PSA: Forum Structure - How Would You Organize It?

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Comments

  • GurlBYE
    GurlBYE Posts: 1,218 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited June 2017
    Character discussion shouldn't be any random threads relating to characters.
    That forum was most useful as a compendium.

    Seeing **** Sam Smith ****

    and then 

    "should i champ mordo...ugh"

    doesn't really seem like a good fit.
  • Eichen
    Eichen Posts: 176 Tile Toppler
    I would also request that the forum was the first place to get news. But it's not.  

    https://news.marvel.com/games/67297/spider-man-homecoming-arrives-marvel-games/

  • smkspy
    smkspy Posts: 2,024 Chairperson of the Boards
    Again, stop moving threads. Example the discussion on how to improve bonus heroes. It's a legit GD discussion, but once again after a couple of comments off to the suggestions forum where it goes to die.
  • keitterman
    keitterman Posts: 127 Tile Toppler
    Eichen said:
    I would also request that the forum was the first place to get news. But it's not.  

    https://news.marvel.com/games/67297/spider-man-homecoming-arrives-marvel-games/

    Ouch. I would guess that cases like this aren't really in the forum admin's control, but yeah... that hurts.
  • JHawkInc
    JHawkInc Posts: 2,605 Chairperson of the Boards
    keitterman said:
    Eichen said:
    I would also request that the forum was the first place to get news. But it's not.  

    https://news.marvel.com/games/67297/spider-man-homecoming-arrives-marvel-games/

    Ouch. I would guess that cases like this aren't really in the forum admin's control, but yeah... that hurts.
    The reality is that this isn't going to change. Marvel gets first dibs on making news because they want the first place people come to be to Marvel. It would be nice if they could coordinate a little (Marvel.com guy posts article at a certain time, so someone like Brigby could be ready to post it here as soon as it goes live), but the reality is that's more work for everyone involved. Especially since this article is for multiple games, and thus has more people to coordinate between.

    It's unfortunate, but it's a "necessary evil" since the licensed material for this game belongs to a larger entity.
  • keitterman
    keitterman Posts: 127 Tile Toppler
    Eichen said:
    ...
    That's the whole problem with moving threads in a nutshell. Discussing should be for discussion and all the rest is data. 
    I see your point, and I think it would change the argument, and the mod's actions, if it was Game Discussion, instead of General Discussion. 
  • JHawkInc
    JHawkInc Posts: 2,605 Chairperson of the Boards
    keitterman said:
    Eichen said:
    ...
    That's the whole problem with moving threads in a nutshell. Discussing should be for discussion and all the rest is data. 
    I see your point, and I think it would change the argument, and the mod's actions, if it was Game Discussion, instead of General Discussion. 
    And what does it say under General Discussion, on both the Categories page AND at the top of the General Discussion forum itself?

    Come here to talk about any game related topics.

    It already IS "Game Discussion."

  • Brigby
    Brigby ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 7,757 Site Admin
    Hi Everyone. This has been some great feedback, and I really appreciate everyone's efforts to provide suggestions. I do want to point out two questions that not many players seem to be addressing though, which are very important:
    1. Is having multiple different topics, pertaining to multiple different game aspects, in the same location an issue? If so, how would you alleviate that, if not with sub-forums?
    2. How would you make it easier for the developers to locate specific feedback?
  • Eichen
    Eichen Posts: 176 Tile Toppler
    1. I don't see a problem. Actually moving the threads makes things more difficult to find. As an example the last new character event was different than ever before. It was the first time we ran Thick as Theives as a new character event with the new progression amounts.  As a commander I had to set minimum point amounts for my guys to got to. Normally I do out as a percentage of the highest progression reward.  Since the top progression reward was higher than ever before I needed to know what it was the last time it was ran. So I had to search and search and search for the last tat post with the rewards in it. I finally found it but it was buried about 30 pages in the past. I had to wade through all the random threads to get to the one I needed with actual data in it. If only event DATA was in there I would have found on about page 3 because there is not that many events to have to go through. 

    2. Currently every time something new comes along you announce it in general discussion and we all discuss it in that thread for the most part. So take the new Spider-Man event as an example. You posted about it in general discussion. When you get particulars like rewards and powered up info you would make a post in the event thread. Then link it to your already posted general discussion. Now we would have all the info in one place for the new event . We discuss anything that had to do with it in your discussion thread. Your like new character/event/function gatekeeper because already your original posts is where we mostly discuss things. Yes others start some discussions too but all big events and changes start with of of your posts. Currently you do an announcement then you make an event post id there is a new character you make a new character post, then discussion happens between all those posts instead of in just one post. 

    2b. Polls. Anthony stayed a poll the other day and we all found out about it on discord. The poll then circulated to Line then here to the forum. That is the only poll I ever remember on the forum that wasn't in-game that a"red" started. All other polls are from random user starting one. Those pills could be a great tool.  (The one question in game polls we usually see have not been very good however. What Halloween character do you want to see a, b, c d? Isn't a good poll. It should be something like, " do you see the same characters over  and over again in pvp? Do you think this is because a. Certain characters are so much better than others, b. Certain 5*s have been released longer so they are better covered,  c. Vaulting has caused a certain character to be more prevalent than others. 
  • Pylgrim
    Pylgrim Posts: 2,332 Chairperson of the Boards
    Brigby said:
    Hi Everyone. This has been some great feedback, and I really appreciate everyone's efforts to provide suggestions. I do want to point out two questions that not many players seem to be addressing though, which are very important:
    1. Is having multiple different topics, pertaining to multiple different game aspects, in the same location an issue? If so, how would you alleviate that, if not with sub-forums?
    2. How would you make it easier for the developers to locate specific feedback?
    1. No, it's not an issue from the user side of the equation and never has been. That's why whenever a push comes from D3 and/or the mods to enforce compartmentalisation there have been outrage and protests. It's the classical miscommunication of a governing party saying "we are now going to make things this way because that will be better for you" and the user base replying "dude, we are down here, /living/ those changes and we can tell you it is not improving anything for us, but the opposite".

    2. (and still connected to 1.) The General Discussion board (under its original incarnation) worked under a law-of-the-jungle scenario. Threads that were worthwhile, that reflected the feelings of the majority of enfranchised players (i.e. forum members) or that provided any kind of aggregated value (humour, advice, etc.) gathered lots of views, lots of upvotes and lots of comments, continuously bouncing up and staying on the first page of the board for a while until everything that could be said was said and the thread dies a dignified old-age death. Threads that were not worthwhile, representative or valuable simply died off quickly and that was okay. If a developer wanted to get feedback, their best bet was to take a good look at the first page of General Discussion and see which threads were gathering more comments and upvotes as, by necessity, the most pressing issues and concerns of the day/month were always the most discussed. This was an organic and genuine--if somewhat messy--way of taking the pulse of the community, much more than relying on people going out of their way to a feedback-specific subforum were only a tiny percentage of users go.

    Mark Rosewater of MagicTG's fame always says "if you fight human nature you'll lose, every time." Your forum members have shown time and again what is their natural impulse to discuss issues and/or generate content. Stop trying to make them conform to an artificially-created parameter instead, not matter how much it makes sense in theory.
  • animaniactoo
    animaniactoo Posts: 486 Mover and Shaker
    edited June 2017
    Brigby said:
    Hi Everyone. This has been some great feedback, and I really appreciate everyone's efforts to provide suggestions. I do want to point out two questions that not many players seem to be addressing though, which are very important:
    1. Is having multiple different topics, pertaining to multiple different game aspects, in the same location an issue? If so, how would you alleviate that, if not with sub-forums?
    2. How would you make it easier for the developers to locate specific feedback?
    No. It is not an issue. This is the case where it actually is a feature, not a bug! While there will occasionally be some crossover that's direct duplication of either aspect being discussed or points being raised, in the main it's more focused if the majority of the time, there is crossover among threads.

    People join different discussions because they want to talk about a particular aspect of a subject (or in this case sub subject). They don't want to wade through conversation they're not interested in to get to the points that they're discussing and from the PD side, it's actually useful to have separated conversations for "How does this character fit in my roster given I have [XYZ]" "Who are good pairs for this character?" "Who would this character work best against?"

    People also sometimes feel one thread is getting kind of contentious and they don't want to stay in a discussion with those people so they'll go look for one that's similar but doesn't have so much high emotion running through it. It's like being at a party. People break off to discuss stuff in smaller groups, even when they're all in one room.

    Currently - you're trying to get them to break off and take those conversations into different rooms instead of allowing them to keep an eye on what else is happening in this room and drift off to join another one. With the option to easily keep an eye on the first one and go back to it if they feel like it.

    And here's the really interesting thing about it - you've actually been counterproductive from what I can see by creating links to "New and Announcements" and other locations in GD for fairly routine, happens regularly stuff. Release notes, new character releases, etc. You're not letting people get used to checking those other locations themselves at all. Because they don't have to when they can just come to GD and expect it to show up there. If you limit GD announcements to things like major game changes (HFH store, unexpected game issue), people will go search out the info as part of keeping themselves updated.


    How do the devs find useful feedback: This is where a change in approach to moderating will help a lot.

    1) Allow the discussion to happen and let people hash out what they feel the issues are in GD. By the time they're done hashing, they may no longer want the original suggestion to go to D3/demi because better solutions have come up, explanation of why some things make more sense for the longterm game may cause them to pull back from a position and so on. And some times people just want to kvetch/celebrate/kick around with other users, but they aren't actually looking to create feedback for the devs, or advice or how-to guides for future users, so room needs to be left to allow that to happen.

    2) More verbal (written) interaction and requests and less forceful pushing. On threads where a lot of discussion has happened, and there's been a conclusion or a couple of conclusions "Hi, this looks good - would you mind posting it over in Suggestions & Feedback?" More often than not, you're likely to get a more focused summary of the issue and proposed solution. On threads where things are wandering off-topic/getting heated "Hi everyone - this is getting really heated, please tone it down"/"This is getting very off-topic. If you'd like to to continue to discuss that, please take it to a new thread."

    If you're starting "official" threads for some feedback, the message moves to "Hey - would you mind posting that over in the official thread please?"

    The only things that should be moved "forcefully" and without further discussion are those that are egregiously in the wrong place (bracket size thread for current event, etc.).

    3) Reporting - Gather threads by subject - but only those that you feel have worthwhile overall conversation:

    Here are some good conversations about vaulting:
    Thread 1
    Thread 2
    Thread 3

    These are reaction threads to the 3* Spiderman updates:
    Official Thread
    Thread 1
    Thread 2

    And let the devs read the "Suggestions and Feedback" sub-forum themselves if it is moving to become more focused threads/posts *because* they are being written as official "feedback" that users want to get back to D3/demi/etc.
  • Wumpushunter
    Wumpushunter Posts: 627 Critical Contributor
    Funny how at least a third of feed back was directly related to over moderation bur that's not being mentioned in subsequent follow ups.
  • RedLion
    RedLion Posts: 70 Match Maker
    Brigby said:
    Hi Everyone. This has been some great feedback, and I really appreciate everyone's efforts to provide suggestions. I do want to point out two questions that not many players seem to be addressing though, which are very important:
    1. Is having multiple different topics, pertaining to multiple different game aspects, in the same location an issue? If so, how would you alleviate that, if not with sub-forums?
    2. How would you make it easier for the developers to locate specific feedback?
    1. No. Let me answer your question with a different question. Why isn't searching through several different sub-forums in order to find the vibrant discussions of the day an issue? When I come through the forums, I'm not always looking for something in particular. I (most often) want to read about the experiences of other players. Since threads have started moving around and being categorized, it's made the forums less fun to read because (a) there is less to read and (b) categorization means I have to search more forums to find topics I'd be interested in reading. 

    2. Give us an idea of what they are looking for that they can't find. In my original post, I suggested that they look at feedback based on views and comments. I'm having a hard time imagining that they can't find the Boss Rush thread, the Vaulting thread, the HFH store thread, the Scaling thread...heck, I bet the X-Force Wolverine nerf thread is still hanging around here somewhere.  :) 

    The community and the moderators are more than capable of deciding what's worth discussion, so I'll say it again: News & Discussion should be Forum #1. Then forums for wikis/documentation (characters, events, and maybe game resources). Then alliances. Then tech support. 


  • fanghoul
    fanghoul Posts: 311 Mover and Shaker
    I guess what also needs to be asked is what is actually supposed to be in general discussion? I haven't been too active in the forum recently, but it seems to be that almost nothing belongs in General Discussion now, other than "Your best moment" threads and the like.

    Which would be fine I suppose if the forum had developed like that, and we had all hung out and discussed strategy in the Strategy sub-forum. But we all got used to having most of our discussions here in General Discussion, and having that abruptly shifted to where almost no discussions should be happening seems like it's been a bit jarring to the community.

    I mean, a large diversity of sub-forums is optimal with some games, but we don't seem to have quite enough players to support that. Just posting most of our stuff in General Discussion worked, because it wasn't an overwhelming number of threads, and was active enough by itself to be worth checking in on regularly.
  • Beer40
    Beer40 Posts: 826 Critical Contributor
    1) Less is more in website design. The simpler, the better. 
    2) Less clicks = happier users.
    3) Simple design. No over-saturation of colors, no giant MPQ banner (we know where we are. Also, now you've forced people on smaller monitors to scroll. Not good.)
    4) D3 banner with links should go, imo. Once again, we know where we are. Keep the link on the bottom if you must.
    5) Listen to your users. Design (within reason) the site they want. That draws traffic. Designing the site "you" think is best is a personal achievement to be proud of, not necessarily what people want. Give them what they want.

    Those are just general suggestions I think will make your site more user friendly. My personal suggestion would be similar to ones already stated elsewhere in here:

    News/Announcements: Let us know when events start, who's boosted, event duration, character additions/changes, sales, etc...
    Discussion: all discussion among players.
    Tips/Guides: All the guides, stat sheets, player gathered data.
    Bugs/CS: report issues here.

    In this situation we've removed the Character and Events subforums and combined them into News/Announcements. Descriptions of new/existing characters/bracket size/etc.. goes into Tips/Guides. You'll also notice suggestions/feedback is gone. Take your feedback from the discussions and bugs forums.

    Anyway, I'm sure I forgot something or left stuff out, but I got busy and distracted. I want to add that I think the site is very nice, as is, and doesn't need a lot of changes. Best of luck figuring this out!
  • Beer40
    Beer40 Posts: 826 Critical Contributor
    Brigby said:
    Hi Everyone. This has been some great feedback, and I really appreciate everyone's efforts to provide suggestions. I do want to point out two questions that not many players seem to be addressing though, which are very important:
    1. Is having multiple different topics, pertaining to multiple different game aspects, in the same location an issue? If so, how would you alleviate that, if not with sub-forums?
    2. How would you make it easier for the developers to locate specific feedback?
    Sorry, @Brigby I just saw this after I'd already typed my (delayed a bit) post.
    1) I personally don't think so. People will see the ones they want and comment on them. I think people prefer less clicks to see all the info. They'll take it from there on what they actually choose to click on and view.

    2) If you must keep the "feedback" sub forum then NOTHING should be moved into it. Let people who want to offer feedback post in there. I had a disagreement with a mod who moved my topic to feedback. He said "its feedback". I said, "its a discussion to see if its worth submitting as feedback, based on what other people think as well." See the disconnect? I wasn't suggesting anything to MPQ, I was trying to brainstorm/discuss with the community. And then, possibly, create a suggestion post in the appropriate sub forum based on the discussion. We need to be able to decide what we want to discuss and what we actually are submitting for feedback, not have someone decide for us (just my opinion).
  • MissChinch
    MissChinch Posts: 509 Critical Contributor
    Darkness is making a case for an "off-topic" sub-forum...   not that I mind discussing cereal (not really a fan of the ol' chicken vs egg...  I don't recall his other two, but hes on a tear at the moment...)

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