Minor Doomworld suggestions (splitting up "Wads & Mods")

Speaking of subforums, the "Editing Questions" subforum is a mess IMO. It's configured to act like a Stack Overflow-ish thing where people can upvote/accept "answers", but in practice people just reply it as if it were a regular subforum, except all the posts get shuffled out of order whenever someone hits the upvote/accept button. At this point it'd be better if it were converted to (or replaced with) a regular ol' subforum.

 

Random example thread -- Boris's post appears before the post he's quoting -- time paradox much? :P

 

re: Wads and Mods being split up, I'm for it as long as we don't go overboard and add too many subforums. It's hard to find anything if there's a zillion categories.

Late response, but we've actually been addressing a number of the topics raised here, so now to reply to a few specific points...

 

Expansion of WADs & Mods:

 

On 6/25/2021 at 10:43 PM, Doomkid said:

In the same way that Doom Editing has two “sub forums”, WADs & Mods should have one subforum for wad releases.

 

This has been under discussion for a while, and though everybody's unanimously in favor of the idea, here are the two points of indecision that are currently on the table: whether to do a 2-way or 3-way split, and how to organize a 3-way split.

 

In a 2-way split, there would be a "Releases" forum and a "Development & Discussion" forum, each of which would be a primary forum on the main index.

 

In a 3-way split, "Development" and "Discussion" would each be their own forums, along with "Releases," and there would be a 1-primary forum / 2-subforum setup, similar to the current Doom Editing configuration.

 

In that setup, the question is which forum would be the primary forum, and which forums would be the subforums.

 

Option 1 is to make "Releases" the primary forum, with "Development" and "Discussion" being the 2 subforums. The idea is that people who go to the WADs & Mods forum are probably looking for WADs and Mods to play, therefore the first thing they should see is the full list of WADs and Mods that are available to play. Then if they want to go deeper, the subforums are available. It's sensible and straight-forward.

 

Option 2 is to make "Discussion" the primary forum, with "Releases" and "Development" being the 2 subforums. This is consistent with the Doom Editing setup in that the main forum is the general forum, while the subforums are the specialized forums. It's also the closest to the current WADs & Mods setup, requiring minimal readjustment from users who've grown used to this configuration over so many years.

 

Good arguments have been made in favor of each setup, and I'm honestly undecided at this point. I mean, if I were forced to make a decision right now, I'd probably choose 3-way Option 2 for its consistency and familiarity. But I'm not being forced, so I'm posting this here for additional feedback instead.

 

I know a 3-way split might seem excessive at first, but we really do have the sheer amount of content to warrant it, plus each division serves users with the specific purpose of looking for something to play or looking for projects to follow or join.

 

Also worth noting: in every case, "Releases" would include things like release candidates and public betas, not just final releases.

 

On 6/26/2021 at 1:20 AM, Horus said:

Also, maybe the newstuff and idgames FAQ pin could be moved to Doom General? Since the idgames upload pin is there

 

Location and contents of sticky threads will be refactored when the new forum arrangement rolls out.

 

Because you're right, topic placement is rather haphazard at the moment.

 

On 6/26/2021 at 8:16 PM, GarrettChan said:

People should write the thread name in the format of something like (just an example, probably there's a better format)

[map format, map quantity] mapset name (additional things you want to write)

On 6/26/2021 at 10:56 PM, roadworx said:

agreed; back when i'd go to the minecraft forums in order to get mods back in the early 2010s, they'd always have little tags that'd indicate which version each mod was compatible with. something like that would be nice

On 6/27/2021 at 2:37 AM, Pegg said:

Raven games need their own wad sub-forum. It is nearly impossible to find new ones unless you watch the wad subforum like a hawk or know every single released wad on the archive already.

 

Yeah, I looked at a few other IPS-based forums that have their tagging content enabled, and it appears that 1) you can click a tag to display a list of all topics with that tag, 2) you can search multiple tags simultaneously, and 3) you can also search for plain text within those given tags.

 

So I'm already set to add tags to the "Releases" and "Development" forums. It'll likely be a closed tagging system, meaning we provide tags for categories like game ("Ultimate Doom" "Heretic"), release type ("beta" "final"), scope of project ("single level" "megawad"), manner of gameplay ("single player" "deathmatch"), intended source port ("limit removing" "GZDoom"), and so on, then people select the appropriate tags from the list when posting their topics.

 

That way you can find things like Raven games projects or deathmatch mapsets without needing dedicated topical forums for each of them, since that would quickly get to be too much subforum clutter.

 

Also, one other thing:

 

Regardless of the final setup, it's going to take some effort to move all the topics accordingly, therefore I decided to bring in some aid from one of our most prominent and helpful members. For those of you who don't follow status updates, say hi to @Doomkid, our newest Super Moderator!

 

Staff visibility:

 

On 6/26/2021 at 12:27 AM, roadworx said:

making the mods of each subforum visible again, so people know who to contact for more specific purposes, as well as one centralized list of mods/admins that's easily accessible

On 6/26/2021 at 2:46 AM, Devalaous said:

Being able to actually know who the moderators even ARE would be nice. Right now I discover a new one every week it seems.

On 6/26/2021 at 3:19 AM, Biodegradable said:

Also, we could save new members from having to post useless threads asking for help on an issue they're having because they couldn't find a staff member by making the page that lists them all publicly available as well. Having a tab link somewhere at the top of the page somewhere would probably be best.

 

I agree that lack of clarity regarding who's on staff has been a problem, but the staff directory needs some work before properly publishing it.

 

The first problem is that it's missing a number of people that it should have. Specifically, single-forum moderators are entirely absent from the listing. This is because the whole of their moderator permissions are assigned directly through their member profiles. What I'll have to do instead, is create a Moderators group that has a few of the core permissions that all moderators have, then assign each of those members to that group, leaving only their individual forum permissions in their individual profiles. That will allow me to add a category for single-forum moderators to the staff directory, as well as allow users to see their moderator status on their public profiles.

 

The second problem is that it has a number of people that it probably shouldn't have. A lot of old staff have lost interest in the forum, if not the Doom scene as a whole. Looking at the Super Moderators group, one has 5 posts in the last 10 years, another has 1 post in 4 years, a third hasn't even logged in for 7 years... and the situation is similar for a number of single-forum moderators. What I'm going to do is (try to) get in touch with them and find out if they still want to participate on staff, or if they'd rather be removed. Cause the way I figure, if the staff directory's going to go public, it should reflect people who at least intend to make a few regular appearances throughout the year.

 

Then when that's sorted, I'll add the staff directory to the main menu.

 

As for making single-forum moderators visible on their respective forums, that doesn't appear to be a feature available in this version of the software. I've been through forum settings, block settings, and moderator settings, but can't find anything to that extent. It's strange, because I've seen earlier versions of the software that were able to include a "this forum is led by: [moderator]" in their member statistics block, but all other forums I see that use this version of the software don't have it. Possibly it was removed.

 

On 6/26/2021 at 3:19 AM, Biodegradable said:

Alternatively, Invision (the forum software DW is currently using) has the ability to clearly label the admins and mods into their respective groups.

 

Yeah I've seen that, but since some staff don't want a "Sheriff's Badge" on every single post, I won't force it on them.

 

Now there were some instances of Super Moderators not having their status displayed in their public info due to inconsistent group assignments, but I adjusted those last week, so now their proper groups show in their profile and hover-over info. That, combined with the staff directory, should be enough to know who's who.

 

Ban visibility:

 

On 6/25/2021 at 11:56 PM, omalefico32x said:

ok but on topic i really dont like shadow bans here

On 6/26/2021 at 12:27 AM, roadworx said:

as @omalefico32x said, changing the status to banned when someone is...y'know. banned.

 

This is one of a few primary communication failures we have, but also unfortunately one we can do little about.

 

I suppose the warning system could use a full explanation at some point, but for now let me give a brief summary.

 

We have 2 ways of banning people: by using the restrictions provided by the warning system, and by manually setting their usergroup to "Banned."

 

The warning system is the significantly superior system in every way. It's directly connected to the content reporting system, and provides all the necessary management tools to coordinate restrictions, handle inter-staff and staff-to-member communication, and oversee member history. It lets us set expiration dates on restrictions, and is available to all moderators.

 

Usergroup management is limited to Administrators, and restrictions have to be undone manually.

 

The one problem with the warning system is that its restrictions can't be displayed on a user's profile or in their title. Only manually setting their usergroup to "Banned" can do that.

 

I've been all over the admin panel trying to find a way to get posting restrictions to display. User settings, group settings, and so on. The only option that adjusts what users can see is in the standard warnings settings, and it's only for their own profile:

 

 

So I get that it's annoying, because it bothers me too. I mean, how many times have people tried talking to banned members, not knowing they were banned? And actually, back when we were new to this software, I even almost made a post in the staff forum saying that I didn't mind that somebody had unbanned a guy I had banned earlier, because I saw his group was "Members" - I'm glad I checked his profile one last time and saw his posting restrictions before making a fool of myself.

 

The one possible solution, which is still a hackjob, is that now that I've enabled custom titles, moderators have easy access to edit a member's title, and can manually set it to "Banned" if they issue restrictions through the warning system. We might implement a thing like this for users whose restrictions exceed a certain time period (probably 7 days), but that would be as good as it gets, and any custom titles might not be restored once the restrictions are lifted.

 

At any rate, I'd honestly never even heard of shadow banning before we were accused of it. I understand that's how it might look, but I assure you that's not what we do, and never will as long as I have any say in it.

 

Other stuff:

 

On 6/26/2021 at 12:27 AM, roadworx said:

• reviving the news section; we have plenty of people who'd be interested in contributing to it, so it wouldn't mean the administration having to manage even more stuff than they already do
• bringing back a homepage with all the informational pages listed on the side/top/whatever, maybe even linking to @Doomkid's stickied thread, so people FOR SURE will go to those to have questions answered
• a guide to formatting, cuz there's stuff like spoilers and headers that aren't readily apparent that you can use

On 6/26/2021 at 10:29 PM, Tango said:

I know we now have some nicer stickied threads for these things, but I really do wish that the home page of the forums had some very obvious links at the top to "want to play classic doom? start here!" as well as "want to mod for classic doom? start here!".

 

does a new wannabe modder know to look in the right sub forum for these things if they dont even yet know what a wad is? I reckon they'll eventually discover the info they need, but I've always wished that stuff was a bit more obvious from the home page

 

While we've pretty much accepted that DW's days as a news site are over, these other things could be addressed in an eventual FAQ.

 

There is a Rules & Guidelines page being developed, which will finally be added to the main menu. I had wanted it to include FAQ material like the above suggestions, but depending on the amount of time it takes to write and organize, it's possible we'll separate and/or delay FAQ material in favor of publishing Rules & Guidelines sooner than later.

 

The benefit of sticky threads is that they're far more easily updated by moderators, whereas pages have to be updated by Administrators. As such, parts of the FAQ might only be simple summaries with a "more info" link to a relevant sticky thread. We'll see how (or if) it develops.

 

On 6/26/2021 at 1:20 AM, Horus said:

One other thought I had, is that the ‘what are you working on’ thread in W&M is essentially a duplicate of the Doom Pictures thread in Doom General.

 

In theory, that topic should be open to many other types of development updates than just screenshots. But in practice, yeah it's basically Doom Pictures part 2. I have an idea for another type of update thread focused more on development specifics, which I'm planning to put in the Editing forum. When I do that, I'll probably lock the "what are you working on" thread. But not before providing an alternative to post non-screenshot-based updates in.

 

On 6/26/2021 at 7:52 AM, Redneckerz said:

These requests mention from time to time who can help them on the Wiki or who to look for. Several users here are highly active on the Wiki. Is it possible to make it more visible who people can contact with for minor additions and the like?

  

Well there is the Staff page, but it does not list DoomKid who has moderation abilities for a forum.  

 

As much as we want to support the wiki, listing another site's staff directory on our own site's staff directory seems a little outside of our territory.

 

We could make a DoomWiki Editor usergroup, and that would show under a person's username on their profile and hover-over info in the same way that Super Moderator or Administrator does for those groups, but the question that follows is how many other groups from how many other sites could ask for the same treatment? And after that, who would manage the changes as group members come and go? (To partially answer that, usergroup assignments are an Administrator privilege, so we couldn't set up some kind of "group leader" that could assign other users to the usergroup - at least, not without some custom coding to the forum software.)

 

So as it stands, it's quite likely that Doomworld usergroups will remain related to Doomworld status. The best and most visible option for the editors now is to do like you did and add it to their user title (which I realize wasn't an option when you wrote that post). Beyond that, the DoomWiki should host its own staff directory, if it doesn't already.

 

On 6/26/2021 at 5:32 AM, Wavy said:

A suggestion that I'd make (though I wouldn't consider it "minor") are to add signatures

 

I dunno if this is possible with the forum service but having a custom signature at the bottom of every one of our posts would be nice and add some personalisation to the site.

 

It's possible, but IIRC Ling disabled those, so he'd have to be the one to re-enable them.

 

On 6/27/2021 at 4:04 AM, Proxmin said:

What about adding an "archived" forum? When the post gets 5 or 10+ years, it will moved into the said forum. Just telling....

 

Also possible, but the reason I wouldn't want to dump threads from all across the forum into a single archive is because they'd lose their categorization. For ease of search and reference, I'd much prefer threads remain in their original forums.

 

If anything did get archived, it would be an entire forum by itself.

 

On 6/28/2021 at 12:46 PM, TheNoob_Gamer said:

 

I think the description doesn't do the port itself justice, considering how quality it is and the fact that it has its very dedicated subforum.

 

That's up to the EE developers to decide. If they want a new description, I can change it for them.

 

We might be making some updates to that forum, so we'll see what happens with that.

 

On 6/27/2021 at 12:23 AM, Xaser said:

Speaking of subforums, the "Editing Questions" subforum is a mess IMO.

 

Oi, are you seriously complaining when you still haven't fixed black-on-black and white-on-white style elements? >:(