While browsing through the claims forums, I can't help but feel overwhelmed with the amount of text and threads all over the place, so I thought "What is it that's giving me this kind of 'claustrophobic' feeling?" and I realised that it's the fact that everything that's either a completed claim or a no longer relevant discussion is still cluttering up the forums, and this is also the case in the other forums in BM (especially The Sticky Guar).
Why don't we have an archive like ST that keeps everything organised so that everything that isn't important but may be necessary to refer to is out of the way but not deleted? Why don't we set one up?
Yes, quite uncannily, I was thinking the same thing. The only thing about creating new folders is that I end up going for sub-folders and this extends the menus. That wouldn't be too bad a thing but, on these forums, the sub-sub-sub-forums appear on the main menu screens. At least, that's what Razorwing pointed out the last time I requested the creation of a new folder.
Nevertheless, the time is due. Do you think it would be best to have one big folder for the completed archive or one containing sub-folders for 'interior', 'landscape' and so on? Bear in mind that the latter option is likely to make the main forums grow.
Always a catch...
It would be a great annoyance to expand the main forum even more, (is there no way to hide/expand sub-menus from the main forum, like on the main page for ST?) but I would have to go with the sub-folders, because the idea of ramming everything into one great big heap doesn't appeal to the possibility of having to refer back to the old threads in the future (which undoubtably will happen).
Having spoken to Razorwing about this a while back, it seemed that there was indeed no way of hiding/expanding the sub-forums here. I think this website is quite old-ish (and comfortable) but it's not as adaptable as it might be.
Anyway, I just sent RW a PM. If I remember rightly, the ST archive is set up on an outside forum. The only problem here is making sure that all the posts from the threads transfer okay so that the archive itself is unaffected.
Barring that, I guess we could have a large, completed archive out of the way at the bottom of the page.
It's your decision, and I'm happy to go with either option, however my only concern is that if everything is in one big folder, then if you need to find a thread inside it to refer to for whatever reason, it will be much harder to find.
But, as I said, at the end of the day it's your call and whatever it is, I'm behind you :goodjob:
=) Cheers, bud. I'm just waiting for RW's reply.
Great to see the forums cleaned of all those finished claims.
IG, what do you think the time frame should be before a finished claim is archived?
None. Once it's been given the go-ahead then it should be fine although it's probably best that I archive it then it's likely to have gone through at least two people to avoid errors.
Just a quick point to both yourself and anyone else doing interiors: DON'T TOUCH THE GOURDS! OR THE DECANTERS!
I'm just trying to solve some problems with them. If you've added them, please remove them or it will give me a big headache.
Edit - Come to think of it, try to avoid using the lower class bowls and cups, the middlechest jewelry and the turtleshell bowls, cups and chests too.