So, what is this place?

Well, do you remember the discussion forums that Wizards of the Coast used to have? The official Dungeons and Dragons forums and offical D20 system forums?

Well, they closed them in November 2015, after a months warning/lead time.

Well, I'm a bit of a digital pack-rat. I've downloaded entire web-discussion forums in the past, including the Wizards of the Coast forums.

So, I did it one more time....
And that's a lot of threads.

So, this place is the home of a project involving those threads.

You see, Not all the threads from the Forums have something to keep in them, and not all of them are mechanical in nature.

So, the project is for people to download the program I wrote to handle the co-ordination of people reviewing those threads, and identifying them.

Please go to Here for more information on the program.
Please go to Here for Frequently Asked Questions.
Please go to Here for a list of all the threads that are in this project. Hello Everyone.

Some Updates (April 26, 2016)
A few people have sent in some results, and there is of course my own work. As a result, you can now download updates if you are using the MS-Access database.

I am continuing to, as time permits, blast through sections of the download. When I say blast through, it's because I'm fast.
I am mostly skimming the threads as I look them over. Determining if a thread ‘has content' is usually easy, as it's sitting in the first post.


Now, I had a thought, and I'm going to share it.
Not everyone is going to want to, or be able to, download and use a MS-Access Database to help with this project. I've had people already make compliants or observations about that.
That's fine. Unfortunately, it's the only way I know how to set up that would allow for some co-ordination on this, that doesn't involve way more work then I have the time for.
So, here's what I've done.

All the threads have been online since day 1 of this. (Otherwise, the database would be beyond MS-Access's file size limits). So in addition to the stuff I've specifically squirelled out…

I've set up index pages, and you can now view, read, and even download the threads in any webbrowser.

Due to size, each Year/Section of the downloads has been broken into chunks of 200 threads. Multipage threads have been combined into a single thread (and reformatted to remove Wotc/Gleemax's webcoding, which was taking up a lot of room in each file). So, a section with 10000+ pages thread topics is going to have 100+ pages. Since this is a standard discussion forum set up, I can't see anyone complaining.
You can find the main page for that Here

All I ask, is that anyone that wants to start uploading threads to their own discussion forums or website, please, talk to me about it first! Anything I reformatted into cleaner tables, I can probably help you migrate easily.
I can either give you the original threads (complete the original WOTC coding and individual page seperation), or help you migrate my merged copies to your web forum.


Now, I also did something else.
There are now email addresses associated with this project!
The first is a general email box. It's for questions, concerns, complaints, copying discussion, etc, etc, etc. I set it up using the name of my first spellcasting character. It's OldManCars@SOAM.NET

The second is for thread results. It's Thread_Results@SOAM.NET.

So, if you want to help, and don't want to/can't use the Database I made, you still can.
Now you are choosing the threads you want to read.
When you go into any of the index pages, You'll see it all in a table. The headings are ‘Thread Title', ‘Old Thread Id' ‘SOAM ID', ‘Status'
Thread Title is the Thread title it had over at Wizards of the Coast/Gleemax/Wherever the thread came from. IN the case of the old WOTC hosts Mailing lists, it was the post/topic title.
Old Thread ID is the number the thread had over on those forums (or if it was in the mailing list, I sorted the posts in date-order before grouping them by topic). If you still have weblinks to old threads, if you look at the link, you'll see a number sequence at the end (sometimes followed by the page number). That's the ‘Old Thread ID'. That will let you search.
SOAM ID is the ID they have in my master database, and that I stored them here named as. I did that for a few reasons. One was when WOTC migrate between Gleemax and back, Thread IDs occurred.
The other reason is I want to eventually expand this project to include other web discussion forms.
Status is the results of the review.


Now, if you want to help, all you do is pick a thread without a status (or with ‘No Content', because I'll admit that's rather subjective) and skim it over
Then, copy the ‘SOAM ID', and fire it and your review of it off to Thread_Results@SOAM.Net with the Message Title “Thread Results”
Just try to do multiple threads in a single email. Fortunately, most email programs or services let you save drafts.
Please set things up like this
OldTHreadID ! ResultNumber
i.e
123456 ! 1
123457 ! 5
The result numbers are
1: Has mechanical content.
If you'd find it in a published source book, even if it's an original item type by the author, it's mechanical content

2 – Question or Rules discussion
For questions that have more then a 1 or two post response, or that result in a rules discussion lasting multiple topics. This includes new/variants of existing systems (i.e a new damage reduction system, a new spell system, etc)

3 - Ideas
Occasionally, people posts unfinished ideas to be developed, but nothing further appeared in a thread. i.e an idea for a spell that was lost in the suffle, basic idea for a monster or a campaign, etc.

4 – Humor.

Anything where the intention was to make someone laught

5 – No Content
This includes trolling, questions about where something is located, requests for material (honored or not), and the like. It's also a catch all for anything that does not meant #1 to #4, and that's subjective.
I'll admit, there could be a Rules discussion or idea in a No Content thread that I missed.

If someone with programming experience outside and beyond mine wants to take a shot at making a program to let people view the threads and co-ordinate work, well, there's all the information you need.
Just, instead of a direct server upload, attach it as a email to the Thread Results email.
If you want to add direct server upload, let me know, and I'll set up a login/password for your program.


Now….
I've been debating put everything online as zips by download section/period. However, I'm hesitant to do that, yet.
So, here's what I'm going to offer.
As a given section is completed, I'll put that online as a zip. i.e If all of 2005 Birthright gets examined, I'll put it online as a zip (with the index files with the review type) as well as the individual threads.