Possible solution to the [Z] conundrum

Alucardo

I, and many others, find clicking on the Z expecting to see something useful turn out to be not so useful, pretty annoying/disheartening. So, what about this.. you hover over the Z icon for 1-2 seconds and a little dialog appears with the first response from the staff in that thread. It will give you a little insight before spending your precious time opening it fully.
I'll provide a mockup below.

DaniAngione

Hi, everyone. We understand that people are going to disagree from time to time, but please remember to keep your comments respectful at all times on our forums, even when you disagree with others. Insults or other...

lol.
Just kidding

But yeah, I know what you mean. That would be an interesting solution.

Alucardo

DaniAngione wrote: »

Hi, everyone. We understand that people are going to disagree from time to time, but please remember to keep your comments respectful at all times on our forums, even when you disagree with others. Insults or other...

Haha, I had that coming

Cazzy

But that would be like knowing what's in your Christmas present before opening it... only to find out it's socks

Alucardo

Cazzy wrote: »

But that would be like knowing what's in your Christmas present before opening it... only to find out it's socks

Hmm.. what about if it could be turned off in your account preferences so you could still enjoy opening your socks?

Cazzy

Alucardo wrote: »

Cazzy wrote: »

But that would be like knowing what's in your Christmas present before opening it... only to find out it's socks

Hmm.. what about if it could be turned off in your account preferences so you could still enjoy opening your socks?

Then you have my full support It's not that I like the socks, but I like the anticipation that it could be more than that. Like a puppy.

Alucardo

Cazzy wrote: »

Then you have my full support It's not that I like the socks, but I like the anticipation that it could be more than that. Like a puppy.

lol I get you. I guess I didn't really take that into consideration. Sorry! I did add a small delay by like 1 or 2 secs before it appears while hovering so people don't get the box just by putting their cursor over it (so it's hard to accomplish accidentally). But a preference would definitely be a cleaner option for those who love Christmas presents, and I know Rich's /lurk can sometimes be a heart warmer.

icontested

Alucardo wrote: »

I, and many others, find clicking on the Z expecting to see something useful turn out to be not so useful, pretty annoying/disheartening. So, what about this.. you hover over the Z icon for 1-2 seconds and a little dialog appears with the first response from the staff in that thread. It will give you a little insight before spending your precious time opening it fully.
I'll provide a mockup below.

Bad idea

Alucardo

icontested wrote: »

Bad idea

I'm all for criticism, but this is just nuts.

icontested

Alucardo wrote: »

icontested wrote: »

Bad idea

I'm all for criticism, but this is just nuts.

No. I've come to the conclusion my ideas are better than what these guys can come up with. Therefore they stay with me. I'm sure you understand

Alucardo

icontested wrote: »

No. I've come to the conclusion my ideas are better than what these guys can come up with. Therefore they stay with me. I'm sure you understand

Who are "these guys"? The community or ZOS? No, I don't understand. Your pitch is terrible, so I imagine your ideas aren't much better.

icontested

Alucardo wrote: »

icontested wrote: »

No. I've come to the conclusion my ideas are better than what these guys can come up with. Therefore they stay with me. I'm sure you understand

Who are "these guys"? The community or ZOS? No, I don't understand. Your pitch is terrible, so I imagine your ideas aren't much better.

I didn't think you would do that. When you read your posts they are very mature. Now you had this reply. Why did you ruin your cred?

Alucardo

icontested wrote: »

I didn't think you would do that. When you read your posts they are very mature. Now you had this reply. Why did you ruin your cred?

Well played, Sir. You baited me real good

PinoZino

And what if moderation used two messages in one thread?

One "We understand that people are going to disagree from time to time..." and another more interesting informative one...

icontested

Alucardo wrote: »

icontested wrote: »

I didn't think you would do that. When you read your posts they are very mature. Now you had this reply. Why did you ruin your cred?

Well played, Sir. You baited me real good

I actually did not. I put the part "I'm sure you understand" due to the cred you have. Chill out, friend.

Cadbury

I get the feeling if this were implemented, we'd find out that alot of the Z correspondence would be 90% "Hi, everyone. We understand that people are going to disagree from time to time, but please.."etc. And only 10% topically relevant.

Alucardo

PinoZino wrote: »

And what if moderation used two messages in one thread?

One "We understand that people are going to disagree from time to time..." and another more interesting informative one...

Good point. Normally if there's one staff reply it's the "We understand.." one (this is this biggest culprit I've come across) or a /lurk. I've never seen ZOS put more than 1 of them disagreement comments in a single thread, so if the first one is a disagreement but there's several staff replies, you can probably safely assume there's some good stuff in there too.

Edit: Reading that back through just hit me with a problem. Currently, hovering the icon tells you how many replies there are. This should also be listed in the dialog box that pops up.

Xendyn

Simplest solution
Change your expectations.

Click on a Zos logo expecting a mod response, then if you get a dev response, you'll be pleasantly surprised

Also Dev Tracker

Alucardo

Cadbury wrote: »

I get the feeling if this were implemented, we'd find out that alot of the Z correspondence would be 90% "Hi, everyone. We understand that people are going to disagree from time to time, but please.."etc. And only 10% topically relevant.

Exactly. Imagine all that time saved when you could just hover over an icon instead of waiting for the page to load just to be disappointed!

Velvet_Kevorkian

Alucardo wrote: »

icontested wrote: »

I didn't think you would do that. When you read your posts they are very mature. Now you had this reply. Why did you ruin your cred?

Well played, Sir. You baited me real good

Is he the MASTER at his craft?

bareheiny

Give the mods or the devs a different colored icon.

And in the case of dev and mod replies in a thread, let the dev icon take priority.

TheValkyn

They use a template for their forums. While I'm sure they have all the source code they can't charge for a forum feature so don't expect it to happen.

Alucardo

bareheiny wrote: »

Give the mods or the devs a different colored icon.

And in the case of dev and mod replies in a thread, let the dev icon take priority.

Actually that's not bad, which I hate to admit after spending 30 minutes making the mockup. I even hunted down the font they use on the forums to make it look legit.

Gidorick

There are many ways to "fix" this issue... This is a pretty slick concept +1 for you sir.