Copied from my own comment elsewhere, in response to the policy of merging discussions i to the feedback thread when there is an open official feedback thread.
I can see both sides of the thought process behind centralized discussion of proposed changes:
A) On the one hand, centralizing puts all of thoughts in one place so folks don’t have to dig around to find relevant info.
B) On the other, the centralized threads are often massive and hard to keep up with.
I don’t think either approach is perfect, but, CCP has established the first path (option A) and we’re stuck with it right now. I think it is worth discussing that situation (the requirement to centralize update discussion).
Option A pros:
Single place for Devs to look for feedback
Single place for forum members to provide feedback
Option A cons:
Prevents stand-alone discussions that could be used to refine feedback before posting it to the main thread
Is extremely difficult to navigate related comments/sections of discussion
can rapidly become so large that players are unable to readily read through for pertinent content (Summarize function doesn’t really handle these threads that well).
Requires moderators to manage merging all the discrete threads together when they inevitably are posted separately
Option B pros:
Individual Discussion threads can be focused on specific aspects of the change and how it relates to other gameplay mechanics
Allows for more structured public conversations between posters
Summarize Topic is able to adequately condense thread into a readable narrative
Option B cons:
May result in duplicate threads/same post in multiple threads
Feedback not re-posted into the official thread may not be seen by developers
There are probably additional pros/cons. Please outline your thoughts on the approaches here, and how each approach impacts your willingness to engage in feedback/dev blog discussion threads.
Well, I suppose Id say, I agree with the points raised above, and Id say that yes having a central thread for devs to read if they choose should be a given, but that there should be room for people to discuss it.
Personally, Id say that the main thread should have a posting limit of 1, and that there should be a seperate discussion thread for it.
Id just like to make the point also that feedback ararely feels like it is, as such. Many times it would be great to know the actual intention, success, failure or opinion of the peole farming our opinions, or even if there is such a being.
It’s worth mentioning that any “forked” threads that link the official post will place a “backlink” on the post, so anyone wanting to examine forked posts only needs to look at the bottom of the opening post.
For what it’s worth I’m not annoyed at your or anything for what you said in the other thread. Just annoyed with CCP for watering down my ability to discuss specific topics and the other two aholes for referring to my post as garbage cause they couldn’t help but be annoyed to see an AFK cloak topic and needed to insult me before flagging it.
That’s fair, and illustrates one of the social downsides to the consolidated discussion policy: people intending to initiate a positive discussion can get dog-piled about posting ‘out of place’, and the flags to be relocated can be confusing for the OP.
Plus in my case I essentially cant talk about my idea to add heat buildup/damage to active cloaks because it related to AFK cloaking so it’s getting forced into an ancient mega thread where nobody will see it. Meanwhile anyone else can toss out their new ship idea and it stays in it’s own topic even though there’s dozens of new ship ideas every month. I actually feel bad now for getting annoyed with other people in other mega threads for coming in and being a bit off topic. They could very well have tried to make their own thread and been forced to partake in a giant convo about a slightly different topic.
@Glornak_Ironspawn, don’t take this the wrong way but did you actually try and do a little investigation into what sort of idea, on the topic of AFK cloaking, that people might already have had shed some light onto, before you posted your very own thread?
-I just happens to know that the idea of Cloaking Device generate a small amount of heat dmg when in use is not new, here’s the direct quote from the massive thread:
On just about any and (likely) all forums there are guidelines (rules) that gives you instructions to do when/if you want to give/bring forth feedback and/or new ideas:
Use the forum’s search function, if such a function exists, to find out if a thread already exists which corelates to your topic (or very similar). In the case of EVE online you could probably also check the EVE section on Reddit.
Check out the results from your keyword-search, would be something like “AFK Cloak” (the Main AFK Cloaking thread is the very first result you’ll see), to see if any of them is similar to what you were thinking and if that is the case just type out you feedback/idea as a reply in that thread, instead.
-Yes, I’m aware that the Cloaking thread is a “hot mess” to put it mildly, but there are several reasons for this, more than I actually care to really count, some of those reasons are that the topic comes up now and again, and have been for many years (not sure how many exactly, 10+ would be my initial guess), and people not using the search-function to check if the idea have already been presented.
If the search function does not yield any results or they are miles away from what your feedback/idea is, then you can think of creating new thread.
On the topic of Centralized Feedback Thread, I believe that if a proper Forum Etiquette is utillized the pros of having niche topics centralized far outweights the cons, however the Main AFK Cloaking thread is a prime example of how bad it can/will get when etiquette is thrown out the window.
I’m glad you guys are aware trying to parse megathreads for useful info is nonsense, but I would ask for one question to be clarified:
Is there a way for mods/devs to filter by user name? IE, can they read said megathread but have a collection of, say a dozen or so, posters to not see posts from?
That alone would help. There are many people who post here… almost religiously and attempting to have your voice heard when several people descend upon you saying “No your wrong” for the 600th time is just more junk people looking for feedback don’t need to read.
Also ccp plz make cloaking not invul button thnx I want to hunt cowards
It is already possible to not only search globally by user (with additional filters if desired), but also a specific user’s posts within a single thread. That is, remove all posts except a single user’s posts for a given thread for reading.
I find large threads difficult to navigate on this forum. If threads are going to be merged without the consent of the thread maker (<- annoying), then this forum needs pages. On other forums I can often find what I am looking for because I remembered the page. However here you have to go by post count. Doesn’t work for me. Sorting through hundreds of posts is just utter frustration.
So I guess I will have to go with not merging, if nothing else changes. I can usually remember the thread titles well enough.
I really never could see an actual problem with redundant threads anyway. Its not like any more server space is truly taken up. And it does not give me so much trouble if I am trying to find a specific idea or post, in fact the more separate threads there are, the more I remember and the better I can navigate, but maybe that’s just me.
However it has been established by psychology that when it comes to memorization, more is more and less is less. For example, if you meet people at a party and they say only their first names, you will likely forget most of them. But if they say their last names, what they do and where they come from, you will remember most of that. Plus it will be easier to ask a person’s name if you can say “Who is that guy from Rockville? I think he is a plumber…” More threads with more titles just seems naturally easier to remember what is where and also to get help from other people.
