JHawkInc said: If General Discussion goes away, at all, the forums will die. General Discussion is not a "catch all" for things that don't have a home elsewhere. It is the first stop for ALL discussion. The purposes of other forums are to collect certain topics and pull them away from General so they do not dominate the conversations by filling the front page. It is the foundation, the hub, and other categories are spokes or branches off of that hub. You cannot get rid of the hub and hope for things to survive.however it ensures that even posts located in the least visited sections will still get their fair share of the spotlight.It's our spotlight, not yours. WE get to decide what goes in the spotlight by how WE use the forums. If you keep pointing the spotlight at things people don't want, you are not filling their needs, and they will leave.You encourage growth in the tree by trimming back dead limbs, and by pinching off dead buds when you want new blooms. Some limbs won't get as much sunlight as others, and they will naturally produce fewer leaves as well, because that's what plants do.Just so the metaphor is clear, the current moderation direction seems to be to pump all effort into the dead limbs, which isn't going to work.
It's our spotlight, not yours. WE get to decide what goes in the spotlight by how WE use the forums. If you keep pointing the spotlight at things people don't want, you are not filling their needs, and they will leave.
You encourage growth in the tree by trimming back dead limbs, and by pinching off dead buds when you want new blooms. Some limbs won't get as much sunlight as others, and they will naturally produce fewer leaves as well, because that's what plants do.
Just so the metaphor is clear, the current moderation direction seems to be to pump all effort into the dead limbs, which isn't going to work.
broll said: @Brigby Obviously I approve as this was one of my 3 suggestions. I think it's the best of both worlds. JHawkInc said: If General Discussion goes away, at all, the forums will die. General Discussion is not a "catch all" for things that don't have a home elsewhere. It is the first stop for ALL discussion. The purposes of other forums are to collect certain topics and pull them away from General so they do not dominate the conversations by filling the front page. It is the foundation, the hub, and other categories are spokes or branches off of that hub. You cannot get rid of the hub and hope for things to survive.however it ensures that even posts located in the least visited sections will still get their fair share of the spotlight.It's our spotlight, not yours. WE get to decide what goes in the spotlight by how WE use the forums. If you keep pointing the spotlight at things people don't want, you are not filling their needs, and they will leave.You encourage growth in the tree by trimming back dead limbs, and by pinching off dead buds when you want new blooms. Some limbs won't get as much sunlight as others, and they will naturally produce fewer leaves as well, because that's what plants do.Just so the metaphor is clear, the current moderation direction seems to be to pump all effort into the dead limbs, which isn't going to work. Have you played with the Recent Discussion link? https://forums.d3go.com/discussionsIt makes anything you post anywhere show up on top and the most active threads popcorn to the top. We would still determine what's spotlighted by which threads remain active. IMO it's General Discussion a great replacement for what most of us what General Discussion. Try it out for a few days if you haven't, it might change your opinion.
Brigby said: (Disclaimer: I am not a web designer/developer, so the following comment is purely hypothetical, as I'm uncertain of technical capabilities)Since the Recent Discussions section essentially aggregates all threads ever created, what if General Discussion was replaced by an MPQ Recent Discussions? Players would still need to post in the appropriate sub-forum to begin with, but their thread will be guaranteed visible on the MPQ Recent Discussions section. Clicking on the thread in that section would redirect players to the appropriate sub-forum. (Duration of front-page visibility on the Recent Discussions section would be determined by activity of the thread, just like any other forum section)This way there will always be forum organization, however it ensures that even posts located in the least visited sections will still get their fair share of the spotlight.What are everyone's thoughts?
animaniactoo said: - Character discussion: Each character should have its own thread, with the top post being general info about the character (abilities/etc.), a few other characters they pair well with, and then free for all discussion about them. New characters should be posted here as part of new release work.- PVP: Contains a sticky about all PVP events (specifics like what’s in each node), and then general discussion about current event, etc. OR similar to character discussion, each event has its own thread with the initial post being specifics about the event, and then general discussion about it.- PVE: Same as PVP but for PVECurrent event general discussion may start in GD, and be moved here after event is over. I meant to mention - the thought behind these is that it makes the forum easier to top-level search and come up with specific information, vs having to dig through several discussions to find info you're looking for.
animaniactoo said: - Character discussion: Each character should have its own thread, with the top post being general info about the character (abilities/etc.), a few other characters they pair well with, and then free for all discussion about them. New characters should be posted here as part of new release work.- PVP: Contains a sticky about all PVP events (specifics like what’s in each node), and then general discussion about current event, etc. OR similar to character discussion, each event has its own thread with the initial post being specifics about the event, and then general discussion about it.- PVE: Same as PVP but for PVECurrent event general discussion may start in GD, and be moved here after event is over.
JHawkInc said: broll said: @Brigby Obviously I approve as this was one of my 3 suggestions. I think it's the best of both worlds. -snipped for space- Have you played with the Recent Discussion link? https://forums.d3go.com/discussionsIt makes anything you post anywhere show up on top and the most active threads popcorn to the top. We would still determine what's spotlighted by which threads remain active. IMO it's General Discussion a great replacement for what most of us what General Discussion. Try it out for a few days if you haven't, it might change your opinion. I have used it, and personally don't care for it. It's neat if you want to see active threads across the entire forum at once, but that isn't the ONLY purpose of General Discussion, and that's why it can't replace it.General Discussion is the meat of any solid forum. It's the core at the center, the first place people go, and the place that holds most of the discussion. The purpose of having other categories is to recognize when a certain group of topics would be useful to sort through as a group (like Character and Event threads), or when a large portion of the discussions are under one umbrella, and are starting to drown out everything else (not a problem we really have here, but you see it all over reddit, with subreddits creating megathreads for random questions to prevent them from cluttering up the main page; I suggested a regular Q&A thread to solve what little problem we have with that on the MPQ forums).The advantage of going to General Discussion is that it doesn't have any of the threads from the Character or Events or Bug forums. The Recent Discussions link takes that advantage away, and just re-clutters everything by putting it all in one spot again. What's the point in creating categories to pull stuff away from General Discussion, if you're going to replace it with Recent Discussions, which puts all that stuff back in again?I don't think General Discussion is a negotiable point. We've already seen the negative effect a moderately moderated Gen Disc is having on the forums. Killing it entirely is only going to make things worse.
broll said: @Brigby Obviously I approve as this was one of my 3 suggestions. I think it's the best of both worlds. -snipped for space- Have you played with the Recent Discussion link? https://forums.d3go.com/discussionsIt makes anything you post anywhere show up on top and the most active threads popcorn to the top. We would still determine what's spotlighted by which threads remain active. IMO it's General Discussion a great replacement for what most of us what General Discussion. Try it out for a few days if you haven't, it might change your opinion.
-snipped for space-
Brigby said: a big issue we currently have is multiple threads talking about the same topic, but split between General Discussion and its appropriate sub-forum.
animaniactoo said: Brigby said:a big issue we currently have is multiple threads talking about the same topic, but split between General Discussion and its appropriate sub-forum. Real question: If there are different aspects/approaches to a portion of discussion around the same topic, why is it a problem to have multiple threads about it - focusing on those different aspects?Who is it a problem for if this is happening?
Brigby said:a big issue we currently have is multiple threads talking about the same topic, but split between General Discussion and its appropriate sub-forum.
Brigby said: Hi Everyone. Thanks so much for the feedback! From what I gathered so far, it seems like at the core of forum usage, players want one designated area where they can see all of the most recent/popular discussions and let the sub-forums be very focused sources of information.(Disclaimer: I am not a web designer/developer, so the following comment is purely hypothetical, as I'm uncertain of technical capabilities)Since the Recent Discussions section essentially aggregates all threads ever created, what if General Discussion was replaced by an MPQ Recent Discussions? Players would still need to post in the appropriate sub-forum to begin with, but their thread will be guaranteed visible on the MPQ Recent Discussions section. Clicking on the thread in that section would redirect players to the appropriate sub-forum. (Duration of front-page visibility on the Recent Discussions section would be determined by activity of the thread, just like any other forum section)This way there will always be forum organization, however it ensures that even posts located in the least visited sections will still get their fair share of the spotlight.What are everyone's thoughts?
Brigby said: animaniactoo said: Brigby said:a big issue we currently have is multiple threads talking about the same topic, but split between General Discussion and its appropriate sub-forum. Real question: If there are different aspects/approaches to a portion of discussion around the same topic, why is it a problem to have multiple threads about it - focusing on those different aspects?Who is it a problem for if this is happening? @animaniactoo If the threads are talking about different aspects of a topic, then that's perfectly fine to have multiple threads for each one, For example, one thread could be talking about Strange Sights progression reward, and another thread could be talking about which characters to use in Strange Sights. Both topics revolve around the event, but are addressing different aspects of it.The issue is when there are multiple threads started that are talking about the same aspect; two threads talking about Strange Sights progression rewards, for example. This creates unnecessary clutter, as well as potentially useful information to be split between two threads. In the past, we would merge these two threads together, but unfortunately we no longer have that functionality.
fight4thedream said (paraphrased): [make Speculation & Concepts a section of Suggestion & Feedback]
broll said: https://forums.d3go.com/discussionsI've already made the above link my personal replacement for General Discussions and I've been loving it as an alternative.