Forum:Too many short ruling query forums

The Forum:Yu-Gi-Oh! Ruling Queries is quite overflowing with extremely short forums. Many of them are just one person asking a question or questions, someone answers, they say thanks and then that forum is never used again. We've got over a thousand such forums, many of which don't have more than 8 comments and are hardly ever refered back to after a few days.

Could I suggest, we have 1 main forum for ruling queries? Rather than someone starting a new forum when they have a rulings question, they could just start a new ==Header== in the existing forum. People can answer the questions and ask related questions under the same header. To stop the page getting too long we just move old topics to an archive page. This way people might even find a question similar to theirs has already been answered.

Thoughts? -- Deltaneos (talk) 16:53, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I think a better format would be to allow one topic for each user, and whenever the user has a question he/she can post within his/her own topic. For example, I make a topic called Sub's Questions. Whenever I have a question I'll post only within my own topic instead of making a new topic for each question. Then other users can come in and answer the question. -- Sub 19:45, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

By topic, do you mean section on the master forum or individual forum?

• If you mean individual forum:
  That is like having another type of user page. People may fall subject to thinking they are the owner of a forum. While people can't actually own pages. Plus we get a number of anonymous editors asking questions in this section and having a forum associated with an IP address, just wouldn't work. If it's the idea of just one page for ruling queries, that's the problem. We don't necessarily have to have just one. There may be some way of splitting ruling queries into different types and having one forum for each.
• If you mean section on the master forum:
  That would cause difficulties when trying to archive.

--Deltaneos (talk) 20:10, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I think it is better as it is now. ATEMVEGETA 21:14, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Is the problem that the page has become too long? Would it be possible to set up the forum like the Recent Changes, so that you only see the latest 50 threads, and then click to see the next 50? --Deus Ex Machina (Talk) 23:49, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Another Proposal

To dredge up an ancient topic (since I edited it to update one of the forums it's in anyways) I've been thinking for a while now about having one forum topic per card, and linking it from the various card pages alongside the other "extended" card info. Thoughts? 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 07:34, July 30, 2010 (UTC)

Sounds nice but it will need a serious amount of work as you will need to link every single card to its own thread.-- HHTurtle  (Talk) 07:42, July 30, 2010 (UTC)

Nope, just one edit each to {{CardTable2}} and {{Navigation}} would be sufficient; from there it would be a matter of clearing the cache on all pages transcluding those templates to ensure the links appear, and that part can be done by bot (even by AWB, actually). 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 07:58, July 30, 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I understand. It will feel weird though to ask people to sign the post in what is essentially an article page.-- HHTurtle  (Talk) 08:00, July 30, 2010 (UTC)

Not necessarily... the link text would likely be some variant of "Card Discussion/Questions", thus making clear that the page is not intended as a normal article. This system would also have the benefit of letting us track what people frequently ask about with certain cards, and thus create a FAQ when necessary, right on-page. 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 08:03, July 30, 2010 (UTC)

QQ, so... why don't we have a search box just above the add new topic button, with a note encouraging people to search before asking? -Falzar FZ- (talk page|useful stuff) 07:46, July 30, 2010 (UTC)

Wow, you just asked the first question that I asked in this Forum when I just started. The weirdest thing is you were the one to answer me. The search engine isn't accurate. Take me for an example, I always type "Forum rulings" before anything when I want to search for ruling queries. It will always come up with a lot of random stuff even with the search engine set to only search the Forum.-- HHTurtle  (Talk) 07:51, July 30, 2010 (UTC)

I did...? I don't recall it...
Then how about having a link above the add new topic button to a page with a compiled list of Frequently Asked Questions? (and note) -Falzar FZ- (talk page|useful stuff) 08:00, July 30, 2010 (UTC)

I recall telling someone about the search, and gave them a link... I don't think it was you though.

No response on the idea of a FAQs ruling page? -Falzar FZ- (talk page|useful stuff) 11:30, July 31, 2010 (UTC)

Would it be better to use each cards individual "discussion" page to ask about rulings of that card? That way it's just one page being modified and edited rather than a lot of small pages being used once?Skullservant (talk • contribs) 15:53, July 30, 2010 (UTC)

No, the Discussion page is used for discussions that concern the edits of the article page. Otherwise, it will be really messy.-- HHTurtle  (Talk) 02:30, July 31, 2010 (UTC)

Also, I've seen people ask the same question over and over again on the same talk page, so that idea doesn't work too well anyway.

Furthermore, when people do that. Many questions are pushed off the recent changes list and are lost. Not many people who actually check the talk pages bother to answer questions on those talk pages. I've see questions that have been ignored since 2009... -Falzar FZ- (talk page|useful stuff) 11:30, July 31, 2010 (UTC)

This goes to Dinoguy's proposal that he mentioned on another Forum about how there should be a Forum Page about single card questions.

• If you were to do that, you would proably have to call the Ruling Queries Forum Page something else, since someone could put in a single card question in the Ruling Query Page and not think anything is wrong by doing that.
• Also, if you were to make that, what about the Help Desk Forum Page? People are continuously putting questions that should go in the Ruling Queries Page in the Help Desk Page.

Maybe a good idea is to split the Ruling Queries Forum Page into 2 columns: one for single card questions/rulings, and one for probably the only other thing, Blank vs. Blank.---Yugioh DED (talk • contribs) 09:01, August 2, 2010 (UTC)

Um, to my knowledge, the original point of this thread was because before Forum:Yu-Gi-Oh! Ruling Queries listed EVERY single Rulings thread that exists. At that time, Forum:Yu-Gi-Oh! Ruling Queries listed hundreds (maybe thousands?) of threads on that one page. This has since been fixed.

If there's some other issue, then are we going to do something about all the threads in Forum:Help desk or Forum:General Yu-Gi-Oh! Discussion or Forum:Yu-Gi-Oh! Deck Help? --Deus Ex Machina (Talk) 18:36, August 2, 2010 (UTC)

Also keep in mind that when someone starts a new forum discussion in the wrong forum, it's trivial to "move" the thread to the correct forum - simply update the {{Forumheader}} template to the correct forum. 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 00:29, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

We can use what the Japanese wiki do with their FAQs as an example.-- HHTurtle  (Talk) 13:44, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

There is also the Rulings:(Insert Card Name Here) Discussion page for the discussion of the rulings for each card. If a player has a question about a particular ruling the questions they all ask could be shown on the update page, or as some part of a search function so it's easier to respond. Metisou (talk • contribs) 18:06, August 4, 2010 (UTC)