The current state of play of the forums - General

This thread will be linked in stickied threads throughout all the main forums to ensure maximum visibility. You are all now aware that recently there have been some changes regarding subforums, particularly threads within these subforums showing up within their parent forums. This was accompanied by a change in policy instigated by garry towards megathreads. This has caused some unintended distress to users and I wish to apologise for this. The Community Team had no advance notice of this change and had no time to prepare. I took feedback from numerous communities and decided against closing these threads for the time being until we have a better understanding of what direction the forums will take. I understand there has been a lot of upheaval over the past month or so. These forums are still very much in development and as such, things are subject to change. I would appeal to you all personally to please leave constructive criticism within this subforum. It is read by both garry and I. I haven't had a chance to talk to garry in depth about his intentions pertaining to the subforums (he is on holiday at the moment) but from my understanding, he wishes people to spread out more. I have been explaining it as such; a megathread is a singular stream of conversation that roves from topic to topic. This is fine in some circumstances, but there are times where a singular stream of conversation is insufficient and unwieldy. In these cases, instead of a single thread being used a subforum will be used. This allows simultaneous discussion of a number of topics rather than the topic passing in the thread. Yes, I understand that "Mario" and "Half Life" aren't great examples of how this should be used, but like I said we are trying new things. From reading your feedback, I have put into motion the following items; Business as usual - changes in policy concerning megathreads will be reverted for the time being. There is now a Refugee Camp channel for ban appeals and a Forum Reports channel for contacting Moderators in Discord; http://discord.gg/Facepunch We have no way of implementing either of these on the forums for the time being. They are urgently required hence why we are using Discord. A number of users have voiced uncertainty around rules. I have created a rules page which can be accessed in the top right; Rules. These are the same as the previous forum for the time being, until we get tools to allow us to change our style of moderation. I have asked to meet with garry in person to discuss the future of the forums. I anticipate that I will need a translator to cut through his really thick Midlands accent. I will be hosting a regular round table discussion where people can join Discord and chat on my stream, discussing issues that are important to them. Details will follow in a separate thread. I hope this helps calm people and explain what is going on a bit better. Please understand that I am always approachable and I will hear anybody out so long as they're not rude or abusive to me. The best way to get hold of me is through Discord, either in the Forums Discussion channel using @Hezzy or by sending me a DM.

Nice! You said 'details in a seperate thread' for the Discord/Stream chats - will this be like minutes/highlights so that users can more easily keep up with what's been discussed?

I haven't sorted out the specifics of what will happen other than I want to "get forum users in to speak to them on voice and stream it". I thought we could have some kind of topic list to work through at the start. Some people were quite rightly saying they didn't want to sit down and listen to a 2hr stream. We could easily add a recap of what was discussed previously before opening it up to people to speak?

please maybe post important questions/answers in a thread or something after so people dont have to watch hour+ long twitch videos like this last one. i dont think its inherently a bad idea, but it was a bad idea to just post about that stream in just 2 threads.

Yes, each stream will be accompanied by a separate thread which will be advertised in advance in this forum. The thread will contain a list of topics which can be added to by the community

Sounds good

I seem to distinctly remember one of the mods saying the Refugee Camp was already set up, it was just a matter of hooking it to the main forum, but that Garry didn't want the Refugee Camp back. Is this no longer the case? Also please stop moving discussion off of the forums. Not everyone has the time or schedule to participate in roundtables. There were tons of people who weren't able to voice their opinions or complaints during your last stream and many people didn't even know it existed until way after the fact. There needs to be some method of consistent communication hosted on the forum that is regularly attended to by the Community Team. That was the whole point of the Forum Discussion thread's existence. It gives everyone a chance to participate in discussion regardless of work schedules, timezones, etc. Having a roundtable as a secondary addition is fine but it should only serve as a backup to the primary discussion that is hosted on the forum.

so it sounds like refugee camp will be making a comeback then at some point? thank god. discord channel will work for now tho so thx do this when i'm actually on for once if possible and i'll love u forever. i've missed every big change on here so far these last few weeks and have kept having to play catch-up god DAMN.

If your gonna have the discussions off of the forums then maybe something like the site wide alert system from oldpunch could come back? Could be then used to notify people of any events that are happening or are gonna happen.

I anticipate that I will need a translator to cut through his really thick Midlands accent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cun-LZvOTdw

If there's times when a single stream of convo is unwieldy, just keep the subforums as they are now, but also let us keep the megathreads. I'm sure the users can figure out when making a subthread is sensible to cut stuff from the mega.

while i understand the concerns of "roundtable should be primarily on the forum", i disagree. the problem with these kind of heated discussions is that just typing them sometimes removes you from the context, and there's a lot more room for interpretation and it goes back and forth on what the intent of your question and what the intent is of your answer going back and forth is definitely easier over voice as there's more room for a back and forth between the two parties my suggestions to fix that: prior to every roundtable, try to take as many points of discussion either brought up in {{meta}} or directly to you bring each of these points up at least a bit (obviously discussion points will overlap, merge together as needed) allow the people in the roundtable live to discuss these points close the loop with the discussion summary of those topics (and potentially links to those posts so there can be more context) and allow for text based back and forth once it's gotten to that point

And what about people who don't even own microphones? I have issues with dealing with it on an off-site stream to begin with due to scheduling issues and such but I don't even own a mic. So Someone like me flat out cannot participate even if I could get my schedule to line up with Hezzy's streams. This is outright excluding plenty of forum regulars from being able to discuss the situation. Far from an ideal situation.

I'm pretty sure people can and have done text chat on Discord/Hezzy's stream while others were on voice. I don't think this is an issue.

I have yet to see one of Hezzy's streams because he hasn't done one when I'm around but doesn't this bring up other issues itself? Unless his stream includes the chat then you've got no context for those people. The point is though that there's tons of issues with using streaming as the way to discuss the site's future which will not word adequately for a lot of the community. You can't get a better method to discuss the forums, though, than the forums themselves. (Which still won't be perfect for everyone but if the forums themselves aren't good enough for someone then it's unlikely that there even is an adequate method.)

I don't think he intends to answer questions exclusively on stream.

I'm too self-concious of my accent to go on voice, but I'm sure that if I make a thread in this forum both garry and Hezzy will read it, so that's not really a problem? I saw the stream for 20 minutes and it seemed like users where arguing/agreeing with eachother without much input from Hezzy, maybe it changed after I left (?)

I feel like the correct solution to megathread overload the subforum change tried to solve has already been found successfully on other forums: throw all the megathreads into a "megathread" subforum and dont include subforum threads in the parent forum's main view. The games discussion board then wouldn't just be 90% megathreads and people could actually make and browse mega independent threads about video games and various subjects for each. If a thread got too megaey- the op or a mod can move it over, mega lovers would be unaffected since people just find their thread and subscribe to it anyways. Then, allow people to post threads about any gaming related stuff in the main forum, even if there's already a megathread for it, so people can spread out into the main gaming forum with pointed discussion threads when the need or demand for it exists, without needing to create a messy mix of megas and topic threads. If the goal is to see threads like "overwatch vs tf2" "whats the best car in the new need for speed pay to win simulator?" "i really like the shock rifle from UT and here's why, fav weapons?" people might not want to get lost in a megathread or have a wider multi-game discussion, so this helps that. People wouldnt be forced out of megas but it would create a high visibility area for individual discussion streams.

The OP makes it sound like Garry is some kind of crazy hermit living up in a Buddhist temple on shitpost mountain. Nobody ever sees him in person, and he throws paper airplanes with messages written on them down the mountain to the mods, who together try to decipher and interpret his whacky ramblings.

I like having all the sub-forum threads visible in their parent forum. I've already found threads I probably never would have otherwise.

Being able to filter out some would definitely be useful though. For example I couldn't give less of a shit about TF2 or Dota 2 than I currently do. I have zero interest in either game and am incredibly unlikely to ever have an interest in either. It'd be better for me to be able to filter them out so I see more threads from the subforums I may actually have an interest in.

What is the intended behaviour for threads for games that won't ever get a subforum, nor need several threads? The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. thread is getting constantly bumped back pages because of the reams of TF2 threads (why we have to show every subforum's threads in the parent forum is beyond me, I think it's a terrible change).

This. Having a Discord is all well and good but moving things that were previously forum based (I.E, Private Messaging and Ban Appeals) to Discord is a bad idea imo. Not every forum user uses Discord, and having to download a separate application to appeal a forum ban or discuss concerns with the Community Manager is a bit annoying. The same thing with the Twitch streams, it's a good idea, but it should be auxiliary to the main forum discussion so everybody has a chance to get involved in the discussion, rather than just the people who happen to see the link/want to invest time in watching a stream.

Its been mentioned already why things are being done on discord. There is no refugee camp in newpunch right now and nothing can be done about it ATM and the streams are not the only way to discuss shit, it's an additional way.

I rather like the idea of megathreads for some niche subjects. For example, the stalker megathread is one of the few places where you can ask about something stalker related and quickly get a response, because there are people there chilling and talking about vaious stalker related stuff anyway. From my experience, any alternatives to this (like creating a thread for a problem in a video game forum, the steam forums or whatever) has a much smaller chance of helping you out. But that's just my 2 cents.

Why do we even have subforums if threads show up in parent forums? Why do we so desperately need a deluge of TF2 etc threads to drown out everything else? What was the reasoning behind this change, because I'm pretty sure this cunning plan wasn't thought all the way through.

without sounding like an ass: do you have a smartphone? discord exists on smartphones but more to the point of your issue is that an asynchronous roundtable just takes too long to resolve an issue you can talk about things on the forum sure, but unless there's absolutely no clarification needed, it still takes two posts

Honestly, the forums are objectively messier and harder to use now. So I'm finding it difficult to understand how this could've ever been a good idea. I like the idea of "hidden" subforums to an extent, but not when it means TF2 threads are overshadowing everything else. Also I haven't been keeping up to date with any new potential rules, but I'm not sure why the "D.Va Fanart/Overwatch Waifu Shitposting" thread is still there. Did the quality control go along with the organization?

Last I checked and counted, there were ~25 subforum tagged threads on the 1st page in GGD proper vs 15 posted only to GGD This means that, since there are only 12 total subforums right now, roughly ~10 extra threads are pushing smaller and less fortunate communities to page 2 and beyond I propose: each subforum gets represented by a single thread in GGD proper, perhaps the last one to receive a post or the one with the most posts over X days (perhaps figure out some nice UX design to let people easily either visit this thread OR the subforum that isn't just one of those tags, perhaps something like "Popular in X subforum right now:") This way, games that aren't big enough to warrant their own subforum (or are too new to have had a hard-coded subforum approved yet) have a fair shake against the ones that do, but the ones that do are still represented instead of being unfairly shunted into away never to be seen again on the main page

What are the rules regarding moderator sanctioned trolling, a'la Tudd Fudders? Are we jumping over that and pretending we didn't invent a huge problem and let it stay a problem for like 2 years?