Guild Wars 2

Direct feedback:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

2: Build out more time for Devs to engage (This is already in progress)

I am sure you have heard of the 3M innovation days (where post-its came from). Maybe allocate mandatory time (Friday afternoons?) during the week where devs/designers/artists/produces (remember players, many more people are involved in the creation than just “devs”) can get involved with the community in one way or another. How they get involved is up to them – it could even be visiting servers with no ANet love and join in a champ train and chat; or going full forum warrior (read: CDI). This would have multiple advantages – notably communities would feel as though the devs are involved (something you have completely lost since the days of GW1, at least for us ANet unpopulated servers), everyone would be more in touch with the community’s sentiments and you everyone would have a deeper ownership of what goes into the game.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

3: Thread owner to post a summary every three pages (The community did awesome here, but I want to build out more time to do this)

I agree that the community did fantastically. Personally I would leave it to them – a nice forum feature would be an automatic 3rd page reserve for people you designate (such as Bezragon).

Chris Whiteside.6102:

1: We need to keep thread and post sizes more manageable. Should we put a limit on the word length of posts?

To me the CDI is a creative process and length limits gets in the way of that; however much of the same type of stuff can be said at times. Additionally there is a lot of noise (“oh your idea is dumb” and such posts) that you need to mentally sift through. That, in my opinion is where the energy is wasted – even through Chrispy can rant on for a while his/her posts are well worded and as consise as they can possibly be (his/her ideas simply take that many words) – they are a pleasure to read and draw inspiration from.

What I would do is quite the contrary to what you suggested. Limit how often people can post on the threads (once every 4 hours or so?) and in addition have a much larger minimum character requirement. In my humble opinion you want to encourage those longer, more thought out posts.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

2: How are we going to chose topics moving forward, for example, by votes or by Anet choosing them etc?

Direct answer: a bit of both. 3 from the community, 3 from ANet.

Rant: Well there’s my thoughts initially about this thread. Is a forum the right format for the CDI? Think about the admin required to find the candidates and then tally the votes – I think your time is more valuable than that. You are in very new territory here. The CDI is something I haven’t seen done before and I would venture to say that nobody has ever approached a problem like this before. The closest existing solution I can think of is kanban; but that would be dreadful with so many contributors. Maybe allow select members (<cough> Bezragon <cough>) to transfer ideas out of the thread into the kanban and start voting/shuffling them there, other members could vote+comment on the cards but not admin them. You could incubate cards/ideas in the “Phase 1” column and move them to the right (“Phase 2” etc.) as they get voted up.

Or a wiki with a specific workflow.

I’m just not convinced that forums are the correct format here.

Edit: Come to think of it the Stack Exchange (StackOverflow etc.) format might actually be a perfect fit here.

Honestly, my last bit of input I can think of right now?

- Set up the forum topics and aggressively delete completely off-topic posts (no infractions unless it breaks code of conduct). Topics which arise out of natural progression of conversation which wind up off topic get split into their own CDI thread with a link in the first post to the original thread so people can find context where needed.

- On the players side, try to be neat and concise with your ideas unless asked to elaborate. On the devs side, if you need elaboration ask via PM unless you intend to discuss it openly. This will prevent elaborations from bogging down threads and allow you to still collect the information.

- Announce CDI threads starting on the patcher screen so anyone starting the game is made aware they are being done.

- If possible, allow one (1) in-game session somewhere where a dev or two can log a chat so players in the game who don’t visit the forums may include their input. Alternatively, some way of in game getting people to put in their ideas without needing to come to the forum from the game. Something to do while waiting on the wurm/marionette?

- Definitely try to get all CDI topics to run concurrently and receive similar amounts of developer attention/input/feedback.

I want to be very clear: I support the principles of good presentation over rigid formatting.

I’ve said it before – CDIs are about creating art. When we explore making art, we often need to demonstrate our understanding of art. To illustrate our points, but also to seek critique and review to improve upon it. That requires a degree of freedom. Freedom, in turn, requires a degree of responsibility.

CDI have become possible because the game has had time to teach about the game. Clear formats are an excellent tool for teaching processes, but they cannot be the highest level of contribution we will tolerate. I’ve been infracted for reaching higher before. I don’t want to see good posts being deleted again because they didn’t fit in a box.

You do not foster creativity by enforcing conformity.

Having a separate sub-forum for the CDI threads is a good idea, but it would be helpful to have a clearly labeled sticky in the general forum that lets users know that the CDI forum exists and what it’s for. Just a thought.

Nike.2631:

I want to be very clear: I support the principles of good presentation over rigid formatting.

I’ve said it before – CDIs are about creating art. When we explore making art, we often need to demonstrate our understanding of art. To illustrate our points, but also to seek critique and review to improve upon it. That requires a degree of freedom. Freedom, in turn, requires a degree of responsibility.

CDI have become possible because the game has had time to teach about the game. Clear formats are an excellent tool for teaching processes, but they cannot be the highest level of contribution we will tolerate. I’ve been infracted for reaching higher before. I don’t want to see good posts being deleted again because they didn’t fit in a box.

You do not foster creativity by enforcing conformity.

This says it better than I did.

Out of curiosity..were there any topics still to be discussed from the original vote? I’ve lost track a little.

Nike.2631:

I want to be very clear: I support the principles of good presentation over rigid formatting.

I’ve said it before – CDIs are about creating art. When we explore making art, we often need to demonstrate our understanding of art. To illustrate our points, but also to seek critique and review to improve upon it. That requires a degree of freedom. Freedom, in turn, requires a degree of responsibility.

CDI have become possible because the game has had time to teach about the game. Clear formats are an excellent tool for teaching processes, but they cannot be the highest level of contribution we will tolerate. I’ve been infracted for reaching higher before. I don’t want to see good posts being deleted again because they didn’t fit in a box.

You do not foster creativity by enforcing conformity.

I guess I don’t understand how format limits creativity.

Look at Shakespearean sonnets, for instance.

Anyway, I just think that a format would help collaboration with everyone, not how creative your posts look. I think what’s really important is the content, and a format would best portray that content.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Nike.2631:

I want to be very clear: I support the principles of good presentation over rigid formatting.

I’ve said it before – CDIs are about creating art. When we explore making art, we often need to demonstrate our understanding of art. To illustrate our points, but also to seek critique and review to improve upon it. That requires a degree of freedom. Freedom, in turn, requires a degree of responsibility.

CDI have become possible because the game has had time to teach about the game. Clear formats are an excellent tool for teaching processes, but they cannot be the highest level of contribution we will tolerate. I’ve been infracted for reaching higher before. I don’t want to see good posts being deleted again because they didn’t fit in a box.

You do not foster creativity by enforcing conformity.

I guess I don’t understand how format limits creativity.

Look at Shakespearean sonnets, for instance.

Anyway, I just think that a format would help collaboration with everyone, not how creative your posts look. I think what’s really important is the content, and a format would best portray that content.

People can write as well as he did, but the people who could write in the way that he did is drastically reduced. If that makes sense? A format can be detrimental to content simply because people can spend too much time on the format or they will be put off by the existence of a format and not contribute at all.

Randulf.7614:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Nike.2631:

I want to be very clear: I support the principles of good presentation over rigid formatting.

I’ve said it before – CDIs are about creating art. When we explore making art, we often need to demonstrate our understanding of art. To illustrate our points, but also to seek critique and review to improve upon it. That requires a degree of freedom. Freedom, in turn, requires a degree of responsibility.

CDI have become possible because the game has had time to teach about the game. Clear formats are an excellent tool for teaching processes, but they cannot be the highest level of contribution we will tolerate. I’ve been infracted for reaching higher before. I don’t want to see good posts being deleted again because they didn’t fit in a box.

You do not foster creativity by enforcing conformity.

I guess I don’t understand how format limits creativity.

Look at Shakespearean sonnets, for instance.

Anyway, I just think that a format would help collaboration with everyone, not how creative your posts look. I think what’s really important is the content, and a format would best portray that content.

People can write as well as he did, but the people who could write in the way that he did is drastically reduced. If that makes sense? A format can be detrimental to content simply because people can spend too much time on the format or they will be put off by the existence of a format and not contribute at all.

So adding formatting to a post that is likely written in word, (how could a 2 page post not be written in word?) will suffer because they had to put in a couple brackets?

I’m sorry but I just don’t see it.

I’ll move along now.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Nike.2631:

I want to be very clear: I support the principles of good presentation over rigid formatting.

I guess I don’t understand how format limits creativity.

I’m on the fence here (being logical and creative) – my creative side is notoriously bad at collecting thoughts together and forming a coherent story. People who are providing viable feedback to the CDI are likely creative types, and therefore, likely share the same trait.

Format helps as a guide to collecting thoughts. Too much format stifles creativity. How about “you should really try and stick to this template, but feel free to tweak it if you have problems fitting your ideas into it.”

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I guess I don’t understand how format limits creativity.

Look at Shakespearean sonnets, for instance.

Shall we speak of all
the poets and poetry
with only haiku?

And yes, I occasionally frame my comments as iambic pentameter because I think it’s funny to do so, but that doesn’t mean its the only arrow in my quiver .

Format is a tool, and its an excellent tool for elevating the baseline. I just don’t want to see it promoted to being a cage.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Nike.2631:

I want to be very clear: I support the principles of good presentation over rigid formatting.

I’ve said it before – CDIs are about creating art. When we explore making art, we often need to demonstrate our understanding of art. To illustrate our points, but also to seek critique and review to improve upon it. That requires a degree of freedom. Freedom, in turn, requires a degree of responsibility.

CDI have become possible because the game has had time to teach about the game. Clear formats are an excellent tool for teaching processes, but they cannot be the highest level of contribution we will tolerate. I’ve been infracted for reaching higher before. I don’t want to see good posts being deleted again because they didn’t fit in a box.

You do not foster creativity by enforcing conformity.

I guess I don’t understand how format limits creativity.

Look at Shakespearean sonnets, for instance.

Anyway, I just think that a format would help collaboration with everyone, not how creative your posts look. I think what’s really important is the content, and a format would best portray that content.

Good format and process in my experience absolutely do not negatively impact creativity and problem solving.

On the contrary design within constraints have led to some of the very best ideas I have seen/played.

Chris

I agree.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

On the contrary design within constraints have led to some of the very best ideas I have seen/played.

Chris

One format reminds me of it: MTG Booster Draft Tournaments.

Alternatively, writing prompts. Wherein a writer is handed one word, phrase, or picture and told “write a story about this”.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

On the contrary design within constraints have led to some of the very best ideas I have seen/played.

Chris

One format reminds me of it: MTG Booster Draft Tournaments.

Alternatively, writing prompts. Wherein a writer is handed one word, phrase, or picture and told “write a story about this”.

(Booster drafts kill me, I much prefer Sealed xD)

But yes, I agree that constraints often foster my own creativity. They get me thinking along a particular path and help me focus my ideas. Creative lens, I will now call it,

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Good format and process in my experience absolutely do not negatively impact creativity and problem solving.

…This is going to get rather esoteric, isn’t_it ? That’s all right, a Process Evolution thread really does seem like the right place for it.

Yes, structure has its uses. A joke about the limitations of haiku is way more funny when delivered within the limitations of haiku . I can, if pressed, still dance inside a cage, and sometimes the bars provide opportunities I wouldn’t have dancing on an open field. (And there IS a certain camaraderie to be had in all being locked up together …)

On the contrary design within constraints have led to some of the very best ideas I have seen/played.

Absolutely. Recognizing constraints is KEY to practical solutions. There’s a huge difference between “can it be done?” and “should it be done?” and correctly answering the second question take a lot higher degree of awareness of the limitations where the first question is about capabilities.

I’ve just found the most amazing leaps forward come from recognizing when a widely perceived limitation doesn’t actually exist. That makes me extremely hesitant about introducing them artificially where they may not be necessary.

I’d be a lot happier with the ‘player story’ form if its presented as a “if you are in doubt how to proceed, try this.” rather than enshrining it so that the hidden subtext is “Nike, next time you pop one of your ‘Episode Previews’ just don’t, because its going to get deleted. Bad dog, no biscuit.”

It also raises a question of does this sort of formatting need to extend to response and discussion? Or is it only an issue for initial presentation? Where does “fill out Form A” start and stop?

The devs picking the topic would be useful as it would guide design towards areas they are currently focused on.
If for example Guild improvements was something looking to be developed this year and community feedback was an essential part of that process, then that would make an ideal CDI.

And if people present their ideas differently to the format, will they be ignored/deleted/encouraged to re-write?

I think “micro-CDI” can be good.
A more focused topic, for one (or 2 or 3, not realy the problem) question the dev have to respond in their actual process.

Actual CDI are good, but, maybe this can be good too, at dev initiative.

Cool beans.

One final thing, I believe somewhere you mentioned talking about the immediate impacts CDI has had already on the game. Before or during your next CDI, I think you should round up those ideas that have been impactful and are viewable in game already. There are still people out there who aren’t seeing the benefit or point of these threads and I think a ‘celebration of success’ post – even if it is a bullet point summary in the initial post of the next big CDI – would be very much in the initiatives favour.

1 – Word count is good but don’t make it too short. 150-200 words is good.

2 – I’d prefer player votes. Some people will vote for flying mounts and such but most won’t.

If I may, I would like to request some feedback regarding the summaries so far. (Not just on behalf of myself, I know that Bezagron wanted to get some feedback on this as well)

A few questions that came up while I was summarizing:

• How long can a summary be, before people start to give up?

• Is a linking-system the best way to do it? Or would a more coherent story be more useful? Would it make sense to have both, or would it take too many words?

• Was a seperate thread to ‘follow’ where the CDI was going useful? And could you find it?

• Should the format for posting be made in a way so that it becomes easier to summarize? (For example: one idea per post, because it is easier to link to?)

• Would it be an idea to pause the CDI for a summary every three days?

• Would it help to have certain parts of the topic closed off after a while? (In a summary we could perhaps say: ‘Housing was discussed from page 6 to page 14’ or would that limit the CDI to those who were there on time?)

And the most important questions:

• What else can we do to make the summaries more useful for players?

And:

• What can we do to make the summaries more useful for devs?

Always-Visible Thread Status

Regarding forum tech, would it be possible to have something like a collapsible red-bar block of status text always visible at the top or side of the thread?

If such a message were made visible regardless of where a user is in the thread, it can be updated regularly by the CDI’s managing dev to keep us up to date on any combination of info:

• Summary (maybe via a link)
• Current sub-topic, question, and/or goal
• Desired post format

It could be minimized at most times, expanding when clicked or updated.

To me, this seems much more reliable than simply hoping everybody happens to have read the dev’s most recent guidepost.

Of course, people are still free to post what they want, but this would drastically improve visibility and tangibility of the dev’s guiding hand. It would also eliminate the need for Chris to constantly bump his own posts, creating a neat and permanent place for these things, and freeing up his actual forum posts for genuine discussion.

The Lost Witch.7601:

If I may, I would like to request some feedback regarding the summaries so far. (Not just on behalf of myself, I know that Bezagron wanted to get some feedback on this as well)

A few questions that came up while I was summarizing:

I think a separate thread for the summaries would be nice. At times during the horizontal discussion, it got abit heavy with several posts of summaries right after each other.
Perhaps a simple post in the CDI like:

“Now pages 4 – 10 have been summarised. Go here (link) to read.”

Other than that, I think the way you did it in the horizontal discussion worked pretty well. A midway between links and short descriptions. Do whatever makes most sense, I’, sure we’ll all appreciate it the effort once again

One idea/suggestion per post would indeed make everything better.

And finally, I don’t think the CDI should be paused, or parts of the discussion closed before the entire CDI is done. As you said, then we risk losing the suggestions from those who were not there from the start.

Hope this helps abit.

The way I see it, is that there are two principle problems with the current forums format kitten far as CDI is concerned.

• A) Because comments are listed one after another, good ideas and comments get buried along with a large amount of bad or not spectacular ideas/comments as well.
  This makes it impossibly difficult to find that good ideas from the bad without reading everything. Which we have found is not really practical.

• B) In addition, often times there are several discussions going on at once, and there is no way to parse them.

So anyone coming into the discussion just has a long list of text to wade through, and that’s not very constructive.
I honestly think we a system that takes the good comments a brings them to the top, and one that also separates individual discussions going on into something that is manageable for anyone coming in for the first time.

So maybe the forums (at least in there current state) are just not the best way to have these kinds of discussions. If I am not mistake, Reddit uses a system that raises good comments to the top, so perhaps we should be using that if at all possible.
Or if the forums could be designed a bit more like that maybe.

In either case, we need a way to get to the good ideas quickly, and separate the individual discussions so that anyone coming into the discussion can quickly figure out what is going and contribute without have to read everything.

Because people tend to read nothing if there is just too much to take in, which may include information relevant to their comment.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I like the idea of the following:

- Include a topic primer (The CDI thread owner will do this)
- Create a template for proposal ideas starting with a ‘User Story’ and then formatted in a similar way to Nike and other’s suggestions I will create this)
- No word limit as the hope is that the new format will help with more concise communication.

I think we need to continue to discuss:

- CDI having its own section in the forum.
- Tech improvements for the CDI forum.
- How we decide the subject of topics ( I am leaning toward the DEVs picking the next round and seeing how that goes)

Chris

Bump

And here we have a fantastic demonstration of how we can use tools already in the forums to cut down on thread bloat:

If the First Post (hopefully to include the Primer) is set to Q/A mode – that post will always be displayed at the top of every page. Further, the moderator gains the ability to nominate one post as the “Answer” which is always displayed as the second post at the top of every page. Nominating the thread owner’s (the Dev-Host ) Proposal post will mean it is displayed near the top of every single page with better visibility and without having to bump posts, unnecessarily contributing to the thread’s length.

(Then its just a matter of Host’s preference to go back and edit a single Proposal post over and over, or to write new ones and move the nomination forward to the most current, or even a mix of both tactics as the mood takes them. Either way, the forum itself automatically displays it where it can do the most good.)

I have been thinking a bit about this while at work, and I had another thought about the “organicness” of the CDI threads…

There are times that people bring up topics while in the midst of another that actually deserve their own discussion. I would really like to see a way in which we could branch out into other discussions when warranted.

As for the “template” idea, it would be ok, but I have found that a set of basic rules would be much better than a rigid template. I would hate to think that someone posted a great idea but was discounted because it didn’t follow a template.

Hi, Welcome Back All, Chris & Silent Readers looking forward to another great & interesting discussion. Have a little topic reading to catch up on but first a look at Chris’s two points;

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Snip..

The two areas I think we need to work out or improve on are:

1: We need to keep thread and post sizes more manageable. Should we put a limit on the word length of posts?

Short: Please NO.
Long: There is already a characters limit of 5000 for individual posts. The work around already used by posters are multi-posts. It’s true with 5000 characters some posts can become ‘Walls of Text’ but once you start formatting & hyperlinking posts can reach this limit very fast. This is more of a problem I found when summarising.

The other main problem with word limits can be truly explaining ideas. Although great One Liners & Summery Points, can’t always get the true meaning or idea across.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

2: How are we going to choose topics moving forward, for example, by votes or by Anet choosing them etc?

Chris

Short: Both why not alternate.
Long: Here I don’t think one way is the answer, and only using the forums to poll for the topics. I believe an approach were both are used is the best solution. Topics by Arena Net will allow Arena Net to focus on areas of interest (Areas their working on, feedback, etc..). Were topics by votes / polls will involve the players & future customers. This allows players to feel more involved in the game (Helping with new ideas for development / game improvements / balance, talking to developers, etc..). I believe both Arena Net & Players need to choose topics. Arena Net for focus and Players for involvement.

Now the next is how to expand CDI involvement pass just the forum. By vote could include;

• In game voting / polls (Like with the Lion’s Arch Captain’s Council elections).
• Forum voting / polls. (Existing)
• GW2 Twitter voting / polls.
• GW2 Facebook voting / polls.

These could be individual groups (CDI topic chosen only by in game vote) or combined (Any two or more sources, Facebook & Forum).

Note: Looking to post my feedback on summarising (From CDI-HP) in the next day. Most likely 2 post, one on the poster and one on the summariser.

zamalek.2154:

To me the CDI is a creative process and length limits gets in the way of that; however much of the same type of stuff can be said at times. Additionally there is a lot of noise (“oh your idea is dumb” and such posts) that you need to mentally sift through. That, in my opinion is where the energy is wasted – even through Chrispy can rant on for a while his/her posts are well worded and as consise as they can possibly be (his/her ideas simply take that many words) – they are a pleasure to read and draw inspiration from.

What I would do is quite the contrary to what you suggested. Limit how often people can post on the threads (once every 4 hours or so?) and in addition have a much larger minimum character requirement. In my humble opinion you want to encourage those longer, more thought out posts.

Having a time limit between posts is a function found on these boards known as “flood control”. Its currently used as a punishment for posters who have accumulated infraction points. I don’t know if it can be invoked on a per thread basis rather than on a per account basis, but my experience is that it can have a remarkable impact on sharpening the mind . Its also annoying as hell, but it was a righteous bust so I try not to gripe too much.

While I think flood control has some potential for barring multi-posting on an automated basis, I think we need to carefully consider that CDI threads are predominantly made up of two kinds of posts: proposals and discussion. (I do recognize a third important recurring category of summary – but I think there is already a bit of a push to move those into nearby support threads.)

Flood control of any length would shape Proposal posts, forcing the poster to work in discrete packets, knowing that they cannot claim continuously adjacent posts (except very late at night). However flood control also cripples any sort of immediacy in discussion and fast interplay in critique. It makes it hard to iterate an idea. It may also block summary posting as those sometime have “legitimate” needs to take up 2-3 posts in a row.

Knowing that we have a couple different kinds of activities in the CDI theads, I wonder about players taking their discussion into anther standard thread voluntarily. It demands a higher level of proficiency to link to your new topic/thread, and a willingness to bat something around without the assurance that a Dev or most of the other contributors will ever see it… But it might be useful. I don’t know. Just sort of musing aloud on this one.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

- How we decide the subject of topics ( I am leaning toward the DEVs picking the next round and seeing how that goes)

should be fine as long as the dev’s pick population imbalance for the next wvw cdi

gidorah.4960:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

- How we decide the subject of topics ( I am leaning toward the DEVs picking the next round and seeing how that goes)

should be fine as long as the dev’s pick population imbalance for the next wvw cdi

I believe they have already done a CDI on that topic, a couple of months ago in fact.

gidorah.4960:

should be fine as long as the dev’s pick population imbalance for the next wvw cdi

Yoh.8469:

I believe they have already done a CDI on that topic, a couple of months ago in fact.

It went poorly enough that there was mention of the possibility of taking up the topic again with a more vigorous Host-Dev presence.

I hope we can look at it again.

Randulf.7614:

Out of curiosity..were there any topics still to be discussed from the original vote? I’ve lost track a little.

I think the third topic from the original vote was class balance/improvements or something similar. Someone else maybe can confirm if I am remembering correctly?

Forum tech thought: if we’re going with this “user story” idea, we can help manageability by using that as a unit of division. Each “user story” is the opening post in its own “micro-thread”, and that makes it easier to reply to that specific one without quote-spam, and to collect all responses in one related thread.

There are quite a few things that make this complicated to implement of course. If the CDI had its own sub-forum you could, right now, get people to just start a new thread for each of those. There are a few problems though:

• How do you ensure a consistent structure?
• How do you prevent redundant threads?

In a “Reddit” style discussion topic, these user stories would probably comprise many of the top-level responses to the main CDI thread. Responses to them would consist of refinements, comments, suggestions for improvement, etc. I have to figure you’d need to allow for guidance from devs and Q/A on that guidance as well, though, so not all of the responses would start from stories.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

- CDI having its own section in the forum.

That is important, to make it easier to find the threads and keep the older ones at hand.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

‘- Announce CDI threads starting on the patcher screen so anyone starting the game is made aware they are being done.’

We definitely need to do a better job of letting folks know when a CDI starts.

I like @Tobias Trueflight idea. That could also be done with the dolyak express.

If a template was used it could have the following format:

Title: optional

Key words: this could be one line. Key words help to know the main topics of the text.

Summary: the summary helps to have a quick idea of the posted idea.

Body: here the player can develop his/her idea in full extent.

This way, the person can check the title (it may tell us a lot or anything), then the key words (this is the quickest way to know if the topic has something of our interest), then the summary (this give us a general idea of what the text body tells).

My suggestion to changing the tech and format of these CDI’s is as follows.

Take Reddit as an example of formatting with some major tweeks.
1) Each CDI has a starting template developed by the ANet team and each of the player responses is an individual “post”. Each “post” would contain a small summary of content in the list view.
2) The ANet dev team can internally up or down vote each topic based on some criteria, such as “fits into the gw2 universe”; “can be implemented (minimal technical restraints)”; “has some other merit”, etc.
3) create better sorting and filtering/searching tools. The forum structure for this sort of thing is a very troublesome format, which is why developers move to a more bug tracker type format.
4)make it so a Dev can open a topic for discussion, this would make it far simpler for players to offer reliable feedback and would focus on what topic/idea is a valuable one based on the perspective of the Dev team. It would also provide us an actual direction for topics with merit.

This thread is reading more and more like a step by step guide on how to make the CDI threads even more insular.

Tyops.5894:

This thread is reading more and more like a step by step guide on how to make the CDI threads even more insular.

Chris has made it very clear that the initial template or whatever format utilized would only be for a player’s opening proposal.

When discussing other player’s ideas, or critiquing one another, we want the discussion to be free-form as it has been in the past.

Having more concise proposals will allow more people to jump in with their individual proposals and ideas, but those that want to contribute more can continue with unhindered discussion with both the community and the developers.

I think a subforum with multiple proposal topics could make it much easier for people to follow the discussion they care about. It’s a little frustrating, while trying to have a conversation about X, you get a few people (always the same few) who keep posting about Fractal reset and a handful of “I haven’t read any of this but here’s a 3-post 13,000 word dump of my ideas.”

One forum. One post per proposal. Discussion surrounding that proposal.

That also makes the final proposal much easier to create – it can link to and summarize the proposals that were found to be the most popular.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I like the idea of the following:

- Include a topic primer (The CDI thread owner will do this)
- Create a template for proposal ideas starting with a ‘User Story’ and then formatted in a similar way to Nike and other’s suggestions I will create this)
- No word limit as the hope is that the new format will help with more concise communication.

I think we need to continue to discuss:

- CDI having its own section in the forum.
- Tech improvements for the CDI forum.
- How we decide the subject of topics ( I am leaning toward the DEVs picking the next round and seeing how that goes)

Chris

Forum/Thread Tech Improvements

To address ‘Tech Improvements’….It would be lovely if the arrows for last/next on Dev posts actually took you to the last/next Dev Post. They seem to work as long as the last/next post is on the same page, but become rather hit and miss (more miss than hit) if the last/next post is on a different page.

But, there are many, um, let’s say anomalies with the forum that could be addressed to make the forum more useful/easier to use.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I like the idea of the following:

- Include a topic primer (The CDI thread owner will do this)
- Create a template for proposal ideas starting with a ‘User Story’ and then formatted in a similar way to Nike and other’s suggestions I will create this)
- No word limit as the hope is that the new format will help with more concise communication.
- Topics for the next round will be chosen by the Devs and will run concurrently where possible.
- Following the next round of topics we will discuss whether or not we like Devs choosing the topics.
- The CDI will not have its own sub forum currently as the concern is there won’t be enough exposure.
- We will do more to expose new CDI threads to the community when the go live.

I think we need to continue to discuss:

- Tech improvements for the CDI forum.
- Anymore ideas or thoughts?

Chris

Updated ^^

I really thought everyone (except for 1 or 2) thought that the CDI should have its own sub forum?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

1: We need to keep thread and post sizes more manageable. Should we put a limit on the word length of posts?

yes, limit the lenght. It’s faster than waiting people to learn to be concise…

2: How are we going to chose topics moving forward, for example, by votes or by Anet choosing them etc?

votes, will save a lot of time.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I really thought everyone (except for 1 or 2) thought that the CDI should have its own sub forum?

Maybe most of the people in this thread feel that way, but the number of names in here isn’t so much as a measurable fraction of the daily foot traffic through the boards… which is kind of a sign even this thread isn’t getting as much exposure as it should, since we’re sitting here in council deciding how people will have to comport themselves to have a say in their future.

I’ve half-jokingly offered to write a tutorial on “How to get a Dev to respond to you” which was equal parts writing tips and self-examination (“why do you want a Dev to respond?”). I would like to take steps to elevate the discussion so that the CDIs can start faster and reach higher in terms of actionable points gathered. On the Developers side there’s some structural ideas, and things like having a Primer to make the subject clearer. On the player side there’s raising our game… I wonder if we might be better served with some guides or tutorials sticky-ed somewhere (wherever CDIs are achieved after they close maybe) and links to those guides included in the “These are the Rules” posts that follow the Primer/Initial post in my imagination. Not everyone will follow a link to a guide, but not everyone will give the slightest thought to following a formulaic proposal format either. I’d rather try to educate than to ram round pegs through square holes. I’d rather the process of improvement be voluntary and uplifting than mandatory, enforced on pain of moderation.

And I’ve given Chris grief about being an optimist …

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I think we need to continue to discuss:

- Tech improvements for the CDI forum.
- Anymore ideas or thoughts?

Updated ^^

If the resources are available Chris, the desire to improve the CDI process should be driven by the goal to fix the “Search” functionality on the forum as a whole. To be honest, it hasn’t worked correctly since launch and is often remarked as one of the core elements that prevents the forum from having a larger impact.

@Nike, I get that. I just feel like (like this morning) this thread had been pushed all the way to the second page, and stickies don’t work all that well, because people not always look at the stickies (see the Dolyak express). So in terms of exposure, the general discussion forum gets so much traffic for other unrelated things that it hinders the visibility by being here.

My opinion of course…