Forum Consolidation - Thoughts

ambassadorkael · February 2018

Hey folks,

I've been giving some thought to our forum set up and how it currently works. It's a bit cluttered for new users (and for some veterans), so I was thinking of doing some reorganization and consolidation. No content would be deleted, but since it's your forum first and foremost, I wanted to see what you thought. Let me know.

I'm proposing to change it the forums main page will only show four main forums. These would be GALACTIC NEWS NETWORK, STAR TREK ONLINE DISCUSSION, TEN FORWARD, and SUPPORT. Everything else would become a sub forum, so it would look like this:

• GALACTIC NEWS NETWORK
o Starfleet Media Corps
o Release Notes
o Rules and Policies
• STAR TREK ONLINE DISCUSSION
o The Academy
o Fleet Recruitment
o The Foundry
• TEN FORWARD
o I might make a forum games subforum
• SUPPORT
o Test Servers
o Feedback (Do people use the Feedback forum? I find most of our feedback happens in General discussion.)

Let me know what you think.

thay8472 · February 2018

Look better the way it is. (IMO)

turbomagnus · February 2018

I do know that a lot of feedback is discussed specifically in "The Art of Star Trek Online" feedback forum, so I'd like to see that remain somewhat easily accessible.

My big concern is that by putting everything in subforums, it becomes difficult to see how active a particular forum is because a post in another subforum could overshadow the recent posts in a primary forum. Case in point is the current Faction forums and Fleet subforums; because of the way they're set up, a post in a Fleet subforum also appears as the recent post in its respective Faction forum when looking at the forum overviews, thus skewing the appearance of forum activity in the Faction forum.

duncanidaho11 · February 2018

Would the Foundry have sub-subforums (or some other way of categorizing threads)? It is useful to separate out bugs and mission listings (to make those easy to reference and scan through) from general discussion.

ambassadorkael · February 2018

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

Would the Foundry have sub-subforums (or some other way of categorizing threads)? It is useful to separate out bugs and mission listings (to make those easy to reference and scan through) from general discussion.

Yeah, any current subforums would still exist.

dirlettia · February 2018

Seeing as the Test servers pretty much always have relevence to the news sections I would move them into there. I cannot see why they would go into the support subforum at all.

where2r1 · February 2018

Most of the discussion happens in General Discussion because I assume most people do what I do:
I don't navigate the forums from the main page or go into each subforums from the main page.

Besides....what does "Feedback" even mean?
This current description is wishy washy: "Do you have feedback about a uniform? Perhaps a ship's hull plating? Or you noticed a Vulcan design on a Romulan building? Share your feedback here!"

The description for "Feedback" needs to state: Disscussions on PVE Content, PVP Content, Ship Builds, Ground Builds, Fleet Holdings, DOFFing/Admiralty/R&D/Rep, Control/User Interfaces and Art of Star Trek.

What would "forum games" subforum under TEN FORWARD mean?
I thought the whole idea of TEN FORWARD was it is all fun and games and NOT related to STO at all.

A subforum for TEN FORWARD: "Star Trek Discovery" ..... because there is so many of those that I want to avoid and want to MUTE that folder.

Fleet Recruitment needs subfolders for PS4 and XBox and PC. Fleet names and intros usually differentiate between factions, anyways.

THE FOUNDRY needs it's own Forum Folder just like it is, now. It is a totally separate thing with its own separate issues. Including their own bugs to report.

duncanidaho11 · February 2018

ambassadorkael#6946 wrote: »

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

Would the Foundry have sub-subforums (or some other way of categorizing threads)? It is useful to separate out bugs and mission listings (to make those easy to reference and scan through) from general discussion.

Yeah, any current subforums would still exist.

Then

where2r1 · February 2018

Also, "GENERAL DISCUSSION" had the connotation that any and all responses made in any fashion is acceptable.
I have read people stating, "If you didn't want my comments, why did you post this in General Discussion?" as if it excuses them from being vitriolic.

If you want to attract more helpful people back into this forum, "FEEDBACK" should be at the top of the listing on the main page....."GENERAL DISCUSSION" should be at the bottom.

P.S. One more thing before I spend the rest of the night grinding for Omega Particles....

New players are blocked from starting posts in the forums. They who may have the most questions can not post. Can "THE ACADEMY" be adjusted in a way so new players can post their questions there. Or have one of the moderators start a "New Players Post" in THE ACADEMY folder so they have someplace to go?

vetteguy904 · February 2018

as my pappy was fond of saying, It Ain't Broke, Don't fix it

legendarylycan · February 2018

if most feedback occurs in general, i would say keep that for feedback and rename the current feedback subsection to suggestions where people can make suggestions for new things to be added to the game, if possible and feasible

champions online has such a subforum, and it works very well there

echatty · February 2018

Where is General Discussion?

I'd be all for streamlining things a bit, as I'm one who sometimes finds things a bit confusing.

where2r1 · February 2018

ambassadorkael#6946 wrote: »

o Feedback (Do people use the Feedback forum? I find most of our feedback happens in General discussion.)

This may point toward a problem with instruction to the moderation team. Posts are not being moved to appropriate categories/subforums. And they are all piling up in General Discussion.

And ALL this points back to descriptions are not very clear on the subforums themselves...as to what goes in which subforums.

Cutesy Star Trek sounding titles are nice...but when people don't know what they stand for any more. What is the point?

rattler2 · February 2018

where2r1 wrote: »

What would "forum games" subforum under TEN FORWARD mean?
I thought the whole idea of TEN FORWARD was it is all fun and games and NOT related to STO at all.

I believe it would be things like the Ban thread.

trekkerken · February 2018

I think some reorganization is a good idea. After all, you can change everything back to the way it is now if this becomes a big clusterbug.

Ken aka
Rabb family and
Nick Blackwood

tunebreaker · February 2018

As long as this button retains its current function, I don't care either way.

ambassadorkael#6946 wrote: »

(Do people use the Feedback forum? I find most of our feedback happens in General discussion.)

That's most probably because most people only read General discussion. No point in posting anything to a place that has much lower traffic.

captainkoltar · February 2018

I don't think you should organise things into subforums. The way the boards seem to work is that the latest post on the subforums shows up as the latest post on the parent forum. I'd rather see a flat structure , organised under appropriate headings on the main page.

mustrumridcully0 · February 2018

ambassadorkael#6946 wrote: »

Hey folks,

I've been giving some thought to our forum set up and how it currently works. It's a bit cluttered for new users (and for some veterans), so I was thinking of doing some reorganization and consolidation. No content would be deleted, but since it's your forum first and foremost, I wanted to see what you thought. Let me know.

I'm proposing to change it the forums main page will only show four main forums. These would be GALACTIC NEWS NETWORK, STAR TREK ONLINE DISCUSSION, TEN FORWARD, and SUPPORT. Everything else would become a sub forum, so it would look like this:

• GALACTIC NEWS NETWORK
o Starfleet Media Corps
o Release Notes
o Rules and Policies
• STAR TREK ONLINE DISCUSSION
o The Academy
o Fleet Recruitment
o The Foundry
• TEN FORWARD
o I might make a forum games subforum
• SUPPORT
o Test Servers
o Feedback (Do people use the Feedback forum? I find most of our feedback happens in General discussion.)

Let me know what you think.

In my estimation, the current feedbakc forums are mostly useless. Low traffic, probably because they are split up in subforums you can only access by basically clicking on the last forum on a long list of forums.

The only one I still see value in is the Art forum, but mostly because of the the Epic Screenshot Thread. I figure the PvP forum also has its fans.

And what's the difference between Star Trek Online Discussion and Feedback anyway?

• GALACTIC NEWS NETWORK
o Starfleet Media Corps
o Release Notes
o Rules and Policies

• STAR TREK ONLINE DISCUSSION
o General Discussion & Feedback
o The Academy
o The Foundry
o Art
o Player vs Player
o Ten Forward
o Fleet Recruitment
• SUPPORT
o Bug Reports
o Test Servers

vorwoda · February 2018

The only thing I regularly read other than the Galactic News Network IS the Feedback Forum (or rather the Fed, Klingon and Romulan subfora of it). Admittedly, the Feedback would be more useful if Devs actually read it and responded (because the point of Feedback is, I presume, to give FEEDBACK to people who can actually DO something about the issues raised). Faction related issues, bugs and wishes are posted there in droves (or were, though that has slowed a lot - see below), but I can't remember the last time I saw a Dev or even the Community Manager posting any comment or response there. It's rather disheartening that our good Ambassador Kael has to ask if anyone uses the Feedback Forum. If not the Ambassador, SOMEONE official should be reading it, or there really isn't much point to Feedback at all.

And I agree about the current placement of Fleet Recruitment being subfora of faction fora being troublesome. You can't see at a glance what IS being discussed in the Faction Feedback, because the Recruitment threads show up as the most recent thread in both places, though they aren't really part of Feedback at all. The three Fleet Recruitment fora should be moved out of Feedback to General - they really aren't providing feedback at all, and their current placement is certainly part of why the Feedback forum (or at least the Faction parts) may seem useless to the Ambassador. It also plays a part n why the faction fora are less active than they once were.

Just my 2 EC.

vorwoda · February 2018

One other suggestion, Have a separate GNN for the different platforms. There are tabs for PC, Xbox One and PS4 at the top of the main page. If I'm in PC and reading GNN, I shouldn't be seeing a ton of threads announcing stuff for consoles. And their players shouldn't have to read the PC Forum to see their news, either.

fleetcaptain5 · February 2018

ambassadorkael#6946 wrote: »

Hey folks,

I've been giving some thought to our forum set up and how it currently works. It's a bit cluttered for new users (and for some veterans), so I was thinking of doing some reorganization and consolidation. No content would be deleted, but since it's your forum first and foremost, I wanted to see what you thought. Let me know.

I'm proposing to change it the forums main page will only show four main forums. These would be GALACTIC NEWS NETWORK, STAR TREK ONLINE DISCUSSION, TEN FORWARD, and SUPPORT. Everything else would become a sub forum, so it would look like this:

• GALACTIC NEWS NETWORK
o Starfleet Media Corps
o Release Notes
o Rules and Policies
• STAR TREK ONLINE DISCUSSION
o The Academy
o Fleet Recruitment
o The Foundry
• TEN FORWARD
o I might make a forum games subforum
• SUPPORT
o Test Servers
o Feedback (Do people use the Feedback forum? I find most of our feedback happens in General discussion.)

Let me know what you think.

Rules and policies should go, I want total anarchy!

fleetcaptain5 · February 2018

More seriously speaking:

I'd like it if Fleet Recruitment could remain a thing of its own. So that would make it five forums.
I think there are many players who don't visit the forum all that often, except for fleet recruitment. It is one of those things that have a simple yet important function for in-game activities, while General Discussion usually isn't of immediate importance to what happens in-game.

I never use the Feedback section, indeed that's what I use General Discussion for. I guess that one could be removed / merged with General Discussion.

It would be nice if we could have a separate subforum (within Star Trek Online Discussion for example) for media-heavy posts. There have been some contests that were organised by different fleets and in-game channels such as TSC and the DPS ones. There is usually not much to discuss here and most of the threads consist of images. You should probably ask those who organise such contests though.

fleetcaptain5 · February 2018

Oh and a small suggestion: if you're going to keep a separate feedback discussion, and add a policy/rules one, could you reduce the amount of sticky threads?

Especially in General Discussion there are many of them and they're usually about things like the latest episode that people will talk about in regular threads anyway.

lordsteve1 · February 2018

One thing would be to change what is included in the Feedback section. Things like build discussions and the like are not really feedback, they are the players discussing things among themselves. If anything the bug section is feedback, most other sections fall under STO general discussion.
Also, move the "feedback" section higher up. The off-topic area should be at the bottom i feel as the priority should be the actual game related discussions.

captaincelestial · February 2018

I never knew there was a forum for feedback.

legendarylycan · February 2018

we do; it's allllllllllllllllllllll the way at the bottom where no one can see it - hence why it doesn't get used for actual feedback

arliekkos · February 2018

Put all of the fleet recruitment into the Fleet Recruitment. Sub sections for the factions. Tired of the fleet spammers posts showing up in the faction discussions headlines as well. I suggest also having a developer/someone actually respond or interact in the sections or the feedback area more to cause more activity. That or just officially tell everyone that Reddit is the new place for news/feedback/interaction with Cryptic because it certainly does not appear to be the forums sadly.

dareau · February 2018

My quick thoughts on structure & order

Main forum on left, sub-fora after dash...

GNN - Patch Notes, Media Corps. Rules & Policies stickied as post #1 in GNN "main", possible subforum for discussion of rules/policies
Feedback - Test Servers, Factions
Academy & Support - factions (note, reason this is Academy & support is that if we're already supporting build/playstyle/game questions here, why not include the technical issues here along with the gameplay ones\
Fleet Recruiting - Factions (no posting in "main" fleet recruiting allowed, just Fed/KDF as a KDF can't join a Feddie fleet, so no "total game recruiting" can occur)
STO General - PvP (for STO related stuff not listed above, PvPers get their alcove in here so they can be noticed)
10 Forward

starswordc · February 2018

If you do this, I'd like to add a fan fiction subforum to Ten Forward, Kael.

Forum Consolidation - Thoughts

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