CCP, please add 'Guides & Apps' Sub-Category to each Forum Category

Hello CCP,

Just like the title suggests, adding a ‘Guides & Apps’ Sub-Category to each major Category would make it much easier for Community members to quickly find and access Player Created Guides & Applications for that specific Category.

As time goes on, more and more question / observation type threads will be created and added to each Sub-Category resulting in endless scrolling just to find any Player Created Guides & Applications. Adding a ‘Guides & Apps’ Sub-Category to each major Category would keep those Player Created Guides & Applications all together in one location without getting buried and or lost among regular threads.

I propose that the following Categories have a ‘Guides & Apps’ Sub-Category added to them:

New Citizens Q&A
Communications Center
PvP Gameplay Center
PvE Gameplay Center
Industry Gameplay Center
Exploration Gameplay Center
Marketplace
EVE Technology and Research Center (Not sure about this one but hey, why not)

Also the Russian, French and Dutch language forums should have a ‘Guides & Apps’ Sub-Category as well. If implemented, all guide & application threads in each Category should be moved to it’s Sub-Category and be appropriately marked with the ‘Guide’ or ‘App’ tag. To help in locating guide & application threads that aren’t already tagged or posted in the wrong Category, players could bring those to your attention by flagging the OP of the thread.

Thank you for taking the time to consider this and I hope you decide to implement it asap before these forums become more active.

:sunglasses:

DMC

8 Likes

+1

Though i feel like having additional subcategories inside “Guides” would be helpful. Otherwise, the likely ever increasing amount of different guides about different things will result in the same situation you want to have dealt with. What do you think?

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Let’s make sub-category for almost every topic! One place for guides or leave it as it is. Or just stick them.

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I guess my concerns can be addressed by using tags and filtering threads based on them.

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I don’t know. The main point is to have the player created guides and applications for each specific Category not get buried or lost among all the other threads.

If a written guide contains all the information available for a specific topic, say for instance the ‘Faction Standing Repair Plan’, I don’t see how it can be presented any differently other than turning it into a Video Guide. When changes are made to the game affecting a specific topic, each player who created those guides and applications would of course have to update their threads. If those players are no longer in the game, then another player could feasibly create an ‘Updated’ guide or application for that topic. I guess there could also be ‘Basic’ and ‘Advanced’ versions created for the same topic.

Since each Category has a limited amount of Sub-Categories within it, I don’t envision the ‘Guides & Apps’ Sub-Category for each Category getting overly swamped.

Maybe instead of just having one ‘Guides & Apps’ Sub-Category, split it into 2 different Sub-Categories, one for guides and another one for applications?

Well, have you checked how they work on discourse?

  1. All topic on main borad page are based by activity not categories.
  2. When you open main category is same thing. Topics from all subs are put together and mixed by activity.

In that case. Best option (in my opinion) is one big category. Other ones will only generate more unwanted mess.

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The main Forum Board page lists all Categories with each one listing all Sub-Categories on the left and 3 recently active threads listed on the right.

I don’t usually open a Category by selecting a thread title presented there since it only has 3 threads listed. If I just want to view or post threads about missions, I’ll just select the ‘Missions’ Sub-Category in the PvE Gameplay Center Category listed on the main Forum Board.

As for the main Category page listing all latest active threads in all Sub-Categories, that’s only if you have it selected to show ‘All’ Sub-Categories in the selection menu top left side of the forum.

As I said earlier, as more and more regular threads are created, Player Created Guides and Application threads will get buried and lost among them, resulting in players having to scroll through endless amounts of regular threads. Most players will stop searching after a while and just post a thread asking for that information, just like the 100’s of other players before them did.

With a ‘Guides & Apps’ Sub-Category listed, they can quickly go there without wasting time searching or posting a thread. Having to answer the same question over and over again and directing them to a specific thread gets tiresome, just ask any of the Vet’s who helped answer New Player Q&A threads in the old forums.

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+1 You actually beat me to suggesting this.

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i need to rethink this. /me lurks.

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:astonished:

Hey man, I was reading your wall of text reply when it suddenly disappeared.

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:rofl: I’M SORRY! I thought it’s not good enough!

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probably for guides, but apps are supposed to be in third party dev.

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True, but there’s also ‘Question / Observation’ threads posted there as well. In fact, the actual description for that Sub-Category is:

Welcome to the Third Party Developer’s Forum
The place to discuss everything related to third party development using the EVE API! Feel free to sit back, relax, and discuss your tools and apps here!

When I read that, it reminds me more of a ‘Think Tank’, a place to discuss, test and figure out how to make various Apps work. Which is why I mentioned the EVE Technology and Research Center Category in the OP of this thread.

Also it would just be another scroll fest there to find an application for a specific topic, for instance:
EVE PI - Planetary Interaction Android App

Since I’m just a user and not a programmer, I wouldn’t even think of looking in that Sub-Category. I’d more than likely be looking in the Mining & Extraction Sub-Category located in the Industry Gameplay Center Category. And since it wouldn’t be listed there, I’d probably create a thread there asking if an app was available for that.

Also there’s guides in the Third Party Developer’s Forum too, for example:
[Tutorial: YAML to JSON on Windows] Converting the Static Data Export (SDE)

Hell, the only reason I’m looking in that Sub-Category now is due to writing and answering replies in this thread. Besides, what would it hurt to have an app be posted there as well as in the Category topic that it was originally created for in the first place. If anything that would make it easier to locate and give it much more exposure which is a good thing, right?

I apologize if I haven’t grasped the full depth of your post, it’s 10pm on a Saturday and my social life is a bit lacking tonight so I’m hanging out on the forums.

What is the exact reason for the “guide” tag not being sufficient in already established categories?

I noticed the mention of “I don’t want them disappearing in with other posts”, but at the same time they can be listed in the tag itself, or easily searched by filling out the advanced search or with the term tags:guide #new-citizens where #new-citizens refers to the category. :aura:

To put it into perspective, with the current structure we can…

With your proposed structure would it not all be jumbled together under tags:guide #pve-gameplay-center:guides-and-apps?

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Well, guess I didn’t sufficiently explain the reason for the request in this thread. First of all, I’m not a computer programmer, I’m just a user who’s fairly adequate enough to play computer games, surf the Internet and post pictures. There’s probably a lot of other players who can say the same thing.

Not everyone remembers to add that tag to their guide, some may not even know it’s available and others have said the forum won’t allow them to add it.

In fact using ‘Tags’ is very new to me and definitely not something I use or even think about when creating threads or browsing the forums. The only reason I know about it is due to seeing it used on some of the other ‘Guide’ threads here in these forums. Seeing that prompted me to find and apply it to my own ‘Guide’ thread.

Using the drop down selection menus in the top left side of the forum is just a generic version of your ‘Search’ option, minus the typing. For me it’s something I don’t use, especially when I’m just browsing the forums. Now I’ve been a member of this forum community for a long time and I’ve never once used a ‘Search’ option to find specific thread topics and I probably never will. Hell, I’m not even really keen on doing ‘Google’ search since I tend to get way too many different results which takes time to narrow down due to entering the wrong words to initiate the search. Like I said, I’m just a computer user, not a programmer.

I’m old school and like doing ‘point and click’ with the mouse. Doing a bunch of ‘Hashtag’ typing is new to me and something I’m trying to get my head wrapped around… As for browsing the Forums, I’ve always clicked open a specific Category and then clicked open the Sub-Category I want to browse. I then look over the thread titles and click open the ones that interest me.

As I said before, using ‘Search’ with ‘Hashtag’ typing is not something I do so I can’t really say if that’s true or not. However I’m sure that players more computer literate than me would have no problem defining the correct search terms to quickly take them to the correct forum category.

There’s probably players like me who don’t even think about looking for ‘Guide’ threads until they actually see them. And then there’s other players who right off the bat specifically ask for guides. I’ve seen a lot of new players do that. The old forums had sticky ‘Guide’ threads at the top of each forum category and a lot of players didn’t even see them. Having a ‘Guides & Apps’ Sub-Category for each Forum Category would probably get their attention and incite them to browse it, even if it’s just out of curiosity.

Anyway, this reply has gone on long enough and it sounds to me like you’ve already decided against it. Thank you for taking the time to post a reply in this thread.

Just wanted to add that not everybody uses the search function or understands or uses ‘Hashtag’ typing, I certainly don’t. This request is just something to help promote exposure to the various ‘Guide & Application’ threads as well as increase ease of navigation in these forums for those of us who are too old or set in their ways to learn a new typing language just to find specific threads.

I understand you guys wanting to streamline and reduce the amount of work relating to these forums. However when something is changed, it’s usually done as an improvement for all concerned. These forums in their basic state are very generic and not user friendly. Thanks to other players who have provided various scripts to raise the level of quality in performance and visual presentation, these forums are not only more user friendly, they’re also much easier to navigate.

And that’s the whole point of this thread, helping these forums become more user friendly and easier to navigate.

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Ultimately the decision belongs to the community team, as they are the ones that decide on the category structure.

Is there a specific reason you don’t want to use the search? I can understand you don’t want to learn the search syntax itself, but is there any particular reason you wouldn’t want to fill out the form the advanced search provides?

From your last two replies I’ve gained some understanding into your desired goal, and I see both good and bad possibilities with it. On one hand your goal would be achieved “all guides relating to parent category in one place” i.e. PvE Gameplay Center > Guides & Apps

On the other hand, if we assume this sub-category for guides and apps under PvE Gameplay Center exists, what could we suggest for users that only want to see guides relating to missions?

With the current category structure, and the search these forums provide, we can be quite specific about our search criteria. Example: Searching for the guide tag in PvE Gameplay Center yields results that tell us which sub-categories the topics belong to. Of course the search can be altered to target a specific sub-category as well.

image

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OK, guess I’ll do this dance one more time. Now I understand that some people are really trendy and totally into using any type of technical aspect available to achieve results. However the Eve Online playerbase is a diverse mix of people with different ways of doing things that achieve the same end result.

Promoting and pushing one specific way to do something does not promote player participation. It stifles individuality and creativity as well as exclude and alienate some players which ultimately just fosters ill will.

I looked at that advanced search function and to be honest it relies on 1) knowing what type of search parameters to enter, & 2) is heavily based on using Tag’s. Now what about guides and apps that aren’t tagged and more importantly, what about people who don’t know exactly what they’re looking for?

I believe I already answered your question earlier when I posted this statement:

People who are more technically orientated would have no problem using your search function to find guides and apps pertaining to a specific topic or category. For those of us who don’t know how or just don’t think about using the search function to find guides and apps, there wouldn’t be an overwhelming amount of threads to browse in the ‘Guides & Apps’ sub-category for each individual parent category, especially when players are just browsing and don’t have any specific topic in mind.

As I said earlier, that’s all fine and great for players who are more technically oriented and are use to using that search feature. However there’s also players who may not know about or understand it, who are set in their ways and out of habit just don’t even think about using that search function.

Also that search function doesn’t include guides and apps that aren’t tagged, either because the person posting didn’t know that option was available or just didn’t think about it when posting. The whole point of this thread is to help make these forums more user friendly for all concerned.

2 Likes

The issue with having that “App & Guide” subcategory, at least for the “App” part:

  • it “forces” every user to make a post for his app at 2 locations: in the guide category, and 3rd party apps category. It’s already a PITA to maintain a single post, so I don’t even speak about 2.
  • Tbh, if I have to make a second post to say “I made this, check this link for further reading”, i’d rather make none.
  • It also forces users to check even more locations (app & guide for each category, third party apps etc), in case tools/apps/guides have not been posted in either of the 2 categories.

Although I fully understand your concerns and ideas about the search, a “guide & app category” etc, it think it is mostly a lack of will and effort.
Using the search is not hard:

  • writing a bit of stuff already give good results (just try pve guide)
  • using the (clear) advanced search also gives you the ability to restrict categories, use tags (with auto complete for both)
  • it’s not harder than using google… really, it isn’t.
  • being a “technical guy” doesn’t mean we have more “ease to use” such things

Moreover, I don’t see the need of having such categories and give more “work” to people who want to have their posts in the relevant section (aka, not a “guide & app” category), because “people might not think about using search” (not knowing how to use search is a real joke, because everyone know how, not as efficient as it can be with tags etc, but still, everybody knows).

Also, not much people seem to care about having such category, when you see the current number of guide already in the new forum, while almost no one complaining about their location.

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Well, obviously you’re referencing me so let’s first talk about actual lack of will and effort. If a 3rd party Dev can’t post a few words in a thread with a link to their app which was created for that specific forum category, then that’s definitely a lack of will and effort on their part. Furthermore nobody need be forced to make a 2nd thread advertising their app. If they don’t want any exposure and or recognition for their work, so be it.

Saying it’s a Pain In The Arse to maintain more than 1 thread at a time is just a bunch of whitewash, especially coming from someone who is technically inclined. I admit I’m not technically inclined yet I’ve created, posted, maintained and participated in multiple threads all active at the same time.

Having forum users check even more locations because the thread wasn’t posted in the correct sub-category would be due to the person who created it. The main intention of having a ‘Guides & Apps’ sub-category in each forum category is to help keep that from happening.

I’m not intellectually challenged so please don’t try to school me on how to use the search function to find a specific thread topic. I’ve been an active and contributing member of the Eve Online forums for 9 years now and have never once needed to use the search function to find a thread. In fact it’s more than likely most of the regular forum posters here just browse the forums without actually seeking a specific thread topic. When they do see a thread that interests them, they read it, post a reply and then go back to browsing. Course sometimes that thread topic gets their full attention and they end up stalking the thread but that’s a different topic altogether…

Not sure why you think having a ‘Guides & Apps’ sub-category in each forum category isn’t relevant. If anything it would make those specific guides & apps even more relevant since they’d be posted in their originally intended forum category, not stuck in some obscure corner of another forum category that rarely ever gets viewed.

In all my years as a member in this forum, I’ve witnessed many threads posted asking questions about a specific topic when there was already a sticky guide thread posted in plain sight at the top of that forum category. Granted the guide threads in the old forums didn’t have a nice flashy blue ‘Guide’ tag attached to them but that’s beside the point. The fact is there was still a search function available and sorry to disappoint you and all the other trendy tech’s out there but most people just didn’t use it. Now I don’t know whether it was due to not knowing about it or not thinking about or just plain not wanting to use it. Would a ‘Guide & Apps’ sub-category for each forum category have helped keep that from happening? I don’t know but one thing is for sure, the search function definitely didn’t help.

So yeah, you may think it’s a joke but the hard reality is everybody’s level of skill and knowledge is varied, not everyone is a trendy tech savvy player who does 500 words a minute in #Hashtag typing while figuring out calculus equations at the same time.

Actually if you look around you’ll see a multitude of complaints pertaining to various aspects of these forums. The whole point of this thread was to help make these forums a little bit more user friendly for the general public, not alienate or discourage anybody from using these forums.

Hey I get it, you and the Dev’s don’t like the idea of having a ‘Guides & Apps’ sub-category being added to each forum category. You want to keep your little ‘Apps’ all tucked away in Third Party Developer’s Forum.

When most players view the description quote for that sub-category (The place to discuss everything related to third party development using the EVE API! Feel free to sit back, relax, and discuss your tools and apps here!) that doesn’t inform them it contains usable working applications available for use in-game. In fact the description for the parent forum category ‘EVE Technology and Research Center’ (The place to discuss all testing and test server content.) doesn’t help either.

My original idea was just to incorporate a ‘Guides’ sub-category for each forum category. When posting this thread, I thought it would be nice to include ‘Apps’ as well in order to help expose and promote them to more forum users. Obviously I was wrong to think that 3rd Party Dev’s would like having their ‘Apps’ be seen by more players.

As for player created guides, I’ve looked in each forum category and there’s plenty of guide threads posted that don’t have the ‘guide’ tag attached to them. That fact alone proves what I’ve been saying all along about the use of ‘Tags’ and the search function. As such it definitely gives credence to my suggestion of having a ‘Guides’ sub-category added to each forum category which would make it much easier for all concerned, for those who create guides, for those looking for guides and for those who just want to browse the forums.

DMC