Forum Categories are changing. Let's discuss.

spartaxoxo

What do you think of the new forum consolidation?

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/668552/forum-maintenance-and-forum-restructure#latest

spartaxoxo

Personally, I hope it helps to increase discussion in neglected categories.

SeaGtGruff

I think it's a smart move. I do realize that some people will say it's going to hurt "special topic" forums because the threads on specific topics will now be mixed in with threads on other topics-- but that seems contradictory to other people's arguments that moving threads out of "General Discussion" and into a smaller, more focused forum is a "thread-killing" move. The new organization seems like it should be a good balance between having many focused forums yet also having more generalized forums which will hopefully attract more participants.

Personally, I use the "Recent" option all of the time, so it won't make much difference to me.

Destai

I think there’s strong need for an Overland sub forum. Right now, all overland discussions are directed towards one thread, and it’s hard to keep track of the discussions within it.

vsrs_au

I wonder what will happen to all the pinned threads in the old categories, will they all be pinned in the new combined categories? If so, that's a lot of pinned threads per category, which tends to not look so good.

Northwold

I like the consolidation but calling Crafting, Housing and Tales of Tribute "Systems" is just exceedingly obscure. Why not call it "Crafting, Housing & Tales of Tribute"?? Or "ToT" or "Tribute" if there's a space issue?

ZOS_Kevin

Northwold wrote: »

I like the consolidation but calling Crafting, Housing and Tales of Tribute "Systems" is just exceedingly obscure. Why not call it "Crafting, Housing & Tales of Tribute"?? Or "ToT" or "Tribute" if there's a space issue?

We chose "Game Systems" because in the event new general game systems are added, they would most likely live in this space. However, we'll give the category consolidation a shot and if we need to adjust, we can.

Elsonso

I am ambivalent. As long as they keep "Recent" and "Participated", I doubt I will notice the change.

I posted in the other thread about what I thought of how they combined the guild categories. I will post a slightly different thought here. It seems to me that people are locked more to a platform than they are a geography. It makes breaking it down by "NA" and "EU" a rather odd choice instead of "PC", "XBox", and "PS". Then, at least, players would not have to sort through guild listings that are for a totally different platform. Noise reduction.

Destai wrote: »

I think there’s strong need for an Overland sub forum. Right now, all overland discussions are directed towards one thread, and it’s hard to keep track of the discussions within it.

That thread is consolidated for their purposes, not ours.

ZOS_Kevin

Elsonso wrote: »

I am ambivalent. As long as they keep "Recent" and "Participated", I doubt I will notice the change.

I posted in the other thread about what I thought of how they combined the guild categories. It seems to me that people are locked more to a platform than they are a geography. It makes breaking it down by "NA" and "EU" a rather odd choice instead of "PC", "XBox", and "PS". Then, at least, players would not have to sort through guild listings that are for a totally different platform. Noise reduction.

"Recent" and "Participated" will stay intact. No changes there. We have been going back and forth on the Guild Recruitment change. So that may stay as is for the point you noted.

Syldras

Isn't the Housing subforum normally a rather active one?

Northwold

Elsonso wrote: »

I am ambivalent. As long as they keep "Recent" and "Participated", I doubt I will notice the change.

I posted in the other thread about what I thought of how they combined the guild categories. I will post a slightly different thought here. It seems to me that people are locked more to a platform than they are a geography. It makes breaking it down by "NA" and "EU" a rather odd choice instead of "PC", "XBox", and "PS". Then, at least, players would not have to sort through guild listings that are for a totally different platform. Noise reduction.

Destai wrote: »

I think there’s strong need for an Overland sub forum. Right now, all overland discussions are directed towards one thread, and it’s hard to keep track of the discussions within it.

That thread is consolidated for their purposes, not ours.

I only discovered from your post that "participated" exists! I use the forums on mobile and if it's available in the mobile version of the site I can't see it. Only found it in desktop version under the options gear icon.

spartaxoxo

@ZOS_Kevin

I figured you might need this



Also, what purpose of ours is the overland thread serving? As a frequent contributor I have found having only one thread to be sometimes limiting in discussion. I generally think we need a difficulty slider, for example, but I also think world events should scale to the number of participants and some of them are too difficult for the average player in a group of 1 or 2 when the content dies down. Story quests and world events are quite different topics but it's all just lumped into overland.

Could there be a consideration of making an Overland category? It's clearly a popular topic.

spartaxoxo

Northwold wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

I am ambivalent. As long as they keep "Recent" and "Participated", I doubt I will notice the change.

I posted in the other thread about what I thought of how they combined the guild categories. I will post a slightly different thought here. It seems to me that people are locked more to a platform than they are a geography. It makes breaking it down by "NA" and "EU" a rather odd choice instead of "PC", "XBox", and "PS". Then, at least, players would not have to sort through guild listings that are for a totally different platform. Noise reduction.

Destai wrote: »

I think there’s strong need for an Overland sub forum. Right now, all overland discussions are directed towards one thread, and it’s hard to keep track of the discussions within it.

That thread is consolidated for their purposes, not ours.

I only discovered from your post that "participated" exists! I use the forums on mobile and if it's available in the mobile version of the site I can't see it. Only found it in desktop version under the options gear icon.

Yeah as a mostly mobile user, I find it difficult to find recent, participated, or dev tracker.

ZOS_Kevin

spartaxoxo wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin

I figured you might need this



Also, what purpose of ours is the overland thread serving? As a frequent contributor I have found having only one thread to be sometimes limiting in discussion. I generally think we need a difficulty slider, for example, but I also think world events should scale to the number of participants and some of them are too difficult for the average player in a group of 1 or 2 when the content dies down. Story quests and world events are quite different topics but it's all just lumped into overland.

Could there be a consideration of making an Overland category? It's clearly a popular topic.

Hello! So that thread generally is for overall feedback for the dev team. To keep overland feedback in one place rather than having to search multiple threads. However regarding getting it's own section, I can pass that along to the team to get input. And note that it might facilitate better conversations for players.

colossalvoids

That's all sounds absolutely fine to me, I just hope it won't lead into new round of putting every thread out of general in it's small box if anything there is slightly mentions those categories.

ZOS_Kevin

colossalvoids wrote: »

That's all sounds absolutely fine to me, I just hope it won't lead into new round of putting every thread out of general in it's small box if anything there is slightly mentions those categories.

We will move some where it makes sense, but we have also cut back on the amount of conversation moving in general. So this should not really be an issue. Ideally with less categories, we should have more chatter and populated discussions. But we'll be monitoring and making updates based on feedback.

colossalvoids

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

That's all sounds absolutely fine to me, I just hope it won't lead into new round of putting every thread out of general in it's small box if anything there is slightly mentions those categories.

We will move some where it makes sense, but we have also cut back on the amount of conversation moving in general. So this should not really be an issue. Ideally with less categories, we should have more chatter and populated discussions. But we'll be monitoring and making updates based on feedback.

That's good to hear, thanks!

Danikat

Is there any possibility of moving some sections as well?

For example Players Helping Players is fairly active, but some people still see it as a dumping ground where topics are sent to die, and I think that's purely because it's further down the page, in the 'community' section which is otherwise less active and generally used for less urgent topics.

It might be useful to identify some sections moderators frequently had to move topics into and try to position them to be more visible, or grouped with similar sections so people who should be posting there (and people who want to read it) are more likely to see them.

Elsonso

Northwold wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

I am ambivalent. As long as they keep "Recent" and "Participated", I doubt I will notice the change.

I posted in the other thread about what I thought of how they combined the guild categories. I will post a slightly different thought here. It seems to me that people are locked more to a platform than they are a geography. It makes breaking it down by "NA" and "EU" a rather odd choice instead of "PC", "XBox", and "PS". Then, at least, players would not have to sort through guild listings that are for a totally different platform. Noise reduction.

Destai wrote: »

I think there’s strong need for an Overland sub forum. Right now, all overland discussions are directed towards one thread, and it’s hard to keep track of the discussions within it.

That thread is consolidated for their purposes, not ours.

I only discovered from your post that "participated" exists! I use the forums on mobile and if it's available in the mobile version of the site I can't see it. Only found it in desktop version under the options gear icon.

I have it bookmarked on mobile. It is just easier to find that way.

Maitsukas

@ZOS_Kevin
The new Systems category has an issue with the Tribute icon:

Inspect Element shows that it is using a different resolution (64x64) compared to the rest of the category icons (40x40), maybe it could be adjusted?

ZOS_Kevin

Thanks! Yeah I am aware of the issue. Getting that icon resized today.

Bammlschwamml

Maybe they could update the search engine, or at least tell me how it works.

TaSheen

The search function is inbuilt in the forum backend, Vanilla Software. It has never been very good. For most serious searches, it's just better to use a real search engine of your choice: google, duckduckgo, whatever.

I don't have much further input on this; the consolidation is probably going to catch some folks off guard, but at least it's not adding a bunch of NEW forums to figure out. Less is sometimes more.... and can be better.

Cooperharley

In the grand scheme of things, does this matter? I feel like most people use the recent tab to see what's being discussed, but it's fine I guess

Grizzbeorn

There were lots of other questions on that survey.
Are the forum categories the only thing that are being addressed?
Why even ask us the other questions, otherwise?
(unless there was another survey about forum function of which I am unaware?)

ZOS_Kevin

Grizzbeorn wrote: »

There were lots of other questions on that survey.
Are the forum categories the only thing that are being addressed?
Why even ask us the other questions, otherwise?
(unless there was another survey about forum function of which I am unaware?)

I just went through the survey questions again. Most of the questions were about technical forum function or how you specifically use the forum. So we took that feedback and are adjusting the categories, as that was the biggest block of feedback we got. Other feedback included the following:
Frustration around forum discussions being moved. This has been reduced over the last year to address the frustration.
Most used channels for info. Which we are not touching because if those things are working, we are not going to mess with it.
More organization, which is hopefully being addressed with the forum category changes.

All of the other questions in that survey asked about forum metric info. So like how often you log on to the forums or how often do you post. So we are taking the feedback given and making adjustments.

Destai

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hello! So that thread generally is for overall feedback for the dev team. To keep overland feedback in one place rather than having to search multiple threads. However regarding getting it's own section, I can pass that along to the team to get input. And note that it might facilitate better conversations for players.

Appreciate it being passed along. I say try it out and see how it works.

From my perspective, the forums are a "player/poster first" kind of thing, especially since devs don't really engage directly in discussions.

It's very hard to tell where one conversations begins and another ends in that one thread. Curious to know how you guys actually parse feedback when it's all lumped together like that. There's such a wide array of overland feedback that can be gathered in different formats like conversations or polls, that I just don't see how one thread is truly meaningful. If anything, it feels more like an effort to reduce distraction/annoyance than anything else. I can't directly tie a patch note to feedback in that thread.

Frankly, you have to consider how discouraging it can be to have your conversation closed. You lose a lot of feedback when discussions are closed down and redirected. Many posters aren't going to go there and repost. In some cases they can't, especially if their discussion was a poll.

I posted some similar feedback here earlier.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Frustration around forum discussions being moved. This has been reduced over the last year to address the frustration.

I've noticed that, thanks for making that change.

kyle.wilson

The search feature inside of the forums needs a change.
When searching for a topic it shouldn't be older than the last few updates. Or at least should default to a limited search and only search the entire forum history when specifically checked in the advanced search function.
Most of the time I'm searching for something I get results from 2014-2020 which are either no longer even slightly applicable or immediately closed by a mod when it's necroed.
I think that all discussions should be automatically closed after 6 months of no comments.

spartaxoxo

kyle.wilson wrote: »

I think that all discussions should be automatically closed after 6 months of no comments.

Hard pass. Closed threads can't be quoted easily nor searched for. It's hard enough finding old important information without making it worse. It hurts nobody to have them open and necros are not common.

Four_Fingers

Would like to see some effort made increasing forum traffic which has been dwindling.
Maybe revisit some players that were overzealously banned a couple of years ago.

ZOS_Kevin

kyle.wilson wrote: »

The search feature inside of the forums needs a change.

We can reach out to the provider of our forums, Vanilla Forums, about that. Search optimization happens on their end.