Unstructured Forum

Does anyone else find the forum to be a chaotic mess? I really hope that as the site develops the forums section develops actual forums, so that there can be a designated area to discuss specific topics. Am i alone in thinking that a free for all forum is not a good thing?

It isn't a free for all forum, the forum index is simply showing you all things. Click on a post and you will see that it is indeed in a forum. Every page has a forum. Search for your favorite game, scroll to the bottom and it's forum is there

It gets better when you get used to it but when I first took a look it did look a bit hectic

you get used to it,  but it still a little thrown together.

the site just launched so it twill get better.

Thats probably cuz your looking at the "newest topics" which just shows you the topics that have recently been posted on

its beta, they will probably improve it but i dont have any real problems with it

It would be nice to see a list of forums somewhere, so I don't have to depend on someone posting in one before I can click on, for example, General Discussion

"The forum index is simply showing you all things"
Sounds like ffa to me.

That and the level of traffic is ginormous.  I hope things will slow down a bit in the future, and we can get off topic threads in the actually off topic forum, and the gaming discussion can take center stage in here.  But right now, everyone needs to burn off the excess excitement.

I agree with you, but I'm sure they will continuously improve the sites features, so i wouldn't worry about the forum structure for to long :)

It's going to be a little crazy for a while, until the staff recruits a few mods. They are too busy to make sure the forums and everything is doing well. Hopefully, we get some mods soon. There is a ton of clutter on all the forums.
Oh, and everyone look to the left after you click forums. You'll se the general discussion and off topic sections you're looking for, along with many others.

"...so that there can be a designated area to discuss specific topics.
"

It's a bit chaotic at first but you get used to it. I just wish there was a better forum index and maybe platform specific boards and unions. Yeah, unions.

It is a bit messed up but i love it

In it's current structure the forums are a complete mess. There is no need for a forum for every wiki-like entry on the site, who really needs a forum for burgers and crates etc , it's plain madness! I hope it will get switched over to a more conventional forum in the future as I'm having a hard time finding anything atm. Yes I realise I can search for PS3 to find a ps3 forum or xbox to find an xbox forum (or at least will be able to when aliases are sorted) but it's much easier to have the main sections listed.

Ya,i cant believe how much traffic the site was actually getting, the community has grown quite nicely since Jeff started up the blog some months ago, i guess i agree that structure will probably come a bit more when the traffic slows down. Btw Locke your avatar is fucking awesome.

I disagree that the forum is chaotic - I like the idea that you can see what's going on all over the site. If the traffic gets split into sub-forums before you start, it gets too cliquey like every other videogame site. I like the idea that I can post on a low-traffic forum, and that there's a chance that a general audience will see and respond to it.

I think in that in the future everyithing will settle down and users will find a board they gravitate towards.  At the moment however, I can't find any worthwhile discussion happening.  I believe that this is happening because of no simple index to find a board you are looking for.  Instead you have to use the search function.   Hopefully they fix this problem.

At the moment, I'm feeling quite disorientated too. But I'm sure there will be some options to bring some order into this great mess.

It just takes a little bit of getting used to.

For the people who enjoy seeing every thread as its made, maybe that can stay as a "This just in board" and for people like myself a solid forum index page can exist.

You know what. I have an idea that would help this big time, hear me out, and Jeff take notice! :P

So how about being able to have a section called 'Your Board', basically a board with all threads from whatever other boards you want. So my board for example could be a combination of just the PS3 and 360 board, or of PS3, 360, off topic, and general gaming boards.

How about that? Oh and what about when posting in a board, allowing us to also post that post in a different board... hard to explain.

But I mean, I post a thread in the PS3 section, I can also make that post go into the general gaming section, for example. Eh?

But yeah right now its too cluttered IMO.

The page you're talking about just have every recent post on the site. Next to the post is the forum that it is in. So, if the post is from "General Discussion", you click "General Discussion" next to the post to go there.

I think the my board idea that Sentry listed is phenomenal .
I also still think that a well laid out forum is sill necessary though,

Yeah, the forum implementation needs to be improved a tiny bit, which hopefully they can get down. The wiki stuff is perfect though.

the site just got up and everyone is excited

"You know what. I have an idea that would help this big time, hear me out, and Jeff take notice! :P

So how about being able to have a section called 'Your Board', basically a board with all threads from whatever other boards you want. So my board for example could be a combination of just the PS3 and 360 board, or of PS3, 360, off topic, and general gaming boards.

How about that? Oh and what about when posting in a board, allowing us to also post that post in a different board... hard to explain.

But I mean, I post a thread in the PS3 section, I can also make that post go into the general gaming section, for example. Eh?

But yeah right now its too cluttered IMO.
"

"I think the my board idea that Sentry listed is phenomenal .
I also still think that a well laid out forum is sill necessary though,
"

Yah, after u get used to it then its great

"Sentry said:

"You know what. I have an idea that would help this big time, hear me out, and Jeff take notice! :P

So how about being able to have a section called 'Your Board', basically a board with all threads from whatever other boards you want. So my board for example could be a combination of just the PS3 and 360 board, or of PS3, 360, off topic, and general gaming boards.

How about that? Oh and what about when posting in a board, allowing us to also post that post in a different board... hard to explain.

But I mean, I post a thread in the PS3 section, I can also make that post go into the general gaming section, for example. Eh?

But yeah right now its too cluttered IMO.
"

This is the 'My Favorites' section. Add boards to your favorites and they will appear here.
"

"its beta, they will probably improve it but i dont have any real problems with it
"

This site is still pretty amazing, and no worries I am sure they will be changing and improving upon things as time goes on.

I feel like starting a wishlist thread, shall I? Unless its already been done.

Yup, they need the boards to be in order when you click on forums and from there being able to go to the specific board you want.

"Sentry said:

"You know what. I have an idea that would help this big time, hear me out, and Jeff take notice! :P

So how about being able to have a section called 'Your Board', basically a board with all threads from whatever other boards you want. So my board for example could be a combination of just the PS3 and 360 board, or of PS3, 360, off topic, and general gaming boards.

How about that? Oh and what about when posting in a board, allowing us to also post that post in a different board... hard to explain.

But I mean, I post a thread in the PS3 section, I can also make that post go into the general gaming section, for example. Eh?

But yeah right now its too cluttered IMO.
"

This is the 'My Favorites' section. Add boards to your favorites and they will appear here.
"

I agree it is a little cluttered.  I am sure they will make it better.

Hopefully they will address this in the next podcast,  maybe they will do a special one tonight for the launch of the site.

I like it just fine...mmmmm Hamburger 

Everything is within it's own forum. This for example is in the General Discussion forum. I post mainly in the Off-Topic forum. See you there ^_^

Yeah, I feel the same. They should have a better forum index with only the most important forums listed like 360 forum, pc forum, off topic forum etc. I really hope they fix it.

I know everything has its own forum, but the problem is that there is no central "hub" to connect all of these forums. Building a page that easily
connects all of these forums would make everything run a bit smoother. Also does anyone else think that there are just to many different forums? Does every gaming related concept really need its own forum. For example instead of having a separate forum for each game developer, have one forum for all game developer discussion, and then within that forum people can post threads on whichever developer they like most/want to discuss. I think this would create far less clutter than having an entire forum dedicated to Cliffy B, Ken Levine, Valve,EA,  etc etc...
   Seriously how many separate threads do we need about one person anyways?