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Please don't get rid of the megathreads, they are awesome. The CSM has a great group of regular contributors and it's a great place to bounce ideas around with people.

The tactics forum as a whole I find is pretty uninteresting because I only want to read the stuff related to CSM. Maybe if the threads could have an army flag set so that people could filter based on army it would be a bit easier to find relevant content, while preventing "disintegration" by creating sub-forums.

The megathreads just need to be refreshed more often, otherwise the big summaries at the start eventually become useless.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
The megathreads just need to be refreshed more often, otherwise the big summaries at the start eventually become useless.

Megathreads form an anchor for the tactics of a faction.
Splitting the big threads up into tiny threads is counter productive.

 wuestenfux wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
The megathreads just need to be refreshed more often, otherwise the big summaries at the start eventually become useless.

Megathreads form an anchor for the tactics of a faction.
Splitting the big threads up into tiny threads is counter productive.

They're also unwieldy and hard to find information in. It'd be nice if threads were more specific. That might make each one smaller and slower, but it'd also make things easier to find and I'd know if it was a topic that interested me. It is kinda annoying to see a faction thread get updated and then all the new posts are about painting/pricing/casual play.

 Lorek wrote:
Sasori started a Necron thread here:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/788624.page

I think, seeing it now, that this may be a much better place for the megathreads. You can link from this thread into specifics in the Tactics forum, but can also expand out to background, modeling, etc in these threads as well.

So youre saying megathreads will not get banned if theyre started in the general discussion section?

Audustum wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
The megathreads just need to be refreshed more often, otherwise the big summaries at the start eventually become useless.

Megathreads form an anchor for the tactics of a faction.
Splitting the big threads up into tiny threads is counter productive.

They're also unwieldy and hard to find information in. It'd be nice if threads were more specific. That might make each one smaller and slower, but it'd also make things easier to find and I'd know if it was a topic that interested me. It is kinda annoying to see a faction thread get updated and then all the new posts are about painting/pricing/casual play.

Not sure what your policy.

I'm checking the megathreads of interest every day.
This is sufficient to be up to data.
If you do this on a weekly or monthly basis, you'll have trouble.

 Lorek wrote:
Sasori started a Necron thread here:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/788624.page

I think, seeing it now, that this may be a much better place for the megathreads. You can link from this thread into specifics in the Tactics forum, but can also expand out to background, modeling, etc in these threads as well.

It'd also be a nice change to see General Discussion full of faction talk rather than complaining about 40k rules in general (which isn't off-topic for the general board, it's just a change I personally would find refreshing).


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Spartacus wrote:

 Lorek wrote:
Sasori started a Necron thread here:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/788624.page

I think, seeing it now, that this may be a much better place for the megathreads. You can link from this thread into specifics in the Tactics forum, but can also expand out to background, modeling, etc in these threads as well.

So youre saying megathreads will not get banned if theyre started in the general discussion section?

That's basically it. I'm a frequent checker and do check daily, usually, but even I'VE had trouble when I go without checking for a couple days/a week.

Audustum wrote:

 Lorek wrote:
Sasori started a Necron thread here:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/788624.page

I think, seeing it now, that this may be a much better place for the megathreads. You can link from this thread into specifics in the Tactics forum, but can also expand out to background, modeling, etc in these threads as well.

It'd also be a nice change to see General Discussion full of faction talk rather than complaining about 40k rules in general (which isn't off-topic for the general board, it's just a change I personally would find refreshing).

Active complaints about rules and GW is part of the community and should not be banned.

 wuestenfux wrote:

Audustum wrote:

 Lorek wrote:
Sasori started a Necron thread here:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/788624.page

I think, seeing it now, that this may be a much better place for the megathreads. You can link from this thread into specifics in the Tactics forum, but can also expand out to background, modeling, etc in these threads as well.

It'd also be a nice change to see General Discussion full of faction talk rather than complaining about 40k rules in general (which isn't off-topic for the general board, it's just a change I personally would find refreshing).

Active complaints about rules and GW is part of the community and should not be banned.

I didn't say that, just seeing faction megathreads there would be a welcome change from, say, the billionth debate on IGOUGO.

I agree that the megathreads are a nice place to discuss stuff related to your faction with people who are interested/invested in it.

I would much rather have an Aeldari tactics subforum that sees modest traffic, but is acessible, than have have to wade though multiple pages of marine tactics permuations.

If you play a smaller faction your discussions will simply be drowned out with this change.

Yeah I think faction or subfaction tactics should have an entire thread instead of breaking them up into potentially hundreds of baby threads for each one is going to make a lot more problems than it will solve. Here's a terrible idea by me, since I am amazing at those, but what if we implemented a table of contents? maybe use a hide spoilers option to have a table of contents that lists your new subject you are posting, the page you are on, and the date so we can drop that menu open, check the date to see if the tactica is up to date with current rules, and allows you to quickly get to the topic already covered? Just add your topic to the ToC and hide it as a spoiler, then type your post after the spoiler.

The biggest problem I see is the design of the forum in general. Why just one giant section for tactics, when we could do tactics-subforum-Custodes-sub forum rules/vs/list builds?

Thats how a lot of other forums I am part of do it. It seriously cuts down on the clutter, and promotes a more centralized posting ability. Want to discuss how the new Primaris vehicle is going to tear up your wardens? Tactics-Custodes-questions/help needed.

Want to discuss how your new NEcron army build is going to run the tables at ITC this year? Tactics - Necrons - List building.

Want to just post some inflamatory stuff about how much the new model rules suck and you can't believe what that Primaris SGT is capable of with his new Thunder hammer rules? Tactics - Space Marines - General Discussion

You could even go higher and make Imperium/Xenos/Heretic Forums Under the tactics. Then it's Tactics - Heretics - Wordbearers - List building - "My new Word Bearer's army 1500 points"

Honestly, why still use master threads when you could easily make sub forums? Is the website hosted by Netscape Navigator or something?

Netscape navigator... now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Honestly, why still use master threads when you could easily make sub forums? Is the website hosted by Netscape Navigator or something?

Usually I don't mock people for incredibly uninformed statements, but because it was mentioned earlier in this thread...

SHHHHHH.

The adults are talking here.

Is it as difficult to rename existing sub-forums as creating new ones?

If not, I think three subforums, (Tactics & Lists: Imperium / Tactics & Lists: Chaos / Tactics & Lists: Xenos) could work, and could be acheived by renaming the existing Lists and Tactics forms, but would still need one other to be sacrificed.

From what I gather Dakka isn't built on commercial grade forum software and is instead custom built. Whilst this comes with many benefits of its own, it also seems that the back-end is more complex as a result.

It sounds like instead of a simple "add section" button that just adds a new section, there's more back end work required to add sections. this might also complicate closing sections down as well.

Heck even commercial software has limits of its own - I recall in the past that deleting too many threads from VB software could cause database issues (hence why many mods/admin of that era advised hiding instead of deleting).

Can I ask where you got this info?

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Can I ask where you got this info?

It was mentioned earlier in the thread that the boards software was custom built.


I've been thinking about some of the comments in this thread. Something worth considering is that to get useful search results, the topics need to be categorized into a useful format. For example, if I wanted to know about how to use Tau Shooting to its best, I don't want to see everything else about people trying to avoid it. Maybe some sort of tag system could help here? But otherwise I would expect people to avoid the search function and just post a new topic.

So... no more faction specific threads?

Quite often I'll drop into the Chaos or Eldar thread, and drop in a "I have a few issues / questions / discussion ideas" message covering several factors, and then there will be a page or two discussing various things about pros and cons and interactions.

In this new format... I guess I'd have to write 5 different posts, in 5 different threads (maybe 2 or 3 of them I'd have to start new threads for).

So there would be no discussion of overlaps or interactions, as each person would be only commenting on the one thing that's relevant to that specific thread?

It'd also mean most people will just write the same post they always did, but start it in a whole new thread. Meaning that I can't just subscribe to 'Chaos' and catch up on all the topics of the week, I'd have to manually check every post in the tactics forum for anything that seems like it might be chaos related, and then subscribe to each individually if I want to keep up with updates... making my subscription list even more of a clusterfeth.


... so I'm not really seeing the advantage to any of this? I may be missing a point somewhere.

Wouldn't this just make it just more of a cluster mess?

Some armies might now have 10-15 topics, sure it would be easier to talk about each topic but you will have many MANY more people just creating topics.

Some concerns.

1) People will recreate each tactic is a different topic and won't search for one already created
2) Topics will (and already do) get off topic, making mix tactics in each one
3) How are people going to talk about the army in general outside of hard tactics? Example, Is this weapon best on this unit? Each faction has 8-100+ units, are we going to have topics per unit and per faction too?
4)What about stratagems, relics, WL traits and general army/unit builds? Same as #3, lots of topics or each?

I get the idea, but in practice IDK how it is going to work.


IMO doing something like this is better

-Each faction gets a:
1) "Tactics for vs Armies" - this is all talk about fighting against any armies and no just 1 topic for 1 army vs 1 army
2) General tactics for building an army and discussion

Then if we need to split it up more we can.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
PS: Why not have a section of Factions forums like most other websites?

(I remember a thread in general discussion that raised similar concerns about the "mega threads"),

As someone who contributed heavily to that thread, I support the mods decision on this. Would love to see th emega-threads locked too once 9th hits.

Also wondering if I could float a suggestion? Can we please separate "conjecture" threads from those based on actual knowledge? One of my biggest issues with the Tactics mega-threads is the fact that they start as soon as even a rumor of something comes out. This results in 5-6 pages of "What If", followed by half a dozen pages post-release, trying to sort what we THOUGHT we would get, vs what we AC TUALLY got, and then another handful of pages basically restarting the discussion. This made these so useless for so many people. Would be great if we could set something like "conjecture" in a thread title and then lock it when the real release happens?

Agreed with Sasori, the solution to me seems to have a more codified and moderated system of the megathreads. The ork megathread is extremely useful and I check it many times a day. Each faction could have a community manager/OP that is responsible for starting and maintaining the OP.

Simply banning them all is imo a poor idea and will lead to less productive discussion on this board.

Audustum wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
The megathreads just need to be refreshed more often, otherwise the big summaries at the start eventually become useless.

Megathreads form an anchor for the tactics of a faction.
Splitting the big threads up into tiny threads is counter productive.

They're also unwieldy and hard to find information in. It'd be nice if threads were more specific. That might make each one smaller and slower, but it'd also make things easier to find and I'd know if it was a topic that interested me. It is kinda annoying to see a faction thread get updated and then all the new posts are about painting/pricing/casual play.

Getting rid of them Alone won’t make information more accessible Or easier to find. Indeed the less popular factions will be drowned out by topics of factions more popular

If you want to do individual threads, sub forums are the way to go

Going to throw in my 2 cents here.

I use dakka fairly irregularly, not really posting or checking every day. But when I do come on, I pretty much exclusively look at the megathreads for my factions, then might end up browsing the rest of the forum.
It's really nice to be able to come on and find a lively discussion about my faction, and while I think they can be very difficult to find specific information in, it is always far easier to just directly ask the question- personally I have never had a question ignored, and if I ask a question I get an up to date and relevant answer.
I'd be greatly saddened to see them removed and dakka as a whole would lose some of its appeal to me

 McMagnus Mindbullets wrote:
Going to throw in my 2 cents here.

I use dakka fairly irregularly, not really posting or checking every day. But when I do come on, I pretty much exclusively look at the megathreads for my factions, then might end up browsing the rest of the forum.
It's really nice to be able to come on and find a lively discussion about my faction, and while I think they can be very difficult to find specific information in, it is always far easier to just directly ask the question- personally I have never had a question ignored, and if I ask a question I get an up to date and relevant answer.
I'd be greatly saddened to see them removed and dakka as a whole would lose some of its appeal to me

I agree completely .

I don't think some people who play the more popular factions have a clue how hard it is to get your questions seen/answered if you have a more niche codex. Life in this hobby is very different if you don't play some shade of marine, and in a Tactics free-for-all, the smaller factions will inevitably be shunted further and further out of sight.

I'm checking the megathreads of interest every day.
This is sufficient to be up to data.
If you do this on a weekly or monthly basis, you'll have trouble.

This is the problem for a lot of people. They don't have time to check everyday. And even if they did, if you haven't checked those threads everyday, basically from the beginning, they're still pretty useless. A lot of my group loves Dakka, but no one sends new players here for tactics anymore because it's utterly impossible to figure out some of the mega-threads by simply "jumping in".

That said, sub-forums is probably a good compromise, although I'm loathe to suggest anything that's going to be a ton of work for volunteer mods ...

Would very much prefer the current megathread format, for what it's worth.

A Tactics Discussion sub forum - for mega threads/discussions; and a Tactics Questions sub forum - for specific questions on tactics.

Breaks it out a little without creating too much work for the mod/admin, and you can always link from one to the other.

This is a bad idea.

The current way is perfect for 'catching up' as it were on everything going on in your faction. Been out of the loop a while, no worries, enter the single thread and read the posts from the last few months. Starting a new faction, no worries, read through the single post of that faction to see what people are thinking.


If you have all this scattered about the place, this becomes very difficult. You'll have numerous instances of repeated topics and duplication, and you'll fracture the mini faction oriented sub communities.

So, I just was made aware of this thread.

First, the most important thing: Am I allowed to start a new ork thread for 9th or not?

About the issue with the derelict first posts of many mega-threads, this is just the issue of multiple people wanting to be the first to create these threads when a new edition drops. There is some imaginary karma attached to being the person who started these threads, but most don't realized it's quite a lot of work beyond of pressing "New Thread". Feth creating and updating those rainbow lists, really. The main reason why the ork thread is maintained by me is because the other dakka orks asked me to create a new thread when the guy who created the original thread for 8th went AWOL a few weeks after he did. Otherwise, the ork thread's first post would look much like the one for, say, Death Guard.
Every other faction can do the same, just find some active person from your faction's community to maintain your first post, have them create a new thread, post the link into the old one and ask the mods to close it.
Heck, I'd even been fine with having a forum rule that requires first posts of mega-threads to be updated regularly or closed down.

But hands down just disallowing them? The ork thread is my primary reason for regularly checking dakka, we have great community going on there that I wouldn't want to miss. If this is no longer allowed in tactics, I want a place where we orks can share stuff instead.
I still remember how the tactics forum looked like when there weren't any megathreads in the beginning of 5th edition. Most of the forum was about space marines, and the rest was littered with awesome threads like "how do I kill landraiders?", "Need help" or "spacemarines 2000pts" with no way of knowing what faction(s) were involved. You would open ten to twenty threads at once to find out that only two or so were actually about stuff you cared. Since then the community of dakka has increased in size, we have vastly more factions, we have soup.
The removal of mega-threads will bury less played factions below all that crap. I'm not worried about orks, there are plenty of vocal players here. But DG? Yeah, I doubt I'll ever see DG tactics discussed on dakka again.

As for the search function argument... sorry, it sucks and splitting threads will not solve that problem, quite the opposite. I have trouble finding my own posts with it, even if I know the exact wording of something I wrote in there. It's just a decade(s) old mechanism that isn't anywhere near how modern search engines work. I fully understand the troubles of maintaining customized commercial software, especially with the limited amount of manpower you have, but don't try to bend the users around the software's limitations


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
3: A lot of posting that's more appropriate to the Army List subforum gets sucked into the megathreads instead.

Ironically, we had a discussion about this in the ork thread. The issue with the Army List forum is that many posts are just army lists without any explanation, or people who just keep posting whatever they just cooked up in battlescribe today. The last third of posts are people who just want praise for the list they have designed and will take any criticism personally. For this reason we implemented the "Lists in spoilers or we'll crump ya" rule.
IMO the entire army lists sub-forum is utterly useless when it comes to discussing tactics.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kcalehc wrote:
A Tactics Discussion sub forum - for mega threads/discussions; and a Tactics Questions sub forum - for specific questions on tactics.

Breaks it out a little without creating too much work for the mod/admin, and you can always link from one to the other.

This seems like a good solution to me as well. Get the best of both worlds.