Drawn away?

[tsau mia]

Basically everyone seems to agree that the problems are:

1. Overexcited Noobs that don't read anything.

2. Finished builds being overlooked for elite.

3. Site formatting and organization

4. Too many stickies all over the place.

1. Been discussed.

2. I have an idea: if we put all of the complete costumes in one section arranged similar to photobucket (one photo only, small description and link to the build thread) on one page, this will help "showcase" without it being a thread with a bunch of comments. It would have to be totally separate from the forums. Also, you could add a vote button to it, and each IP address is allowed to vote on any suit once per day, with the stats resetting monthly to allow for room for new builds. High ranked ones are at the top, and low ranked ones are at the bottom. Only completed suits can be in this. There can also be a "parts" section for helmets, and a weapons section. In this way, noobs and veterans alike can look at the builds, with the agreed upon "best" sitting at the top, with a short description of what it's made out of similar to:

<Photo here>

Custom ODST
Pepakura Hardened with Mashed Potatoes
3 months start to finish
405th.com/thisisthelink

I think it would work, simply because it addresses a lot of biased issues, since the whole site can't be biased against someone, and there's no verbage to make the build "cooler"

3. The creation discussion should be seperated into several different parts:
a. build discussion- for people that haven't started and want feedback on ideas.
b. builds-started, but not completed. Have at least the first stages done or a WIP photo instead of a concept
c. completed builds- the thread where all of the suits from "2" can be
d. Non-Halo Builds-obviously non-halo stuff.

All builds should be able to be moved by the person that started the thread (to eliminate extra work for the mods). Placing it in the wrong section results in a temp-ban of a day for the first offense, a week for the second, a month from there-on out. The rest of the sections seem pretty well organized, but the stickies should be in the noob section, because when we refer to a sticky, we are a noob to that technique. Pep files should also be in a non-forum section of the site.

4.Stickies should be organized in their own section either within the noob section, or in a non-forum section of the site. They should be kept in order not by recent posts, but by relevance (Example: "Complete Noob List" at the top and "How to harden with Hot Glue" somewhere near the bottom because not everyone will use it.)

I think I've gone on long enough. I don't really know a lot about website programming, but we seem to have a lot of people willing to help. Anyone have any other ideas?

 

[JUSTINIAN 117]

tsau-mia I think that is a great and very organized solution.

 

[Liq]

I like the idea of doing away with the elite section and having a section dedicated to finished suits. It could help prevent members with finished suits get lost in a shuffle of spammed questions or the "Ima' doin this and that" thread that never takes off. I mean there are only 6 threads in elite that are even up to date. I also don't like the bias of what specific armor goes into the elite anyways. This is a Halo costuming forum, and ANY suit regardless if its a Carter or MK VI should have been considered for it. If the lack of stuff in elite relates to a lack of moderators or admins then that's a whole new issue altogether.

I enjoy this forum and have met some very, very talented artists here, but the longer I'm here the more I feel it is just plain poorly run.

 

[ventrue]

the longer I'm here the more I feel it is just plain poorly run.

I've seen a lot of people write this exact sentence, and some also said that other forums are run differently. Would you and the others mind elaborating what exactly is so poor and what exactly other forums do differently?

It seems to me like all the complaining about what is Elite-worthy, what gets buried and who is bumping his threads is done by - no offence - people whose threads are not in Elite, on top and bumped and who think that they aren't getting the attention they deserve. Just to make this perfectly clear: This is not personal in any way, it's just an observation and I'm not judging whether or not these people are right. My point is that the mods definitely aren't the only ones here who may be biased.

I also agree that it would be a really good idea to turn "Elite" into "Finished" and to have a gallery on the main page, maybe even with some more or less automated voting system to determine which ones are the best. Or you could just appoint builds of the week/month/year (depends on how many good ones there are I guess ) to temporarily bring attention to projects that deserve it. This still leaves the question who gets appointed, but it solves all the other issues I think. I wouldn't do any "Top XY projects", because that would mean you have to sort the projects somehow, which is hard to do (objectively, anyway).

To further counter the buried feeling, you could also spread the threads over more categories, sort projects by object type (costume, weapon, vehicle) with subcategories for specific objects (Mark V, Mark VI, Scorpion, Banshee) instead of build method. Should hardly be any additional work if (if!) it gets decided to totally change up the forums.

 

[Liq]

It seems to me like all the complaining about what is Elite-worthy, what gets buried and who is bumping his threads is done by - no offence - people whose threads are not in Elite

Well of course this is the case since there are only 6 active threads in elite, so yes out of the thousands of members here there are at least 6 that are perfectly content with the way the boards are run.

As far as my "poorly run" comment goes...A moderator said it himself. he pays attention to builds that only suits his likes, and ignores great overall builds. I find this to be a bad job by the staff that hardly has a presence here to begin with. I admit I don't read all the threads everywhere here any more but when is the last time you saw one post regularly in threads? It's like we've been dropped off on an island, and told to get to a spot with no directions or map.

Why do you think so many good members of this forum have left completely? I think the most active I've been personally in months has been in this thread.

 

[Ruze789]

Thank you for taking only what you wanted to from my words.

Are you saying that, with so few active moderators here, my time should be spent reading every thread looking for candidates for the Elite Forum... instead of doing what I do all the time: closing threads, banning spambots and deleting their forum/blog posts, and reacting to Reported Posts? Chiming in when I can to help people with pepakura or 3d model related questions? And dealing with the numerous PMs I get from people covering the scope of everything imaginable?

I get that everyone feels there should be more Staff presence and I would totally love to see another Mod or two come onboard. But first people complain that there's not enough rule enforcing by Mods and now we should also be devoted to finding threads for a subforum which I personally didn't even think was staying open?

Maybe I'll message Spase (unless he feels like chiming in here) or chat with him tonight about what's up with the Elite section. If there are no immediate plans to shift focus to the Top 25 Projects page and Elite stays, I can spend some time this weekend repopulating it with threads that belong in there.

 

[BenStreeper]

Basically everyone seems to agree that the problems are:

1. Overexcited Noobs that don't read anything.

Unfortunately this is something that will never be fixed on this type of forum. Video-games span an age bracket of 6y/o and up. That being said although most people won't sell you Halo unless you are 17 that doesn't mean younger people don't get it. These youths often don 't have the means to finish a suit due in part mostly to their age and legality's buying many of the materials most commonly used. We happen to be in a forum that attracks a lot of people, however prop building itself does not. This puts a unique spin on the 405th as it has to "teach" people how to make a Halo Suit, who would ordinarily never make a prop. Excitement is to be expected, and yes it can get annoying at times but I think everyone on the forum can say that at one time or another they have been that way. Basically your just going to have to over look this and let the "noobs" earn their way out of the "NOOB" section when they settle down a bit. This was the entent of the "Noob" Section.

2. Finished builds being overlooked for elite.

Not all finished builds are "Elite" worthy. That being said the 405th created a finished suit/prop section way back when it was MjolnirArmor.com. This section is called "Hall of Honor" and has been overlooked by most people due to the fact it is a sticky. I personally would love to see the "Hall of Honor" turned into an actual section with sub categories to solve the "Elite" problem. One of the sections could be the "25-Elite-Showcase" which was originally changed to only have the top 25 projects, but as we have lost moderators since then it has not been maintained. I would say that the top 25 should only be chosen from this "Hall of Honor" section. That way the mods would have to look everywhere, and it would entail that the project was complete.

3. Site formatting and organization

Agreed, but really the only thing I would change is what is listed above, and the sub sectioning of forums, and the stickies.

Example
Pepakura-and-Cardboard-Armor should also include sub sections for the different games of Halo (not armors) and an "Others" section as this is primarily a Halo prop forum. The "Others" section can be broken down as subjects grow like Iron-man and Gears of War have on this site.

4. Too many stickies all over the place.

Agreed, some stickies should be combined/ deleted (unstuck)/ or transformed into it's own sub section.

Thank you for taking only what you wanted to from my words.

Are you saying that, with so few active moderators here, my time should be spent reading every thread looking for candidates for the Elite Forum... instead of doing what I do all the time: closing threads, banning spambots and deleting their forum/blog posts, and reacting to Reported Posts? Chiming in when I can to help people with pepakura or 3d model related questions? And dealing with the numerous PMs I get from people covering the scope of everything imaginable?

I get that everyone feels there should be more Staff presence and I would totally love to see another Mod or two come onboard. But first people complain that there's not enough rule enforcing by Mods and now we should also be devoted to finding threads for a subforum which I personally didn't even think was staying open?

Maybe I'll message Spase (unless he feels like chiming in here) or chat with him tonight about what's up with the Elite section. If there are no immediate plans to shift focus to the Top 25 Projects page and Elite stays, I can spend some time this weekend repopulating it with threads that belong in there.

Personally with the few mods we have that are active I think you guys are doing a bang up job. But 1,000 voices of praise is often silent and easily overcome by 1 shout of disapproval. Thanks for actually doing your job (for which no compensation is given) and helping to keep this forum alive.

 

[CoolC]

I think I'm repeating what I said. A lot of the disatisfaction of the forum is the influx of "noob". Unfortunately there is no real solutions to the "noobs". All of us were noob once, and like all noob, were were once "pests". We've all grown up and understand what it takes to make an armor. By punishing nubies in one way or another is of course sub-standard. The only way to solve this issue is to self-policing some of the threads and update 405th so it is "noob" friendly. The problem lies with the admin as well. We all know something is in the works but all of us are probably tired of waiting. Some type of updates from the admin/mod is helpful. Instead we only get "be patient, something is coming".

As for the "elite" section, I think it is overated. I think "elite" should be renamed to "finished" projects. If we are to retain "elite" section, the finished armors must be rated by the members. It should not be voted by mod/admin only. I think by changing the "elite" to "finished", we can avoid the disatisfaction as Liq pointed out. There is one thread that counts how many finished costumes. I believe we had a total of about 130 armor finished. The "finished" section should be more of a profile than a thread. The "finsihed" section should be an inspirational to noobs. As of now if we need to see any finished armor we need to dig through the noob forum.

 

[Liq]

As for the "elite" section, I think it is overated. I think "elite" should be renamed to "finished" projects. If we are to retain "elite" section, the finished armors must be rated by the members. It should not be voted by mod/admin only. I think by changing the "elite" to "finished", we can avoid the disatisfaction as Liq pointed out. There is one thread that counts how many finished costumes. I believe we had a total of about 130 armor finished. The "finished" section should be more of a profile than a thread. The "finsihed" section should be an inspirational to noobs. As of now if we need to see any finished armor we need to dig through the noob forum.

EXACTLY...when we have people who build props by profession that actually get paid to do this and their stuff isn't even in the elite section then there is an issue with the way the elite section is handled.

Drop elite section, create a finished armor section and get a couple new mods to help handle the noobs along with cleaning up redundant stickies. I feel these things would solve about 99% of the problem I have with this board. Maybe have the noob posters only be able to post in the noob subsection until a certain amount of time. I would go time over post count just to help keep the "I agree" or "COOL" posts to a minimum thus creating less clutter.

 

[JUSTINIAN 117]

I agree that there should be some sort of finished section, weather it be its own forum subsection or a page on the website. I personally like to go through and see the final pictures of stuff, as an inspiration.

 

[Roadwarrior]

I am somewhat getting "drawn away" because there's just too many people spread across all of the forums and are cluttering it.

maybe a 500+ post count only WIP board? just a quiet place where people know what there doing and you can find what you're looking for. anybody can see it but only the people with the correct post number can post threads.

 

[Hyperballistik]

I am somewhat getting "drawn away" because there's just too many people spread across all of the forums and are cluttering it.

maybe a 500+ post count only WIP board? just a quiet place where people know what there doing and you can find what you're looking for. anybody can see it but only the people with the correct post number can post threads.

If that were to happen then people would be posting all kinds of stuff just to get a 500 post count, guess it could be anyone can see the forum, they just can't post or reply till they have 500 posts

 

[tsau mia]

What if the owner of the thread was able to delete irrelevant posts in their thread, and it no longer counted towards the post count?

Say a noob says "HaXX0rz! Th4t is TH3 c00l3ST! H0w 1z Th4T m4d3?" (totally can't talk that way at all, if you can tell...)
Thread owner PotatogHardener09 thinks that this, along with insults on how he uses mashed potatoes for his projects are not relevant to the conversation. Therefore PotatogHardener09 can delete the noob post that breaks the flow of the thread.

Self-Policing, and noob doesn't get a post towards the count. It eliminates all use of random posts, annoying noobs, and mega-posting "cool build" all over the place just to get a higher post count.

 

[Josiahmann]

I know this thread is 2 months old, but I have to say some things. I also feel this way. If you were to do something with the "noobs", dont let anything resort to age. I've been here three years, but I'm only 14. But I agree with the idea of not letting noobs post for a certain amount of time so they can research and learn more about the 405th. I also agree with the idea of taking the indymogul video down, seeing that's what is drawing people here.

 

[thorn696]

After reading thru the 10 pages, of materiel here and with looking at how things are set up. I would have to say adding more subject category's and/or ranks would help. on the forms. That way all the non- Halo could be put some were and Vet's whom started this all have a place for there stuff away from all the noob's like Me who watched a indymogul video and ended up here. (Of course after year on the site I hope that People can say that I added some thing good with my build to the form.) But as I digress from the subject line. If you organize it, then there will be a place for everything and everything its place.

 

[Grim Killer]

I would have to agree with this thread, I use to look all the time on the new things going on. But Lately it is hardly anything.
A new set up between all the builds would help. Maybe including separate places for the finished builds and the finished Pep Files because they do get lost fast among the other post.

 

[Liq]

There is still nothing going on here...its the same ole same ole over in elite with just a couple new additions, at least those were worthy I will say that. I think even the admins don't post here anymore, lol. I find myself perusing Hunters Lair more, and I don't even have any predator builds in the works.

 

[ventrue]

There is still nothing going on here...its the same ole same ole over in elite with just a couple new additions, at least those were worthy I will say that. I think even the admins don't post here anymore, lol. I find myself perusing Hunters Lair more, and I don't even have any predator builds in the works.

Spase is very active, Adam recently posted a complaint about people trying to steal members and the mods are still responding within a couple of hours at most. All is good. Keep it cool

 

[Darkrider9]

Spase is very active, Adam recently posted a complaint about people trying to steal members and the mods are still responding within a couple of hours at most. All is good. Keep it cool

I can still understand what he is saying though. Although Adam posted recently, that was one of like four posts in the past four or five months, maybe longer. I don't see Spase around much either, except in the "Problems" Forum. In fact the only Mods/Admins I see around are Ruze789 and rundown. However, like you said, mod response times are very quick, so I don't see the staff "inactivity" causing much problems, if any at all.

 

[ventrue]

Granted, the general "let's take our ideas and turn the place into Utopia" thing hasn't seen much realisation yet, at least not publicly. But it's not like the forum is running without supervision at all.