, so that sort of organization is completely justified by actual use

my other two do some forum rp but most of them prefer doing stuff in game