1. that doesn't really work well for folks with small screens, sometimes I'm logging in with a very small screen
2. That's slippery slope, people have already been demanding that that be done, it's just the response against it is always an appeal to tradition.

It's hard to gauge how unpopular this one forum to rule them all really is, but there are tons of valid reasons why it's a bad idea.

Off topic section as well so we don't have to worry about Roman5.

1. Mobile phone? Gah, I often wonder why people bother accessing certain sites on such small screens.
2. Slippery slope, maybe, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't happen. If what others in here have said/witnessed is any indicator, it can and does happen throughout the internet on various forums.

How about a "Buy Sacrifice" section?

1. a well designed site can handle anything from a cell phone to a large screen. And these days, the cell phone screens aren't that much smaller in terms of resolution than a netbook. Which BTW, that plan wouldn't work well with either.
2. It is a slippery slope, we already have a crapload of fora, so many fora that there's no excuse for not adding a couple that people might actually use.

Adding an Offtopic general and games forum would hardly lead to much more. I mean, what else could you possibly add? A genre specific forum for each genre and a politics forum.

And that's if we let things just keep sliding and sliding.

I like things as they are, for the reasons stated by cogadh and Telika.

It is fun to sometimes interject a code into an area that is not a gifting topic, just so as to surprise, or distract from degenerating discourse, and provide a break for a moment, without the intent of derailing the thread.

I thought of doing it here, but not wanting to appear as disrespectful to those with an opposing view, opted not to.

If relegated to a select subforum and population, it would take much away from just wanting everyone and anyone from an equal chance at a smile from nowhere, with no strings attached.

- General Gaming
- Off topic
- Maybe some kind of GOG games sub-forum that shows the latest threads of the game specific boards

Don't think anything more is needed.

2. We have a crapload of sub-forums that hardly no one uses. Most people ask their (GOG)game related questions in the general forum anyways, even though there are forums for them. Why? Because(as another user pointed out) hardly no one visits them.(And not many visit/browse them much because not many post to them.....it's a vicious cycle, in a way.)

As such, I don't think adding a giveaways sub-forum would be a good idea. It's too small/specific a category to warrant creating a whole sub-forum just for it. Maybe dividing GD into a general gaming forum & a general misc(everything else) forum would work, but I don't think it would be a good idea on GOG's part to divide GD up any more than that.

This is where I slightly disagree with the OP.

I would consider giveways to be on-topic. They are about games AND GOG. But I also agree with the OP in the amount of clutter they can cause in the single forum. For my part, I wonder how bad it would be if off topic threads were moved? Would the giveaways seem so bad then?

For those discussing the slippery slope. I think that started the day we had a single forum. There is little difference in saying we have 1 forum and not gonna change and saying we have 3 and not gonna change. IMHO, I would be happy with "games" and "off-topic". But I could see the value in a "trading" forum where people post wish lists, trade offers, and/or giveaways. There is no reason the slope couldn't stop right there.

If I want to avoid political slander... I simply don't go to CNN that day. The suggestion here is that if I want to avoid religion, politics, and other off-topics... i should avoid the gaming web site, GOG.com. That seems extremely unnecessary... especially as a business... and even more bizarre when a solution exists successfully across the web.

But forums aren't like single television channels deluded with multiple topics on a single channel. They're more like TV guides/listings with multiple channels(topics) listed.

You know, a simple solution without breaking up the forum would be for GOG to add a custom topic type for giveaways, similar to the question type. It would certainly make it easy for the giveaway creator to flag a winner and make it easy for people to filter out those topics since they don't care to see them.

Regardless of what I call my giveaways, I always mark them with the word "giveaway" so anyone not interested can avoid the thread. There was a similar discussion a while ago, and I stand by my original thought - if a person, for want of a better phrase, is to idle to go to page 2 because of what they call "clutter", any thread on a topic they are not interested in will become clutter, and they will not go to page 2 anyway.

I think it would be a bad move to seperate them, I like to offer equal chance to everyone.

There are plenty of sites that do nothing but argue, ad infinitum, about these things, and plenty of discussions here that do the same. The forum is free and open, where one might post whatever they desire (within reason) and the word General is just that, general.

While some threads might be annoying to some, they are not to others, and a simple matter of accomodation does not seem to be an unreasonable expectation of members within any group.

That other topics might exist on a gaming site, than those that are not specifically to your interests, is just par for the course, and to be expected.

perhaps GOG don't want to be like every other forum ?