What would convince you to use sections outside of general?

shadyjane62

I go to patch notes to see what's changed. I go bug report when I have reported something and wish to see what people have said.

The other are where posts go to die.

FeedbackOnly

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

Only if devs were active on subcategories. Otherwise, there's literally no reason to look other subcategories because they seem to be just thread dumping grounds for threads to die with exception of very few discussions.

So more activity from the devs to show it's not dead areas?

TaSheen

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

Only if devs were active on subcategories. Otherwise, there's literally no reason to look other subcategories because they seem to be just thread dumping grounds for threads to die with exception of very few discussions.

So more activity from the devs to show it's not dead areas?

The devs aren't going to interact on the forums. With good and sufficient reasons....

IZZEFlameLash

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

Only if devs were active on subcategories. Otherwise, there's literally no reason to look other subcategories because they seem to be just thread dumping grounds for threads to die with exception of very few discussions.

So more activity from the devs to show it's not dead areas?

Yes, they used to be on PvP, Combat and other boards. Now, I only really see them in General and that is also quite the rare occurence. Used to see Gina and Jessica being more involved and those sections thrived because of it. But now, it is just moderators bafflingly snipping things out, moving threads.

fred4

A greater forum population.

rpa

Might help if subcategories were not only a place where threads are moved to die. Perhaps eliminating the deadest and somehow having some actual lasting and relevant activity in the rest. Existence of a subcategory does not make people use it.

IZZEFlameLash

rpa wrote: »

Might help if subcategories were not only a place where threads are moved to die. Perhaps eliminating the deadest and somehow having some actual lasting and relevant activity in the rest. Existence of a subcategory does not make people use it.

Yep, as soon as it was apparent that ZOS staff presence was limited to General, that is where people flocked. Back then, when ZOS community managers were active in other subsections, those subsections were filled with subsection relevant feedbacks and discussions. No longer the case.

darvaria

It's really a small population base of forum posters and readers. We really only NEED general.

DreamyLu

I don't use general only. I also like to check on sections for addons, technical issues and players helping players

Carcamongus

That's a good question. I know General is where most of the stuff happens and my forum involvement is irregular and not intense enough to drive me to check other sections. This is mostly because of my difficulties with social interaction, not to mention my will to share my thoughts tends to oscillate. On rare occasions I'll check other sections, but usually to see if something bad that has happened to me has also affected others.

All that being said, I don't know how to answer OP's question.

Varana

Apart from some other answers:

First, a quick and easy way to navigate to and check the other sections.

I am now reading and posting in a thread in General.
Let's theoretically assume that I wanted to check if there's something new in PvP (jajaja, little joke on the side).

I don't want to check three or four PvP sections. Reduce them to one.

I want to get there quickly. Have a "Forums Main Page" tab at the top, together with Recent and Participated. And show these navigation tools on mobile. These links at the top are the best tools these forums have, by far - always there without scrolling back to top or bottom to find a link.

And when on the main page, I want to see all my relevant forums on one page without scrolling. Currently, there is a lot of dead space - each forum has a box with rather lavish dimensions and a short description that doesn't even fill the box. And the only time a forum description comes somewhat close to using that space, it does so by extensive amount of flavour text that adds little to no information (ToT!) (Not counting the read-only forums at the bottom; that info can be included elsewhere, not necessarily in each and every of these forums, esp. as it's in English anyway.)

---

Second, if ZOS' announcements would actually conform to their forum structure.

Currently in General:
"Share your tips for EA" -> PvE Combat or Dungeons/Arenas/Trials. (Technically, "Players Helping Players", but that category should be purged completely.)
"Overland Content Feedback" -> PvE Combat or some other relevant PvE section after shrinking their number to maybe 2.
"Clown Store Gifting Update" -> Clown Store.
"Dungeon Finder Issues" -> PvE Dungeons/Arenas/Trials.

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Third, way fewer categories.

One for PvP. Maybe two for PvE - Dungeons/Arenas/Trials, and one other. One for Skills and Combat and stuff, both PvE and PvP. Players Helping Players and Player Guides should be axed in general. And so on.

DragonRacer

Because 90% of the time when there is a pinned thread of importance by a community manager - outside of the News section - it is in General Discussion. So I come here to check updates on pinned threads, then see what the general topics and questions are, and then I move on with my life.

I am not going to spend an entire morning/afternoon/evening hand-picking through 25+ subcategories that are not very active anyway.

BloodyStigmata

Tabs.

Like, actual tabs at the top of list of different posts, right above where the stickies are, with drop-down lists for topic types, languages and post tags or what have you.

Or, orrrrrr.... an overlay, or a toolbar, or something that's always there that has quick links to different sections and stuff.

ORRRRRRRRRRRRRR just a forum that that didn't take like 10 seconds to load a page every time I want to head back to the forum portal and then to a different section of the forums.

ORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR they could scrap this whole forum and rebuild it from the ground up.

TaSheen

They don't need to "rebuild it from the ground up" - they just need to use the best most robust forum software already available: phpBB.

Zodiarkslayer

TaSheen wrote: »

They don't need to "rebuild it from the ground up" - they just need to use the best most robust forum software already available: phpBB.

Agreed. It's supposed to be a forum and not TikTok.

But the structure needs to change.
Get rid of the general section!

merevie

The page layout of the forums.

It's antiquated and suggests with the scrolling 'down' that what is on the bottom is less relevant or important.

Four_Fingers

So shouldn't this thread be in the players helping players subforum?
So silly.