Opening more forums?

[Jynne]

This is a good discussion I've always thought that the boards were first, and best, as a way for players to be a part of a community together. Regardless of what org you're in or what side you're on or what profession you are, we are all AO players and we really have more in common than not when we are playing the game.

And I think that the sense of community and overall helpfulness of the forum posters is a very positive thing for the game in general. In the end the reason you play an MMORPG is because of other people, elsewise, if you don't like people you would play single player games

That's why I think a general game-related forum... guess it would kind of be a hybrid between the old World of Rubi-Ka and Game Mechanics... would be a very good thing. Giving us a place to just talk about the game and mix views without getting defensive ("This is our forum, you nerfwhining troll!") will be a community builder.

But I think that PvP oriented forums are the opposite. The old PvP forum, if you go back and read through it, mostly consists of whines, flames, and rants. If people are posting something useful about PvP - tactics for example - they have always posted that in their own profession's forum. A PvP forum is a very toxic place because of the nature of PvP, and would need very heavy moderation.

I think any communication with Funcom on these forums should be viewed as a bonus, and that we players shouldn't expect much feedback from the devs and such except through the Professionals programme and through things like chats and articles and interviews and so forth.

If extra forums and player mods will allow for things like more updates to the website with information and revisions of the manual and such, I'm strongly in favor of it.

Umm.. that's about it for what I think. Yeah.

[____________Edvieira]

This is just an idea on how the new boards can be moderated.

In my opinion, moderating could be done by the player base itself.
In order for this to work:
* The lists of the moderators for each forum have to be available at the top.
* Moderators should have an increased PM capacity and have their PM enabled.

How it would work:
A point system. Every time a player sees a post that they think is offensive and shouldnt be there they PM the mod with the location of the post. The mod then, in his PM inbox, keeps track of the number of replies citing a certain person (this could be done by players putting the the name of the offender in the title). All of the reported posts will be evaluated to be moved to the "hidden" thread. After say, three reports the player gets a warning, and after six, he gets banned. Of course, these numbers could change depending on the feedback involvement. After a certain time, like 2 months, the numbers could be reset.

Why do I see this as an alternative?
I see it as a viable alternative since it transfers part of the work to the player base. It also allows moderators to know what it is that forum users consider offensive, off-topic, or shouldn't be on the forums.

How to keep the burden off one mod?
By rotation. The moderators that have PMs sent to them could rotate weekly.

Please remember that this is only an *idea*.

[Servivious]

Originally posted by Cz
Letah
She has 5k+ posts, Isgrimnur, not only 4k+.

Yeah - you're wondering how she does it right? We all are...

Originally posted by Cz
Gonna drop by the Professionals forum now, then go visit a friend and watch some football (European style). I'll check by again tomorrow.

"Football" is a word that describes the 'European' (though really its English) form of the game --> the 'other' form is more accuratly known as "American Football", a game in which the foot rarely touches the ball. Ignore 'Ozzie Rules Football' - thats far to hardcore. Any mention of the word "soccer" will be nerfed imediatly as it is not really a word. It's like "nerf" - they made it up.

Grats Cz on correct terminology and finally taking a thread off topic!! Woot!

And you thought no one would notice... hehe

[Arinia]

I think one of the main things to consider is that even though players may hate ingame politics, they are probably one of the main reasons why people stay so interested

Removing some of these forums in the first place eliminated some ingame politics. Now, when someone or some guild makes a political move, news of it is spread by word of mouth -- which seems a bit silly given the timeframe of the game

The moral of the story is, bringing back a form like WORK would be excellent, but we can't expect it to remain propaganda free -- people love drama too much. Again, it's why a lot of people continue to play

As a disclaimer though, I'll say that there has to be some limit (of course). So moderation somewhere between what it was and what it is today. Allow people to speak their mind, without stifling the drama.


I definitely support bringing back some forums, if that wasn't clear. I'm sure there's a way to make it work to the satisfaction of all.

[Skeena-]

I think Jynne pretty much nailed it. The boards are a great venue for player-to-player discussion and they function adequately for Funcom-to-player announcements. However, they really should not be considered as a vehicle for player-to-Funcom communication. It is my understanding that the Professionals Program was intended to serve this purpose.

Unfortunately, there is a widespread perception that if you scream loud enough on the boards then the devs will hear you. The old PvP board was a classic example of this in action. The fixer board has also been demonstrating this tendency in the past few days, following the Stratics dev chat. At one time or another, practically every board has degenerated into a shouting match for FC attention as a new nerf (either real or perceived) hits the community.

Ultimately, these discussions usually ensue because players feel wronged by the decisions of Funcom or by the actions of other players. In most cases, the discussions tend to peter out after the concerned parties take the opportunity to "get it off their chests." By this point, the discussions usually degerenate into a one-on-one flame war until a) the topics are moderated/removed or b) the flamers run out of vitriol and energy.

The net result is that players clearly need a venue in which to air their discontent. With this in mind, I would suggest the creation of a "Gripes, Grievances and Vendettas" forum. Disgruntled players could use this as a venue to clear the air about issues that are affecting them and existing moderators could use this as a dumping ground for off-topic content from the rest of the boards.

You could even go so far as to not moderate the discussion on this board alone. Allow users to criticize, namecall, flame, disparage, etc. to their heart's content with the clear undestanding that a response from Funcom will not be forthcoming. In this context, the proposed forum would go a long way towards cleaning up the boards as they are right now by eliminating the overtly negative discussions that are increasingly diluting the more valuable topics.

Last but not least, by providing a focal point for trolls, flamers, spammers and the like, it would be so much easier for the rest of the community to ignore them. That's my 0.02 credatz.

[Darkbane]

I also heartily agree with Jynne's post.

Once players realise that by and large this isn't a place where they can post ideas/complaints/rants/whines/thoughs/suggestions and that FC will actually read them, then maybe we'll see a better quality of posting (though the odd flame war would still be expected...)

Not that there aren't a lot of good posts now, and not that all my posts would fall into that category by any stretch of the immagination. But FC *really* don't have the time to read every post here, to hear every voice. Even Cz who has these forums in his job description doesn't have anything like the time to do that.

This is in part why I suggested the return of the suggestions forum. Partly because many of the off topic posts are really suggestions, and partly because it would allow a more structured discussion of ideas. And if this is managed, then perhaps more of those ideas will at least be seen by someone at FC.

The current suggestion thread in test is simply not workable from that perspective. I have tried to start culling reasonable and good ideas from it, but its such an unstructured mess, that I haven't got very far. The idea would then be to package the best of the ideas up in a more presentable format and send it to FC.

Maybe such a suggestion forum should have its own 'professionals' whose job it is to do this. And maybe if its handled well, give some small feedback from FC where relevant. Maybe that would work, maybe it wouldn't, but it might at least be worth trying.

[Letah]

Servivious, it's called having a job you dont like, one where you can talk to customers on the phone with the ability to read+post at the same time because what you have to say to the customer pretty much is the same every day, hehe hmm and of course I love the game and even more, love the community.

Hmm. Servivious Servivious Servivious Servivious. There, hope you're happy now Now stop calling me god I love miss



PvP forum... THE "hey lets read some more flames", the forum where you needed a lot Fire-AC and people shoot with fireballs. I liked the forum in a weird way, but I do not know if its possible to get it back, seems it would only do harm then good.

[aiwass777]

100 million credits and a nappy leet doll.

When does this auction end?

:P

[shadowgod]

yeah... more mods would be good.. and if you remember me enough, Cz, you should know i'd love to help out where i can with stuff.. even being a mod for the forums.


i've been pretty content with the current forum setup... though, i do feel there needs to be an OOC one to get all the OOC outa the RP forum.

and since there are two dimensions... possibly making a RP for each.


and i do assume you'd make a good list of guidelines for moderators so they're not tooo strict (as i have no problems being ).

[Turin]

Originally posted by Bliqz
Professionals as moderators has merit...However do we have any professionals that are frequent Roleplayers as well?

One has little to do with the other. Im sure someone could be found to moderate the RP forums though if you didnt feel comfortable having a "non rp'ing" professional moderating your forum.

[______________Sara79]

I vote that a Topic of the week forum be introduced. It could be used to gather player feedback on whatever the Dev's/FunCom/ARK need to know about. I think it would be a great way to solicit feedback from the player comunity as currently most of the players go to their Profetion Forums to post whats on their mind.

Player Moderators.... Hmm players would have to have the ability to ban people... at least from the forums they moderate. Not sure if thats a power you want to give out, but if so then sure lets do it.

[Jellobiafra]

Well, the urge to deprive CZ of a post from one of his favorite, most forum rule compliant member of the community, one he has never had to have words with....was just overpowered by my need to chime in. However, I'll keep it short and simple.

First off, it's pretty obvious that the fan-site idea just never took hold. Nothing personal against anyone but there were just too many issues like pop-ups and load times.

Secondly, the idea of having a player-mod group of forums is terrific. We brought it up before as a solution to the problem when the original forums were taken down. It's still a great idea. Yes, on occasion a mod may get out of hand and do something he/she shouldn't. Then again, CZ could flip one day and decide to post vulgarities for about an hour before being stopped. If you want to make a large group of your player base happy by bringing back a few fourms, you're just going to have to take a few risks.

Thirdly, my personal choices for which ones to bring back. A pure "Suggestions" forum is desperately needed. A "PvP/Notum Wars" forum is desperately needed. A "Social" forum is NOT desperately needed. However, the Social forum of old really was a nice place to gather and discuss various things game and RL related. Sure, there will have to be some restrictions, but if most people just acted responsibly...it shouldn't be much of a problem for the mods.

And finally....if nothing else, it would free up CZ from having to constantly run searches for posts by me, and hitting the delete button on a daily basis. I mean sure, I really love those "Please stay on topic ya jerk" pm's I get afterwards, and the private little flame matches that ensue. But I'd much rather him earning his money other ways.

[Jellobiafra]

Originally posted by ShadowGod
and since there are two dimensions... possibly making a RP for each.

Oh stop it already....quit while your ahead

[Toxinator]

Ty Cz for reconsidering this.

When you guys first closed the forums i suggested that a few players whether it be professionals or ARKs or whatnot mod the forums. I wouldnt mind doin it i mean im a forum junkie as is =P but still.

I think that if we help ya out then more forums could be opened again. ie WoRK Social hehe Tara =P.

[Toxinator]

Oh and about the general forum thing:

I think some people like a place where like in the old social forums, it was a whole forum off off topic fun. I think a lot of people including myself liked that. And if there was another i think that a few rules for things like content, ie the 'ists (racist sexist etc.), would be fine, and should be in effect for all forums which i believe they already are from the "no talk about iraq" announcement.

Minor rules, that dont detur the actual usefulness of the forum are welcome, but if there are to many, then it defeates the purpose of the forum.

And again thanks for considering, i think its a good move on the part of the Community, and im sure many players are more then willing to help with ya, but a process of invitation, or application/weeding out, for assistant moderators would be fine. And also, make it w/o any obvious reward, rewards tend to draw people not interested in the cause, but interested in the reward.

Il end with this: Its better to not have, then to have and have taken away. - This was demonstrated by "ye 'ol forum nerf"

[Toxinator]

Originally posted by Sara79
I vote that a Topic of the week forum be introduced. It could be used to gather player feedback on whatever the Dev's/FunCom/ARK need to know about. I think it would be a great way to solicit feedback from the player comunity as currently most of the players go to their Profetion Forums to post whats on their mind.

Player Moderators.... Hmm players would have to have the ability to ban people... at least from the forums they moderate. Not sure if thats a power you want to give out, but if so then sure lets do it.

Intead of a topic of the week, which would require a lot of work methinks, perhaps a "letter to the Czeditor" forum.

Also i think that any profession stuff that would be in a topic of the week is handled by the Professionals, and the reponces that they get are usually posted in that forum.

[Darksyphon7]

OOC forum = good++

[Isgrimnur]

Originally posted by Cz
Letah
She has 5k+ posts, Isgrimnur, not only 4k+.

---

Yeah I noticed. I think Letah doesn't do much at work besides these forums. If anyone would get my vote on moderator it would be Letah. She is EVERYWHERE. I ain't kidding ya. I am pretty sure by the time I went to sleep and just woke up she posted about 30-40 times.

The current was 5588 from when I posted this...lets see how long it takes for her to add another hundred :P I am pretty sure Letah reads more threads than you Cz...seriously...ALL OVER THE PLACE.

Anyways sounds like a darn good idea. Considering our low forum numbers, a few people to moderate another couple could definately work.

[Sheldon]

Originally posted by Cz
Is tough moderation and suspending those who get out of hand the only way? If so, we can do that. If it helps the rest of the users of this bulletin board, no problem at all. Note that with more moderators comes more interpretations of the rules, so we might need some clarifications on some rules.

Taking the soft way of talking people into calming down would of course be preferable, but that takes more time, which I personally don't have right now.

I think tough moderation really is the only way to go. If people have a habit of posting inappropriate things they will NEVER stop simply because someone has softly asked them to. The only way people will learn to stay within the guidelines is if they know there will be consequences for deviating from them.

Being a hardcore IRC junkie for many years, I know I most prefer the style of the EFNet IRC network. On this network there are no real channel services, so the moderation of channels is left almost entirely up to channel patrons. What tends to happen is that people on EFNet are pretty ruthlessly protective of their channels, so anybody who causes a problem finds themselves at least temporarily banned. It's not always the most fair way of dealing with problems, but people who want to keep coming back to the channels learn to behave themselves.

[Tikon]

I dont agree with opening up more forums, because it will just give more room to whine.

What I do suggest, is that you open up a general forum, where people can post what they like, and as you said, have some players to moderate it.

-Tik