Discussion for Forum Improvements

[elmo1eyebrow]

Feb 14, 2015 2:50:14 GMT Carter said:

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

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.

I know you and Cleveland do your best, I was just venting, disappointed that Evil Stewie won't respond or do anything with the banner. For a while I was checking every few days once this thread was created hoping that Evil Stewie would log back in and see it, noticed he had come back in late January but nothing had changed. At this point I don't have much hope that he'll ever get back to you much less change the banner. I hope I'm wrong. Anyways a big thank you from me to you guys; without you two we wouldn't have this forum. 

At least we'll look proper for one month out of the year. 

[PeaTearGriffin]

I suggest you change the format to something more interesting.  Maybe like a bunch of people who post more than once a year.

[Carter]

Mar 10, 2015 2:14:57 GMT PeaTearGriffin said:

I suggest you change the format to something more interesting.  Maybe like a bunch of people who post more than once a year.

Wish people would post more.  Sadly I think this forum is on it's way out since no one really makes posts anymore, and we have an admin that abandoned ship.  I'm not going to lie, I've been bored with the game.  The districts are now drawn out to take weeks to do a little piece of content, the events keep getting reskinned - and the devs are mostly concerned getting celebs into the game instead of actual characters from the show.

[aaronrtd]

Mar 10, 2015 13:26:38 GMT Carter said:

Mar 10, 2015 2:14:57 GMT PeaTearGriffin said:

I suggest you change the format to something more interesting.  Maybe like a bunch of people who post more than once a year.

Wish people would post more.  Sadly I think this forum is on it's way out since no one really makes posts anymore, and we have an admin that abandoned ship.  I'm not going to lie, I've been bored with the game.  The districts are now drawn out to take weeks to do a little piece of content, the events keep getting reskinned - and the devs are mostly concerned getting celebs into the game instead of actual characters from the show.

Plus1 on that. I've been bored with the game (it's no TSTO) constant bombardment with premium content that has no value, and no land to put it. And to make matters worse now when I complaine about something new they tell me they gave me a lot of clams before.(so like I can't get compensated for new problems because they fixed the old problems!?) fnbs. Until I get my clams back I'm freemiun. I give FGTQS 6 months to Peter out if it keeps up with these unoriginal updates.

[Carter]

Jan 5, 2015 9:04:02 GMT Mopurglar said:

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

Evil Stewie has now seen this post and will be working on your ideas.  He has returned!

[Evil Stewie]

I have indeed! thanks Carter

A fantastic post with excellent points raised, I will do my level best to implement these changes over the coming weeks, many thanks Mopurglar.

I would also like to say a big thank you to everyone who has contributed to this thread with suggestions and ideas, they are all very much appreciated and taken on board.

[aaronrtd]

Yeah a new header, now if only we can get all the people back.

[PeaTearGriffin]

Yes this forum lives on!

[wardygtc]

Mar 10, 2015 13:26:38 GMT Carter said:

Mar 10, 2015 2:14:57 GMT PeaTearGriffin said:

I suggest you change the format to something more interesting.  Maybe like a bunch of people who post more than once a year.

Wish people would post more.  Sadly I think this forum is on it's way out since no one really makes posts anymore, and we have an admin that abandoned ship.  I'm not going to lie, I've been bored with the game.  The districts are now drawn out to take weeks to do a little piece of content, the events keep getting reskinned - and the devs are mostly concerned getting celebs into the game instead of actual characters from the show.

Hopefully once the game is fully released on Facebook it will gain a much bigger following and the forum should also gain from that.

[aaronrtd]

I don't go to the home screen much but the news is the Star Trek event is here yeah!!??

[PeaTearGriffin]

I think the main thing to think about is why does this board exist?
Oh jeez, my allergies are acting up again. Gotta go.