twitter now requires an account to see STO status updates - move them?

davefenestrator · June 2023

twitter used to allow anonymous guests to view the most recent posts so those of us without accounts could still see the STO updates for things like server maintenance and issues. Musk's change of the week was to disable this, requiring a login to see anything at all.

(Comments moderated out. - BMR)

Edit: I see a "social" area on the right side of this page, can someone who has a twitter account confirm whether it matches the twitter feed? - https://www.playstartrekonline.com/en/news?_gl=1*atzpbm*_ga*OTMxMTAyNDMyLjE2NzY1OTY4MjQ.*_ga_KX8FVJCL30*MTY4ODE2ODY1Ni4zNDAuMC4xNjg4MTY4Njc4LjAuMC4w

fred26291 · July 2023

I personally continue to go without the updates on twitter CAUSE I DONT WANT A TWITTER ACCOUNT!
Also, why should I be forced to go to multiple locations for STO News Updates?
One source is plenty for any game. ARC Page

psiameese · July 2023

As other social media options have become available, I do see a need for game production companies to evolve their marketing tools. Someone at Embracer Group/Gearbox needs to tell Cryptic what that plan is? Mastadon? Threads? Then let the player's know?

rattler2 · July 2023

The problem with Twitter, and this is my opinion, is Elon Musk. He could have just left things alone and things would be fine. But he had to go and do... everything he did, and Twitter is collapsing.
This current situation he's trying to say its to curb... something or other. I don't know what.

Also note this is the opinion of someone who doesn't have a Twitter account. Just seeing everything that's happening from the outside and wondering... WTF is going on over there? I mean the paid verification was abused from the get go, so that went over like a lead balloon. This is just one more thing on the pile.

davefenestrator · July 2023

Yes, it's 100% Musk. He doesn't even follow the reasons he gave for taking over and smashing everything.

Free speech absolutist? He's deleted accounts that annoyed him.

Unbiased search results? He had his own tweets pushed to the top, and is currently censoring any mention of Meta's Thread competitor in search results.

Bots? No fixes, and now they get a blue "verified" checkbox.

etc.

I don't have an account either, and went to the site only for news updates and cute animal videos (dawww, kitty!) but it's now a dumpster fire.

baddmoonrizin · July 2023

This is NOT the place for complaining about Elon Musk and/or Twitter. I'm sure they have a website, forum, or place for feedback, if you want to complain about how they do things.

The Social section of the STO website is not up to date/current with STO Tweets. From what I am told and understand, this is an issue that Gearbox itself has to address.

Are you saying that you cannot see any of the Tweets at all on the STO website? What about the ones linked here in the Forum?

phoenixc · July 2023

baddmoonrizin wrote: »

This is NOT the place for complaining about Elon Musk and/or Twitter. I'm sure they have a website, forum, or place for feedback, if you want to complain about how they do things.

The Social section of the STO website is not up to date/current with STO Tweets. From what I am told and understand, this is an issue that Gearbox itself has to address.

Are you saying that you cannot see any of the Tweets at all on the STO website? What about the ones linked here in the Forum?

I am not sure about the STO website, but as for links to tweets in the forum, it is spotty at best if you don't have a Twitter account. Some of the links actually go through but most nowadays hit an overlay saying you must be signed in to view the content.

It might be a good time for Cryptic (or even Gearbox) to look at an entirely internal option so they are not subject to the whims of a third party, especially since gamers tend to get their social chatting done in the ingame channels and Discord instead of tweeting and so many don't have Twitter accounts.

davefenestrator · July 2023

@baddmoonrizin - If you are not logged in to twitter, the main page for Star Trek Online (@trekonlinegame) · Twitter = https://twitter.com/trekonlinegame - is sent to a page requiring you to log in. Try it yourself using a different browser like Edge where your password is not saved.

Links to 1 specific tweet still are displayed without a login, but if you want to know about current news like a game problem or server issue you are out of luck.

I just noticed a trick to get around this for now, until it is "fixed". If you go to one of those single tweets, there is a link at the top of the page that takes you to the main page. Apparently the developers who added the login requirement didn't test for that.

Blocking the main page is by design, not a mistake: Reuters - https://www.reuters.com/technology/twitter-now-needs-users-sign-view-tweets-2023-06-30/

rattler2 · July 2023

Uh... Val? You just confused me. Your post basically sounds like "Why are YOU hungry? I have a sandwich."
Of COURSE those people who DO have a Twitter account can see the posts because Twitter is currently rigged to only show Tweets to people who have logged in, therefore people who DON'T have a Twitter account are SOL. So... what was the point of saying people WITH accounts have no problem seeing Tweets?

jonsills · July 2023

Gearbox definitely needs to figure it out and get the STO social-media posts on this here website. I'd also advise using (shudder) Facebook more; I'm riding Twitter all the way to impact if only for the schadenfreude, but it's starting to look like the inevitable implosion may be only months away given current trends.

baddmoonrizin · July 2023

Look, I don't need a bunch of bickering. I'm trying to work a solution.

OK, so, @davefenestrator , are you saying that you CAN see the Tweets in the Social section of playstartrekonline.com ? And I'm talking about the Tweets that are there. Not Tweets that aren't posted. For example, right now, the most recent Tweet on there as of this posting says this:

Star Trek Online
@trekonlinegame - 18 hours ago
Last night's patch notes about the Maelstrom Torpedo had an important developer context removed before they went live. You can read that context here:

https://t.co/QAh8wno2vS https://t.co/LaxtMenTG0

Take into account that the website doesn't seem to update Tweets in real-time.

Next question: What about Tweets that I have posted into the forum? Usually in GNN about updates on things. I know that there were a few people not too long ago saying they couldn't see the actually Tweet, just the link.

I'm trying to figure out who all can see or not see what, where, to find a solution to the issue. If it turns out that I have to copy each every Tweet myself into a thread here, then I will.

davefenestrator · July 2023

@baddmoonrizin

If you do not have a login to twitter:

- you CAN see the News page at starttrkeonline.com posts of tweets, but they will not be up-to-date, which is a problem when you want to know about something like server maintenance taking longer than expected, a new event not starting on time which happens sometimes on console, or some other problem, or even some time-sensitive good news like a giveaway.
- you CAN NOT go directly to the main page for STO at twitter.com, because that shows a "you must log in" page instead. This is intentional, by design, a change to twitter policy. (See Reuters link above, or do a Google search on twitter requiring login)
- you CAN view links to one specific tweet, at least for now. This might be blocked too at some point.
- you CAN sneak in to the main page using a back door link from one of those single tweet links. This goes against the decision to block home pages so looks like a bug to me, that they might fix.

I'm trying to figure out who all can see or not see what, where, to find a solution to the issue. If it turns out that I have to copy each every Tweet myself into a thread here, then I will.

A twitter feed sticky link with user comments disabled (like Kael's topic for other news) would be very helpful for those who choose not to support Musk's twitter. It could just be for status updates to fill in for the slow updates to playstartekonline's News page.

davefenestrator · July 2023

valoreah wrote: »

rattler2 wrote: »

Uh... Val? You just confused me. Your post basically sounds like "Why are YOU hungry? I have a sandwich."

Not at all what I said. To be clear, I do not care one iota about Twitter. I do not have a Twitter account. I have never had a Twitter account. I have no desire whatsoever to ever have a Twitter account or an account on any other social media service.

With that said, I do not believe anyone who does use the service should have anything taken away from them. The truly ludicrous vitriol some folk are lobbing toward Twitter in this thread (especially prior to the post modding) was leaning toward Cryptic dropping Twitter because some people do not want to sign up for an account. People who do use the platform should not be penalized and have their access to STO information on the platform taken away from them because a select few have a beef with a particular social media service.

This is an old subject that has cropped up time and again over the years. It is not just about not wanting a Twitter account. Many people cannot view links to social media posts while at work or other places that block access to social media platforms on their network. As I said before, in my opinion news and information about STO should be posted here on the STO website. This is after all the "official" site.

I agree with that last part that this site and the playstartrekonline site should be receiving status updates as quickly as twitter does now. Posting here would not take any longer than posting there.

I disagree that moving updates from a now-private space like Twitter to a still-public space like Threads, Mastodon, etc. would not "take away" access for those who have twitter accounts. It would move status updates back to a public space that everyone is free to view.

davefenestrator · July 2023

valoreah wrote: »

davefenestrator wrote: »

I disagree that moving updates from a now-private space like Twitter to a still-public space like Threads, Mastodon, etc. would not "take away" access for those who have twitter accounts. It would move status updates back to a public space that everyone is free to view.

Removing STO updates from Twitter is taking access away from people who already have accounts there. You cannot have that both ways. This is essentially telling people "I do not like Twitter, so you all should lose out so I can get what I want on another platform." Just as you do not want to use Twitter, perhaps others already on there do not want to use other platforms.

You are much better off advocating for the marketing team at Cryptic to include other platforms. There is a whole host of software products out there that can blast posts to various platforms. That allows people to have more options, not less.

I'm not sure how moving the posts to where everyone can read them without an account including twitter users is taking away their access?

Or do you mean their ability to click "like" or some such?

phoenixc · July 2023

Even a lot of direct links to twitter posts fail, though I don't know if it is how they are posted or if there is a formatting issue in the link, or maybe some external problem like ISP or CDN issues.

rattler2 · July 2023

valoreah wrote: »

This is essentially telling people "I do not like Twitter, so you all should lose out so I can get what I want on another platform." Just as you do not want to use Twitter, perhaps others already on there do not want to use other platforms.

Uh... no one is saying that Val. At most some are saying that maybe it would be a good idea to EXPLORE other options. Not "remove it this instant".
And the way Twitter is going... it probably is a good idea to start exploring other options so that if and when Twitter implodes, we got a fallback to instantly use as a replacement.
But the whole point of this was not to demand Twitter be replaced right this second. There are issues with Twitter right now that are inhibiting people from seeing Tweets.

You know me. I'm ALWAYS happy with options. The more the better IMO. But in this instance... it literally is what I called you out on. "You can't be hungry because I have a sandwich." In this case you're basically taking up a crusade to defend Twitter on behalf of those who HAVE a Twitter account and acting like those of us who don't want to take that away from you. That is not the case here. But right now Twitter's being shtako with their lockdown on seeing content without an account. Those of you WITH accounts... aren't having a problem. Those WITHOUT, are. And that does impact information being carried over here onto the forums if some Tweets that get posted are being locked behind an account wall.

That is what we're discussing here. Not demanding the removal of Cryptic's Twitter account. We're concerned about what's going on and how its impacting people, and floating ideas on how to deal with it.

davefenestrator · July 2023

valoreah wrote: »

[ Where was all of this care concern for others who had expressed the same issues with news being posted to Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites being blocked on their work or other network, making the links not viewable for them? Or their preference to not use social media at all? No one seemed to take issue when people mentioned this problem before. Why all the concern now?

That seems like a separate issue to me. Nanny software at work that is so restrictive it blocks twitter could also be blocking this forum and playstartrekonline. Not being able to go to social or gaming sites while being paid to work doesn't seem like a hardship to me, but my employer isn't so draconian.

The issue I'm raising is: twitter used to be open to everyone to view anonymously (except those with over-controlling employers during work hours I guess). Now twitter requires that you log in, so only those willing to sign up can view status updates.

My personal opinion is that Cryptic should care about this, especially since many people do not agree with how twitter is now run. I am not demanding anything, I am making a feature request to either move the quick updates or to make the News page twitter feed work properly.

You are free to make other feature requests like that Cryptic unblock twitter at your work, or stop using any services, or post to multiple services. Multiple services (e.g. adding Threads) would also satisfy my feature request.

rattler2 · July 2023

valoreah wrote: »

Where was all of this care concern for others who had expressed the same issues with news being posted to Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites being blocked on their work or other network, making the links not viewable for them? Or their preference to not use social media at all? No one seemed to take issue when people mentioned this problem before. Why all the concern now?

There's a difference between employers limiting the sites employees can visit while on the clock, personal choices, and the very Social Media site that has the information limiting access to that information to the general public.

Employers blocking sites on their business networks is on that business. Nothing anyone can do because of company policy.
Personal choice is personal choice. For example... Why does me not having a Twitter Account warrant concern?
Twitter purposefully inhibiting access to ONLY those who have an account affects everyone who doesn't have an account that view tweets posted on other sites like STO.

So... how is it the same? I don't see how there's any comparison whatsoever.
Lets say Baddmoon posts the tweets here on the forums. The way things are now... you still can't see those tweets that are being posted here UNLESS you sign into Twitter. So how are those of us NOT with Twitter Accounts supposed to see said posted Tweets? We can't because they're locked behind an account wall. Before Musk decided on reasons, EVERYONE could see posted Tweets even if they didn't have a Twitter Account. You, me, the Sehlat down the street... Now... you'd be lucky if you see the Tweets without getting asked to log into Twitter first.

baddmoonrizin · July 2023

How? Because, if I have to, I intend to copy each Tweet word-for-word and post them, so that forum users without Twitter accounts can still read them.

bigblackafrica · July 2023

What about using a STO Discord server for announcements the way they do for Neverwinter?

I guess that's not particularly helpful for people who don't use Discord, but how many gamers don't use Discord?

rattler2 · July 2023

A lot of games nowadays seem to also have an official Discord server. Prime example being Deep Rock Galactic.
However at this stage that would probably require a dedicated team to Moderate. Still an interesting idea.

starswordc · July 2023

valoreah wrote: »

davefenestrator wrote: »

That seems like a separate issue to me.

rattler2 wrote: »

There's a difference between employers limiting the sites employees can visit while on the clock, personal choices, and the very Social Media site that has the information limiting access to that information to the general public.

It is not a separate issue and it is fairly obvious to see the common thread. Posting updates to Twitter has always been problematic for many for a whole host of reasons since day one. This has been brought up many, many, many times before. This has led to the problem of neglect of the supposed "official" website.

valoreah wrote: »

One could argue that signing up for a free account on a service like Twitter is not a hardship either. I personally would not suggest that to anyone, but it is valid.

I'm confused. Are you saying that Cryptic both should and shouldn't continue to post updates to Twitter?

I'm going to ignore the part about company policies (anybody with sense is using a VPN for their personal devices outside their home network, and what are you doing trying to play or read about video games on a company device) and continue to...

valoreah wrote: »

I will reiterate once again, it is about time the marketing team here gets with the times and starts taking advantage of the available tools out there to push information out to multiple sources at once, starting with the official website. Give the customers a choice of where to consume the information on their favored source. To me, that is a much, much better solution than trying to get Twitter to work or having @baddmoonrizin copy and paste tweets to the forums. That is an incredible waste of time and effort in my opinion.

I think the Community Team very much needs to treat its own company-controlled website as the primary means of communicating with the fans and not rely on third-party social media companies to have sensible management. We're talking about corporate America here: this is probably not going to be the last time that a third-party communications channel gets taken over by a pointy-haired boss.

That said -- likewise having no Twitter account nor desire for one -- exactly what information tends to get tweeted that is not also available through the company news feed? Are we talking about an actual meaningful problem here, or are you just being contrary?

lordmalak1 · July 2023

baddmoonrizin wrote: »

How? Because, if I have to, I intend to copy each Tweet word-for-word and post them, so that forum users without Twitter accounts can still read them.

PLEASE DO !
I've been waiting YEARS for this. YEARS !
IMHO 'Official' notifications should always be posted on the 'official' website first, then reposted in social media.

davefenestrator · July 2023

starswordc wrote: »

That said -- likewise having no Twitter account nor desire for one -- exactly what information tends to get tweeted that is not also available through the company news feed? Are we talking about an actual meaningful problem here, or are you just being contrary?

Mostly status updates, like if server maintenance is taking longer than expected and then when it is eventually done, or when one of the platforms (usually console) is having an issue with rolling out an event or sale and it has been delayed for a day.

Being able to go to twitter to see that Cryptic is aware of some problem, is working on it, and expects to have a fix by (some time) is helpful. If that (some time) is tomorrow then you know to give up on STO for the day. If it will only be an hour or two you know to come back later.

One thing I agree with Val on is that ideally Cryptic would set up scripting or whatever to post to multiple media at once instead of just using twitter. If posts got sent automatically to to a feed at the main News page, to twitter, facebook, threads, mastodon then people could use their platform of choice.

starswordc · July 2023

davefenestrator wrote: »

starswordc wrote: »

That said -- likewise having no Twitter account nor desire for one -- exactly what information tends to get tweeted that is not also available through the company news feed? Are we talking about an actual meaningful problem here, or are you just being contrary?

Mostly status updates, like if server maintenance is taking longer than expected and then when it is eventually done, or when one of the platforms (usually console) is having an issue with rolling out an event or sale and it has been delayed for a day.

Being able to go to twitter to see that Cryptic is aware of some problem, is working on it, and expects to have a fix by (some time) is helpful. If that (some time) is tomorrow then you know to give up on STO for the day. If it will only be an hour or two you know to come back later.

One thing I agree with Val on is that ideally Cryptic would set up scripting or whatever to post to multiple media at once instead of just using twitter. If posts got sent automatically to to a feed at the main News page, to twitter, facebook, threads, mastodon then people could use their platform of choice.

Okay, thank you, now the problem makes a lot more sense.