Suggestions for "Resources"

[Guest Digital-Photography-Forums]

1. Create a section for each branch of IP.Board that is still supported. 2.x whatever is probably EOL'd so it should go in an archived section for example. This would deter users from continuing to use it, request support to mods, and get countless hours of frustration. Anything that can have add-ons or mods should get it's on subsection as well. Since I don't think you can run IP.Content, or IP.Downloads without IP.Board these could be child forums for each version. For example

IPS Community Modifications (Main Category)
-IP.Board 3.1 (forum)
--IP.Downloads 3.1 (child forum)
--IP.Content 3.1 (child forum)
--IP.Whatever 3.1 (child forum)
--IP.Board 3.1 Paid Mods (child forum) - This is important. Separate the paid from free, users will be able to find paid mods easier, compare them and increase sales to coders.

-IP.Board 3.0 (forum)
--IP.Downloads 3.0 (child forum)
--IP.Content 3.0 (child forum)
--IP.Whatever 3.0 (child forum)
--IP.Board 3.0 Paid Mods (child forum) - This is important. Separate the paid from free, users will be able to find paid mods easier, compare them and increase sales to coders.

-IP.Board 2.x (forum)
--IP.Downloads 2.x (child forum)
--IP.Content 2.x (child forum)
--IP.Whatever 2.x (child forum)
--IP.Board 2.x Paid Mods (child forum) - This is important. Separate the paid from free, users will be able to find paid mods easier, compare them and increase sales to coders.

A similar setup for the skins/graphics.

IPS Community Styling (Main Category)
-IP.Board 3.1 Skins (forum)
--Graphic Packs

-IP.Board 3.0 Skins (forum)
--Graphic Packs

-IP.Board 2.x Skins (forum)
--Graphic Packs

2. Make proper use of prefixes, if a section for each branch isn't used. For example: (e$30) means absolutely nothing to me. At the very most when I went in there the first time I thought it meant the cost was $30 for the modification. Every mod that had a money sign, then a value after it I never once opened to check out till today to find it doesn't necessarily mean that. At the very least guidelines for prefix usage along with a guide to what they mean would be extremely useful to new IPB users. (such as InitialsVersion) Example: DPF31 (would be Digital-Photography-Forums IP.Board 3.1). This could go by the wayside however if things were organized properly, prefixes for any nature could be used then (43296^fd) and by the seciton, I'd know if it worked for my version.

3. Make IP.Downloads (or whatever is being used to house the downloads, support custom sorting. Sort by ratings, last update, newest mods, download count, comments, etc etc etc.

4. Limit the use of "IPS Resources Blog" for official updates. Give the 3rd party developers/coders/designers an entirely different section to blog their hearts content out in. This would eliminate confusion of association with IPS (I've seen this gripe numerous times, on numerous different forums). As a new user, when I see something posted in something official sounding like that, I have no choice but to assume the content in there is indeed official. At the very least this could be renamed "IPS Community Blog", to be more similar to other section headings.

While the mod community maybe lacking here, there isn't a need to make it hard to find things. Create an easier to use system, where users can find things and maybe the mod community won't appear to be dead, for all I know every thing in there now is for 3.1 or 1.3, nothing separates any of it, and it's totally unacceptable to me to have a section like that while trying to attract more modders. More regulation or guidelines on them isn't the answer, however organization is.

Best of luck in figuring that mess out, I'll be using google to try to search the site from here on out.

[bfarber]

1) Our setup used to mimic that - the problem is, MOST mods for 3.0 work on 3.1 (and the reverse is often true as well). A modder doesn't want to submit to two categories, so why separate them?

We disagree with separating paid and free mods. The only reason to do that is if you don't want to view paid mods. It wouldn't increase sales, and it only segregates modifications that are otherwise of the same classification based on their paid status. To me, it's easier to simply look at all those mods in one category and then if you don't want to see paid mods (or only want to see paid mods) use the filtering options. See #3.

2) The prefixes you see are 100% up to the submitter. I agree they can be confusing, but we also don't carry a heavy-handed approach and if a modder wants to use "lskjdklajsd" as their prefix, it doesn't really hurt anything.

3) It's already there.

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Click on it (same as in the forums)



Here you can filter paid, free, or both - and choose how to sort.

4) So your basic suggestion is to rename the blog? :unsure: I don't see what that serves myself. It's a blog regarding resources (not just modifications or skins, it can also include summaries of articles for instance) and thus that's how it's titled. It's not an "official" blog, although we do keep a loss eye on it.

[Elemental Crisis]

I agree the Resource section is a little bit cluttered and hard to navigate. I think separating by board version would be a nice start to making the Resource section more organized. You could combine 3.0 and 3.1 and have a custom field that allows the submitter to check if said mod works on 3.0, 3.1 or both.

[TestingSomething]

As far as not wantng to submit the same mod multiple times, add a feature where the same mod can be listed in multiple areas. I made a feature for someone where you could put something in multiple categories. Still the same row, but jsut listed in more than one place.