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Images can't be easily translated by translating software, or blocked by any kind of user-operated profanity filter, so I imagine that's why they're not allowed. I remember asking about that a while ago, when the profanity filter was lifted and I was told that profanity in images (like having the word "fuck" or "shit" in reaction images or various gifs, for example) was not allowed because it couldn't get filtered out.
I agree that having the kanji emojis listed in the Subeta-provided emoji cheat sheet is odd when they're not allowed to be used on-site, but that site isn't run by Subeta.
On the other hand, I've seen users have music videos on their profiles with kanji in the video's title, so eh. It would be silly for Subeta to block all non-English songs for that reason.
Could we for the love of god get rid of not being able to double post??
- If we don't hear anything in the next couple of months I could try sending in a ticket. Whatever the answer the rules page would need to be updated such as - video titles in non-English languages or even in scripts other than Roman/Latin can or cannot be used in public forum posts.
[tot=Ciannwn]
Let's be real, the current events subforum is a joke. Like there's hardly any major news because that would be deemed too political.
What I don't get is subeta is a PG-13+ site but the forum rules treat us like children. Most of us are adults who have connections to the real world. While I agree, there are better outlets for proper discussion on meaty topics, not being able to really start a conversation about politics or even courteously debate on the forums feels very restricting. Users are people too and it feels like we can't really discuss things unless it's subeta and let's face it - events are few and far between and subeta topics can only generate enough talk. edit: I'm not saying bring back the debates subforum specifically, but debates that arise from conversations within threads.
I wish rules were laxer but that any obvious personal attacks or breaks in more established rules would get a warning or ban, depending on the infringement.
There's also quite a good chunk of cw slotting in off-site discord (and going back and reading the thread, also general subeta stuff on discord) and while I don't think that's done so people can discuss current events without subeta rules restriction, I feel there's been a general restrictive atmosphere when it's come to posting which has contributed to migration to off-site apps for communication.
Community is an important part of subeta. You don't need me or anyone else to tell you that, but something really needs to be done to foster community if you want people returning to this site and not off-site places for communication. I know this isn't the suggestion forum, but rules imo need to be more lax.
Even for being a holiday, it seems like the forums are still dead around here. Maybe Vesnali's not as popular a holiday as some others, but you'd think it'd be a little busier. Where have all the artists gone? The pet people? This is probably one of the reasons I left last time, because I still feel like there's too much emphasis on custom wearables, but what do I know. There's got to be something to encourage activity on the forums, like more NPC action. It would be nice to be able to chat with NPCs (or I guess that's not really an accurate term since someone would have to 'be' them) now and then, like we actually exist in the same world they do, but it seems like there's never anyone playing them even during events.
But yeah, everyone's making such good points, hopefully we'll get an update soon.
The Vesnali forum is very busy. People are just posting there and in the usual game topics.
Maybe we should accept that the forums are beyond saving.
[tot=Ciannwn]
Then what&;s the point of Subeta? Why bother with the site if nobody ever talks to each other, looks at each other&;s pets, sees each other&;s HAs? If we just sit there refreshing shops to buy items there&;s no real use for anymore? Why am I giving my money to this place? Why did I just give money to this place?
The staff haven't had time to amend the necro rule even though I don't think that would require any programming. Giving the forums the kind of major overhaul we've asked for would be too much work. We still want the Tea House and some kind of summer event etc. so maybe it's unrealistic to expect them to sort the forums out as well.
If I want to show off my HA I just use the game topics now unless there's an event with its own form.
[tot=Ciannwn]
Forum rules need a huge overhaul, but it seems like such a simpler fix than whatever else they're trying to do. It doesn't take any programming to say 'hey, minimods, these are the rules now, hey subeta, the rules are changing'. They don't have an auto-lock feature, everything in the forums is done by a person.
The rule that certain topics reach the third page before they're locked? That needs to go. The forums are running too slowly for that to be a thing. Maybe I'm just salty.
(also what is this tea house I keep hearing about and why is it so important?)
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<li>No Search: There was a search feature until recently, but even when it was existed it was not wholly useful in actually finding things.</li>
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<p>This would be especially useful in places like Suggestions. I sometimes don&;t bother making a suggestion because I don&;t have time to search all the threads to see if my idea or something similar was suggested recently, and I don&;t want to get yelled at.</p>
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<p>Locked Threads Everywhere: I think this looks bad to people who might want to start getting into the forums. I mean, it looks bad to me, and I basically understand why they&;re there. The way of locking threads is also not ideal. Changing the forum title is not helpful, especially in sections like the Help & Questions. What if I have the same question as someone else, and it has been properly answered just a day or two ago, but now it&;s been locked and the title changed? I wouldn&;t even know - I&;d have to post a new thread, and that can get tedious to users who see the same things cropping up over and over.</p>
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<p>Too Compartmentalized: Sometimes I don&;t post in the forums because I have no idea where to post it so that it would be in the proper place and get attention. I like compartmentalization, but I think the Subeta forums go a bit overboard. For example, there is a lot of overlap between Site Feedback and Suggestions; Subeta Pets, Battle, and General Discussion (Subeta Features); and Art Discussion and Profiles & Graphics Discussion. Also, it&;s not consistent - why is there a writing section in the Creative Corner but not Subeta Commerce?</p>
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<p>This also might cause people to stick to very small communities and not venture elsewhere. Until very recently, I haunted the Adoption Center and Subeta Pets - and that was it. I didn&;t want to encroach on a different group of threads where I didn&;t know the community "rules". (I.E. I&;ve heard some scary things about CW.)</p>
<p> mentioned that it doesn&;t take many bad experiences to put a bad taste in a person&;s mouth. One of my first posts on Subeta - perhaps the first one - was an introductory one in Welcomes & Introductions (makes sense, right?). But because I was not technically a "new" user (I&;d been around for a few years, but I&;d never posted on the forums), I was told I was in the wrong place and my thread got moved. It wasn&;t a super big deal in the long run, but it&;s made a lasting impression on me to avoid being in the wrong place.</p>
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<li>Unable to Double Post: Subeta doesn&;t really have a problem with spam (barring the recent gift box thing). Some threads it makes sense to ban this, but there are others that it doesn&;t. For example, people who set up shop often want to use the first couple of posts for information. I saw a thread in Masq where a person did this and they asked their friends to post wordless picture threads in-between. This really shouldn&;t be necessary. Or in the Adoption Center, I&;ve had times when my thread has slipped down and I had new pets added or I wanted to remind people of the deadline or choose owners, and I had no recourse to bring that information to people&;s attention because my post was the last post. Some people have long-term threads in there that get pushed down unhelpfully - not because they&;re irrelevant, but because they get buried in all the non-relevant locked threads and the user can&;t even make a post about how it was updated.</li>
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<p>By all means, this should still be avoided on, say, game threads and should never just be a word like "bump". But there are legit reasons to need to post after yourself.</p>
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<p>No Edit Marker/Time Stamp: Especially for informative threads (like the Available Real Word/Name threads in Subeta Pets and the one somewhere about the Job Agency), this would be extremely useful for the first post. Heck, even the art community or anywhere where someone is offering services would find this useful. It would indicate to users coming to the thread when the posting was last updated, so they would know if the information would still be pertinent or the services still available.</p>
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<p>The Heart Post Thing: What even is its point? We don&;t necessarily need a downvote like Reddit, but the Heart Post thing is lacking in other regards. Like I can&;t unheart a post that I realized later I don&;t agree with, and I can&;t heart posts on mobile browser at all.</p>
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<p>The Foreign Languages Thing: I love languages; linguistics is my passion. But I&;m deathly afraid of even talking about them. Even just a word here and there. I can&;t even post the Italian word for "bye", though that&;s a pretty commonly recognized word in English, or the French phrase "I-don&;t-know-what", even though it&;s a somewhat commonly recognized phrase in English. I&;d love to discuss how my pets Ochki and Kniga are real words in Russian, maybe even start a thread about pets named after real, non-English words, but how frowned upon would that be? Or impart my wisdom of language learning and linguistics, or start a (friendly) debate about it, but not being able to post anything in a foreign language is extremely prohibitive. I&;m not even talking about whole conversations here.</p>
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<p>And you can see for yourself my signature - I browse Subeta at the same time as studying, and I study Russian. Sometimes I forget what I last c/p&;d and I&;m deathly afraid that one day I&;m going to accidently c/p something in Russian, not catch it, and be warned - or worse, frozen - immediately, no questions asked.
I feel like there were other things I wanted to mention, but I&;m still waking up and I have forgotten.
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I want to second absolutely everything you've said here. I've been here two, three days? And already I'm finding myself bumping up against rules that make me uncomfortable or feel unnecessary. Not just forums rules, but this is about the forums so here I go:
The bump/necro/dupe rules are the unholy trifecta of forum rules. Bumping isn't allowed, so if a thread falls off, it's lost until someone finds it (which they won't, because it's fallen off). Necroes aren't alllowed, and a mere three months is the requirement for a "Necro". This means if I take a break from the site (which I do with all sites, always), I can't revive any of the threads I (will inevitably) create when I return. Fine, I'll remake them. Except...
Making duplicate threads is also not permitted.
So, in essense, unless multiple users are posting in a thread on a near-daily basis, no-one is ever allowed to make or resurrect that thread ever again. Which is especially ridiculous considering this site is over a decade old. Surely everything's already been done at this point and we should just lock the forums forever to prevent duplicates.
Oh! Why are most of the threads I see locked? I don't see any real rules about the locking of threads, yet all bar a handful of threads in each subforum is locked.
Want to prevent unnecessary duplicate threads? MAKE A SEARCHBAR. This site is a decade old! Every forum has a search function, to make it easier to search for relevent threads. I have a help forum thread I keep editing because I can't just search for the answers to really simple questions.
I've been thinking the forums are pretty quiet and while that can't be the only reason, I think a combination of bad rule choices are adding to the problem.
Banning "foreign languages" has always struck me as xenophobic, which is especially odd considering how diverse Subeta tries to be in terms of items (skintone pallet, pride apparel, strict rules that CWs have to work on all skin colours).
The forums seem super cut up. I actually found myself in this thread because I was trying to find the known issues thread in bug reports, couldn't, and thought I'd check site feedback instead (how exactly is this place different from the suggestions forum anyway, and how often are either of them read by staff who have the power to make the requested changes?)
Lack of an edit marker is strange, I consider those standard and have been silently relying on them without realising they were absent.
I have a lot more to say but, truthfully, I'm very tired, and most of it has been said already.
Now to figure out where my bug report belongs.
To be fair, about the necro/duplicate thing:
Some forums have different rules about what is "necro". I don't remember which ones specifically, but I think suggestions can go up to a year old? Also, in the scenario you mention, if your thread is over three months old, you can create a new one. Usually you ask the mod to lock the original thread to make sure that there is no confusion by changing the title. This happens sometimes in the Adoption Center for long term threads, and I'm sure it happens in other forums as well.
Thanks for pointing that out, at least it isn't as bad as I was envisioning.
To be honest, I rather assumed those rules would be enforced inconsistently, because to enforce them strictly really would kill the forums.
It's not out of xenophobia, it's because it's much easier to moderate a language that all staff members speak fluently. English-only for public communication areas (user comments, news comments, forum posts) is because the site can't afford to hire moderators/staff who are multilingual and fluid in several foreign languages. Online translators are unreliable as all hell, especially if you throw slang into the mix. Or specific regional dialects. So in order to keep the userbase safe and avoid any skeevy activity that would get the site into serious legal trouble (anything dealing with minors, sharing illegal material, and many more examples that I can't be bothered to type :P ), they've restricted public communication to English-only. You can still chat with people via s-mails in any language you're fluent in, though.
Basically what I'm seeing is older users are frustrated, newer users are frustrated, and staff? A vague 'we're working on it' is all we get. Please keep us in the loop more than this, we beg you ;3;
i was hoping to sell some stuff but uh, my thread on the advertising forum is on the second page which means no one will see it but i can't make a new one because it's not 3 months old yet
subeta pls i love you but this is ridiculous lmao
I think maybe what could revive the forums is if we included topics and a format similar to reddit. It's very hard to have a conversation and keep track of who is talking back and forth on forums. Reddit also has interesting topics like Ask Reddit. We could do an ask subetans? I think that would be interesting and engaging and could allow users to get to know each other. I admit i am totally guilty of using the forums as they exist now as FP farming and only posting on topics where I post a word or two. I have seriously looked for topics that are engaging and have made a couple but they never take off. I'm very bored with the forums.
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Hey, guys! I'm commenting here so that you know you're not being ignored. We've been reading and taking in all of the feedback regarding the forums and we get you! What used to work great isn't working so well anymore, and some changes are needed.
While I know you're tired of hearing "We're working on it," I'm afraid that's the most we can say at the moment. Improving something as massive as the forums--and the system that's been built up for it over the last decade and a half--is a huge undertaking, and these changes are absolutely a work in progress. But they are a priority! We don't like the mess any more than you do, which is why we are taking our time to do a thorough and careful job with our improvements.
While it may seem like it would be a reasonably simple fix of, say, a few minor rule adjustments, there's actually a lot more to it than that, and we have to weigh the possible consequences (and other minutiae) very carefully before we institute any changes.
So, tl;dr: we're working on it. (Sorry, and we love you!)
Thank you for replying. Is it possible to get more information on something in this post that Keith made in another topic? After explaining why forum group posts no longer qualify for forum points he added -
If he's still thinking about it will he be adding this new system before or after the forum improvements?
[tot=Ciannwn]