Series En Fuego

[Kraco]

Hmm... At first I was going to oppose having the newest episode thread in the General Anime as it would look strange and inconsistent there, but I suppose it might work, after all. In the end it wouldn't increase threads as such if the old one is moved to the En Fuego as soon as a new one is created. I don't know if it's really true more people would participate in the discussion, though. While people might fail to notice stickies and such, it's only because they weren't looking for them with interest. However, if they want to say something about an episode, I'm sure one more mouse click won't slow them down.

It would somewhat lessen the importance of En Fuego of course, seeing how people wouldn't even need to visit it anymore if they only pay attention to the latest ep, but if you think it's a good idea, go ahead.

[David75]

Ok so by creating a thread/ep in the anime section, we quicly get an idea of the popularity.
If it doesn't work, then it's a merge, if it does it's a promotion to the En Fuego.

Nice.

With a simple rule regarding formating of the episode thread titles:
Copy and paste First Ep formating, then add ep number at the end.

That will be clean and easy to maintaint I guess, and I guess everyone already follows that.

[Munsu]

Hmm... At first I was going to oppose having the newest episode thread in the General Anime as it would look strange and inconsistent there, but I suppose it might work, after all. In the end it wouldn't increase threads as such if the old one is moved to the En Fuego as soon as a new one is created. I don't know if it's really true more people would participate in the discussion, though. While people might fail to notice stickies and such, it's only because they weren't looking for them with interest. However, if they want to say something about an episode, I'm sure one more mouse click won't slow them down.

It would somewhat lessen the importance of En Fuego of course, seeing how people wouldn't even need to visit it anymore if they only pay attention to the latest ep, but if you think it's a good idea, go ahead.

No harm in trying. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. I can see the problem with the sticky threads. We might not even need to sticky them. If we think they're popular, the discussion alone should keep the series in the first page for easy viewing. In fact, I think we're better off without stickying them because once you move the thread you would've to unsticky them which will be more work and unnecessary.

If the discussion isn't frequent enough to keep the thread in the first page for a decent amount of time then that's a clear sign that the series doesn't belong in En Fuego.

As for the En Fuego section... well it'll be more of a means to keep the forum more clean and organized, but at the same time it'll allow for people to create Release Information threads, OST threads, and other misc discussion stuff that might be of interest.

Also, this might allow us to put more series in there that might be of interest without having too many problems as it regards episode discussions.

I have a feeling it'll work out.

Ok so by creating a thread/ep in the anime section, we quicly get an idea of the popularity.
If it doesn't work, then it's a merge, if it does it's a promotion to the En Fuego.

Nice.

With a simple rule regarding formating of the episode thread titles:
Copy and paste First Ep formating, then add ep number at the end.

That will be clean and easy to maintaint I guess, and I guess everyone already follows that.

I think that's the gist of it. And yeah, people overall have been quite good in keeping a uniform format when creating new discussion threads. I used to be quite bad, with random threads all over the place with random naming schemes. I remember I used to start almost all discussion of animes for a period of time using the current format, and people kept using it and even improved on it.

Edit: I think the majority of you have expressed that you might enjoy Index in the En Fuego section. So I'm going to add it now, though I wont move the current thread yet. As per Kraco's request, and trying out this new format, I'll leave Soul Eater too. I think that's for the best. In all, we might be able to fit a good number of series in the section with this current format, if we think it'll be helpful in discussions and warranted and not too much work.

[Kraco]

Let's hope we won't get duplicate threads with somebody creating a new one in En Fuego like usual and somebody else creating another one in the General Anime following this new convention.

[Munsu]

Let's hope we won't get duplicate threads with somebody creating a new one in En Fuego like usual and somebody else creating another one in the General Anime following this new convention.

Lol, that's a possibility. Let's hope it doesn't happen... often. Well, Index and Soul Eater have converted to the NEW En Fuego system. Let's see how it goes especially when the new episode comes out. Will see how it goes and if it ends up being too much work for the Mods and myself, and if the work is warranted.

I'm also going to stop using "Episode" in the naming of threads... Soul Eater will be the last series to do so. I realize that it's quite unnecessary. Although I like it for the Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece sections to avoid confusion with manga chapters when people are using the search engine.

[Yukimura]

Just a little usage report from a random user who doesn't follow the support threads religiously. After seeing a thread labeled "Index: 13" and noticing that To Aru Majutsu no Index was in Series en Fuego it seemed to me that some sort of mistake had been made because the Status Quo was broken. Thus I reported the first post of the thread insinuating as much. After that I came here and read that the usage format had been changed and that my report was apparently unnecessary. When something goes against the status quo and no one has made it painfully obvious that the status quo has changed I think these sorts of things are bound to happen.

I'd also like to toss my late game two cents in about the change to the status quo. I don't really understand the point of breaking a series up by episodes and then putting those episode threads into General Anime. It seems like it could lead to confusion on the off chance some new person stumbled onto the forums and wanted to start a thread (kind of like I suspect Series en Fuego may cause some confusion to anyone unfamiliar with Spanish who stumbles upon this English speaking forum). Unless people are aware of the connection between "Index: 13" and "Toaru Majutsu no Index" being a 'Series en Furego", which they'd also have to understand the meaning of, I think some people could start seeing the practice of making threads per episode the standard practice for any series leading to more clutter, time will tell of course, and new blood isn't exactly frequent here so maybe there's not point in worrying about it.

That said, if the episode threads are going to be moving at 'random' (defined by when the mods get around to moving them) times from Gen Anime to SeF I don't get how that is good for discussion. Speaking as a selfish person who wants the forums to facilitate his ability to read and make posts about anime he's interested in I don't see any benefit for myself in having to potentially hunt for a thread on two different boards at the whim of the schedules of the staff and whatever rubric they come up with to decide when a thread needs to move into SeF.

I'm not trying to say that the staff are lazy or won't be able to stay on top of things but the practice institutes uncertainty. If I come onto the forums and am looking for the latest Toaru discussion where should I look first? Do I look in General Anime or do I look in SeF? With the old status quo I have no uncertainty. I know that all threads related to SeF series will be in the Sef board for as long as the series title is on the SeF Board subtitle. With the new system I would have to start guessing/assuming based on my own knowledge of the series schedule and the rubric for moving series around.

If the rubric is something simple like only the latest episodes thread will be in Gen Anime at any given time then I wouldn't have much reason to complain, other than needing to refresh TokyoTosho constantly, but if it was anything more complicated than that I think it would start to be rather unfair to casual users. If it was something like X number of days/posts reached/posts not reached and then a thread gets moved then it becomes a guessing game for anyone who isn't refreshing the boards every hour to find where the thread for episode X of anime Y is.

And some more two cents, I personally don't like the idea of taking 'Episode' out of the thread titles. Removing it inserts a small amount of ambiguity which could potentially lead to confusion. While it's not that ambiguous it's still more so than if 'Episode' was there. Acting on the assumption that potential confusion is to be avoided unless its existence is offset by gains somewhere else, what is gained by removing it to offset to the potential confusion (which I do recognize is minor)?

And as a side note is there something wrong with the official title To Aru Majutsu no Index? Personally, I think of the series by the name "To Aru..." seeing just "Index" in a thread title it didn't immediately register to me that the thread was about "To Aru Majutsu no Index Episode 13". That character is barely even in the show at the moment so it feels misleading to label the threads for the show with just her name. But that's just my opinion, maybe everyone else calls it Index.

[Munsu]

I'd also like to toss my late game two cents in about the change to the status quo. I don't really understand the point of breaking a series up by episodes and then putting those episode threads into General Anime. It seems like it could lead to confusion on the off chance some new person stumbled onto the forums and wanted to start a thread (kind of like I suspect Series en Fuego may cause some confusion to anyone unfamiliar with Spanish who stumbles upon this English speaking forum). Unless people are aware of the connection between "Index: 13" and "Toaru Majutsu no Index" being a 'Series en Furego", which they'd also have to understand the meaning of, I think some people could start seeing the practice of making threads per episode the standard practice for any series leading to more clutter, time will tell of course, and new blood isn't exactly frequent here so maybe there's not point in worrying about it.

I'm not worried about this in the least. That's why the mods have nifty tool called "Merge Threads". New members create crappy incorrect threads all time regardless of this new system. I don't think this will be much of a problem.

That said, if the episode threads are going to be moving at 'random' (defined by when the mods get around to moving them) times from Gen Anime to SeF I don't get how that is good for discussion. Speaking as a selfish person who wants the forums to facilitate his ability to read and make posts about anime he's interested in I don't see any benefit for myself in having to potentially hunt for a thread on two different boards at the whim of the schedules of the staff and whatever rubric they come up with to decide when a thread needs to move into SeF.

Not at random. When the next episode is released and a new thread is created for that episode, the old thread will then be moved when a mod sees it. I don't think there'll be much of a problem there either. I also think that the increase of discussion more than makes up for someone to do an extra click to read another thread that contains discussion that might've not existed otherwise.
If the latest episode discussion was inside the Series en Fuego section and it's not the latest thread to be responded on, you would've needed to do that extra click to find that discussion thread. With this new system, the latest thread is conviniently placed in General Anime, and that thread will be getting most of the discussion. So when you add things up you might be making less clicks overall. Plus, it gives better exposure to series that are in the section but aren't as strong as the other, so it facillitates discussions for those... kinda like what happened with Druaga paired up with Code Geass.

I'm not trying to say that the staff are lazy or won't be able to stay on top of things but the practice institutes uncertainty. If I come onto the forums and am looking for the latest Toaru discussion where should I look first? Do I look in General Anime or do I look in SeF? With the old status quo I have no uncertainty. I know that all threads related to SeF series will be in the Sef board for as long as the series title is on the SeF Board subtitle. With the new system I would have to start guessing/assuming based on my own knowledge of the series schedule and the rubric for moving series around.

You should look first in General Anime, which you should've done so first anyways since in order to get to SeF you need to first enter General Anime.

If the rubric is something simple like only the latest episodes thread will be in Gen Anime at any given time then I wouldn't have much reason to complain, other than needing to refresh TokyoTosho constantly, but if it was anything more complicated than that I think it would start to be rather unfair to casual users. If it was something like X number of days/posts reached/posts not reached and then a thread gets moved then it becomes a guessing game for anyone who isn't refreshing the boards every hour to find where the thread for episode X of anime Y is.

The rubric is something simple like that. ONLY the latest episode discussion will be in General Anime. All other threads will be tossed inside En Fuego.

And some more two cents, I personally don't like the idea of taking 'Episode' out of the thread titles. Removing it inserts a small amount of ambiguity which could potentially lead to confusion. While it's not that ambiguous it's still more so than if 'Episode' was there. Acting on the assumption that potential confusion is to be avoided unless its existence is offset by gains somewhere else, what is gained by removing it to offset to the potential confusion (which I do recognize is minor)?

I only took it out because of the "Last Post" column problem since it has limited characters so if the episode number doesn't show up it will cause confusion as to what thread that is. I guess I can put 'ep.' instead. That should work.

And as a side note is there something wrong with the official title To Aru Majutsu no Index? Personally, I think of the series by the name "To Aru..." seeing just "Index" in a thread title it didn't immediately register to me that the thread was about "To Aru Majutsu no Index Episode 13". That character is barely even in the show at the moment so it feels misleading to label the threads for the show with just her name. But that's just my opinion, maybe everyone else calls it Index.

Nothing wrong with it. As explained above it was because of the "Last Post" problem. Suggest me other alternatives that might be more representative of the series but is short enough to not mess with the "Last Post" column. The official name is simply too long. I simply put "Index" on a whim.

Just throwing some possibilities out there:

"Toaru"
"Toaru Majutsu"
"Majutsu no Index"
"Toaru Index"
"TM no Index"

I don't know. Which one you like?

[Kraco]

"Majutsu no Index", naturally. Because that's the folder name I've on my archive HD...

[Munsu]

"Majutsu no Index", naturally. Because that's the folder name I've on my archive HD...

Alright, I'm using that for now. Seems to work well.

[Yukimura]

Thanks for the clarifications. I've never cared about the Latest Post link so I didn't consider the implications of thread titles on it.

I personally dislike "Majutsu no Index" because it drops a unique word while keeping a useless one and would make things more difficult for anyone who thinks from the beginning of the title and scans for Toaru/To Aru. The latest post length limit seems to be 32 characters but I think it always breaks on the first space before the limit is reached. "To Aru Majutsu Index Episode XX" is 31 characters and if my theory is right should fit so I'd vote for that instead. If that doesn't fit then I'd vote for "To Aru Majutsu Index Ep XX" (26 chars). My reasoning being that the 1/2 extra characters in '"o aru" or "Toaru" are much more useful for quickly identifying the series from a thread title than the " no " is.

For other series with potentially longer and/or harder to shorten names I agree trying to shorten Episode to Ep before eliminating it all together would be better, provided that adding ' Ep ' isn't still too long. If a series title just can't be shortened enough then removing it all together is of course inevitable but I would hope that such a thing would be a last resort.

[Munsu]

'Toaru Majutsu Index:' looks like it's fitting nicely. Let's go with that.

[Kraco]

I think I'm getting a glimpse of how Yuki is running things on MT... Haha.

[complich8]

I have no problem doing the work. If I wasn't willing to do it, I wouldn't suggest it.

And I agree with you with the exposure problem, which is why I'm looking to make it better... it's my main problem with the section.

sort of along those lines, I just enacted a small template tweak to make the "series en fuego" subforum (and other subforums) live in the same visual block as the threads. So now subforums aren't sort of off floating on their own, which I think is better.

Feedback? Further suggestions on small style tweaks?

[Munsu]

So the difference is that the sub-forum right now is right on top? Where as before there was some separation? It was above the "New Thread" botton and now it is under it right?

If that's the case, yeah... good change.

[complich8]

yeah, it was floating above "new thread" in its own little world ...

[Buffalobiian]

Is anybody finding that starting subtopics in the En Fuego subform turns out kind of messy? I felt at ease with having a "music release thread", "who to get fansubs from" thread, maybe even a "Hottest Babe in X" thread, but branching out on ideas like someone's main power (I'm referring to Index here) and making it a discrete discussion from the episode thread itself just feels weird. By breaking up actual Anime discussions, as opposed to the side discussions like it was in the past, it really paves the way to create threads for every power/character we'll encounter.

[WARNING: CODE GEASS SPOILERS]





For example, if Code Geass was still around, things would have turned out like:

CG Music thread
CG Fansubber - who to get?
Lelouch's Geass
Charle's Geass
C.C's real name - theories
Final pairings - who'll end up with who?
Does Nunnaly have a geass?





[END SPOILERS]

That might be a bit on the extreme, but I can see it happen. I don't visit the Bleach and One Piece forums, so if a similar system works there, I don't know.

As a conservative used to the single-threaded discussions, this seems rather disorganised (though it might seem organised). Then, when the season's over, it'll all get smashed into one thread again.

[Kraco]

I guess it takes some posts (posting) away from the main episode threads, but on the other hand I'm pretty sure it increases the overall post amount as well.

[Munsu]

The creation of various different topics that rarely are explored indepth in the single anime threads is really the main purpose. So that you see it happening is not the problem... it's something we actually want.

Many of this side discussion that occur in the single threads, once a new episode airs the topic changes to what occured in that episode instead of further exploring some of the ideas and theories.

[Munsu]

After a week with this new system, it seems to me that it has been a success so far. Still some small confusions here and there, and I don't think the mods have much to complain with moving the threads when necessary.

Soul Eater and Toaru Majutsu no Index are both having more active discussion, so that shows promise.

As for new series entering the En Fuego, I think I'm going to wait for a handful of episodes, maybe 4, before deciding if anything is worth moving. Looking at how the discussions are going RideBack and Druaga seem like leading candidates. Ippo has had 30 posts, but not many of it have been about discussing the plot, so it's fool's gold at the moment. Black God has yet to pick up steam, we'll see after more episodes are out. But RideBack and Druaga seem to be the leaders as far as number of members watching, overall positive feedback, and post amounts.

[Sapphire]

Um I'm confused. Why is a SEF series in the General Anime section when there is a board dedicated to it? Isn't that sloppy and confusing?