The On Hold thread

[Ukase]

I can only presume our moderation team is censoring us again and a thread was removed simply because it was popular. 

Folks, this is an error you're making. There's no harm in lively debate. 

 

Secrets are bad. Let it out. You'll feel better. 

@Glacier Peak took the time to reply to my post - and now I can't see it. If you're going to hide an entire thread, take away the notifications, too. Then I can be blissfully ignorant and have no idea what you did. Now this fine person will think at best he got the last word in and I agreed, or at worst, I was rude to not reply or answer a question. 

Closing threads is one thing. Removing posts altogether is just rude. What are you afraid of? Rebellion? We're gonna egg your sg base or cover it with rolls of toilet paper? 

 

[Black Zot]

Hard proof right here that dissent is deliberately getting snuffed.

[Number Six]

I checked the moderation logs. It was not hidden by a GM. The OP deleted their own thread and it took all the replies with it.

 

But way to go assuming the worst. This is exactly why the initial testing stages are done with an opt-in group. Developers have enough demands on their time and don't need to have to deal with this crap too.

 

This is why we can't have nice things.

[Peacemoon]

Would have been better to just lock it and try bring people together. No idea what happened after I posted. 

[roleki]

There is the possibility that @Glacier Peak's reply was so mind-boggling, so utterly staggering that to view it with unprepared eyes was to invite madness, and the thread will return once properly-equipped personnel are given the opportunity to isolate the message and bury it in a vault so deep that it could only be re-discovered by a civilization advanced enough to ingest the message without instantly losing their minds.

 

It's either that, or fuckery.

[Peacemoon]

4 minutes ago, Number Six said:

This is exactly why the initial testing stages are done with an opt-in group. Developers have enough demands on their time and don't need to have to deal with this crap too.

 

This is why we can't have nice things.

 

The 'us vs them' vibe is strong here. It sounds rather like contempt. Sad to see, if I'm honest.

[Glacier Peak]

I'm not sure what happened

 

Okay, now I know. 

Edited October 10, 2022 by Glacier Peak

[Number Six]

4 minutes ago, Peacemoon said:

 

The 'us vs them' vibe is strong here. It sounds rather like contempt. Sad to see, if I'm honest.

 

There is no us. There is no them. There is only Zuul.

[Glacier Peak]

48 minutes ago, Black Zot said:

Hard proof right here that dissent is deliberately getting snuffed.

By the creator of the thread lol

 

I'm sure this is just internet sarcasm though.

[Ukase]

18 minutes ago, Number Six said:

I checked the moderation logs. It was not hidden by a GM. The OP deleted their own thread and it took all the replies with it.

 

But way to go assuming the worst. This is exactly why the initial testing stages are done with an opt-in group. Developers have enough demands on their time and don't need to have to deal with this crap too.

 

This is why we can't have nice things.

I blame @Troo. I didn't know he deleted it. And given all the heated debates, it was a fair assumption. I apologize if it bugged you. 

 

[Number Six]

1 minute ago, Ukase said:

I blame @Troo. I didn't know he deleted it. And given all the heated debates, it was a fair assumption. I apologize if it bugged you.

 

Thank you, I appreciate that.

 

It looks like it hid the entire thread. Not sure if that's a behavior we want to have enabled since sometimes these things sometimes turn into community-wide discussion spaces, but it looks like the default settings allow the thread creator to nuke the whole thing.

 

It is hidden and not deleted, so it could be unhidden, but I don't want to unilaterally do that unless @Troo wants it to be resurrected.

[roleki]

As long as there's a dev perusing this thread: I think focused feedback threads each need to have a sub-thread dedicated to the gnashing of teeth caused by the relevant parent thread. 

 

That would give the people with anal injuries a proper outlet for their frustrations, and a place for such discussion outside of General where stray threads could be moved.

 

Maybe that would improve the tenor of General Discussion and re-channel some of the "us vs. them" undercurrent that seems to be everywhere of late.

[Number Six]

1 minute ago, roleki said:

As long as there's a dev perusing this thread: I think focused feedback threads each need to have a sub-thread dedicated to the gnashing of teeth caused by the relevant parent thread. 

 

That would give the people with anal injuries a proper outlet for their frustrations, and a place for such discussion outside of General where stray threads could be moved.

 

Maybe that would improve the tenor of General Discussion and re-channel some of the "us vs. them" undercurrent that seems to be everywhere of late.

 

We've already had some internal conversations about that, and while a final decision hasn't been made (and probably wouldn't be implemented until the next beta go-round), one idea that seemed to get a lot of support was to split the beta forums into two entire forum sections: a "Focused Feedback" section for the FF threads with strict rules about directed feedback for the devs on a particular change to make it easy for them to peruse, and a "General Beta Feedback" section for people to express general feelings and have community discussions and conversations without needing as heavy moderation.

 

The latter section would be a good thing to have since the patch notes tend to be locked to make them easier to find/read and we don't really have a good place for that kind of thing other than directing people to the General sections, which isn't really a good place for it and isn't intuitive.

[Number Six]

In regards to the 'us versus them' thing, one thing I want to point out is that the closed testing discord grew organically. It wasn't something we originally put together, it was created by players in order to help focus testing on specific items with less distractions than the main discord -- though the link was posted publicly it tended to only attract people serious about it. Over time it because such a useful resource that the devs tended to go there because it was already organized and easy to find groups willing to test early and often incomplete content. They could go there and get feedback with a minimum of drama (not to be confused with only getting positive feedback, that's definitely not the case, but people are good about keeping it civil). And that's not to say they ignore feedback on the forums -- open betas are useful in their own way at different stages in the process. I like to think of it is a process where any given item has to survive a trial by fire with ever-increasing levels of scrutiny, rather than just throwing things to the wolves on day one.

 

Back on topic, my point is it was so useful and well-run that some of the players and frequent beta testers who put it together are now devs themselves and creating that content. They put in the effort to make it happen and went from everyday player to tester to so-called in-group to developer. If that's not community involvement I don't know what is.

 

So when I say 'there is only Zuul' I'm not just being flippant. There isn't an us and a them, there's only an 'us'. What role people want to play in that is up to their individual decisions.

 

I know not everyone will like that or agree with it -- nothing is perfect -- but it's a system that has worked reasonably well and allowed the content development pipeline to get off the ground.

[Wild Claw]

Just as a note, I was a community manager on another forum that also used Invision Community as the forum software. Because of it removing (hiding) entire threads when the OP removed the original post, we had to turn off the ability of users to remove their own posts. They could edit them, but not remove them.

 

It was an uptick in moderation work, as users had to request removal of posts from the mods, and there was serious gnashing of teeth over that as it 'removed agency' from the user-base, but it *did* fix the issue of entire threads disappearing...

 

 

 

[Ruin Mage]

I'd love to see that amount of agency removed, but then the fires it'd create would not be nice.

Choices choices.

[Number Six]

@Wild Claw Well that's annoying and unfortunate. Thanks for the tip, I'll talk to Cipher and Telephone about it.

[Bionic_Flea]

3 hours ago, Ukase said:

I can only presume our moderation team is censoring us again and a thread was removed simply because it was popular. 

Folks, this is an error you're making. There's no harm in lively debate. 

 

Secrets are bad. Let it out. You'll feel better. 

@Glacier Peak took the time to reply to my post - and now I can't see it. If you're going to hide an entire thread, take away the notifications, too. Then I can be blissfully ignorant and have no idea what you did. Now this fine person will think at best he got the last word in and I agreed, or at worst, I was rude to not reply or answer a question. 

Closing threads is one thing. Removing posts altogether is just rude. What are you afraid of? Rebellion? We're gonna egg your sg base or cover it with rolls of toilet paper? 

 

I had a similar experience.  Got a notification that someone reacted/responded to me, went to look and it was gone.  I clicked the "Contact Us" box and got an email directing me to this thread.

 

I didn't know that OPs can remove a whole thread by removing their original post.  Too bad.  I liked that thread. 

 

HEY @Troo!  What happened?

[Doc_Scorpion]

3 hours ago, Number Six said:

We've already had some internal conversations about that, and while a final decision hasn't been made (and probably wouldn't be implemented until the next beta go-round), one idea that seemed to get a lot of support was to split the beta forums into two entire forum sections: a "Focused Feedback" section for the FF threads with strict rules about directed feedback for the devs on a particular change to make it easy for them to peruse, and a "General Beta Feedback" section for people to express general feelings and have community discussions and conversations without needing as heavy moderation.

Don't throw the baby out with bathwater though!  There's plenty of useful (and not heated or necessarily off topic) discussion in the current threads...  For example the post I just made in the Robotics thread replying to a player who, in the course of replying to an earlier post of mine, drew my attention to a hole in my testing methodology.  Testers have used those threads to create feedback, to ensure that things weren't missed or skipped.  To theorize and then go test those theories.

That's what blew up in Page 4 and again here in Page 5 - testing was overwhelmed by talking.

As I see it, problem isn't so much one of separating feedback from discussion as it is seperating testing from talkers.  Testers (and Devs) should not be forced to compete with talkers.  (And no, before anyone brings it up, testers shouldn't be forced off the forums and onto the Discord either.)  I give and grant that devs want feedback, as pure and undiluted as possible...  But over the years, there's also been a great deal of useful dev interaction in such discussions.  Devs have pointed out things that don't need testing or further testing as they'll change in the next patch, or they're actually WAI.  They've said (in replies to testers) "Whoops!  Missed that!".  Etc...  Etc...

[TheZag]

I once started a thread asking peoples thoughts about the damage cap and if build up should exceed the damage cap for its duration so it isnt mostly wasted on a team with many damage buffs.  It quickly turned into i wanted more power creep and needed to learn how to play.  It was funny to me because i dont even take build up in the first place since i consider its duration too short.  But i was still grateful to hide my post and have the rest of the thread go with it.

 

I dont think the GMs are in the habit of deleting/hiding entire threads unless they are waaay out there.  Even some really heated stuff only gets locked with the very worst of individual posts being hidden.  When an entire thread disappears,  its usually the OP put their post on hide and it takes the rest of the thread with it.

 

[PeregrineFalcon]

4 hours ago, Number Six said:

Developers have enough demands on their time and don't need to have to deal with this crap too.

So many demands on your time, but you had plenty of time to jump into this thread and scold a player.

 

4 hours ago, Number Six said:

This is why we can't have nice things.

No. Your obvious disdain for the people who donate money to keep this server running is.

[Ruin Mage]

Not everyone who donates jumps immedietely to "DEVS EVIL!"

 

[Troo]

Hey folks - That's all me.

 

I'll formulate an appropriate explanation. ( @roleki has the closest guess)

[Luminara]

I love how so many people seem to think everything the developers and moderators do is all about them lately.  I'm surrounded by people who are so full of their own bullshit that they've forgotten that they're not the center of the universe, nor the reason any member of the HC team does anything.

 

The ego-tripping, self-absorbed nonsense is incredibly entertaining.  I'm sure it'll continue to be hilarious when the HC team throws their hands up in the air, says, "Fuck it", and walks away.

[Glacier Peak]

9 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

So many demands on your time, but you had plenty of time to jump into this thread and scold a player.

 

No. Your obvious disdain for the people who donate money to keep this server running is.