Preservation should be listed first in group

Moving discussion from Adywan thread...

I think that it sends the wrong message to have the "Fan Edits" section above the "Preservations" section.  It's not that I think that preservation efforts are inherently any better than fan edits, it's that preservation is what this website/forum is all about.  The whole purpose of OT.com is to ensure the survival and rescue of the original academy-award-winning versions of the original Star Wars trilogy. So why is a topic that is primarily about making more changes listed first?

George has made a series of fan edits (initially called the SE), and many others have made fan edits too (arguably better ones).  But if the original versions of the film were available in high quality, this forum would likely have never existed. We'd all probably be happy members of TFN. This forum's primary purpose (I think) is not to promote more changes to the OT, but to find ways of making available the original theatrical versions that don't have changes.

Furthermore, I think that calling the preservation section "preservations and other fan projects" could be improved.  As it is, it relegates the various preservation efforts to "other" status, making it seem all the more that Fan Edits are the main reason for the site, but if people want to also do some other things like preservations, that's nice too. Again, wrong message.

The irony is that if George were to release both a new SE with many more changes, and also an HD restoration of the OOT, and he decided to discuss technical details of his work here, his discussion of his new SE would appear higher in the forum than his discussion of his restoration of the OOT.

My suggestion is to move the two preservation sections above the two fan edit sections, and to rename the first preservation section "Star Wars Restoration and Preservation Projects" or "Star Wars Preservation and Restoration Projects", whichever you prefer, without the "other".

Thoughts?

Hear hear!

I certainly support this. Although the thought had never really occurred, it makes sense.

The "Other Fan Projects" is meant to cover projects such as de-specializing efforts, fan-made documentaries and miscellaneous stuff like split-screen DVDs. I've never been 100% happy with the forum titles and descriptions, so feel free to come up with some suitable text.

The fan edit discussion forum comes first because back in 2007, after the petition had fulfilled its purpose, that's the way the site looked to be heading (check out Jay's 2007 news item on the front page). I agree that the focus has now shifted back to the originals, although adywan brings in a lot of traffic to the fan edit forum. I'm not sure if the listing order is particularly significant, and with people being used to the current order, there is potential cause of confusion if they are moved around now.

The forum for fan edits of films other than Star Wars is relatively quieter these days, probably because of fanedit.org.

Moth3r said:

The "Other Fan Projects" is meant to cover projects such as de-specializing efforts, fan-made documentaries and miscellaneous stuff like split-screen DVDs. I've never been 100% happy with the forum titles and descriptions, so feel free to come up with some suitable text.

Thanks Jay, for switching them.  I know it's a very minor thing, but I think over time the order sends the right message.

Regarding the name of the thread... what about replacing the word "other" with the word "related", as in:
"Star Wars Preservations and Related Fan Projects"

Things such as split screen, documentaries, and despecializing are all related to preservation.

TV's Frink said:

I think SW fanedits should be after SW preservations....Other preservations seems like it gets much less activity.

I'm actually fine with that too.