Guild Wars 2

tigirius.9014:

timmyf.1490:

Register for an account on Reddit. Post there. Problem solved.

Also my thinking considering that these forums have all but been ignored for years now and the suggestions folder was thrown in the trash. Making things more public like posting to reddit, facebook, youtube, twitch would certainly get more attention and go viral much more quickly in mediums that can’t easily be snuffed out.

The Suggestion folder wasn’t thrown in the trash. It was trash, somewhat, in that it was one big hodgepodge that was impossible to keep up with and sort out if one wanted to do anything else with one’s day. So they very clearly said to please put suggestions in the appropriate subforum because devs tend to look at the forums germane to their area, not all the forums.

The more recent forum reorganization does baffle me, as I thought things were nicely sorted out as they were. But the Suggestions change was not a “snuffing out,” it was the opposite, it was intended to give suggestions a chance to be seen.

See, I feel your paragraph up there might be an example to the OP of what not to write. It’s not reportable or infractionable imo, and certainly reflects a jaded opinion that you have every right to air. Yet it’s accusatory and borders on conspiracy theory, ascribing vile motives and assuming lack of response is the same as flat out ignoring of what’s said. It certainly won’t motivate the devs to jump in and engage you in conversation.

Donari has it right. If you’re trying to get your thoughts to “go viral” in a way they can’t be “snuffed out,” you’re not participating in a conversation. Participate in the conversation instead and you’ll be fine.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Olvendred.3027:

If Anet wants to judge individual mods, I’m sure they’d have a way of tracking exactly who’s done what. Or could implement one. Without letting it be known to the players.

Yes, we can track individual moderator actions — no worries there.

Okay then. My one problem with how mods work here is they rarely moderate threads, they simply lock and/or delete threads. There are times I’ve seen you Gaile step in to yank on the reigns and try to break up a snip fest between two players or try to steer a thread back on topic but I never see that happen with black label moderators. It’s the difference between a police officer telling a loiterer to move along Vs shooting him with a TASER and hauling their butt downtown. The former is good policing IMO while the later is overreacting.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Sarcasm and mockery have little place in a forum, whether they are used to speak “the truth” or not.

Gaile . . . I disagree partially. Mockery in the sense of “look at the idiot with his idiot ideas” should probably not be something in a forum. Sarcasm which is used similarly? That’s less objectionable . . . but still something which should be avoided. The key points we need to keep (all of us, as players and red-tags) are:

- Respect
- Politeness
- Consideration

. . . to other people. There is a difference between “I think you’re stupid” and “I think your idea is stupid” . . . and “I don’t think that idea is going to work”. One addresses the derision and hurt to the person, the second to the idea, and the third replaces the derision with disagreement. One of these is definitely an example of what not to say, one is an example of what we should strive to say.

Sarcasm and mockery have their place in communicating between people, and looking at ideas. They can exist in polite conversation, between people who are willing to keep it away from personal targets.

Broad blanket disapproval is something I just can’t get behind. Of anything. As someone who works in communicating ideas and comments, and being a go-between for players and ArenaNet employees . . . I know why you say it that way. But I also hope you know why it’s not a position which should be held.

Communication needs to be open, and it needs to be honest. Even if (I’d say especially if said honesty leads to comments and opinions which aren’t “pleasant” . . . there is value still there.

Just my thoughts on this. (And why I was never allowed into debate club.)

Atlas.9704:

Karizee.8076:

Also, rather than posting duplicate threads it’s recommended to add to existing topics if there is already a thread that discusses the topic.

I’ll echo this as well.

Posting another topic that is just repeating another topic will not make anything better.
Your* thoughts on the matter can just as easily be put into the existing topic.

There’s nothing more special about your* thoughts cluttering up the boards with multiple threads all dealing with one issue.

Yes that means posts are just added to a great big thread, but honestly they’re going to be moved there anyways.

*You and your all in the generic sense, this post is not specifically targeting anyone.

Yeah, but the rules around necro-ing was never really all that clear to me (in general, but particularly on these forums).

Reanne.5462:

How do you have a ‘Forum’ without a debate, conflict is not inherently bad.

Well it’s all pretty semantical, but I pretty sure that conflict is not inherently synonymous with debate and vice-versa. Related sure, but it doesn’t inherently follow that all arguments are based around conflict and that all conflicts involve debate (sometimes they involve shooting).

Reanne.5462:

cognitive dissonance , That is what I was looking for, tyvm.

I do like this game, which is why I play it in all my free time, while at the same time kittening and moaning about the stuff that drives me nuts in the game, that I wish anet would change. I don’t want free loots, or mounts or any of that other crap. I just need some stronger heroin, to use a terrible metaphor.

Not cognitive dissonance unless there’s some black and white thinking (or splitting since we’re (and by we I mostly mean me… I know bad habit) being all technical) thrown into the mix.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Use tact. Problem solved.

Ah if only that could be so easy. Mostly because tact is a bit of a loaded word. More specifically: use tone and wording that is acceptable in western (primarily American… although I’m fairly sure America has varied definitions of tact as well) semi-formal society. You see some culture actually promote a certain amount of candor that would be considered rude for example calling someone who is being idiot and idiot, even if objectively true the statement would be considered rude by some.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Should they respond if they have nothing new to say? Do posters really need to hear someone say, “Hey, I’ve got nothing new to say, but I’m here.”? I sure don’t need that amount of reassurance.

Either you’re relatively new or missed the whole “we need more feedback” discussions on the forums that went on a few months ago. There was a lot of people looking for those kinds of responses… Granted it was mostly phrased like: "if we’re talking about X and we haven’t heard anything official in Y period, then ANet should at least state that nothing has occurred in regards to X). A prime example would be pre-cursor scavenger hunts.

Black Frog.9274:

It boils down to which moderator you get. I’ve posted two comments in the last month that were very, very similar. One was infracted, the other wasn’t.

Well if we had to choose between a automated system or a human system with some variation in application of rules I’d much rather go for the human system. Computers just aren’t there yet and those systems tend to be a bit too easy to game.

Behellagh.1468:

Okay then. My one problem with how mods work here is they rarely moderate threads, they simply lock and/or delete threads. There are times I’ve seen you Gaile step in to yank on the reigns and try to break up a snip fest between two players or try to steer a thread back on topic but I never see that happen with black label moderators. It’s the difference between a police officer telling a loiterer to move along Vs shooting him with a TASER and hauling their butt downtown. The former is good policing IMO while the later is overreacting.

I’ve seen many messages from “black label” mods saying “please keep the discussion respectful and on topic” or words to that effect. They don’t only lock and delete threads, that is a last resort for any discussion that is not either troll-bait or against the rules to begin with.

Gaile Gray.6029:

The developers read these forums virtually every day, but they derive the greatest benefit from reading a concise, combined set of comments from a wide range of forum members. Imagine reading the 12th or 20th thread that says virtually the same thing. Does that speak towards something positive: “This is definitely something we need to do?” Or does it point away from reading the forums, when there’s so much redundancy and so little value in repeated/duplicated comments? The devs are busy people. Let’s make it easy for them to get feedback, both good and bad, in an efficient, meaningful manner!

- I don’t know how developers see these forums, but I often use the front page with thread titles as a way of navigating what is being discussed on the forums. I can also understand why someone with fresh idea would want to start a new thread instead of having having their post buried somewhere on page 68 on a thread with 142 pages, where most of the responses are essentially personal messages between small group of forum users. Nobody can find the needle from the haystack like that.

Case in point: I want to find what Anet representative responded to big thread. There’s a mark that at least one (1) such post exists on the thread, but I need to click individual pages and quickly scroll from top to bottom and look for red color to find out if the post is on that page or not.

Since there’s no effective post voting and thread constructing tools like Reddit has, posting a new thread is sadly the best way to get attention on a subject.

Just a couple points.

Posting your own thoughts on a subject in someone else’s thread. While the subject is the same, ‘ownership’ is not. For example, the traits. Person A has an idea about changing the traits so they make a thread about it. Person B has a different idea about changing the traits so they make a thread about it. Why? Because, although they are both about the traits and changing them, they are each presenting something different. It’s bad form and disrespectful to high jack someone else’s thread and that is precisely what person B would be doing if they simply presented their own idea in person A’s thread.

The second is a sticky found in the WvW section. Necroposting. What if person A’s thread is old, a few pages back, and hasn’t seen a post added in a couple weeks? Person B posts their idea to it and then the same people who complain that there didn’t need to be a new thread about it will be first to say that you shouldn’t have resurrected a dead thread.

So if I wish to talk about what someone else presented to the forum, I’ll post in their thread about it.

If I wish to present my own idea (even if it’s about the same general topic), I create my own thread about it.

If I don’t see it already in the first three pages, I’ll start a new thread about it.

I will not spend 10 minutes searching for the possibility that someone already made a thread about it when starting a thread about it will take only two minutes to make.

Zenith.6403:

Gaile Gray.6029:

The developers read these forums virtually every day, but they derive the greatest benefit from reading a concise, combined set of comments from a wide range of forum members. Imagine reading the 12th or 20th thread that says virtually the same thing. Does that speak towards something positive: “This is definitely something we need to do?” Or does it point away from reading the forums, when there’s so much redundancy and so little value in repeated/duplicated comments? The devs are busy people. Let’s make it easy for them to get feedback, both good and bad, in an efficient, meaningful manner!

- I don’t know how developers see these forums, but I often use the front page with thread titles as a way of navigating what is being discussed on the forums. I can also understand why someone with fresh idea would want to start a new thread instead of having having their post buried somewhere on page 68 on a thread with 142 pages, where most of the responses are essentially personal messages between small group of forum users. Nobody can find the needle from the haystack like that.

Case in point: I want to find what Anet representative responded to big thread. There’s a mark that at least one (1) such post exists on the thread, but I need to click individual pages and quickly scroll from top to bottom and look for red color to find out if the post is on that page or not.

Since there’s no effective post voting and thread constructing tools like Reddit has, posting a new thread is sadly the best way to get attention on a subject.

+1

However I just want to point something out. Once you find the first dev post, there are arrows above and below their name. Clicking these will bring you to their previous/next post. Of course it is name specific so if there is more than one, you will have to scroll through to find the other dev’s first post.

CureForLiving.5360:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Should they respond if they have nothing new to say? Do posters really need to hear someone say, “Hey, I’ve got nothing new to say, but I’m here.”? I sure don’t need that amount of reassurance.

Either you’re relatively new or missed the whole “we need more feedback” discussions on the forums that went on a few months ago. There was a lot of people looking for those kinds of responses… Granted it was mostly phrased like: "if we’re talking about X and we haven’t heard anything official in Y period, then ANet should at least state that nothing has occurred in regards to X). A prime example would be pre-cursor scavenger hunts.

I am neither new nor did I miss seeing those discussions. I’m much rarer than either of those two groups. I’m someone who can take the last known statement as status quo and be content with that, while still being active (for some values of “active”) on these forums.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the Mike O’Brien Gag Order is a PR mistake. It’s just that as I get older, I am trying to cultivate patience while learning to ride the horse in the direction it’s going.