Subforum structure and closing discussion threads

DapperChewie

Guys. Let's talk for a minute here. 

I get that you want to make the various subforums more relevant. To have a place for everything, and everything in it's place. I can respect that. 

But there was a big announcement today that it really feels like you're trying to hide and stifle discussion on, and that's really not cool.

Theres 2 new star lords, a new Gamora, a new rocket and Groot, a new boss event, a new pve, and a new pvp. 

And as of yet, there is no official thread in General Discussion about it. Not even a stickied post with a link to whatever subforum it goes in. At least two threads made by people excited to talk about it have been closed, and the official thread is quiet at best. 

General discussion is the right place for official announcements. It's where people hang out and look for new or interesting topics about the game, and it's where we count on new announcements to show up. I'm ok with putting a new character page up for everyone in the Character Discussion subforum, or one for the new Thanos boss event in the Events Tournaments and Missions subforum. But please, keep the big announcements in General Discussion. There's no reason to keep these announcements out of the general discussion, so why are you trying to fix what's not broken?

Edit: ok, so "forum policing" may not have been the best title for this thread. I renamed it to something a bit less evocative of Secret Police knocking down the doors of your forum and dragging off-topic threads out. 

broll

I'm just gonna leave this here
http://forums.d3go.com/discussion/63704/mpq-at-marvel-com-peter-quill#latest

DapperChewie

I wasn't actually looking for the official thread on it. I know where it is, and how to find it. You may have noticed that I commented on that thread. 

What I am saying is that official announcements need to have a stickied thread in general discussion. 

Ducky

**The proper place for official announcements is the News and Announcements section located here. All of those threads will now bridge to the discussion threads that are located in the appropriate forums.**

broll

This is only like the 3rd announcement since the new forums and the mods have admitted to having a learn curve with their how to do things here.  There are a lot of good complains about forum policing lately, this isn't one of them.  It will get there I'm sure.  I put the link as a help to people who might be looking for it.

granne

I've served as a moderator on two boards, both busier than this one, and one (believe it or not) more antagonistic. It's a largely thankless task, where people rarely notice your work unless you do something they don't like.

I've always thought of General Discussion as the area for things that don't fit in any of the specific categories, so I'm glad to see the board heading in that direction. It'll take some adjustment, but it'll be worth it.

Thank you mods, thank you @Brigby.

Spudgutter

broll said:

This is only like the 3rd announcement since the new forums and the mods have admitted to having a learn curve with their how to do things here.  There are a lot of good complains about forum policing lately, this isn't one of them.  It will get there I'm sure.  I put the link as a help to people who might be looking for it.

i think the learning curve also has to apply to the visitors here as well. I am probably just as guilty as most people, by just frequenting the GD board by default.  We need to start our visit at the announcement page, and work our way around the board from there.

shartattack

It is not the mod's fault that we are getting info later and later lately.  Heck, events have been starting before the preview is even up.  That being said, let us discuss in the general forum until an official post is up.

mpqr7

I tend to only look at the GD forum for all announcements, so then I can immediately discuss them.

But now, I will look at the Announcements forum as well. It's nice that the Announcements messages then forward you to a version that you can actually respond to, regardless of which sub-forum that it's sitting inside of.

JHawkInc

I think this particular announcement is unique, because it is multifaceted.

The MPW "Awesome Mix Volume 2" mentioned here: https://news.marvel.com/games/63733/piecing-together-marvel-puzzle-quest-star-lord/ includes a 3* Star Lord, a 5* Star Lord, teasers of a 4* Rocket and Groot, a 4* Gamora, a Thanos Boss event, and THREE GotG themed story events.

Okay, so there's a place to talk about the new Star Lord in character discussion. Cool.

But this could really use one mega thread to talk about the whole gamut, and I'm not sure where else you'd put it but General Discussion (since it covers characters, events, AND speculation).

Brigby

Hi Everyone. I know big changes like this that go against force of habit (I know I've had my moments too, where I just go back and forth between GD and Bugs sections) are difficult to get used to, but this is all for the sake of organizing and making the forum more accessible in the long-run. We really do appreciate your patience through all of this, and we hope it makes navigating for content much smoother moving forward.

If you are looking for official announcements, please check out the News and Announcements section. I post all of them there, and they are redirect links that take you to the appropriate section where the discussion lives.

@JHawkInc  I totally understand where you're coming from, but I'd argue that since it's multifacted it'd be even more imperative to have those 3 separate topics in their respective sections. The reason for that is because it would be very noisy having one thread discussing 3 different topics at the same time, even if they relate to the same theme of new Guardians of the Galaxy content. 

maltyo9

Ducky said:

**The proper place for official announcements is the News and Announcements section located here. All of those threads will now bridge to the discussion threads that are located in the appropriate forums.**

The irony of clicking on that link is not lost on me.

Ducky

maltyo9 said:

Ducky said:

**The proper place for official announcements is the News and Announcements section located here. All of those threads will now bridge to the discussion threads that are located in the appropriate forums.**

The irony of clicking on that link is not lost on me.

Somehow a 4 snuck in the link address, lol. Fixed!

JHawkInc

Brigby said:

@JHawkInc  I totally understand where you're coming from, but I'd argue that since it's multifacted it'd be even more imperative to have those 3 separate topics in their respective sections. The reason for that is because it would be very noisy having one thread discussing 3 different topics at the same time, even if they relate to the same theme of new Guardians of the Galaxy content. 

The problem is that now you're asking people to only discuss parts in different locations. It's like serving up a combo meal, and saying "Eat your burger here, and your fries over there, and your drink way over there." That's a pain in the **** to anyone that wants to take a bite of burger then a bite of fries and wash it down with their drink because it's all part of the same meal.

Right now we don't have an official event thread for Thanos's Boss event, or for the three upcoming Guardians events (or one three-part event? the way they described it in the Marvel.com interview made little sense in MPQ terms), or for speculation on what the new Rocket & Groot or Gamora entail. The one thread in General Discussion that started to talk about Star Lord and the Boss event was locked because people talked about Star Lord, and that belongs in the Character Discussion page. Because OF COURSE that's where people are going to go to talk about the Thanos Boss event. Further, the three-part Guardians event is explicitly broken into three parts, one for Star Lord, one for Rocket & Groot, and one for Gamora. Marvel says "These events and characters go together!" and you're telling me we're not supposed to talk about them in the same place because they should have their own separate topics.

I get the need to make the forums more organized, reduce the clutter in General Discussion and liven up everywhere else, but this is a headache. A "Marvel Puzzle Quest Guardians of the Galaxy Awesome Mix Volume 2" thread is a PERFECT answer for this. It's like you're trying to fix white by painting it black when a happy medium grey would be more beneficial to everyone. There's nothing wrong with directing the general chatter to a main thread for the MONTH-LONG SPECTACULAR FEATURING FOUR NEW CHARACTERS, THREE NEW EVENTS, AND A NEW BOSS EVENT, and then pointing people towards specific character/event threads for more nuanced or focused discussion. Seriously, in what world would we want to downplay this by chopping up the discussion and hiding it in different corners of the forums? These efforts at improving the forum's organization are making it more frustrating to use by the day.

Spudgutter

JHawkInc said:

Brigby said:

@JHawkInc  I totally understand where you're coming from, but I'd argue that since it's multifacted it'd be even more imperative to have those 3 separate topics in their respective sections. The reason for that is because it would be very noisy having one thread discussing 3 different topics at the same time, even if they relate to the same theme of new Guardians of the Galaxy content. 

The problem is that now you're asking people to only discuss parts in different locations. It's like serving up a combo meal, and saying "Eat your burger here, and your fries over there, and your drink way over there." That's a pain in the tinykitty to anyone that wants to take a bite of burger then a bite of fries and wash it down with their drink because it's all part of the same meal.

Right now we don't have an official event thread for Thanos's Boss event, or for the three upcoming Guardians events (or one three-part event? the way they described it in the Marvel.com interview made little sense in MPQ terms), or for speculation on what the new Rocket & Groot or Gamora entail. The one thread in General Discussion that started to talk about Star Lord and the Boss event was locked because people talked about Star Lord, and that belongs in the Character Discussion page. Because OF COURSE that's where people are going to go to talk about the Thanos Boss event. Further, the three-part Guardians event is explicitly broken into three parts, one for Star Lord, one for Rocket & Groot, and one for Gamora. Marvel says "These events and characters go together!" and you're telling me we're not supposed to talk about them in the same place because they should have their own separate topics.

I get the need to make the forums more organized, reduce the clutter in General Discussion and liven up everywhere else, but this is a headache. A "Marvel Puzzle Quest Guardians of the Galaxy Awesome Mix Volume 2" thread is a PERFECT answer for this. It's like you're trying to fix white by painting it black when a happy medium grey would be more beneficial to everyone. There's nothing wrong with directing the general chatter to a main thread for the MONTH-LONG SPECTACULAR FEATURING FOUR NEW CHARACTERS, THREE NEW EVENTS, AND A NEW BOSS EVENT, and then pointing people towards specific character/event threads for more nuanced or focused discussion. Seriously, in what world would we want to downplay this by chopping up the discussion and hiding it in different corners of the forums? These efforts at improving the forum's organization are making it more frustrating to use by the day.

I disagree.  When i go to the bookstore, i like to know that my sci-fi books are in one place, historical novels in another, etc.  I hate trying to read through a 40 page announcement thread.  They always go off on weird tangents, several different people have several different discussions/arguments, clogging up the whole process.  I imagine we will still have that, but in this scenario, it would be cut in third.

If you want to keep the restaurant analogy, a better example would be splitting up the smokers and non smokers.

Brigby

@JHawkInc

Using your food analogy, the issue is more so that by creating a multifaceted thread, you've now created a bowl where the fries are sitting on top of the burger and the drink is poured over both of them. Oh, and there are 50 other people eating from that same bowl too. It quickly gets messy and convoluted.

I have an official event thread scheduled for tomorrow that will provide details about the month-long event. I would post it now, but ideally I would like for the developers and I to both be in the office at the same time, so I can relay them any of the community's questions and quickly get an answer for you all. When that thread goes live, that is where you can discuss about all of the events in one thread, and additional threads can be created to focus on a specific one.

DapperChewie

Brigby said:

@JHawkInc

Using your food analogy, the issue is more so that by creating a multifaceted thread, you've now created a bowl where the fries are sitting on top of the burger and the drink is poured over both of them. Oh, and there are 50 other people eating from that same bowl too. It quickly gets messy and convoluted.

I have an official event thread scheduled for tomorrow that will provide details about the month-long event. I would post it now, but ideally I would like for the developers and I to both be in the office at the same time, so I can relay them any of the community's questions and quickly get an answer for you all. When that thread goes live, that is where you can discuss about all of the events in one thread, and additional threads can be created to focus on a specific one.

Will it be in the general discussion or events, tournaments and missions? Just curious to know. 

And if it is in ETM, will there be an announcement thread in GD that links to it? 

Brigby

DapperChewie said:

Will it be in the general discussion or events, tournaments and missions? Just curious to know. 

And if it is in ETM, will there be an announcement thread in GD that links to it? 

That depends on if I can chain lightn...I mean...link the redirects from News and Announcements -> General Discussion -> Events, Tournaments, and Missions

If not, then I'll most likely have a redirect link going from News and Announcements -> Events, Tournaments, and Missions, and then a separate thread in General Discussion that's Closed but has the title "REDIRECT LINK INSIDE" and have the body of the post contain the location of the post.

DrDevilDinosaur

Brigby said:

... but this is all for the sake of organizing and making the forum more accessible in the long-run. We really do appreciate your patience through all of this, and we hope it makes navigating for content much smoother moving forward...

Want some legit feedback?

I access the forums almost totally via mobile device.

Moving things out of GD makes them less accessible for me. I'd really rather if everything was in one centralised location.

Also, the entire new forum layout is horrible on mobile, so if you could speak to someone about changing it back or at least making it available as an option, that'd be great.

Alsmir

Are the new forums getting that much extra traffic? Did we suddenly get hundreds or thousands of new users?

Last time I checked most of the sub-forums were at least inactive (or almost dead). It's a decent idea to do something about it, but personally I'd consider merging some of them instead of pretty much hiding few important threads there. Yes, I consider posting an important news in Character discussion and not having a sticky in GD that at least provides a link to the thread, simply hiding it.

It just feels awfully inconvenient, even if the intensions were good.

Magic

I think we are having a incredible case of "Perfect is the enemy of good" with the current forum restructuring. I would prefer that everybody (including community management) would focus the energy on the actual improvement of the game rather then another change that is not welcome by the player base. This update seems like a change for the sake of change. Pointless and will only lose you some devoted users. Already the move to the new forum was not great (it's much harder to read and navigate compare to the previous one). 

The moderators have asked the forum members for feedback. The general feedback was - don't hide the main announcements and discussions in the obscure forums. So the decision to hide them there seems like a logical move if you look at the logic of recent changes in the game. 

This is a forum for a game. I would like to see any reason for getting "traffic" in other subsection of it. And please don't use bullc* that it would be easier to navigate for new users. If you want it to make easier remove some subforums, merge others and moderate it correctly.