166 replies to this topic

[WarHippy]

Roadbeer, on 29 April 2013 - 08:26 AM, said:

I disagree.
I can navigate quickly, only have to read the sub-forums I have interest in. People are posting better so I don't have to troll as often with "This thread is NEW and EXCITING" on the 50th redundant thread, thus allowing me to spend my time having fun in the OT forums.
I give it all a thumbs up.

YMMV.

We will have to agree to disagree. These forums have no flow, and a lot of ambiguous sub-forums that would mean very little to someone new to the game/forums. It is a hindrance more than a help having no centralized location to get the basic information on the game. Having a ton of sub-forums with 2 or 3 threads each and few people participating does not lend well to good discussion or new perspectives. A good forum needs a staging place for thoughts and ideas to start and then spread to the more focused sub-forums.

[zraven7]

WarHippy, on 29 April 2013 - 08:47 AM, said:

We will have to agree to disagree. These forums have no flow, and a lot of ambiguous sub-forums that would mean very little to someone new to the game/forums. It is a hindrance more than a help having no centralized location to get the basic information on the game. Having a ton of sub-forums with 2 or 3 threads each and few people participating does not lend well to good discussion or new perspectives. A good forum needs a staging place for thoughts and ideas to start and then spread to the more focused sub-forums.

On this note, I have no problems with mods copying or moving threads to appropriate forums once they are created. Better yet, perhaps a twitter-esque hashtag system would do things justice.

[Rick Rawlings]

Probably the best comment I can give on the new forum organization is that I can never find this thread unless I backtrack through three other threads that eventually lead me here. I can never remember where it is. Why would anyone ever be interested in a Comstar Focus Group? Bizarre forum design is bizarre.

TL;DR
Probably the best comment I can give on the new forum organization is that I can never find this thread unless I backtrack through three other threads that eventually lead me here. I can never remember where it is. Why would anyone ever be interested in a Comstar Focus Group? Bizarre forum design is bizarre.

[zraven7]

Rick Rawlings, on 29 April 2013 - 11:02 AM, said:

Probably the best comment I can give on the new forum organization is that I can never find this thread unless I backtrack through three other threads that eventually lead me here. I can never remember where it is. Why would anyone ever be interested in a Comstar Focus Group? Bizarre forum design is bizarre.

TL;DR
Probably the best comment I can give on the new forum organization is that I can never find this thread unless I backtrack through three other threads that eventually lead me here. I can never remember where it is. Why would anyone ever be interested in a Comstar Focus Group? Bizarre forum design is bizarre.

I love this. TL;DR, READ THE POST ALREADY. It's amazing. You are an awesome person.

[Jestun]

Roadbeer, on 28 April 2013 - 08:30 AM, said:

Lulz... I'm quitting a game I like because I don't like the way the forum is set up.

Or you could look at it another way.

No longer participating in a beta where the dev team is doing everything they can to hide away the feedback and tell you how much what you tell them doesn't matter because they somehow know what the "silent majority" want.

:edit:

3 days since poll added, still no general discussion question.

Abstained on all counts.

Edited by Jestun, 29 April 2013 - 02:54 PM.

[Roadbeer]

Jestun, on 29 April 2013 - 02:51 PM, said:

Or you could look at it another way.

No longer participating in a beta where the dev team is doing everything they can to hide away the feedback and tell you how much what you tell them doesn't matter because they somehow know what the "silent majority" want.

:edit:

3 days since poll added, still no general discussion question.

Abstained on all counts.

Well, if you would disabuse yourself from the fact that General Discussion, for the most part, was constructive feedback. I think you'd find that with the new system is generating better feedback and better posting.

But, like I said, if you're not going to participate in the beta because you don't like the way the forum is structured, the all I have to say is LULZ.

[Jestun]

Roadbeer, on 29 April 2013 - 03:02 PM, said:

Well, if you would disabuse yourself from the fact that General Discussion, for the most part, was constructive feedback. I think you'd find that with the new system is generating better feedback and better posting.

But, like I said, if you're not going to participate in the beta because you don't like the way the forum is structured, the all I have to say is LULZ.

As we've discussed numerous times I suspect across multiple threads - it depends what feedback you think a forum should provide.

Is it just 1 person's opinion? Because that's what less people reading each thread encourages - less replies. And if that's what they want why not scrap the forum, do *all* the news via social media instead of just a lot of it and add a bug report type feature to report feedback.


But if they want the community to discuss the feedback together, offering multiple viewpoints and opinions then the community needs to actually get to the threads.


What's the point of participating in a beta if I no longer feel my feedback is worth giving? Do you think using buggy software gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside? I do it because I want the game to improve. I want to enjoy the game.

But pretty much all of the recent major decisions have taken away more and more of the faith that I had in the dev team. This transparent attempt to hide the criticism isn't the reason, it's the latest reason.

Edited by Jestun, 29 April 2013 - 03:13 PM.

[RG Notch]

Roadbeer, on 29 April 2013 - 03:02 PM, said:

Well, if you would disabuse yourself from the fact that General Discussion, for the most part, was constructive feedback. I think you'd find that with the new system is generating better feedback and better posting.

But, like I said, if you're not going to participate in the beta because you don't like the way the forum is structured, the all I have to say is LULZ.

The LULZ is that you think this is a beta in anything other than name. Or even funnier that this hiding dissent, I mean re organizing has anything to do with feedback. Did you not read how the dev team has on more than one occasion dismissed the forum community as a useful source of feed back. They straight out said that if you have thousands of posts they discount your opinion. They also said that the forums only represent a small minority of the player base and that a silent non represented voice wants 3rd person and ******** they are going to get it. I don't necessarily disagree entirely with these statements, but its rare that it's expressed openly. Rare as forums without General Discussion. PGI is breaking new ground on discounting the people who helped them get started. I guess they have our money and want more from people who might get scared off if they could see how PGI treats folks once they have their money.
I wonder if this will improve how the game looks in the media as that is the real purpose. Can't have forum revolts and nerd rage news. Although news about sweeping dissent under the rug will probably not be good news, but it will pass and hopefully PGI can make enough money in the meantime.
Engaging and interacting with a community isn't easy, as PGI regularly shows. Trying to stifle dissent is easier. Whether that works out in the long term is up for debate. But PGI is intent on the experiment. Hey I'd say at least 4 or 5 people seem real happy with the new forum set up. After seeing the stats quoted on the forum postings and such, I pretty much know why they took out the player count. You can spin whatever you want about players and posting if no one can verify it.

[Roadbeer]

RG Notch, on 29 April 2013 - 03:30 PM, said:

Or even funnier that this hiding dissent, I mean re organizing has anything to do with feedback.

http://mwomercs.com/...n-ecm-feedback/
http://mwomercs.com/...095-3rd-person/
http://mwomercs.com/...ted-march-12th/
http://mwomercs.com/...on-consumables/
http://mwomercs.com/...items-feedback/

That's just in this sub-forum, please, tell me more about hiding dissent.

RG Notch, on 29 April 2013 - 03:30 PM, said:

Did you not read how the dev team has on more than one occasion dismissed the forum community as a useful source of feed back. They straight out said that if you have thousands of posts they discount your opinion. They also said that the forums only represent a small minority of the player base and that a silent non represented voice wants 3rd person and ******** they are going to get it. I don't necessarily disagree entirely with these statements, but its rare that it's expressed openly.

Yup, I was there for all that, and voiced my opinion on the topic, also, I'm the one who led Bryan through the questioning that led to the 'demographics' statement that you all love to hold onto like grim death.

RG Notch, on 29 April 2013 - 03:30 PM, said:

I guess they have our money and want more from people who might get scared off if they could see how PGI treats folks once they have their money.

<----- Founders tag, just like you. Please don't presume to speak for all the founders.

RG Notch, on 29 April 2013 - 03:30 PM, said:

After seeing the stats quoted on the forum postings and such, I pretty much know why they took out the player count. You can spin whatever you want about players and posting if no one can verify it.

Care to show me these stats? Because if your referring to the web traffic stats, those always seem to get posted in the lulls between patches, I never seen anyone post those when the traffic peaks on patch week, only when they're trying to prove a point about a downturn in website usage.

[Purplefluffybunny]

The topic being discussed in this thread is very fragmented right now and covers several threads and several sub forums. Hence one can say that there is a lot of repetition but it is not easy to spot, as it is being talked about in different sub forums. Whats more, these were threads started by staff members!

Correct me if I am wrong, but was not the proposed change meant to prevent such a state of affairs? I can understand why this has happened as several of the sub forums actually repeat / serve the same purpose for discussions, such as the one we are having in this thread and in the other threads and other sub forums.

Yes, I understand that this is an ongoing process but it is a bit ironic in this meta sense. For example, in the 'Suggestions' sub forum we have a thread started by Niko called 'Forum Suggestions', in the 'ComStar Focus Group' sub-forum we have two threads that are pinned, both started by Niko and titled 'Community Forum Referendum' and 'Forum Community Changes'.

For some reason the actual sub-forum dedicated to discussion of this website and this forum, 'Website and Forum; For all issues related specifically to the website or forum', is not being used for that purpose.

It may just be my poor IQ but one would think that this discussion must be harder to moderate and follow by the mods, given that it is so fragmented and repeated right now. It just seems a bit, well, ironic and funny.

Edited by Purplefluffybunny, 29 April 2013 - 04:10 PM.

[Roadbeer]

Jestun, on 29 April 2013 - 03:12 PM, said:

As we've discussed numerous times I suspect across multiple threads - it depends what feedback you think a forum should provide.

Is it just 1 person's opinion? Because that's what less people reading each thread encourages - less replies. And if that's what they want why not scrap the forum, do *all* the news via social media instead of just a lot of it and add a bug report type feature to report feedback.


But if they want the community to discuss the feedback together, offering multiple viewpoints and opinions then the community needs to actually get to the threads.


What's the point of participating in a beta if I no longer feel my feedback is worth giving? Do you think using buggy software gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside? I do it because I want the game to improve. I want to enjoy the game.

But pretty much all of the recent major decisions have taken away more and more of the faith that I had in the dev team. This transparent attempt to hide the criticism isn't the reason, it's the latest reason.

Maybe we just approach things differently.

If I'm providing feedback, why would I want to do that in a forum where it's going to be drown out by people posting about their upcoming scrim with another unit, people wondering why the latest patch notes aren't up in the GD forum yet(when they've posted in the forum called "Patch Notes" for 4 hours), People posting the patch notes in the GD forum (copied from the thread in the "Patch Notes" forum), and 127 consecutive threads about "NERF PPC BOATS NOWZORZ!!!!"... what happens to my feed back then?

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Purplefluffybunny, on 29 April 2013 - 03:58 PM, said:

The topic being discussed in this thread is very fragmented right now and covers several threads and several sub forums. Hence one can say that there is a lot of repetition but it is not easy to spot, as it is being talked about in different sub forums. Whats more, these were threads started by staff members!

Correct me if I am wrong, but was not the proposed change meant to prevent such a state of affairs? I can understand why this has happened as several of the sub forums actually repeat / serve the same purpose for discussions. such as the one we are having in this thread and in the other threads and other sub forums.

Yes, I understand that this is an ongoing process but it is a bit ironic in this meta sense. For example, in the 'Suggestions' sub forum we have a thread started by Niko called 'Forum Suggestions', in the 'ComStar Focus Group' sub-forum we have two threads that are pinned, both started by Niko and titled 'Community Forum Referendum' and 'Forum Community Changes'.

For some reason the actual sub-forum dedicated to discussion of this website and this forum, 'Website and Forum; For all issues related specifically to the website or forum', is not being used for that purpose.

It may just be my poor IQ but one would think that this discussion must be harder to moderate and follow by the mods, given that it is so fragmented and repeated right now. It just seems a bit, well, ironic and funny.

It's not your poor IQ. Though it is poor.

[Purplefluffybunny]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 29 April 2013 - 04:00 PM, said:

It's not your poor IQ. Though it is poor.

My ego is now severely damaged. I demand a meme to appease it!

[Nicholas Carlyle]

[DirePhoenix]

Jestun, on 29 April 2013 - 03:12 PM, said:

Is it just 1 person's opinion? Because that's what less people reading each thread encourages - less replies. And if that's what they want why not scrap the forum, do *all* the news via social media instead of just a lot of it and add a bug report type feature to report feedback.

Even before the restructuring, most of the posts in an individual thread were still disproportionally slanted toward a very few often with one person account alone responsible for 5% or more of the posts in a 1000+ response thread.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

DirePhoenix, on 29 April 2013 - 04:26 PM, said:

Even before the restructuring, most of the posts in an individual thread were still disproportionally slanted toward a very few often with one person account alone responsible for 5% or more of the posts in a 1000+ response thread.

and most of the most active threads were just people trolling things they didnt agree with. Kinda like now, except its people who like the forum change trolling the rest of the forum who dont

[Purplefluffybunny]

DirePhoenix, on 29 April 2013 - 04:26 PM, said:

Even before the restructuring, most of the posts in an individual thread were still disproportionally slanted toward a very few often with one person account alone responsible for 5% or more of the posts in a 1000+ response thread.

That stat is understandable though. For example if an opening poster wants to defend his point (very masculine behaviour btw) he will have to respond to each persona addressing him, so the thread would 'naturally' end up with one account having more contributions?

BTW PGI and IGP the relative fluctuation of pronouns in a given set of posts, particularly if close together in terms of their temporal spacing in the thread, is one way to automate spotting when stuff kicks off on the forums. Some IGP staff members thanked me for my bot suggestion so I thought I would follow that with something a little more specific. Yeah, it is just a 'part' of the way to bot stuff. I doubt they will see the suggestion though as it is easy to miss one post within this nexus of sub-forums and fragmented debates!

EDIT: My two paragraphs are related, often when you have a couple of people dominating the thread they are usually in 'conflict' and throwing pronouns around like they were going out of fashion! My point is those stats are just saying "this is a discussion forum, it is very much like any other discussion forum but this is one is mine..." oh wait, this is not the Full Metal Jacket reunion.

EDIT2: That pronoun fluctuation thing, along with that other more visual method, works for the French language and other languages too.

Edited by Purplefluffybunny, 29 April 2013 - 05:58 PM.

[GaussDragon]

Purplefluffybunny, on 29 April 2013 - 04:39 PM, said:

My point is those stats are just saying "this is a discussion forum, it is very much like any other discussion forum but this is one is mine..." oh wait, this is not the Full Metal Jacket reunion.

The term internet forum is really just a euphemism for arguments about [redacted] that doesn't matter. Arguments and the internet are an even better metaphor for things that fit together naturally than horse and carriage.

Edited by miSs, 29 April 2013 - 06:07 PM.
circumventing word filter

[Purplefluffybunny]

I like that sentiment GaussDragon.

[Rick Rawlings]

zraven7, on 29 April 2013 - 11:22 AM, said:

I love this. TL;DR, READ THE POST ALREADY. It's amazing. You are an awesome person.

Thanks man! I would have thanked you earlier, but it took me this long to find the thread again...