I understand where you're coming from, Blacki and Soaring. And, of course, the fact that you guys took the initiative to really bring up the issue of reorganization in the Off-Topic Roleplay section is appreciated, so I commend you guys for that.
As for these two boards in question, Animal/Human Roleplay, I can say that the staff is, in a way, in the same boat as to finding a place to put some of the threads. As you said, there are roleplays that aren't entirely human, or animal, some are a mix, and some are completely different. We understand that. But as Red said, we're trying to limit the number of child boards on the forum, that way it will run smoother and will take a shorter time to load the pages. But, at the same time, we still want to do at least something to help you guys, since you've been asking for some help from the staff for a while, and I think it's rightful to do so. It's a busy, active, and very diverse board.
Keeping the indexing (page loading) thing in mind, though, we can't exactly make a child board for every species or type of roleplay out there-- there would always be some sort of vague mismatch. This said, both of these issues leave us with either
a.) Keeping Off-Topic Roleplay as a single, all-species catch-all board with no organization, or
b.) Having a small amount of child boards with a very broad idea of what goes there.
Of course, option A would mean ignoring the board and the people in it altogether. Which is a No. Nu?
It is a compromise, but for the moment these two child boards are what we have to work with. This said, finding a home for the roleplays within it is basically about finding the closest match, even if it's a final decision on where a thread goes is a little open for debate.
We can't exactly PM every single thread-starter in there about where they would like to go, either, since we're trying to sort them all, and it's very likely that a large amount of them are inactive, or simply don't pay attention to their threads any more.
So, trying to go about it that way would be extremely slow, if it ever got finished.
That said, the staff is moving the threads themselves, and while some don't fit either board exactly, we try our best to put humans/humanoids/human-like creatures/mostly human-based RPs into Human Roleplay, while animal/mostly animal-based RPs/fantasy-creatures into Animal Roleplay.
If they are misinterpretted, though, and the thread starter wants their thread to be moved into the other child board (Human to Animal, or vice versa), then they can PM a staffer, and we can move it for you.
While I personally like your idea of an "OOC/Planning" child board, we still have to wrestle with the fact that an extra child board might be one too many. There's already been some slower loading/indexing on the site, and while one small board might not seem to be that big of a deal, they can add up. Not to mention, Off-Topic isn't the only reorganization project taking place in the forum. So we have to be mindful, as much as the OOC/Planning-based threads don't really fit into a 'roleplay' child board.
For now, though, the best we can do is place these types of threads in the board they're most closely related to, be it an associated roleplay group (in the case of OOC) or based on what they're planning on creating. Or course, if that changes, or they're placed into the wrong board, they can PM a staff member as stated before, and it can be moved for them.
I hope this clarified things for you, even if it's just a little bit.
