PSA: Forum Structure - How Would You Organize It?

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  • DukeUpdate
    DukeUpdate Posts: 33 Just Dropped In
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    Is there any chance the tab at the top marked "Activity" could show the threads that had the most recent posts, regardless of where they are located?

    For example, I will often check @Brigby 's comments section of his page to see what threads he has posted in regardless of which subforum they are in.  If we had something similar for posters across the forums, I think it would get a lot of use.

    I doubt too many people use the "Activity" tab now, but if it showed the most recent threads, it wouldn't matter to me which subforum things got placed in.

  • xKOBALTx
    xKOBALTx Posts: 299 Mover and Shaker
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    STOPTHIS said:
    the terrible loading into the latest comments when I'm all I'm trying to see is what's been updated in the main post, etc.
    I agree with almost everything STOPTHIS said, but this piece in particular has been driving me nuts on the new forum. Is there a way to turn this off? I'll navigate to the page of the discussion I want to view all by myself, thank you very much.
  • MissChinch
    MissChinch Posts: 509 Critical Contributor
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    I come to forums for both reference and discussions.


    Reference materials typically have less activity and benefit from sticky posts in properly categorized subforums...  like announcements, game mechanics, character data, event data, reward data etc...   breaking them out into any manner of organization will work IMO.


    Discussions are rapidly changing, constantly being created and becoming obsolete.  Keeping all of these types of posts in the same subforum allows for the discussion use case of the forums...  splitting active discussions based on topic as if they were reference materials would destroy the whole idea of having a discussion...   "Active" members refer only to this type of use case, you don't even need an account to find massive value in the reference use case mentioned above...


    Best of luck with the re-org.

  • mpqr7
    mpqr7 Posts: 2,642 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Everyone posts their threads in General Discussion because they actually want their threads to be read, liked and commented upon. The only reason to post elsewhere is if.. you don't want your threads to be seen?
  • Wumpushunter
    Wumpushunter Posts: 627 Critical Contributor
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    I had a post moved to off topic because it was only about the forum. It promptly died.  
  • deadtaco
    deadtaco Posts: 409 Mover and Shaker
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    Like others have said, stop moving posts for flimsy reasons.  If someone posts a random thought on page 4 that is not a reason to move it.   It looks like common sense is thrown out in some cases.

    Rule of thumb in software design - adjust your product to how the users use it.  Not how you want them to use it.  Forcing users to use a product in ways they do not wish to is an easy way to kill a product.

    That said, what about an easy to access aggregate page that lists the current most popular topics from different sub-sections?  
  • therightwaye
    therightwaye Posts: 459 Mover and Shaker
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    DrDevilDinosaur said:
    Brigby said:

    (No, you cannot nuke all sub-forums, and just leave General Discussion)

    This is the best possible solution though. It would require that you install some plugins to track Red posts, etc. but other than that it considerably cuts down on a lot of the admin/maintenance busy work.

    Can't do that? Fine, here we go:

    Support

    - Customer Support

    - Bug Report

    Development

    - Release Notes

    - Feedback

    Discussion

    - General Discussion

    - Character Discussion

    - Recruitment





    Simple is good. Just look above. That is nice. Personally I don't have a problem with a more complex and very robust subcategory system. I assume people will learn fairly quickly. 

    I think there is more problem with the lack of confidence that people will be heard. That they are being dismissed. That their posts are being treated differently than that of other players or moderators. Could a propose change resolve that?
  • Borstock
    Borstock Posts: 2,547 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I have the General section bookmarked. Pretty much anything that doesn't show up here goes unnoticed by me.

    Now, you don't have to cater to me. But you have the information.
  • smkspy
    smkspy Posts: 2,024 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Seems to me like all this forum reorganizing is a reaction to vaulting. None of what is happening now seemed to be a problem until that mechanic and BH dropped, which brought about a lot more site traffic. 

    Everything here lately just seems like a big excuse to silence discontent on the official game website to give the appearance that everything is fine and working as intended.

    *not a critique on the above mentioned just pointing out a causality.
  • Spudgutter
    Spudgutter Posts: 743 Critical Contributor
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    xKOBALTx said:
    STOPTHIS said:
    the terrible loading into the latest comments when I'm all I'm trying to see is what's been updated in the main post, etc.
    I agree with almost everything STOPTHIS said, but this piece in particular has been driving me nuts on the new forum. Is there a way to turn this off? I'll navigate to the page of the discussion I want to view all by myself, thank you very much.

    To be fair, i like this.  If i am reading a thread on my phone at lunch, and then log on my laptop later on at night, it picks up right where i left off.
  • DarthDeVo
    DarthDeVo Posts: 2,176 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Spudgutter said:
    xKOBALTx said:
    STOPTHIS said:
    the terrible loading into the latest comments when I'm all I'm trying to see is what's been updated in the main post, etc.
    I agree with almost everything STOPTHIS said, but this piece in particular has been driving me nuts on the new forum. Is there a way to turn this off? I'll navigate to the page of the discussion I want to view all by myself, thank you very much.

    To be fair, i like this.  If i am reading a thread on my phone at lunch, and then log on my laptop later on at night, it picks up right where i left off.
    I agree with Spudgutter. I use the forum in just about the same way and have really come to enjoy this feature. 
  • DrDevilDinosaur
    DrDevilDinosaur Posts: 436 Mover and Shaker
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    therightwaye said:


    Simple is good. Just look above. That is nice. Personally I don't have a problem with a more complex and very robust subcategory system. I assume people will learn fairly quickly. 

    I think there is more problem with the lack of confidence that people will be heard. That they are being dismissed. That their posts are being treated differently than that of other players or moderators. Could a propose change resolve that?
    Fun fact, by the way, that simplified forum list was copied from another video game forums - a little title called World of Warcraft that some people here might have heard about. They also have a series of subforums for each character class, which doesn't really translate to MPQ so I left them out, but there you go.
  • Carnifexx
    Carnifexx Posts: 110 Tile Toppler
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    Mainly what smkspy said. Let GD be the Wild West, minus direct attacks on people. Rule the sub forums with an iron fist. Best of both worlds. 
  • Jaedenkaal
    Jaedenkaal Posts: 3,357 Chairperson of the Boards
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    so then... I just put my thread in whatever sub forum I want? Where does my "how long has everyone been playing" poll/question go?
  • Brigby
    Brigby ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 7,757 Site Admin
    edited June 2017
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    Jaedenkaal said:
    so then... I just put my thread in whatever sub forum I want? Where does my "how long has everyone been playing" poll/question go?
    @Jaedenkaal You would still want to post in the appropriate sub-forum, lest I or a moderator move it to the correct location, however a thread would theoretically be listed in the MPQ Recent Discussions page as a new/popular discussion and be visible to everyone, regardless of where it originated from.
    (It would act like a news feed of sorts.)

    There would probably be an MPQ Off-Topic created where you could post that kind of a poll.
  • DrDevilDinosaur
    DrDevilDinosaur Posts: 436 Mover and Shaker
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    JHawkInc said:

    If you keep pointing the spotlight at things people don't want, you are not filling their needs, and they will leave.

    Are you suggesting that this isn't the most desired outcome?
  • Alsmir
    Alsmir Posts: 508 Critical Contributor
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    smkspy said:
    Seems to me like all this forum reorganizing is a reaction to vaulting. None of what is happening now seemed to be a problem until that mechanic and BH dropped, which brought about a lot more site traffic. 

    Everything here lately just seems like a big excuse to silence discontent on the official game website to give the appearance that everything is fine and working as intended.

    *not a critique on the above mentioned just pointing out a causality.
    Similar case with new forum rules, where you can get punished for even slightly hurting somebody's feelings. I've been to a bunch of forums that went through similar road and it was not pretty. It starts with some simple thread shuffling, removing some comments and after a while we have a proper case of censorship, where people get banned and critique gets removed.

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