Forum Structure Changes Coming on June 30th

[ke'la]

Kasandria wrote:

While I support these changes (with the hope that the classes will be more active and more often reviewed) and that Gameplay/combat doesn't get too busy.. the nunber one thing that would make information more findable on these boards is the ability to search by date. Things change and the old information just doesn't apply any more.Edited for grammar

One thing I would like to see here is the addition of an "archive" sub-forum in each of the main forums and any post that is not stickied or seen activity in about 6 months gets auto moved into said folder and posts in those folders are not included in general searches, but can be opted into, if there is a reason to look for an old post. I think that would streamline the searches a great deal and make it easier to find what you are looking for.

[Tstorm]

Kasandria wrote:

While I support these changes (with the hope that the classes will be more active and more often reviewed) and that Gameplay/combat doesn't get too busy.. the nunber one thing that would make information more findable on these boards is the ability to search by date. Things change and the old information just doesn't apply any more.

You can already do this, but it isn't the default behavior:

• Go to the advanced search page
• Enter your criteria (keywords, username, forum, etc.)
• Change "Order by" from "Relevance" to "Post Date"

[Tstorm]

ke'la wrote:

Kasandria wrote:

While I support these changes (with the hope that the classes will be more active and more often reviewed) and that Gameplay/combat doesn't get too busy.. the nunber one thing that would make information more findable on these boards is the ability to search by date. Things change and the old information just doesn't apply any more.Edited for grammar

One thing I would like to see here is the addition of an "archive" sub-forum in each of the main forums and any post that is not stickied or seen activity in about 6 months gets auto moved into said folder and posts in those folders are not included in general searches, but can be opted into, if there is a reason to look for an old post. I think that would streamline the searches a great deal and make it easier to find what you are looking for.

While I do agree in large part with archiving ancient posts, as I mentioned above, you can do time based searches with the advanced search page already.  In your case, you might be interested in the "Search Posts Within" option that allows you to only search posts within a specified period of time.

[Kasandria]

Tstorm wrote:

ke'la wrote:

Kasandria wrote:

While I support these changes (with the hope that the classes will be more active and more often reviewed) and that Gameplay/combat doesn't get too busy.. the nunber one thing that would make information more findable on these boards is the ability to search by date. Things change and the old information just doesn't apply any more.Edited for grammar

One thing I would like to see here is the addition of an "archive" sub-forum in each of the main forums and any post that is not stickied or seen activity in about 6 months gets auto moved into said folder and posts in those folders are not included in general searches, but can be opted into, if there is a reason to look for an old post. I think that would streamline the searches a great deal and make it easier to find what you are looking for.

While I do agree in large part with archiving ancient posts, as I mentioned above, you can do time based searches with the advanced search page already.  In your case, you might be interested in the "Search Posts Within" option that allows you to only search posts within a specified period of time.

WOOT thanks you two.  I didn't realize you could do that now.  I had mostly given up on the boards for that very reason.

[Grimwell]

Just to give the official heads up, it's been a long day but I'm digging into this now, and will finish it after I get home tonight. So expect the changes to start trickling in, and don't panic! : )

[Lilj]

Grimwell wrote:

Just to give the official heads up, it's been a long day but I'm digging into this now, and will finish it after I get home tonight. So expect the changes to start trickling in, and don't panic! : )

I hope that is written in big friendly letters I was wondering if there is a way to collapse the 'Support Forums'. As it is now, groups like 'General EQ2 Discussion' is very far down the page and I don't find that user friendly. Could it perhaps be an option for us users to individually collapse or not collapse the groups we want and thereby have our own set-up?

[Tstorm]

Liljna wrote:

I was wondering if there is a way to collapse the 'Support Forums'. As it is now, groups like 'General EQ2 Discussion' is very far down the page and I don't find that user friendly. Could it perhaps be an option for us users to individually collapse or not collapse the groups we want and thereby have our own set-up?

I agree having individual control over collapsing categories would be nifty.  I suspect this would require some development effort, however, and isn't just a switch the admins can throw to allow it.It's funny though -- when the Support category was collapsed before, people complained that forums in there (tech support in particular) were too difficult to find.  Now that it is expanded, the opposite complaints are coming out.  It's difficult to please everyone (which gives credit to having the forum software give individuals the ability to collapse categories). With Lithium, we had the ability to float individual forums to the top.  That might be nifty too, although in any event, you can just use your browser to bookmark/favorite the individual forums you like the best and avoid sorting through the main forum listing altogether.

[Kasandria]

Hey just so you know.. I've tried the advanced search feature that was pointed out to me, while you can arrange by date, the relevance goes all to hell in a handbasket.  Basically it only needs to match one word in your search it seems, so a search for SK duo (example) got me stuff on duo and stuff on SK but not necessarily SK and duo together.  So I tried searching by relevance but restricting by posting period (1 day, 90 days, 1 year etc).  Every single time you try to restrict by posting period you get an internal error message. So I'm back to asking for search to be fixed please.

[Tstorm]

Kasandria wrote:

Hey just so you know.. I've tried the advanced search feature that was pointed out to me, while you can arrange by date, the relevance goes all to hell in a handbasket.  Basically it only needs to match one word in your search it seems, so a search for SK duo (example) got me stuff on duo and stuff on SK but not necessarily SK and duo together.  So I tried searching by relevance but restricting by posting period (1 day, 90 days, 1 year etc).  Every single time you try to restrict by posting period you get an internal error message. So I'm back to asking for search to be fixed please.

I get a "An internal error occurred when performing the search. Please try again later." error when I restrict the posting period to 14 days or more.  Less than that seems to work fine (at least when I tried it).  Something buggy is going on though.In addition, under "Search by Keyword", the default is to "Search all terms" so if it isn't doing that, that is another bug.  With your "sk duo" example using "Order by post date", I couldn't reproduce this though.  Every post I skimmed through had both words somewhere in the post (though I did skim pretty quickly).Either way, there is at least one forum software bug that looks like it needs fixing (the "internal error" message with restricting the posting period).

[Grimwell]

Changes got stalled last night after we discovered the ugly they were causing. So... that's going to happen again later today when I dig back in, but I know what's going to happen and can get a fast fix when it is all set. I'll give a note of warning, and then start rolling. Until then don't consider what you see 'final form' cause we aren't there yet!

[Tyr]

Grimwell wrote:

To be clear: Not every post in a class forum will get a developer answer. Truthfully, the vast majority of them won’t, but this change and refocus on the class boards will make it easier for the team to find what they need, when they need it.

IMHO, the forum changes are definitely a step forward in the right direction, however, the line I quoted is not moving forward as much as it could.  I can see how it would help the team find what they need, but I don't see how it helps to increase communication especially with this stated in the post.We don't necessarily need a developer taking time out of his work to address all of the community concerns, but I think you would be hard pressed to find a customer not wanting that statement to read: "Not every post in a class forum will get a developer answer. Truthfully, the vast majority of them won’t, but please welcome X our newly appointed developer liasion community rep to work directly between the community and the developers with a goal of responding to as many threads as possible."I'm surprised that there hasn't been something like this done yet especially with a perfect example of what the community wants here: "http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=370931".

[Grimwell]

Tyric wrote:

"Not every post in a class forum will get a developer answer. Truthfully, the vast majority of them won’t, but please welcome X our newly appointed developer liasion community rep to work directly between the community and the developers with a goal of responding to as many threads as possible."

We like to call that person the "Community Manager" around these parts. The end result is the same, we watch and share with the team things we find that don't have an answer yet -- and then communicate where and when we can (have to have something new to say...). Thing is, we watch all the forums so even then YMMV. I'd just rather be honest about that than fib. ;O) The Class forums are getting more attention now, keep that in mind, even if you don't see responses. If a developer has the choice between giving 50 answers or making 1 tweak based on the feedback, how would you want the time used?

[Grimwell]

All intended changes are now complete! The system is being flushed to make sure everyone can see and operate in the modified environment and then it's all good to go time. No more chaos for a little while, thanks for the feedback, and patience while it all got done.I do reserve the right to make another round of changes after we sift through this one, or a drunken rampage of deletion and forums smashing to shake things up (that last bit is a joke).

[Silverpaws]

I cant put my finger on it, but the forums seem longer, and less user friendly.  I can see the upside for the devs in that it defines the sections better.  However, maybe I just havent got use to it yet.  Its just seems like a long staircase instead of an open door.

Hard to explain.  I will see how I feel about it in a week or so.

[Hukklebuk]

new layout is a little more fluid, not bad Grim.  not bad