TMD 2010: NEW LAYOUT

[Eastman]

By now you have all probably noticed some changes to the forum layout.  The Mod staff and Vintage Adepts have been discussing these changes for some time and we believe that they provide a more intuitive organization.  Our hope is that they make the excellent content that this forum has always generated a little more accessible to the new-to-vintage reader, while also making the TMD experience better for all of our regular users.  

There are three significant changes: (1) the deck discussions are now broken down by archetype, with sub-boards for each and stickied threads on the major decks, (2) the tournament announcements are now broken down by region, to make it easier to find nearby tournaments, and (3) article discussion, new card discussion, and "meta" (i.e. the B/R list) discussion each now have their own forums.  

The biggest impetus for these changes is organizing information with respect to decks.  We have taken a look at some other forums, especially The Source, and like what they do for deck discussion better than the ad-hoc system we have long had.  There is now a separate forum for each "genus" of deck - things like "blue based control" and "workshop based prison."  Within that, the top, stickied threads are major discussiosn of the best particular decks.  All decks within a "genus" should go in that forum, although only the best and most commonly played decks will get stickied threads.  

There has also been a lot of article discussion, new card discussion, and discussion about vintage in general, which is great but has been disorganized.  We have made a new forum just for posting articles, and another forum just for discussing them.  We have also made a special strategy forum where any strategy questions, as well as "new card" threads, should go.  Finally, we have made a "vintage issues" forum where full members and above can discuss the B/R list, the state of Vintage, and other meta-level issues.  

Additionally, some forums that weren't productive were dropped.  These include Adept Chronicles and several non-vintage boards, such as the Legacy forum and the Block/Standard forums.  These simply weren't pulling their weight and as a result didn't justify the page-space.    



Here is the new layout:  

Frequently Asked Questions - New TMD or Vintage?  Learn about how they work here.

  Introduction to Vintage  Learn about the format and read articles to help get you started
  Introduction to TMD   Learn about the Site Rules and other navigation tips here
 
Article Discussion -Find the very best of our content here

  Articles Read Articles by Smmenen, Matt Elias, Andy Probasco, and [other prolific writers] here
  Article Discussion Give feedback, make responses, and add comments here.  Full Members and above.

Vintage Deck Discussion - Read and talk about the major Vintage decks here

  Blue-Based Control  Decks like Tezzeret, Keeper, and Oath
  Workshop-Based Prison  Decks like Stax, MUD, and Metalworker
  Ritual-Based Combo Decks like TPS, Long, and Confidant Tendrils
  Null Rod-Based Aggro Decks like Fish and R/G Beats
  Bazaar-Based Decks Decks like Dredge and Dragon
  Miscellaneous Decks that don't fit the above categories
  Creative New deck concepts still in the developmental stage

Vintage Strategy Discussion - Read and talk about playing strategy to improve your game

  Vintage Adept Q&A Get insight, advice, and feedback from our community's best about how the game is played
  General Strategy Discussion Talk about the Adepts' answers or post your own ideas about strategy.  Discuss new cards here.

Vintage Tournament Discussion - Read tournament announcements, results, and reports here.
    Eastern U.S. - New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere on or near the East Coast
    Midwest U.S. Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and elsewhere in Central U.S.
    Western/Pacific U.S. California, Washington state, and elsewhere on the West Coast
    Southern U.S. Texas and elsewhere in the South
    Canada Quebec, Ontario, and elsewhere in Canada
    Europe Spain, Germany, The Netherlands, and elsewhere in Europe
    Other For all regions not covered above

Vintage Community Discussion

  Community Introductions The place for new players, new teams, new tournament organizers, and new stores to introduce themselves
  General Community Discussion A place for the community to talk about non-Vintage topics
  Newbie Forum New to TMD and have a question about the site or the format?  Ask here and our membership will answer.
  Rules Q&A Questions about rulings will be answered by judges and experienced players
  Vintage Issues The place for intelligent discussion about issues facing Vintage
  Other Formats Talk about other formats here
  Casual For general Casual Magic discussion
  EDH Discuss the Elder Dragon Highlander format
  Card Creation Forum Design your own Magic cards!
  Type 4 Discuss the Type 4 format
  Other
Calendar


The moderator staff has moved threads less than a year old into their appropriate forums.  However I am sure we mis-routed some of the threads, so if anyone thinks something should be moved this is the place to let us know.

[H]

Sorry to make my first post a question, and probably a stupid one at that, but where do Tournament Reports go now?

[Godder]

Sorry to make my first post a question, and probably a stupid one at that, but where do Tournament Reports go now?

In the appropriate board by region - same as for announcements.

[H]

Ok, i just realized that was really dumb, because they are all already there.

It is however a bit muddled as it is currently.  At least, it's hard to differentiate quickly upcoming tournaments and results that are being discussed.  Maybe that is just because i generally never recall the date it is currently.

However, maybe it should be recommended that people use tags like [Announcement] and [Results] on thread titles?

[LotusHead]

I can't start new threads in the Tournament forums, so I added the results of today's tourney in the thread that announced it.
(spoiler- I won! )
Webster and I have been the "posting when tournements are" for the local meta and we needs our posting ability!

[Godder]

I think I fixed it so try again, but if it still doesn't work, post here again.

[Tobi]

As a user who frequently searches for new tournament results (to post them to morphling.de), I have to say that this change made it much harder to find tournament results, which in my opinion are interesting for the whole community, regardless of region.
Maybe it would make sense to either create additional sub-forums "Results" to each region, or to have a results-forum separated from the regions where every tournament result can be posted.

I like the reorganization of the deck discussion area though 

[zeus-online]

Hate to be mr. negative but i think this site just got confusing as hell...Can't really find anything i'm looking for at this point. Hope i get used to it though.

I think it might be good for newer users or people unfamiliar with vintage which would certainly outweight it being confusing for me.

[Godder]

We'll get used to it, hopefully. Everything important (tournaments and deck discussion) got separated by region and pillar respectively - hopefully that makes it easier to find stuff, although as mentioned, probably mostly for newer users.

[Diakonov]

I love it!!

[GrandpaBelcher]

I have to say that I'm not excited about this.  Now when I check the site in the morning, I have to visit 10 or more boards instead of six (including the tournament forums) to see new threads and follow old ones.  That takes a lot of extra time and is very annoying.  It's not as though there was so much brilliant discussion going on that it couldn't be contained in the original organization.

I hope this will be more useful for new visitors.

[Cyberpunker]

Make the "Other" tournament report "Asia" please   . All the reports there are from Asia anyways.

[Valorale]

I like the idea behind splitting up the tournament board by region but I dont believe there are enough tournament announcements to warrant separate boards for each location. Instead my thought would be to enforce a policy for creating new announcements in the subject line for example

[EAST - Philly PA] Blue Bell
etc

Also echo the requests to have results in 1 location, I dont think it matters where the results come from.

[Razvan]

As a user who frequently searches for new tournament results (to post them to morphling.de), I have to say that this change made it much harder to find tournament results, which in my opinion are interesting for the whole community, regardless of region.
Maybe it would make sense to either create additional sub-forums "Results" to each region, or to have a results-forum separated from the regions where every tournament result can be posted.

I like the reorganization of the deck discussion area though 

I also agree that results should be in ONE forum. I didn't think it was cluttered at all, and it was the single greatest resource of magic I can think of.

Rest of it seems fine, good job guys.

[Killane]

As a user who frequently searches for new tournament results (to post them to morphling.de), I have to say that this change made it much harder to find tournament results, which in my opinion are interesting for the whole community, regardless of region.
Maybe it would make sense to either create additional sub-forums "Results" to each region, or to have a results-forum separated from the regions where every tournament result can be posted.

I like the reorganization of the deck discussion area though 

I also agree that results should be in ONE forum. I didn't think it was cluttered at all, and it was the single greatest resource of magic I can think of.

Rest of it seems fine, good job guys.

Agee 100% - love the new Vintage Issues forum, the new layout for deck dicussion by archetype, etc.... but the tournament forum results should be in one forum.

[Delha]

Big thanks to the staff for all the time and effort I'm sure went into this project.

I haven't really checked out the Tournament section yet, but so far everything else seems pretty intuitive. I'm still getting used it, but my initial impression is that the new categorization is an improvement.

[CorwinB]

I like the new subdivision a lot, but noticed I can't post in the Articles section. Is it a specific posting restriction, or a bug ?

[zeus-online]

I have to say that I'm not excited about this.  Now when I check the site in the morning, I have to visit 10 or more boards instead of six (including the tournament forums) to see new threads and follow old ones.  That takes a lot of extra time and is very annoying.  It's not as though there was so much brilliant discussion going on that it couldn't be contained in the original organization.

I hope this will be more useful for new visitors.

Exactly my thoughts.

[Jacob Orlove]

As a user who frequently searches for new tournament results (to post them to morphling.de), I have to say that this change made it much harder to find tournament results, which in my opinion are interesting for the whole community, regardless of region.
Maybe it would make sense to either create additional sub-forums "Results" to each region, or to have a results-forum separated from the regions where every tournament result can be posted.

I like the reorganization of the deck discussion area though 

I also agree that results should be in ONE forum. I didn't think it was cluttered at all, and it was the single greatest resource of magic I can think of.
Rest of it seems fine, good job guys.

Agee 100% - love the new Vintage Issues forum, the new layout for deck dicussion by archetype, etc.... but the tournament forum results should be in one forum.

The current structure is definitely not set in stone. We want to see how the current layout works in practice, now that people will be more attentive to thread titles, but we may consolidate or separate out the results if that ends up making more sense.

Please continue to leave us feedback as you try out the new site layout. We want to hear from everybody.

[Godder]

I like the new subdivision a lot, but noticed I can't post in the Articles section. Is it a specific posting restriction, or a bug ?

Full Members and above to post in the Articles section, although we may review that later. If you're interested in becoming a FM, the thread is currently in Misc.

[nataz]

As someone who has been reading these forums for a long time, I was excited (is this lame? – maybe looking forward to is a better adj) that you all were going to change the boards format. I’m glad that there are people who are interested in improving this forum.

Some of the things I think were done well:

The nod to the pillar concept as articulated by wizards
The idea of a newbie forum as a helpful place to find answers as a new player 
Vintage Issue Section
Article/Primer Section

Some of the things that I think can be improved:

1) Newbie forum at the TOP of the page: If you aren’t new to the format, you prob aren’t new to TMD. Therefore we know to skim past the newbie forum, BUT if you are new it should be the easiest forum to find. It should be the first thing they see. It’s also helpful if it’s the first thing older member see to remind them to help out if they see a new post asking a new question.

2) Child Boards: Child boards in general are a bad idea, it needlessly separates information under layers of clicks. Depth is your enemy when there is a low amount of traffic. What you really want is something horizontal in design that keeps the idea of promoting the pillars/or regions, without having to click into deeper categories.

It would be different if each category survived as its own little ecosystem, but I’m not sure any of the new child boards alone are large enough to promote growth from cross pollination. All you get is more inbreeding where the people who like Blue control read the blue control forum, and rarely traverse into the workshop forum. If it’s all on the same page, no matter what kind of cubby hole you live in (and let’s be honest here, most vintage players have some sort of comfort zone), you are forced to look at other threads and other deck ideas. This forced mixture of different knowledge, skills and abilities is a good thing for such a small community. It’s good that all the control players have to notice that the tread on TPS or Ichorid is getting a lot of attention.

For an example of why the child board/pillar set up is awkward, look at the Ritual v. Control forums. From a quick glance the Blue control forum has about 3+ new topics each month. The Ritual has about 1 topic each month. Sheesh, the Bazaar forum goes from 2 topics in May with nothing else straight to December. That’s a really slow
turnover of ideas, and by separating  things further it will just make it worse.

3) I don’t get the separation between articles and Article discussion – if its just articles on TMD v. Articles posted elsewhere on the web why not just put a [TMD] tag on those that need it. If it’s a primer section (which it seems to be right now), why aren’t they in the deck discussion forum?

4)Tournament Section: Who really had trouble reading it? Results especially need to be together, and again it seems like you are trying to fracture the metagame/community.  We want Euro’s/other US regions to know about our tourney scene and vice versa, especially for large events where there might be travel options.

I’ll close with this. I’m confused about your design philosophy, which in turn makes TMD confusing to navigate. More categories doesn’t make things easy to find, it just makes more things to find. I promise you, if you want to make information more accessible, you don’t add more layers. If a device is too hard to use, you wouldn’t add more buttons would you? Think I-phone not blackberry. Figure out how to make the forums you have really count, don’t just add more forums.

Good luck!

[CorwinB]

I like the new subdivision a lot, but noticed I can't post in the Articles section. Is it a specific posting restriction, or a bug ?

Full Members and above to post in the Articles section, although we may review that later. If you're interested in becoming a FM, the thread is currently in Misc.

Then perhaps you should reconsider the "Open to all" text that describes the Articles section.
I must also say I really don't understand the reasoning behind this restriction, as I don't remember the old Articles section being spammed to death by us Basic Users.

[piZZero]

I agree with what most of the people say here. It's very confusing!

I was following some discussions and now I lost track of them. Well, I found them but it took some time and before it was lot easier to follow. Now I need to click more to do the same.

I'm still lost!

Hopefully we'll reach a balance between the new changes and what people likes.

Cheers,

piZZero - Jordi Amat

[Diakonov]

1) Newbie forum at the TOP of the page: If you aren’t new to the format, you prob aren’t new to TMD. Therefore we know to skim past the newbie forum, BUT if you are new it should be the easiest forum to find. It should be the first thing they see. It’s also helpful if it’s the first thing older member see to remind them to help out if they see a new post asking a new question.

I agree with nataz on this.  Seems very reasonable.

2) Child Boards: Child boards in general are a bad idea, it needlessly separates information under layers of clicks. Depth is your enemy when there is a low amount of traffic. What you really want is something horizontal in design that keeps the idea of promoting the pillars/or regions, without having to click into deeper categories.

It would be different if each category survived as its own little ecosystem, but I’m not sure any of the new child boards alone are large enough to promote growth from cross pollination. All you get is more inbreeding where the people who like Blue control read the blue control forum, and rarely traverse into the workshop forum. If it’s all on the same page, no matter what kind of cubby hole you live in (and let’s be honest here, most vintage players have some sort of comfort zone), you are forced to look at other threads and other deck ideas. This forced mixture of different knowledge, skills and abilities is a good thing for such a small community. It’s good that all the control players have to notice that the tread on TPS or Ichorid is getting a lot of attention.

For an example of why the child board/pillar set up is awkward, look at the Ritual v. Control forums. From a quick glance the Blue control forum has about 3+ new topics each month. The Ritual has about 1 topic each month. Sheesh, the Bazaar forum goes from 2 topics in May with nothing else straight to December. That’s a really slow
turnover of ideas, and by separating  things further it will just make it worse.

I'm not sure if I agree with this.  The new Deck Discussion section is very much inspired by The Source, which has proven to be quite successful.  If we did revert back to the old layout, I would at least hope that the top-tier archetypes would be stickied like they are on The Source.  I think it's very convenient to have a definite location for discussion on popular decks like Oath or Tezz or TPS, and having these threads systematically structured.  It also is helpful in informing newbies and reminding the general readers about what the standard competition is.

As for losing cross-pollination, I suppose I can only speak for myself, but being able to see thread titles on the development of other archetypes has never motivated me to want to move in that direction.  It is usually tournament results or suggestions from friends that influence me to change-up decks.

3) I don’t get the separation between articles and Article discussion – if its just articles on TMD v. Articles posted elsewhere on the web why not just put a [TMD] tag on those that need it. If it’s a primer section (which it seems to be right now), why aren’t they in the deck discussion forum?

Agreed.

4)Tournament Section: Who really had trouble reading it? Results especially need to be together, and again it seems like you are trying to fracture the metagame/community.  We want Euro’s/other US regions to know about our tourney scene and vice versa, especially for large events where there might be travel options.

My opinion: results should be in the same thread for everyone to see, but regionalizing Tournament Announcements makes complete sense to me.  If it's a particularly large/notable tournament, then maybe a link to that thread could be stickied in each forum.

[Killane]

1) Newbie forum at the TOP of the page: If you aren’t new to the format, you prob aren’t new to TMD. Therefore we know to skim past the newbie forum, BUT if you are new it should be the easiest forum to find. It should be the first thing they see. It’s also helpful if it’s the first thing older member see to remind them to help out if they see a new post asking a new question.

I agree with nataz on this.  Seems very reasonable.

2) Child Boards: Child boards in general are a bad idea, it needlessly separates information under layers of clicks. Depth is your enemy when there is a low amount of traffic. What you really want is something horizontal in design that keeps the idea of promoting the pillars/or regions, without having to click into deeper categories.

It would be different if each category survived as its own little ecosystem, but I’m not sure any of the new child boards alone are large enough to promote growth from cross pollination. All you get is more inbreeding where the people who like Blue control read the blue control forum, and rarely traverse into the workshop forum. If it’s all on the same page, no matter what kind of cubby hole you live in (and let’s be honest here, most vintage players have some sort of comfort zone), you are forced to look at other threads and other deck ideas. This forced mixture of different knowledge, skills and abilities is a good thing for such a small community. It’s good that all the control players have to notice that the tread on TPS or Ichorid is getting a lot of attention.

For an example of why the child board/pillar set up is awkward, look at the Ritual v. Control forums. From a quick glance the Blue control forum has about 3+ new topics each month. The Ritual has about 1 topic each month. Sheesh, the Bazaar forum goes from 2 topics in May with nothing else straight to December. That’s a really slow
turnover of ideas, and by separating  things further it will just make it worse.

I'm not sure if I agree with this.  The new Deck Discussion section is very much inspired by The Source, which has proven to be quite successful.  If we did revert back to the old layout, I would at least hope that the top-tier archetypes would be stickied like they are on The Source.  I think it's very convenient to have a definite location for discussion on popular decks like Oath or Tezz or TPS, and having these threads systematically structured.  It also is helpful in informing newbies and reminding the general readers about what the standard competition is.

As for losing cross-pollination, I suppose I can only speak for myself, but being able to see thread titles on the development of other archetypes has never motivated me to want to move in that direction.  It is usually tournament results or suggestions from friends that influence me to change-up decks.

3) I don’t get the separation between articles and Article discussion – if its just articles on TMD v. Articles posted elsewhere on the web why not just put a [TMD] tag on those that need it. If it’s a primer section (which it seems to be right now), why aren’t they in the deck discussion forum?

Agreed.

4)Tournament Section: Who really had trouble reading it? Results especially need to be together, and again it seems like you are trying to fracture the metagame/community.  We want Euro’s/other US regions to know about our tourney scene and vice versa, especially for large events where there might be travel options.

My opinion: results should be in the same thread for everyone to see, but regionalizing Tournament Announcements makes complete sense to me.  If it's a particularly large/notable tournament, then maybe a link to that thread could be stickied in each forum.

i like the child boards- if I want to talk about an archetype, weather because i want to play it or because i want to play against it, I like seeing all the topics together. Hopefully those interested in blue based control or whatnot recognise the need to stay abreast of the enemy and participate in the other forums. It's well organized and I think it may prromote more discussion on less-discussed archetypes.

[arctic79]

I like the new look guys.  Good Job, keep it up!

@Killane
Remind me to slap you with Webster's Dictionary on Saturday, you're smarter then you're letting on with that atrocious spelling.

[jtwilkins]

As a user who frequently searches for new tournament results (to post them to morphling.de), I have to say that this change made it much harder to find tournament results, which in my opinion are interesting for the whole community, regardless of region.
Maybe it would make sense to either create additional sub-forums "Results" to each region, or to have a results-forum separated from the regions where every tournament result can be posted.

I like the reorganization of the deck discussion area though  

I also agree that results should be in ONE forum. I didn't think it was cluttered at all, and it was the single greatest resource of magic I can think of.

Rest of it seems fine, good job guys.

Agee 100% - love the new Vintage Issues forum, the new layout for deck dicussion by archetype, etc.... but the tournament forum results should be in one forum.

+1  Results are significant regardless of region.

All these child boards and subforums are super redundant. The people are not going to know where to post and mods are going to spend a lot of time moving post around. I like the new decks set up but the rest is way overkill.

[Godder]

A major motivation behind this was to make it easier for new players to come along and learn about Vintage, and for new users to come along and actually use TMD. In the old structure, they came along, and everything was in one or two forums with no way of figuring out what was what. In this structure, looking at the front page immediately tells a new player where to go for decks and what the major pillars are from the board structure. Arguably this could have been done with a single deck forum and stickied threads for each major archetype, and we did consider that, but we wanted to make it easier to search for particular decks, and child boards helps that a lot.

Likewise, with tournaments split by region, new players (and players in general) can quickly and easily find tournaments in their own region which has to be good for TOs and players. Reports being separate was something we discussed, and may well go back to based on feedback, but a new player wanting to know what the tournament scene is like in their region will be more easily able to figure it out just from looking at the board for that region, as they can see the upcoming tournaments, and also read reports with the likely metagame, all in one place.

Separating out the strategy and card discussions was done to make it easier to specifically read about decks without having to wade through a pile of other stuff, and the Vintage Issues forum is the same concept.

The Article Forum is just the old one moved to the top of the Forum (it was at the bottom before, just above the archives). The basic plan is to give TMD articles a place showcasing them (and these can be primers, reports, set reviews etc, and could be moved in there from anywhere on TMD), and then another forum to discuss Vintage articles from anywhere (including the TMD articles). We want to promote TMD content in the hope of generating additional content, and chucking it in with stuff from the rest of the web isn't the best way to do that.

Across the whole overhaul, there's the hope that separate boards will generate extra discussion just by existing. Spell Pierce vs Mana Drain was a good discussion, and maybe having a forum just for that sort of thing will give people more ideas along those lines. A forum which promotes card discussion may lead to more forgetten gems being rediscovered. A strategy forum may promote threads like how to play a particular hand, or how to SB for a particular metagame, or how a specific matchup plays out. Separate pillar forums promotes somewhere to talk about Ritual decks, or Shop decks (etc), without discussions of Blue decks getting in the way, so maybe people will congregate there a bit more and more discussion and development will be the result.

All that said, the feedback has been good so far - thanks to everyone for that.

[Will]

As a whole, I like the changes that were made a lot.  Creating sub-boards in both region and pillar make things easier for someone like me who not to be selfish but doesn't really want to be forced to dig for results from their region or worry about not being able to find threads because everything is organized.  One adjustment that I think would be beneficial if at all possible would be to allow the users to customize the layout of the site to their tastes.  By this I mean that people would have the ability to choose between some templates but would also be able to create their own layout to fit their tastes.  Granted the cost as far as time and probably money would not be worth the perceived benefit because it would require every thread to be categorized into several groups, but it could be an idea for the future. 

[carl]

My opinion: results should be in the same thread for everyone to see, but regionalizing Tournament Announcements makes complete sense to me.

Agreed, as well as most of what Nataz said.
I remember when there was only a tournament forum (with announcements and results) and how unpractical it was. Splitting the announcement board is a good move, results should be one forum as it used to.

As for the decktype split, I don't know. Time will tell.