Wouldn’t removing claim threads remove a lot of the traffic from the forums? (Even if it is low "quality") - I understand the need to remove them (in regard to the search function) but I’m not sure that it would have the desired effect of bringing life back to the forums (perhaps the opposite?)

I’m not saying I’m against it I’m just throwing out ideas I guess.

What would be the solution to making the forums more active again?

[edit] & with the mock-up is that kinda like you must sit and chat in room until timers count down? or would there be an option to not do that for introverts xD

I enjoy the low barrier to entry of claim threads. I don't need to be friends with the people in the thread or even know who they are to interact with them. I'm not super social so I find in depth conversations like this draining and it's very hard for me to work up the courage to actually post. With claim threads, I can interact with people in the way I'm most comfortable easily. I've found that it's caused me to interact more because maybe the person I'm claiming has a really cool HA, so then I let them know. Or maybe I see the same people claiming me and others over and over so it gives me a chance to make a friend. It may just look like an empty "claim" on your end, but for me it's lead to friendships and cool zombie biting forum groups.

I don't really mind the claim threads, but I wouldn't miss them if they were gone. I could see there being a more elegant solution.

Ideally, if the timers were easier to manage, that would be a huge benefit for me. Accidentally claiming before I'm ready to go again is a huge problem for me. I end up posting WAY less because I'm worried about posting too soon... then I forget to come back at all.

I like things like the Ranom ToT, but obviously that's only going one way. I want people to ToT me, too! Any solution that manages to solve that problem, I'm open to trying.

like just on a very objective level the forums are not active enough to be trying to cut out the activity that does exist because you feel its the wrong kind of interaction or an insufficient level of interaction. replacing claim threads is just not actually going to do anything but get rid of claim threads. they're not barriers to all the meaningful conversations that exist just on the other side, if only they weren't there. we need things to talk about more than we need a new way to avoid the forums that get regular posts just by existing.

Honestly I think that it would be hard to come up with a way to have users interact organically during events without these sorts of threads.

Like pointed out, I don't think people will be as willing to engage on the forums without a give-and-get-back type of dynamic. Assuming forum traffic is what we want, eliminating these types of threads altogether seems like a bad call.

Also, the idea of having to draw a distinction between what does and doesn't qualify as a 'high quality' post seems like it could generate a lot of issues on the side of the users. Much like said, it could also make it harder for new users to be included in events.

I think that maybe having a sub-section for these types of threads might be the way to go tbh.

I think that if we want high-quality posts, there needs to be different incentives to get people to want to make them. Suddenly making events less accessible will only serve to frustrate the users.

I know this isn't the feedback you asked for, but honestly these threads are my main pull to the forums. I do find myself participating in more chatty threads while I'm perusing, but I don't think I'd spend much time in the forums without the simplicity of the 'claim' ones. I agree with others here that it's nice feeling like you're able to participate without really knowing anyone too. It feels like a comfortable gateway into the forums when you're not super outgoing/popular on the site

I see users' points about the community feeling more active in claim threads, though I can also understand the technical aspect and desire to foster more meaningful conversation. It does kind of feel like the fleeting "claims" and post numbers going up might be at-odds with high-quality conversations/posts.

in the mockup you posted with the cozy space, would it be possible to meet in the middle with the low-effort engagement and quality posts, so both are displayed concurrently?

Here's kind of what I'm thinking - there's a forum section for conversations and high-quality posts like normal. Above it, there could be a shoutbox-esque feature for holiday activities that scrolls as people participate. Maybe there's a button that says, "Kiss/ToT/Dance with the last user", and clicking that causes a message to appear in that shoutbox that says, "User1 trick-or-treated at User2's house!"

There could also be a running total that says "5105 trick-or-treats have been made" either for the day, the lifespan of the forum space/post, or some other arbitrary span of time.

So it would operate on a queue of sorts but be relatively fast. Maybe adding animations (like a small picture of candy that briefly hovers and fades out when you click) could also add some engagement/fun elements to clicking the button. Maybe there could be additional functionality, e.g. "User 1 trick-or-treated at User2's house and received (item)" so that users might get an idea of which users are giving out which pool of items, if it wouldn't be a massive server strain (which it totally might, lol, I don't know much about that aspect of programming).

In terms of other ways to facilitate intentional conversation on the forums, maybe forum points could be awarded after getting X likes on a post. Ideally, helpful posts that add to the conversation would grant points and encourage people to participate more. The downfall to that is that users with unpopular--but valid--opinions wouldn't get the same rewards because other users don't "like" their post, even if it still adds to the conversation. Or a generally unpopular user might not see forum points as often. A way around that might be to add additional reactions (thumbs up, thumbs down, laughing face for a funny post, lightbulb for a good idea, etc.) and X reactions generally gets points. It'd still be up to the user base to participate in giving reactions, though.

I wouldn't want Subeta's forums to become similar to reddit, though, in terms of karma being used to punish users lmao, or users feeling dog-piled with potentially negative reactions adding up. I also wouldn't want it to feel similar to facebook's use of angry faces to drive engagement (or laughing faces being used to make fun of a post).

Some stuff to consider!

If you're looking for something that makes people want to participate on the forums, I have run two user events in the past that people seemed to enjoy and got a lot of forum posts:

1. Weekly Pet Prompts: Different than the current pet prompts, I gave a word every week and everyone could contribute with either some quick drawing, writing, or any other type of art. I gave a special prize ( and a more common prize (mage amulets) every week and it was a random raffle every time, so the "quality" or amount of time spent on the entry wasn't the important part. It gave some great incentive to post with the prizes, low requirement for discussion but very open for compliments and being excited about other people's entry.

2. Subeta Gross Food Cleanup: This was basically me providing a monthly "newsletter" and individual "letters" to everyone who signed up to participate, and a few random items that pretty much never cost anything. Everyone got an individual PM and the newsletter was posted on the thread, and everyone was welcome to participate in-character as their pets and comment on the newsletter. So again: small item incentive for everyone who participated, plus new story content that they could comment on and discuss with each other.

I offer this feedback because it seems like you're looking for something that will bring people back to the forums. I like the forums better than the shoutbox and discord because I like to drop comments and leave. I don't personally gel with the fast speed and need for a time commitment that the instant chats require (too antisocial and chronically tired haha). I'd also like to see more forum action and I've been debating bringing back one of my old groups in 2025 if I have the time.

I know that's different than the original question, but I guess this is a roundabout way to say that I don't think claim threads are stealing "quality" forum engagement, they occupy a very different space, and removing them will probably just be less traffic overall and that doesn't feel positive at this current time. It also feels unnecessary to the initial problem of adding those threads to the forum search. Finding a way to remove claim threads probably has other solutions than creating a new feature. Especially if you're willing to code something new; can you test something that filters out forum titles with "user above you"? If a few threads evade the filter, the filter can be tweaked?

not to be contrary or pick on the language too much, but you word use of ONLY wanting "quality" posts on the site is, uh... oof. what is this new benchmark for "quality" going to be? because claim threads are not blocking any of these "meaningful" threads that you seem to want to happen from existing, and I really don't think killing one of the only visibly active parts of the site when some whole forums can go for days without a single new post is going to change any of that.

if anything, it'll put more pressure on anyone that might have engaged in a lower-stakes "what music are you listening to" or whatever thread by making it feel like whatever you post is being judged for a grade back in high school ("now kids, for homework, write your answer on the Discussion Board and then reply to two other students' threads with at least three sentences of analysis"). I'm thirty freaking years old and I would pay a million dollars to never have a single high school dream again, I don't want to have that expectation over my shoulder on subeta of all places.

heck, maybe start some of these ideas for Meaningful threads (or give said ideas to a couple regular users to post so it's not like. the Tell The Site Owner Your Thoughts On Scientific Integrity thread) and see if it kicks up (and continues!) to draw people into discussions. heck, maybe that seed will actually revitalize the forums and draw people back from discord? wouldn't hurt to try, at least.

Replacing holiday claim threads with some kind of automated system would have to take Vesnali into account. We collect floating flowers to give to other players for Vesnali coins. Some people like to give flowers away as soon as they get them while others wait until they have 5 or even 10 to give away.

Is making 100 forum posts still one of the requirements for access to the Blue Building? If so, low quality claim posts are valuable for people who get anxious at the thought of contributing to meaningful discussions.

PS One barrier to meaningful discussions on a site with not many players who are active all the time is a thread being declared officially dead if nobody has posted in it for 3 months. One source of anxiety is accidentally necroing a dead thread because a forum mod hasn't got round to locking it.

Let's say there was a topic about humanoid robots. The few people interested in robots could say everything they wanted to say about the current ones. Nobody posts anything for 3 months and the topic is locked. Then an amazing new robot is unveiled or Ameca is given functional legs so it can walk around. As the original humanoid robot topic has been locked, players who wanted to discuss the latest developments would have to create a new topic.

this is also a maaajor issue that I run into a lot, and it's especially frustrating when you get faced with the Catch-22 of Get A Warning For Necro-ing OR Get A Warning For Making A Duplicate Thread, so you decide to just go talk about it somewhere else on a different site. honestly I think the necro rule should be increased to at least 6 months, if not longer, but that's just me and a few others I've talked to about it. Big reason to swap to discord, not gonna lie.

just all of this tbh, hit the nail on the head. with the up/down votes subeta is starting to take the shape of a reddit-esque community which is 😬

There are 3 types of threads in the Holiday boards as far as I can see: 1. helpful ones with tips and guides, 2. the mere claiming ones on a 1:1 basis. And 3. the ones where a thread opener hands out prizes for being target of the event actions.

I found it always weird that those helpful ones would vanish after the event. They contain valuable information and are also a nice archive for past events. So maybe they could get their own board and stay between events?

I agree with what has been said before: as boring as those claim threads are, they are give and get and whatever comes instead should make sure there is a tit-for-tat algorithm in place.

And for the contest-like threads, some functionality to make it easier to track would be very appreciated, not only for holiday boards but also other user-run games.

Being able to create queues with people you want to (automatically) [event action] without expecting the same action in return sounds great, too!

But maybe overall the clicking is the problem? If you want high quality posts, maybe this repetetive and "grinding" way of clicking buttons is not the best way to celebrate - and, lets face it, hand out new items. That's all those holidays are about, isn't it? I understand there are not enough staff memebers around to make true events so this is just a sad note, not a complaint. And I do love new items just as much as everybody else.

But maybe some point system and then a shop to pick and chose? Most holidays already make use of a shop. But apart from Luminaire they all make use of a lot of repetetive clicking. Instead, there could be different ways to get those points: tot'ing/kissing/dancing, maybe for making those "meaningful" posts you want to have, for chatting on the holiday bords. Different ways to get those points as not everyone feels comfortable chatting or is a social being overall. Mini-quizzes, quests... Making more use of site features overall than just the holiday board.

And make it easier for users to add to the celebration with their own games and activities, not just waiting until they can click again.

Just my personal opinion. Subeta is a pet site where activities include battling, creating HAs in the wardrobe and coding pet profiles.

Divide the main forum into forums and topics which contain useful information for playing the game because this is what people will be wanting to search for. The new search function can then be for these forums and topics only. We could then keep all the claim threads and other threads where we make low quality posts.

i guess an aspect worth clarifying here is... what is meant by "high quality" posts/interactions? because as and bring up, "simple" chit-chat or site-feature-specific threads are great low-stakes on-ramps for users to just sort of... chime in, and see if anyone else has said something they want to respond to, and potentially have someone else respond to them.

which i think is a big part of what people often look for in a forum! just an easy little way to interact where you don't have to think super hard about what you're going to say or worry you're going to do it wrong—which is an especially huge anxiety for people who don't post in the forums much, or are new to the site, or just worry about that sort of thing in general! i know when i'm new to a forum i look for threads that pose specific questions (what's your most prized possession? what songs can't you stop listening to right now? tell me about your irl pets!) or encourage a specific action, especially as relating to a particular site feature i enjoy (rate / describe / say something about the HA above! make an HA using an item chosen by the user above! favorite pet tc of the user above!)

even if those aren't full-blown productive conversations, they're a valuable part of Being Social On A Website. so i hope that sort of thing doesn't end up being discouraged for not being "high quality" enough...

I agree with this! Also, let us double post. That's something that most places allow by default, and Subeta has spent 20 years not allowing anyone to do this to avoid bumping a thread. There have been multiple suggestion threads over the years to change some of these rules so the forums are more active. I still think they should be revisted. Rules that push people away from the forums at this point are just making the small community even more quiet.

When it comes to claim threads, I say if it aint broke don't fix it, and in my opinion claim threads aint broke. There are some very lovely people on subeta, but I don't really come to subeta for social interaction, I come to play a pet based browser game. Having "low effort" threads where I can still participate but not really have to be tuned into a full conversation or remember to hit X,Y,Z requirements is really valuable to me. Sometimes I do get a little social here, but I do not think being social should be a required element for gameplay.

I understand the issue with search and indexing, I definitely would support adding a subforum for claim interactions to kinda section them off if thats preferable.

In regards to the discussion of "high quality" posts, I think that having varying levels of effort to participate in things is very valuable, this is a big lesson I have learned through running my own ARPG. Not everyone has time to participate when requirements are higher, but everyone should be considered a valuable member and any interaction is good interaction, especially since even "low effort" interaction helps to keep your game on people's minds. The target audience for games like Subeta and my ARPG is aging, whereas before people were in high school/college and had plenty of free time, the target audience now is adults and many have jobs or kids or other responsibilities. We have less time nowadays, so expecting people to do a lot is a bigger ask than we were in school. Its still fun to create higher effort activities, but I always know to temper my expectations with these, and to always have a low effort way to participate in things as well. I'd rather have low effort claims for my activities than no participation (which is often the other option). What people have said already about these "low effort" claims being more of a bridge to more participation is also something to keep in mind, and I wholeheartedly agree. Checking in to claim something may lead to someone posting more and being social, checking in for a holiday might get someone who hasn't been playing Subeta at all back into it!

having reread the posts from/since last night i'm more parsing that the issue is that the claim threads take up a lot of space to save and index even IF they're omitted from a search function (i forgot about this in trying to figure out my wording so i come across clearly) (almost like this may be related to my own relative lack of 'high effort' posting: high effort takes effort to both stay on topic and be easily parseable, moreso for some than others). i also fundamentally don't get the idea behind the posted mockup despite looking at it several times.

nevertheless: i really do still think the greater issue at hand is that there just straight up isn't a lot of 'high value' interacting to actually do during holidays on subeta unless we make up our own, and thus maybe we need other avenues of interaction provided (art contests, writing contests, plots, puzzles/ARG stuff to solve, maybe something quest-a-thon adjacent, etc etc) where the community is actually Encouraged to perform the desired 'high value' interactions and thus naturally spends less time using claim threads, rather than trying to squelch claim threads because they're boring/pointless to index. if you don't want us to Forum Streetpass endlessly, we need interactions involving other users during holidays that aren't Forum Streetpass, not a way to do it that involves even less socialization.

I like how you're saying much of what I'm thinking only better. xD Subeta needs more active "content" that users can interact with, for us to want to create "high quality" posts. But this part in particular I wanted to point out because the mockup is supposed to be a tool illustrating an idea and I also don't understand it at all, especially in relation to claim thread behavior.