Post Icon Spring Cleaning

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Owing to the nature of the current discussions on streamlining, I figured it'd be a good idea to bring up the post icons and what we want/don't need.

I've made a list of icons I think are redundant and not needed, and a list of icons that I find to be in question (in terms of whether they are outdated or not)


Unneeded:

• Black Sun - we have two, only need one
• Black Nebula - both can most likely be gotten rid of unless someone has objection
• All OPEN/CLOSED icons, since it's no hardship to include a written notification in the title IMO
• IMP New Recruit
• Black Sun OOC
• Justice
• Fleet - We have four fleet icons, and I don't see us needing any more than one to be honest.
• Coruscant
• Kuat
• Rodia
• Tatooine
• OOC
• Brawl
• Official
• Meeting
• Discussion
• OOC Sale
• OOC swap
• Planning
• Quest
• Raid
• Slaves
• Weapons
• Kvettch
• Exotic

Questionable:

• (Jedi) Mission
• (Jedi) Training
• Garou - do we have anyone that does this anymore?
• Sullust - I can see this being useful in the main RP section, but I'm open to whatever
• Dac - same as above
• Syndicate - Do we use this one? I seem to recall it being used before, but I'm not sure
• Myth - if we have plans to revisit Myth I say keep, but if not then there's no need to hold onto this icon

This is just my list now, mind you, and what I am seeing. If you have suggestions and whatnot, please post them. I've not really included the KA/Circle tags since I'm not sure about those, plus I think those in the Circle would be better able to say which - if any - get used more than others. I've also not bothered with the general board icons or the WOD/MU/DC ones since again, I don't have much of a hand in those particular genres.

[Droo]

The (Jedi) Mission and Training icons can fall comfortably under the catch-all "Jedi" post icon.

Also, when you go to post and are presented with a huge wall of post icons, it's a bit ugly and overwhelming. Is there anyway we can go back to the drop down clusters of post icons that we used to have?

[Kale]

I would love to see pull-down clusters again if it's possible. That would make keeping some of the faction-specific variants like the Jedi "Mission" and "Training" tags more palatable. I wouldn't mind hanging on to those for variety's sake, especially for use in the Ossus forum, but I'm not too attached to them.

Also, I find it very fitting that this thread has no post icon.

[Captain Untouchable]

I still think it's important to distinguish between Imperial / Alliance fleet. If you're doing border skirmishes, meetings between old Admirals and Generals, Missions on the Novgorod, or what have you: it's still relevant which faction you are affiliated with.

I think it'd be useful to see a "Senate" tag for the Alliance as well (so three in total: Alliance, Senate, Fleet), so we can stop our politics getting into our peanut butter and such.

It might be nice to see Black Sun / Pirates / Bounty redesigned as if they're the same 'faction'... maybe with an Underworld tag for "anything else"?

All the other proposed subforums have their own special icons. It might be nice if Cloud City had it's own icon for the abundance of non-Imperials / non-Black Sun there, so that Cloud City isn't the lonely kid who went on his own to prom.

Could we maybe hang on to Tatooine for now? I'd never even noticed there was one... if it's a matter of "not deleting" rather than adding a new one, this might come in handy with space western stuff.

[Zem Vymes]

Why are we getting rid of open and closed tags? If we're having to write it in the title, then that's something I figure a tag is ideal to convey. I like the SW ones. The older dungeony ones are a bit camp, but I'd rather keep those. If I'm the odd man out on that, I can cut my losses, but I like 'em.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Making a distinction between Imperial and Alliance fleeting is fine, and I personally see no problem with that. I see a problem however with the fact that there are four fleet icons, and that is simply too many. If we wish to have separate icons for Imperial and Alliance then there's nothing wrong with that.

A Black Sun/Pirate/Bounty set is easy enough to make.

As for Cloud City, I know that there used to be a set for it, but it's a high possibility that it was trimmed. It's no hardship to put it back into the rotation if that's what folks want.

We can certainly keep Tatooine.

[Captain Untouchable]

Why are we getting rid of open and closed tags? If we're having to write it in the title, then that's something I figure a tag is ideal to convey. I like the SW ones. The older dungeony ones are a bit camp, but I'd rather keep those. If I'm the odd man out on that, I can cut my losses, but I like 'em.

I think the idea behind getting rid of open/closed tags is that it cuts the list in half in one swoop. Putting (open) in your thread title or what-have-you would make the list of icons considerably shorter and easier to navigate.

A smattering of open tags (an Alliance open tag, an Imperial one, etc) wouldn't be too chaotic... I guess it boils down to whether or not we expect to be doing a lot of open threads in the future?

[Lilaena De'Ville]

The point of the open/closed tags is that you could find at a mouse click ALL the open or closed threads. Until the topic tag sorting is restored they are much less useful.

[Taataani Meorrrei]

I always try to make an open thread wherever possible but I know I'm in the minority on doing that.

Is there a database constraint on the number of tags that I'm not aware of, or is it mainly that people are not liking having such a plethora to pick from?

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Also, when you go to post and are presented with a huge wall of post icons, it's a bit ugly and overwhelming. Is there anyway we can go back to the drop down clusters of post icons that we used to have?

I seem to recall that before we upgraded - or it could've been more recently - the icons available when starting a thread were limited and specific to the forum that you were starting your thread within. I will ask Ogre about that.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

They used to be sorted into categories. They also used to be used for faction forums, which is why we have so many duplicates (Jedi fleet, rebel fleet, imperial fleet, etc etc) and now they're all lumped together and no one needs an OOC topic tag because factions don't have OOC forums anymore.

Now that the categories are gone and haven't been restored and perhaps no one is interested in making that happen? it's just a huge block of tags and it's ugly and cumbersome. Duplicates should certainly be taken out.

everything from VAMP to GHOST are old WoD OOC forum tags that are obsolete and can be removed.

[Emelie Shadowstar]

I'll figure out more later but I'm just gonna toss in that I loathe putting "Open" or "Closed" in my thread titles..ESPECIALLY if people are putting the date stamp in them too. It's too damn cluttered.. I like thinking of thread titles as story names. So I find the "(open)" or "(Closed)" thing really irritating.

BUT...if the general consensus is that they aren't necessary that's cool too... can "go with the flow" type thing.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Also, when you go to post and are presented with a huge wall of post icons, it's a bit ugly and overwhelming. Is there anyway we can go back to the drop down clusters of post icons that we used to have?

I seem to recall that before we upgraded - or it could've been more recently - the icons available when starting a thread were limited and specific to the forum that you were starting your thread within. I will ask Ogre about that.

This is also true. The Circle icons, for example, were only visible in the Circle forums.

edit: in case it needs to be said I am not in favor of getting rid of the newer Open/Closed SW tags. The old ones can die in a fire, EXCEPT that then all threads tagged with them in the past will now not have tags, so I don't know how we feel about that.

The General RPing Setting/Open/Closed tags should all remain. If functionality is restored they would be available just in the general RP forums and don't bother anyone.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

If there are OPEN/CLOSED icons that people want to keep I'm not going to be a butt about it; it's just from the list that I was looking at, there a was bit of healthy redundancy going on. If we want to limit that particular category in some fashion while still keeping it about I have no issues at all. My main goal with this is streamlining while at the same time being sure that we get what we want/need.

And yah, that things were sorted to categories at first and eventually jumbled into one giant group makes a lot of sense considering the few doubles we have. There is a lot of overlap that we can cut off.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

No no Sarah, you do bring up a very good point in that adding an OPEN/CLOSED along with the timestamp (if so relevant) detracts quite a bit from the title. It was not something that I'd considered when I made the thread, but it is certainly something that I am considering now.

[Captain Untouchable]

Just to clarify what you mean, Sarah... do you want "open" and "closed" threads to stay... or would it be okay if there were just the "open" ones, and then the not-open ones?

Most of the threads we do are closed. I think we can probably get away with the policy that "it's closed, unless it says it isn't" - ie. have SW and SW(open), instead of having to also have the closed icons.

Honestly, that should be the policy anyway. If people are intruding on threads that aren't explicitly open, then that is a giant dick move on their part. We shouldn't have to ass-cover to safeguard against people being dicks: we shouldn't have to, because they should know better. If a post is made where it doesn't belong and isn't wanted... report the post and bounce it up to the Staff to deal with?

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Open and Closed tags were par for the course and essential way back when. If we move to a system that is "It's closed unless we say it's open' then it would behoove us to place a note in the FAQ or somewhere noticeable stating as such.

[Emelie Shadowstar]

(ffff....you jerks calling me out to explain myself right now - kidding <3 you guys)

Anyway... I guess I'd be cool with just general and open, I think? Mostly because, yeah, it seems that the majority of threads that happen nowadays are closed/are only supposed to include certain characters so it's almost like the "open" is special circumstances.

[Dasquian Belargic]

I am strongly against having to write the words 'open' or 'closed' in the thread titles.

That being said, I think we can get rid of plenty of post icons. I personally don't see the need for any planet based icons.

All of the BHG icons could happily do, as could a number of what we used to call 'General' (ie. non RP) icons, IMO.

I don't think there is really a need to have 3 separate fleet icons personally.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Ok, I took my ugly red pen to the icon list. I left the open and closed icons since folks don't want to lose those. The circled icons are up in the air as to whether they get axed. I did connect SPAM and Hijack Me since to me they are one and the same, so we can stand to at least lose one of them imo. If there are others that you think need consideration for deleting, definitely speak up.




Also, I made a revamped icon for Tatooine that I believe would fit a little better:





edit - forgot to cross out the second Black Nebula