Serious Though About The Suggestion Section

[OnosakiHito]

Hey guys,

some of you might already noticed, that some suggestions go really slowly forward even if they are pretty good or obviously ready for being removed due to various reasons.

The slow progress of reviewing such threads is in my opinion effected by two things: The current "voting-system" and the disregard of the rules in some threads, which make the forum harder transparent.

The rules I'm talking about are stated in this thread, which some of them are more or less often disregarded:

• You must put the specific thing you are suggesting in the title of your topic. It has to be to the point so we can tell what it is by looking at the title.
• Make sure your suggestion is clear and that you back it up with solid reasoning.
• Be as specific as possible in your suggestion. (e.g., if you want a new item, suggest specific effects for it)

Threads are insufficiently named or their opening posts are written in a way which users can't take serious at all. The GameMasters work is becoming because of this harder and players start to insult; make joke posts or spam around, which makes the thread even more messy and harder to be reviewed and moved to the Reviewed Suggestions. They are just distractions and take off the attention from more importand threads, not to mention that the whole Suggestion Forum becomes less transparent. Threads might become forgotten. Good ideas gone. - But for that, double, triple, even quatro-reposts appear and we end up into an infinity loop.

After some runs... the suggestion might be finaly reviewed, but the older posts remain. - Not a way of keeping such important Sup-Forum clean. It also can animate people to reopen them again, since they think it hasn't been reviewed.

Avoiding such cases - which I tried approximately to describe - could be done by giving the users a draft which describes how to make such thread or what not to do, e.g.: capslog, joking around, beeing unreasonable, etc. and which needs to be followed. No, I don't want to make the forum unemotional and too strict. Its not like fun is not allowed. But it is really, really advicable to be in first place serious and say in a clear way what you want, and why, since you are suggesting something that changes a part of the server. - Which by the way, can be suggested also in a serious but also funny/cute/whatever way. ;)

Of course, sometimes it can't be avoided that someone is breaking the rule. Some are new and didn't saw the rules and some don't speak the english language too well to be be able to understand them all. But that's not a problem. Its about minimating the cases, not eliminating, which could be also helped by having someone in the team who really checks the forum and keeps it by him-/her-self clean. Preferably a new Forum-Moderator or GameMaster who is enthusiastic with his job. It is a common and normal behavior that older / longer employed people are less enthusiastic as newer, which is one of the reasons I would really appreciate to see it, since it is important.

One of the GMs said few days ago, that we should write a PM to Genesis about our suggestions if he didn't saw it. Another one said we should not depend to much on them.

I'm kinda dissapointed here and sad about it, and I know that I'm not the only one here. Many people yearn to it to have contact to the GMs, beeing able to talk to them and give support or suggestions. But right now this importance has been forgotten, no,rather not been able to kept as years ago(this information is said by older players I heard the last weeks) due to time consuming work or other reasons. Because of that one more reason, there should be someone who has an eye on the forum and who is in contact with the community, so he / she is able to contact Genesis when needed. In this way the Admins would have more time for them and time for scripting and etc.. It's also about having trust in to the team(just mentioning it). Posting sometimes here and there isn't enough at all. Interaction is the key.

- By the way, about this "yearn to it having contact to GM's" topic is also in-game seeable. Sad to listen to old people what they have to say, really... :/ but that isn't the topic right now-

Now we come to the second problem: I noticed that voting / supporting for something is high wighted on this server, so there should be a appropriated system for it. Not just a blank "+1" which the Admin / GM needs later to search for. It should be something that can show the Admin(or new moderator) what users want the most, so he can set priorities right after seeing just the Headline or the OP.

And it is possible to do such kind of voting, just by using a simple feature which is given by the forum already: A poll.

Instead of writing "+1" in the thread, players could just vote for the suggestion-thread by using the poll which the OP-Maker has made. An example is the current pole I've made for this thread, which you can use after reading this post by supporting it with "yes", or by not supporting it with "no". A third button for "abstention" is optional possible.

In this way the Admin(or new moderator) could see what is supported by players and what not, and would be able to makes his move imidiately.

It would save the GM-Staff much time and give players a higher chance of becoming a certain feature. Plus, negative progression due to kinda weird/messy posts could be avoided when putting these two "systems" together.

Rate or comment about this topic. Maybe you have some imporvements or questions? You support it or don't do it, but pressing just the poll is not enough? Feel free to say what's in your mind and maybe we can find a consensus at the end of the story! ^^

(Note: With this post I don't criticize anyting, I rather give suggestions where improvement might be possible and I'm glad when you don't take it negative, since it isn't meant in this way, atl all)

(Note2: I know... ... long post.)

Edited May 13, 2013 by OnosakiHito

[Victoria]

Im the first one to vote YAY! xD

anyways, i agree with all of the things you said (too many to mention :3). Also, it would be more organize if players would be more serious about their votes on the suggestion thread, not joking, not kidding around, not trolling, nothing but seriousness. they can troll, joke, kid around on other threads such as Off-Topic, maybe General Discussion, but Suggestions thread is a serious thread where GMs tend to review every suggestions and it will make it easier for them too to review all of it.

and Yes, i agree that its a VERY LONG post xD im so happy that i manage to read all of them xD

[Lenneth]

I do agree that the suggestion subforum is very messy and hard to follow due to the volume of suggestions. I would like to suggest that on top of what was mentioned above, we can also add further divisions to reviewed suggestions (eg "Approved", "Rejected", "Implemented") to make things neater and easier to track. And assign someone (a GM maybe?) to consolidate the approved and implemented list to make it clear at one glance for the administration.

[Victoria]

I do agree that the suggestion subforum is very messy and hard to follow due to the volume of suggestions. I would like to suggest that on top of what was mentioned above, we can also add further divisions to reviewed suggestions (eg "Approved", "Rejected", "Implemented") to make things neater and easier to track. And assign someone (a GM maybe?) to consolidate the approved and implemented list to make it clear at one glance for the administration.

I agree, we only need two though, just Approved and Rejected since if its already approved, it will obviously get implemented on some update. and im pretty sure GM Veracity is the one handling the suggestion thread, she decides if it will be approved or rejected (not totally, since she consults the GM team first especially GM Genesis).

[Genesis]

I agree that a lot of topic titles are misleading. The problem with a poll is that the topic starter can modify it once it is posted. This would mean that a ton of people could agree on something, then he (or she) can change it to say whatever she wanted. The solution to this would be to have a qualified GM look through the topic and see what people are agreeing to. This is what we do right now, which would defeat the purpose of the poll (which I understand it to be a way to have suggestions implemented quickly).

Yes, I do agree that the topic title should be descriptive, players underestimate how much more efficient it is to look through the forum and skim the suggestion topics to see what players are suggesting. I agree 110% on that.

In regards to having another GM go through the suggestions, we tried that several times a while back but it didn't turn out well. GMs were accepting suggestions that the higher ups wouldn't have agreed with. This is why Veracity goes through them while verifying with me on some of them. It is a slower process but it ensures that the things we promise, will actually be done. Veracity handles a lot of stuff, more than just the suggestion forum. She has been overworked, so I plan to start reviewing the suggestion forum more frequently. This should address how quickly suggestions are implemented. Secondly, I will try and spread updates up so its not just a huge cluster of things and smaller, more frequent updates.

Saying "+1" does very little. Yeah you agree with the suggestion, but WHY? Give me a reason so I can understand. Expand on what the OP posted. This goes along with more descriptive topic titles, it goes a long way.

Also, I just think I should mention this in passing. People tend to glorify the past. The server has never been as well off as it is now. It has never had this many players nor has it been worked on as hard. Just thought I'd throw that in there. Its much easier to criticize than it is to help and contributed. :)