Please STOP pushing threads into "Players helping Players" section

Four_Fingers

Whatever is decided needs to be applied with consistency and not just applied to threads that aren't deemed to be good PR in the general section, i.e. sending threads to die.

Also leaving a "moved" post by the mod needs to be applied consistently.

I use General, PTS, and Participated most of the time.

Edit - I do agree with moving PvP posts to the PvP section as it prevents back and forth between the PvE and PvP players.

Muizer

How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?
Only use the general discussion forum, unless I have a very specific question, then search might bring me to another section.

What are your most viewed sections of the forum?
General discussion forum

Do you think the forums have too many categories?
Tbh, most often it is a search result that sends me to categories other than 'general discussion'. So I understand the OP's complaint about threads being moved before they can gain any traction in 'general discussion'. Also agree that 'players helping players' is not useful at all. A forum where players who are seeking help might get help from other players seeking help (probably for something unrelated). Not very effective I think.

Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)
No.

DragonRacer

And as an added note, use may vary based on if the person is viewing on desktop or mobile. That whole tracker/recent/etc menu at the top on desktop doesn’t even show on mobile.

Olauron

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

So the posts being moved is so that they are in the sub-section that matches the contents of the thread. This is based on the current structure of the forum. The intent is not to harm players or hinder conversation.

However with that being said, we've noticed frustration with some of the moving of conversations and have started looking at how we can better address this problem. That way, those posting get the help they need and we have conversations happening in the right places. We do intend on asking a wider audience here on the forum how they use the forum currently and how that experience can be made better from user navigation standpoint.

But since the conversation was started here, we'll ask some starting questions.

• How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?
  I am visiting general category and some categories that I have interest in (PTS, housing, sometimes lore or role-playing).
• What are your most viewed sections of the forum?
  General and PTS.
• Do you think the forums have too many categories?
  Not too many, see below.
• Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)
  Only "Categories" and "Participated".

As a former moderator of a high population forum I understand both the need and the desire to organize it and at the same time the difficulty of changing user behaviour. The problem here, I think, is not too many categories, but too broad and overlapping categories. The "Players Helping Players" in particular is the second "general" category that is not necessary. In "Combat" category users are helping with combat and builds questions, in "Housing" category - with design and furnishings questions, in "PvP" categories - with pvp questions.More importantly, those categories are rather popular, though not so much as general.
Visiting "Players Helping Players" as a user with question may be natural, but visiting it to answer the question is strange (is it like "oh, I want to help somebody today, where should I look"?). You will have much more players likely to answer the question they see when browsing the forum than the players regularly checking the QnA section.

hrothbern

I think that discussions that analyse ... analyse a build, a set,a combat interaction, etc, etc
should not be labelled as "helping a player" with sharing some technical info

For sure it will help players

But that is mostly not the purpose of the OP.
The purpose much more to share thoughts, facts , insights, tips & tricks on a particular aspect of our game.

old_scopie1945

I log in each day into General Forums. The only sub forums I visit are those that I am active in that have been moved from General.

Brrrofski

I personally view the forum by most recent.

But I do notice threads that get moved to players helping players, or worse yet, PvP, drop down in most recent, so I assume people don't use those sections fairly often.

FayJolyn

I go to the General 95% of the time because it's the only place where I can expect engagement. Couple of days ago I made a thread with feedback about Tempest Keep. After it got moved to the dungeon, trials section of the forums the conversation was completely killed and I have noticed a complete drop in replies.

I think a tag system with one big front page similar to subReddit pages would work favourable for engagement in this forum. Instead of having closed off sub forums users can see threads on 1 front page and select subject tags to filter down on subject of interest.

Destai

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

Destai wrote: »

I'm glad you're noticing the frustrations. I hope that you're also looking at what other frustrations many of us have here. Reddit might also give you some unfiltered insight. You may recall when you first joined, I outlined some ways to improve the forum experience, and a lot of those don't require navigation changes. I'm happy to DM you if you need more detail. There's a reputation here and elsewhere that we have to tip-toe with our words, and honestly, it's fairly earned.

I personally find the forums pretty frustrating to engage at times. I don't feel like my time is respected by ZOS. It's a bit frustrating to have to review my own comments just so I can try to remember what I originally said a week later because someone took it poorly.

Just a different perspective- The Forums used to have a different reputation: it was essentially a known cesspool, even compared to Reddit. There was no way I'd have contributed anything back in the day, and there was no point anyway. Soooo much passive-aggressiveness and trolly comments. No one actually enjoys that, it just ends up making you either feel miserable that someone is being smarmy at you because they can, or you only stick around if you're willing to step up your own flame game.

Since moderation was stepped up, the quality of the banter has improved, imv. It may be annoying to have to double check yourself, but to be frank, given the medium, and the nature of communication on the internet, its not a terrible thing to be required to be extra careful about what you say. You just have to, like, stop and think about what you're saying, and how you're saying it. That should not be a problem.

I'll say that I've had stuff removed too, and it feels frustrating, or I feel like I was taken wrong but at the same time, I don't expect them to be perfect, and for the degree of passive aggressiveness and just pointless trolling that's been removed, I find it acceptable honestly.

Regarding the broader discussion, I agree that "other threads" are often where other comments go to die, with obvious predictability. Many of them just don't get enough traffic to justify their existence, really.

I use General mostly. My interests include both lore and housing as well, so I check them out from time to time but I've found that missing either for weeks at a time doesn't result in anything really being missed, they're so infrequently contributed to.

But this highlights a problem. In the lore channel, I feel like I can post rambling thoughts about stuff in case someone's remotely interested. If those categories were removed, AND moderation became more *hands-off*, I feel fairly confident that such posts would be buried in comments like "lItTeRaLlY uNpLaYaBlE!" and noonegivesacrap.gif. Which pretty much is how the forums used to be.

I appreciate your perspective; to some extent - I agree. I'd like to think I'm very careful with my words; I think my post history reflects that. Given that, it makes current practices even more frustrating. I think if anything, we need a better middle ground between how the forums were then and how they are now. Not everyone's equipped to write ultra-professional or eloquent posts, but their feedback is still valuable.

Bringing it back to the original discussion on categories - I definitely think there's good reasons to keep housing and lore subforums. Both are major reasons people play the game, so it's appropriate to retain them in any future forum overhaul. A lot of the others can certainly be condensed.

MageCatF4F

How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?

1. DEV TRACKER first
2. GENERAL if nothing interesting in previous
3. HOUSING
4. PTS when appropriate to catch up on the latest messing around and nerfs to my enjoyment of the game
5. Bugs to see if any long standing/crippling bugs have actually been addressed
Example: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/599878/fps-drops-after-u33/p9

What are your most viewed sections of the forum?

1. General 2. Housing

Do you think the forums have too many categories?

Yes, too many.

Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)

Mostly just Dev Tracker

Threads that get moved? I seldom look for them.

Ragnarok0130

@ZOS_Kevin I have to agree with the OP here. I generally only use general discussion and PTS feedback and ignore everything else due to lack of traffic or relevant discussion in other sections.

The moving of certain threads seems to the average poster as more of a moderator backdoor to “disappear” threads that haven’t broken rules rather than moving moving thread’s to the appropriate discussion section.

Jack-0

1. Thanks OP, totally agree with what you wrote there, it's silly moving threads like that away from general discussion.
2. Cheers for engaging with us, Kevin.

How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?
I have general ESO discussion open automatically in my browser, and that's where I tend to stay.

What are your most viewed sections of the forum?
General discussion, sometimes PTS notes, occasionally combat and pvp. Bugs, when there's a major bug like block bug, too.

Do you think the forums have too many categories?
Well, several are not of interest to me (housing, RP, lore, ToT for example) but they should exist for those that enjoy them. I think under-used ones that are candidates for merging into general discussion are most of the ones under the community heading, but you definitely need to keep RP separate from general discussion as that'd be OoC to have it here.

Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)
Not really, no.

DarcyMardin

@ZOS_Kevin The main way I use the forums is to click on Recent Posts and scroll down 3 or 4 or more pages, responding where appropriate. I never seek posts out by a specific category. The other way for me is the general discussion option.

colossalvoids

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

But since the conversation was started here, we'll ask some starting questions.

• How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?
• What are your most viewed sections of the forum?
• Do you think the forums have too many categories?
• Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)

[*] 99% of time going to the Recent tab, occasionally wandering into specific subforums like PTS or Dev tracker at max.

[*] Recent Discussions and Player Test Server are the most viewed ones for sure.

[*] They do indeed have too many categories, as example players helping players at hand. It's too niche of a subforum and would better fit into general tab which a lot of people are using solely instead of actively looking for a specific place to help someone with an actual problem.

[*] I do going into recent, participated or a dev tracker, but 99% of times I'm on mobile device so going straight into Recent from the side menu.

Vevvev

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

But since the conversation was started here, we'll ask some starting questions.

How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?

Tend to visit general first and then branch off from there.

What are your most viewed sections of the forum?

General, PTS, Combat and Character Mechanics, and on occasion PvP Combat and Skills.

Do you think the forums have too many categories?

Sometimes? Although a lot of them make sense, but they don't interest me as much as I avoid them.

Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)

On rare occasions when I'm trying to search for something, but I primarily navigate back to the top of the section I'm looking at or the forums overview of all the sections.

Amottica

Olauron wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

So the posts being moved is so that they are in the sub-section that matches the contents of the thread. This is based on the current structure of the forum. The intent is not to harm players or hinder conversation.

However with that being said, we've noticed frustration with some of the moving of conversations and have started looking at how we can better address this problem. That way, those posting get the help they need and we have conversations happening in the right places. We do intend on asking a wider audience here on the forum how they use the forum currently and how that experience can be made better from user navigation standpoint.

But since the conversation was started here, we'll ask some starting questions.

• How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?
  I am visiting general category and some categories that I have interest in (PTS, housing, sometimes lore or role-playing).
• What are your most viewed sections of the forum?
  General and PTS.
• Do you think the forums have too many categories?
  Not too many, see below.
• Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)
  Only "Categories" and "Participated".

As a former moderator of a high population forum I understand both the need and the desire to organize it and at the same time the difficulty of changing user behaviour. The problem here, I think, is not too many categories, but too broad and overlapping categories. The "Players Helping Players" in particular is the second "general" category that is not necessary. In "Combat" category users are helping with combat and builds questions, in "Housing" category - with design and furnishings questions, in "PvP" categories - with pvp questions.More importantly, those categories are rather popular, though not so much as general.
Visiting "Players Helping Players" as a user with question may be natural, but visiting it to answer the question is strange (is it like "oh, I want to help somebody today, where should I look"?). You will have much more players likely to answer the question they see when browsing the forum than the players regularly checking the QnA section.

I agree with this as Players helping Players is far to broad to be anything more than a nuesence.

I would also note that the moderators that move threads seem to rush through that process and do not pay much attention to what the OP is saying. That leads to threads being moved to a very wrong subforum. After that, the moderators seem to ignore flags on the thread suggesting a better subforum.

blktauna

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

But since the conversation was started here, we'll ask some starting questions.

• How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?

I check Recent now but at first it was mainly General and PVP only

[*] What are your most viewed sections of the forum?

see above

[*] Do you think the forums have too many categories?

Yes. There has to be some better method of consolidating into larger sections.

[*] Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)

Yes, Recent is my friend

peacenote

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

So the posts being moved is so that they are in the sub-section that matches the contents of the thread. This is based on the current structure of the forum. The intent is not to harm players or hinder conversation.

However with that being said, we've noticed frustration with some of the moving of conversations and have started looking at how we can better address this problem. That way, those posting get the help they need and we have conversations happening in the right places. We do intend on asking a wider audience here on the forum how they use the forum currently and how that experience can be made better from user navigation standpoint.

But since the conversation was started here, we'll ask some starting questions.

• How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?
• What are your most viewed sections of the forum?
• Do you think the forums have too many categories?
• Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)

I am 95% certain my forum habits are based on a UI/functionality problem, as opposed to me not using the categories and tabs because they are are not potentially useful.

I will answer your questions and then explain:

My habits are that I check General Discussion first. If it's during PTS, sometimes I check that first. Once in a while I will pop into Housing, or Crown Store if I want to see if something is considered worthy of buying. I rarely, if ever, go into the other categories unless a Google search takes me to a thread in one of them. This is not because I'm not interested in the other categories but because usually I forget they exist... especially the ones that require scrolling to see. PVP is wayyy down there! Next, if I still have time, I'll go to my profile to see if I've earned any reactions which will cause me to potentially revisit a thread for continued conversation. I do follow threads but getting e-mails about them is a bit pointless (active threads generate way too many). Plus, I bookmark things to be able to find them later, not always to actively follow, so for me there isn't a great way to know if someone answered me specifically besides reactions. If I am in a super interesting conversation I will reverse the order, and look at my reactions first, to find the conversation I was in, and then circle back to General Discussion if I have time. I never use the navigation tabs at the top (there's a reason.)

However I don't necessarily think the forums have too many categories. I mean, maybe you could pare some down, but it's not really the main issue imo. I do agree that, while I'm sure everyone was psyched about inserting "Players Helping Players" (php hahaha, we've got a coding and an mmo play on words in there) alongside PvE and PvP, what you could do is rename General Discussion to Players Helping Players as the points being made that presumably almost every post is a player helping a player is true... which makes those two categories in particular overlap quite a lot.

Problem #1:The search is not good. Most people find things by searching these days. Googling is a verb. For fun, I searched for "forums" to try and find this thread, pretending I was trying to re-find it, if it had been moved. It is an active thread created today and it doesn't even make the first page of search results. No idea what the weighting is, but the first few results are from Dec 2022, Feb 6 2023, and then... June 2015! I cannot sort by last updated or newest. There are advanced search choices but absolutely nothing that I really want to use or is easy to use.

The main reason we see necro'd threads from new players, I believe, is because they search as we have become accustomed to on the internet and get presented with these threads, some which can be very old, and they don't know enough to understand how old they are. I mean, a 2015 entry is 4th down and there is an active thread from today, posted yesterday, that's NOT EVEN THERE.

Problem #2:The navigation tabs don't show on mobile. I am often on my phone when I go to the forums. I'm waiting in line for coffee, multitasking, whatever. The navigation tabs aren't there. I know I can't be the only person who has been coming here for YEARS without realizing they existed, because most of my forum activity is on mobile and I go to a full PC only when I want to type out a response. I used to be mystified by how people knew when the devs responded. In fact it was that question that drove me to ultimately figure out that "dev tracker" is just not a thing on my phone. Not sure if it's all phones, or what (I'm on Android/Firefox, although I'm pretty sure it's the same on my iPad) but if you are used to mobile, and the search is bad, it's going to build a habit of going to General Discussion primarily as a place to start, and then make it difficult to find anything if it's moved anywhere else.

Because of this, I don't use the tabs. I also forget they exist. I only recently learned about them, because usually, I'm on my phone.

Problem #3: The navigation tabs are poor UI design. When you CAN see the tabs, they are the same font as "THE ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE" banner, with the same color and the same background. To my eye (and probably others?) they look as if they are "outside" the forums. Sometimes when I'm here I go to the store or my account and that is when I look in that area. But instinctively your eye, when you pull up a new forum page, looks to the light area, in the space where it has that forums link. And then, as humans tend to do, you read down from there. The top of the forums really looks like it starts under the black bar with my profile. And on top of that, the navigation tabs auto hide a lot, causing me to further forget about them because I can't rely on the fact that they are there. I expect them not to be, in fact, because (again) mobile.

Conclusion: A poor search, often missing navigation tabs due to mobile view or auto hide, and UI choices really "trains" a lot of people into the habit of starting in General Discussion, and staying there, as that is where the most active content is. Clicking through smaller categories is not going to be effective, because they aren't as obviously active, because the forum view does sort by most recent (as I would want search to do). You'd need a good search that works more like a Google search and navigation for recent/unanswered/etc. to always be viewable and obvious, in which case the categories would be more useful and function more like "tags" as another way to help find conversations on specific topics.

tincanman

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

But since the conversation was started here, we'll ask some starting questions.

• How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?
• What are your most viewed sections of the forum?
• Do you think the forums have too many categories?
• Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)

• mostly lurk, just started posting recently
• see below - but sometimes look at pts, bugs, crafting, combat, pvp
• not really, there are a lot of different aspects to the massive game that is eso and I think it's good that these are represented
• recent and dev tracker

Since I rely pretty much on 'recent' I assumed others did too; it's interesting to note they don't and the associated reason given for why threads not posted in GD are rarely read.

Another +1 for the take a closer look at forum eggshell-walking. There are a lot of names purged from the forum over the years I've lurked and, given their individual contributions, I am saddened at their loss. It's also disconcerting and somewhat jarring to come back to a current thread of interest to find missing or edited posts and try to get a feel for contexts again.

AzuraFan

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

But since the conversation was started here, we'll ask some starting questions.

• How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?
• What are your most viewed sections of the forum?
• Do you think the forums have too many categories?
• Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)

1. I spend 99% of my time in the General ESO Discussion section (here!) and generally go directly to it (rather than going to the forum's home page and then clicking into it). I occasionally visit the bug section, and PTS when something new drops. I visit the forums on my desktop pretty much 100% of the time.

2. General ESO discussion

3. Yes.

4. No, I don't use the tabs. I hadn't noticed them, to be honest.

I like having a variety of discussions in one place (in general). If general was disbanded and posts distributed to more specific forums, I'd probably just stop reading/participating.

rpa

I use General 99%. Pts, Natch Potes and Bugs on occasion. Other sections I visit once in years. There's tabs? My browser has tabs if I want tabs.

DreamyLu

I personally use forums General, players helping players, add-ons and bugs. I find those 4 very helpful and it's no effort to me to take a few minutes to see what's new in each of them. The advantage is that I know exactly where to go when I have a question or search for an information. I'm maybe in a minority, but I would prefer that this doesn't change.

The enormous disadvantage if everything goes into the general section, is that those posts will disappear in no time farther than first page, because they are no hot topics. So in the end, we will have exactly the same situation than now, only it will be a lot harder to follow them, because they will be lost in space somewhere into the general forum, instead of being easily picked up into the smaller forums dedicated to the concerned issues.

For me, the solution is more with posters investing a few minutes every day to go see if there is a question in the other forums, rather than having those posts getting lost in the main big one.

coulterk

For me General only. Would be better to have all in general with buttons to select certain tags if the user wanted to focus on certain posts.

Danikat

I've used more forums than I care to remember over the years and I'm honestly surprised so many people not only don't look beyond General Discussion but seem actively opposed to doing so. All the other forums I've been on had multiple sections which were frequently used (the only ones which weren't were for very specialist things like help with your account) and if anything General Discussion was the one some people would avoid, because it was seen as a bit of a dumping ground for topics where the poster couldn't work out what they were trying to say or which weren't really relevant to anything at all.

DragonRacer wrote: »

And as an added note, use may vary based on if the person is viewing on desktop or mobile. That whole tracker/recent/etc menu at the top on desktop doesn’t even show on mobile.

Oh that's annoying. I think I'd be more likely to want that option on mobile because it's more annoying to click through the menus (especially if I don't have a great signal so it's slower to load a page).

feyii

How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?
I mainly check the general forums. If there is an upcoming patch on PTS I also check this one, and rarely the bug reports.

What are your most viewed sections of the forum?
The ones mentioned above - general > pts > bug reports

Do you think the forums have too many categories?
Yes, but mainly because most don't have much participation.

Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)
I only use the Dev Tracker from the tabs. Instead of using the Categories tab, I just click on the page breadcrumb. I have never checked the other 3 tabs.

Tensar

I look only the General and Lore forums

Yes there is too many categories

Olauron

peacenote wrote: »

It is an active thread created today and it doesn't even make the first page of search results. No idea what the weighting is, but the first few results are from Dec 2022, Feb 6 2023, and then... June 2015! I cannot sort by last updated or newest. There are advanced search choices but absolutely nothing that I really want to use or is easy to use.

The weighting is clearly the title. You were searching for "forums", you got search results with "forums" in the title, there is no "forums" in the title of this thread.

Tandor

Just a pointer for those complaining about the lack of the tabs on mobiles. The only one that interests me is Dev Tracker, and I don't recall exactly how but I was able a while ago to follow a link to a post in it and that enabled me to save it as a separate bookmark. I now have two ESO bookmarks on my phone, one for Dev Tracker and the other for General Discussion. Hopefully someone can come up with a better description of how to achieve that!

VaranisArano

How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?

I almost exclusively read the first three pages of the Recent Discussions tab, which means I see active conversations from every category (including the PTS).

Do you think the forums have too many categories?

Most of the categories make sense to me, however, I should note that I never go directly to those categories. I don't go to Housing to look at Housing topics, rather I see a topic that interested me in Recent Discussions and thus get taken to Housing. I don't ever look at Bugs, but sometimes I'll see someone asking for help in Recent Discussions and thus click through to the bugs section for the good old "Hey, post your ticket number and the ZOS people can check on it for you" bit. Though I enjoy discussing PVP, I don't go to that section of the forum. I just participate in the discussions I see in Recent Discussions.

Because I use Recent Discussions which aggregates threads rather than separating them by category, I don't have issues with not seeing threads originally posted in subforums or moved to different categories.

If I didn't use Recent Discussions almost exclusively (perhaps out of desire to avoid PTS spoilers or disinterest in PVP, Tales of Tribute, Housing Discussions, etc.), that would be a different story. I'd be much less likely to engage with a wide variety of topics that don't get posted in General or get moved out of it.

Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)

If I am on my computer, I use Participated and the Dev Tracker in addition to Recent Discussions.

I am more frequently using Chrome Mobile, which only has "Community Home" and "Recent Discussions" as its options. I don't have easy access to the Dev Tracker, Participated, or Unanswered tabs on the mobile site.

I realize that's probably a Vanilla Forums thing, but a mobile menu option for Participated and the Dev Tracker would be nice if it wouldn't get too unwieldy.

jle30303

Also: If a bug has been reported years ago, but still exists, and somebody brings this to attention by posting to an OLD thread instead of starting a NEW one...

They are doing the correct thing. The bug is still not fixed. It is an old bug. Posting on the old thread is a correct means of bringing it to attention as to just how old it is. When it has been bothering players for this long, it is important not just to bring it to attention that it exists, but also to bring it to attention that it has been bothering players for this long.

Do not remove new posts on old threads about bugs if the bug still exists.