Author Topic: Handbook Discussion, what to do?  (Read 865 times)

Offline Power

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Handbook Discussion, what to do?
« on: March 19, 2023, 10:39:15 AM »
We've gone back and forth on this situation a bit, and right now everyone can post in the Handbooks forum without a Handbook Discussion thread, but that was based on people being able to post (Continued) into thread titles and having those posts be moved to the top of the thread. But that functionality (if it wasn't done manually) is no longer present. So where do we go from here? Do we try to ensure OPs can add new posts to the top of a handbook or do we move back to dedicated handbook discussion threads? It seems like we may as well go back to the dedicated discussion thread system, which a lot of people have come to expect by now.

I'm asking because I'm contemplating writing some new handbooks.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Handbook Discussion, what to do?
« Reply #1 on: March 19, 2023, 03:32:25 PM »
The Continued functionality is gone forever unless the person who wrote it up comes back and that seems unlikely, as far as I can tell it was manually coded and I have no idea how it was done.

You can either use a dedicated discussion thread or reserve posts at the beginning of the handbook up to however many you'll need and have discussions within the handbook thread itself (which was the practice before the handbook discussion threads started), your choice.

Offline Power

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Re: Handbook Discussion, what to do?
« Reply #2 on: March 19, 2023, 04:36:21 PM »
At present, it is no longer possible to start new threads in the Handbook Discussion forum (that was removed when the new method of Continued posts jumping to top was instated), and it's not possible to lock your own thread so only you can post into it either (although presumably such posts could be reported).

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Handbook Discussion, what to do?
« Reply #3 on: March 19, 2023, 05:32:15 PM »
Locking your own handbook thread has never been and will never be a thing because if you can lock your own handbook then you can lock all of the handbooks, even when all discussions were supposed to be in discussion threads no threads were ever locked down.  People locking their own threads only happened when they got a dedicated sub-forum (which is pretty exclusively relegated to Homebrew and PbP).

I hadn't realized that the handbook discussion section had been locked down preventing new posts, you are correct and I didn't realize because making new handbook discussion threads just hasn't been requested since we moved back to discussions in the handbook threads themselves.  I take it that you don't want to reserve posts for new guides and you want to go back to dedicated discussion threads?

Offline Skyrock

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Re: Handbook Discussion, what to do?
« Reply #4 on: March 19, 2023, 05:44:41 PM »
The Sohei handbook was created when the (continued) subject still worked, and all the discussion already went into the main thread until it broke. I simply have left it the way it is because requesting to have discussion moved and backlinked would be too much hassle.

For the upcoming Voodan handbook (ETA between Duke Nukem Forever and Chinese Democracy) I would probably prefer a separate discussion thread.

Offline Power

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Re: Handbook Discussion, what to do?
« Reply #5 on: March 19, 2023, 08:54:45 PM »
Probably for the best, yes. Sometimes I find myself expanding the handbooks I've written. I know I have some I wrote years ago where I keep adding bits to them here and there and then it becomes another new post and so on. And I know sometimes people expect a handbook to have a discussion thread and take the lack of a discussion thread for an indicator there is none (but that is easily remedied by mentioning in the handbook post itself that comments can be posted directly to the thread).

Previously the system was that you had to be a member of the DnD Handbook Writers group in order to be able to post in the Handbook forum, but now it's gotten mixed up with the (Continued) system that no longer works. May as well go back to the old way of doing things. Looks like making some kind of thread-lock so that only OP and moderators can post into it isn't an option unless someone is willing to modify the forum code a bit.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Handbook Discussion, what to do?
« Reply #6 on: March 19, 2023, 09:39:35 PM »
The only person who was ever trusted with modifying the forum code and also knew what they were doing hasn't logged in in years so that's pretty much a non-starter.

I talked it over with Strat and we have no issue with going back to the old way for Handbooks so those permissions have been reverted (the Handbooks section can now only only be posted in by mods and people with the word Handbook in a member group title, the Handbooks Discussion section is now like any other regular part of the website in terms of permissions).