Why did the forums change? Firstly it's imo completly useless to put MX KO & MTC together. Seconly Splitting Chat, Site Discussions, General help, and site discussion info was very good, since they don't really belong to each other (probably only Discussion & info). Now there are only big sections which make it damn confusing, which literally has no advantage at all. Keeping such an organized forum would maybe even attract tmnfx useres, since it's easier for them to find something here, but this atm seems like a mess, sorry.

Any other opinions?

Please ask the users before such changes are made, if they even want this or are interested in such change. I don't see any real reason behind this. We users keep this website alive, even if it's rather just a junkyard for stadium maps without any active stadium community using this website.

E/why is the offtopic thread listed under ManiaExchange

Thanks for your interest in the changes.
Actually the forum changes have been carefully thought out, and input was taken from the rest of the MX crew.

A more comprehensive post about the changes will be posted when the transition is finished. Right now it's still in progress (as the front page post indicates).

Suffice to say, many forums were dead or nearly dead, or with very few posts over the past year. Others were confusing to users and often the same type of post got posted in multiple forums. For example, Site Bugs often got posted to General Help.

This is a way to refocus the attention on active forums, so users don't join and see a big list of forums with the last post being from months or even years ago.

If, after the changes are completed, there's demand for some additional changes, and they make sense to implement, we can consider it of course.

Ok, that's true. But could you please split up ko & mtc?

or just put "competitions" and then subthreads (MTC / KO ), it'll be easier for ppl to follow the competition they're in

AR »DrHugs. says:
or just put "competitions" and then subthreads (MTC / KO ), it'll be easier for ppl to follow the competition they're in

Competition/Events/Projects

Thanks for the input guys.

We can't do subforums on MX, but I made a category for Projects & Competitions and moved everything there.

I also split MX Knockout and MTC to separate forums. On paper it seemed like a good idea, since there's so few Knockout threads. But yeah, once implemented it looked kinda crowded.

The work continues...

Been a while ... looking good guys!

Hey Forzyy, thanks! Nice to see you here.

So, I said I'd post about the forum changes when they were completed. I think they're pretty much done, so I'll give a little overview.

Online Servers forum
This was a forum that never achieved it's full potential. The idea was to have a central place where players and mappers could communicate with server owners. It ended up being a place primarily just for promotion of servers. And the majority of servers promoted there aren't even online anymore. In 2016 only 2 posts were made there. Some of those topics got moved to the General forum, a few got moved to the Help forum, the rest were deleted (they can be easily undeleted if someone is missing one).

Site Discussions forum
The idea for this forum was to have a single place to discuss feature requests or other discussions relating to the site. It was super active when the site started, because a lot of features were still missing. Over 136 feature requests were implemented over the years (based on topic count). General discussions about the site have been moved to the new General forum. Feature request topics from Site Discussions have been moved to a set of private forums for the developers where the remaining requests are being sorted for possible implementation in the future. When new features are added they'll be listed in the Public Changelog topic. Future requests can be made in the General forum or sent directly to the moderators via PM.

Site Bugs forum
The "Site Bugs" forum was very useful at the start of MX. The site was new and had a lot of bugs. It's still not bug free, but the majority of bugs have been fixed. In fact, some 292 bug reports were fixed (based on topic count). And that doesn't include numerous bugs submitted via PM to the moderators. Now that the site is going on 6 years old, it was time to close the old Site Bugs forum. The topics have been moved to some private forums for the developers. A forum for fixed bugs and a forum for bugs that haven't been fixed yet. Future bugs can be reported in the new Help forum or you can PM the crew directly.

General Help forum
Still a very important forum. But it's been renamed to Help.

Track Building & Media Tracker forum
It was never a super active forum, but it did serve an important purpose of being a place to find answers to questions about track building and working with MediaTracker. However, the same questions can easily be answered in the Help forum. Tutorials from this forum have been linked in the stickied Tutorials topic.

Tools, Manialinks, & Maniascripts forum
Most of these topics can be found in the new User Created Assets forum.

Your Tracks forum
This forum has been renamed User Creations, and it now includes Screenshots and Videos as well.

TrackMania 2 Videos forum
Most of these topics have been moved to the new User Creations forum.

General Graphics forum
In the past, this was a very active forum. In recent years, not so much. Only 5 posts were made here in 2016. The topics have been filtered into other areas, such as Help, User Creations, and User Created Assets, depending on the topic. The big wallpaper topic is stickied in the User Creations forum. That was one of the biggest topics from this forum.

Community Projects & Competitions forum
This is the same as the old Projects & Competitions forum. Just renamed to add "Community" to it.

Monthly Track Contest forum
The same as before, but some old Monthly Screen Contest topics were moved here from the General Graphics forum.

TrackMania 2 Mods forum
Only 4 new posts in that forum in 2016. The topics about texture mods have been moved to the User Created Assets forum. Topics about how to do texture modding, have been moved to the Help forum and added to the Tutorials sticky.

Screenshot Competitions & Requests forum
Completed screenshot competitions have been moved to a hidden forum so as not to crowd the Community Projects & Competitions forum. New screenshot competitions can be held in the Community Projects & Competitions forum. If the graphics community gets more active again, we can always bring back the Screenshot Competitions forum. There was only 5 screenshot contests in all of 2016. Maybe it's because it's so easy to make your own screenshots in TM2.

TrackMania 2 forum
This forum was renamed to "General" and now also contains general site discussions, and talk about the community and the game itself.

The Off Topic Pit of Oblivion forum
Unchanged

The Christmas Advent Calendar and PlayPal Online forums have also been hidden. Christmas Advent Calendar hasn't been active since 2014. PlayPal Online is currently offline. Both forums can be brought back when and if needed.

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So, those were the old forums. We went from having 17 public forums to 8 public forums. It hopefully simplifies things a little and helps make the forums feel a little more active.

In way of review, these are the current forums:

General TrackMania & ManiaExchange discussions
The place for general discussions about the site, community, or the game.

Help Ask & answer questions, or write a tutorial
Basically if you have a question or problem, or want to explain how to do something, this is the place to do it.

Community Projects & Competitions
The place to organize as a community or invite others to participate in your competitions and events.

Monthly Track Contest
This is where the official MTC is held.

MX Knockout
There's not many topics here, but this is where the KO results can be found, as well as information about map building for the KO map pools. These topics were moved to their own forum so as not to clutter the Community Projects & Competitions forum. You can also find the start times and rules here.

User Creations Share your tracks, screenshots, and videos
This is where to have a topic about your creations and update it each time you release something new so others can keep up with your stuff. You can also find some stickies here that are of interest to mappers and screenshot makers.

User Created Assets Share your skins, signs, mods, scripts, objects, tools, and titlepacks.
This forum is for things you make that are available for others to use in their own creations.

The Off Topic Pit of Oblivion
If your topic doesn't have anything to do with TrackMania, then it probably goes here. Of course, it's important to follow the rules. Just because it's off topic doesn't mean everything goes.

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Hopefully this helps those who wonder about the logic behind the changes.

We'll take any suggestions or complaints under advisement.

At the start I didn't like this new forum style, but now I really like it. Some nice work you did there with implementing feedback & the community's opinion.

With the smaller community MX has now, I think it's working really well.