Game Master GM Tock Posted September 13, 2020 Game Master Share Posted September 13, 2020 (edited) Suggestions and Feedback is one of our most important forums. Homecoming Team does not work in a vacuum, and we do read all the posts made in this part of the forum, even if we can’t reply to all the threads in here. But things can get fairly heated in some of these threads. We get it; a lot of players are very passionate about City of Heroes, and want to see it thrive. We do too. I'd like to give advice for a minute, and hopefully, this can be of some help. FEEDBACK To start off, let me make one part of this forum known well before diving into the other one: Feedback is definitely appreciated. Even if turns out something that vexes you and the community points out an answer that you are satisfied with, it’s still important for us to see where ‘pain points’ are in the user experience and areas where improvement might be helpful. In short: Don't be afraid to be honest. If something isn't fun, we do want to hear about it. If others disagree, that's fine, too. But generally if it's something that has a quick fix, most of the readers will share what they know. Now that Feedback is out of the way, time for the Suggestions. SUGGESTIONS Suggestions are broad and varied in scope, difficulty (in both discussing as well as the work in carrying it out) and form. And the players making suggestions have all sorts of backgrounds and perspectives. With that in mind, to keep talk in here productive: It’s the oldest rule on Wikipedia, and it does work: ASSUME GOOD WILL. What that means is that when someone makes a suggestion, assume that they do play the game, they enjoy it for the most part, and they want to help make it a better experience for everyone. Keep those things in mind when you write a reply, or ask clarifying questions if a suggestion or parts of it are unclear to you. “Don’t leave your child unattended.” In short, any suggestion made in this forum will be thoroughly examined by all of us, changed, ripped up, and added-on to until it’s possible that the resulting idea doesn’t resemble what you suggested in the first place. You need to allow others to add more consideration to your idea. If you find yourself having a problem with this, a good idea may be running your initial idea by friends first for feedback before sharing it here. A good player IS ALLOWED TO HAVE A BAD IDEA, and that’s okay. That doesn’t change anything about who they are. And if that good player I mentioned happens to be you, please understand that people not liking your idea DOES NOT mean you should take their replies personally. There may be other possibilities you didn’t account for initially, which is normal. You have the right to respond CONSTRUCTIVELY to an idea. If you don’t like it, no problem. Just say “I don’t like it”. You don't have to say why if you don’t want to. If you have a reason why you don’t like it, please tell us why. Focus your response on the idea, not the person. And yes, there are times where Assume Good Faith fails. If you suspect anyone who is in this camp after several attempts to ask questions to direct the conversation towards a productive discussion (e.g.: trolling, baiting, abusive posts, etc.) you don’t need to reply any further. In fact, the less people who respond to such posts, the faster it fades in the forum as active and recent discussion will overtake it. You can vote with silence, so to speak. (This also works for “dead horses”. Silence will make the thread fall in visibility.) If you’ve seen the idea before, we prefer if you discuss the idea in the more recent thread instead of “necroing” a post that folks have forgotten about. You can say you disagree with an idea, but when your most recent reply from yesterday is for a thread that was made in May 2019 it’s probably a waste of everyone’s time. (Hindsight being 20/20 and all… no pun intended for the past year.) Keep in mind... The following norms of forums also apply here: For best results, the threads you make should stay ON TOPIC. That means for all intents and purposes, the OP (Original Post) sets the topic of the thread, and all the replies should respond in some form to the topic set in the Original Post. (This isn't a hard-and-fast rule: if something is near the ballpark, you can diverge a LITTLE if you can get back to the topic at hand at some point.) However, if you think an OP isn’t an idea worth discussing in the first place, you don’t need to reply. If you wrote the OP, please remember that it's not your job to moderate your topic: if replies are off on a tangent, talk on topic. If it continues for more than several posts to a page of replies, let us know with "Report Post". One thought per thread, please. Posts with “My Wish List for 2025” with a shotgun list of moonshots, ZOMG new things, and “QOL fixes MmmKThxBai” in one post doesn’t really help us out much. When we want posts like that, believe me, we’ll ask for them. “Canvassing”, or posting the same message across multiple threads even if they’re off topic, is a bad idea. (Signatures don’t count, but that’s a separate issue.) Post blanking is another problem. (See “Don’t leave your child unattended” above.) Especially the party who wrote the OP: if you blank that post, no one can reply anymore so that kills any productive discussion possible. IN CLOSING... If civility fails, let us know. And as always, if you see a post that is a Content or Conduct violation in our Code of Conduct, don’t respond. Please use the Report Post feature, and do not reply further. Also, do not write a reply telling someone “I reported you.” Our moderation team will review the thread and take appropriate action to bring the post and/or thread back in line with our policies. Thanks for visiting, and we can't wait to hear from you! Edited January 22 by GM Tock 13 6 1 1 1 1 Homecoming: City of Heroes -- Want to play? Start here. - Enjoy helping others? Join us as a GM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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