Please STOP pushing threads into "Players helping Players" section

Alinhbo_Tyaka

One of the first guidelines for moderating is to show some flexibility on where and how things are posted. While you can't have total pandemonium you generally want to let the user community lead how they use the different topics. In this forum things like event guides or area specific information useful to the community have always gone into General for the widest access. To try and change that this far down the road needlessly comes across as heavy handed and becomes a case of excessive moderation with no rational reason to back it up. The moderators need to lighten up their touch before they turn the forums into something the community slowly stops using. Unless that is the intent.

virtus753

Alinhbo_Tyaka wrote: »

One of the first guidelines for moderating is to show some flexibility on where and how things are posted. While you can't have total pandemonium you generally want to let the user community lead how they use the different topics. In this forum things like event guides or area specific information useful to the community have always gone into General for the widest access. To try and change that this far down the road needlessly comes across as heavy handed and becomes a case of excessive moderation with no rational reason to back it up. The moderators need to lighten up their touch before they turn the forums into something the community slowly stops using. Unless that is the intent.

That makes me wonder. Although I haven’t seen any other indications of it here, I know that AGS and Ubisoft have recently shut down their forums and transitioned to Discord.

When Bethesda shut down their forums, ESO was specifically exempted. I hope it remains that way. But as long as these forums remain open, anything that hinders discussion needs to be carefully evaluated in terms of its impact.

DragonRacer

virtus753 wrote: »

Alinhbo_Tyaka wrote: »

One of the first guidelines for moderating is to show some flexibility on where and how things are posted. While you can't have total pandemonium you generally want to let the user community lead how they use the different topics. In this forum things like event guides or area specific information useful to the community have always gone into General for the widest access. To try and change that this far down the road needlessly comes across as heavy handed and becomes a case of excessive moderation with no rational reason to back it up. The moderators need to lighten up their touch before they turn the forums into something the community slowly stops using. Unless that is the intent.

That makes me wonder. Although I haven’t seen any other indications of it here, I know that AGS and Ubisoft have recently shut down their forums and transitioned to Discord.

When Bethesda shut down their forums, ESO was specifically exempted. I hope it remains that way. But as long as these forums remain open, anything that hinders discussion needs to be carefully evaluated in terms of its impact.

Before the BioWare forums were ultimately closed down, much similar behavior was exhibited. I was there. I saw it. I lived it. I still mourn it.

I’m sure I’ll now be edited for conspiracy theories for stating the above since a light-hearted joke about too much coffee was considered minor bashing.

Should I soon lose my posting privileges, let me say it’s been nice while it lasted.

Tensar

this thread ask the mods to stop something, and they do the opposite, they never moved so much threads xD

DragonRacer

Tensar wrote: »

this thread ask the mods to stop something, and they do the opposite, they never moved so much threads xD

Taking the obvious risk to point out that, if everyday users did so, the rules of the forum might consider that to be baiting.

Kiralyn2000

virtus753 wrote: »

Alinhbo_Tyaka wrote: »

One of the first guidelines for moderating is to show some flexibility on where and how things are posted. While you can't have total pandemonium you generally want to let the user community lead how they use the different topics. In this forum things like event guides or area specific information useful to the community have always gone into General for the widest access. To try and change that this far down the road needlessly comes across as heavy handed and becomes a case of excessive moderation with no rational reason to back it up. The moderators need to lighten up their touch before they turn the forums into something the community slowly stops using. Unless that is the intent.

That makes me wonder. Although I haven’t seen any other indications of it here, I know that AGS and Ubisoft have recently shut down their forums and transitioned to Discord.

Which, while a nice chat tool, is garbage as a forum replacement. Especially for large & high-pop forums.

Alinhbo_Tyaka

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

virtus753 wrote: »

Alinhbo_Tyaka wrote: »

One of the first guidelines for moderating is to show some flexibility on where and how things are posted. While you can't have total pandemonium you generally want to let the user community lead how they use the different topics. In this forum things like event guides or area specific information useful to the community have always gone into General for the widest access. To try and change that this far down the road needlessly comes across as heavy handed and becomes a case of excessive moderation with no rational reason to back it up. The moderators need to lighten up their touch before they turn the forums into something the community slowly stops using. Unless that is the intent.

That makes me wonder. Although I haven’t seen any other indications of it here, I know that AGS and Ubisoft have recently shut down their forums and transitioned to Discord.

Which, while a nice chat tool, is garbage as a forum replacement. Especially for large & high-pop forums.

Agreed. When Bethesda killed their forums in favor of Discord some of the Fallout 76 refugees created their own subreddit. While reddit is not forum it is better than Discord any time of day.

The worst part though is shortly after the forums were closed they were deleted losing all of the history that had built up over the years.

Tenthirty2

And now we have the Luxury Furnishing Vendor thread being moved to Housing where it will get less visibility.
SOURCE

WHY.
Both the Golden and Lux Furnishing threads have been in General since forever.
And frankly they look GOOD for the game and the community being visible there. Imagine being a new player and coming to general to see those posted every Friday night, BY community members. I remember how cool I thought that was and it helped raise my impression of the game and the community.

But no, you're right. Lets move the popular Furnishing thread to a very low traffic sub forum. Yeah, brilliant.

PRO TIP: Sometimes for good PR purposes and community morale it's ok to leave the round peg in the square hole.

peacenote

Tenthirty2 wrote: »

And now we have the Luxury Furnishing Vendor thread being moved to Housing where it will get less visibility.
SOURCE

WHY.
Both the Golden and Lux Furnishing threads have been in General since forever.
And frankly they look GOOD for the game and the community being visible there. Imagine being a new player and coming to general to see those posted every Friday night, BY community members. I remember how cool I thought that was and it helped raise my impression of the game and the community.

But no, you're right. Lets move the popular Furnishing thread to a very low traffic sub forum. Yeah, brilliant.

PRO TIP: Sometimes for good PR purposes and community morale it's ok to leave the round peg in the square hole.

This makes me sad. To me, they belong in general. You make a good point.

I'll add that, while it may be a subtle difference, I think that availability, scheduling, and offerings of a vendor is more General even if it is a Furnishing Vendor. Ways to obtain things/find things/etc. are of general interest, like an FYI. My two cents.

MidniteOwl1913

Tenthirty2 wrote: »

And now we have the Luxury Furnishing Vendor thread being moved to Housing where it will get less visibility.
SOURCE

WHY.
Both the Golden and Lux Furnishing threads have been in General since forever.
And frankly they look GOOD for the game and the community being visible there. Imagine being a new player and coming to general to see those posted every Friday night, BY community members. I remember how cool I thought that was and it helped raise my impression of the game and the community.

But no, you're right. Lets move the popular Furnishing thread to a very low traffic sub forum. Yeah, brilliant.

PRO TIP: Sometimes for good PR purposes and community morale it's ok to leave the round peg in the square hole.

This in particular I don't get. It's information that I always look for once Friday rolls around. If I have to hunt around for it I may as well go to the posters web pages and make clicks for them. Why drive me off the forums main page? What purpose does it serve? It's not like most posts hang around long enough to be a problem. I just don't see the benefit of this move?

Lauranae

After moving another thread, a guide for Mayhem, i was mad and posted this on the guide thread. But by respect for the guide author i thought it would be better to move it

[snip]

I am 70 yo, and you just put me in a rage as never i had. [snip]

You want to ban me go ahead, rather that than having my heart beating as it is now. [snip]

@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_Kevin

I am really considering moving away from the game because of this. We are not some stupid PC or consoles who do not deserve any correct and explicative answers, we are human behind those and you are treating us really badly.

If my post do not please you, may be you can imagine how your conduct with your mods feels!!

[edited for bashing & demand/threat]

Jaraal

DragonRacer wrote: »

Good Lord, the traditional weekend Lux Vendor post getting banished to the Housing forum is honestly infuriating.

It’s a service to everyone. We all look for it here in General. It’s only “a bother” to General for the length of the weekend.

If the moderators are that bored, I don’t even know what to say.

What are we allowed to post/discuss in General then? Got a list?

And yet it's rather ironic that at least half of the pinned threads (which take up almost half of the front page) in General Discussion aren't moved to their "appropriate categories."

Why is "Overland Content Feedback Thread" not moved to the Quests and Exploration forum?

Why is "Hardware Refresh Work Update – March 31, 2023" not moved to the appropriate Tech forum?

Why are "Some ASMoRa For Your Friday Listening Pleasure" and "Which Apocrypha-dwelling creature are you?" (links to an external Twitter account) not moved to the News & Website Articles Discussion forum?

Why is "Server Firsts!: Scribes of Fate Dungeons Trifecta Achievements" not moved to the Dungeons, Trials & Arenas forum?

Why is "Official Discussion Thread for "Community Spotlight- Homemade Shrines To Mora" not moved to the Housing forum?

...and so on and so forth. There is no consistency in the random moving around of threads and burying them in sub-forums that few people actually go to. All that is being accomplished is the consternation of the player base. How many posts have been made in favor of the moving of threads, versus the hundreds of posts speaking out against it?

Caligamy_ESO

Sorry (not sorry) but..

Why are these mods even here now? We got by perfectly fine without them for years and as far as I know we were actually able to find things and gods forbid.. hold a conversation with more than 2 or 3 people at a time.

Not so much now.

Snamyap

Caligamy_ESO wrote: »

Sorry (not sorry) but..

Why are these mods even here now? We got by perfectly fine without them for years and as far as I know we were actually able to find things and gods forbid.. hold a conversation with more than 2 or 3 people at a time.

Not so much now.

They should intervene when discussions turn unfriendly, but really not much more.

wilykcat

Alinhbo_Tyaka wrote: »

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

virtus753 wrote: »

Alinhbo_Tyaka wrote: »

One of the first guidelines for moderating is to show some flexibility on where and how things are posted. While you can't have total pandemonium you generally want to let the user community lead how they use the different topics. In this forum things like event guides or area specific information useful to the community have always gone into General for the widest access. To try and change that this far down the road needlessly comes across as heavy handed and becomes a case of excessive moderation with no rational reason to back it up. The moderators need to lighten up their touch before they turn the forums into something the community slowly stops using. Unless that is the intent.

That makes me wonder. Although I haven’t seen any other indications of it here, I know that AGS and Ubisoft have recently shut down their forums and transitioned to Discord.

Which, while a nice chat tool, is garbage as a forum replacement. Especially for large & high-pop forums.

Agreed. When Bethesda killed their forums in favor of Discord some of the Fallout 76 refugees created their own subreddit. While reddit is not forum it is better than Discord any time of day.

The worst part though is shortly after the forums were closed they were deleted losing all of the history that had built up over the years.

I don't like social media and I'm banned for life on most of it. Social media such as reddit and discord (to me) are trash and its very chaotic.

I prefer these online forums better especially when they use vanilla software because I like it when stuff is very organized, has order, has pages instead of never ending scrolling, it's easier for me to post stuff, and I like how these forums are set up.

The navigation on the forums I approve. The categories are fine and it's ok if some get merged together. The formatting is very well done. Vanilla forever.

The forums must stay.

wilykcat

Also I forgot...

The mods are doing their best to keep the forums neat and organized, they mean no harm when moving others' posts. Sometimes they may move one or two by mistake because not everyone is perfect. Moderators are friends and don't be their enemy.

I look at all the categories and I find most of them to have great posts and I do like lots of the categories better than general discussion. I've look at a few and noticed some get more views than posts from general discussion gets. When a category is not popular or is lacking in post does not make it terrible.

When looking through this discussion here it appears that general discussion is some players' " go to automatically post and look here category" and they don't notice that this forum has a variety of other categories and are missing out.

If I want to make a post about dungeons then I post it in the dungeon category, post about bugs go into bug report, make a character that looks like a league of legends character goes into player guides.

I rarely post stuff in general discussion unless if I feel like it doesn't belong in any other categories. I sense that general discussion is actually for miscellaneous ESO topics.

I really enjoy these forums 😁.

Marcusorion1

The umbrella of " speculation " is a powerful tool to remove those posts that are inherently just asking for more explanation but may be worded in such a way as to allude to some negativity and/or a defensive stance by the moderators. Posters may not have English as their first language and may innocently phrase their thoughts and questions regarding changes only to find them moved, edited or removed.

Looking at the Forum User's reactions here ( and other linked/locked/moved threads ) it seems quite unclear what the goals are here. There are some valid posts reflecting users' thoughts but it is increasingly difficult to discuss some basic Forum issues within the interpretive guidelines presented. Recently, a " why " question regarding the moving of the weekly Luxury Furnisher thread was removed ( perhaps because it speculated that the moderator was unaware of how forum users looked for that particular thread and its' history - but then I'm speculating again !?!).

I worry about the future of these forums.

SilverBride

In theory someone wanting help would post their request in Players Helping Players, or someone with a question about Housing would post it in the Housing forum. But in reality I feel it's more of a "Can't see the forest for all the trees".

There are just way too many specialized forums, many of which could be merged together. The old adage "less is more" rings true in this situation.

Tenthirty2

Caligamy_ESO wrote: »

Sorry (not sorry) but..

Why are these mods even here now? We got by perfectly fine without them for years and as far as I know we were actually able to find things and gods forbid.. hold a conversation with more than 2 or 3 people at a time.

Not so much now.

It feels much more heavy-handed lately, not sure why they've increased all the fiddling but in the past year the thread-shuffling, editing, etc has greatly increased.

The forum needs mods of course. Someone has to step in if there is inappropriate content posted, arguments getting out of hand, help is needed, etc.
That kind of work takes more than a couple ppl certainly. And then we have community managers who do seem to care and try to help when able. But that is also a huge job and I'm guessing, as in most IT jobs, for most of them their forum duties are only one of several job hats they wear.

But less fiddling with the organization of threads would be a good thing, it really makes me concerned for the future of the forums. It's a very obvious increase in moderation so I do wonder what is really going on that is spurring it all.

I was with Fallout76 forums from the beginning and there right until the lights went out (Didn't get THE last post, but close lol)
That was a huge loss for the game IMO, all that shared knowledge.
As someone else mentioned ppl broke off and created their own reddit subs, but it's just not the same.

This forum is easily searchable, questions and discussions are easy to have and very productive. Much of what I learned as a new player and even now, came from here.
And I found nearly all of it on the GENERAL forum, what feels like the "front page" of the site to me.
If so many threads continue to be moved to other subs, what's going to be left in General? A few threads? Won't look like a very active forum and perhaps, an active game to new or prospective players.

Varana

Not only got Varanis' thread moved to where no one will see it, it doesn't even have a "Moved" entry left in General, making extra sure that no-one who might need it, will ever see it.
This is beyond ridiculous. Good job torpedoing your own forums, guys.

I sure as hell won't be posting anything helping other players anytime soon. Because I have better things to do than post stuff only for it to be effectively deleted afterwards.

And all feedback and criticism is redirected here, where - let's be honest - it's just as buried and ignored as anything in the subforums.

And when some mod can't find any more threads to kill, hell will freeze over before they actually engage with what's being posted here.

Edit: I also wholeheartedly agree regarding the annoying overly long list of stickies. Maybe a mod could go over them and move them to their respective subforums?

spartaxoxo

I think it makes sense to move treads into appropriate categories in some cases. But, the amount of sub-forums in this forum has made such moving basically a death sentence to a thread. If nobody sees it, users become discouraged.

In my opinion the forums should look a bit like

News and Website Discussion (crown store and eso plus, events and contests can be folded into here)
Patch Notes
Maintenance Announcement

General Discussion
World of Tamriel (Lore, Housing, Tales of Tribute, Community Creations, Roleplaying can be folded into here)
Player vs Environment (Crafting, Combat & Character Mechanics, Dungeons and Trials, Quest and Exploration, Looking for Group can be folded into here)
Player vs Player (All PvP sub-forums)

Recruitment
(LFG and Guild Recruitment)

Players Helping Players
Guides, Mods, and Player Helping Players


Customer Support can remain the same but just move bug reports here

FeedbackOnly

Androrix wrote: »

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin this is just my opinion but problem is general section shouldn't exist. Everything goes there and nobody thinks twice

Yes and no. If the general section did not exist I doubt I would bother with the forums at all. You are correct--it is the only place I go though. My suspicion is that killing the general section would be killing the golden goose...cutting off your nose to spite your face...throwing the baby out with the bath water. Ummmm...one of those LOL.

All the other sections are useless though....

Alinhbo_Tyaka

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

Androrix wrote: »

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin this is just my opinion but problem is general section shouldn't exist. Everything goes there and nobody thinks twice

Yes and no. If the general section did not exist I doubt I would bother with the forums at all. You are correct--it is the only place I go though. My suspicion is that killing the general section would be killing the golden goose...cutting off your nose to spite your face...throwing the baby out with the bath water. Ummmm...one of those LOL.

All the other sections are useless though....

I don't know that I would call all of them useless but historically they have drawn players more deeply involved in the subjects they cover than the general population. This is the exact reason why some things such as the the Luxury/Golden vendor updates and various event guides should not be moved. While they are technically related to the other forum headings they are of a general nature appealing to the full player base not just those deeply involved with things like housing, crafting or PvP. It gets back to a previous update of mine that moderation should not be a top down function but needs to accommodate how the community perceived and uses the forum. Otherwise it will lose a large part of the community as the forum slowly filling their needs.

As an aside. I was a moderator on a professional forum for a number of years. We did have an advantage due to this and the requirement that people used their real names. Regardless we had strict moderator rules about moving threads around. Some obvious posts such as a For Sale thread would be automatically moved if it wasn't opened in the For Sale and Trade topic. Others were were typically left where they were opened unless the community thought the thread belonged elsewhere. To use an ESO equivalent someone posting a house walk-through in General would logically be moved to the Housing topic as it is something most interesting to those deeply involved with housing. Posts such as the Luxury vendor or when do houses cycle through the Crown Store would be better left in General if that is where the thread was created because they have broader interest across the player community.

Lauranae

Varana wrote: »

Not only got Varanis' thread moved to where no one will see it, it doesn't even have a "Moved" entry left in General, making extra sure that no-one who might need it, will ever see it.
This is beyond ridiculous. Good job torpedoing your own forums, guys.

I sure as hell won't be posting anything helping other players anytime soon. Because I have better things to do than post stuff only for it to be effectively deleted afterwards.

And all feedback and criticism is redirected here, where - let's be honest - it's just as buried and ignored as anything in the subforums.

And when some mod can't find any more threads to kill, hell will freeze over before they actually engage with what's being posted here.

Edit: I also wholeheartedly agree regarding the annoying overly long list of stickies. Maybe a mod could go over them and move them to their respective subforums?

Unfortunatly all those are from Devs (mainly), so i guess those will never be moved until they become obsolete

BahometZ

Moving posts to other categories wouldn't be so bad if they were populated in any decent number. But most are obviously graveyards. The forums are clearly mostly people looking for answers about specific things, and you want these to be seen by the most eyes. Now they won't be. Making the forums even more irrelevant.

What is General even for now? Front page is half stickies anyway.

Fortunately if you actually want to learn about the game, there is discord.

wilykcat

BahometZ wrote: »

Moving posts to other categories wouldn't be so bad if they were populated in any decent number. But most are obviously graveyards. The forums are clearly mostly people looking for answers about specific things, and you want these to be seen by the most eyes. Now they won't be. Making the forums even more irrelevant.

What is General even for now? Front page is half stickies anyway.

Fortunately if you actually want to learn about the game, there is discord.

Not everyone likes discord and not everyone uses it. Discord is not a good replacement for the forums.

I strongly prefer forums over social media.

BahometZ

I'm not advocating for removing forums, I'm simply saying that discord is a vastly better place for players to help players, I learn far more about the game from conversing with fellow players in guild severs on discord.
The forums are okay as an official communication outlet, and are better organised for structured feedback, but they also have too many categories spread too thinly, are over-moderated, low quality content, shallow engagement, and tiny population, with too many players who blindly advocate for the worst aspects of the game, and don't brook any argument. I don't know what to do about that tbh.

Zodiarkslayer

Varana wrote: »

...
Edit: I also wholeheartedly agree regarding the annoying overly long list of stickies. Maybe a mod could go over them and move them to their respective subforums?

🤣🤣🤣 You've got balls.

mrfrontman

I agree that it's frustrating to see posts get moved to other sub-forums that get far less visibility. To be honest I think there are way too many sub-forums which don't even get looked at by many because not many players pay attention to those sub-forums even existing. I'm guilty of this myself and have also had my posts moved to other sub-forums only for them to become unrecognized by anyone at all.

Jaraal

Varana wrote: »

Edit: I also wholeheartedly agree regarding the annoying overly long list of stickies. Maybe a mod could go over them and move them to their respective subforums?

Yet they are placed (and will stay) in General ESO Discussion for the same reason that regular forum posters post here: They want their posts to be seen.... not hidden away in sections that few people even visit.