Fresh Pair of Eyes

[Captain Untouchable]

I've been away for a little bit, and some changes (many of them awesome) have happened in the meanwhile. However, it also means that I don't know what the blazes is going on half the time, and combined with all the brain-frazzle that my medical shenanigans treat me to, I'm a pretty good approximation of a hapless n00b right now.

With that in mind, I have a couple of "user friendliness" suggestions / observations. Don't mean to rock the boat or cause any offense, just pointing out stuff that I think might be helpful.


Star Wars Homeworlds

When we switched over to the Homeworlds format of things, we were doing a lot of stuff that was happening on one specific planet / in one specific location, and I was a big advocate of the "lets have a different forum for each geographical location" mindset. Having let that run for a little while though, things have changed somewhat. The Jedi are still cosy on Ossus, but the "Bothawui" forum has post icons for Dac and Sullust and various other worlds, and the "Coruscant" forum is pretty much a catch-all bucket for anything Imperial. In the meanwhile, we have other specific locations (Jovan Station, Bespin) tucked away under "The Star Wars Galaxy" as sub-forums. Our usage of the forums and the intended usage of the forums aren't quite lining up anymore.

The simplest solution would be to rename the Bothawui / Coruscant forums to "Alliance of Free Planets" and "Galactic Empire" - turn them back into faction forums, which is what we're effectively using them for anyway. Any specific geographical locations like Jovan or Bespin (or Corellia/Tatooine/Mandalore/etc if we get any of those off the ground) can still be sub-forums in Star Wars Galaxy, the same way they are now. Also, if we decide that certain aspects of a faction deserve a little more attention (the Landing Pad on Ossus, a separate area for the Alliance Senate to make those threads easier to find, etc) we can have those as little sub-forums within the faction's area.

It's pretty much exactly what we are instinctively doing at the moment - just a tiny bit of name tweaking to make it more intuitive for newbies (and Jace-brain people).


Groups & Sticky Threads

Things like Jovan Station and Ossus are great, because if you want to be involved with a particular thing, there is an obvious place for you to go and get stuck in. However, information on how to get started isn't always obvious: for example, there's a list of who the main characters are for Jovan Station, but it's tucked away in the Group for that RP setting - you need to know that Groups exist, where to find them, and think of looking there for that information... which a n00b might not necessarily think of, I know I certainly didn't before it was pointed out!

What might be useful is if each forum had a single, simple, stickied thread that explains "what this forum is for". If there is a group available for that setting (especially if it's one that has discussions and information included) the sticky thread can point in that direction, and if there are major characters (Senators, senior officers, Jedi Council, etc) or "active members of the community" who are good people to pester for info, the sticky thread can outline that information too. If we keep the format very similar for each of the forums - maybe even add in a special post icon to make it really stand out - I think it'll add a nice bit of user friendliness to things, and it'll also make it look like we've got our shit together and have a consistent strategy across the boards, which is always a nice thing for a potential new member to see.

Also, I think it'd be great to see a lot more Groups for these settings, and a lot more usage of the Groups. It is a really cool feature that we have available, and encouraging people to discuss plots and plan threads within those Groups will make sure that they keep showing up in the activity feed, which will help raise the profile.


Faction Icon Emotes

If sticky threads are going to be a thing - and also with Character Plotters already being a thing - it might be cool/useful/neat to add in some of the faction logos/emblems as emotes that we can use, :Imperial: and :Alliance: and such. It's very easy for a sticky thread / character plotter / character list / etc to look boring, but a little bit of font variety (like Holly did with the Plotters already) and some icons/graphics can make a lot of difference. If it's overdone it can look tacky... but for example, being able to include the logo of your faction(s) instead of having to typing out the name(s) at the top of your Plotter will look a lot more snazzy.

I think Christin has some little faction logos kicking around from the trading cards she was working on, so maybe this would be relatively easy to implement?


General Formatting

I 100% understand the logic behind moving the Roleplay stuff higher up the list: we want to put emphasis on the fact that we're an RP board that discusses things occasionally, rather than a discussion board that RPs on the side. I dunno what it is though - maybe it's just me being Stewie Griffin and not liking change - but it seems really odd having "General Discussion" all the way at the top, so very far from the Star Wars / TV / Sports / etc discussion.

Maybe General Discussion should just scooch down to the bottom too: put all of the discussion-type threads in the same place?

Also, and this is probably another Stewie moment, but the "Star Wars Resources" thing is really throwing me off. It does have the advantage of making the Star Wars section of the boards nice and big, but for some wonky reason I keep n00b-clicking on it thinking it's going to have roleplays in, and it feels a bit strange that there's a 2:2 ratio between IC forums and OOC forums.

As I understand it, the Resources forum is for submitting new ships/races/lore/etc for approval by the powers that be before they go on the wiki. That sounds (to me) like a "Planning & Discussion" sort of activity - perhaps it would make more sense having Resources as a subforum there, next to the Character Plotters?


Suggestion Box

I'm sure I'm not the only person who has had teeny tiny tweak ideas, and has thought "Well crap, where do I post that?" Not everything seems important enough to make a whole thread for it. If you're a Mod, you can post it in the Mod forum, but not everyone has that option. Maybe it would be a good idea to create a "Suggestion Box", either as a thread somewhere, or even as a little sub-forum, for all of our board tweaks / back-end tinkering conversations to take place. That way, the Planning & Discussion forums stay entirely about RP planning/discussion, and the more logistical side of things can be elsewhere.

Added bonus: if we put suggestions / board change discussions / etc into their own special place, it emphasises how open/inviting the staff is to ideas, talking about change, and letting people know what's going on. That's always an encouraging thing to see on the forums, and it's also something that Fans hasn't historically always been the best at - positive reinforcement of the way we're doing things now, and all that jazz.

[Atreyu]

Suggestion Box

Use the Communications forum - that was it's actual main purpose when we created it years ago (it's even in the forum description). We've all just gotten a bit lazy in our older age and in more recent times have begun posting our suggestions/requests in whatever forum we happen to be browsing.

(and this thread should probably be there too )

EDIT - covering the rest:

Star Wars Homeworlds - not fussed, whatever you guys think.

Groups & Sticky Threads - this was suggested a few months back, another idea was to change the links up the top so 'Groups' were more noticeable alongside the other links. I agree that right now the Groups feature is a nuisance in its current state as there's no easy way to access it or even know it exists without clicking-clicking-clicking to get into it.

Faction Icon Emotes - again, not fussed.

General Formatting - can see the idea with the 'Resources' forum, again I'll let you RPers decide.

For the rest however I dunno, kind of like it the way it is right now. The lower forums are 'hobby' forums, whereas General Discussion is our catch all chit-chat area which sits nicely with our Intro and Communications forum (which is where we want new/returning people to be directed to). I'm fairly satisfied with it as it is.

[Captain Untouchable]

Hey, don't blame me, I'm just putting stuff where Christin has been putting stuff.

And while yeah, that's maybe the intended use of the Communications forum, it's not the way it's actually getting used. Maybe that's laziness and we need to change, maybe it's just not obvious that it's the correct place and that needs to change... or maybe the way we've got things set up isn't quite optimal, and that needs to change. Either way, when absolutely everyone is posting suggestions not in the place they're "supposed" to be, something is probably amiss.

[Atreyu]

I've always posted there.

Just need to re-emphasise it's use, and get the mods/admins to move threads if they're posted incorrectly (Holly for example swooped in and moved a Suggestion thread that was buried in the Ossus forum the other week with no problems). People already know to ask for their username changes there, so not much of a stretch to expand it for all other requests/suggestions as well.

Again, I think we've all just gotten a bit lazy in recent years and just posted wherever it was easiest (usually in RP Discussion), but there shouldn't be much trouble getting old habits back into shape - we did it fine for years before.

[Maximus Whitesun]

Maybe, but we're not the same community / not the same dynamic of people as we were previously, so "we did it fine for years before" doesn't necessarily follow.

*shrug* Regardless, it's just something I noticed. How it ends up getting resolved (whether that's the Admins being more proactive, rewriting the description for the Communications forum, a stickied thread there, a subforum whatever) doesn't really matter, I'm just pointing it out.

[Atreyu]

Is it even a problem though? I'm just looking at the forum now - scrolling down the page I see threads for username requests, a new admin announcement, proposed forum changes, help with the archive, a suggestion for more mods, clarification on html use in blogs etc. Seems that the forum is getting used just fine as it was intended.

Not trying to be disagreeable, but I'm not noticing it myself.

[Captain Untouchable]

It was the last thing on my list - it's really not worth this degree of scrutiny.

All I noticed was that things like the big thread about being "relevant again" and the stuff about post icons and such was posted in the various discussion forums. Communications doesn't have a whole lot of discussion happening there: it's pretty much just "help desk" type requests. If it should be there, then fantastic: lets collectively make sure we do that stuff in the "correct" place. There must be a reason we're not discussing stuff in there though, and maybe having a big obvious "Suggestion Box" (since everyone knows what one of those is, and you don't need to understand "how we've always done it" to know what the correct place is) might be more user-friendly, which is something we seem to be pushing for at the moment. Like I said... I don't really care all that much, I was just making a casual observation, and I saved it for the end of the list because it wasn't really important. *shrug*

As for the rest of the stuff you sneakily edited in there while I wasn't looking () ... like I said, maybe I'm just Stewie Griffin, but it's really disorientating for me. It's almost as if we're saying "General Discussion is important, but all this other stuff is tucked away in a corner", and that doesn't really feel like the right way to treat our Star Wars discussion, especially since attracting new people because of the new movies is our main "in". Absolutely, roleplay should be up top... but I don't think General Discussion is "more important", and I don't think it's special enough to not be in the same category.

Edit:

I get where you're coming from - General Discussion is our "lobby" - but by that same argument, isn't the chat about Star Wars somewhere that new people are likely to be when the movies come out? Do we not want people to "come for the Star Wars chat, stay for the other chat that is conveniently next to it?" I feel like separating them makes the hobbies/etc seem less important... when actually, it's one of our more active areas.

If discussion is at the bottom, it should all be at the bottom, IMO.

[Atreyu]

It's cool mate, didn't mean to put you through the wringer about it. Just that your suggestions made me think "ummm, don't we already have a forum for that?" and sure enough we do. And we use it. So I didn't see the nature of the suggestion, that's all. It's cool if you think it can be improved or modified - for myself I'm quite happy as it is, that's all.

As for the rest, well I've already said my piece. I think the forums are pretty well organised as they are personally. Others may think different of course.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

This does belong in the Communications forum! I shall move it forthwith!

I did a quick skim on your suggestions and in general I'm totally in favor of renaming the alliance and Empire forums back to Alliance and Empire. I think it makes a lot of sense. I'll go through the rest of your things in a bit (or tomorrow).

edit: we are considering moving Resources into RPing Discussion already, to be a sub forum under Character Plotters.

I think General Discussion is ok where it is, but it would be equally ok down with the non-RPing forums as well? So, dunno.

By faction icon do you mean like the thread icons we have? Or something else entirely? Adding them as smileys would be cool, I think.

edit2: as far as the Communications Forum, I think the forum description pretty much covers what you want for a suggestion forum. It IS our suggestion forum. If it hasn't been used recently for that it only means no one had any recent suggestions.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Just so I don't keep editing my post. I dislike how hidden the groups are, and I would like each faction to have a sticky thread like we do in the Ossus forum, directing new people how to get started and who to talk to and all that. I need to go over that thread again and update it, but in general I think we should have something like that for each "big" faction.

[Captain Untouchable]

I think the crux of the Communications thing is less about "what it's supposed to be used for", and more about "what it seems like it's supposed to be used for".

Put yourself in the shoes of a new player coming to the boards for the first time. They see the Communications forum, they read the description that says that the staff use the forums to make announcements, and players can use it to submit suggestions... but they click on there, and all they see is name change requests, and people pointing out bugs. How far through the forum do they have to scroll before they find an actual suggestion thread (aside from the ones that have just been moved there ), or a proper announcement thread? It looks like it's the place you go for "serious business", and it creates the illusion that the staff aren't communicative and that suggestions aren't being made... and that's bullshit, because we do it all the time.

Totally get that I'm fighting a losing battle here, but I wonder if having a separate Suggestion Box sub-forum would "look better", and make a better impression. Rather than the suggestions being lost in a swamp of help desk queries, you see all the suggestions that have been made, all the community's input, etc. It may be that a suggestion hasn't been made for several months, but IMO that will be more inviting to people who are new / don't implicitly know the way things work here. It's less a suggestion of practicality, and more a suggestion of marketing and image, if that makes sense?

* * *

As far as the faction icons go, I was thinking more along the lines of the little Jedi Order symbol, the little cog for the Empire, and that sort of thing: like the symbols Christin used to denote people's factions on the trading cards. In terms of use, I'm thinking that for people's Character Plotter they could use the symbol of the faction instead of typing it out (so that people with two or more factions don't have to do faction/faction/faction). Also, for any sticky threads they could be used for decoration to pimp things up a little, and for things like character lists - for somewhere like Jovan Station or Bespin, being able to look at a list of characters and see instantly which ones are Alliance / Imperial / Jedi / Cizerack / Civilian / etc would look pretty snazzy.

Having a couple of thread icons might be cool too - even if it was just the SW / open / closed ones - for any thread lists and such. It may sound silly, but using little icons/graphics here and there is one of the easiest "cheats" I picked up from my old job: it takes a fairly small amount of effort, but it makes things look snazzier/more professional.

* * *

Edit:

Just so I don't keep editing my post. I dislike how hidden the groups are, and I would like each faction to have a sticky thread like we do in the Ossus forum, directing new people how to get started and who to talk to and all that. I need to go over that thread again and update it, but in general I think we should have something like that for each "big" faction.

Agree 100%, especially if we swap back to "Alliance of Free Planets" etc for the names of those forums. I'd personally like to see a sticky thread for each faction forum that explains the basic premise, links to a handful of relevant wiki pages, suggests some "this guy knows a lot of stuff" people for new players to contact, and then also links to any relevant groups and sub-forums.

For example, the Alliance of Free Planets might have:

• Brief explanation of The Treaty, and the difference between the Rebellion and the Alliance.
• Brief mention of the key planets/factions (Bothawui, Dac, Cizerack, Hapes).
• Brief mention of the main "groups" that people can play in (Senate, 4th Fleet / TF42, etc), mentioning the names of some of the significant characters.
• A list of links to various Groups that players can be part of (Jovan, Novgorod, TF42, etc).
• A brief explanation of the situation on Jovan Station and the relationship with the Jedi Enclave, with links to those sub-forums.

For somewhere like Ossus or Jovan Station the thread might be a little different - it might have a list of the "main" characters / names of NPCs everyone can use, brief description of places to go (shops, which docking spire to use, what buildings the Enclave has), etc.

I think trying to make the threads as similar as possible (in terms of format) though is going to be important. In the past each faction did their own stuff, and everything was very secularized, but nowadays we are a united front working together, and having stuff that "matches" will help emphasise that I think.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Yeah, I'd mentioned it to Holly, but I'd like for each major faction to have an OOC forum so that group guidelines threads and whatnot can be stickied in there as well. That's just me though.

• Going by faction names rather than home worlds is fine by me.
  
• We've got a stickied 'quick rp guide' thread in the Intro and Advert forum that deals with how to go about using groups. If we decide to implement an OOC subforum for each faction, that will allow the factions to also make their own guideline specific threads to sticky. It would be a helpful reinforcement I think. Atreyu is right in that we mentioned in the past finding a way to make the groups more visible, so until we do that, we'll need to be sure to reiterate via faction guides the presence of groups. Also, that list you made, Jace, is what I had in mind. Relevant faction info and whatnot.
  
• Moving GD down the list is fine with me.
  
• I can make some emotes for experimentation.
  
• I moved some of my threads into the comms forum. At the moment it serves its' intended purpose, and for now I think we should focus on the other items listed.

[Atreyu]

If 'Groups' can be featured more prominently, you might not even need OOC forums*** as the groups themselves can take care of that type of discussion. Again though it'll need access to the groups themselves to be improved so people are aware they actually exist.

(***working on the assumption OOC forums will be used like they've been done in the past - RPers will need to figure that out I guess )

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Yeah, I need to ask Ogre about that option. If we can get the groups featured as their own thing or just more prominently then we can start up the OOC forums as a stop-gap measure until that time comes.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

The main problem to me with the Groups is that they are only forum-ish. You don't have the functionality with the group discussions that you have with a proper OOC forum.

[Vansen Tyree]

^ This. Groups stuff would probably be pretty good for "companion threads", when we're trying to work out whose turn it is / what happens next, etc, but they're a bit too compact and compressed to replace OOC threads entirely. The character limit and the fact that some of the formatting options aren't available doesn't help either.

Definitely useful, but I think expecting them to replace OOC entirely would be too much of a downgrade of what's possible.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Of course, if there's a groups hack that expands the scope of the groups option, we might see about checking it out. I'm fine either way.

[Captain Untouchable]

Another small thought that popped into my head (boy, it'd be really useful if there was a Suggestion Box thread to put stuff like this in ) -

On a few other boards, I've seen them have a stickied "kudos" thread in their general discussion / planning type area. It's basically a "credit where credit is due" sort of idea, and it gives people the opportunity to say thanks / tell people they're awesome for the stuff they've been doing OOC wise, to rave about the fantastic job that someone is doing with a particular character / particular thread / particular post.

I've been trying to get in the habit of leaving Rep on RP posts and stuff, and I know we can rave about stuff a little bit in the chat room and RP random thoughts and stuff, but it might be nice (especially if/when our community grows) to just have a go-to place to put out happy vibes. There are a ton of threads over at Jovan Station that Charley and Christin deserve kudos up the wazoo for, and Holly is in some sort of metahuman frenzy getting image claims sorted and getting plotters set up and stuff - it might be nice to have a place to draw attention to that sort of stuff publicly, instead of having to do it behind the closed doors of the Rep system.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

I think you can make an OOC post about it in RPing discussion, or General Discussion? if you wanted to thank people publicly. I don't see any problem with that.

We are looking into implementing a "like" system where you can like posts if you enjoy it and don't have a rep comment to leave. Hopefully we'll be able to roll that out soon.

edit: I thought there was a thread at one point called something like "The Mutual Appreciation Station" or something, where people were doing comments like that. But I can't find it! Anyway. Something like that being made (again?) is not a problem. I don't think it's something the staff need to 'okay'.

[Captain Untouchable]

True, although this is one of those "it makes sense if you know how the boards work already" things. I may know that I could go spam a discussion thread with silly kudos threads, but a new player wanting to give a shout-out to someone who helped them get started out doesn't know that; and I think people would be more likely to take advantage of it if it was a sticky thread that's always on everyone's radar, rather than something that might end up out of sight / out of mind as soon as it's pushed off the bottom of the first page.

And yeah, I could go and set this up myself, but I thought you guys might want to have a mod post it (so it's more "official" and stuff, like the random thoughts threads), plus I don't think I'm able to sticky things, etc etc.