Forum House Cleaning

Borsk

Administrator
Staff member
We've decided that the time has come to reorganize the way the forum is structured. This effort was made to remove some of the clutter from the main forum home page and to make layout of the forum more logical for new users.

Click here for more information
 

Borsk

Administrator
Staff member
Every forum that existed before the change still exists. Only the location has changed. Prior to this update, almost all of the forums were directly on the home page of the forum. They can now be found in subforums.

To assist people in finding stuff in the forums that we think is important, I've added a new section at the top of the forum home page called "Featured Topics". This will contain direct links to areas of the forum that we'd like you to visit. These links will change from time to time as needed.

In the next post (below) I will show you the previous organization of the forum and the new one. As you can see, we've reduced the number of top level forums from 26 to 7.
 

Borsk

Administrator
Staff member
THE OLD LAYOUT

  • News
    • Site News
    • Espionage Report
      • Star Wars News Feed
    • Contests and Games
      • Watto's Lotto
    • Sponsor and Affiliate News
  • General Topics
    • General Discussion
    • New Members
    • Shows and Conventions
    • Suggestions
  • Trading Forum
    • Trading
    • Buying and Selling
    • Store Reports
      • Eastern USA
      • Central USA
      • Western USA
      • International
      • General Retail Store Reports
    • Feedback
      • Positive Feedback
      • Negative Feedback
  • Collection Discussion
    • 3 3/4" Figures
    • The Rancor Pit
      • Episode VII
      • Episode VI
      • Episode V
      • Episode IV
      • Episode III
      • Episode II
      • Episode I
    • 12" Figures
    • Gentle Giant
    • Miscellaneous Collectibles
    • Autograph Collecting
    • Customizing and Dioramas
    • Collection Photos
    • Comics and Books
    • Cards, CCG & RPG
  • Star Wars Media
    • The Original Trilogy
    • The Prequel Trilogy (No Spoilers)
    • News & Spoilers
    • Video Games

THE NEW LAYOUT

  • Featured Topics
    • Links to Specific Area (subject to change)
  • TBS Discussion
    • News and Contests
      • Espionage Report
        • Star Wars News Feed
      • Contests and Games
        • Watto's Lotto
        • The Rancor Pit
          • Episode VII
          • Episode VI
          • Episode V
          • Episode IV
          • Episode III
          • Episode II
          • Episode I
      • Sponsor and Affiliate News
    • Site Announcements
      • Site News
      • New Members
      • Suggestions
  • General Discussion
    • Star Wars Discussion
      • Movies and TV Shows
      • Video Games
      • Books/Novels and Comic Books
    • Everything but Star Wars
    • Shows and Conventions
  • Collection Discussion
    • Collecting
      • Autograph Collecting
      • Hasbro/Kenner: 3 3/4" Figures
      • Hasbro/Kenner: 12" Figures
      • Gentle Giant
      • Miscellaneous Collectibles
      • Collection Photos
      • Customizing and Dioramas
      • Cards, CCG & RPG
    • Trading Forum
      • Trading
      • Buying and Selling
      • Store Reports
        • Eastern USA
        • Central USA
        • Western USA
        • International
        • General Retail Store Reports
      • Feedback
        • Positive Feedback
        • Negative Feedback

The blue text signifies a category heading and not a true forum. The green text indicates that the forum is displayed on the home page.
 

Borsk

Administrator
Staff member
A few things to point out...

  • General Discussion forum has been renamed to "Everything but Star Wars"
  • The Star Wars movie forums (OT, PT and Spoilers) have been combined into one forum named "Movies and TV Shows"
  • These are now both in the General Discussion group
 

Borsk

Administrator
Staff member
I just completed an upgrade of the forum to the latest version of vBulletin. I believe I've caught all the potential problems, but if you notice anything odd, please let me know.
 

Borsk

Administrator
Staff member
I've been thinking about things over the last day and have a few small modifications to the layout. You can see the revised outline below. Basically the changes are as follows:
  1. Seperated contests out of the news forum. These are 2 seperate items underneath "TBS Discussion".
  2. Merged all the Star Wars discussion forums into one forum, named "Star Wars Discussion". This is the place to talk about video games, movies, tv shows, books, etc.
  3. Took Store Reports out of the Trading Forum. These are 2 seperate items under "Collection Discussion".

THE NEW, NEW LAYOUT

  • Featured Topics
    • Links to Specific Area (subject to change)
  • TBS Discussion
    • Official News
      • Espionage Report
        • Star Wars News Feed
      • Sponsor and Affiliate News
    • Site Announcements
      • Site News
      • New Members
      • Suggestions
    • Contests and Games
      • Watto's Lotto
      • The Rancor Pit
        • Episode VII
        • Episode VI
        • Episode V
        • Episode IV
        • Episode III
        • Episode II
        • Episode I
  • General Discussion
    • Star Wars Discussion
    • Everything but Star Wars
    • Shows and Conventions
  • Collection Discussion
    • Collecting
      • Autograph Collecting
      • Hasbro/Kenner: 3 3/4" Figures
      • Hasbro/Kenner: 12" Figures
      • Gentle Giant
      • Miscellaneous Collectibles
      • Collection Photos
      • Customizing and Dioramas
      • Cards, CCG & RPG
    • Trading Forum
      • Trading
      • Buying and Selling
      • Feedback
        • Positive Feedback
        • Negative Feedback
    • Store Reports
      • Eastern USA
      • Central USA
      • Western USA
      • International
      • General Retail Store Reports
 

Borsk

Administrator
Staff member
Borsk said:
I just completed an upgrade of the forum to the latest version of vBulletin. I believe I've caught all the potential problems, but if you notice anything odd, please let me know.
The upgrade for the forum was primarily to fix bugs and other issues that will, most likely, not be apparent to the majority of users.

The one thing that might interest some of you is that we now have Skype integration (Skype is an instant messanger in the same vein as AIM and Yahoo Messanger). To hook into this, just go to your usercp and modify your profile by adding your Skype name. The forum will display this as an option to communicate with you and show your Skype online status.
 

Borsk

Administrator
Staff member
This is a minor change.

There used to be a menu option toward the top of the page called "new posts". This grabbed all the posts made in the last 24 hours.

I've replaced this with something called "recent activity". When clicked this opens up a menu that includes a link for getting posts within the last 24 hours as well as a link for getting all posts since the last time the forum thinks you visited.

If you want to see what's been posted recently, the first link is for you. If it's been a while since you've been to the site and you want to get caught back up, the 2nd link is for you.

EDIT: If you're not logged in, it will just show you the "today's post" option.
 

Borsk

Administrator
Staff member
Minor Edit - renamed it "recent activity" to "recent posts". Makes more sense.
 
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