Forum Restructure: Website Feedback Forums

[Tonya Woldridge]

We're looking at some forum restructuring to help support our staff and our community. We will be working on these changes over the next few months. The first change will be shutting down the Customer Service and Website Feedback forums and opening an Announcements channel on Jan 3rd. We've found that most of the threads started in the website feedback forums are also reported via email or are not website-related issues. To keep the staff from duplicating work, we want to handle all issues (including website feedback) through our ticketing system. This will help streamline our workflow and make sure we handle issues in the order submitted!

[Cori Marie]

While I understand the need to cut back the workload, I think at the very least the Website Feedback forums are useful because I would have no idea that another user has already asked for a change, or suggested a better feature, and thus no way to support that ask. Take for instance Kobold Catgirl's suggestion regarding the profanity filter, and the idea to use the word Smurf instead of the string of symbols. It's not necessarily something I would have thought to email about, but it's something I actively support.

[Wei Ji the Learner]

Also, there have been quality of life issues brought up on the Website Feedback forum that I would *not* have known about via email blast or even 'Announcements' -- things like undocumented design features, etc.

There is a bit of concern here that this might reduce feedback for necessary site things in a detrimental fashion.

ie, some of us do not follow Fakebook, Titter, Stitch, etc, et al due to a lack of bandwidth...

[Dancing Wind]

Technically, what is the difference between a "channel" and "forum"?

What new features will be available to forum members and what current features will be deprecated?

[Andy Brown]

Presumably the new Announcements channel will only allow staff to start threads, replacing two forums where non-staff can start threads, and therefore pushing some recent discussions to the off-topic forum where they can be more easily ignored by Paizo?

[Kobold Catgirl]

I second everything Cori Marie said here. The Website Feedback subforum is a place for discussion as much as suggestions themselves. The subforum isn't even that bustling, so I'm a little surprised at this decision.

[Cori Marie]

It also isn't typically things that CS can act on, so introducing CS as middlemen seems like adding more work for them rather than reducing work.

[Kobold Catgirl]

Yeah, if the goal is reducing workload, I think it would make the most sense to just say that "Website Feedback" will be mainly reserved for discussion, with the expectation that anyone who actually wants to share their thoughts with the team will email?

[Wei Ji the Learner]

It looks like they took the phone number off the site, too.

Is Paizo going to 'email-only'?

*panic*

NEVER go email-only.

[Cori Marie]

They took the phone number off when the pandemic started because it was too difficult for them to set up a remote phone line like most companies have in the 2020s.

The phone number IS still listed on the help page though, and it seems like just the thing that would be good to report in the Website Feedback forum so people know that it's inactive rather than getting grumpy that nobody ever answers it.

[Cintra Bristol]

Website Feedback needs to stay open. Plenty of times, I've looked in here, seen that others are experiencing an issue, and gotten the solution. This isn't a CS response-forum, it's a technical channel and group-solutioning option.

Ticketing systems are fine for individual customer requests, like a problem with an order. But they're terrible for something like this. You make it more difficult for customers to let you know there's a problem, and you're going to have customers leave without ever telling you why.

Strong vote for NO on this decision. Please rethink this.

[Rysky]

Yeah, Ostrich tactics is not a good look.

[Andy Brown]

Andy Brown wrote:

Presumably the new Announcements channel will only allow staff to start threads, replacing two forums where non-staff can start threads, and therefore pushing some recent discussions to the off-topic forum where they can be more easily ignored by Paizo?

Replying to myself as I realised the General Discussion forum is still there; rest of the comment still stands though

[Brian Bauman]

The Tech team reads everything posted in these forums, even if we don't always have time to respond (or have something immediately relevant to say).

We even have an integration set up to ping a channel in our internal chat app so we are immediately notified about new threads, and can discuss them internally quickly and easily.

[Andostre]

Brian Bauman wrote:

The Tech team reads everything posted in these forums, even if we don't always have time to respond (or have something immediately relevant to say).

We even have an integration set up to ping a channel in our internal chat app so we are immediately notified about new threads, and can discuss them internally quickly and easily.

I'll be sad to see this forum go away, as I've often seen conversations that resolve issues happen between non-Paizo posters, or even just conversations that clarify (or notify of) other issues.

If the forums are going away, I'll take the opportunity to say thanks for the tech team's interactions over the years.

AAAAAAND I'll add a blatant-but-gentle reminder that spoiler tag indentation was once a thing that got rolled back. I know it's a very minor thing, that's why I worry that it's been forgotten about. Especially since it seemed like such a quick implementation when I first brought it up.

[Brian Bauman]

Andostre wrote:

AAAAAAND I'll add a blatant-but-gentle reminder that spoiler tag indentation was once a thing that got rolled back. I know it's a very minor thing, that's why I worry that it's been forgotten about. Especially since it seemed like such a quick implementation when I first brought it up.

Fair enough! I've implemented the fix and it's in the queue for QA/release. I'm not going to pretend that it's a high priority for the tech team to release right away, but it's definitely not forgotten - and it's small and simple enough to test that it may end up getting released fairly quickly.

Thanks for the reminder!

[skizzerz]

I've noticed that the CS forum disappeared but Website Feedback stayed up. I hope this continues, as I too find the Website Feedback forum valuable for peer interaction with other forum members. This will be echoing a lot of what people said earlier, but I particularly like:

1. Seeing whether or not other people are experiencing the same technical issues I am. Unlike most matters that go to CS, there isn't much in the way of private details to accidentally share here.

2. Offering help to and receiving help from peers for workarounds or alternative solutions to issues. For example, directing someone to the Paizo Campaign Tools browser extension if they have some feature request covered in PCT so that they don't need to wait on the tech team to (maybe) do it officially. Or, assisting someone in clearing their cookies if that fixes some weird lingering issue with the site.

3. Using the "favorite" button on feature requests that I feel are important to me, to provide a low-noise signal of indicating I would like this feature without cluttering or crowding the tech team's inbox.

Random aside: It'd probably be good if the Announcements subforum was moved to the top of the Paizo category instead of the bottom, so that it's the first thing you see when scrolling through the forum list. Right now the position makes it easy to overlook.

[Themetricsystem]

General feedback since this seems like it may be the best way to keep them centralized while you are all working to reorganize and improve the forums.

The website already has an entire organizational "Tab" that filters out all of the normal Forum sections and threads for the purpose of Online Campaigns but when viewing the Messageboard "Tab" view you will always still see all of the posts that are in the Online Campaign section. Is it possible to adjust it so that PbP threads do NOT appear in the Messageboard view, or in the very least create a new "Tab" of sorts that filters and displays only the actual Forum Discussion areas much like how you can choose the Online Campaigns do not show the rest of the forum?

[Kobold Catgirl]

I don't think that this is the thread for it, but I do have another floating around somewhere on the subforum about prompting use of less active subforums that seems relevant.

The Pathfinder AP forums are similarly problematic, and basically make browsing the boards on my phone untenable without Focus on because I have to scroll past ten feet of mostly dead subforums to get to Gamer Life.

[TriOmegaZero]

I thought we were able to collapse those down as well. I'll have to look at it in non-Focus mode.

Edit: Yeah, I have the entire AP subforum collapsed and out of sight.

[The Raven Black]

TriOmegaZero wrote:

I thought we were able to collapse those down as well. I'll have to look at it in non-Focus mode.

Edit: Yeah, I have the entire AP subforum collapsed and out of sight.

Does it work for the many outdated playtest forums ?

[Cori Marie]

The Raven Black wrote:

TriOmegaZero wrote:

I thought we were able to collapse those down as well. I'll have to look at it in non-Focus mode.

Edit: Yeah, I have the entire AP subforum collapsed and out of sight.

Does it work for the many outdated playtest forums ?

Yeah I have all the playtests collapsed

[TriOmegaZero]

I think we can collapse the entire forum if we want.

Edit: Yep. I have achieved peak forum viewing.

[Kobold Catgirl]

I don't think that works for phones--I've really struggled to collapse those subforums without just opening the links.

Does it at least retain the collapsing across sessions as long as you're on the same account?

[TriOmegaZero]

I had to zoom in on my iPhone to actually hit the arrow with my fumble digits. I think each browser tracks it differently, but I haven't tested.

[thejeff]

It does for me, but I don't read on my phone unless I'm desperate.

My only problem with the AP forums is that I'm often interested in only one or two APs, but there's no effective way to collapse all but those.

[Cori Marie]

It does retain the collapsing if you're logged in, yes.

[Dancing Wind]

I am able to collapse individual AP forums so that only the 2 or 3 I'm interested in are visible.

First, be sure you have clicked the toggle switch Expand/Flatten so that it is showing 'Flatten'. Counterintuitively, that means you are in the Expanded mode.

Scroll down the page to the section Adventure Paths. This forum has a separate subforum for each AP going all the way back to Rise Of The Runelords.

Use the small triangle beside the name of each AP. Be sure it is pointing to the right (ie don't show threads). You can turn visibility on again by clicking to make it point down.

When I'm done indicating which forums I want to follow, I always click "Flatten".

If I want to visit a forum that I've hidden, I can access it by clicking that forum name in the forum navigation links at the top of the page. 'Hidden' forums are a lighter color, but still can be clicked to gain access.

[Ed Reppert]

It was said in a post that supposedly was moved to this forum but as far as I can see was not, that you have to look at a message in order to see it in "focus" mode. This turns out not to be the case. In order to see such a message (example: the January and February subscriptions posts recently made in "Announcements") you have to post a reply to it, or "defocus" the entire board temporarily.

[Cori Marie]

If you're posting a reply to a thread, you've looked at the thread, no? And defocusing the entire board is what I told the Inheritor to do so that she could see the threads in the board. (Also the thread was moved to this forum but was locked, so unless you defocus you won't see it if you're up to date on posts).

[Kobold Catgirl]

"Focus" basically shows you all the threads you've posted on and all the threads with new updates that you've previously looked at. It doesn't show you threads you've looked at but not posted on if there's no new updates.

[Hilary Moon Murphy]

Add me as another voice asking to retain the Website Feedback forum. I have found this forum to be invaluable in assessing whether the problem I was experiencing was global or just me.

Please keep it.
Hmm

[Ed Reppert]

I think perhaps if you "like" a post in a particular forum that post will show up when you view the forum in "focus" mode. At least, that appears to be what happened with a couple of forums this morning.

[Rysky]

Focus mode shows only threads you've looked into I believe.

[Anorak]

I support whatever makes work life easier for the CSR and the Mods.

[Ed Reppert]

Anorak wrote:

I support whatever makes work life easier for the CSR and the Mods.

I am reminded of a conference on computer security I attended back when I was on active duty in the navy. I met a fellow officer whose duty assignment was with No Such Agency. His comment: “if we had our way there wouldn’t *be* any users!” :-)

[Scott Young]

If this is the new style of community management, I'm very disappointed. Paizo earned my loyalty for the past decade because it wasn't like this. Setting up layers of insulation to protect oneself from harsh comments is hiding; fixing the behaviors that generate harsh comments is leadership.

[Brian Bauman]

The Tech team has successfully lobbied for the retention of the Website Feedback sub-forum, and to my knowledge there are no plans to remove it for the foreseeable future.

[Cori Marie]

Thank you for the update Brian. I'm very glad to hear this.

[Kobold Catgirl]

Thanks so much for clarifying, Brian!