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[[DtK] [Jedi] Cha$e]

Hey all,


Ive recently returned to be an averagely active player after being away for a while.


Whilst I see the community still growing, one thing I have noticed is the forum is relatively inactive.


Whilst there is a post here and there, It's fairly quiet compared to its history.



Whilst there is many things that would contribute to this, such as time of year (exam period) and so on, there is one suggestion id like to make.


Back in the day, the forum had very few options to choose from in locations to post.


Now, We have 43 different forum sections, and i don't want to count the subsections.


My recommendation would be to do a bit of a forum clean up.



For example:

• All previous server Olympics or finished events are put into an Events Section, However upcoming events could still be displayed on the main forum page
  
• Development team forums get consolidated into one Section
• Others, Gaming and DTK updates and articles could be consolidated into DTK Community Discussions as its own major thread.
• Threads that haven't had any content added to them in sometime could be looked at for an archived section

Reasons for doing all this:

• The good old K.I.S.S Method (Keep It Simple Squall)
  
  A main forum page with clear and concise sections would be a great way of providing a much more inviting feel to the DTK forum, Particularly for newer members.
  
  
• A spring cleaning of outdated threads, Forums and sub forums
  
  A lot of sub-forums and subsections have gone stale and don't see as much use as they once did
  
  
• If the forum doesn't spark Joy, Archive it
  
  
  Obviously this is just food for thought but id be keen to see what you all think!

[[DtK] [T] LordGebus]

i think it has something to do with dtk facebook page inactivity for years. :/

[[DtK] [Jedi] Cha$e]

DTK forums has a lot more lurkers than it does posters and I think simplifying the main forum page would help make people more comfortable with posting!

[[DtK] [T] KLR1]

Possibility add a general section/subsection so more interactions can occur on a more community level such as news they would wanna share on the internet or show a video and see what people thing about it. I understand there is a community discussion section but i feel it just seems to me more official than meant.

[[DtK] [Jedi] Cha$e]

Thats the thing though, We have a general discussion page AND an off topic page for that sort of thing.


Just make it the one forum subsection and we can try and make it easier for people to become posters than lurkers.

[[DtK] [T] KLR1]

Thats the thing though, We have a general discussion page AND an off topic page for that sort of thing.


Just make it the one forum subsection and we can try and make it easier for people to become posters than lurkers.

Yea and i agree but i think a rewording of the title "community discussion" would help as i stated it just seems to more official than what it is. For me atleast it seems to be for something ingame related or an idea an admin is imposing and wanting to get feedback on. ya feel?

[[DtK] [Jedi] Cha$e]

yeah. Id just like to see more people posting things.


DTK isn't short of people with their own opinions.


It'd be nice at least if we could get more people to voice theirs

[[DtK] [V] MintyMints]

I visit the DtK forums several times throughout the day but I end up posting mainly in BIRTHDAY and RECRUIT APPLICATION threads. As of now, 60% of the main page consists of BIRTHDAY/RECRUIT threads, not that there's anything wrong with that, it just shows that in between those common threads, there isn't much else to post in.


I do make my own threads every now and then but then I feel like I'm spamming with the lack of threads created besides the ones I mentioned before.

[[DtK] [Jedi] Cha$e]

It would be great to see more and more people start their own threads again. Even just a creative post about non-DTK related things. Advice, Hints and Tips for out of gaming stuff, Or shit they find interesting ingame.



It's more about making the "Community" of DTK. because right now, its all lurkers and players dont cross over between servers as much as they did.

[[DtK] [V] Bear.]

Yeah, I feel the forums became less of a social place and more of just administrative type area. Most of the newer players, including me have only ever seen the forums as that. It's a bit strange to see it a discussion place that just talks about anything, rather than basically just neophyte applications and the occasional complaint/suggestion post. The forums became more server centric, and that obviously means there is less room for discussion.
It would be cool to see the forums as what it used to be, but its probably going to be hard to break that cycle. I respect the effort you're putting in, and i hope everyone else gives it a go.

[[DtK] [C] Squall]

Whilst there is many things that would contribute to this, such as time of year (exam period) and so on, there is one suggestion id like to make.


Back in the day, the forum had very few options to choose from in locations to post.

- Back in the day when "forum had very few options to choose from" was when there were only 4ish CSS DM servers and there was hardly any discussions like the one you wish to happen now.
- The forums expanded (or more 'options' like you put it got added) due to the community growth and demand. This can be mostly attributed to our RP playerbase (e.g Jailbreak and Zombies later on). Due to the amount of forum posts and the different content matter of these posts, it became necessary to add more 'options'.
- Currently DtK is a majority CSS community . You have a better chance of seeing posts from TTT players than the CSS DM server players. This has always been the case, CSS DM server players tend to make less use of the forums.
- New players are less attached to communities now (casual players) and things like Discord is preferred over forums.
-Sure we can consolidate some of the forums. Consolidation of the whole forums is a step backwards.
-DtK forums is outdated and moving to a new forum software is something that has always been on our list however it is not as simple as most assume it is.
a. New forum software does not have support for our current processes/mods/plugins etc. We would have get things custom coded and spend lots of $$$ to get the same functionality.
b. The other option would be to start fresh with a revamp of the community processes but this would mean the community losing it's identity. Things like member ranks and achievements would see significant changes and it would be unfair to members to lose their recognitions.
At the end of the day, it is the community that built up the forums and not the other way around.
-There is minor growth to the community and more forum activity would be good but hoping to see the forums back how they were in the peak Source days is a bit unrealistic.

[[DtK] [Jedi] Cha$e]

You're absolutely right Squall. Besides, alot of the active members these days wouldn't be able to make a comparison back to what DTK forums were back then.

A consolidation of some of the forums to just make it a bit tidier would help I think.

Whilst you're correct that we will never hit that same peak forum wise, I think it would help bolster the current numbers from what they are now