Less and less SE interaction with forums community over time

[Iscah]

Part of the issue is everyone feels their opinion is important and deserves it’s own thread when square and yoshida have said time and again they go based on 1 thread with many likes for feedback and replies. We the English section just refuse to take that on board and still post many smaller threads on the same topic than one other one and throw it a like

That comes back to active moderation though. If the moderators were patrolling the forum locking/merging threads and saying "nope, join the one that's already active", people might learn that they need to look for the active thread first – which would be easier to find in the first place if it wasn't getting wiped off the first page by recycled drama from months ago.

Dev items on this Forum ... I think that SE decided spending a lot of time here saying "nope. not gonna comment" would have been shooting themselves in the foot. After all, if you can't say something nice [expected answer to question #2956 'How are Summoners, exactly, going to change in 6.0?'], don't say anything at all.

Why respond to a thread where people are laying out a whole new Healer regime when it has zero chance of arriving in game in that format? Why respond to a thread where players are redeveloping battle jobs, including rearranging oGCD/GCD rotations 'because it would be cool'?

Even a simple "thanks for your feedback" would be taken to mean "We're working on it".

That's not what I'd expect to see them responding to here – even if they were active, they'd have no obligation to take those sort of job-redesign posts on board.

But things like community feedback to an event or, as I've seen them do in the past, active responses to errors reported in the Localization forum, would be a good way to show that they're active and listening.

[EmoPanther]

I'd ignore these forums too with the kind of things that go on here XD

[Rinhi]

I'd ignore these forums too with the kind of things that go on here XD

and why do you think "those kind of things" go on here? because there's a complete lack of moderation

[kaynide]

Just to add to Icsah:

Mod or dev posting comes with a lot of weight. Were I to post a decent idea and a mod give a thumbs up or otherwise acknowledge me, they would have to then explain themselves.

Like a regularly seen good idea: allow us to color the names of FC members like we do friends. Any recognition, like “nice idea!” would cause people to think it’s a coming feature or has been accepted somehow. It could also cause anger when the mod says they don’t agree with whatever. Basically, 99% it’s just better to say or do nothing, then make a live letter addressing overall issues rather than individual posts.

It wouldn’t surprise me if some of the devs were just regular users going incognito.

[Curisu]

Just to add to Icsah:

Mod or dev posting comes with a lot of weight. Were I to post a decent idea and a mod give a thumbs up or otherwise acknowledge me, they would have to then explain themselves.

Like a regularly seen good idea: allow us to color the names of FC members like we do friends. Any recognition, like “nice idea!” would cause people to think it’s a coming feature or has been accepted somehow. It could also cause anger when the mod says they don’t agree with whatever. Basically, 99% it’s just better to say or do nothing, then make a live letter addressing overall issues rather than individual posts.

It wouldn’t surprise me if some of the devs were just regular users going incognito.

I guess that's the main problem.
They just can't say anything about the regular topic's because some people will think that it is a confirmation and will become mad when it doesn't happen.

The mod in the German Forum is just writing in the "off topic" thread and only about trivial stuff.
But that small interaction is enough to let us know that they are at least watch in the forum.

[Iscah]

The mod in the German Forum is just writing in the "off topic" thread and only about trivial stuff.
But that small interaction is enough to let us know that they are at least watch in the forum.

That would be the sensible way to go. Participate, but not in ways that approve or disapprove of any one idea.

It's also worth noting that they may not be able to directly take on suggestions outside of competitions, because that gets messy with copyright and ownership.

[kaynide]

I guess that's the main problem.
They just can't say anything about the regular topic's because some people will think that it is a confirmation and will become mad when it doesn't happen.

The mod in the German Forum is just writing in the "off topic" thread and only about trivial stuff.
But that small interaction is enough to let us know that they are at least watch in the forum.

This is probably the way to go. Just short responses to the “show your au ra” or whatever threads to say “oh that’s cute” or “nice submission, thank you!”. No actual engagement or explanations in thread debates, but just enough to show they are there.

[Loony_BoB]

I disagree.

people will easily be given and inch and run with it for miles. especially on forums. a developer says something, and suddenly its either a controversy or an EXPECTED future implementation simply because a dev mentioned it. look at all the fuss generated over an icon for a job not even in the game yet that has ZERO history.

This is where moderation comes in. They did this kind of interaction for years without issue. People can have their controversy and the devs don't need to pay attention to it at all quite frankly, it's a fairly isolated area for such things. The community managers simply notice things they feel are worth passing on, highlight them to the devs, and we get the odd response. There is no obligation for them to say anything beyond that. If they're going to have these forums, they absolutely can work. They did it in the past, there is precedent for it working absolutely without problem. Only in the past two years have they stopped doing it, and I dare say that the forums are worse off for it, not better.

Regarding the post by kaynide, the things they tended to reply to in the past were always well written and I don't think they ever really had the impact you are stating. I've never seen a mod or dev say they don't like an idea. They only posted about things such as:

1) Reasons why something can't be done (not to say it isn't a good idea)
2) That something is a good idea and they will look into it
3) That they agree and a fix has been implemented
4) Providing lore details

Of course, I've not seen every single post by the devs and community managers but I don't recall any time they caused any problems.

EDIT2: Examples of how mods/devs interacted with the community in the past:

Help/information provided for a user
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post2692500
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...92#post3969492
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...33#post3116933
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...87#post2861187

Confirmation that the team is looking into a suggestion/concern (note: most of these were implemented, from what I know of the game)
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post1101676
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...56#post3116856
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...02#post3116802
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...10#post3066610
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...66#post3066466
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...70#post3062370
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...46#post3058146
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...90#post2872190
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...29#post2812529
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...40#post2787940
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...37#post2787937
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...61#post2757261

Confirmation that a fix has been implemented for an issue and/or new feature reveals
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...92#post3770692
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...32#post3403632
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...34#post2787934

Clarification on how a decision was reached
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...75#post3684775
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...11#post3655511

Asking to keep a thread on topic
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...15#post3483815

Suggestion to log a bug report
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...87#post2872187

[Loony_BoB]

Guys, I think I found the answer to my own thread:



https://www.paycomonline.net/v4/ats/...0AB4ECF899F4D0

Anyone in California wanna step up?

[Kes13a]

Guys, I think I found the answer to my own thread:



https://www.paycomonline.net/v4/ats/...0AB4ECF899F4D0

Anyone in California wanna step up?

personally, at this point in time I would not want to hire ANYONE from the California area... especially if they have a certain game developing company on their resume. ESPECIALLY for any kind of "social" position