Bad Community Blending

Shanesan · 2012-04-13, 04:34 AM

Hey Site Team!

I've noticed lately that Planetside 2 Idea Vault has been leaking, rather severely, into Planetside 2 Discussion, and for good reason: It doesn't get 1/30th of the foot traffic a day.

May I suggest showing the top 3 most recently commented threads from Planetside 2 Idea Vault where the subforums list is on Planetside 2 Disucssion, and then the link to the forum? This would put a little more visibility on Planetside 2 Idea Vault and maybe the ideas or suggestions would be placed in the correct spot.

Perhaps a picture would make more sense. Not exactly like the screenshot as it takes up too much real-estate, but it's a basic mock up I made in 40 seconds.

**Malorn** · 2012-04-13, 10:20 AM

I'm not sure if this is necessary. The root problem is the forum organization is not optimal. The idea vault shouldn't be a sub-forum. That automatically relegates it to being a second-class citizen. Meanwhile things like Political Debate are first-class citizens appearing even higher in the forum list than the PS2 discussion.

I'd actually suggest a forum re-arrangement, including moving the political debate forum to be a sub-forum of the Lounge (it's only useful to people who are bored and a small subset of the PSU community).

I think the main problem is that there's very few Planetside forums on Planetside Universe, and they aren't promoted as much as other things are.

I'd recommend the following:

Planetside Forums (make this the top of the forums)
- PSU News
- Planetside 2 General Discussion (commentary & discussion on PS2)
- - - PS2 Q/A (subforum, move questions here so they don't shit up general discussion)
- - - Fan Creations (repository for fan art / fiction, comics, etc)
- Planetside 2 Idea Vault (ideas, suggestions)
- Planetside 2 Outfit Discussion (LFO, outfit theory discussions, etc)
- - - TR Recruitment (subforum)
- - - NC Recruitment (subforum)
- - - VS Recruitment (subforum)
- Planetside 1 Discussion
- AGN Network Forum

General Forums
- The Lounge
- - - Political debate (subforum)
- - - Tech forum (subforum)
- - - Player Introductions (subforum)
- Site Feedback
- - - Test Forum (subforum)

The Planetside 2 General discussion should also nto be cluttered with news - that's what the news forum is for.

The gaming discussion forum, eve discussion, wow discussion get so little traffic they should be rolled into the lounge. (Could be a single subforum I suppose).

The goal of the forums shoudl be to guide poeple to Planetside information first and promote Planetside forums above all others.

Less is more.

**Malorn** · 2012-04-13, 10:31 AM

Here's what I mean by no Planetside on the Planetside Universe forums.

Here's my default view when I go to "forums"

Notice that there isn't a planetside forum in sight. I have to scroll down to see one, and when I do see one there's only one PS2 forum. The idea vault is buried below it.

My default forum view should show top-level forums for PSU news, PS2 discussion, and the Idea vault at the very least. I think outfit discussion should also be on there. Less-important forums like PS1 discussion, AGN forums should be below that, and then leave the lounge and such for the bottom of the forums.

Planetside is what is important here. Lounge and tech and other stuff is what should be at the bottom of the list.

Hamma · 2012-04-13, 11:43 AM

I disagree with splitting out the Recruitment forums by empire as I already stated. The new post prefixes allow people to filter by empire without the need for 20 forums. Despite what you guys think more forums leads to more clicks and less discussion. (as proven with idea vault)

I also disagree with making Tech, Pol Debate etc subforums of the Lounge. Again, more clicks to get to where you want to go and posts in political debate show as the last post in the lounge. Especially things like player introductions - I want that to be first and foremost so we can welcome people into the community.

The sorting order however is easily tweaked and I will look into that. Shouldn't be to much of an issue to do. But I am not making more subforums. I agree with bumping out idea vault as it's own main forum.

There's also several things on that list that will not get any traction yet and just serve to split things up and yet again make more clicking.

Also, EVE/Wow are already "General Gaming"

Hamma · 2012-04-13, 12:17 PM

A bit later I am going to reorg the forums and also create a LFO (Looking for Outfit) forum under recruiting.

**Malorn** · 2012-04-13, 02:33 PM

The sorting is the critical issue, and bubbling up the idea vault to be a first class citizen.

The sub forums for recruitment aren't needed yet, but they will be. They will be. And from a practical standpoint someone looking for say TR outfits just has to click through more pages of non-TR outfit posts to get what they want so it's more efficient that way.

General gaming seems to be a dead forum (and its sub-forums too).

Political debate is really a niche forum for a handful of people like me who are bored and enjoy making all the liberals and non-Americans writhe and froth. But sure if it's at the ass-end of the forum list don't see why it needs to be a sub forum.

Ghryphen · 2012-04-13, 02:40 PM

Originally Posted by Malorn

And from a practical standpoint someone looking for say TR outfits just has to click through more pages of non-TR outfit posts to get what they want so it's more efficient that way.

This? There is a filter atm, when it get's more busy, yes subforms will help, but until then there is a way to filter by type currently.

Hamma · 2012-04-13, 02:42 PM

Originally Posted by Malorn

General gaming seems to be a dead forum (and its sub-forums too).

Political debate is really a niche forum for a handful of people like me who are bored and enjoy making all the liberals and non-Americans writhe and froth. But sure if it's at the ass-end of the forum list don't see why it needs to be a sub forum.

I will filter PS2 towards the top and move Lounge/General to bottom. Just not as sub forums.

Originally Posted by Gryphon

This? There is a filter atm, when it get's more busy, yes subforms will help, but until then there is a way to filter by type currently.

^^ That

Perhaps we can make the filters a bit easier to find. But this essentially solves the problem without needing a bunch of subforums.

Shanesan · 2012-04-13, 03:27 PM

I'm glad I started a healthy discussion.

But what about the Idea Vault forum? Do we believe that shifting the order of where Planetside 2 Discussion is placed will help fix the issue?

**Malorn** · 2012-04-13, 04:00 PM

moving ideas to the idea forum once it's top level will help

moving news to the news forum will reduce clutter in PS2 general discussion as well

been a lot of lounge-topics creeping up there also

Overall quality of the PS2 general discussion has been going downhill, but maybe it's just me.

Shanesan · 2012-04-13, 04:05 PM

Originally Posted by Malorn

Overall quality of the PS2 general discussion has been going downhill, but maybe it's just me.

That's why I made this thread. I'm glad we understand it's an issue!

Hamma · 2012-04-13, 05:22 PM

We used to have news in a separate forum but that splits up the discussion even more.

There are always peaks and valleys in PS2 General Discussion it's pretty much unavoidable until we get something new to chomp on. Keeping quality discussion is not something I have any control over other than moving off topic threads though. The community decides whether or not topics are quality

Like if I ask my moderators to judge quality discussions the flamefests they will have to deal with in PM will not be worth it.

Hamma · 2012-04-13, 05:42 PM

Honestly though the "Quality" thing I've struggled with since I started this site. There's no way for me to judge that and discussion goes as discussion goes. More people means more opinions and/or more questions by people who are new.

There's very little way for moderators or admins to judge quality of posts. It's something very much open to interpretation.

**Malorn** · 2012-04-14, 01:28 AM

Glad to see the changes. From the quality perspective I used to avoid the political debate forum, but I've gotten so bored with the PS2 forums arguing with idiots is somehow a more entertaining option. But even that is losing its luster. I guess I'll go back to trying to provide content instead of trolling Figment with American patriotism.