Why are so many posts being moved/closed?

rpa · October 2023

Appears like if one tries to add a link to post using the url input (link icon between smiley and image icons) the resulting code looks fine but for some reason there will be "denied:" added when posted or previewed. Likely the whatever tool mods use to move threads does the same.

Using url input:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/644105/why-are-so-many-posts-being-moved-closed#latest

Cut and paste the link in editor may work:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/644105/why-are-so-many-posts-being-moved-closed#latest

So forum software is responsible for "denied:" links.

Wolf_Eye · October 2023

TaSheen wrote: »

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

DragonRacer wrote: »

Opinions on this can be given in this survey Kevin has pinned at the top of the forum. The link won't work well because of the current bug, but if you right-click, remove "denied" from the URL, and refresh you will get to the forum thread - which has a survey link you'll need to treat the same way in order to get to it: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/644012/eso-forum-improvement-survey

Oh so there IS a bug on the forums that prevents links from working right? I'm glad it's not just my computer doing something weird.

It's not just bugging on "in forum" links. I just had to reconfigure the link from pootx's post regarding Shakespeare's English (https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180207-how-americans-preserved-british-english) which shows up when you click to go there as "denied:https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180207-how-americans-preserved-british-english".

*sigh* @ZOS_Kevin - this is seriously compromising the usability of the forum - perhaps you need to set off fireworks under the vanilla devs' desks?

Thank you for this explanation! So you just have to delete the "denied" part of it? That's a bit inconvenient, but at least we have a way of making links work.

Wolf_Eye · October 2023

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

DragonRacer wrote: »

Opinions on this can be given in this survey Kevin has pinned at the top of the forum. The link won't work well because of the current bug, but if you right-click, remove "denied" from the URL, and refresh you will get to the forum thread - which has a survey link you'll need to treat the same way in order to get to it: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/644012/eso-forum-improvement-survey

Oh so there IS a bug on the forums that prevents links from working right? I'm glad it's not just my computer doing something weird.

Yep. When I try to click on that link on my iPad, I get "Safari cannot open the page because the address is invalid."

But I can copy the URL as it appears in your quoted message in the "Leave a reply" box, tap in Safari's address bar, select "paste and go," and the page comes up correctly, which means the address is not invalid at all. Apparently the forum software is doing something to the address when it's being clicked on within the forum, but I have no idea what it could be.

Ah thank you for the confirmation SeaGtGruff

I was worried before because, if it had been something innate in my computer, I wouldn't know how to fix it. But reading this thread eased my worries about that, seeing everyone else's posts about it.

rpa · October 2023

For me the links to moved discussions (and the first link my own post above) appear to work now and do not have the "denied:" bug like earlier today. Is it just me or has it been fixed?

Snamyap · October 2023

Destai wrote: »

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

I think they are attempting to make use of all the categories and organize things better. The problem is that even with posters knowing that threads are being moved, most of these come to a screeching halt after they are moved.

I believe the biggest deterrent to posters reading and posting in forums other than general is the fact that there are just way too many categories. It's literally a case of "can't see the forest for all the trees".

Yeah. Personally I'd be way more willing to check out other sections regularly if there were fewer of them with broader categories. Right now it's not really worth looking at many others more than General because there's just too many.

I really don’t see the value in players helping players and event sections. The latter really benefits from the wider audience of general discussion, especially since they’re time limited.

People post things on these forums to get feedback from other players, and the devs. I guess having a separate section for players helping players, and moving only a handful of posts there, indicates that all the other posts should have a developer response...

SeaGtGruff · October 2023

I think some complaints (issues) could be resolved by improving forum navigation.

I used to go to "General ESO Discussion" all the time because it always seemed to be the most active forum, and I didn't even know there was a "Recent" option that shows all active threads across all forums. That's the type of option I always use on other forum sites, so when some of the people here mentioned that they always start with "Recent" I was surprised because I had never seen it.

Instead of putting it inside a menu that only gets displayed when you click on an almost-unnoticeable little square up in the lefthand corner of the screen-- and which then stays open and in the way until you either select an option or click on the square again-- it would be easier and more obvious if the options in the top section of that menu were placed side-by-side on a line or menu bar near the top of the screen, not just on the home page but on every page:

CATEGORIES | DEV TRACKER | RECENT | UNANSWERED | PARTICIPATED

That way those options are clearly evident to new visitors, are always available, and there's no need to click on something to make it pop up and then click again to make it go away so it isn't in the way.

Wolf_Eye · October 2023

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

I think some complaints (issues) could be resolved by improving forum navigation.

I used to go to "General ESO Discussion" all the time because it always seemed to be the most active forum, and I didn't even know there was a "Recent" option that shows all active threads across all forums. That's the type of option I always use on other forum sites, so when some of the people here mentioned that they always start with "Recent" I was surprised because I had never seen it.

Instead of putting it inside a menu that only gets displayed when you click on an almost-unnoticeable little square up in the lefthand corner of the screen-- and which then stays open and in the way until you either select an option or click on the square again-- it would be easier and more obvious if the options in the top section of that menu were placed side-by-side on a line or menu bar near the top of the screen, not just on the home page but on every page:

CATEGORIES | DEV TRACKER | RECENT | UNANSWERED | PARTICIPATED

That way those options are clearly evident to new visitors, are always available, and there's no need to click on something to make it pop up and then click again to make it go away so it isn't in the way.

. . . . I admittedly did not even notice we had a recent tab either. Thanks for pointing this out!

ZOS_Kevin · October 2023

TaSheen wrote: »

*sigh* @ZOS_Kevin - this is seriously compromising the usability of the forum - perhaps you need to set off fireworks under the vanilla devs' desks?

Just following up on this. We heard back from Vanilla this afternoon. This bug should now be resolved.

TaSheen · October 2023

Glad to see the fireworks were effective. Yes, a couple of moved threads on the second page of the forum are now working "normally".

ZOS_Kevin · October 2023

As others have mentioned, we do have an improvement survey going on now. You can get the rundown of it here. Please provide your feedback so that we can make changes based on how you as users engage with the forum.

Northwold · October 2023

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

As others have mentioned, we do have an improvement survey going on now. You can get the rundown of it here. Please provide your feedback so that we can make changes based on how you as users engage with the forum.

I guess that brings up another point. The announcement stickies, probably because so many of them persist for a very long time, presumably get ignored / go unnoticed much of the time.

VaranisArano · October 2023

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

I think some complaints (issues) could be resolved by improving forum navigation.

I used to go to "General ESO Discussion" all the time because it always seemed to be the most active forum, and I didn't even know there was a "Recent" option that shows all active threads across all forums. That's the type of option I always use on other forum sites, so when some of the people here mentioned that they always start with "Recent" I was surprised because I had never seen it.

Instead of putting it inside a menu that only gets displayed when you click on an almost-unnoticeable little square up in the lefthand corner of the screen-- and which then stays open and in the way until you either select an option or click on the square again-- it would be easier and more obvious if the options in the top section of that menu were placed side-by-side on a line or menu bar near the top of the screen, not just on the home page but on every page:

CATEGORIES | DEV TRACKER | RECENT | UNANSWERED | PARTICIPATED

That way those options are clearly evident to new visitors, are always available, and there's no need to click on something to make it pop up and then click again to make it go away so it isn't in the way.

It would also be rather nice if those were easily available on Mobile.

Categories & Recent Discussions are accessible on Mobile. Dev Tracker, Unanswered, and Participated are not.

SilverBride · October 2023

VaranisArano wrote: »

Categories & Recent Discussions are accessible on Mobile. Dev Tracker, Unanswered, and Participated are not.

They are if you check "Desktop Site" on your mobile browser.

VaranisArano · October 2023

SilverBride wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Categories & Recent Discussions are accessible on Mobile. Dev Tracker, Unanswered, and Participated are not.

They are if you check "Desktop Site" on your mobile browser.

I know you're trying to be helpful, so I'll just say that its not very practical for me to use the Desktop site on a Mobile phone, so thank you for proving my point that those are not easily accessible in the Mobile forum interface.

SilverBride · October 2023

VaranisArano wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Categories & Recent Discussions are accessible on Mobile. Dev Tracker, Unanswered, and Participated are not.

They are if you check "Desktop Site" on your mobile browser.

I know you're trying to be helpful, so I'll just say that its not very practical for me to use the Desktop site on a Mobile phone, so thank you for proving my point that those are not easily accessible in the Mobile forum interface.

That's the only way I use the forums on my phone.

Necrotech_Master · October 2023

SilverBride wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Categories & Recent Discussions are accessible on Mobile. Dev Tracker, Unanswered, and Participated are not.

They are if you check "Desktop Site" on your mobile browser.

I know you're trying to be helpful, so I'll just say that its not very practical for me to use the Desktop site on a Mobile phone, so thank you for proving my point that those are not easily accessible in the Mobile forum interface.

That's the only way I use the forums on my phone.

i dont think ive ever been on the forums on my phone, i hate typing messages on my phone, so much easier for me to use a keyboard for that lol

SilverBride · October 2023

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Categories & Recent Discussions are accessible on Mobile. Dev Tracker, Unanswered, and Participated are not.

They are if you check "Desktop Site" on your mobile browser.

I know you're trying to be helpful, so I'll just say that its not very practical for me to use the Desktop site on a Mobile phone, so thank you for proving my point that those are not easily accessible in the Mobile forum interface.

That's the only way I use the forums on my phone.

i dont think ive ever been on the forums on my phone, i hate typing messages on my phone, so much easier for me to use a keyboard for that lol

The keyboard is faster but swiping is pretty fast and easy, too. I do that rather than using thumbs.

Sleep724 · October 2023

Right under this thread currently there are about 5 or 6 moved and closed posts lol.

illusiouk · October 2023

They don't want show a bad reflection of the game to outsiders. You want to see what players really think of this game, go into a 3rd party forum.

Four_Fingers · October 2023

Can't even make a post telling people the Telvanni awards are available without it getting moved to the crown store forum.
Talk about killjoys.

Toanis · October 2023

illusiouk wrote: »

They don't want show a bad reflection of the game to outsiders. You want to see what players really think of this game, go into a 3rd party forum.

Outsiders that see the heavy moderation, back away from the game immediately, and uninstall their browsers for good measure.

Paralyse · October 2023

ESO forums could use improvement, especially when compared to other popular games, but the fact that the general discussion forum exists means that it will be used. As a result, the sub-forums tend to be less popular or outright ignored, so naturally players are going to post where most others will see it -- here -- even if it's not technically the "correct" place to post it.

I'm glad that the CM's are being proactive in deleting a lot of the garbage posts that focus mainly on personal attacks against the devs/CM's, tinfoil hat conspiracy theories, trolling/bait posts intended to start fights on purpose, etc. They can move or delete those all day long.

I would much rather see it set up so that if a post is moved, two things happen:

- The poster is notified (optionally) that their thread has been moved and a reason why is provided along with information about where it was moved to. (Does this already happen?)

- The post is left in its original forum but has the title changed to something like MOVED: blah blah, and when you click on it, you get a link to the new thread's location, instead of a dead link. That way, people reading General Discussion will still see the topic, but when they click on the thread, they will be given a link that redirects them to the correct forum to find the new location.