Does the forums need a rework?

[GenericMagus]

A huge time lurker of the forums since the early days of 2.2 ARR, and I have also contributed quite a bit myself to topics I personally had an interest in. Yet after examining threads in many different parts of the forums, I feel these are dying.

With regards to people being permanently banned for stupid reasons and the people who should be on here aren't, many different avenues have been taken instead. As such while those are flourished with the influx on activity, these forums instead have slowly been dying. Check out many of the sections of Gameplay, such as Housing, PvP, Gold Saucer, even Dungeons. The only active forums I find are this one (General) and Lore, whereas all the others are so dry of input that they're almost like wastelands.

Do you think the Moderators led us down this path with people not being able to return to the forums thus stifling the community? Do you think the forums are antiquated and many features that should be appearant aren't here yet just aren't and it's hard to search for what you look for?

I wouldn't be surprised if forums just died off completely in the next expansion or 2 looking at things now, just deemed unnecessary for Western world.

[GenericMagus]

Also many of the accounts of people that should be on here to give ideas to SE just can't, meaning there's a constant vicious cycle at play, where the ideas people want are slow to come into the game, because all the voices just can't get onto the forums.

[ItMe]

What kind of a rework do you think could help bring life back to those wastelands?
Perhaps it's not the forums but SE not expanding on those areas (housing, gold saucer, etc) enough in game?

[MistakeNot]

There is no real problem with the forums in themselves, so absolutely no need for any kind of rework of them.
Some categories are quiet, true. Mostly because either people don't have much to discuss about those subjects, or they just don't see any reason to post there.

If the forums are dying, it is because players in general do not seem to have much interest in classic webforums any more - instead most discussions happen on places like Discord or Reddit despite those being far worse organized for discussions. Don't ask me why this is so, I do not understand it.

[Cyreil]

The forums have become obsolete.

[MistakeNot]

The forums have become obsolete.

Obsolete in what way? All existing substitutes are inferior in most respects.

[Shurrikhan]

I think there are some tremendously useful improvements that could be implemented, yes.

Before any new "features" exactly, there's just the obvious issue that these forums are rather slow compared to any modern well-used game forum. Loading a poster's profile here, for instance, typically takes over 20 seconds. On the Overwatch forum, it takes about 1 second, and that already caches threads created, recent posts, and then begins progressively pre-caching all further posts by that user. Here, loading their threads or the posts would take a further click and further 2-8 seconds' wait.

The other complaints:

1. Tags are painfully insufficient, partly because of tags being limited to 5 and there being virtually no sort of common vocabulary surrounding those tags.
   
2. The Search and even Advanced Search functions are useless in most cases. The system has no idea how to distinguish actual thread subject matter from something mentioned but irrelevant. Each does as described -- finds the most recent time the word "Monk" has been used on the forums, even if that's merely in the profile of someone on the Marriage megathread, or finds the most recently bumped thread with the word "Dancer" in it because you were clearly most interested in "PotD - Corpse Dancer Quest", right? -- but that's hardly sufficient for the tasks we'd want those functions to fill.

Apart from the above (tagging, search, and speed), these are the main directions of improvement I'd like to see:

1. Page connectivity

   There's a huge advantage at present to being at the top of a page, and a huge disadvantage to being at the bottom of one, just by way of which posts are most seen. In that regard, the easiest solution would be to swap to an uncapped vertical format. Atop this though, it can feel pointless to reply later in a busy thread, even when one's comment would still be pertinent, just due to the number of pages that would then separate the two posts. It'd be best to note at the bottom of each post how many replies a post has received and for those to be optionally openable directly below that post (ideally, in summarized form if extending beyond the currently visible page until clicking on the individual responses to expand them).

2. Quoting QoL

   Allow players to click and drag across another posters writing and then "Quote" that section in particular via a pop-up button. Allow any such quoted section to be expanded directly within the responder's post to show (with the quoted portion colored) the full context of the original post at the time of the quote, and to be collapsed back as the reader desires. Moreover, subtly underline the portions of an initial post that have been quoted by others. Perhaps even allow "quotes" to be made via a few different reactions ("Agree", "Disagree", "Confused", "Curious", "To Answer" etc.), and color the subtle underline accordingly. Maybe even optionally make use of a marginal space, where mousing over that subtly underlined area would give a blurb of the reply which quoted it. The underline would be optional; for my own part I'd likely only have it show when mousing over the post or even within a few lines of the underlined portion.

3. Better threading.

   Let players choose as they post, and others influence by review, whether something is pertinent to the thread as a whole or only by way of reply to another. Those less pertinent to the thread as a whole can take on a lower font, be more indented, etc., as according to the reader's set preferences. You can have well-liked posts with many "To Answer" replies, for instance, be made more visible, as they're likely to be house more of the useful guiding questions for a thread.

4. "Summarize" function.

   This one's complicated, but think of it as just using a customizable algorithm to made an entire thread far more quickly digestible. Readers can set their own weights to just about anything.

5. "Recommended" Page (?)

   Based on set forum interests and/or on previous searches and participation, you can have a "Recommended" Page, rather than everyone just using the New Posts function or checking the newest X posts of a (usually innately still too broad to be all that useful) sub-forums.

6. More involved "tagging" and a "cross-threading" support.

   As part of the thread creation process, have the TC select, say, whether they which to ask for advice, whether they wish to share an opinion, want to gather opinions, etc. Thereafter, as they write in the title, tags, and content, the system will check each against existing posts to recommend existing threads that would be more usefully house the content of the would-be new thread. Similarly, show when a given post has been quoted or linked in or from other threads, with handy links to said its place in said threads.

7. Notifications

   Notify people via the forum interface, optionally, when they've been replied to, when they've been liked, a(subscribed) thread they've participated in has been continued, or a new recommended thread has appeared, with further weights in each (e.g. only tell me if these people have done so).

8. Greylisting and Blacklisting

   Conversely, allow people to de-weight or generally remove certain posters, or those with certain types of reports made against them, from their forum experience.

9. Goldlisting (?)

   Opposite to the above, weight these specific individuals higher. This might also carry over in some way to default or general weights, effectively pushing forward de facto community leaders.

10. Dark Mode

    I like not being blinded by the forum's colors late at night.

[Recon1o6]

I second the grey/blacklisting. Gold listing is a bad idea as is reccomended. I want to browse at my choice, not have my screen taken by stuff that isn't relevant, and raising in theory is good, it can also lead to them and their followers drowning others out.

I think we need to see moderators here more and actual community responders or hell just someone from the devs to appear once in a while thats not in the tech support thread

Category revamp. There's some oft talked areas like glams etc but nowhere to stick them.

[Shurrikhan]

Gold listing is a bad idea as is reccomended. I want to browse at my choice, not have my screen taken by stuff that isn't relevant, and raising in theory is good, it can also lead to them and their followers drowning others out..

True, true. To be clear, the two points with "(?)" I'm not sold on in their current iterations, though I do think there's something in that vein that'd be beneficial.

Category revamp. There's some oft talked areas like glams etc but nowhere to stick them.

Shoot, 10 points of stuff and I forgot to mention the more immediate potential fixes. I'll second that.

[GenBroadaxe]

If it's the same as the business I work for, forums are just becoming antiquated. There's way more engagement on other platforms that can be more easily quantified and allow for a more personalized reply. Just look at how many of the posts outside of the 'Lore' sections are just the same thing said over and over. It becomes a bunch of white noise and it's the same way on pretty much any game forum you go to.

That said, I think they could consolidate some of the sections here and give some space for evergreen topics like glamour. like MistakeNot said, people are going to spend less time on them when there's more convenient ways of engaging with the community like Discord or Twitter.