By making forum points rewards for elites who like to talk, you aren't encouraging forum use. Us blabbermouths are going to talk anyway and those who are mentally incapable of that level of communication simply aren't going to change and suddenly start making productive posts. So who would be encouraged? Unless you drastically increased the rate of reward, that might actually get people posting some longer screeds.

I'd also like to point out that the "I earned blah blah in game whatever" are not completely useless posts. I have used them in the past to figure out that certain items aren't dropping like they are supposed to.

Forum points, no matter how or where they are awarded aren't, on their own, going to increase "quality" posting. They could certainly contribute as part of a comprehensive plan. For them to contribute we need to understand why, how and where they are awarded. Because if people do put in effort to earn those points, and don't get them because we don't know how to earn them, people are going to get pissed off and feel cheated, not encouraged.

Hello! I know you're busy, but we're glad to have you popping in to discuss this with us!

Was the change announced? I looked through your forum posts going back to 2016 and found nothing about forum points being removed from private group forums. What I'm seeing on this topic are a lot of users who were taken by surprise by this. I was convinced it was a recent change, not something that apparently happened a year ago. The fact that it slipped to the bottom of your ticket system despite you wanting more forum and site activity is... not exactly giving me good feelings, I'll be honest.

I understand the need to immediately remove a mechanic that's being heavily abused, but I don't know how that "valuable post" API would work out. For example, I'm wordy. Very very wordy. I can type a 15-page essay on a topic I'm really interested in (-cough- the recent petname discussions -cough-), I really enjoy bouncing ideas in the suggestions forum. Someone else might not be as wordy, but can provide the same feedback in a few very short, succinct, straight-to-the-point sentences. I'm also going to assume that it may be easy to swerve around an automatic "post quality" system by just... quoting the person you're talking to and then typing up your reply. Suddenly your post character count goes up, making you more likely go qualify for a forum point.

The forums and forum points as a mechanic definitely need some TLC, but I don't know how this is all going to reflect in the current system where the non-CW and non-sales forums are prettymuch clinging to straws. I don't see a surge of quality posts and activity following removal of forum games as a viable forum point option. I just see the forums becoming much less interesting to casual posters.

was it really so many accounts that they can't be dealt with on a case-by-case basis with warnings & individual punishments? Or even the problem threads/groups?

this also came off really accusatory towards forum groups as a whole....I mean, are forum groups inherently abusive towards the forum point system?? Like, people have conversations on the forums (public and private) because they either don't want to/can't chat off-site, or because there's an incentive to use the forums. So like... people are always gonna create topics for the sake of getting forum points, but if there's conversations and interaction happening, is it still frowned upon? Maybe I don't understand what was meant by "or maybe using them inappropriately and no one saying anything". Who is no one? The users aren't and really shouldn't be policing forums so I'm not sure what you meant.

I realize this forum group thing is a small part of a bigger issue, but I definitely think communication needs to happen going forward. Being informed at the time of a change would probably result in more "that's a shame, but at least it's to stop a problem and is being worked on" which is better than coming back a year later and telling people "we took it away due to problems you weren't aware of and didn't think it was important enough to address". Vagueness, lack of communication, and inconsistency are some of the biggest problems regarding the forum rules and continuing that pattern is only going to drive more people away from them.

I like subeta, and I want it to have good forums. But they need work and forums users need to be aware of what's going on or what's changing. The forums are built by users under subeta's rules, so keeping us in the dark is never gonna lead to success.

Hi~! Never doubted that Staff would chime in eventually. Glad you're popping in to add to the discussion, thank you~

I wasn't aware that was an issue, which is understandable since you see so much more on the back end of things than us users do.

"What I think is that we need a rethinking of forum points in general, there are now APIs that can determine how "valuable" a post is to a dialog, and I'll look into those which means that forum games, etc, would be out as well."

To advocate for the HA forums...how would posts in HA contests be "valued"? I run and participate in a lot of contests and most of the time to enter you just share your outfit. Would those posts not be considered for forum points?

The Stimulate Your Style thread for instance is a main source of entertainment for A LOT of users. It is even sponsored by the site. But 99% of those posts are just a shared outfit code or "congrats winners". Would, what probably you, considering it is sponsored, and I consider one of the biggest, most active threads in the forums be penalized with this hypothetical change??

Depending on how this system works I'm sure there are ways to circumvent it and quote or copy/paste like mentioned. There would also need to be a description of how this would work and what this would mean, because I'm sure I'm speaking for a lot of users when I say that I have no idea what an API is or how it would determine the "value" of a post.

i think the api idea isn't bad but like....... i'd prefer if maybe it just makes it so "valuable" posts have a higher chance of earning points than the rest? but without actually stopping regular posts from earning fp's as a whole

not that i think it would really make the forums more active but eh who knows

This is the kind of change that should have been announced a year ago. People shouldn't be taken by surprise by this. We shouldn't be left to try and figure it out on our own. People can be understanding when you announce a change relatively quickly, but not so much after months of confusion.

I think it will help more to consider things from a perspective of someone who can't see behind the curtains more often. We can't see what you see, so sometimes you have in fill in the gaps, or we're left making assumptions and getting upset about it.

Sometimes we need more than vague answers and promises.

Good point. I tried Google and found articles about Application Programming Interface but couldn't see how any of it could apply to Subeta forums.

Also, what will be classed as a valuable post? For example, I've sometimes come across a Suggestion topic where everyone has made valid points. I can't think of anything else to add so have just said "I support this for reasons already stated." I don't do this to earn forum points - it's to say I'm in favour of what's been suggested in hope that the more people there are who support it the more chance there is of the suggestion being used.

Staff communication being a problem, again? This was changed a year or more ago and we're only just now finding out about it? Somehow, I am not at all surprised.

Hey, how about telling us when stuff like this changes? How about listening to actual user feedback about what we'd like to see in the forums and what we feel would make them more active and worth posting in? How about not putting 'value' on forum posts? Or is that too much to ask?

Maybe I sound rude, but at this point I am sick of being nice. Ever since I came back to this site it's been demonstrated over and over again that we are not warned or told about certain things that absolutely affect how users interact with the site and that on the big, important issues like how to fix the forums to increase activity users are not being listened to and are in fact being punished for speaking up and having such 'negative opinions' towards the staff, either by other users who think they can do no wrong or make the excuse that they're doing their best as a way to justify this behavior.

As I've said before the staff are human. Mistakes get made, and I understand there are so few people working that it's hard to get things done and that's okay. What's not okay is leaving us users in the dark about things and saying nothing on the subject until we bring it up as a riot in the forums. It's not okay to completely, 100% ignore our suggestions on how to improve things in some aspects and instead keep trying your own methods for them that, clearly, are not working.

People are not going to use the main forums more now that you've removed forum points from private groups. They'll keep using private groups for what they were before save a small few groups that kind of revolved around that point and the individuals that were abusing the system that we are now all being punished for. People will keep going off to discord and outside platforms because these forums are too restrictive and they're afraid to get a warning or a ban for saying the wrong thing or breaking some rule that's not 100% clear. Unless and until you fix those issues you can do all you want to the forum points or whatever but that's not going to change anything, and same with actually having an open line of communication to us and telling us when these changes happen and why and listening to our feedback about it.

This.

I think it's unrealistic to expect the kind of major forum revamps we've suggested because Keith is working on the new wardrobe while everyone else is busy with the Tea House. After that there's the Gardens and the Lower West Side map to do along with all the special events we'll be getting later on in the year.

Amending the Necro rule would make a big difference, though, and I don't know why it should be all that hard. (1) Decide what the new time limit is (2) Notify the forum mods (3) Change the relevant sentence in Forum Rules (4) Make a site announcement so everyone knows what the change is.

PS: I meant to add clarify the rules which confuse people.

That's fair, but I also think the staff need to rethink their priorities in that case. Do we really need a new Wardrobe, or would working on the forums benefit the site more? Can the Tea House and other things be put on hold to do a forum revamp? I don't even think one is particularly needed, or at least not to any great degree that isn't easy to handle from a code standpoint.

The necro rule is obviously the biggest one, and that's a super easy fix. Clarifying the rules so people know exactly what they are and are not allowed to post would be great too, and alleviate a lot of anxiety and that's also easy to fix. Bigger things that have been suggested don't have to come all at once, they can be done in small chunks. A revamp is not needed to punish the individuals who were misusing forum groups to get forum points and let the rest of us have that back so we don't feel like we have to come down into the public forums or save up a bunch of sP in order to obtain the forum point shop items, nor is implementing any sort of system to try to determine the 'value' of posts to make them valid for earning forum points.

And again, the largest complaint here is a lack of communication. We were not told about this when it happened and had someone not filed a ticket and had it answered and found out and then decided to start this thread it's likely that the wider site as a whole would not know this had happened at all. After all, it went a year under the radar until it was discovered, so that says something. Lack of communication between staff and users has been a complaint for a long time, which I feel also says something. Even if they can't tell us exactly what is going on for whatever reason, a simple "We're aware and we're working on it." does wonders and often prevents this kind of stuff from happening.

Here's an illustration of why the Necro rule needs to be amended. This is my topic in the Entertainment/Music forum -

Does Anyone Here Like The HU? No replies so far which suggests that nobody currently here does. Maybe in four or five months time there will be a new user who likes this band. They won't be able to post in my topic without it being locked, though. so we'll never be able to have a conversation unless they sMail me (or I sMail them). We could chat that way but it wouldn't help the forums.

Pls don't put the tea house on hold xD Things gotta actually get finished, anything in progress needs to be prioritized before new things get started.

I agree that things need to actually get finished, but at the same time the staff should be thinking about what's best for the site. Is it better to put out a new feature, or to fix an existing one that the majority of people seem to agree is broken so that attention can then be moved to the new things? The forums are broken, and the staff are trying to push them as a focal point of the site while knowing this. I know people don't want to see the Tea House and other promised things be delayed, but honestly I'd be okay with it if it meant the issues with the forums got fixed first so we could be properly excited for them instead of having to hash out over and over and over again that the forums have issues and have that take attention away from other things.

imo instead of trying to resist inevitable changing trends in online communication, there should just be an official subeta discord? idk if that's a controversial suggestion, but it shouldn't be considering there's already Discord Lite(TM) in the form of the shoutbox. i can understand that it could be difficult to monitor, however maybe it's a worth taking if it will encourage more user interaction.

i love forums, and i think they absolutely still have a place, however for quick and real time conversation i just don't think they're ever going to make a comeback. and especially not with necro and spam rules. ¯(ツ)/¯ to be blunt, i don't think any amount of incentive is going to change that. i feel that if the forums are stagnating, perhaps instead of trying to superficially encourage people to use them, other channels of communication may want to be looked into BUT that's just my humble onion.

I am veering off topic of OP but I have thought this often! The shoutbox technology is closer to the new standard, maybe in the future we could set up shoutboxes for the forum groups we make. That would make it much easier to casually chat here!

@ cherub Subeta does have a Discord channel but last I heard on the matter, they can't implement an official Subeta Discord because of blocking issues. You can block people you want nothing to do with on Subeta, but you don't know the Discord screen names of those people, so odds are you'll run into them. Or they'll find out the Discord name of the person who blocked them and gather up some friends to harass them.

I do agree that forums are archaic, but I also agree that they absolutely have a place here. They lend themselves really well to these kinds of discussions, for example. ;) You don't have to try to type your entire opinion out superfast before the conversation veers away into something completely different like it does on Discord, and I know a lot of people can't keep up with how quickly massive Discord servers move even with post slowdown active.

[edit]Tweaked wording slightly for clarity

I feel that's a valid point, and it shouldn't be a hot take, but I feel like it will be treated that way. I'm not sure if it's been brought up before but at the very least I'm sure it's been considered and clearly the staff are still trying to push the forums as a big part of the site. I think the point is to bring traffic to Subeta, not take it away. And by that I mean think about it, if there's an official discord server then people don't have to visit the site. They don't have to come down into the forums and see the banners users pay to put up and those without a GA don't have to see the ads which takes away from ad revenue and such and the more people talk on site the more it generates in those terms. They can't stop us from starting a discussion here and moving off platform to circumvent certain things or just to have more private, real-time communication but sadly they can punish us for not using the official forums by making people who are uncomfortable with them for whatever reason have to miss out on perks that they would otherwise get if they posted :/

i mean, i'm in a few subeta based discords and there's simply a rule where you have to have your subeta UN visible in your display name? idk i feel that's very easily fixed if that's the only issue lol.

also i never said forums didn't have a place, i'm not suggesting a subeta discord IN PLACE of the forums, but rather in addition to them. i'm not particularly fond of discord myself, but it is the direction that online communication seems to be going for casual conversation. i don't type in complete sentences/complete thoughts when talking to people and if i WERE to type how i comfortably do among friends on the forums here, i'd probably be banned for spam. so that's what i mean when i say that while discord obviously isn't for everyone either, it does make real time conversation easier.

if an official subeta discord isn't viable, then i agree with and feel there should be something similar put in place ON SITE, whether it be in improvements to the shoutbox or personal shoutboxes for forum subgroups. in any case, i don't think forum points are the solution to the site's lack of user interaction and it would be more beneficial to move forward with changing trends. i think that would foster more interest in the site and encourage people to be social more than any sort of currency would.

i'm not sure i agree that a discord would cause people not to use the site, if only because i wouldn't...be on a discord for a specific site if i didn't actively use it? i'd simply add people individually instead. personally, i feel getting users to talk to each other in a more natural way would encourage people to visit the site MORE but honestly i'm a hermit anyway so what do i really know lol

I feel that, but think about it. If we were having this entire discussion on discord we're not having it here on the site, and thus it's diverting traffic away which is what they don't want. That's fewer forum posts being made to discuss a topic, if that makes sense.

Like I said I don't think a discord is a bad idea, I just don't think it'll be a thing for a lot of reasons and the fact that it would get people talking there instead of here is probably the big reason for it.

True! I think it could also be possible to have it be a closed server where you have to run your Discord name and your Subeta username by a staff member and confirm that yes, this is actually the real Frost and not somebody posing. Might be a good idea to make a suggestion topic? ?

I know, and I also agree that Subeta could do with a little TLC on the instant messaging front. I would not be mad at all if the shoutbox was replaced with an official (more heavily moderated!) Discord channel. Or revamped entirely. The current shoutbox always put me off for some reason (prob due to some of the discussions that are... rly... not kosher), and having an off-site way to communicate with friends and staff alike if Subeta's servers freak out would be nice too!