My understanding is that Suggestions & Ideas would be to suggest entirely new things, while Constructive Feedback would be to respond to existing things

I think that's a good way of looking at it. I think there's a lot of overlap like says which I think is why I'm questioning why it even needs to be split up. I just really don't like the wording of "constructive feedback" because it makes it super unclear to me where the line is for what's welcome and what isn't. Is a post like mine not constructive because I'm complaining I don't like something and it's not helpful to point out things you don't like? I think I'm trying to help but maybe someone else sees that as me being non-constructive. I think everyone has a slightly different definition of what they think will be constructive.

I think that's just a reminder to be kind and explain your negative reactions to things rather than to go hard on negativity. It doesn't necessarily mean you have to have an idea for a solution, just that you should approach topics from a collaborative place and not just like, vent about how much you hate something. The Kumos Site Layout Feedback thread is almost exclusively negative, but Keith has been really receptive to it and active in there because knowing what people don't like can help shape it as he works on it.

I'd like to suggest a "guide" be included when the official announcement about the updates / feedback board regarding the updates is made. That way all us forum oldies can see what moved where and it will likely save the same questions being asked over and over lol.

Looking forward to the details of the organization tools and to seeing what the completed vision is! Any idea when it will be done?

I am not super active in the forums, but I have been posting every day for months in a games thread about Morty Cards. Since these forum changes were implemented, participation in that thread has plummeted! In fact, I had to edit my comment from December 16th twice now just to update my status because no one has posted after me. It's possible participation declined because Morty Cards are not being handed out as frequently as we'd prefer, but I don't believe that to be the main reason. These forums are messy at the moment, and I hope some sort of organization is brought to them soon.

Haven't read through all the posts but I agree with a lot of the sentiments that Advertising, and all categories that have commerce options (I think Art, Programming, and CWs, I don't remember if there are others), need additional separation back. I'm a-ok with changes being made to the forum in general but it needs balance. Too many (sub)categories can be overwhelming for sure! But, also we need to give people some credit with figuring out that [xyz subcategory] can likely be found in the [xyz subcategories over here!!! category] so long as the categorization is done aptly.

And while the change is intended to help newbies and overall navigation, I suspect removal of the commerce separations will hurt those things long-term. For example newbies needing items/GAs/etc from a giveaway might get discouraged having to comb through ambiguously titled advertising threads (not everyone thinks about naming things aptly). And conversation might get even harder for art discussion if it's buried by art commission threads. When currency or trading is involved people should be able to tell at barely more than a glance what the expectations of an interaction are.

Maybe if the subcategories aren't added back then something like visible tags could be chosen for threads, that clearly indicate intent. E.g. for art it could have tags like "open commisions," "closed commisions," "buying," "discussion," "freebies," "guides/tutorials," etc, each with colour coding.

On the other hand of lumping vs splitting, I think maybe Forum Groups could fit well enough as a subcategory of Chit-Chat since it's in essence groups for like-minded chit-chatting and activities.

The thanking anon gifters corner and bragging corner are gone! I went to thank my Lumi gifters there and boom! Nothing is there.

Edit: The Pet Forums needs the Adoption Subcategory back, that's completely different from talking about your pet works, help with TCs, etc.

this one?

Yes thank you so much! I couldn't figure out where it was under

Since this thread contains quite a bit of feedback, I'm curious about the opinion Pet Adoption regulars

For example I have noticed a lot of "Seeking Legacy" or "Seeking (specific color)" threads For the purposes of browsing to adopt/adopt out, would it be tidier to have a singular thread acting as a hub (similar to how there is currently one thread acting as a hub for pet birthdate seekers)

-Thoughts on below post-

- check out 's comment above and weigh in?

i still am not used to the setup and dislike the removal of subforums for major aspects of the site. i think it's a mistake to relegate them to subforums of their own, as that definitionally lowers their importance in the visual hierarchy of the page and that doesn't make sense to do for the main reasons people interact with the site as a whole. i don't know that this will change even if a tag system is implemented, but i can only hope it does.

but what i really dislike the most is probably that we didn't get any warning.

this thread was made december 13th at 8am subeta time, and there was an announcement ~1pm that same day- after the forum squish had already begun- that seems to have been specifically made in response to people panicking here. this one continues to be where most of the discussion and feedback on the change is. so my question now, a week out, is: why was there not a site-wide announcement beforehand about the forum squish? why did we have to find out by things just disappearing and someone happening to make a thread because of how disconcerting that was? it's a major change to the site that would make (and is making) it harder to use the forums while its being done. that's a bad surprise!

i think some backlash could probably have been avoided if we had been told more recently than 6 months ago that this would be moving forward, and thus people wouldn't have realized it was happening after things had already started to be moved around. even a quick heads up (again, sitewide like a normal announcement) the day before to make it clear things might not be where they used to be and why. especially if you're looking for people to use them and give feedback more useful than 'augh everything's weird where's ___'.

Honestly I don't know how I feel about this. It feels like a general seeking thread would get messy fast? I would feel bad asking for something if 5 other people before me asked, and I'd also feel bad offering a legacy name only to Joe if Mimi and Paul asked before. I like that the individual threads means that each user can offer their pets to whoever they want, without feeling guilty over 'skipping' someone.

I think it works decently with dates, since dates are very specific and can take a long while to find. The date thread also works cause of the google sheet. A general seeking thread wouldn't work imo, since like 50 people would probably just say 'I'm looking for legacy names'

By looking at the old adoption forum, it was easy to see who was seeking what, and who was offering at a single glance. Putting everything in a few threads would make it so easy for requests to get lost? You'd have to scroll and read through each post individually. Before, we could just look at the topic name and know in a few seconds that John was looking for plants Legacy name and that Jenny had a T3 battle pet UFA.

I'm all for making the forum more active, and making it easier for users to participate. But as I mentioned in my previous post, some forums are more utilities than discussion boards. The old adoption sub-forum is a great exemple: It was an utility board, a 'personal ads' style board, it was never meant for discussion. It needs to be practical, and shoving everything in a few 'seeking' threads doesn't seem particularly practical.

i like doing my own individual threads like when i'm looking for a new pet or something. I just wish we had kept the pets forum its own and kept its sub-forums.

It's not something that is being pushed, I understand the pet community is one that has functions similar to the battle community where users already have a pretty familiar way of interacting, so that's why I wanted to hear what users thought about it first.

So currently in the seeking birthdates thread, I think I would be correct to assume there are more users after old/lower ID pets, and there may be particularly popular dates. Would a hub with posts of multiple users seeking Legacy RW / RN be uncomfortable, or would it function similarly as the birthdates thread, where it's either FCFS, or if someone is looking to adopt out, perhaps they have a user they would like to give priority to adopt, then they'd contact them directly so the adoption happens in private?

Genuinely asking, not being contradictory or having a preference either way.

Even before the tagging is implemented, I would like to try have the pet forums as functional as possible for everyone to use, in a way that makes sense.

[edit]Also wanted to add, I know it feels like a lot having lost the subforums, but if you look at the merged Pets forum, there are just a tiny bit over 2 pages worth of threads under 6 months (the rest being older, and can no longer be used per necro rules), 5 pages if you are on Kumos instead of the legacy site. Even if you only log on once a month, you can view all current threads within the first 1-2 pages, so I think with a bit of organisation, the merge shouldn't really be disruptive to the browsing experience

I've given it thought and agree with and , I feel much more comfortable having individual threads especially for seeking, but also for adopting out. Having a single thread for ISO dates makes sense because it doesn't really serve as a board where people post pets UFA. More-so users who are adopting out have it available to reference IF they want to offer to someone but most often what is happening is other folks who are active in the pet community / on the adoption forum will reference it and tag users if they see a birthday available that someone is looking for. That person then applies for the pet on the board where the pet is UFA, and the person adopting out still chooses who they want to give the pet to. So it's not necessarily even a FCFS type of thing.

I think having a single "UFA" board would potentially muddle things, making it hard to find what is currently available without lots of reading back through. Often on UFA boards multiple people may express interest, especially if multiple pets are available. Trying to imagine a single board where multiple people are posting multiple pets, and multiple people are writing applications for different pets ... I'm envisioning multiple completely unrelated conversations happening at once, but all jumbled around one another. It seems like it would cause posts to be missed and discourage people from trying to use it. Adoptions are sometimes FCFS, but often not. The alternative would be that applications and discussion are done in sMail, which is fine if that's what people prefer but I feel it then just reduces interaction on the forums?

Seconding the idea for sure that I would feel uncomfortable posting "Seeking LNs" under 5 other people who also posted that they're seeking LNs.

I really like being able to open the adoption forums and scan down the page to see what's currently happening. Is there a way for locked boards to be automatically bumped behind any open boards? That would maybe keep things cleaner?

I'm also thinking about it with the idea of a more active forum, because that's the ultimate goal behind all of this. The more active it gets, the more individual boards makes sense.

If y'all have any ideas (besides re-splitting the forum lol) that you think would help optimise your browsing experience, feel free to throw it out here. If it can be done, we'll do our best!

Personally, having the boards colored based on tag would help greatly. So if I'm in the pets forum boards tagged under "adoption" would show up as a different color than general boards. That way while they're still all blended together at least it is easy to tell what belongs in what group.

Not pet forum specific, but I really hope the advertising forum gets some kind of separation / organization. Right now it's really confusing. I can imagine it's hard because Creative and Advertising have a lot of potential overlap. I could see it being that the Marketplace has General, Custom Clothing, Profiles & Graphics, and Art & Writing. Each of these would have colored tags for Buying, Selling, and Freebies. Discussion on these topics could be grouped together as a sub-forum under chit-chat called Creative Corner. To make things easier, there could be a single board on CC for asking questions / for help related to coding (I feel like a lot of the boards on the P&G discussion were this). Alternatively, I think it makes a lot of sense to have a forum section where we could find Custom Wearables, Profiles & Graphics, Art & Writing, and the general market. Much of the recent "lumping" in these would be maintained, but each would have a sub-forum for "Discussion", and the Buying vs Selling vs Freebies in each would still be color-coded based on their tags.

Right now it's just ... a lot to see all mixed together and the lack of any visual organization makes them feel overwhelming and a bit frustrating. I may be totally off, but it seems to me like everything people do on the forums falls into three main groups - the site specific update / feedback / ideas stuff, being social about a variety of topics, and exchange of goods. So the lumping makes sense as far as simplifying and increasing activity on the forums I just think atm the organizing is ... not there lol. And the current categories aren't intuitive.

I had mentioned it to Keith so maybe it's already going to be a thing, but having a box at the top where our pinned boards show up would be amazing. That way when we don't want to go clicking through but want to check on key things we can.

I appreciate you explaining things and hearing ideas! I hope the new forums are a big hit and lead to more activity! It would be great to see them bustling like they once were!