New Forum Sections and Re-Organization

[relentlessflame]

Hi again,

In addition to the changes regarding the Manga & Light Novels section, we are also happy to announce that we'll be creating a few new forums and doing some additional re-organizing, particularly involving General Chat. EDIT: We have also now split out some of the threads from General Chat and moved them to a new section called Support.

Here is what the new General Topics & Support sections will look like:

General

• General Chat
• News & Politics
• Sports & Entertainment
• Science & Technology
• Video Games

Support

• Tech Support
• Forum & Site Feedback
• Forum Support

In addition, I would like to announce that we're creating a new Visual Novels & Mobage forum in the "Anime Related Topics" section. This essentially means that the current "Games" section is being split in two, in accordance to how related it is to overall anime culture. Practically speaking, we will move the current Games section to become Video Games, and then move back the related threads for Visual Novels, Eroge, Ero-SLG/RPG games, and Japanese Mobage (i.e. Kancolle, Girlfriend (Beta), LL:SIF, etc.) to the new Visual Novels & Mobage section. Non-anime-related mobile games will go in the regular Video Games section. There will be redirect threads in both sections to reduce confusion during the transition.

EDIT: Based on continued feedback, we've clarified the Visual Novels & Mobage section to include "Anime Spin-Off Games", rather than the more nebulous "Anime-Related Games" wording. So most games go in the Video Games section, unless they fall in one of the categories listed: Visual Novels, Eroge, Ero-SLG/RPG Games, Japanese Mobage, and Anime Spin-Off games. If an anime was based on a regular video game, then the thread would go in the Video Games, and we could create a redirect in the other section to help direct traffic while the anime is airing.


For the General Chat "spin-off" forums, we will move any active threads to the relevant section as appropriate. Older threads will not be automatically locked, but they also may not be moved unless they become active again for a good reason and it makes sense to move them. In addition, certain "mega threads" about a given topic, like "News Stories" and "The Science & Technology News Thread" will no longer be kept as a single thread any more, but new threads can be freely-created about the new topics in the respective sections. (Please do keep in mind our usual rules about topic creation, and don't make pointless or duplicate threads.)


Below is a general explanation of what will go in each of the new forums. We are still fussing a little bit with the forum names, and are open to a better title if one is proposed that better-conveys the contents of the section.

General Chat
Discussion about miscellaneous non-anime-related topics that are not better suited for another forum.

News & Politics
Discussion about global current events, social and economic issues, and political parties and policies. Remain objective and avoid flamebait.

Sports & Entertainment
Discussion about sports, pop culture, the arts, and all non-anime-related media (TV shows, movies, books, graphic novels, etc.)

Science & Technology
Discussion about latest trends and developments in science and technology, including all aspects of medical research.

Video Games
Discussion about video games, including those for PCs, consoles, smartphone/tablets, and other technologies. (Visual Novels, Japanese Mobage, and anime spin-off games are excluded.)

And in the Anime Related Topics section...

Visual Novels, Mobage, and Anime Spin-Off Games
Discussion about visual novels, eroge, anime spin-off video games, and Japanese mobile/smartphone games ("mobage"). (PG-13 discussion only.)


Finally, to expand on what was alluded to above, I would like to mention that we will have a pretty strict moderation policy in the "News & Politics" forum in particular. While we do encourage healthy debate, some topics can become extremely heated, resulting in flamebait and personal attacks that are opposed to our rule about constructive posting. While the section won't be "invite-only", we will not hesitate to "evict" people who prove themselves incapable of reasonable, rational debate. Such behaviour can also result in infractions and bans. We will also ask that all new threads created about News/Current Event stories try to keep more of a neutral tone in the opening post, and leave the debate/commentary to the comments. Flammable and cyclic topics may be locked or deleted, per our forum rule; please avoid creating duplicate threads about locked topics without consulting with the staff first.


We look forward to your feedback about these new sections and hope that this will help to encourage the growth of the forum in new directions.


P.S. If you don't like the fact that the General Chat section is being split and still want to see all the General Chat threads in one view, here's a useful trick! Bookmark/Favourite this link. This will automatically compile all threads with recent posts in the last day from all threads from all the sub-forums in the General Topics section!

[Marcus H.]

I'm sure LN and WN fans would welcome the change, as well as fans of manga series whose threads have been drowning in the previously merged subforums.

[relentlessflame]

Just want to add... it's going to be a bit of a construction zone while we work to clean-up all the threads. Please give us a bit of time as we try to work through everything and pardon the "dust".

[GDB]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Video Games
Discussion about non-anime-related video games, including those for PCs, consoles, smartphone/tablets, and other technologies. (Visual Novels and Japanese Mobage are excluded.)

Actual description currently says anime related games, not non-anime.

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Visual Novels & Mobage
Discussion about visual novels, eroge, anime-related video games, and Japanese mobile/smartphone games ("mobage"). (PG-13 discussion only.)

Can the name of this change to include normal anime-like video games in some capacity too? As it reads now, based purely on title, I'd think something like Persona or Tales of would go in the General Section rather than the Anime Related section since they aren't VNs or mobile games.

[Kotohono]

Originally Posted by GDB

Actual description currently says anime related games, not non-anime.

It needs updating since it's was there before, and I can't edit it myself or I would.

Originally Posted by GDB

Can the name of this change to include normal anime-like video games in some capacity too? As it reads now, based purely on title, I'd think something like Persona or Tales of would go in the General Section rather than the Anime Related section since they aren't VNs or mobile games.

Personally I feel the description should be enough, What title do you think would fit better to encompass them?

Both Persona and Tales have direct anime tie ins or adaptations, so I moved them for now to the new subforum (along with a 100 or so other threads).

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by GDB

Actual description currently says anime related games, not non-anime.

Fixed -- sorry.

Originally Posted by GDB

Can the name of this change to include normal anime-like video games in some capacity too? As it reads now, based purely on title, I'd think something like Persona or Tales of would go in the General Section rather than the Anime Related section since they aren't VNs or mobile games.

I was honestly debating this myself, and Konakaga decided it. For now I changed it to "Visual Novels, Mobage & Anime-Related Games", but we can change it again based on feedback.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Konakaga

Personally I feel the description should be enough, What title do you think would fit better to encompass them?

Both Persona and Tales have direct anime tie ins or adaptations, so I moved them for now to the new subforum (along with a 100 or so other threads).

Visual Novels, Mobage, & Anime-Related Video Games?

I'm just talking about the title of the subforum, not its description for this one. And neither Persona nor Tales are VNs or Mobage (...well, most Tales games aren't), yet that's the section they should be in due to being anime related.

And I assumed anime-related meant like... anime style, not just series that have anime. For example, I'd expect to see Bravely Default (Final Fantasy), Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem, Fire Emblem, Xenoblade, Final Fantasy, and Super Robot Taisen in the anime-related video game section, but they're currently in the general one. And that's just the first two pages.

It just seems overly confusing.

[relentlessflame]

We'll have to decide what the line is on what is "anime-related" and what isn't. Originally I was going to go with just "visual novels and mobage" and games that were directly derived from anime (i.e. "anime-related").

As was written in the OP, "Visual Novels, Eroge, Ero-SLG/RPG games, and Japanese Mobage (i.e. Kancolle, Girlfriend (Beta), LL:SIF, etc.)"

Maybe we should narrow it down rather than broaden it?

[GDB]

Why should all that get its own subforum when before it was like... 1 thread for eroge and VN, 1 thread for Rance, and then maybe a couple of loose threads about mobage? Would there even be a page's worth of threads for something that specific?

And why should a JRPG like Tales, Persona, Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy, etc be any less anime-related than a VN or Eroge that doesn't even have an anime based on it? I'd figure generic video games (the section) would encompass the non-Japanese games, basically. Like Diablo, WoW, League, Doom, Witcher, etc. The things that aren't... anime related, basically.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by GDB

Why should all that get its own subforum when before it was like... 1 thread for eroge and VN, 1 thread for Rance, and then maybe a couple of loose threads about mobage? Would there even be a page's worth of threads for something that specific?

Well, part of the objective of all the splits is to encourage growth and expansion in those areas rather than having everything stuck in a few threads. But you're not wrong either.

Originally Posted by GDB

And why should a JRPG like Tales, Persona, Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy, etc be any less anime-related than a VN or Eroge that doesn't even have an anime based on it? I'd figure generic video games (the section) would encompass the non-Japanese games, basically. Like Diablo, WoW, League, Doom, Witcher, etc. The things that aren't... anime related, basically.

So long as we can come up with a clear way of defining what goes in each section so that people won't create duplicate threads due to confusion. I guess we can refine that definition as we go.

[monster]

I don't see why games need an anime-related distinction. Just split the regular video games and the visual novels based on their format, not their content. I understand that this is an anime-focused forum, but when people go into the games section, they will be discussing games, not anime.

[GDB]

Not sure the best way to express it, but that "area" of the forum is the Anime Related Topics section. It contains LNs, Web Novels, Manga, VN, Mobage, and Asian Music. None of which have to actually have an anime to be in said section. But right now, it does not currently contain JRPGs and other anime-like video games. Just seems very bizarre and overly confusing for no real reason other than to try to get people to talk about eroge and VNs, most of which aren't even translated.

And honestly, if I wanted to talk about eroge, I'd go to to a certain 5 letter F site (honestly not sure if I can say the name here or not) where the entire forum is basically dedicated to it.

[OH&S]

It will take a bit of time to get used to but I'm mostly satisfied with the way things are.

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Just want to add... it's going to be a bit of a construction zone while we work to clean-up all the threads. Please give us a bit of time as we try to work through everything and pardon the "dust".

There are 120 pages of threads. You have quite a bit of work cut out for you.

But is there a spot where you will cut the line and leave every thread that hasn't been commented in for x amount of time in the archived subforum? Even just going back 5 years, I doubt threads which haven't been commented in for longer than that will be brought up again.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by OH&S

But is there a spot where you will cut the line and leave every thread that hasn't been commented in for x amount of time in the archived subforum? Even just going back 5 years, I doubt threads which haven't been commented in for longer than that will be brought up again.

Yeah, for LN/WN/Manga, we will cut off anything that hasn't been active since the start of 2014 (see here for more info). For General Chat, some may just end up not moved if they're too old, and moved if they become active again.

For LN/WN/Manga, we've also put a call out for everyone to help using Tags, so I hope we'll get some volunteers to help us sort through the pile so it won't take forever and ever.

[monster]

One unfortunate side effect that I just realize is that I now have more navigations to do on the site to check on all the threads I find interesting, particular in the general section.

[ReinZwei]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Yeah, for LN/WN/Manga, we will cut off anything that hasn't been active since the start of 2014 (see here for more info). For General Chat, some may just end up not moved if they're too old, and moved if they become active again.

For LN/WN/Manga, we've also put a call out for everyone to help using Tags, so I hope we'll get some volunteers to help us sort through the pile so it won't take forever and ever.

Just asking, if a web novel has been licensed in japan, for example, tateyuu, which is licensed in mf books, is that still consider a web novel or a light novel one? Or we will based it on the media that was translated instead?...

[Westlo]

Originally Posted by monster

I don't see why games need an anime-related distinction. Just split the regular video games and the visual novels based on their format, not their content. I understand that this is an anime-focused forum, but when people go into the games section, they will be discussing games, not anime.

Exactly, I wouldn't look into an anime games thread if I wanted to discuss Street Fighter or Tekken.... but if you're included Tales and Persona you would have to include them as well.... smh.

[monster]

Originally Posted by Westlo

Exactly, I wouldn't look into an anime games thread if I wanted to discuss Street Fighter or Tekken.... but if you're included Tales and Persona you would have to include them as well.... smh.

Looking at it again, I guess it's because they have an anime-related section and a general section and they want to specify which section a particular game falls under.

So, unfortunately, they would have to distinguish based on content unless the sections are reorganized/renamed to something else other than anime-related and general (the anime section should remain, of course).

Maybe instead of an anime-related section, we could have an "other" media/general entertainment section. Then the general section would be for non-entertainment topics.

[GDB]

I just want my Japanese games, regardless of "content", to be in the same hub as Japanese music and Japanese books, while the Western games can be in the same hub as the Western movies.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by ReinZwei

Just asking, if a web novel has been licensed in japan, for example, tateyuu, which is licensed in mf books, is that still consider a web novel or a light novel one? Or we will based it on the media that was translated instead?...

Check out this thread for an explanation of that.