Couple of Small notices

[Beketov 8,642]

Hello Everyone, Couple of really small notes today just to get them out of the way before playoffs start which should be within the week!

 

First up, as you like likely noticed I didn't use the members tag at the top there. The reason for this is pretty simple: it's busted. Most people have likely noticed this already but best to make a point of it. Group mentions do still work, just not the members tag specifically. We're pretty sure the group is just too large. The dev is working on it right now to add a queue for larger tags so that they can function again but for now it doesn't work. Shouldn't really affect anything but if we do have announcements to make we won't be able to tag everyone so make sure to keep an eye on the top of the forum where announcements will still show up. To make it a bit easer as well we have made an announcements channel on discord which will be used to link to any announcements we make. @Joshis planning to automate this in the future but for now we'll just do it manually.

 

Speaking of discord, that leads me to point number two. Pardon the grumpy old man in me bit discord has created a bit of an issue with the community; namely that it has fragmented it. Having no lasting conversations means the community is often split up so you really only see the people who are online at the same time as you. This has it's uses for some things but is problematic for others. For that reason I'm killing discord effective immediately! Obviously that's not actually true but some of the staff are concerned about this fragmentation, especially as it relates to game threads which have seen a distinct decrease in activity as of the last few seasons. I'm sure many of you have noticed as I know several of you have commented on it, though ironically not on the game threads. Part of this issue, we believe, has been the discord bot. While useful in many ways the discord bot posting game links directly in each team's locker room has, we believe, caused even further fragmentation. Why come out of your locker room, let alone come to the forum as a whole, when you can see everything you need while hiding away in the locker room? For that reason we have decided, as a trial run, to disable the game posting bot during the playoffs this season. Simmers will still mention when games get simmed (and being playoffs these sims will be live for some extra content) and people can come check them, and hopefully have some actual discussion, but the links will not be sent directly to locker rooms.
 

This is a trial run, if members as a whole dislike it then it's easy to turn back on. On the whole, while we appreciate discord's usefulness, the entire league cannot run from discord and the community aspect is potentially weakened by it. We are not asking for universal acceptance, we just wish to try and see if people enjoy it.

 

Hopefully the pitchforks aren't raised too high and you can all enjoy your day.

 

Sincerely,

@Commissioner, @Admin

[Gustav 6,098]

reeeeeeeee

 

What about having the bot link to game threads instead of the portal page? Could even have it leave scores out too and just post the thread link.

[Beketov 8,642]

13 minutes ago, GustavMattias said:

reeeeeeeee

 

What about having the bot link to game threads instead of the portal page? Could even have it leave scores out too and just post the thread link.

Not possible unfortunately. The bot would have no way of being able to generate the links to the forum because of how forum post numbers, and links, are generated. At least that's how I understand it from what @Josh has stated.

[jhatty8 662]

Interact with other people? Booo

[dasboot 521]

Strong dislike 

[Berocka 2,191]

Why are people commenting here, shouldn't we just have the conversation in discord 

 

/s

[Beketov 8,642]

6 minutes ago, dasboot said:

Strong dislike 

I’m not asking for people to love it, I’m asking for people to give it a chance. If it fails miserably I’ll accept that.

[Kelsier 28]

Bek already knows my opinion on this, but I'm in pretty strong support of it.

 

I just hope the general community gives it an honest try and remembers that this is a forum based league, and the sims are on the forums, not discord.

[Blazzer 759]

I don't understand what the fragmentation is. My English is bad and I'm not against this in any way, just putting it out there

[Beketov 8,642]

2 minutes ago, Blazzer said:

I don't understand what the fragmentation is. My English is bad and I'm not against this in any way, just putting it out there

Fragmentation = Separation

 

Basically when everything exists on the forum content sticks around, visible unless we hide or delete the post / topic. This means if someone posts at 2am I can come on at 7am and still see and interact with that content even if I wasn't around when it went live. With discord the content gets buried so quickly that you don't see that content from 2am, you just see newer content. Thus I would have no chance of interacting with that person who perhaps lives in a very different time zone from me, because I'm simply awake at different ours. Thus the community is separated into smaller little chunks of people who happen to be online at the same time.

[Blazzer 759]

3 minutes ago, Beketov said:

Fragmentation = Separation

 

Basically when everything exists on the forum content sticks around, visible unless we hide or delete the post / topic. This means if someone posts at 2am I can come on at 7am and still see and interact with that content even if I wasn't around when it went live. With discord the content gets buried so quickly that you don't see that content from 2am, you just see newer content. Thus I would have no chance of interacting with that person who perhaps lives in a very different time zone from me, because I'm simply awake at different ours. Thus the community is separated into smaller little chunks of people who happen to be online at the same time.

Ahhh gotcha. I've simply gotten used to it tbh but yeah, great thought here! 

[Ricer13 2,592]

After thinking about this I feel I am more opposed to this idea than anything. Discord in my opinion has caused this league to thrive. The social interaction is a lot more fun and at real time. I understand the need to create more activity in the forum but I can’t see how turning off game notifications will make much of a difference in this regard. Just my opinion, doesn’t mean it’s right.

[Beketov 8,642]

2 minutes ago, Ricer13 said:

After thinking about this I feel I am more opposed to this idea than anything. Discord in my opinion has caused this league to thrive. The social interaction is a lot more fun and at real time. I understand the need to create more activity in the forum but I can’t see how turning off game notifications will make much of a difference in this regard. Just my opinion, doesn’t mean it’s right.

It also doesn’t mean you are wrong, that’s why we want to try.

 

Discord has inevitably helped the league in many ways but it’s gotten sizeable to the point that we have assumed a general preference from people who perhaps know nothing else. You can’t for sure say “people prefer X over Y” if people don’t know Y exists.

 

 

We’ll try it for the playoffs and see how things feel. If it’s horrible then the bit gets turned back on in a single click. 

[bigAL 2,176]

Love this. We're paying to host the forums, the forums are where the history is captured, the forum clicks/views/activity is how we measure success of the community. Let's get people here!

 

One change I'd love to see (and was about to post in the suggestions section) is that I'd love to see Team Tags. I know I'd find my D.C. games easier in the forum if I was pinged every time a D.C. Game Thread was uploaded.

[mediocrepony 1,216]

me likey

[bigAL 2,176]

22 minutes ago, Beketov said:

Thus the community is separated into smaller little chunks of people who happen to be online at the same time.

This - The 9-5 EST crew was lit last spring but now I've got a different job and different discord availabilities, so I rarely see those friends anymore.

[Beketov 8,642]

1 minute ago, bigAL said:

One change I'd love to see (and was about to post in the suggestions section) is that I'd love to see Team Tags. I know I'd find my D.C. games easier in the forum if I was pinged every time a D.C. Game Thread was uploaded

The main issue with this is a lot of manual updating. Every time any roster change happens for one of the league’s 28 teams (because VHLM would need to be considered as well) we would need to take that user and move them to a different group. It’s a lot of manual updating of accounts, especially in the M where rosters shift around so constantly.

[der meister 2,909]

Death to Discord!

[eaglesfan036 4,583]

1 hour ago, Beketov said:

 For that reason I'm killing discord effective immediately!

 

 

You have no idea how excited that made me you trickster

 

bring back chat

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

I see where you coming from, but I must say the bot actually has gotten me more involved with the league/team, but yeah, I keep the talks in our own lockerroom.

Everytime the notification pops up for our game results most of us actually have a look and comment on our own performances.

 

This is something that for me rarely happened before.

[Beketov 8,642]

3 minutes ago, OrbitingDeath said:

I see where you coming from, but I must say the bot actually has gotten me more involved with the league/team, but yeah, I keep the talks in our own lockerroom.

Everytime the notification pops up for our game results most of us actually have a look and comment on our own performances.

 

This is something that for me rarely happened before.

I’m perfectly fine if @Josh wants to have the bot notification still go out and say that games are live and post that link or just the link to the S74 games section when they are posted, that’s fine. Just want to try and see if a bit more discussion can happen outside of the private locker rooms. Let’s get people out of their bubbles a bit.

[Beketov 8,642]

10 minutes ago, chatfan036 said:

You have no idea how excited that made me you trickster

 

bring back chat

Thought you might like that

[Cxsquared 455]

1 hour ago, GustavMattias said:

reeeeeeeee

 

What about having the bot link to game threads instead of the portal page? Could even have it leave scores out too and just post the thread link.

I brought this up when the bot was first created. I think if we can't have it link to the forum we should just remove it and have GMs/AGMs stop being lazy and just link to the forum games themselves.

[jhatty8 662]

I don't know how much this will really help with posting on game threads. I think that simply asking users for more activity there will push people to make comments on the forums (myself included). However, taking away the most popular medium for receiving games will deter users more than encourage them.

 

If this is a big priority for the league, sim attendance as a PT wouldn't be a terrible idea.

[Beketov 8,642]

2 minutes ago, jhatty8 said:

I don't know how much this will really help with posting on game threads. I think that simply asking users for more activity there will push people to make comments on the forums (myself included). However, taking away the most popular medium for receiving games will deter users more than encourage them.

 

If this is a big priority for the league, sim attendance as a PT wouldn't be a terrible idea.

1. Personally I've never liked sim attendance as a PT. There are things IMO that should not need TPE attached to them and posting in games is one of those. Any time we have done a variation on it we've just seem spam increase.

2. "The most popular" is potentially a bit of a stretch which is what I'm curious to see. People liking what they know does not automatically mean it's the best option.

 

If this turns into a complete shit show I'll eat my words and we can turn it back on but I want to give it a legitimate attempt before just saying "people like what they know so we shouldn't do anything else"