Posted June 11, 2011
Okay, I really have no clue how much or little the gog staff has coded of this forum and how much it's a standard forum software install.
I'm seeing an increasing amount of game specific threads and problems in the general area of the forum, and it might be a bother to some to have their general/offtopic mixed with game specific stuff, maybe even for games they don't care about.
Meanwhile I've got a half decent sized gog collection, but I rarely enter the specific subforums unless I'm looking for something special. It's simply too much trouble going in and out of subforums when just quickly checking the forum to see if anything interesting is happening, which really is a shame because anyone posting a problem will likely find the other forum users who don't have a problem with said game and isn't actively playing it, won't even see the thread.
Would it be possible to have a sort of mashup "forum"? Instead of entering General or Game Specific, there'd be a "My favourite forums +/- general" "forum". This would bring up a page just like if you entered a specific forum, but have all the threads from all your favourite marked forums as if they were just posted in one big one?
As I said, I've never worked with bigger forums and I don't know how much the guys here are in charge og changes to it, but I'd imagine it being a fairly simple change from something maybe like:
SELECT t.topicID, t.topicName, count(p.replies), t.createdBy, max(p.submittedTime)
FROM threads AS t
INNER JOIN posts AS p ON t.threadID = p.threadID
WHERE t.forumID = 'SELECTED FORUM HERE'
GROUP BY t.topicID, t.topicName, t.createdBy
to
SELECT t.topicID, t.topicName, count(p.replies), t.createdBy, max(p.submittedTime), f.forumname
FROM threads AS t
INNER JOIN posts AS p ON t.threadID = p.threadID
INNER JOIN forums AS f ON t.forumID = f.forumID
WHERE t.forumID in (<list of favourite forums>
GROUP BY t.topicID, t.topicName, t.createdBy, f.forumName
or even just an inner join if the users' favourite forums is stored in a table.
It'd give more visibility to the threads in the game specific forums and maybe people will post in the proper forums and leave those who look for specific game information or specifically not-this-gog-game information to get what they're looking for instead of having to look through a specific forum, and then afterwards trawl through a search result of the general forum because of the likelyhood of something relevant to the game having only been posted there.
I'm seeing an increasing amount of game specific threads and problems in the general area of the forum, and it might be a bother to some to have their general/offtopic mixed with game specific stuff, maybe even for games they don't care about.
Meanwhile I've got a half decent sized gog collection, but I rarely enter the specific subforums unless I'm looking for something special. It's simply too much trouble going in and out of subforums when just quickly checking the forum to see if anything interesting is happening, which really is a shame because anyone posting a problem will likely find the other forum users who don't have a problem with said game and isn't actively playing it, won't even see the thread.
Would it be possible to have a sort of mashup "forum"? Instead of entering General or Game Specific, there'd be a "My favourite forums +/- general" "forum". This would bring up a page just like if you entered a specific forum, but have all the threads from all your favourite marked forums as if they were just posted in one big one?
As I said, I've never worked with bigger forums and I don't know how much the guys here are in charge og changes to it, but I'd imagine it being a fairly simple change from something maybe like:
SELECT t.topicID, t.topicName, count(p.replies), t.createdBy, max(p.submittedTime)
FROM threads AS t
INNER JOIN posts AS p ON t.threadID = p.threadID
WHERE t.forumID = 'SELECTED FORUM HERE'
GROUP BY t.topicID, t.topicName, t.createdBy
to
SELECT t.topicID, t.topicName, count(p.replies), t.createdBy, max(p.submittedTime), f.forumname
FROM threads AS t
INNER JOIN posts AS p ON t.threadID = p.threadID
INNER JOIN forums AS f ON t.forumID = f.forumID
WHERE t.forumID in (<list of favourite forums>
GROUP BY t.topicID, t.topicName, t.createdBy, f.forumName
or even just an inner join if the users' favourite forums is stored in a table.
It'd give more visibility to the threads in the game specific forums and maybe people will post in the proper forums and leave those who look for specific game information or specifically not-this-gog-game information to get what they're looking for instead of having to look through a specific forum, and then afterwards trawl through a search result of the general forum because of the likelyhood of something relevant to the game having only been posted there.