With some working behind the scenes the email reply system has been tweaked (I'd like to thank a lot of people who were involved with the rather quick discussion which has made this possible ^^). Over the past week I've had an excess of 20+ emails in my inbox with highs in the mid-30s. This makes me feel bad as people end up waiting two weeks for a reply when they often need it ASAP. A further problem is posting them on 3++. Whilst content has been thin of late (there's only so much I can do guys!) the majority of articles have been e-mail replies (I'd say more than half of this years posts have been e-mail replies). This isn't a bad thing as army list advice is key to playing well in this game of ours but a lot of people who come here simply don't bother reading those replies. Who can blame them? Whilst I try as much as possible to provide variety in the lists I recommend whilst listening to e-mailer's requests, there are only so many finite combinations which can be hyper effective and most people have seen these already.
So here's what has been proposed. First just to be clear...
KEEP SENDING IN E-MAILS (capslock for cool)
As a community we want to help you and whilst this might not be as public as before, we still want you to e-mail in and ask for advice or whatever else you may or may not require (no guarantees). Anyway...previously I replied to about half of the e-mails in person. They were either really quick replies or not pertinent to posting on 3++. This percentage is going to move up and include armies which have been discussed a lot on 3++. For example, Jumper BA armies. There are so many lists on these guys with a lot of articles explaining their tactics and how to build their lists that responding to emails on the 3++ page is an exercise in repetition. Rather any e-mails regarding topics such as these I'll simply send a reply back personally. This way everyone is happy as people don't have a post they feel they should ignore on 3++ but the e-mailer is getting the response they want.
What I will keep doing however is posting e-mails which lead to discussion or are based on armies/concepts which haven't been discussed in great detail on 3++. The new books for example will generally always get their e-mails posted on 3++ unless they are simply exercises in answering them. This allows the community to see how I think the new books work well whilst also providing some grounds for discussion on the development of those lists. For example, over the coming months Dark Eldar and Grey Knight e-mails will most likely always be posted on 3++ whilst the BA e-mails are more likely to get a personal reply.
I'll still hand off certain e-mails to guest authors and indicate whether I'd prefer them to be posted on 3++ or replied to personally but I aim to basically decrease the number of posts on 3++ to increase overall quality and ensure everyone has something worth reading each day. I cannot, and will not, guarantee a post of pure awesome and pinkness every day. I'd love for there to be at least one or two posts of high calibre tactical acumen but we all know life has a way of getting in the way (i.e. my laptop died, my Internet died, the power went out repeatedly and now my PC has died [I'm using some one's phone as we speak]). Overall instead of 4-6 posts per day with many of them e-mails I'll be looking more at 2-4 posts per day and this should be steady across the weekend as well. E-mail posts will still come up but I'll be aiming to make sure they are less of the 'main content' and more stepping stones into discussion.
So to summarise. Keep sending in the e-mails! We will reply to them and when an interesting topic is broached it will lead to a post and hopeful discussion on 3++. This is what we want and we are happy to critique your lists as well; just more often than not now it will be done privately. Otherwise there will be less posts overall but an effort for more quality in each post and less filler content.
...discuss?
P.S. how much do people want Fantasy? I haven't done anything on it lately as I have yet to really sink my teeth into it and have been focusing on Centurion.
