New Leadership and Improving Suggestions

[greenoaks]

they added nothing to Foundry or Tournaments, it's unlikely they'll add anything to here

[agentcom]

they added nothing to Foundry or Tournaments, it's unlikely they'll add anything to here

[Edit: I'm an idiot]

[greenoaks]

they added nothing to Foundry or Tournaments, it's unlikely they'll add anything to here

Who is they? The new leadership? I've been seeing some signs of life for Suggestions that I hope continues. It's all been happening behind the scenes, though, so far.

My unenviable task has been to sit here and urge patience while everything develops and hope that I don't look like a fool if nothing ends up happening. But I have a cautious optimism that things are headed in the right direction.

There's never gonna be a time when we get new major updates every month, but more regular major updates should become more frequent. And the little, quick fixes, I believe, won't have to sit in Suggestions for a year (or more) before someone gets around to changing one line of code.

Also, the Foundry just got a couple of long-awaited and much deserved upgrades. I can't wait to see some maps that actually use them. And the tournament players/organizers will benefit from a lot of the improvements that benefit the site as a whole.

they = topic icons

[agentcom]

they added nothing to Foundry or Tournaments, it's unlikely they'll add anything to here

[Edit: I'm an idiot]

In that case, I have fixed my post. See above

I had forgotten that this turned in to a suggestion about topic icons. We talked about the topic icon idea the other day, we came to the same conclusion that they (they=topic icons) don't really do much for us. So, I don't think that's the route we'll be taking.

[greenoaks]

they added nothing to Foundry or Tournaments, it's unlikely they'll add anything to here

[Edit: I'm an idiot]

In that case, I have fixed my post. See above

I had forgotten that this turned in to a suggestion about topic icons. We talked about the topic icon idea the other day, we came to the same conclusion that they (they=topic icons) don't really do much for us. So, I don't think that's the route we'll be taking.

awesome, i do have a suggestion for a better Suggs forum, i'll post it soon.

[Fewnix]

I suggest sorting all suggestions made in the past into various folders, sub folders and some "Cluster analysis" be done – techniques for grouping objects into a collection of groups (called clusters), based on some measure of proximity or similarity "(wikipedia).. This cluster analysis be made available to the CC community including the new owners and administrators so we can share insights into what is desirable and what is doable.

Such analysis made available to the CC community can help people who have suggestions to make check if those suggestions, OR something in the neighborhood, have been suggested before, and rejected. They can then either forget the idea OR frame it better, dealing with the reasons why suggestions of this type have been rejected

At another level the CC community and the new owners/administrators can come together to be inspired to talk about possible changes. . Maybe the reasons a suggestion was rejected in the past no longer applies, the technical hurdles have been overcome. Or maybe we can see a variant of the suggestions is doable and desirable.

No quarrel with anyone but some of what I am talking about can apply to to the suggestion of" New style of spoils bonuses - Risky Spoils http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewto ... 4&t=181395.

At one level it can help avoid the reaction of "Suggested b4." At the other level, If there have been many suggestions of changes to the spoils system, not necessarily "risky spoils" but suggestions in the neighbourhood, let's talk. Maybe many of the suggested changes have been not doable for technical reasons but some variant is now possible. Was there a sense that the suggested changes were too much work for too little reward, that few Cc'ers want the changes or would benefit from them? Let's talk, maybe times have changed and some variant is doable and desirable.

This leads to some of the suggested changes how suggestions are handled in the future. People who have suggestions to make should first check out, or be directed to. the cluster analysis to address the issues found there. So if someone has an idea for changes to the spoils system they look at the analysis of suggested changes in the past and address that. Rather than discourage people making suggestions, where the most likely response will be " suggested b4" " this can inspire people to make suggestions with some good foundation- " I see many suggestions to the spoils system have been made and rejected, how about this variant?" Then we can have a good conversation about change.

can suggestions please be placed into various folders / sub forums?

off the top of my head

1. game suggestions
2. player suggestions
3. interface suggestions
4.

there are probably more, but I can't think of them right now .

This is something that has been discussed in the past, and I promise the idea hasn't been forgotten about. No promises about whether it will happen soon, though. The main problem is -- will the subforums justify their usage? If we split off into four subforums, I worry that they'll all die from inactivity.

Perhaps Topic Icons can be used similar to the Foundry and Create/Join Tourney pages... That'll keep them all in the same forum but will allow for someone to easily pick out the different types of suggestions.

Yes, that's something we've been discussing recently. It's the solution I would like to see implemented; it just requires coordination with the webmaster and the tech team to see how easy it would be to implement for us. We'll be keeping in touch regarding this.

[agentcom]

Thanks Fewnix. I am only aware of three ways that we can do this in this forum.

We can put things in subfolder/subcategories in the forum. This seems to be your recommendation. However, the problem with this is that people don't bother to click through the subforums. And even when they do, they don't necessarily know where we put things, how the system works or how best to use it. One example, is the current Submitted Suggestions folder. Pageviews and comments seem to drop off precipitously when a suggestion goes over there. This is unfortunate. And there's nothing else we can do to make it more obvious--it's already at the top of the thread and turns bright red when new comments are made. Another example is that not all users know the best ways of using the search functions of this site. So, when you start putting things in folders sometimes people get lost or put things in the wrong place. We've discussed this option a bit in this thread, in other threads and privately among the mods. It doesn't seem like this will really work.

We just talked about topic icons, so I'll direct you to the previous couple posts.

A third way is to index similar suggestions. For lack of a better system, this seems to be the direction that we would head as the Suggestions volunteers have time to organize things. You can see an example of such a system here.

Can you think of a better way of doing this? I agree with you that organization is important, I just don't see what other workable organizational techniques there are except to index things across categories. The post linked to above (in a perfect world) would be linked to or part of a larger index of ideas.

[greenoaks]

One change Agentcom that you could make is to follow the lead of Tournaments and the Foundry.

Both of those forums have their own medals for those that participate there. Tournaments give Contribution medals to those that run tourneys and Acheivement ones to those that win them. Foundy also provide their own to those who create maps for us to play on.

So how about implementing this great idea of grifftron's and have your very own Suggs Medal.

Recognising the efforts of people who contribute is a good idea Just ask Tournaments or the Foundry.

[agentcom]

Responded in that thread