Here is the relevant post (quoted below):
wrecan;16699216 wrote:
Everyone here needs to be aware that there is a new discussion going on in the Community Business forum concerning forum reorganization, and one of the proposals was to create separate subforums for each campaign setting.
Here is the relevant post (quoted below):
If you want this to happen, I encourage you to go post in that thread and make yourselves heard. If we don't, then we really don't have much right to complain if it doesn't happen.
to be perfectly honest, at this point i feel that WotC has missed the boat. or rather, pushed it out to sea forcefully, and any effort in making a subforum is more like calling out for them to please come back.
i know that the spelljammer forums at the Piazza, at least, have grown into a strong community, with a number of active members. i don't know that i particularly care to bother trying to bring them back here. i will, however, post this up on the piazza, on the off chance that the people there will be interested.
i just think at this point, it may very well be a day late and a dollar short.
--Ray.
Havard
to be perfectly honest, at this point i feel that WotC has missed the boat. or rather, pushed it out to sea forcefully, and any effort in making a subforum is more like calling out for them to please come back.
i know that the spelljammer forums at the Piazza, at least, have grown into a strong community, with a number of active members. i don't know that i particularly care to bother trying to bring them back here. i will, however, post this up on the piazza, on the off chance that the people there will be interested.
i just think at this point, it may very well be a day late and a dollar short.
The Piazza is definately _the_ place to talk about Mystara, but I still think wrecan's proposal would be a wise move for WotC.
Havard
I think they must realize that creating separate forums now won't get the same result as if the separate forums had been created in the first place, and there'd never been a merged "other worlds" forum. Nevertheless, I think that it would still be a good thing for the separation to occur, and I really can't think of a reason why anyone here would oppose it. (Not care much, yes, that I can understand.)
I think they must realize that creating separate forums now won't get the same result as if the separate forums had been created in the first place, and there'd never been a merged "other worlds" forum. Nevertheless, I think that it would still be a good thing for the separation to occur, and I really can't think of a reason why anyone here would oppose it. (Not care much, yes, that I can understand.)
Agreed. Getting the old forums back would be to everyone's interest.
Havard
I particularly like Forgotten Realms: Previous Editions
it's an improvement
I particularly like Forgotten Realms: Previous Editions
That seems to be off the board at this point with a Realmslore, Ruuning the Realms and General section
One upside I have noticed is new blood so to speak posting int various threads. I usually stuck to the Darksun ones but ometimes read/post in other worlds threads and some fo the Darksun threads ave a few new posters. Might be better like it is here with some stickies directing you to other websites that fans have migrated to. Most geeks seem to like multiple worlds.
The only upside to the merger was that it got people rubbing elbows who probably wouldn't have done so otherwise, and it provided a place for cross-setting topics. However, on the whole, I don't think that small benefit was enough to justify the merger; all things considered, the forum merger did more harm than good.
At one point in the discussion in Community Business, it was suggested that the main "Other Worlds" page could contain not only links to the world-specific subforums but also all of the collected posts from all of those subforums. That would still give you the upside you mentioned, while still creating room for each separate world's community to flourish. Maybe that would be the best of both worlds.
By the way, Solice (the new Community Manager) has posted her current reorganization plan, based on the discussion that has been going on in the thread in Community Business. You can find the most recent version here. It does include separate forums for Birthright, Dark Sun, Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Mystara, Planescape, Ravenloft, and Spelljammer, with a final forum for all other published worlds, including those produced by third parties.
This is great news! I think I like this new community manager
Havard
I could say I told you so to LK and all the others who dissed on us for wanting seperate forums for Mystara and the other out of print game worlds but I am a bigger man than that....
oops...
:DThe squeaky wheel gets the grease :D
I could say I told you so to LK and all the others who dissed on us for wanting seperate forums for Mystara and the other out of print game worlds but I am a bigger man than that....
oops...
I am not sure if LK dissed you for wanting your own forum for Mystara. I think his point was that under the rules set they didn't have the traffic to merit a seperate board. They still don't
hopefully, there will be a Mystara 4e setting to jumpstart it
I am not sure if LK dissed you for wanting your own forum for Mystara. I think his point was that under the rules set they didn't have the traffic to merit a seperate board. They still don't
I believe the thread count rules themselves were the show of disrespect as far as I'm concerned. And LK's defense of them was an extension of that disrespect.
I'm glad things are being re-evaluated but it will take a very long time to be completely repaired, if that's even possible. I still visit a few places here but it is no longer my 'home' D&D forum, and that is not about to change.
I believe the thread count rules themselves were the show of disrespect as far as I'm concerned. And LK's defense of them was an extension of that disrespect.
QFT.
Those rules were implemented in full knowledge that it would exclude the setting, and in full knowledge (or at least, very easily accessible knowledge) that defining the criteria for having a forum by other objectively-measurable stuff (such as post count) would have included some of the old forums that were excluded, and excluded some of the old forums that were included.
I am not sure if LK dissed you...
I did not say "you or me" I said "us"
The multiple posts on the subject was the dissmissal. Instead of ignoring what WE (as in many people who posted here) were griping about, he took it as his personal mission to respond to every post just to argue the new way of thread counting and posting.
-Lurk mode on. ;)
18DELTA
I believe the thread count rules themselves were the show of disrespect as far as I'm concerned. And LK's defense of them was an extension of that disrespect.
Naw, I think LK's alignment just skews closer to pure Lawful than that of the rest of us.
Seriously though, what Lord Karsus did here is explain the thread-count criterion and suggest that we make a concerted effort to achieve the numbers that would merit splitting. I don't fault him for that. I just never agreed that the thread-count criterion should be given the primacy that it was, and I believed that other considerations should have been taken into account here. He didn't appear to agree with me, but I never took his disagreement as a sign of disrepect.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease :D
There may be some truth to that, as it appears that our vociferous complaining convinced wrecan that this forum should be un-merged. (He was the one who introduced the suggestion in the Community Business thread.)
However, the timing also leads me to believe that the regime change at Community Management is not entirely insignificant.
Before the merger, there was a separate Oriental Adventures subforum, but that is not included in the current proposal. As a result, any posts concerning the Kara-Tur setting would have to go in the Forgotten Realms forums (probably FR General), and any posts concerning the Rokugan setting would have to go in the "Other Worlds (including 3rd Party" catch-all category. If there were an Oriental Adventures subforum, then I think it could accommodate both Rokugan and Kara-Tur (with the latter still being appropriate for the FR forums, as well).
-Rules are rules. I take is you dislike policemen a great deal?
As a supposed D&D player and/or DM you of all people should know that if the rules don't work...you change em.
I do not really understand your next statement. I take is you dislike policemen a great deal? I do not understand "I take is"
But if you are asking me if I like policemen or not is kind of a baseless question. YOU are not a policeman, and to imply that you are a policeman of the dungeons & dragons forums is absurd and laughable!
Seriously, the gall of some people on these forums is the reason a lot of people left.
Peace, LK. I hope someday we meet in real life so we can go out and I can buy you a beer and we can discuss your lack of respect for the posters on this forum. Maybe a policeman will happen along and join our conversation. ;)
I agree. This is a big "So what!" Mystara has moved on. It's too late.
This isn't about Mystara (and it isn't about Spelljammer). It is bigger than that. This issue is about D&D being more than Forgotten Realms and Ebberon. This issue is about campaign settings being treated as equal to FR and Ebberon.
I think they must realize that creating separate forums now won't get the same result as if the separate forums had been created in the first place, and there'd never been a merged "other worlds" forum. Nevertheless, I think that it would still be a good thing for the separation to occur, and I really can't think of a reason why anyone here would oppose it. (Not care much, yes, that I can understand.)
I think they must realize that creating separate forums now won't get the same result as if the separate forums had been created in the first place, and there'd never been a merged "other worlds" forum. Nevertheless, I think that it would still be a good thing for the separation to occur, and I really can't think of a reason why anyone here would oppose it. (Not care much, yes, that I can understand.)
This is a restoration of what we had before the forums were damaged, rather than something new. So we are not getting something better. We are getting back what was there in the first place. Someone broke this and now it has been fixed.
I'll carry on posting at The Piazza, but I have to agree it is good to see these forums getting fixed.
I think that these forums are going to be more filled with 4th edition (especially when the one setting per year plan starts to take hold). The Piazza forums are edition neutral, so people will be able to talk about both old and new stuff there. I think that there can be a place for both forums. (I think that 3rd edition fans might eventually prefer to hang around on The Piazza, but there is nothing to stop people having accounts on both forums.)
I think they must realize that creating separate forums now won't get the same result as if the separate forums had been created in the first place, and there'd never been a merged "other worlds" forum. Nevertheless, I think that it would still be a good thing for the separation to occur, and I really can't think of a reason why anyone here would oppose it. (Not care much, yes, that I can understand.)
The only upside to the merger was that it got people rubbing elbows who probably wouldn't have done so otherwise, and it provided a place for cross-setting topics. However, on the whole, I don't think that small benefit was enough to justify the merger; all things considered, the forum merger did more harm than good.
I used to post in several forums before the merger. The only thing that put me off was the small percentage of small minded people who used to put down other campaign settings (i.e. "my setting is great and your setting is rubbish").
The merger was wrong for two reasons.
1) It made it harder for conversations about minority campaign settings to stay on the front page.
2) It goes against WotCs policy of bringing back one campaign setting per year, because it dismantles the communities that will provide support to the new 4th edition fans.
At one point in the discussion in Community Business, it was suggested that the main "Other Worlds" page could contain not only links to the world-specific subforums but also all of the collected posts from all of those subforums. That would still give you the upside you mentioned, while still creating room for each separate world's community to flourish. Maybe that would be the best of both worlds.
I don't know if that would be possible with vBulletin. I've never seen it done elsewhere. The WotC forums are as unstable enough, as it is. They are clunky-slow and seem to be offline in UK daytime pretty much every Sunday.
This is great news! I think I like this new community manager
I like the new community manager too. I think it is going to take a long time for these forums to get back to what they were, but I feel very positive about this.
I am not sure if LK dissed you for wanting your own forum for Mystara. I think his point was that under the rules set they didn't have the traffic to merit a seperate board. They still don't
hopefully, there will be a Mystara 4e setting to jumpstart it
The problem with those "rules" is that they act against the long term interest of Wizards of the Coast.
Mystara, Spelljammer, Planescape and all the other things TSR created are IP that have a value to gamers.
Not everyone wants to play generic D&D or be forced into Forgotten Realms or Ebberron. These out of print campaign settings provide alternative options that allow more people to enjoy the game.
Destroying a forum (Mystara or Spelljammer or whatever) by merging its posts with unrelated subjects does not encourage more people to post.
And from the point of view of a Spelljammer fan, it is impossible to "keep up" with more popular settings. Over here I would be obliged to engage in a "bump war" to push down Mystara threads, so that I can get Spelljammer threads I am interested in onto the front page. Over here the largest community wins and everyone else looses. That is the reality of a merged forum.
However, over at The Piazza, which has a separation, I can write in their SJ forum and not have to compete with Mystara. Mystara has a lot more going on over at The Piazza, but the smaller Spelljammer community is able to grow at its own pace. Over there, rather than being rivals in a "bump war" the Mystara fans (the largest part of the community) become people you can hang out with in other forums and talk to. And with Mystara not being something that is "bumping me", I can enjoy the forum and actually visit the forum and read more about Mystara. I think I've learned more about Mystara since The Piazza started than in the rest of my time playing D&D.
That is good for SJ over there and would equally be good for SJ over here.
I think it would also be good for the other (smaller) communities.
-Rules are rules. I take is you dislike policemen a great deal?
I realise you were trying to "explain" things to us before, but I don't think you took onboard the fact that merging several Forgotten Realms communities creates a community that talks about Forgotten Realms, whereas merging several communities that all love campaign settings that each have their own canon (that is as large as Forgotten Realms) creates a community where the signal to noise ratio is too low for meaningful conversation.
This merged Other Worlds forum is not in the interest of the D&D community and goes against WotC plans for the future. It is not logical and never has been.
The answer to the low number of visitors here is to try to boost up the people using the forums - not kill of the conversation.
And if you can't understand that, please get an ENWorld account and try to see how easy it is to have Forgotten Realms conversations in a generic RPG forum.
It doesn't matter than less people talk about Planescape than Forgotten Realms. I'm happy that your game is supported better and has more fans. But Planescape is important to WotC and WotC needs to use "positive discrimination" (for want of a better term) to encourage Planescape fans to post here.
It really is that simple. It isn't about numbers or the turnover of posts - it is about campaign settings. For us minority fans a slow forum is still an attractive place - a merged forum isn't. You might not agree with us, but the boss does.
bigmac, well said. I think very few people realized the affects the forum merging was having on very diverse communities.
Multizar, I would love to drink a beer with you and talk Mystara (especially maps) just let me know when you are over my way.
Multizar, I would love to drink a beer with you and talk Mystara (especially maps) just let me know when you are over my way.
I want in on this event ;)
Havard
[ . . . ]
D&D Worlds[INDENT]
- Forgotten Realms: Realmslore
- Forgotten Realms: Running the Realms
- Forgotten Realms: General
- Living Forgotten Realms
- Eberron: Eberron Lore
- Eberron: Running Eberron
- Other Published Worlds
[/INDENT]
- Birthright
- Dark sun
- Dragonlance
- Greyhawk
- Mystara
- Oriental Adventures
- Planescape
- Ravenloft
- Spelljammer
- Other Worlds (including 3rd Party)
[ . . . ]
Thank you all again for your continued feedback and investment in the community!
We are currently scheduled to do this reorg on Monday, September 15th.
I know I put in my vote for this in the main discussion thread in Community Business, and would periodically visit (and contribute to) the restructured fora.
Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
-Rules are rules. I take is you dislike policemen a great deal?
Self-appointed policemen? Yes. As does society in general.
Self-appointed policemen? Yes. As does society in general.
LOL... Great come back Cthul.
Solice, I have a question. Will the contents of each Old World sub-forum be restored from the current melting pot forum? Or will we have to start again from a blank forum (which still exists, it's just locked), and go to the Old Worlds main forum for old threads?
I would assume threads can be moved around upon request once the re-org is completed. But that's just a hunch.
It'll mean somebody has to spend the time to go through the forum and make a list of threads that need moved and then post that list in the [thread=988683]D&D and D&D 4e Forum Lead Suggestions[/thread] thread.
This is correct, I asked the same question in hopes of a simple sollution.
Silly me. ;)
So, looks like we'll have to make lists of threads to have moved from the common "other worlds" forum back into the separate forums for each world.
This is going to be a job for more than one person. Let's try not to duplicate our work. If you want in on the thread-moving action, coordinate with people here or at least check the Forum Lead Suggestions thread and see which ones have already been included in a request. To make that easier, I'm going to suggest that requests to move threads should include not just a link to the web address or thread number, but also the name of the thread.
If anyone has any other suggestions about how best to do this, I'm sure we'd all appreciate hearing them.
Good thing some of us already started sorting through threads..
Havard
Or is there some secret admin tool I'm just not aware of?
Wouldn't the easiest first step be for the admins to simply move over those threads? Are lists of already tagged threads really that necessary to knowing which threads need to be moved?
Once that is done, then obviously any remaining untagged threads could be itemized.
How about this? Could a group of long-active (and theoretically trustworthy) individuals from each of the setting communities be temporarily granted the power to move threads? Of course, it is possible... but would the board admins consider it? A LOT of work could be done quite quickly that way without burdening the already busy board admins.
Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
Don't forget that the "Think we'll ever catch up to X" threads don't usually belong in X subforum.
Assuming they move all those threads, won't that change the page count on the "Other Published Worlds" forum?? Is that bad?
But... but... but... almost all the (current) threads in the Other Worlds forum already ARE tagged in their subjects as [Campaign world] or within the subject itself, such as mortellan's "Greyhawk Webcomic" thread (I think I can guess which forum that one should be moved to).
Wouldn't the easiest first step be for the admins to simply move over those threads? Are lists of already tagged threads really that necessary to knowing which threads need to be moved?
Once that is done, then obviously any remaining untagged threads could be itemized.
I'm not quite sure why we should be the ones to fix things when we weren't the ones to break anything.
It was so easy to dump all of the old forums into the merged forum, but apparently there's no easy way to put them back. Strikes me as a stupendous lack of foresight, to merge them all with no easy way to pull them back out.
I don't know why the admins didn't move the ones that are clearly tagged, at least from the first page or two, but I suspect that they didn't want to start down that road. This way, it's all on us.
And it's on us because we're the ones who care.
And it's on us because we're the ones who care.
LOL!!! Word!!!
Angel Blade
PS Let me know if there's anything a long time lurker can help with. :D
Don't forget that the "Think we'll ever catch up to X" threads don't usually belong in X subforum.
I don't think the moderators should bother moving those sort of threads. They are about the number of people writing about setting X rather than setting X itself. I think they are totally valueless to the D&D community as a whole, and that they should be locked and left in the uncategorised section until the next time they archive delete old threads.
Our priority should be tagging threads that discuss the elements of setting X, setting Y or setting Y. Anything relating to canon or fanon could help fans to understand that setting. We are only getting to move 5 threads per setting at a time, so they should be the best threads we can find. Our definition of "best threads" may differ (some people may value the most active threads, while others may value threads with highly researched information), but I can't see many people missing threads that pretty much say: "setting X has fans that talk more than setting Y".
This thread is just for the Other Worlds forum. All other requests should still be posted to this thread> http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=988683
Let's get some of the priority threads moved first. Each world can request 5 threads at a time. Also, let me know which ones you want stickied (With a limit of 3 per world.)
Here's the easiest format for me.
Move to Mystara:
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1035619
I know there are other ways to put links in, but it's much easier for me to double check which threads have already been moved if I can see the number right there.
When you see me post to this thread something like "Set" or "all done", that means all requests between that post and my prior post have been processed unless otherwise noted. That's when each world can make a request for 5 more threads. You don't have to wait (And I'm not going to wait) for each world to have a request in to process them. So, if Dark Sun, Mystara and Spelljamer have requests in, I process them, all worlds can submit 5 more, included the three that had their requests processed.
Not all threads need to be moved.
I also have a suggestion- if there are huge FAQ threads, it would probably be better if they were re-started/updated rather than moved. If the OP isn't around anymore, there's no way to get the FAQ updated. Many FAQ threads have lots of discussion, but these are usually change suggestions to the first few posts/faq. By restarting, we don't have to sift through hundreds of pages, and it looks cleaner/neater.
And finally, thanks for being patient. This may take a while, but we can at least get the really important threads moved.
/rolls up sleeves, and braces for impact
So there we have it. We can have our threads back in the appropriate subforums, but the merger was a one way process that can only be done manually.
Webster is going to help us, but we need to flag up groups of threads that are actually worth moving (i.e. lets not bother with any of those metathread where people say "Do you think we might catch up campaign setting X").
I agree with Webster about the "unattended FAQ" thing, but I'm not sure how we are going to know who is or isn't coming back, so I think that if we accidentally ask for an unattended FAQ to be pulled over, we could always repost it later (and add a redirect post to the end of the original FAQ and ask a moderator to lock the first thread).
I think we need one volunteer for each campaign setting community. Ideally what we need is someone who was writing in the original forum, who might remember what threads were the most important ones. But failing that, I think that someone who can just find the most recently active threads and manually read other threads, could also help.
Here is the current state of play with move request volunteers:
- Birthright - nobody doing this yet!
- Dark Sun - nobody doing this yet (although I did a couple of obvious ones)
- Dragonlance - nobody doing this yet
- Greyhawk - nobody doing this yet
- Mystara - Thorf is looking after these requests
- Oriental Adventures - IIRC we didn't have this one before
- Planescape - nobody doing this yet
- Ravenloft - nobody doing this yet
- Spelljammer - I am looking after these requests at the moment, but am busy at work, so wouldn't mind a bit of help
- Other Worlds (including 3rd party) - this didn't exist before, so should be OK
The campaign settings listed in bold are the ones that don't have anybody looking after them yet. If you can spare a bit of time to flag these up for Webster, please surf over to the "Other Worlds Thread Move Requests" thread and post the URLs there. (Please do not post move requests here as Webster is not monitoring this thread.)
If you are able to "adopt" a campaign setting, and help get its threads moved back, please post in this thread to say that you can do this, so that we can work out which ones need help. (If any of you are members of spin-off communities, it might also be good if you could spread the news. Again, please let people here know that you can do this, so we don't get duplication.)
Thanks!
I agree we should be moving important threads first, but I also think we should move possible problems threads too, as well as threads which do not make sense out of the context of their original boards.
Eventually I'd like to see all the threads restored to their original locations, although it's going to take rather a long time.
By the way, the best way to find threads for a particular board is to do a search for threads started by each user. Some users post in multiple boards, so you have to pick and choose for them, of course. But in general it works very well.
The "Think we'll ever catch up with (insert world name here)?" threads should definitely be moved into their appropriate forum, because they are meaningless here. Worse, outside the context of their original locations they could provoke flame wars and negative feeling, when they were originally created purely to encourage more posting.
I agree we should be moving important threads first, but I also think we should move possible problems threads too, as well as threads which do not make sense out of the context of their original boards.
Good point.
Eventually I'd like to see all the threads restored to their original locations, although it's going to take rather a long time.
By the way, the best way to find threads for a particular board is to do a search for threads started by each user. Some users post in multiple boards, so you have to pick and choose for them, of course. But in general it works very well.
Hmm. Well I mostly posted in Spelljammer, but have posted about 2-10 percent in other campaign settings. If you know people who are very tied into one setting you can probably use them as a good way to hunt threads down, but you need to actually know the people within a community to do that. (Sadly this means we need one or more expert volunteers from each communty to fix things.)
Another way (that will work with older threads) is to find the old WotC URLs (i.e. not the gleemax ones) and feed them into The Wayback Machine. If you do that, you can see complete working copies of all the original "Wizards COMmunity boards" (as they were called a few years back).
I think that anyone can work with that stuff (even someone who doesn't know much about a particular campaign setting. I've got a link to SJ at the Wayback Machine somewhere. I'll try to hunt it down, hack the URL and then get one for every campaign setting. (That might help you find some of the old Mystara threads a bit faster, although you seem to already be doing very well.)
For Mystara, a lot of posters only posted in that board, but a significant number of people posted in other old world boards too. So far I have been able to deduce very quickly what setting each thread on their list is from using the processes I just outlined. It's not as hard as it might seem.
The downside to this method is that you have to search out all the posters, and you won't find threads created by infrequent posters - especially if they only posted in their own threads. For this reason it's helpful to create a list of the community - check out my Mystara list over at the Piazza to see what I'm talking about.
Using these methods, I now have 144 posters and more than 1250 threads for Mystara documented.
It's not important to know about the community - you just have to be able to judge what campaign setting a post is for. As long as you are familiar with the setting in question, it's usually very easy to see what the topic of a thread is. Most people make it explicit in the thread title, and for those that don't you can read the mouse-over preview. It's only in a very small number of cases that you have to actually open up the thread and look to see what setting it was for.
For Mystara, a lot of posters only posted in that board, but a significant number of people posted in other old world boards too. So far I have been able to deduce very quickly what setting each thread on their list is from using the processes I just outlined. It's not as hard as it might seem.
For me, the problem isn't so much the difficulty as the time taken to do all of this. I've already picked up on a few of the tricks that you use, but I'm very pushed for time at the moment and this doesn't allow me to start things I can't finish very quickly.
The downside to this method is that you have to search out all the posters, and you won't find threads created by infrequent posters - especially if they only posted in their own threads. For this reason it's helpful to create a list of the community - check out my Mystara list over at the Piazza to see what I'm talking about.
The Mystara section of The Piazza is just one of the things that I've not been able to find the time to look at recently. But I will get over there as soon as I can make a bit of extra time, and I'll definately check out how you are indexing things. It sounds like if I clone your system, I can index the SJ threads without needing to do all the R&D.
Using these methods, I now have 144 posters and more than 1250 threads for Mystara documented.
You mentioned the downside, just now, but the upside is that every obvious Mystara thread that is moved, and every obvious Spelljammer thread that is moved, cuts down the number of remaining targets. Eventually, we will just have the ambigous threads and they could possibly be identified by more detailed investigation (like a Wayback Machine search of the Wizards COMmunity boards).
The Wayback Machine has made multiple copies of the Wizards COMmunity boards. Not every copy works. Some throw up messages telling you to log in (which obviously you can't do). But if you try all the different copies you can get long lists of thread titles from before the merge (and each of those thread titles lets you find out the thread number). This might allow people to quickly find masses of threads to go back into the appropirate subforums.
Dragonlance
Latest working copy: http://web.archive.org/web/20070702054453/http://boards1.wizards.com/archive/index.php/f-287.html
All other copies: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://boards1.wizards.com/archive/index.php/f-287.html
Dark Sun
Latest working copy: http://web.archive.org/web/20070702054524/http://boards1.wizards.com/archive/index.php/f-290.html
All other copies: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://boards1.wizards.com/archive/index.php/f-290.html
Greyhawk
Latest working copy: http://web.archive.org/web/20070702054330/http://boards1.wizards.com/archive/index.php/f-353.html
All other copies: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://boards1.wizards.com/archive/index.php/f-353.html
Mystra
Latest working copy: http://web.archive.org/web/20070702054357/http://boards1.wizards.com/archive/index.php/f-291.html
All other copies: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://boards1.wizards.com/archive/index.php/f-291.html
Planescape
Latest working copy (Gleemax!): http://web.archive.org/web/20071207201542/forums.gleemax.com/archive/index.php/f-292.html
All other copies: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://boards1.wizards.com/archive/index.php/f-292.html
Ravenloft
Latest working copy: http://web.archive.org/web/20070624234205/http://boards1.wizards.com/archive/index.php/f-293.html
All other copies: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://boards1.wizards.com/archive/index.php/f-293.html
Spelljammer
Latest working copy: http://web.archive.org/web/20070118044243/http://boards1.wizards.com/archive/index.php/f-294.html
All other copies: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://boards1.wizards.com/archive/index.php/f-294.html
Alternity Products (to be moved to: Other Worlds (Including 3rd Party) subforum)
Latest working copy: http://web.archive.org/web/20060723211024/http://boards1.wizards.com/archive/index.php/f-297.html
All other copies: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://boards1.wizards.com/archive/index.php/f-297.html
Hope this helps with the forum restoration process!
So, looks like we'll have to make lists of threads to have moved from the common "other worlds" forum back into the separate forums for each world.
No, that is not acceptable. The forum staff created the mess, with no feedback from the users, and against the wishes of the users. They need to put things back in order.
Gamer Zero and his buddies failed at everything they attempted in their year of running the show. He's gone, they're still here, let them pick up the pieces. At the very least they can earn the free trips to gencon they're being tempted into "volunteering" with.
There are other forums on the net for the out of print settings. Use them. Let wizards community know that if they want your usership, they need to earn it by fixing all the screw ups.