Subforums feel too arbitrary right now, that's for sure, it'd be better if the community was enabled somehow to create/delete subforums, but without fully enabling anyone to just create a subforum. I don't really know how you would aproach this, but coin-based system doesn't feel right. Make it too low, get 1000 dead subforums, make it too high, get stagnant irrelevant subforums that people start using incorrectly because there aren't new subforums being created (call these, refugee threads, like L4D thread in the TF2 subforum )
And to extend on the first paragraph-
The enthusiasm of discussion is probably most definitely correlated to how much of a pain in the ass it is to keep up with. I'll give ya props for these little beauties. I'm actually keeping up with threads that I have a mild interest in AND I press the flag symbol for a nice little breakdown of where my e-peen is being stroked.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/213282/8265a970-b1b0-4b02-9583-21abf191e7ae/xc_2018-04-06_Update_6_-_{{Meta}}_-_Forum_-_Google_Chrome.jpg
The Ticker however was probably the best hook for me on oldpunch. You see an eye-catching thread title in a subforum you wouldn't normally visit, or ten replies to a single thread and figure something juicy is happening. Gives you a nice overview of what topics are active in the last hour or so, and unlike Reddit the topic can't be suppressed with downvotes nor is it like Discord (or other instant messaging) where people try to bring up a new topic but it gets washed away within 30 seconds.
? All sections say something like that, like the fitness header says everyone that posts there is gay. You've been here since 2009 and havent noticed that yet?
This sounds simplest and easiest. Just make it persistent and it remember your choices between sections 👍
I think the ticker should come back but it should be at the top of the main page rather than hiding away on its own page. That'd definitely encourage people to check out threads they wouldn't before without even looking to do so.
There's already a ticker of sorts on the main page as a sidebar. It's just threads and not a live feed, though.
That was where my idea of a coin limit per user came from. Means your thread needs to have x users that agree it should become a subforum, and you would still need moderator approval.
There are definitely better measures of thread activity, I just went with coins because they're something we already have and they're generated by user activity.
Deletion of inactive subforums could probably be achieved automatically, if they don't get enough new posts or something then they're merged back into their parent forum and tagged with the old subforums' name.
Great. I don't think you'll find anyone who says we don't want to continue growing the community. The point is we want to continue growing the community.
This spite and disdain for older users purely on the basis that they have been here for a while, and the assumption that they are wrong on the grounds that they are older users - it doesn't make sense and it's not going to help grow the community.
IT's not the same. Honestly I barely even notice that whole area.
I do actively look at it, but sometimes it just doesn't update for hours even though I've refreshed and seen new posts or threads be made.
Did I miss something?
I guess you did.
I hear that all people who were spamming were just frustrated and all but dude I woke up today and I saw they were banned before I even realised there had been an update
It's like they didn't even wait to react in such a disproportional way and get banned, how are you saying their feedback was dismissed if garry probably just didn't have time to look at it lol
Anyways I feel you and I disagree with their bans being permanent. I hope they can come back.
Can we get crowd-funded bailouts? A way for users to band together and get a user unbanned via coins? Large bails like 1k coins, etc.
This went on over the course of a few hours last night before I went to bed at least 8 hours ago. Feedback in this thread and others went ignored and the problem got progressively worse before users started responding to being brushed off by posting in the proscribed manner, which turned out to be annoying and got them banned.
Posts like this don't help anything: Subsection redirection/tag thingie. Garry's mentioned before that he wants new users even at the expense of old users - so this seems like a refusal to accept feedback. The subforum structure was working fine yesterday morning (my time) but by the end of the day it became clear that it would shatter the communities we've built over time.
As someone who's part of several of those communities and relies on them because most other online communities for those things are utter shit, this is a very uncomfortable move.
can't wait for tudd to get unbanned because people think it'd be funny
Tudd shouldn't be perma'd anyway, the moderation tools being borked is what's keeping him banned.
Mod tools have been fixes - look at op
I don't understand or agree with the methods being tried on Newpunch - but I also understand the problem and don't have a good solution.
I just hope we survive the shake up without being too depleted to recover.
He did look and respond with complete disdain before hand. It's not like they didn't try to provide feedback through normal channels.
Considering the reduced ban for Tudd was labelled as a test I don't think that's the case at all. Otherwise it would have been the permaban that was labelled as the test with the reduced ban being the actual ban.
So i guess a few weeks on having to sift through threads.
I think the community is feeling the same thing as you - numbers are dropping, times are changing, how do we keep the forum going well into the future.
Yes, the monolithic megathreads are very dense cliques to get into, especially if you're new to the forum - but if you're going to break those up why wouldn't people just use a similarly impersonal site with much higher traffic, like Reddit? At that point it serves the same purpose. Surely the advantage of having what could be called a "classic" forum, such as this, is that people know each other. People have become good friends here and people legitimately care about each other.
And we do see that you've been trying very hard to make the forums provide a unique experience, in order to ensure it's long term survival into the next decade - but try not to shit on the Old Guard too much, because at the end of the day, they are the base of the forum, and if they go, it's kicking out the foundations of the entire thing - and it might not get started again. Sure, you don't owe them anything, but trying to cultivate the community by slash and burn is a risky move.
I feel like a lot more considering and general piloting of these forum structure alterations and Hezzy's megathread rule changes should have been done prior to dumping those two big shifts on the community. These changes fly in the face of how we've operated for the past 10 or so years, and it's not surprising that there's a bit of outrage and acting out. I tend to shun co-design in most contexts, but it feels like it would have been right here. The users live here, and I feel like they deserve a say in how the community operates.
Side note - permabanning a bunch of respected users who've spent years contributing constructively to the community for a brief moment of shitposting in anger seems like an excessive response. It's definitely making this place that a lot of us see as a virtual second home feel super uninviting.
I just don't get why people were permabanned for doing exactly what Hezzy told them to
Apparently it's because the threads were created out of malice rather than a real desire to foster discussion on those topics
But really those threads highlighted the fact that not having a centralised TF2 general chat means a shitton of individual and isolated threads with no cross-talk that result in a massively cluttered and fragmented discussion
That was the point of creating those threads. Users said, "this is a bad idea and here's why," Hezzy replied "do it anyway," and then those users got banned for doing it.
were they, though? maybe a few of them, but a majority of the TF2 class seemed to be created in good faith
I should say that's Garry's assumption regarding their intent
Too bad we don't have an appeals process for these (previously) valued community members to have an honest and open discussion with the folks who manage bans
unlike in all other contemporary online communities
We have about 10-20k active users on any given day scattered all about the forums. The places we are seemingly trying to emulate have millions, we're trying to spread a teaspoon of butter on a footlong roll here.
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