I voted yes, because I think it would help how Essentials is developed as well as providing a clear and visible place for anything Essentials-related. It also provides more space to work with, which I for one would try to use.
Since Essentials is a large part of the Game Dev section (for better or worse), it doesn't make much sense to confine it to just two daunting threads. For the kit's development to carry on, I think it needs more room, which is why I was initially thinking about a whole separate forum for Essentials (but that's probably a step too far and would definitely split the community).
Well seeing as how all of the information about Essentials right now is unorganized anyway, a new board would be kind of...redundant? Even if you made a new board, all of the original information in the megatopic would still be unorganized. And all that we would end up with would be a whole new board filled with individual topics asking for help about it. Plus like you said it eats more bandwidth.
/donates 2 cents.
What information? You mean answers to questions, many of which are redundant or even just wrong now?
Yes, I see the new section having individual threads for different questions. No, I don't see it being any different to having one megathread, where people don't read through that either before unwittingly repeating an already-asked question. In fact, it would be slightly better as a sub-section, because you can see at a glance the last couple of dozen threads made (and thus the last so-many questions asked), whereas in a megathread it's hard to single out the questions from the answers/natter, so it's a bit easier to find related questions in the sub-section.
Ideally any useful information in the megathread would eventually be copied into the wiki, but that's very much a huge undertaking. Besides, I think many questions are either about too specific a situation to warrant documenting, or just have an answer of "read the wiki", so maybe there's not too much information being "lost". The megathread will still be there, though.
And as I've said, it's not just about where the information is; it's about how it is presented. Two large threads isn't pleasant to look at.
One last point is that there wouldn't just be question threads. I want to get some other things going too, like discussions on aspects of the kit (to help with development).
I voted "No, the idea is horrible" because I feel it will just split up the community. I think there is only 2 possibilities that will come of it.
What might happen is:
1: It will split the community so that some members ONLY check that section. It will soon be filled with various help threads and most likely- most issues will already have been solved. New users won't know this and post a thread any ways.
And/Or..
2: It will become neglected very quickly with most members just in the showcase sections. It will become another confusing forum for new users.
I didn't consider the effect it might have on splitting the community. I just saw the practical sides of it. I think one way to reduce this splitting effect is to keep the Essentials sub-section alongside the Showcase and other sub-sections, so people would at least have to pass through the Game Development main section when going between one and the other.
I suppose if it becomes a problem, it's just encouragement for the Game Dev main section to become more interesting. Newsletters, competitions, general game dev discussion can all go in there. Perhaps the Beginner's Lounge can even be scrapped and its content put in the main section. There are ways to keep the public interest.
I don't think it would lose interest as per your second scenario, though. It would be at least as active as the megathreads are now (people will always ask questions), and even more active once a few extra things are put in there.
I think Essentials and the Showcase are two separate things that can't be compared. We need both, in some form (the Showcase should obviously be a sub-section, and I've explained above why I think Essentials should be too). People who aren't interested in the Showcase won't go in there anyway even now, and likewise for the Essentials thread. I don't really see a shift in "allegiance" happening here.
