The problem of defining the General Discussion forum

2

Comments

  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    Haven't read anything past fight4's original post, so apologies if this is duplicative.

    IMO the problem here is not one that can easily be solved by different mod or dev communication/organization strategies.  When the forum population was large, dividing the content into subforums was a great way to organize things.  But forum activity levels seem a lot lower than they were 12 or 24 months ago.  Below a critical mass of active forum users, I don't think it makes sense to aggressively partition content.  Better to let most discussion topics migrate to GD to let everyone who is still here participate.
  • Phaserhawk
    Phaserhawk Posts: 2,676 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited April 2017
    From what I've seen lately anything J1P posts that has gotten at least 7k looks keeps getting locked and moved. Maybe we just get rid of GD. That seems to fix everything.

    // Removed Insult Acronym -Brigby
  • DrDevilDinosaur
    DrDevilDinosaur Posts: 436 Mover and Shaker

    Just make the whole forums one single thread. We have @ and # tags now, so we can use that to track various conversations. If people want to see the latest stuff just go to the end.


    Much  easier and neater like that.

  • Infrared
    Infrared Posts: 240 Tile Toppler
    Is it possible for there to be an Active Discussions page, where it lists say the 50 most recent threads to be commented in, regardless of their subforum? That would be a convenient place to go for the casual forum reader who just wants to pop in now and then to see what's new. So General Discussion becomes less like the "main" forum. And if a mod moves a thread to a less popular subforum for better categorization, it can still have exposure to the general audience via Active Discussions.
  • Jonny1Punch
    Jonny1Punch Posts: 434 Mover and Shaker
    edited April 2017
    Phaserhawk said:
    From what I've seen lately anything J1P posts that has gotten at least 7k looks keeps getting locked and moved. Maybe we just get rid of GD. That seems to fix everything.


    I have noticed this too. Must mean I'm doing something right...... or being targeted.

    Hard to tell on a forum this disorganized and heavily censored. Big voices with unpopular opinons challenging the dev's never last long.

    I also see the unnecessary urgency from mods in quickly moving and locking my totally appropriate threads. Sometimes only a matter of minutes.

  • El Satanno
    El Satanno Posts: 1,005 Chairperson of the Boards
    Nuke GD. Take the advice of other posts here to redefine and pare down the other categories, then make one more called "Other." That can be your new cesspool replacement for GD. Mohio and Stax's advice to get red names posting in appropriate places will do wonders not only for this initiative, but also to improve the general mood here. Hint, hint.

    Oh, and take my advice from another thread to create a Complaints and Whining sub. Seriously.
  • SummerGlau
    SummerGlau Posts: 1,027 Chairperson of the Boards
    TL:DR

    but i do find that "general discussion" is by far the easiest way to get a topic noticed
  • Steellatch
    Steellatch Posts: 85 Match Maker
    My take goes to the point of discussions. Far too often a good civil discussion is taking place and then it gets closed/merged/moved. And then the discussion is killed. Examples, an announcement is made about something new happen. Over the course of the day 10 pages worth of comments are posted on that thread. Someone then mades a new thread talking about one specific aspect of the news and a discussion is formed. That thread is closed or merged into the announcement thread. In the cluster of all the many pages after the 10 this side conversation can't be followed any longer. Over organization can be a problem too. If the conversation is constructive and civil leave it alone until it reaches a conclusion or dies down then move it accordingly. 

    If we want the other subforms populated, the amount of topics that get closed need to go down. Moving the topic is better than closing it out right. Merging similar topics (actually have to be similar, not they both talk about OML. you can have OML topics discussing different things) is better than closing. Closing is always viewed as censorship. The only time closing should happen IMO is when personal attacks take place. 

    Maybe letting a thread stay in GD until its popularity lowers before moving until people get in a better habit of visiting other subforums. 
  • carrion_pigeons
    carrion_pigeons Posts: 942 Critical Contributor
    I so don't see why this is an issue.  Just put everything in the same subforum and call it good.  Moving stuff around seems pointless and annoying.  People will find what they want to find most easily if they don't have to hunt it down through a half dozen possible subforums.

    I know for certain that technology exists to tag threads with filterable classes.  Just make people tag their threads appropriately and then users can filter out the stuff they don't want to see.  It shouldn't be an issue.
  • JamesV
    JamesV Posts: 98 Match Maker
    I think part of the issue is the other sub forums and not just general discussion. 

    I'll use the Character Discussion sub forum.  When I think of the forum I only think about the character specific threads like (**** Wasp (Janet Van Dyne) ****) and the ones that directly relate to those threads (basically the stickies like the character compendium or the rankings of the characters). 

    But if i was looking for a thread like "New respect for some of the newer 4*s"* i would never expect it to be in that forum. My brain just wouldn't think to look there because the forum has become so identified with 1 specific thread type.

    Same thing with the Events sub forum. And the Tips and Guides forums. There are certain core thread (and thread types) have become identified with those forums on an instinctual level that threads that are them just seem like general discussion (even if they aren't). 







    * For the record, just literally went to the forum, looked at the front page of it and grabbed the first one I saw
  • Jarvind
    Jarvind Posts: 1,684 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited April 2017
    Honestly in any game forum I've been in (a decent number) the "general" section always ends up being where 90% of discussion is taking place. It's just a thing that happens. 

    People are generally resistant to change, so my guess is that the only way you'll ever decentralize discussion in the desired way:




  • Brigby
    Brigby ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 7,757 Site Admin
    @Steellatch

    Just for the record, since you brought up the topic of Closed threads, when we move a thread to another discussion section, we usually leave a redirect link in order to allow players to follow it to its new location. 

    One problem I've noticed though, something I've brought up to the designer, is that a lot of players merely see the Closed tag on the redirect link and think the thread was closed. (Even though the title says 'Moved:') Please know that the moved thread is not closed, and is still available for commenting on in the new section. My hope is that the designer is able to change the Closed tag to a different color Moved tag instead.
  • We_are_Venom
    We_are_Venom Posts: 308 Mover and Shaker
    If you want to get activity in the other forums then there needs to be more activity from the company itself. I liked the character discussion thread, especially the one about suggesting ones you've thought up, but outside of a handful of people participating and zero support from literally anyone from the company, it became pointless to do. 

    Theories and statistics, minimal engagement. Character discussion, minimal engagement. 

    If you want to shift traffic, it starts with getting those that have connections with particular topics engaged. People will go to the proper channel when there actually is a channel. Currently, the only real channel open is general.
  • Skrofa
    Skrofa Posts: 388 Mover and Shaker
    This whole rearrangement will definitely take some getting used to.
    However!
    Adding that "active topics" and "new posts" links will be of the greatest help possible! 
    I really REALLY miss those!
  • Killians8
    Killians8 Posts: 134 Tile Toppler
    TL;DR.

     I'm sure it was well thought out information given the formatting effort. My feedback for the current decentralization of topics is that it now takes much more time to be updated on game changes because I have to check four or five different forums areas rather than going to the GD and seeing all updates there. It's less user friendly from that aspect. When I have more time I may go back and read the rest of your post.

    A suggestion would be using some sort of flag on the subforum which indicates a D3 employee started a new topic. That would cut down on wasted time clicking into a subforum needlessly.
  • Eichen
    Eichen Posts: 176 Tile Toppler
    I don't like any of the suggestions.  I think that all posts should go into General Discussion.  Every single one of them.  It's the one stop shop for what's happening in the game.  After X amount of days without a comment a mod moves it to the category it fits best in, where it stays, even if it gets more comments later.  
  • Killians8
    Killians8 Posts: 134 Tile Toppler
    edited April 2017
    Possible solution (possibly already mentioned above): Make sure all new admin posts are placed in one forum (w/o discussion) and link the existing topic in the appropriate forum. This ensures forum traffic is spread out and also user aren't frustrated by trying to find new information by searching many forums for it.
  • morph3us
    morph3us Posts: 859 Critical Contributor
    Eichen said:
    I don't like any of the suggestions.  I think that all posts should go into General Discussion.  Every single one of them.  It's the one stop shop for what's happening in the game.  After X amount of days without a comment a mod moves it to the category it fits best in, where it stays, even if it gets more comments later.  

    Honestly, if they were to do this, everything would move off page 1 incredibly quickly, where the post will die a slow death.  I also don't fancy trawling through pages of posts in a unified GD thread, looking for a strategy guide or a character discussion, because it's fallen back to page 10+.
  • Yoik
    Yoik Posts: 251 Mover and Shaker

    Its been up for a while now and ive decided im not a fan of the new forum. I used to come here regularly throughout the day for info or just general browsing but now I find myself checking for new news then leaving. It all seems so much more convoluted and everything is secreted away in niches which to me doesn’t follow my usual train of thought.

     

    My own opinion of course im sure some people like it. Its just a shame I feel like ive lost a tool I used often.

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