Bad forums structure

Just a question... how do you folks manage to keep up with the threads across the many forums here without a tracker? :confused:

Unless I'm terribly missing something, I really think an upgrade in the actual Forum engine to make it user friendly would surely help people to keep up with non-trolling threads.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/subscription.php

You can subscribe to entire forums.

I could ask the same thing about reddit, i'm only able to see the latest posts, there's no option to see all the topics.

I like this old school style. Simple and easy. Not a mess like reddit or the new WoW forums.
Server is probably in Japan or they have hamster powering it since FFXIV forums aren't the fastest ones, especially if you do user / player search

I definitely think there could be a few quality of life features that could be added. An option to follow a thread, be notified when a new post happens in it and also have a dashboard of all your followed threads goes a long, long way.

That being said, this forum's layout is clean as hell. I can't complain on that front, at least

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Originally Posted by Jin-

I like this old school style. Simple and easy. Not a mess like reddit or the new WoW forums.
Server is probably in Japan or they have hamster powering it since FFXIV forums aren't the fastest ones, especially if you do user / player search

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The forums are in fact hosted in Japan.

I'd just like to be able to change my name tbh, I haven't used this character name since 1.0

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Originally Posted by LilyPendragon

I'd just like to be able to change my name tbh, I haven't used this character name since 1.0

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Same here.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

Just a question... how do you folks manage to keep up with the threads across the many forums here without a tracker? :confused:

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A... tracker?
I just click the New Posts button in the upper left and get shown everything.
EZ
I also don't use the mobile version of the site so it's easier to see what threads have/haven't updated.

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Originally Posted by Ammokkx

I definitely think there could be a few quality of life features that could be added. An option to follow a thread, be notified when a new post happens in it and also have a dashboard of all your followed threads goes a long, long way.

That being said, this forum's layout is clean as hell. I can't complain on that front, at least

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There is a function like that - thread subscriptions. You can see all the threads you're subscribed to and I *believe* it does notify you.

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Originally Posted by MilkieTea

There is a function like that - thread subscriptions. You can see all the threads you're subscribed to and I *believe* it does notify you.

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Ho shit really? My bad, then. I guess I never noticed on this forum since I didn't see a dedicated button for it.

The forum software used by SE for the official FFXIV and FFXI Forums incidentally is not even SE's design anyway, it's off-the-shelf forum software called VBulletin which is, a fairly common forum package many companies use. Unfortunately because it is propriatery software, it limits what SE can and cannot do with it's design, and the forum's functions are limited to what the software included.

Having used VBulletin on other independent forums, including serving as a moderator on one, I know how fiddly the administrative functions and backend of this software can be, so the GMs and admin staff are probably facing similar headaches behind the scenes that we simply do not know about.

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Originally Posted by Ammokkx

Ho shit really? My bad, then. I guess I never noticed on this forum since I didn't see a dedicated button for it.

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Yeah, It's under "Thread tools". Kind of out of the way and easy to miss, but at least it exists!

The Settings button in the top bar takes you to a list of your subscribed threads.

You are automatically subscribed to every thread you post to, though the thread tools button lets you sort it into a folder.

(I don't understand how to sort generic subscribed threads into folders so I have to unsub and resub if I want to file it.)

Mostly I just browse via the New Posts button though, so I see things across all the subforums.

Threads with new posts are in bold.

I go through the list of threads, make a response to the ones I want, use the browser's back feature, refresh the listing page.

It's simple and I love it.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

The forum software used by SE for the official FFXIV and FFXI Forums incidentally is not even SE's design anyway, it's off-the-shelf forum software called VBulletin which is, a fairly common forum package many companies use. Unfortunately because it is propriatery software, it limits what SE can and cannot do with it's design, and the forum's functions are limited to what the software included.

Having used VBulletin on other independent forums, including serving as a moderator on one, I know how fiddly the administrative functions and backend of this software can be, so the GMs and admin staff are probably facing similar headaches behind the scenes that we simply do not know about.

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Really?

To this day, my best forum experience (just in terms of using the website) was with a forum using a custom vbulletin software.

EDIT: I just check and that particular forum is still using version 3.8.11 of vbulletin, and I think it's because of their customization. And, wow, it still looks the same and still looks great. It's been years.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

You are automatically subscribed to every thread you post to, though the thread tools button lets you sort it into a folder.

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I wish you can disable that feature. I have to preview every post so I can uncheck the box to subscribe to the thread.

I don't need a subscription with the way I browse this forum.