Feedback: Official Forums

[Syktek.7912]

The new foru~~m~~ is pretty g~~o~~od with the removal of ~~d~~ownvote~~s~~. They were utterly pointless and I'm glad the decision was made to kill them. ~~S~~o next I think yo~~u~~ guys should fo~~c~~us on the lac~~k~~ of color on the forum. It's awfully dead, and I mean dead, you went from a good blend to something that is just boring to look at and that's putting it simple. No negativity, the new forum look basically makes me think of the Pixies from Fairly Odd Parents. Just boring and corporate. Don't take it the wrong way though, a good step was made together! Maybe look into getting better volunteers too.

 

Anyway, good work!

[WARIORSCHARGEING.2637]

can not delete this posting and have noting to add to this topic good bye

[Haishao.6851]

> @Einlanzer.1627 said:

> There's a reason thumb's up deserves to stay while thumb's down doesn't, and it's very simple:

>

> it's easy to agree with an idea without contributing additional thoughts to it, and doing so is a positive action that helps draw attention to the topic. But, common courtesy should suggest that disagreement should be more thoughtful. If you're unable to come up with reasons why you actually disagree with something, the most proper course of action is to just avoid engaging on the topic. If you come up with reasons, post them in a constructive way.

>

> Additionally, having only a positive reaction helps to avoid the problem of alliance-forming that we see in polarized camps; i.e. American politics, which tends to entrench people in emotional bubbles and undermines rational discussion on the topic.

>

 

You can disagree and show dislike for something without feeling the need to write more that what has already been said.

There's also posts that really don't deserve a reply. Like when people call others stupid/toxic or kitten moron. A simple thumb down is very useful in those situation.

 

Having only thumbs up doesn't help anything else than inflate the ego and create echo chambers where disagreement is ignored.

It has absolutely no reason to exist without thumbs down.

 

A scale with a missing plate will never show the value of what you put on it.

Thumbs up without thumbs down is nothing else than alternative facts.

 

Now that Thumbs down is gone, thumbs up should be removed.

[Cyprien.4208]

There no difference between the Thumbs up and Helpful only a method for people collect more numbers to feel good about themselves.

[Abakk.9176]

> @Cyprien.4208 said:

> There no difference between the Thumbs up and Helpful only a method for people collect more numbers to feel good about themselves.

 

You can only use one at a time.

 

So you Agree, Find it Helpfull or move on.

 

Or disagree and make a post explaining that.

[Cyprien.4208]

> @Abakk.9176 said:

> > @Cyprien.4208 said:

> > There no difference between the Thumbs up and Helpful only a method for people collect more numbers to feel good about themselves.

>

> You can only use one at a time.

>

> So you Agree, Find it Helpfull or move on.

>

> Or disagree and make a post explaining that.

 

Just because you can only use one or another doesn't mean it's not the same thing. It's like having multi methods of calling someone stupid yet the end result you still call them stupid.

[Abakk.9176]

> @Haishao.6851 said:

> > @Einlanzer.1627 said:

> > There's a reason thumb's up deserves to stay while thumb's down doesn't, and it's very simple:

> >

> > it's easy to agree with an idea without contributing additional thoughts to it, and doing so is a positive action that helps draw attention to the topic. But, common courtesy should suggest that disagreement should be more thoughtful. If you're unable to come up with reasons why you actually disagree with something, the most proper course of action is to just avoid engaging on the topic. If you come up with reasons, post them in a constructive way.

> >

> > Additionally, having only a positive reaction helps to avoid the problem of alliance-forming that we see in polarized camps; i.e. American politics, which tends to entrench people in emotional bubbles and undermines rational discussion on the topic.

> >

>

> You can disagree and show dislike for something without feeling the need to write more that what has already been said.

> There's also posts that really don't deserve a reply. Like when people call others stupid/toxic or kitten moron. A simple thumb down is very useful in those situation.

>

> Having only thumbs up doesn't help anything else than inflate the ego and create echo chambers where disagreement is ignored.

> It has absolutely no reason to exist without thumbs down.

>

> A scale with a missing plate will never show the value of what you put on it.

> Thumbs up without thumbs down is nothing else than alternative facts.

>

> Now that Thumbs down is gone, thumbs up should be removed.

 

You could also dislike the person and downvote him/her left and right all over the forum without ever making yourself known.

 

That alone is a very good reason to remove the downvote.

 

The upvote is incapable of doing harm so it really is of no consequense if they leave it.

[Abakk.9176]

> @Cyprien.4208 said:

> > @Abakk.9176 said:

> > > @Cyprien.4208 said:

> > > There no difference between the Thumbs up and Helpful only a method for people collect more numbers to feel good about themselves.

> >

> > You can only use one at a time.

> >

> > So you Agree, Find it Helpfull or move on.

> >

> > Or disagree and make a post explaining that.

>

> Just because you can only use one or another doesn't mean it's not the same thing. It's like having multi methods of calling someone stupid yet the end result you still call them stupid.

 

I beg to differ.

 

You can agree with someone on a certain stance on a subject. That doesn't mean it is helpful in any way.

 

On the other hand someone can be really helpfull in explaining you a certain workaround or whatnot. The helpful button would be the most appropriate action for that.

 

 

[sephiroth.4217]

> @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> During a one-week review, we noticed a consistent piece of advice -- backed by very sound reasoning -- that we have acted on today:

>

> * We have removed the "Thumbs Down" option in our Reaction System

>

> Please feel free to use the "Thumbs Up" and "Helpful" reactions, as you desire. And of course, you are welcome to share your feedback and opinions in constructive forum posts, as well.

>

> Thanks for your feedback on this subject. I'm continuing to collect feedback on a multitude of subjects and will be sharing it with the larger team later this week and into the future, as other thoughts are shared on this subject.

>

 

I guess you noticed the salty people down voting everything including the helpful posts. Personally I don't think we need thumbs up either, but that's just me.

[Gaile Gray.6029]

We will be leaving the reactions as they now stand. Please concentrate your feedback on areas where it is potentially actionable. This decision was made after a great deal of careful deliberation and was based on input from all four language communities and the team members who serve them.

 

We really don't need this thread to become a teeter-totter of opposing points of view on something that is *optional* and has no lasting impact on the forums as a whole.

 

Thanks for understanding.

[Darlgon.9273]

Any word on a fixed Dev tracker, that actually tracks what ANet is saying, instead of just threads that they posted 30 pages ago in? Or a way to see the second and third ANet posts in a thread, without having to check, page by page, for a Red post?

[Gaile Gray.6029]

The quirkiness of the Dev Tracker is definitely one of the element of my one-week report. In fact, it's amongst the top three issues.

[Miss Lana.5276]

> @"Silent The Gray.3091" said:

> Just throwing this in here because I feel it needs to be continually addressed:

>

> Why is Reddit more official than the official forums?

>

> It is something I have always wondered about, never can seem to get a straight answer on why Arenanet loves Reddit more than their own forums. It's the equivalent of the CEO of a car company never driving the car his company manufactures and driving the competitors instead. Not only is it bad taste, it shows a lack of respect and loyalty to the company, is there some kind of internal secret reason why Reddit is more official that we just aren't going to be filled in on? If so that's okay by me, I'm just legitimately curious how it makes business sense. From the customer point of view, I'm not entirely sure where I'm supposed to get my updates still to this day, because the place you think you should be getting them, isn't the right place, i.e. the Guild Wars 2 forums SHOULD be the right place, instead it is actually Reddit.

>

> There are actually less updates on the development of the game on the forums than there are on Reddit and that really saddens me. Does Reddit have a better forum system than Arenanet? Is there something wrong with the forum system used here? Maybe Reddit has more resources, though I'd find that difficult to believe. Maybe the development teams at Arenanet hate their own forums so much that they refuse to use them. I have no idea what the reason could be, but I know that from the outside looking in, it just isn't proper. If you were playing World of Warcraft for example, no one in their right mind would think "Hey, I need to get my updates and information for this game from Yahoo Finance." No one in their right mind does that kind of stuff, so why do we do it here?

>

> Maybe they get a lot of funding from Reddit, the players who spend the most money on the game reside on Reddit, or Anet really just doesn't care about their own forums. There can only be so many reasons for their utter hate of their own forums. I do mean hate too, it's an insane ratio of Reddit posts by developers versus official forum posts.

 

I agree with everything about this post. When something is addressed on reddit and not on the official forums it feels to me like the devs are trying to be sneaky about something by not telling the entire playerbase. I've seen comments by devs about a certain topic on reddit on day 1, but the first dev response I see about it on the forums it's 10+ days later. And if you confront them about this they just ignore it, which makes it all the more aggravating.

 

Forget signatures, forget thumbs up/down. **THIS** is what needs to be addressed. If this alone is improved in the new forum I will be a happy necro.

 

EDIT: A great example of this happening **RIGHT NOW** is a dev replying to concerns about the material storage change coming with PoF on **REDDIT**, but *NO ONE* is replying to the topic here.

[Vavume.8065]

> @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> The quirkiness of the Dev Tracker is definitely one of the element of my one-week report. In fact, it's amongst the top three issues.

 

The old dev tracker was better, I would rather just see a full page of dev responses. I used to use the dev tracker everyday on the old forum, I've stopped using it on this forum because I am not prepared to spend the extra time opening all the different threads to find out what was said... I only looked at this thread because I saw the live dev tracker tiles on the home page, which is a good idea btw.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I find it unhelpful that the URL for posts in any and all sub-forms uses 'discussion' and a number, so there's no way to tell which sub-forum it is in.

[Ohoni.6057]

> @Vavume.8065 said:

> > @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> > The quirkiness of the Dev Tracker is definitely one of the element of my one-week report. In fact, it's amongst the top three issues.

>

> The old dev tracker was better, I would rather just see a full page of dev responses. I used to use the dev tracker everyday on the old forum, I've stopped using it on this forum because I am not prepared to spend the extra time opening all the different threads to find out what was said... I only looked at this thread because I saw the live dev tracker tiles on the home page, which is a good idea btw.

 

I've seen forums with a dev tracker on the front page similar to this one, but it offered like 10+ "pages" of tracked posts, rather than just two. That would certainly help.

[Moira Shalaar.5620]

> @"Miss Lana.5276" said:

> > @"Silent The Gray.3091" said:

> > Just throwing this in here because I feel it needs to be continually addressed:

> >

> > Why is Reddit more official than the official forums?

> >

> > It is something I have always wondered about, never can seem to get a straight answer on why Arenanet loves Reddit more than their own forums. It's the equivalent of the CEO of a car company never driving the car his company manufactures and driving the competitors instead. Not only is it bad taste, it shows a lack of respect and loyalty to the company, is there some kind of internal secret reason why Reddit is more official that we just aren't going to be filled in on? If so that's okay by me, I'm just legitimately curious how it makes business sense. From the customer point of view, I'm not entirely sure where I'm supposed to get my updates still to this day, because the place you think you should be getting them, isn't the right place, i.e. the Guild Wars 2 forums SHOULD be the right place, instead it is actually Reddit.

> >

> > There are actually less updates on the development of the game on the forums than there are on Reddit and that really saddens me. Does Reddit have a better forum system than Arenanet? Is there something wrong with the forum system used here? Maybe Reddit has more resources, though I'd find that difficult to believe. Maybe the development teams at Arenanet hate their own forums so much that they refuse to use them. I have no idea what the reason could be, but I know that from the outside looking in, it just isn't proper. If you were playing World of Warcraft for example, no one in their right mind would think "Hey, I need to get my updates and information for this game from Yahoo Finance." No one in their right mind does that kind of stuff, so why do we do it here?

> >

> > Maybe they get a lot of funding from Reddit, the players who spend the most money on the game reside on Reddit, or Anet really just doesn't care about their own forums. There can only be so many reasons for their utter hate of their own forums. I do mean hate too, it's an insane ratio of Reddit posts by developers versus official forum posts.

>

> I agree with everything about this post. When something is addressed on reddit and not on the official forums it feels to me like the devs are trying to be sneaky about something by not telling the entire playerbase. I've seen comments by devs about a certain topic on reddit on day 1, but the first dev response I see about it on the forums it's 10+ days later. And if you confront them about this they just ignore it, which makes it all the more aggravating.

>

> Forget signatures, forget thumbs up/down. **THIS** is what needs to be addressed. If this alone is improved in the new forum I will be a happy necro.

>

> EDIT: A great example of this happening **RIGHT NOW** is a dev replying to concerns about the material storage change coming with PoF on **REDDIT**, but *NO ONE* is replying to the topic here.

 

I saw a developer comment on this a while back (Might even have been MO), although for the life of me I couldn't say where (probably reddit ;-P) but the gist of what I remember is that many/most devs post on their own initiative and quite often on their own time. Anet doesn't require them to post on the official forums, so some of it is personal preference on the part of the developers, and part of it is the ability reddit allows for interactive conversations that are not as viable on the forums. They do try to make sure that important announcements at least start on the forums.

 

EDIT:

"Forum posting is a voluntary option for developers. It’s great that Matt shared the info, and extra great that he’s working with me to share this globally and to share additional bits that he comes up with, too."

 

"Nike — no one’s telling people they need to put on a suit and a tie before they post. Devs post when, where, and as they desire, with a very general and reasonable guideline, which Mike O’Brien shared with forum members a long while ago: “We don’t talk speculatively about future development.”

So please don’t believe anyone’s being told to muzzle it. Devs post and respond when they’re able to do so, and if they’re anything like me, they delight in that interaction with our players."

 

These comments by Gaile are probably what I am remembering, and here is the link for as long as it is viable. Both sets of comments are from that same thread.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/On-Legendaries-from-Dev

[katniss.6735]

I still feel there's a bit of noise with the red reactions below each post. Perhaps if they were under the name, or in a right margin. Perhaps if they were the same colour as the person's name, or to the right of the stars of "Member".

[kurfu.5623]

Either have both options to thumbs up/down, or have neither.

 

One without the other makes no logical sense, unless the goal is to create a sense of fake positiveness.

[Nimrod.9240]

Befor removing the old forum once and for all i think it would be a good idea to copy all the patch notes into this new forum. If for example someone wants to return for PoF after a break and he wants to see what got added to the game while he was gone, checking this forum is pointless as there is only the patch note from the 8th of August in the Game Release Notes section.

That is valueable data that should not be lost.

[Haishao.6851]

> @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> We will be leaving the reactions as they now stand. Please concentrate your feedback on areas where it is potentially actionable. This decision was made after a great deal of careful deliberation and was based on input from all four language communities and the team members who serve them.

>

> We really don't need this thread to become a teeter-totter of opposing points of view on something that is *optional* and has no lasting impact on the forums as a whole.

>

> Thanks for understanding.

 

:-1:

[SkyShroud.2865]

WIth thumbs down removed. Can you kindly add poll shortcut to the editor so people can easily make a poll?

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @Ohoni.6057 said:

> I've seen forums with a dev tracker on the front page similar to this one, but it offered like 10+ "pages" of tracked posts, rather than just two. That would certainly help.

 

You mean like the link at the top left that says, [Dev Tracker](https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussions/tagged/arenanet "Dev Tracker")?

[Miss Lana.5276]

> @"Moira Shalaar.5620" said:

> > @"Miss Lana.5276" said:

> > > @"Silent The Gray.3091" said:

> > > Just throwing this in here because I feel it needs to be continually addressed:

> > >

> > > Why is Reddit more official than the official forums?

> > >

> > > It is something I have always wondered about, never can seem to get a straight answer on why Arenanet loves Reddit more than their own forums. It's the equivalent of the CEO of a car company never driving the car his company manufactures and driving the competitors instead. Not only is it bad taste, it shows a lack of respect and loyalty to the company, is there some kind of internal secret reason why Reddit is more official that we just aren't going to be filled in on? If so that's okay by me, I'm just legitimately curious how it makes business sense. From the customer point of view, I'm not entirely sure where I'm supposed to get my updates still to this day, because the place you think you should be getting them, isn't the right place, i.e. the Guild Wars 2 forums SHOULD be the right place, instead it is actually Reddit.

> > >

> > > There are actually less updates on the development of the game on the forums than there are on Reddit and that really saddens me. Does Reddit have a better forum system than Arenanet? Is there something wrong with the forum system used here? Maybe Reddit has more resources, though I'd find that difficult to believe. Maybe the development teams at Arenanet hate their own forums so much that they refuse to use them. I have no idea what the reason could be, but I know that from the outside looking in, it just isn't proper. If you were playing World of Warcraft for example, no one in their right mind would think "Hey, I need to get my updates and information for this game from Yahoo Finance." No one in their right mind does that kind of stuff, so why do we do it here?

> > >

> > > Maybe they get a lot of funding from Reddit, the players who spend the most money on the game reside on Reddit, or Anet really just doesn't care about their own forums. There can only be so many reasons for their utter hate of their own forums. I do mean hate too, it's an insane ratio of Reddit posts by developers versus official forum posts.

> >

> > I agree with everything about this post. When something is addressed on reddit and not on the official forums it feels to me like the devs are trying to be sneaky about something by not telling the entire playerbase. I've seen comments by devs about a certain topic on reddit on day 1, but the first dev response I see about it on the forums it's 10+ days later. And if you confront them about this they just ignore it, which makes it all the more aggravating.

> >

> > Forget signatures, forget thumbs up/down. **THIS** is what needs to be addressed. If this alone is improved in the new forum I will be a happy necro.

> >

> > EDIT: A great example of this happening **RIGHT NOW** is a dev replying to concerns about the material storage change coming with PoF on **REDDIT**, but *NO ONE* is replying to the topic here.

>

> I saw a developer comment on this a while back (Might even have been MO), although for the life of me I couldn't say where (probably reddit ;-P) but the gist of what I remember is that many/most devs post on their own initiative and quite often on their own time. Anet doesn't require them to post on the official forums, so some of it is personal preference on the part of the developers, and part of it is the ability reddit allows for interactive conversations that are not as viable on the forums. They do try to make sure that important announcements at least start on the forums.

 

My question is why do they feel the need to actively avoid *their own official forums*? Sure, it's great that they respond, and kudos to them if it's on their own time, but like Silent said, it's the equivalent of the CEO of a car company never driving the car his company manufactures. Wouldn't it make more sense to promote your own website by actually answering questions there instead of going to a third-party site? That wouldn't just encourage communication between devs and players, but would also promote the growth of the *official* forums. Only answering questions on reddit wouldn't encourage growth here at all, actually it's quite the opposite.

 

---

49 Characters|Necro|Raider|Fractaller|PvPer|Singer

So long Treeface o7

"...Kormir? I know not of whom you speak."

[WARIORSCHARGEING.2637]

have noting to add to this topic and can not delete this posting