PSA: Forum Structure - How Would You Organize It?

Brigby
Brigby ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 7,757 Site Admin
in MPQ General Discussion
Hi Everyone,

As many of you are most likely aware by now, the moderators and I have been working on re-structuring the forum in an attempt to organize information, and make it easier to anticipate what kind of discussions threads will be located in each section. While there are certainly forum members who are supportive of the organizational changes, there are certainly also forum members who actively oppose it.

My goal of the forums is to have it be an organized and informative environment, where players can go to express their feedback, opinions, and anecdotes easily and efficiently. With over 10,000 members and over 100,000 visitors viewing and posting a week, you can imagine how challenging it might be to condense all topics into the various main subjects, what with so many differing viewpoints.

Having said that though, the moderators and I are but a handful of individuals, so I wanted to invoke the collaborative power of the community, and ask the question: How would YOU organize the forum?

Now keep in mind, there are some general guidelines everyone must follow. (No, you cannot nuke all sub-forums, and just leave General Discussion) Here are some key points that everyone should keep in mind when submitting their thoughts:
  • Players of all ages and skill-levels visit this forum.
  • The developers need to be able to quickly and easily navigate around
  • If you are changing titles or descriptions, please explain why. (Keep it PG, please)
At the end of the day, this is ultimately a forum for players by players, and I want it to be easily accessible by everyone. I hope this exercise allows us all to find a common-ground solution, so we can work towards making this forum an efficient and effective source of information and entertainment.

Cheers!
Brigby
«134

Comments

  • aa25
    aa25 Posts: 348 Mover and Shaker
    edited June 2017
    I don't have a full picture of how I would organize the forum yet, but I have one thing that springs to my mind right away. Isn't the reason/complaints about other suggestion subforum is lacking of response from the devs ? I admit I have the feeling too that that and other sub-forums never receive any attention from the devs or even you. May be a good starting point is to encourage the devs to interact with forumites more ? I am still puzzled why there is a request on the feedback about the difficulty-tied-to-SCL test, while there are massive amounts of comments/suggestions/feedbacks floating around the event and suggestion sub-forum already. So many questions asked about many things but no answers. In the past 3-4 months since vaulting, we received only one response back from the devs which didn't even answer all the questions (the 8 questions, if you remember).

    Edit: I truely apologize if my perception about other sub-forums not receive any attentions from you is wrong. I just re-read my post and it is not my attention to accuse you or anything. It is what I feel when I browse through those sub-forums which could definitely be wrong. And honestly, I'm glad that you are around to pass our questions to the devs.
  • Moon Roach
    Moon Roach Posts: 2,863 Chairperson of the Boards

    Given that this is a structural change, and not an opportunity to say "bring back the old forum" (so I'll think it, but not say it), are there any forum software limitations we should be aware of?

    For example, maximum number of stickied threads, whether it's possible for multiple discussion lists per page, if the number of threads displayed per page is configurable, other functional stuff like that.

    As you've thrown some numbers out, could you also let us know how many of those 10,000 members have been active this year, and how many unique visitors we have per week?

  • Wumpushunter
    Wumpushunter Posts: 627 Critical Contributor
    edited June 2017
    Don't nuke all sub forums but basically some of them are a death sentence. Post on general get 1200 views and 200 replies. Get shuffled off to feedback or my god off topic and NO one will ever see it.   Keep general, announcement, bugs, events and characters the rest are garbage no one would really use if not for overly restrictive and some times vindictive moderation.  You can organize till the cows come home but if a forum gets 1000 views vs 100000 a day no one will voluntarily post on that forum. 

    The aggressive moderation has made this forum far less fun and if I was not a stubborn tiny kitty I would have just stopped posting.

    //Removed Targeting Another Player -Brigby
  • sinnerjfl
    sinnerjfl Posts: 1,260 Chairperson of the Boards
    Dartmaster01 said:
    I don't think people oppose it. I actually like some of the forum changes but it doesn't change the fact that it seems to be slowly killing the forum. Long time forumites have quit posting and who can blame them when any topic with a good discussion gets moved within two hours, never to be seen again. This doesn't encourage dialogue, it shuts it down.

    I don't know what the answer is but it's certainly not the heavy hand we've had lately.
    Regarding the moving of threads not belonging to the proper forum, if your thread gets moved, it will pretty much die because very few people actively go to the sub-boards.

    I appreciate the work of the mods but is it really necessary to be so quick on the "lets move this over here stat!", how about leaving a post in GD at least 24 hours then move it?

    This new forum is already harder to navigate by default and now lots of threads are just pointing to another thread etc...  It's become a chore to use this forum, the previous software was maybe old but it was a lot more user-friendly.
  • DapperChewie
    DapperChewie Posts: 399 Mover and Shaker
    I have a few things I'd do very differently. 

    First, combine General Discussion, Events, and Tips into one. I've always thought that Events should be in GD. Split Tips and Guides into two subforums, there should be a separate place for guides that stands on its own. Tips are something everything should see, and guides are things that I'm ok with people having to go a couple extra steps to find.

    Second, make sure every announcement gets stickied in GD, and link it somewhere else if necessary. I shouldn't have to go to a different subforum for the monthly preview thread, for example. 

    Next, ditch this new format and go back to BBCode. WYSIWYG is great, if implemented properly. This forum is not that. It's clunky, hard to find options, removed a lot of functionality from its previous incarnation, and just has a lot of issues. 

    Finally, step back a bit on moving threads. It really stifles discussion when a thread is moved, because it's in a different place than before, and also because it's now in a place where nobody looks. If it's completely off topic, I'm ok moving it, but if it's on the fence, just let it be. Once it hits a few pages, it should stay as well. 
  • RedLion
    RedLion Posts: 70 Match Maker
    I don't post a lot, but I read the forums a lot. (Seriously, it's embarrassing.)

    Given that the format is what it is and won't change much, here's how I would improve things:

    Forum #1: News & Discussion
    Forum #2: Character Resources
    Forum #3: Event Resources
    Forum #4: Alliance Resources & Recruiting
    Forum #5: Support
    Forum #6: Off-topic

    Forum 1 is where the action happens. Promoters and spokesman like Vhailorx and Punisher get their just due here and sit first chair as the community gathers round the radio to talk MPQ. 
    Forums 2+3 are wikis, lists, stats, and spreadsheets.
    Forum 4 is where to find comrades and how to use outside apps to enhance the game experience.
    Forum 5 is where to go when things go wrong.
    Forum 6 isn't necessary. ;)

    The magic of this approach? I nuked feedback. Discussions often contain feedback. Feedback is absolutely useless without discussion. 

    I understand that the devs (keep up the hard work all!) want to be able to find things quickly. Let the views and comments in Forum 1 be your guide.

  • Alsmir
    Alsmir Posts: 508 Critical Contributor
    Give us the option to ignore unlimited amount of posters, bring downvote function and just let people post in general discussion without moving everything to dead sub-forums.
  • JHawkInc
    JHawkInc Posts: 2,601 Chairperson of the Boards
    What we have:
    • MPQ News and Announcements
    • MPQ Tips and Guides
    • Roster and Level Help
    • Theories and Statistics
    • MPQ General Discussion
    • MPQ Character Discussion
    • Speculation and Concepts
    • MPQ Events, Tournaments, and Missions
    • MPQ Alliances
    • MPQ Suggestions and Feedback
    • MPQ Bugs and Technical Issues
    Some merits of the old days, it used to be that the Character/Event forums were solely technical. Character threads were about character stats, Event threads were about nodes, points, enemies, rewards, etc. We had Event Archives and Character Tier threads stickied at the top. I see that as a good thing we have lost, and it will influence my suggestions going forward (so you can start on the same page as me, to better understand my suggestions).

    News & Announcements? Gone. It's basically an archive. If you want to keep it as an archive, that's cool, but News and Announcements need to be in the most highly trafficked area, which is near always going to be General Discussion. There's merit to having a record of official announcements. But it's basically an archive, and not a forum section (literally doesn't meet the simple definition of a forum).

    Tips and Guides has RALH and T&S under it. For organization purposes, I would remove them from the "Categories" page, and mention their contents in the blurb for Tips and Guides. Theories/Stats tend to lead into Tips/Guides, so I would leave them as one forum (though it might still be beneficial to have a stats sub-forum that serves as an archive).

    Roster Help becomes a monthly sticky thread in General Discussion. It'd be like "July Roster Questions", people ask a question, high traffic of General Discussion helps them get quick answers (and possibly several answers), once a month thread is replaced so it doesn't get too long and bogged down. Might could even make it broader, make it a simple Q&A thread, and then it would catch other common threads as well (like everyone who asks questions about Kaecilius each time Strange Sights is run, or every time people think Sniper's are broken because their passive doesn't trigger Doctor Strange, instead of getting a few threads about those topics each time they roll around). First post might still point people towards other sections of the forums, so someone who has a more in-depth roster question might go to the Tips and Guides section seeking help.

    Character Discussion is for character threads. I would say MOST of these threads should be the ones that say "***** Character Name *****". Tier lists are okay, the stickied stuff seems fine, some group threads (like the Sinister Six thread and the "what 3*s do you never use?" thread on the first page) are good. It's a useful place for mass-changes like the Team-Up Tile thread. The thread on 3* Sell Price doesn't go with that kind of technical info, nor does the roster help (they'd go in that Q&A thread). Mostly fine as-is. Same with the Speculation/Concept thread underneath it. Some of this will bleed over into General Discussion from time to time (like, speculation on new characters for the "Summer of Spidey" teased in the Doc Ock article is broad enough that I'd keep it in General Discussion, and the "Why 3* Star Lord isn't trash" thread might work well in General Discussion, even if it technically belongs in the "*** Star Lord (Peter Quill)***" thread, and that may be somewhere that it might need case-by-case consideration).

    Events used to be a great resource for technical information. The DDQ Crash threads, the bracket size threads, the PVE/PVP threads that are formatted "PV(E/P) Event Name (Start Date) to (End Date)" are good threads. Some stuff that's been added there recently (like all the threads on scaling changes) are solid additions, less technical, more discussion, but that's okay. All of the Kaecilius threads, the one about Magneto as a double agent, Bullseye/Moonstone frequency, etc, should either be in general discussion or the Q&A thread I suggested. They're cluttering up the Events section, and that's bad (and most of them wouldn't be there if they weren't moved from Gen Disc in the first place). 

    MPQ Alliance section... I'll be 100% honest, my first year I played in an alliance I found in-game that just kinda worked, my second year I joined a more competitive alliance via a reddit thread, and have been with the family that evolved from that first group of 20 for over a year, serving as a commander for a good stretch of it, in one of the... well, I forget how many alliances we have, but it's at least 7, and I think I always forget one, so probably 8. I've never been to this section of the forums. So I can't say where it should go. I don't see a reason it needs to exist other than to keep recruitment posts from cluttering up other areas. I have no idea how much traffic this section gets, so I can't say if it's helping or not. For organizational purposes, it might make the Categories less cluttered to put Alliances under the Tips/Guides section, but that might make Alliance threads harder to find for new players. So I have some theoretical rambling here, but no real suggestions, because I just don't know this section that well.

    Suggestions and Feedback are tricky. We give suggestions and feedback in all areas of the forum, from specific character/event threads to discussions in General Discussion. Hell, the speculation/concept area of character discussion is basically "character suggestions". I think it's a necessary evil that these threads exist organically, where they are started, and that the S&F subforum just goes away. Does a thread complaining about character availability in Vintage tokens go in General Discussion (because it's a discussion), Characters (since we're talking about availability), Events (since these tokens are only available during off-season events), or Feedback (since it's a complaint, suggesting something is dissatisfying and needs evaluation/addressing?). I know I'm being a pedant about suggesting it could go in so many places (you'd NEVER put that thread in Events, for example), but my point is that it's better to let it grow and let the discussion evolve on its own, which will often mean letting it live in General Discussion so it gets healthy traffic for the discussion to thrive. It would make things harder for the devs to find in one neat place, but I believe the increase in discussion quality (by letting them live, and not killing them by moving them to a dead forum) would be worth it.

    Bugs and Technical Issues, I'd roll these together. Maybe "MPQ Troubleshooting." A place for when the game isn't working properly. Help for technical problems, specific bugs could be in a sub-forum (these posts would 100% be the "Devs Aware" threads, to help aggregate data for bug-squishing, and if someone has a problem that is related to a bug, we link them to the specific bug thread). And MAYBE a "Troubleshooting" section could have a monthly thread for "Troubleshooting Needs of the MPQ Community", and if I think there's a particularly great discussion about changes to PVP in the Event subforum, I could post it here, to help the Devs aggregate meaningful discussion (you know, since I killed the feedback section in the previous paragraph).

    So, TL;DR, JHawkInc's Revised Forum Sections:

    • MPQ General Discussion
    • MPQ Tips, Guides, Theories, and Stats
    • Character Discussion - Speculation Subforum
    • Events
    • MPQ Troubleshooting - Official Bugs Subforum
    • MPQ Alliances?
    The Q&A thread in Gen Disc would de-clutter a lot, and that would take us from 11 sections to 6, with possible sub-forums for data collection (stats in the Tip section, event history in the Event section, official bugs in Troubleshooting), reversed for Characters (keeping the speculation and fan made stuff separate from the official content).

    I appreciate the work you're trying to do to improve the forums. I've been a forum user across the internet for most of two decades, and have administrated my own forums during that time as well. I get the kind of hurdles that have to be jumped to keep things organized/functional, and I appreciate you putting in the effort to make this place the best it can be.

    Also, I don't know if it would be possible, but reverting to the old forum style would be nice. Nothing kills a forum faster than an unnecessary upgrade. Hell, it's been almost a decade and you can still piss of D&D players by mentioning the word "Gleemax", because of how horrible that forum upgrade was. Just being able to use the old pictures for AP and Character Icons would be worth it.

    And anybody let me know if they think I've missed something, or if they see flaws in my outlines. I'll be glad to explain where something would go in my design, or to update it to make sure it appropriately accommodates our needs (I mean, by "my design" I just mean "a summary of the stuff I've talked about", it's not sacred or infallible by any means, and suggestions/improvements will be gladly accepted!).
  • jamesh
    jamesh Posts: 1,600 Chairperson of the Boards
    Here's what I would do:

    1. instruct all moderators to stop moving threads for a period of time (1 or 2 weeks).
    2. at the end of the period, check how many posts have been made to threads in each sub-forum during that time.
    3. any sub-forum below a certain activity threshold gets closed.

    The idea here is that rather than trying to impose order on the forum, just let things evolve organically.

    The forum has the ability to tag threads, so maybe that would be a less invasive way for moderators to curate the discussions?
  • DeNappa
    DeNappa Posts: 1,368 Chairperson of the Boards
    My 2 cents: some separation is fine, but i there's too much categories now. This might be one of the reasons some subforums aren't visited often (and why people complain that moved topics are 'sent to die')
    • news/announcements : keep.
    • tips and guides : keep
    • roster & level help : merge with tips&guides
    • theories/stats : ditch. This can be covered by GD (74 discussions...)
    • general discussion : keep
    • character discussion : not sure, this could be merged into tips&guides, but might also be kept in its own sub
    • speculation/concepts: merge into suggestions. they are more or less interchangeable
    • events/missions: not sure, this could be merged into tips&guides, but might also be kept in its own sub
    • alliances : keep
    • suggestions & feedback : keep
    • bugs : keep

    So, in the end that would leave:
    • Announcements
    • General Discussion
    • Suggestions
    • Bugs
    • Help
    • [[Characters]]
    • [[Events]]
    If with 5 (or 7) categories people still only visit GD, maybe they should move to reddit? :mrgreen:.

    Also, you still didn't make the 'active topics' feature ( https://forums.d3go.com/discussions was it? ) accessible through a menu link, it's about time. 
  • broll
    broll Posts: 4,732 Chairperson of the Boards
    @Brigby

    First let me thank you for taking this step.  I strongly believe that the more people have input in something the better the outcome will be.  Especially when talking about something as community driven as an internet forum.  I think allowing people to make suggestions and seeing that some of those suggestions are taken will help people adapt the rule changes more readily (even if their suggestions are selected),

    The sub forums are generally fine, the big problem is General Discussion.  The biggest problem with the current approach of moving topics to other forums is it isn't (and in my opinion won't) changing the the way users are consuming the forum (it might but it will be long and drive many away).  Currently it's very apparent to anyone who comes here often that General Discussion is the most utilized sub-forum by a wide margin.  Topics created there grow much faster and are more lively than anywhere else.  This is even more obvious under the current policy of aggressively moving topics because you see threads growing by 3-4 pages in 1 day suddenly drop to a few posts a day/nothing after being moved.  While I don't believe the intent of moving the threads is stifling discussion, that's the practical effect it's currently having.  If the devs really are watching and want to get feedback and suggestions on how to improve the game or how a new feature is being accepted it should be the job of the forum to promote that discussion/debate, not stifle it.

    Currently General Discussion is essential a catch-all that's basically being abused.  A catch-all shouldn't be the go to for the majority of people.  The way I see it the fix needs to be to either more narrowly define General Discussion or remove/replace it all together.  Here are 3 suggestions I have for doing that:

    Suggestion #1:

    My opinion is General Discussion should be like the cliche office water cooler.  It's where hot button issues of the day get discussed.  Even though SCL based scaling might make sense to be in the Events section, when things are changing dramatically like that General Discussion should be where those discussions happen and they can be moved later once the topic has died down.

    I'm totally for moving away things that are more general questions not related to current events.  Things like: roster advice, questions about an event that hasn't undergone a major change, hoard opening threads, etc.

    I'm also for duplicate threads being closed and re-directed to one major thread for a topic (unless the new thread offers something the original didn't like a poll or a fresh perspective on the issue).

    Pros:
    • Works best with how most users are using the forum today and reduces the frustration from the user base.

    Cons:
    • Definitions of what should be moved are vague and could lead to differences in interpretation.
    • It would reduce the amount of moved threads by using General Discussion in a way most of the users use it today, but there would definitely still be moves and it wouldn't encourage looking at other sub-forums.

    Suggestion #2:

    Completely replace General Discussion with this: https://forums.d3go.com/discussions
    I've already made the above link my personal replacement for General Discussions and I've been loving it as an alternative.  It allows me to continue to view/find threads that are the hottest because they popcorn up to the top.  This would also eliminate the need to move threads out of general discussion because this is just a filter and it's impossible to make a thread here.  When a user makes a thread they would have to choose an appropriate sub-forum.

    Pros:
    • Similar in practice to Suggestion #1.
    • Immediately ends the habit of most threads being in General Discussion by removing that possibility completely.

    Cons:
    • There may be technical limitations that prevent this.
    • Would need a stickied thread about how to pick which sub-forums show up because by default you get stuff from other games.

    Suggestion #3:

    Remove General Discussion and don't replace it with anything.  This is basically an alternative to Suggestion #2 if  technical limitations prevent that or if it's felt that it's too confusing to have a filter appear like a sub-forum.

    Pros:
    • Same as Suggestion #2

    Cons:

    Thanks again for taking the time to listen to feedback/suggestions.
  • firethorne
    firethorne Posts: 1,505 Chairperson of the Boards
    Since the move, mods have been quite heavy handed with moving/burying topics.  Compromise, have an "Everything" section that displays all topics in Announcements, General, Suggestions, Bugs.  So, regardless of where things get moved, a link to them is mirrored there.

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