=][= THE WINDS OF CHANGE =][=

[Atticus Rage]

AS 000025M3 LOOMS AROUND THE CORNER, CHANGE IS UPON YOU! NO, NOT THE HERETICAL CHANGE OF +++INQUISITORIAL CLEARANCE INSUFFICIENT+++ - CHANGE DECIDED UPON BY THE TIRELESSLY TOILING ENUMERATORS OF THE ADEPTUS ADMINISTRATUM. LABOURING WITHIN THEIR SACROSANCT VAULTS, THEY HAVE IDENTIFIED AREAS OF INEFFICIENCY THAT WILL BE CULLED FROM THE SITE. THESE CHANGES HAVE BEEN APPROVED BY THE MASTER OF THE ADMINISTRATUM AND WILL BE IMPLEMENTED BY HIS MASTER LOGISTICARS, THE BEINGS IDENTIFIED ONLY AS "A" AND "S" IN CLASSIFIED MISSIVES.

 

PREPARE YOURSELVES AND SUBMIT WHEN THE TIME COMES.

 

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!

[Indy Techwisp]

This looks important, but I can't make out what is actually happening through the jargon besides it happening on new year.

[Mazer Rackham]

You're going to delete the Tau forum? 

[Cenobite Terminator]

So Valrak didn’t scoop this one for some reason…

[grailkeeper]

[Wormwoods]

Going to formalise it so it's always 'Bolter & Chainsword' and never 'Bolter And Chainsword'. Saves a few letters. 

[Brother Tyler]

Happy New Year!

 

If this wall of text scares you, click the NEXT PAGE button at the top/bottom to see the brief summary.

 

As usual, our resident Prophet of Doom is a bit ... hyperbolic. Constantly staring into the face of the Abyss will do that to you.

 

Yes, there are some small changes coming. The key word is "small." These won't be taking place today, but will be happening soon^TM.

 

No, despite the repeated requests from the Ordo Xenos, the T'au forum will not be eradicated.

 

No, we can't formalize the ampersand in the site name. The URL uses "and" and the site was originally founded as the "Bolter and Chainsword" so we have to keep the "and." However, many of us, myself included, prefer the brevity of the ampersand, so we use both the "and" and the "&" interchangeably according to individual preference. The only place this gets confusing (for me) is when I see both "BaC" and "B&C" to refer to the site (and occasionally I see "BnC" as if we're the Bolter 'n' Chainsword ).

 

The big changes we're looking at implementing in the very near future involve the consolidation of a few sub-forums into their parent forums. In this, we balance content architecture (i.e., the organization of information) with traffic, scrolling (i.e., ease of use for you, the user), and workload (i.e., assignment of moderators). Where possible, we want topics to stay on the front page of their (sub-)forum for 2 weeks; in some of the busier (sub-)forums, 1 week is our target (the three primary forums to which this applies are News, Rumors, and Board Announcements, Amicus Aedes, and the Forge [category]. While we occasionally see some forums with temporary periods of heightened activity, especially following a major range release, we focus on sustained traffic. When we see (sub-)forums with sustained periods of reduced traffic, we explore ways in which we can consolidate. Consolidation means that members have fewer (sub-)forums to check and less vertical scrolling. So we are preparing to consolidate some of the Adeptus Astartes sub-forums into the Adeptus Astartes forum, and all of the Liber sub-forums into the main Liber forum.

 

With regard to the Adeptus Astartes sub-forums, the following sub-forums will be consolidated:

• Deathwatch
• Imperial Fists
• Iron Hands
• Raven Guard
• Salamanders
• White Scars
• There's a possibility that we may consolidate the Ultramarines, too, but there are content-based arguments to preserve that as a separate sub-forum.

This will leave the Chapters that have dedicated (i.e., print) codices (Grey Knights) and codex supplements (the "Big 5") with sub-forums. The Chapters I listed for consolidation have a total quantity of traffic sufficient that the overall traffic within the Adeptus Astartes forum will meet our 2-week traffic target (and the possible addition of the Ultramarines wouldn't change that).

 

And before anyone complains about "their" favorite Chapter getting "rolled," my favorite Chapters are, too. This isn't about favorites. It's about overall utility to the community.

 

With regard to the Liber sub-forums, all of the Liber sub-forums will be consolidated into the main Liber forum. Actually, the mechanics of that consolidation will be a bit more complicated, but the end result will be that the main Liber forum will be all that remains. When we first created the Liber Astartes forum, our intent was to create a place where members could discuss their DIY Chapters. This was at the height of the 3rd edition of the WH40K game and our faction-based forums included the Big 4 Chapters, the Black Templars and Salamanders (each of which had full rules via Codex: Armageddon), the Chaos Space Marines, and the Adepta Sororitas (though I think the forum name at that time was "Sisters of Battle," their low Gothic name). The Ultramarines forum was actually called "Codex Astartes" (that was the forum to which I was assigned as a moderator). General Space Marine discussion took place in the Amicus Aedes forum. Creating DIY Chapters was popular with hobbyists at that time, however, but our forum structure didn't give members a good place to discuss their DIYs. So we took the name of Kurgan the Lurker's website listing Space Marine Chapters and applied it to our new DIY forum. Over time, discussion in that forum tended to focus on development of DIYs, and that tendency remains even though it was never our intent to focus in that way. When the site expanded to cover the entire setting, we created other sub-forums to cover the metafactions. When we had the Librarium, many Liberites (as aficionados of the Liber forums are wont to call themselves) saw getting an article published therein as the ultimate goal of their efforts. When we had to shut the Librarium down, this target was removed. When many lamented the loss of this target and we were unable to restore the Librarium, we created the Liber Showcase as a replacement. With the recent restoration of Librarium functionality via the Articles function, we no longer need the Liber Showcase and that sub-forum will be removed once we are able to "transfer" all of the articles therein to proper articles within the DIY category. The Liber forum, then, will focus on development of DIYs, whether Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes, warbands of the Heretic Astartes, regiments of the Astra Militarum, Houses of the Imperial Knights, worlds of the Imperium, or whatever faction you desire. Members will still be able to discuss the broad scope of their DIYs both in the Liber forum and in their blogs. When members publish completed DIY articles, the system automatically creates a discussion topic in the Liber forum. We'll truncate that announcement so that it doesn't repeat the entire article and if there is an extant development topic for that organization, we'll merge the announcement topic and the original discussion topic. Members can post comments in either the Liber forum or directly to the article - it's the same discussion and all comments appear in both locations, so nobody has to check both to stay on top of the discussion.

 

In both cases (consolidating the Adeptus Astartes sub-forums and the Liber sub-forums), we collected data for over six months.

 

In both cases, a little preparation is necessary. This mostly focuses on getting proper tags on discussions, so it will take time for us to get through all of the discussions. We have been developing a system for consistent tag usage, but we haven't finalized that. Once we have that system structured properly, we'll present it to the community at large. Having clear and consistent tags is immensely helpful to members that want to narrow their content searches down. As it stands, however, people have been using tags willy nilly, creating some problems from a content architecture standpoint and reducing findability. That's a discussion for another day, however.

 

Another upcoming change is a sub-forum for the Emperor's Children, as suggested here. That won't happen until a dedicated codex is released. The end result will be that the Heretic Astartes forum will cover all Heretic Astartes sub-factions (e.g., the Iron Warriors, the Red Corsairs, etc.) that aren't covered in dedicated codices while those traitor Legions for which there is a dedicated codex will have a dedicated sub-forum. This will largely mirror the Adeptus Astartes.

 

In describing our rationale behind the Liber forums consolidation, I alluded to the blogs. More than anything, the blogs have provided the members of our community with a platform that rivals the discussion forums, and which is far better for one of the core missions of our site - sharing personal hobby-related content. We are starting to see members using the blogs to great effect. There are probably some things that we can do to bring this key feature front and center, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the discussion forums. Those are things that are still barely in the conceptual stage, however.

 

In addition, Invision 5.0 is in development and testing. There are a lot of capabilities that will be coming down the road and we're excited about them. We don't have any sort of timeline on that, however, as Invision is still testing things.

 

Feedback on these (upcoming) changes is welcome, as are suggestions for other areas in which you think we can improve the site.

 

---

Happy New Year!

 

A few (small?) changes will be taking place soon:

• Consolidation of the Liber sub-forums will happen very soon^TM.
• Consolidation of many of the Adeptus Astartes sub-forums will happen soonish^TM (contingent upon getting tags fixed).
• Creation of the Emperor's Children sub-forum will happen concurrent with the release of that codex by GW.
• And other things will happen later.

If you want to see the (much) more in-depth explanation for each of these changes, click the PREVIOUS PAGE button that appears at the top and bottom of this post.

 

Feedback on these (upcoming) changes is welcome, as are suggestions for other areas in which you think we can improve the site.

[Mazer Rackham]

47 minutes ago, Brother Tyler said:

No, despite the repeated requests from the Ordo Xenos, the T'au forum will not be eradicated.

 

Edited January 1 by Mazer Rackham
Xeno Mortis