Discussion for Forum Improvements

[Mopurglar]

Jan 2, 2015 21:11:14 GMT jlenko said:

Jan 2, 2015 6:49:17 GMT Cleveland said:

Its in the christmas section of the files and plus the squaters are prizes in the mystery box

TinyCo doesn't run this forum tho.. You don't have to follow their files to define event boundaries. Just like District 10... It's not even officially unlocked yet..

I'm with you. I like this place and think Cleveland, Carter, Evil Stewie, and the rest of the mods are great.

I kinda wish there was a way to make it more of a message board, though.

IMO, the mega thread concept is better suited for a large message board that is overloaded with 50 new topics a day. In a small place like this with only a few active posters remaining (phoebexlois, @dave3490, aaronrtd, elmo1eyebrow, leilani, jlenko, familyguytips, Patrick Stewart, Juli, brookesaywhatx, Änvil), I think it stifles discussion and makes it hard to keep any interest. As an example, the other day I made a thread about the NYE sale. Then, when I returned yesterday to opine about how much money I spent, the thread had already been locked. Whoever locked it had good intentions (keeping things tidy), but doing things like just makes it harder to discuss anything, IMO.

I think for a place like this to work, you want people to check in regularly and post topics about stuff. So yes, it makes sense that a new event warrants a new thread--likely several threads.

Just one person's opinion, though. I definitely appreciate all the info here and everything the mods do; just hope this place grows some.

[elmo1eyebrow]

Jan 3, 2015 9:19:23 GMT Mopurglar said:

Jan 2, 2015 21:11:14 GMT jlenko said:

TinyCo doesn't run this forum tho.. You don't have to follow their files to define event boundaries. Just like District 10... It's not even officially unlocked yet..

I'm with you. I like this place and think Cleveland, Carter, Evil Stewie, and the rest of the mods are great.

I kinda wish there was a way to make it more of a message board, though.

IMO, the mega thread concept is better suited for a large message board that is overloaded with 50 new topics a day. In a small place like this with only a few active posters remaining (phoebexlois, @dave3490, aaronrtd, elmo1eyebrow, leilani, jlenko, familyguytips, Patrick Stewart, Juli, brookesaywhatx, Änvil), I think it stifles discussion and makes it hard to keep any interest. As an example, the other day I made a thread about the NYE sale. Then, when I returned yesterday to opine about how much money I spent, the thread had already been locked. Whoever locked it had good intentions (keeping things tidy), but doing things like just makes it harder to discuss anything, IMO.

I think for a place like this to work, you want people to check in regularly and post topics about stuff. So yes, it makes sense that a new event warrants a new thread--likely several threads.

Just one person's opinion, though. I definitely appreciate all the info here and everything the mods do; just hope this place grows some.

It's at least two people's opinions. Thank you Mopurglar for being so articulate. I've had much the same thoughts but could never find the words to express them without it  sounding like a backhanded compliment ( I like this forum but...) 

There's been several times when I've considered creating a thread, then thought twice about it knowing it would most likely be moved, merged or locked. Sometimes I would post in another thread and sometimes just not post at all.

I do understand wanting to make it easy for people to find info though, without searching through multiple threads to find and/or respond to. I noticed that happening a few times during the comicon event with people becoming confused or lost. I believe that was Cleveland original intent with the single thread for events/districts. 

A thought: Maybe during events have a sticky with all the wonderful info Cleveland provides and several sub threads devoted to specific parts of an event or district.

[brookesaywhatx]

I'd also like for this forum to get more "out there" to the world. Even the banner here is still from the halloween event (no offense to anybody! Just saying, it looks like it hasn't been updated and makes me not really want to bother coming to this site anymore) I still do though, because I have friends here and I love this game. But lately when I have a question, I will just look it up or go to another site because not many people would even see my post here..

& I agree one thread with multiple events is very difficult. I wish it were separated.

Just my 2 cents.

[elmo1eyebrow]

Jan 4, 2015 1:33:16 GMT brookesaywhatx said:

I'd also like for this forum to get more "out there" to the world. Even the banner here is still from the halloween event (no offense to anybody! Just saying, it looks like it hasn't been updated and makes me not really want to bother coming to this site anymore) I still do though, because I have friends here and I love this game. But lately when I have a question, I will just look it up or go to another site because not many people would even see my post here..

& I agree one thread with multiple events is very difficult. I wish it were separated.

Just my 2 cents.

Evil Stewie used to do the banners. I quite liked the ones he did for comicon and Halloween but he doesn't seem to be around much anymore. I agree having the Halloween banner does make the forum seem abandoned somewhat. Maybe someone who knows how to create them could do one like the first one we had.

[Deleted]

Jan 4, 2015 1:33:16 GMT brookesaywhatx said:

I'd also like for this forum to get more "out there" to the world. Even the banner here is still from the halloween event (no offense to anybody! Just saying, it looks like it hasn't been updated and makes me not really want to bother coming to this site anymore) I still do though, because I have friends here and I love this game. But lately when I have a question, I will just look it up or go to another site because not many people would even see my post here..

& I agree one thread with multiple events is very difficult. I wish it were separated.

Just my 2 cents.

I come on here really only when i need to, perhaps to post some info, or maybe an update that's been posted by TinyCo on social media etc, and also, to chat about the game, what is good, what is bad, what i like, what i don't like etc, but i do agree it is slow right now activity wise.

A few years ago, i was admin on my friends forum, she didn't have time to keep it updated and as i was her friend, was able to work more on it, i took it from the original design of just your basic sections put in place by her web designer and changed it completely, but i also changed the look of the forum, and layout. I added a brand new banner to replace the one that was quite a few years old, and i split the sections down, so in the end, it looked like this

Section 1 - her official website section, with it's own sub sections for galleries, news, videos fan designs etc
Section 2 - her official tv appearances, again, with it's own sub section for galleries and fan posts (but no vids due to copyright issues)
Section 3 - her other official website section, with it's own sub sections for galleries, models, videos and fan posts etc
Section 4 - her official shop section
Section 5 - general chat
Section 6 - dedicated to forum rules
Section 7 - help and support

This kind of set up probably would not work here, but something similar, a new section dedicated to each event that can be deleted when the event is complete, or perhaps emptied, renamed and used for the next event and so on. It would be no good for mini events/quests like we have now with the NYE mini, but that can be dealt with in General Chat. The only problem with deleting content is people's post counts go down and they complain, but this is why i stopped the post counter on my friend's old forum.

I think the mods and admin here do a great job, some decision may not be popular, but are sometimes necessary to avoid clutter

I think this forum would work so well if it could get some form of endorsement from TinyCo - perhaps even push for official status, it would certainly make it much busier if that is what people want to see

These are just my opinions based on my own experience from running my friends forum, as i said, i think the mods do a great job here, and if i had time, i'd certainly offer to help with that top banner, but it's not my place to interfere with that, that is down to the owners of the forum and admin themselves, but i'm always happy to help if needed

[Mopurglar]

Carter, thank you for being so flexible. And Cleveland, hope you're feeling better man. And @dave3490, elmo1eyebrow, brookesaywhatx, and jlenko - thanks for your excellent posts and suggestions.

I agree with @dave3490 and brookesaywhatx that some tidying that might require admin-level powers could really help bring this place back. I absolutely love Evil Stewie but I believe he has been tied up with his job lately.

Re: the banner, I've gotten so used to it that I tend to forget that it's from Halloween, but yes, I agree 100% that it will turn any potential new member away. I looked all over and finally managed to find the old one via the Internet Archive. I've uploaded it to imgur:



Does anyone have the ability to replace the current one? Evil Stewie Cleveland Quagmire Carter Dr. Brian RenamedSRT/10 Neo?

Also, it appears that our newest member joined on Dec. 8. This is for one of two reasons: 1) no one has attempted to sign up in a month (depressing if true, as we have >500 members), or 2) the new member signup process requires email verification and there is a backlog of requests pending. Does anyone know who all has the power to approve new member signups?

I like this place a lot and really hope it catches on. A few more ideas / suggestions that may or may not be any good.

1. Though the organization of the forums is great, because membership is still growing, one suggestion to generate discussion and make things easier for casual visitors and less active posters would be to streamline the discussion into fewer forums. For example, I suspect most people coming here would love to know about upcoming content; however, it's easy to miss a thread if it ends up in the Spoilers & Upcoming Content forum. (e.g., I learned about the comic con spoilers on reddit and didn't even realize there was a thread here about them until a few weeks into the event.) Thus, would consider merging Game Discussion with Spoilers/Upcoming Content and simply request that people use SPOILER in the thread title if it's a spoiler thread.
   
   
2. At the same time, we should find ways to stimulate discussion in multiple topics within GD. IMO, removing the mega-thread framework would do wonders for sparking interest. Let users clamor to be first to make a topic the instant they notice their game has updated. It builds community and makes people want to check back and contribute. Mega-threads are better suited for boards with hundreds of active posters and innumerable new topics as a way to consolidate related discussion. For a place like this, I worry that the mega-thread is killing it off, as we posters are likely the only people who read the mega-threads and very few lurkers / potential new members bother to sift through them. In fact, I'm not gong to lie, for several months when I'd check in, I only stopped to read if I noticed a new topic posted.
   
   
3. Along this same line, as elmo1eyebrow suggested, a hands-off approach to managing new topics as they are posted might help generate discussion. For example, if everyone's game is crashing and someone creates a topic about it in GD, it might generate the most discussion to leave the thread in GD. I've also shied away from posting threads a few times b/c I thought they'd just get merged into the mega-thread or moved into Bugs & Issues where nobody will see them.
   
   
4. The Game Guides & Walkthroughs board serves an important purpose, though it requires a lot of work and dedication to keep up. One suggestion would be to see if any dedicated poster is interested in taking it over and being Forum Scholar. Though at this point, it might be easiest to just unpin Evil Stewie's threads and instead pin topics by Cleveland and familyguytips, as you have done. If things don't take off, we could even temporarily do away with it and move the threads into GD until we have more active members.
   
   
5. Another suggestion to keep things active and manageable while we are still growing would be to merge Find Friends with Welcome to Quahog. Alternately, you could pin an add-me thread in Game Discussion.
   
   
6. The shoutbox is a neat feature because it allows members to casually chat in real time without having to find threads and posts. However, until we are more active, it might be worthwhile to disable it in order to reduce clutter. That said, I've gotten used to it and don't mind it anymore.

Mods and Evil Stewie, thanks again for being awesome and making this such a welcoming place. Please feel free to split off these posts into a new thread if there's an easy way to do it. A few more tags so the thread can be found: phoebexlois aaronrtd leilani Patrick Stewart Juli Änvil James Woods benjava75 redwagonner pokdbz Evil Monkey sackexchange davesangor05

[Neo]

Mopurglar I am just a simple moderator here, so i am unable to do anything with that banner mate 

[Mopurglar]

Jan 5, 2015 9:08:47 GMT Neo said:

Mopurglar I am just a simple moderator here, so i am unable to do anything with that banner mate 

No worries--didn't know you still check in. Good seeing you!

[Neo]

Jan 5, 2015 9:10:19 GMT Mopurglar said:

Jan 5, 2015 9:08:47 GMT Neo said:

Mopurglar I am just a simple moderator here, so i am unable to do anything with that banner mate 

No worries--didn't know you still check in. Good seeing you!

I'm always about Good Seeing you too  

[leilani]

Cleveland feel better soon. Mopurglar you have some very good points. It's hard getting a new board up and running, but I think this one has potential. The problem is going to be generating and keeping interest.

This New Year's event has been fairly easy. I'm just waiting for Bruce to finish his kitten task and should have Jillian unlocked about lunch time. The only criticism I have and it's not really a big deal is that even after collecting all of a certain item for the tower I was still able to get them from the mystery box. I hope this was just a glitch and not something new they're trying. I prefer getting all the easier to get items before using the mystery box to try for the harder to get items.

[Carter]

I did some quick run through of my mod area and don't see anything for the banner. I think I only have rights for moderating posts, members and the like. Does not seem like I can update the forum subsections or anything like that. So we may be doomed with the layout unless Evil Stewie makes a return. I sent a message to see if Dr. Brian was around, he may have the power to move us to a new generation.

In terms of powers, I don't think Cleveland or myself have the ability to reorganize the sections/headers or update the banner.

[heretictus]

Hey, Mo. You make some really valid points.

When I found this forum, it was small but really had some potential. The mods are obviously into the game and very dedicated. I don't post much, but I visited frequently and got some great info about the game. Then I started to get frustrated with the game and started playing less frequently (mostly due to not doing FB and having no in-game friends). Around the same time, this growing forum seemed to me to stall out. Few new topics were posted, and I noticed the mega threads. Before the mega threads, I could hop in and out quick. Now with the mega threads, it's more of a chore to go looking for info in 20+ pages and frankly I just stopped trying.

We're still a relatively small community, but the board seems to be laid out for a much larger community with much more traffic. I understand trying to keep it tidy, but my personal preference is to have more and varied topics in separate posts in one section like GD.

[Carter]

I want the members to know, I'm still trying to nudge Evil Stewie back to the site to at least update the banner. I had PMed him a number of times with no response and today decided to reach out over email.

In terms of topics, I typically don't lock them unless they are warranted to be. I also don't merge topics either, so if someone wants to pull a point out of an event or district thread to discuss - you are more than welcome to do so. I currently see the "mega thread" as a place to post updates regarding how far you are, or general questions about the event or really anything about the event. Not all information regarding the event needs to be cataloged here either, just putting it as a sticky to be easy to find. In fact if new threads are created, I can always post links in the ORIGINAL POST of the sticky for particular information.

[elmo1eyebrow]

Feb 11, 2015 20:52:21 GMT Carter said:

I want the members to know, I'm still trying to nudge Evil Stewie back to the site to at least update the banner. I had PMed him a number of times with no response and today decided to reach out over email.

In terms of topics, I typically don't lock them unless they are warranted to be. I also don't merge topics either, so if someone wants to pull a point out of an event or district thread to discuss - you are more than welcome to do so. I currently see the "mega thread" as a place to post updates regarding how far you are, or general questions about the event or really anything about the event. Not all information regarding the event needs to be cataloged here either, just putting it as a sticky to be easy to find. In fact if new threads are created, I can always post links in the ORIGINAL POST of the sticky for particular information.

I see that Evil Stewie popped in recently. Looks like he lifted the new member verification seeing as we now have new members posting spam. As I recall he had implemented the verification specifically to address the rampant spam at one point. With his hands off approach to running this forum is this to be expected from now on? As much as I would like to see this forum grow, I don't look forward to wading through spam every time I visit. I think that it will kill this forum much faster with people being turned off by it.

[Carter]

Feb 13, 2015 7:46:58 GMT elmo1eyebrow said:

Feb 11, 2015 20:52:21 GMT Carter said:

I want the members to know, I'm still trying to nudge Evil Stewie back to the site to at least update the banner. I had PMed him a number of times with no response and today decided to reach out over email.

In terms of topics, I typically don't lock them unless they are warranted to be. I also don't merge topics either, so if someone wants to pull a point out of an event or district thread to discuss - you are more than welcome to do so. I currently see the "mega thread" as a place to post updates regarding how far you are, or general questions about the event or really anything about the event. Not all information regarding the event needs to be cataloged here either, just putting it as a sticky to be easy to find. In fact if new threads are created, I can always post links in the ORIGINAL POST of the sticky for particular information.

I see that Evil Stewie popped in recently. Looks like he lifted the new member verification seeing as we now have new members posting spam. As I recall he had implemented the verification specifically to address the rampant spam at one point. With his hands off approach to running this forum is this to be expected from now on? As much as I would like to see this forum grow, I don't look forward to wading through spam every time I visit. I think that it will kill this forum much faster with people being turned off by it.

Unfortunately that's another back-end change I believe and I don't think Cleveland and I have that access.  I did see that he had logged in somewhat recently - but it was certainly not to respond to my messages.  Still nothing on the email - so no idea what will happen.  I blocked the spammer and took care of the posts, but with just Cleveland and I really manning the site - hopefully it won't be as bad as it was.  Not sure what happened to Renamed, but I know Quagmire doesn't seem to come around often, and I know that Brian is gone for good.

I know Evil Stewie (and maybe Brian?) are the owners/creators of this forum - so without them being around there isn't a whole lot for Cleveland or I to do unfortunately.