The Elder Scrolls Online

wilykcat · October 10

Is General discussion a popular category?

I've noticed all the other categories are being neglected. I find most of the categories to be very important and each one has a unique purpose.

The purpose of general discussion is a category for miscellaneous suggestions, ideas, and feedback about the game/forum?

Suggestions to resolve this: move posts into the appropriate category. A post about dungeons belongs in the dungeons category. Also create some new categories for popular topics such as companions and character creation. 😃

vsrs_au · October 10

Oh, great, this topic yet again.

Just about EVERY discussion forum on the internet has categories, it's hardly unusual, and they exist for a good reason: to make posts easier to find. Good luck to anyone in the future trying to find this thread, though: its title pretty much guarantees nobody will ever find it weeks (or more) from now, because "Why" says absolutely nothing about the thread's topic.

Syldras · October 10

wilykcat wrote: »

suggestion to fix this problem is to move posts into the appropriate category.

They did that before and it lead to only one thing: Threads dying immediately after being moved because no one reads them anymore.

I don't have time (or can be bothered) to open almost 30(!) subforums just to get an overview about new interesting topics. That's the main reason, actually: It's too many. I rather open 1 forum and have one or two pages of posts in front of me instead of 30 forums with maybe 4 or 5 post each. Much easier.

colossalvoids · October 10

Syldras wrote: »

wilykcat wrote: »

suggestion to fix this problem is to move posts into the appropriate category.

They did that before and it lead to only one thing: Threads dying immediately after being moved because no one reads them anymore.

I don't have time (or can be bothered) to open almost 30(!) subforums just to get an overview about new interesting topics. That's the main reason, actually: It's too many. I rather open 1 forum and have one or two pages of posts in front of me instead of 30 forums with maybe 4 or 5 post each. Much easier.

This. Only hyper specific ones are making sense for categorisation and those are mostly already there by user's intent. Forced "sorting" left a lot of topics untouched and mislabeled.

wilykcat · October 10

I enjoy organization. When the forums are organized into specific categories it's easier for people to find a specific subforum or forum post. I've also seen the world of warcraft forums and somehow with over 50 categories-- each one is still very actively used. On every forum I've been on, General Discussion is the most popular.

Syldras · October 10

wilykcat wrote: »

I enjoy organization. When the forums are organized it's easier for people to find a specific subforum or forum post.

It might make sense if there are hundreds of posts per day. But right now, it's only about 1 page of new posts per day (more after a new release or announcement stream). That's 30 posts or so. Why stretch those over 30 subforums? It's just more work.

BahometZ · October 10

Not really worth the effort honestly. The population here is minuscule, and over-moderated as it is. There's a search button if you want specific topics.

Elsonso · October 10

Syldras wrote: »

wilykcat wrote: »

suggestion to fix this problem is to move posts into the appropriate category.

They did that before and it lead to only one thing: Threads dying immediately after being moved because no one reads them anymore.

I don't have time (or can be bothered) to open almost 30(!) subforums just to get an overview about new interesting topics. That's the main reason, actually: It's too many. I rather open 1 forum and have one or two pages of posts in front of me instead of 30 forums with maybe 4 or 5 post each. Much easier.

Is there a reason why you don't browse the forum using the Recent view of the forum? I use this and Participated, although the latter is accessible only by bookmark on mobile. I can't remember the last time I actually went into a category, except by accident.

DigiAngel · October 10

One forum to rule them all. Seriously though, general is where I stay.

Rkindaleft · October 10

wilykcat wrote: »

I enjoy organization. When the forums are organized into specific categories it's easier for people to find a specific subforum or forum post. I've also seen the world of warcraft forums and somehow with over 50 categories-- each one is still very actively used. On every forum I've been on, General Discussion is the most popular.

Outside of General, I'd wager that 90% of regular forum users don't even check other categories regularly (outside of maybe the PTS section.)

Not as many people post there because very few people check them and so the posts don't really get much engagement. So they post it in General where everyone will see it. Mods can move them if they want, but then the thread will just die out.

TaSheen · October 10

Those who need super-organization are doomed to disappointment here.... Personally, I don't have the time or interest to search through the totally disorganized setup of discrete fora on this site for something in which I'm interested. In fact, I LOVE the fact that General is where everything goes....

Syldras · October 10

Elsonso wrote: »

Is there a reason why you don't browse the forum using the Recent view of the forum?

Too much I don't care for or don't need (like the subforums for consoles or PvP) or sometimes even don't want to see (specifically the PTS subforum - sometimes I engage with PTS, sometimes I don't and then I don't even want to know what lies ahead). Taking a short look at page 1 of general is faster and more convenient for me. And yes, I might miss something interesting in some subforum then, but I can live with that.

Elsonso · October 10

Syldras wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

Is there a reason why you don't browse the forum using the Recent view of the forum?

Too much I don't care for or don't need (like the subforums for consoles or PvP) or sometimes even don't want to see (specifically the PTS subforum - sometimes I engage with PTS, sometimes I don't and then I don't even want to know what lies ahead). Taking a short look at page 1 of general is faster and more convenient for me. And yes, I might miss something interesting in some subforum then, but I can live with that.

You can select categories to "follow" and then set the Recent view to show only those forums. I have been using this for a long time to get everything on the forum in a single view. It is my custom "General" forum. I would not like everything to be in General because I would be unable to filter as easily.

Syldras · October 10

Elsonso wrote: »

You can select categories to "follow" and then set the Recent view to show only those forums. I have been using this for a long time to get everything on the forum in a single view. It is my custom "General" forum. I would not like everything to be in General because I would be unable to filter as easily.

I have to look into that, thanks.

Dax_Draconis · October 10

It would be nice if certain topics, like the regular PvP complaints that demand sets be nerfed because they counter the complainer's playstyle, would be moderated away to their proper category. The PvP category should be the place for players who are interested in that topic to go read up on it and also should naturally be the place that the devs, who are in charge of that part of the game, would be checking from time to time anyway.

Grizzbeorn · October 10

Syldras wrote: »

I might miss something interesting in some subforum

Chances are small.
There is, more often than not, not much of anything actually interesting in General, either. The entire forum is barely more than a complaint board these days. (which can be said of ALL video game forums, regardless of game.)

Besides, like you said, they tried the "moving threads" thing, but I notice they're not doing that very often, if at all, anymore.
(OR, they've changed the setting that marks a thread as being moved, in which case it wouldn't be apparent if they're still moving things.)

thorwyn · October 10

The forum is not active enough to justify the need of sub categories. There are what?! 10-20 new threads per day and that's about it.
That's why most players are just reading the general section and that's why moderators are soft-banning unpleasant threads (for organizational purposes ofc) by moving them into a category that noone is reading.
The reason why I'm not reading anything else except general discussion is, that I'm not looking for anything in particular. I just want to find out about the current fotm drama. If I was looking for specific information about anything, I would certainly try the corresponding sub category.

Thee_Cheshire_Cat · October 10

i read general, housing, sometimes players helping players, the RP one, addons- when i may need one, and occasionally browse the others.

Yea there are a lot of other 'sub boards', however they are there for a reason. Helps keep things organized. i appreciate them.

Marronsuisse · October 10

It's because the layout and UI of the forums does not support the way people want to actually use the forums, and the forums are not active enough to support fragmenting discussion into so many categories.

IMO the default view of the forums homepage should be a section displaying the recent posts, with an option to expand, and then with all the forum categories listed below.

Funneling people into the Recent section first and foremost means posts could be moved around into proper categories for people to find them, but those posts would still stay relevant and get traction.

(And I know the Recent section exists currently but it seems like a lot of people miss it. It's especially hard to find on mobile.)

moderatelyfatman · October 10

wilykcat wrote: »

Is General discussion a popular category?

I've noticed all the other categories are being neglected. I find most of the categories to be very important and each one has a unique purpose.

The purpose of general discussion is a category for miscellaneous suggestions, ideas, and feedback about the game/forum?

Suggestions to resolve this: move posts into the appropriate category. A post about dungeons belongs in the dungeons category. Also create some new categories for popular topics such as companions and character creation. 😃

I think the population in the forums is mirroring the game in general: they're mostly somewhere else. The population seems too low to keep the other categories alive so everyone just comes here.

NotNi.ya · October 10

because general is the first option and there isn't enough posts to put them elsewhere. maybe 2 new posts a day with maybe a page full of posts that get commented on.

if they do get moved they don't get any interaction so its just better to keep them in general

Carcamongus · October 10

I like organization too. However, its purpose should reflect the purpose of what's being organized. In this forum's case, the point is for people to discuss, share views and doubts, poke fun at ZOS and the game, etc. Being too strict with categories would bring more harm than good, since people don't tend to check other parts of the forum and we all know how often moved discussions die. In other words, facilitating communication is more important than making sure topics go to the appropriate subforum.

Edit: typo.

daim · October 10

I've only used "Recent" for 10 years. Can't even remember when I would had look into categories.

Now a decent search function would be great..

TheMajority · October 10

no no no no no not this again please generals just got back to normal with no weird post moving decisions please please do not encourage it to start again discussions actually continue here we do not need the other catergory

vsrs_au · October 10

Carcamongus wrote: »

I like organization too. However, its purpose should reflect the purpose of what's being organized. In this forum's case, the point is for people to discuss, share views and doubts, poke fun at ZOS and the game, etc. Being too strict with categories would bring more harm than good, since people don't tend to check other parts of the forum and we all know how often moved discussions die. In other words, facilitating communication is more important than making sure topics go to the appropriate subforum.

Edit: typo.

People DO check other categories in the forum: I check them, and so do others, so your generalisation is invalid, sorry.

Carcamongus · October 11

vsrs_au wrote: »

Carcamongus wrote: »

I like organization too. However, its purpose should reflect the purpose of what's being organized. In this forum's case, the point is for people to discuss, share views and doubts, poke fun at ZOS and the game, etc. Being too strict with categories would bring more harm than good, since people don't tend to check other parts of the forum and we all know how often moved discussions die. In other words, facilitating communication is more important than making sure topics go to the appropriate subforum.

Edit: typo.

People DO check other categories in the forum: I check them, and so do others, so your generalisation is invalid, sorry.

I admit I should have stated "many people don't tend to check other parts of the forum"; however, that doesn't "invalidate" the the next point, which is that often moved discussions die.

Why

Best Answer