Merode wrote: ↑

6 years ago

whereas this new generation wants everything served on silver platter, preferably immidiately.

I don't understand how people can be confused by a format like this. There's literally nothing more than a single well-formatted page containing all the threads. There's absolutely no effort required to navigate. Clear as crystal.

It does break the convention of what many people are used to, but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. I was also a little confused about the forum button when I first joined, but I was also very confused how reddit worked when I first joined there. People will learn. This is better design (for now) than burying posts in a bunch of different subforms.

rundal wrote: ↑

6 years ago

I don't understand how people can be confused by a format like this. There's literally nothing more than a single well-formatted page containing all the threads. There's absolutely no effort required to navigate. Clear as crystal.

I think this thread itself makes my point: Even people in this thread, regulars to the forum, do not know that there are subforums/categories, and believe that the 'main' forum is the only one about. The dude had a point, and contrary to what everyone else in this thread is claiming, he wasn't an 'asshole' or anything about it.

He was giving valuable feedback, and he's getting shit on for it. Not cool.

When the traffic was small, it did not matter that you don't have sub forums (others than guides).
Now that there is more and more people joining, you should think about implementing regular sub forums : classes, PvP etc...

Executive wrote: ↑

6 years ago

Even people in this thread, regulars to the forum, do not know that there are subforums/categories, and believe that the 'main' forum is the only one about.

teebling wrote: ↑

6 years ago

One forum category
It's all that is needed - no endless sections, sub-sections, categories, rules and requirements... just talk.

Executive wrote: ↑

6 years ago

The dude had a point, and contrary to what everyone else in this thread is claiming, he wasn't an 'asshole' or anything about it.
(...)
He was giving valuable feedback, and he's getting shit on for it. Not cool.

What your intent originally for this site was just be a discussion board for Classic so your fine there, but like someone mentioned earlier having everything in one Section can get messy though you got guides section/sub forum though only staff can move stuff there I guess. But yeah without more realm info not much you could add in terms of sub forums. Def would love a Sub Forum for Classic Twinking in future possibly hehe.

Also having multiple sub forums or categories can tend to make sites/forums Look ''Dead'' if they don't got enough fair interest in those multiple categories or subjects so what you got now is totally fine, but has traffic increases / members def maybe something to consider!

I think their could be a section for the really active topics, like speedrunning for example. I think I had even suggested it within the thread itself previously. It is hard to find any other topics that are consistently active enough to warrant sub-forums at the moment. Maybe having a 'Guilds' section where people can advertise/apply/discuss guild information? This website could be a nice LFGuild hub leading up to Classic, if implemented well.

I actually liked the fact that everything was in one place.
However as time passes and we get more users, I can see how it could be hard to find topics.
Just spitballing ideas, but maybe instead of having 10 sub-forum categories, an easy way to search with tags can also be applied. Similar to topic flairs on reddit.

Haters gonna hate. This site is epic and I love it! :)

Dont change anything, as the site is perfect as it is. if you're looking for something specific there's a search function that works really well.

I think it might be something that needs to be considered more as the userbase of the forum increases. Honestly the only desire I've ever had for a 'sub forum' here is a place to communicate about playing together with other forum members. I've been in beta since the beginning and have felt pretty lonely outside of some random interactions with people in the world and I'm the only one in the beta in my guild so it sucks finding people to play with.

His points are poorly presented, but there is a kernel of truth in there. Mainly, I would point out that there ARE in fact sub-forums already. As he pointed out, for instance, the header "Realms" leads to a subforum for realms. I think there is a small point to be made that having the header "Forum" is inaccurate, considering the board it leads to is NOT the only forum board on the website, but rather the MAIN forum. If you want to be strict about it, it's not unreasonable to suggest that the "Forum" header be renamed to "General." It would be more accurate, and less confusing. I admit, when I first came here I was surprised that the other links led to forum-style boards. The link titled "Forum" implied to me that there was only one such board on the website.

Aside from that, I agree that our small community wouldn't benefit from splitting the General forum into multiple boards. What would be nice, though, would be the ability to tag our threads with categories, to make it easier to search for and view certain types of posts.

teebling wrote: ↑

6 years ago

...does he have a point though?

Thanks for the honest feedback guys, I think it has definitely been a productive thread and I've taken a few things from it. Here's where things stand now.

I will be keeping the one forum layout. This is the most important parts of the design and functionality of the site and in the nature of Barrens Chat which was after all a stream of discussion. My justification for it is this - having administered and participated in forums like this for years, I know from experience that over-categorisation of forum content and hiding posts within layers of subforums is not conducive to an active community.

What ends up happening is that some areas become inactive - which in turn leads to them looking 'dead' - which in turn means that less and less people post in those areas - which worsens the situation further. The one-forum system has been there from the beginning so that as soon as people hit the index page of the site there are interesting things to read only a click away.

I have learned to never underestimate how impatient people are when navigating websites and this is apparent in the way the site is intended to be used with a quick sign up and straightforward features which don't require a manual on how to use. Analytics from the past have shown me that when faced with a labyrinth of different forums to choose from, most people just 'bounce' straight away.

HOWEVER.

It is apparent that the Search feature, whilst I put a lot of work into it in patch 1.7, isn't sufficient for most new visitors and therefore a design flaw in part. Either it's too difficult to find, too laborious to use, or simply not producing the right results for keywords (or people are just lazy and don't search first but that's not within my control). This is clearly evident from the continuous reposting of well-rehearsed topics like 'what is your favourite class/what race will you play/what zone do you like' etc. despite these being very easily accessible through the search.

There are also clearly a lot of people who are well aware of the search, power users and light users alike, but would also like to have a way of filtering/separating topics based on their overall 'category' and have more control over how the forum appears to them. Like I said before, the solution to this is NOT subforums - I will not be adding any this time (and probably never), but I also can't ignore the very clear case for giving users more control over the front page. So what I think I'll do for the next upcoming patch 1.10 is this:

There will be a filter dropdown button in the same style and right next to the New Post button. When clicked, the user will be able to filter the posts on the main page (without a page refresh possibly if I can do it in AJAX) based on the current 'topic icons' which I will repurpose as 'categories' of sorts. So for example, everything to do with Warriors will have the warrior little shield icon attached to it. Someone wants only topics about warriors? They click Filter > (Icon) Warrior and the page reforms to show only those topics. That's a much more intuitive and visual way of categorising the posts so that people can browse categories they are interested in without losing the unique one-forum structure. I'll also add a ton of new icons so that every possible 'virtual subforum' one could think of can be represented and used for filtering in this way.

Thoughts about this solution?

You can always expand to sub forums as the contributing base expands.

He wasn’t trolling but did come off a little childish.

teebling wrote: ↑

6 years ago

There will be a filter dropdown button in the same style and right next to the New Post button. When clicked, the user will be able to filter the posts on the main page (without a page refresh possibly if I can do it in AJAX) based on the current 'topic icons' which I will repurpose as 'categories' of sorts. So for example, everything to do with Warriors will have the warrior little shield icon attached to it. Someone wants only topics about warriors? They click Filter > (Icon) Warrior and the page reforms to show only those topics. That's a much more intuitive and visual way of categorising the posts so that people can browse categories they are interested in without losing the unique one-forum structure. I'll also add a ton of new icons so that every possible 'virtual subforum' one could think of can be represented and used for filtering in this way.

Thoughts about this solution?

Elegant solution. Look forward to seeing it in action!

teebling wrote: ↑

6 years ago

I'll also add a ton of new icons so that every possible 'virtual subforum' one could think of can be represented and used for filtering in this way.

My two cents: I actually think sub forums help keep things clean and organized. They make things easy to find if you're new or just want to find an older post. There's pages of stuff I've never even looked at and I've been here a few months now. If the site gets larger I think sub forums should definitely be considered.

That said, it's not my baby, and it works well enough as is.

teebling wrote: ↑

6 years ago

Thanks for the honest feedback guys, I think it has definitely been a productive thread and I've taken a few things from it. Here's where things stand now.

I will be keeping the one forum layout. This is the most important parts of the design and functionality of the site and in the nature of Barrens Chat which was after all a stream of discussion. My justification for it is this - having administered and participated in forums like this for years, I know from experience that over-categorisation of forum content and hiding posts within layers of subforums is not conducive to an active community.

What ends up happening is that some areas become inactive - which in turn leads to them looking 'dead' - which in turn means that less and less people post in those areas - which worsens the situation further. The one-forum system has been there from the beginning so that as soon as people hit the index page of the site there are interesting things to read only a click away.

I have learned to never underestimate how impatient people are when navigating websites and this is apparent in the way the site is intended to be used with a quick sign up and straightforward features which don't require a manual on how to use. Analytics from the past have shown me that when faced with a labyrinth of different forums to choose from, most people just 'bounce' straight away.

HOWEVER.

It is apparent that the Search feature, whilst I put a lot of work into it in patch 1.7, isn't sufficient for most new visitors and therefore a design flaw in part. Either it's too difficult to find, too laborious to use, or simply not producing the right results for keywords (or people are just lazy and don't search first but that's not within my control). This is clearly evident from the continuous reposting of well-rehearsed topics like 'what is your favourite class/what race will you play/what zone do you like' etc. despite these being very easily accessible through the search.

There are also clearly a lot of people who are well aware of the search, power users and light users alike, but would also like to have a way of filtering/separating topics based on their overall 'category' and have more control over how the forum appears to them. Like I said before, the solution to this is NOT subforums - I will not be adding any this time (and probably never), but I also can't ignore the very clear case for giving users more control over the front page. So what I think I'll do for the next upcoming patch 1.10 is this:

There will be a filter dropdown button in the same style and right next to the New Post button. When clicked, the user will be able to filter the posts on the main page (without a page refresh possibly if I can do it in AJAX) based on the current 'topic icons' which I will repurpose as 'categories' of sorts. So for example, everything to do with Warriors will have the warrior little shield icon attached to it. Someone wants only topics about warriors? They click Filter > (Icon) Warrior and the page reforms to show only those topics. That's a much more intuitive and visual way of categorising the posts so that people can browse categories they are interested in without losing the unique one-forum structure. I'll also add a ton of new icons so that every possible 'virtual subforum' one could think of can be represented and used for filtering in this way.

Thoughts about this solution?

teebling wrote: ↑

6 years ago

It is apparent that the Search feature, whilst I put a lot of work into it in patch 1.7, isn't sufficient for most new visitors and therefore a design flaw in part. Either it's too difficult to find, too laborious to use, or simply not producing the right results for keywords (or people are just lazy and don't search first but that's not within my control). This is clearly evident from the continuous reposting of well-rehearsed topics like 'what is your favourite class/what race will you play/what zone do you like' etc. despite these being very easily accessible through the search.

teebling wrote: ↑

6 years ago

There will be a filter dropdown button in the same style and right next to the New Post button. When clicked, the user will be able to filter the posts on the main page (without a page refresh possibly if I can do it in AJAX) based on the current 'topic icons' which I will repurpose as 'categories' of sorts. So for example, everything to do with Warriors will have the warrior little shield icon attached to it. Someone wants only topics about warriors? They click Filter > (Icon) Warrior and the page reforms to show only those topics. That's a much more intuitive and visual way of categorising the posts so that people can browse categories they are interested in without losing the unique one-forum structure. I'll also add a ton of new icons so that every possible 'virtual subforum' one could think of can be represented and used for filtering in this way.

@Teebling Love the ideas! I think that also having it prominently displayed that there is nothing wrong with resurrecting old threads would also be a step in the right direction as so many other forums heavily discourage reusing old posts.

I agree that sub-forums contribute to the death warmed over look of so many forums. Having a search feature to sift through the topics would almost be like all the forums are mixed together and you just have to unmix them to acquire them, but without the negatives of going into your class's forum and realizing no one has posted there for a week because they're too busy talking one sub-forum over (except you don't know).

i really like the design. I mean if we get bigger with the release or so maybe Subforums would be needed but at the moment we have not enough active threads.

I like it that most threads are really fresh and you can see news better.