Please STOP pushing threads into "Players helping Players" section

virtus753

Marcus684 wrote: »

jle30303 wrote: »

Indeed. In fact, it is usually better to necro an old thread than to start a new one. Especially since, whenever a new thread gets started, it gets closed with "too similar to an existing thread" which then gets pointed to, but as soon as somebody posts IN the existing thread, "OMG necro, we're closing the thread".

Basically: Both decisions are too heavy-handed.

It's not really that cut-and-dried. Necroing a thread that went dormant for a few weeks is fine because the conditions in-game probably haven't changed since then. Necroing a thread from 4 years ago is almost always pointless due to the numerous patches that will have been pushed out.

Except in cases like character creation sliders. Those haven’t been changed for the better part of the game’s lifetime, if ever.

If moderation is consistent, only closing necros where there has been change in game but leaving the “evergreen” topics open, that’s one thing. That’s what we were told to expect. If moderation is not on the same page that we’ve been given by Kevin and closing things only based on date (like the miniatures thread cited just above), then that causes confusion and frustration.

virtus753

I will also add that a thread of mine was just moved out of General Discussion to Quests and Exploration two years after I made it.

Why wasn’t it moved two years ago? It seems at some point a more active mandate was put in place to relocate threads. All it does, imo, is make General messier by leaving a laundry list of “moved” or “closed” tags everywhere.

Worse, the stub left behind of my thread now says “closed” - but if you click the link, the thread is still open (as the issue hasn’t been resolved). So the tags are highly misleading and much more likely to make people think the discussion is, well, closed when it is open.

That clearly discourages discussion, which is the primary point of a forum.

Varana

Northwold wrote: »

jirusan wrote: »

And here is a new player who probably feels the warm, heartfelt, welcome of your team.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7834383#Comment_7834383

Yeah this is another thing...

"In many cases, it's better to create a new thread on a topic that you want to discuss[...]"

But in the vast majority of threads that get necroed and closed, it isn't, because they're threads with a lot of accumulated thoughts on general themes that come up time and time again. That's why people necro them, rather than annoying everyone by starting the whole discussion from scratch!

I mean, the moderation boilerplate even explicitly says "in many cases".
And then they use it to close threads that would, under closer inspection, belong to those where it isn't better to create a new one.

But that would mean closely reading the threads, possibly being up to date in certain aspects of the game, and engaging with the comments in that thread. Which is apparently too much to ask.

Sarannah

Forgot to add some things, for one I also visit the patch notes forum. And two, there is no way to see if we have already given a post an insightful, agree, or awesome vote. We can only see the amount of those on a post, not if we ourselves gave one.

VaranisArano

Sarannah wrote: »

Forgot to add some things, for one I also visit the patch notes forum. And two, there is no way to see if we have already given a post an insightful, agree, or awesome vote. We can only see the amount of those on a post, not if we ourselves gave one.

If I can't remember if I already reacted, I just click the one I want to give. If the count goes down, I already reacted, so I just give it again.

TaSheen

VaranisArano wrote: »

Sarannah wrote: »

Forgot to add some things, for one I also visit the patch notes forum. And two, there is no way to see if we have already given a post an insightful, agree, or awesome vote. We can only see the amount of those on a post, not if we ourselves gave one.

If I can't remember if I already reacted, I just click the one I want to give. If the count goes down, I already reacted, so I just give it again.

That's what I do as well. I'd never be able to remember, and I'm sure not going to set up a spreadsheet to track that.

Northwold

Just in case anyone's never seen it (maybe?!), this is what the forum looks like on mobile.

There are no notifications at all unless you created a discussion or are mentioned by name in a discussion.

The sidebar doesn't do anything useful in terms of navigation so I usually forget it's even there (and, bizarrely, it changes contents depending on what content you're looking at).

To change forum you have to go up to the top Elder Scrolls Online icon (clunky as hell but that is how it works) and select a different forum.

What this means in practice is that you simply aren't going to bother looking at any other forum than general unless you're super, super interested in a specific topic (so for me only housing).

I have never used the forums on an actual computer browser, only mobile. I imagine a lot of people don't.

Elsonso

Northwold wrote: »

What this means in practice is that you simply aren't going to bother looking at any other forum than general unless you're super, super interested in a specific topic (so for me only housing).

Actually, what I do is sit on Recent Discussions. If I get knocked out of it, I simply return to Recent. It is a lot easier than trying to coax it into different categories.

I don't use Mobile except in extreme hardship. It does not have "Participated". I have to walk miles across the desert in the blazing sun with no water just to get to a PC so I can check "Participated".

I don't care about categories. Even in my daily life here on the forum, the only time I notice what category it is in is when the moderators move it. If they didn't have the ZOS Moderator Edit icon in front of the discussion, I fear I would never know what category it was supposed to be in.

Necrotech_Master

Northwold wrote: »

Just in case anyone's never seen it (maybe?!), this is what the forum looks like on mobile.

There are no notifications at all unless you created a discussion or are mentioned by name in a discussion.

The sidebar doesn't do anything useful in terms of navigation so I usually forget it's even there (and, bizarrely, it changes contents depending on what content you're looking at).

To change forum you have to go up to the top Elder Scrolls Online icon (clunky as hell but that is how it works) and select a different forum.

What this means in practice is that you simply aren't going to bother looking at any other forum than general unless you're super, super interested in a specific topic (so for me only housing).

I have never used the forums on an actual computer browser, only mobile. I imagine a lot of people don't.

im actually the opposite, i have never used the forums on a mobile device lol

im normally constantly on/surrounded by full computers so i have little reason to use my phone for stuff like this, i also hate typing out stuff on a mobile device lol

Destai

@ZOS_Kevin Maybe as an interim solution until the forum rework is complete - can we get a list of topics we actually can post in General without it getting moved?

kind_hero

The forum has too many sections, and some of them are almost dead.

There is little or no dev activity in the housing forum, even though feedback is given and questions are asked. The community is active in that section, the devs are not.

I tend to go to the general forum, and sometimes I look in the combat forum, and the PTS, if something important is in development.

But I dislike how moderators move things and close threads that are hot. I think the general forum should be moderated for posts that are irelevant or are really in the wrong section.

Why do you have a player helping players thread? None is watching that.

I am not using those nav tabs.

I would like to see different thread icons for devs and mods. It is misleading.

Devs should be more active on the forums, not just "lurk".

I am using the forums for years and little has improved. Especially on the housing forum.

P.S. IMO moving some threads in various sections is a form of censorship, because sometimes you are moving sensitive topics to sections with few readers, thus burrying them. I noticed this with some feedback regarding the polymorph behind 8k crowns bundle.

LukosCreyden

Most forum categories are pointless. I just sort by "recent" anyways.

JeroenB

• How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?
  I'm presumably part of the 'semi-silent majority' of players: I typically only visit the forums in response to a specific trigger, such as encountering unexpected maintenance, getting stuck on something not adequatly covered on UESP, or running into an apparent bug. When I'm here, I look around for other interesting-sounding threads to browse.
• What are your most viewed sections of the forum?
  General Discussion, unless I have a specific reason to look up a different subject. I used to visit 'Maintenance Announcements' every time I ran into unexpected downtime, but that forum seems to be hopelessly neglected. (Apparently there's upcoming extended maintenance for hardware refresh -- but there is nothing on that in Maintenance Announcements.)
• Do you think the forums have too many categories?
  Not necessarily. It's interesting to delve into a specific subject occasionally.
• Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)
  No. Never consciously noticed them before. After a quick look, in my view Participated should be somewhere associated with your account, e.g. in the bar along with notifications and bookmarks. The other three seem pretty pointless for my own use case.

Androrix

kind_hero wrote: »

But I dislike how moderators move things and close threads that are hot. I think the general forum should be moderated for posts that are irelevant or are really in the wrong section.

Why do you have a player helping players thread? None is watching that.

Yes, you are right!

I have seen so many interesting threads that are clearly grabbing folks attention be filed away to one of the graveyard sub forums. That is sad. Also those sub forums are so impossibly broad anything could go in them. I mean: combat, dungeons, players helping players. That pretty much catches everything. The titles give moderators and forum contributors zero real guidance.

Alastrine

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

• 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)

- A couple of forums, always the same ones.
- Mostly General, and PC Technical Support. Occasionally Crown Store. Never Players helping players, if I have an issue I'll post it in the PC Tech Support usually.
- Too many categories? Yes.
- Navigation Tabs - Except sometimes the Participated tab, none of the others.

Appreciate you asking!

Rageypoo

Basically, as soon as the thread gets moved to "players helping players" that's the end of the discussion.

The mods know this.

Androrix

Rageypoo wrote: »

Basically, as soon as the thread gets moved to "players helping players" that's the end of the discussion.

The mods know this.

Indeed.

The lack of guidance and clarity in forums also makes mod decisions way, way too subjective. Early last summer I posted a thread entitled: "Has oakensoul just made lots of skills and armor set buffs redundant?" It was moved to "combat and character mechanics". I have no idea why. At the time, and since, there have been oodles of oakensoul posts in the general forum. Without clear forum concepts there will be no consistency and there will often be the feeling, right or wrong, that the mod moved the thread just to kill it.

Deter1UK

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. Multiple on PC or iPad
2. General, PTS, sometimes Bugs or tech help
3. Difficult to say as people will enjoy sections that I don’t bother with but they could probably be cut down a bit
4. I didn’t until this thread but I do now!

amapola76

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)

"The intent is not to harm players or hinder conversation": and yet that is exactly what has been happening over the last year or so. I used to come to this forum nearly every day... now it's maybe once every 2 or 3 months, and only then if I have a specific question. Today is the first time I can remember coming here since the Elsweyr event, and that was for about five minutes.

When I do pop in, I rarely see the familiar names of people I used to see commenting all the time over the last several years. And I miss that! Any sense of community here has absolutely disappeared for me, and that carries into the game, which I am also rarely playing these days. I often don't even log in for daily rewards anymore. That feeling of disengagement started with the forum, and it's a big part of the reason why this upcoming chapter is the first one ever that I have not preordered and do not intend to.

Are you going to one specific category: Yes. General. That's it. I only have so many hours in the day, I'm not going digging around a million subcategories in case something *might* be interesting.

Most viewed section: General

Too many categories? Yes.

Do I use the navigation tabs at the top? No.

Grizzbeorn

What's the deal with moving threads without tagging them as moved? (Moved: )
(or, if Vanilla's software is capable of it, having the timer on that tag set to a very short duration.)

I get the need to keep the place tidy, but moving multiple-page threads all willy-nilly without proper tagging
is just going to increase your workload.

Northwold

Rageypoo wrote: »

Basically, as soon as the thread gets moved to "players helping players" that's the end of the discussion.

The mods know this.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/630592/could-you-start-having-a-bit-more-respect-for-players-time-and-money

This one was a particularly choice move.

Soraka

I almost exclusively view recent, unless I'm looking for something in particular. And I'm almost always on mobile.

OutLaw_Nynx

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7845702#Comment_7845702

Feel like this could’ve stayed in general..

Zodiarkslayer

@ZOS_Kevin
As it has been a month now, since I started this conversation to draw attention to this problem, I was wondering how your internal conversation is progressing and if there is any update that you are able to share? 🤔

I hope we could help with our feedback. There must be around 150 posts answering your quick survey by now. 💪

OutLaw_Nynx

150 should definitely be enough

SilverBride

Since this thread started I have made a minor change to how I use the forums. I still mostly check General and occasionally Housing. I don't even bother with the ToT forum any more because my interest in that game was wiped out by it's horrible ranking system. I also keep an eye on Participated to keep up with threads I've had an interest in.

But the biggest change I made was checking Recent. I find it helpful to see activity from all the forums so I check it a few times a day, but I still prefer General.

And I still believe there are just way too many separate forums.

OutLaw_Nynx

I hope this hasn’t been forgotten

Jammy420

• How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple? I visit mainly the general because I have seen many of my tech issues flat out ignored in the other forums.
• What are your most viewed sections of the forum? General
• Do you think the forums have too many categories? Way too many
• Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated) Only for dev tracker.

Iriidius

As a PvP player i usually use the 4 PvP forum or recent when I want see more threats/topics. If you want more active threats look recent and not general, recent shows active threats from all subforums, general is only 1 subforum and should only inclede threats relevant for all ingame activitys /playstiles or not fitting in any more specific subforum. Some players also created PvP threats in general subforum, this attracts more players from general forum but the threat also is not visible for PvP players looking in PvP forums. When players post everything in general, general subforum gets too activ and full of irrelevant information. But there are really too many subforum and a few are very inactive and doesnt sound interisting like „players helping players“, so maybe a few should be merged. Subforums are divided in categories, it should be possible to select not only subforums but also categories to see all threats in all subforums of this categories. It would be practical to open PvP category and see all threats in the 4 PvP subforums.

Aorys

Yeah. This happens when you seek technical assistance and you end up being helped by neither Zos nor players.