Guy on reddit in regards to barrens chat:

Guy wrote:Is it just me or does your forum not have any sub-forums on it at all?
Every time I think "Lets go see what that place has to offer", I arrive and it's all one big shit mess and I just close the site.
Hopefully I missed the very obviously placed sub-forum sorter.
Edit: Oh my god, there ARE sub forums! They're just not listed under the forum section. Holy crap.
Edit 2: Why not just rename "Forum" to "General" at the top? That would be far less misleading.

Teebling wrote:One main forum for general discussion is enough for our small community - not really had any complaints about that before.
I would have thought that having very clear sections of the site in the navigation bar was clear enough and not misleading at all - could you explain a little bit more in detail about what you find confusing about this?

Guy wrote:Did you not read my edits? I said I discovered there are sub forums. The only misleading thing is that the general section is titled "Forums" instead of "General"
By naming it "Forums", I'm lead to believe that all forum-structured content is within that link, when in fact there are other forum-structured items under the links nearby.
Most websites feature forums (aka, the good stuff) along side a bunch of crap nobody cares to look at. "Realms" didn't really look like "realm forums" to me, so I didn't even bother for the longest time. "Guides" was probably the only thing that might have hinted that it could be in forum format, but I never bothered (again, I'm ALWAYS drawn to the thing that says "FORUM(S)")

Teebling wrote:It says Forum, singular. I think I'm wasting my time here now.

Seems like a troll to me from first glance. Dunno, I personally haven't felt anything significantly misleading in this regard at all.

Considering there are no specifics on realms yet, I think that having a place to discuss topics that people think about in one place and guides for archival information in another is all anyone would really need. Why would you need a sub-forum? Read the stuff you like or don't.

Though I was a little surprised that there was no sub forums. Like class discussion / professions / pvp etc to organise topics. Having lurked here for a little bit I don't think it matters. But there may good threads from before I joined that I will never see because they are back 4-5 pages and buried.

He has not presented his thoughts very well though.

Dont waste your time with him. Just a salty whoever...

Ohhh I know what he means, check out https://www.linuxquestions.org/ its a forum site for IT people, created by smart IT people... I think it's the gold standard of what a forum website should be.. They land you on a homepage that contains of bunch of notification information, but above on the menu bar there's the fourm button alot of people are so used to seeing...

Just ignore these people, it make no sense to discuss with trolls.

With increasing number of active members the topics might start piling up so there could be a demand for some topic organizing in the future.

Until you stop seeing "Last Post 1 Day ago" on the main forum consistently, then there's really no reason to expand the forums.

The way the layout is set up, it definitely doesn't look like you have any subforums even when you do. The design isn't bad, mind you, it's just what would be called 'non-leading,' as in, it doesn't lead the user towards understanding features that aren't immediately presented.

Wouldn't worry about it, but he's not trolling.

Teebs not to worry. I have shanked the little ghastly troll with a rusty fork.

And all is well again with the world.

Hey Teebling, it's my first message here, congratulations for this site, it's got a really lovely and superb design overall.

I think what that guy said has a point though, but it's really a minor point, and definitely his discrediting view he's got for this forum is far, far away from reality.
Personally I'm pretty sure he's not trolling, just some really pissed off / salty guy on the internet. I can understand his behaviour because... sometime ago I used to be like him, although not with such intentionally, for free, salty words spit there.

If it was me I would just remove that button, having into account the main barrens chat logo already directs to the main page, which makes sense to me at least, as the name gives the idea for the site as being a social hub. Other than that, maybe General or Main would be better, yea... but it's still something really minor and absolutely shouldn't interfere much for everyone with usability.

I'd also put the About post on it's own section on the bar at the end, I consider it to be pretty important to have as much accessible as possible. And also it kind of "feels nice?" that this button precisely doesn't direct to a collection of posts but to a post directly, which is the identity one, so to speak, at least to me.

Kudos again.

Puxini wrote: ↑

5 years ago

If it was me I would just remove that button, having into account the main barrens chat logo already directs to the main page, which makes sense to me at least

I would just personally stay away from people like that. Clearly, he's just one of those angry retail-customers who stomp over to the Customer Service center and take out their bad-day on the people working hard; Not worth dealing with.

EDIT: On another note, I had no issue navigating and more-over I don't mind that there aren't sub-forums. Having everything centralized is fine for a forum like this :P

As for the guy in question, he just seems like a jerk.
As for breaking the forum up into categories, you could if you want. There are pros and cons either way. It would be nice to have a dedicated space for things like guild recruitment, etc...but the current system is nice because everyone has a chance to reach the full audience.

Your call. Disregard the asshat, and do what you think is best for the site.

Meh, I'm happy here. We seem to do fine with the current structure, granted im a new guy on the block. I think this layout is better for a tight-knit community that visits regularly, which is probably the sort of community you were aiming to foster anyhow?

This is just my personal opinion. I LOVE the site. however, one page for forums posts is pretty messy. For example if someone wanted to get some advice or ask a specific question, it just gets buried under more relevant or popular topics. I think if the site had actual categories with forums and sub-forums it would help with confusion. I personally find it really really hard to look for a specific topic I was looking for just to find it buried.

This is just my opinion.

If you did get rid of the "One Page" add-on. and build categories, just take it slow and light.


Example of categories to start off with.

Category and Forum: Barrens Announcements


Category: General Discussion
└Forum: Introductions
└Forum: General Discussion
└Forum: Off-topic

Category: World of Warcraft Classic
└Forum: General Classic Discussion
└Forum: Classic Realms (When released)
└Forum: Classic Guilds -> Subforum NA/EU
└Forum: Classic Guides -> Redirect Link to Classic guides page, just how it is now.
└Forum: Classic Classes
└Forum: Looking For Group
└Forum: Quest help

Category: Barrens.Chat Feedback
└Forum: Feedback -> Redirect page leading to the current ideas/feedback page.

This is a small organized structure and of course you can and will edit it as you see fit.

@teebling

As I said, I love this website and the people here. it's just frustrating at times trying to find a topic really quick without using the search function that will spit out other topics containing the same words.

Hope I didn't come off as an asshat or anything.

Much love, Knoxtane.

I personally feel this is one of the best designed forum sites I have ever been on. The focused nature of the forum is perfect for a smaller, closer community.

I'm not sure he understands what a forum is - It's unbelievable to think but even in 2019 we have people who struggle to grasp very simple concepts.

If anything the forum doesn't need to be touched right now as it is, once Classic is actually released it would make sense to maybe think about diversifying which can easily build off the preexisting backbone of realm based subs.

I like the idea of a "front end" forum. But as others have mentioned, it would be nice if posts were categorized.

All forum categories show up at the front end but if I'm looking for something specific, like dungeon discussion, I'd like a list somewhere to filter out all forum topics to that specific category.

My only complaint is that it shouldnt mess up the text formatting when you hit enter.. And as you get more traffic, you'll need sub-catagories.

I feel the current format fits the current level of traffic, as you said.

Don't add subforums, the place isn't big enough and they aren't needed anyway. That guy is just an idiot being an idiot, which is what reddit mostly is.

Especially on classicwow, most people are new or from retail and since they watched their favorite internet celebrity talk about the game they think they know everything there is to know about it and will downvote you if you call them out on it even with proof.

I was confused at first to be honest, but I like the focused aspect of this forum as others have said. For a smaller community I think it's good that people see the community being active. With different categories we might just end up with people being too spread out, some categories very rarely being used, and a looming feeling of inactivity even though there are dozens of active members.

It's also in the spirit of the real Barrens chat :)

I know it's hard to do, but as somebody who produces stuff: art, games, programs, forums, anything, please refrain yourself from seeking opinions, especially outside your creation. Internet, and Reddit in particular, is full of self-entitled jerks who have never created anything but are first to criticize in the most obnoxious ways. Not every Reddit user is like that though, so please don't burn me.

In my opinion, it's a great idea that there's just one big forum. If it was split in 30 various categories I might miss some threads that would be interesting to me. Sometimes I find myself reading threads that at first didn't seem interesting to me at all. When it comes to wording, it was plain simple to me from the get go. It might be a generation thing - I'm used to clicking stuff and seeing where it gets me, whereas this new generation wants everything served on silver platter, preferably immidiately.