I like it the way it is now: I enjoy this cozy, warm, and chaotic atmosphere, kinda like my bedroom before getting married.

But if I'm making a giveaway I want the whole forum to see how awesome and generous I am.

I really don't see why there should be one, and I really don't want one either.

Well, some people like to make a surprise giveaway topics (giveaways disguised as regular topics), so I think separating the forum isn't always the best idea for that.

But GOG didn't separate forums for anything since it started, so I doubt it will happen :P

And that is the problem. This is a gaming site. It wasn't Good Old Stuff. It was Good Old Games. I don't want to talk about things that aren't games here. If I do, I know fully well how to find the appropriate place to do it.

I think you are pulling too much semantics into "general". General gaming discussion fits just fine in "general" while specific forums for specific games also exist. This site is already categorized. But with EVERYTHING else going into a single bucket, its annoying.

You can still have your political conversations under a different folder. Nothing removes variety. A "new post" feature works in other forums/sites for just what you are wanting but still allows for categories to keep topics sensible. So you could click "view all new posts" and see everything from every forum that is recent, and I could click "general or games" and see only the stuff I come here for.

If this weren't a gaming site, I could see your point of view... but as long this sites sole business is selling games... I feel the current single bucket is an absolute mess and encourages me to take long breaks from it.

You might not want to talk about other stuff, but based on what I see on the forums already, the vast majority of GOGers do. Besides, I think you are missing the point of "General". It is not now and never has been "talk about games in general here", it has always been "talk about whatever you want, just keep it clean and civil". You are a bit stuck on the gaming aspect of this site; the general forum is simply about social interaction and the community, that's the way it has always been and it works... really, really well. If we want to talk about games, we can, but we don't have to. Making this into a rigid place where "Games are only talked about here, politics belong over there... keep your movie talk in that forum" would make this place a far less interesting place to be. It ain't broke, so it don't need to be fixed.

We disagree ;)

While most sites forbid politics and religion even in off-topic sections... I'm merely agreeing with others that it needs to be organized. Your opinion is valid, so I won't argue... but my vote is definitely to utilize sub-forums.

However, I agree with others that it seems GOG would have likely done this by now if it were to happen.

I guess that's all I was saying anyway. The general forum seems to already be the way GOG wants it, so they aren't likely to change it. I like it this way, you don't, let's go play some System Shock 2. :)

@op
why?

there are forums for each specific game if thats what you want. and for games in genral the thread titles usually give a good indication of what its about so just click those. splitting general into offtopic is just redundant.
personally I hate forums that compulsively sort things its annoying lol. all it does is split up the community into little chunks that might or might not interact across the borders and hide threads you may be interested in just because it wasn't the category you specifically came here to check(for example if the form was sorted into folders you'd be in "suggestions" where nobody ever goes unless they have a problem so this wouldn't have any replies)


besides sorting givaways away from general just takes them away from the active forum and sticks them in a box where lurking leaches live and you'd have people posting in genral to advertise the givaway in the givaway section anyway.

Redundant would mean having the same topics in multiple places. Organizing would not be redundant.

I take your post to mean that you hate most internet forums then as this is the first and only site I have visited that does not organize the forums to keep topics in sensible and easy to find places.

I do not agree on any level that keeping everything in one place is the "easy" way to browse topics. Visiting dozens of other forums, they offer a way to appease both viewpoints. People who want to see EVERYTHING can do so with the click of a button, while people who are only interested in one subject can easily view that and be done. Its an "everyone wins" solution. (admittedly with some work to get there).

No one has suggested that, most seem to enjoy the idea to split general discussion into a gaming and GOG related sub-forum while making an off-topic section where people can talk about whatever they want be it life, death, religion, politics or giveaways.

That's a weak argument. Is this forum suddently all about the giveaways?

I hate to make one of those awful "slippery slope" arguments (really, I do), but I'm going to anyway. Once GOG allows breaking the general forum into sub-forums, even limited to those threee categories, people will start to beg and complain until they get the specific sub-forum they want for their topic of choice. It is inevitable, I have seen it happen on far too many forums. Better to just leave things as they are; a few might not like it, but most are perfectly happy with the status quo.

ah, sorry. to clarify what I meant was general kinda is already "off topic" so why separate general(aka everything else) from off topic(aka everything else) general is "whatever doesn't have its own box" every game gog has is given its own section and some of the less popular ones already have weeks between visits. general is "off topic" already i thought?
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and I only dislike them when they over sort.
(Not all forums with sub sections do that. only some but when it happens it gets like:

strategy is split off into its own section, giveaway is split away from off topic, or suggestions if filed away somewhere else in addition to bugs having its own place and nobody visits either one unless they have a problem, theres a separate area called "help" for noobs asking the community questions that aren't about bugs and so don't need a mod(and of course the only ones who ever go there are the noobs so nobody to answer them), politics is oddly singled out and given its own section instead of being part of off topic, roleplay is given its own area so they don't need to use "ic" and "ooc" tags because apparently people were getting confused, computer specs gets popular and fissions off from offtopic, "our other games" was split off from off topic and then later on further divided for each of them, "outside games" was split off from off topic(which is alternately named general since usually they are the same thing but sometimes when it gets really bad they have both without any indication of what general is supposed to be) leaving off topic section nearly abandoned and apparently reserved only for the post count padding forum games like "3 word story"), strategy is split into build and gear sections, a place for trades a place for friend requests a place for clans which is oddly separate from discussion of clan fights which has its own page....everybody just ends up using whatever feed of "latest posts" is available anyway and the sorting ends up hiding things more than helping find them. also then mods spend all of their time anally moving people around to their proper boxes and it just seems pointless. if you separate things too much alot of the sections can become some stagnant backwater where threads go to die.
and inevitably any section titled "gifts" gets clogged with beggars each making their own thread and so anybody with something to give just posts in general and dares the mods to move it ect. and thats assuming you can make everybody follow the rules and not just all hang out in general anyway.
(although usually most of that only happens on a new forum where the owner was playing around with the setup too long and also overestimated traffic. after a bit they usually realize and start merging things back together so you have fewer sections. bugs suggestions and help all become help, clans get combines with clan fights, all offtopics (except "add me" which is legitimately annoying/spammy)get merged again ect) and it started with one or 2 reasonable seeming suggestions about dividing that get out of hand.
(this of course is only the most apocalyptic view where everything goes wrong/overboard lol(and yes this is a specific form I was thinking of, and completely different from gog anyway so alot/most of those sections don't apply)))

I've never seen that happen, I've only seen already established and needed sub-forum sections. If it would come to that situation that even more people complain then they could always develop a feature where every user can use some kind of ignore function to ignore threads they don't want to see using wildcards. That would be a welcoming idea.

I kind of like it when giveaways pop up unexpectedly, don't know if having a specific giveaway forum is such a good idea, there would be loads of new people stepping all over each other to get to it without contributing to the general forum. I think it would kind of spoil the whole thing we got going here.