Starting this thread with something Keith commented me yesterday, when I told him I was happy about changes in communication on site

That's a really honorable resolution and I hope Subeta can keep it up!

Really, in the last few months, staff have SERIOUSLY stepped up their game concerning most communication. When changes are made, we're not left in the dark for 4-5 days, if not more. The snowball fight achievement was corrected fairly quickly, a feedback thread about shop restocking changes was answered by Keith within hours, and let's add the ticket center staff, who has done a fabulous job at being there for us.

The fact I no longer feel like I have to scramble all over Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr to know what is happening is great. The Subeta news and frontpage are used for information, and Twitter/Facebook DO REDIRECT TO THE NEWS for information such as when the snowball fight was ending.

Facebook and Twitter are used as they should, as an information complement and a way to reach to the community, rather than be the go-to place for information like they used to be.

Plus, the addition of the siteupdate forum group is really helpful, even for really small changes.

Yes, there are still improvements to be made, but I feel this is a step in the right direction, and I'm really happy that a lot of criticism we had in past years WAS LISTENED TO. I'm looking forward to a year where staff are working on being more transparent and here for us.

Hear, hear! I'm with ya, it has seemed like a relatively dynamic minute around here. I'm also loving the siteupdate group! It's been not only informative and helpful, but really interesting as well. ^_^ It's nice to know when/why/how things are changing, what's going wrong and what's getting better.

I'd like to add to that a big thank you to all the users jumping in and organizing lists of things that need looked into, those testing things out and reporting back to staff, asking the questions that need asked, and giving actual constructive feedback. They may not always outweigh the people complaining/brown nosing/staying silent, but then 50 or so truly helpful people is better than none and probably easier to respond to than 2000!

So thank you staff, and thank you subetans! Here's to a productive 2015!

Wow. I actually really like how he is resolving to do that, as well as the rest of the staff with more communication. Who doesn't love the site update group? I gotta thank the people handling my tickets. With the few I did file, they answered them within a few hours. I really appreciate immediate help on my issues and to know what's up. A step in the right direction indeed.

I'm really really happy we are getting more communication. I've always been one of the people to moan that there wasn't enough communication so it's only right to also say when I'm pleased with how things have been going.

Communication opens dialogue and dialogue helps improving the site. I feel like both users and staff benefit from the communication. Us members aren't so frustrated and left in the dark any more and actually know what's going on (bless that site update group, best invention ever) and the staff can actually get a reaction from us. Are we happy? Are we unhappy? What needs improvement. It gives space for constructive feedback and communication. Something everyone benefits from.

The last few months on subeta has been some of the best staff/player communication I've ever seen in any game or website, and I've been around the block :P

seriously keep up the great work subeta! I'd love to see these improvements correlate to some increased active player base, and I think it's heading that way :)

I feel like a lot of progress was made last year, in a lot of departments, for subeta.

In terms of communication the year started off good, and then nosedive for the better part of the year. But then, it came back and I feel like the amount of communication going on is at a pretty good place. I'm definitely happy to see the siteupdate group being utilized to keep everyone interested up to date with all the miscellaneous changes being made-- however sometimes I feel like pings should have actually made it into the news (ex: the change with backgrounds, and how you have to go to the beta wardrobe to put them behind the avatar, there are STILL boards being made about this).

I also love the fact that staff, especially, have been working so hard to update aspects of the site to be more self-explanatory and helpful. It's little stuff like that that not only makes the site friendlier to newer users but makes it look way better (and means there's less stuff I have to try and remember, like when Coda Caves is open lol).

has also definitely done a great job this last year not only knocking out items and wonderful pets in-mass but also taking over her new position. I won't try and lie and say I was blown away with all the plots/mini-plots (or at least, how one in particular played out and will probably leave a scar for a while) however the fact that she graciously walked into the lions den and did her best to not only explain why they did something one way or another, but also tried her best to make it right. I know she's gotten quite a bit grief and claims that another did it better but as someone who remembers the trainwreck of pandemics that dragged on and on with no resolve/the "uh oh, uhh the end and Amy's dead here's your prize shops" I think it's save to say no one was ever perfect and that such statements were heavily biased and unwarranted. She's done a great job and I'm hopeful it'll be uphill from here.

I also appreciate the communication inb4 the snowball war started, that was a great move that I hope is used again.

Lastly, a few thoughts @ these:

I laughed because that's a resolution everyone should make xD!

This one concerns me a bit, though I hope it's mostly just being vague. I post a lot, in case that's not obvious, and while I don't usually have a "problem" with things/I'm not trying to be bluntly negative I know it could sound that way depending on how you read it-- the same could be said for others who post a lot, especially when we post a lot about feedback or suggestions. I'm hoping that is more aimed at users who literally have nothing nice or helpful to say and less at people who may not like something but offer constructive feedback and thoughts on how something might be able to be improved upon (nothing in life is perfect, everything is capable of being improved to some degree).

Anyways, 2014 was a bumpy ride (both irl and on subeta) and here's to hoping 2015 is smoother and all around better than last year!

That's a great resolution to make, however the fact is most people that make new years resolutions do not keep them.... So, while I won't be all that surprised if we see more of the same in 2015, I do hope this is more than just a new years resolution that gets forgotten by February.

It is off topic, but I kind of want to touch on this because I am a little tired of feeling baited by comparisons being made here by users between the job I did for nearly 9 years and the job has just dipped her toes into. A Creative Director is always going to take the blame for creative event hiccups and screw ups that may have been completely out of his/her control (miscommunication or lack thereof with another department or a higher up, for example); I know I did, and I will be shocked if Gemma hasn't also in her short tenure already, so the success or failure of an event is only ever a very small picture of the quality of a Creative Director. I wish more people thought about that before jumping in to make ignorant comparisons. And I will be the first to admit that I wasn't perfect either, least of all when I was new to the job. When I started, there were far larger fiascos (dragon revamp) I take full blame for!

But I think the comparisons and competition is completely unfair and uncalled for in either direction. Likewise, I think saying anyone with a preference is "heavily biased" is actually what is unwarranted here.

That being said, I agree with this infinitely (although I am sure the Scale of Useful Feedback will vary depending on which staff member or user is reading it). I hope care will be taken so that individual users aren't written off completely just because it is THEM when in fact their feedback could still be useful.

I always felt like subeta was already great with communicating with users and anytime I've sent in a ticket (and I've sent in quite a few!) staff have always responded quickly, friendly and professionally. Moving away from subeta last year for a few months to play another game where...their staff hardly ever communicates, no matter how disgruntled players are all over the forum, hardly ever getting new content/updates etc, I came back with a new appreciation for the staff and artists here! ❤ It's great to hear that communication on site will only get better though, since I do not have facebook/twitter and don't even really know how to use my tumblr thing xD

I agree. Staff communication is much more active and quick than what it used to be. I think it's awesome and very welcomed.

I'm still not pleased with the tickets system. While a lot of bugs are checked everyday, I feel like the ticket system is lacking of such "magic". It's really not interesting to wait for an answer during more than 18 days about something that has already passed AND with a programmer who worked on the bugs issued during the events. I'm almost tempted to make a board instead of a ticket next time, maybe I'll get my stuff covered in a decent timely manner.

I definitely think Subeta does a great job communicating with users -- the two times I've had to file a ticket I've had it resolved within an hour or two, the news posts are more helpful, and the staff respond to boards regularly -- but there's still room for improvement. The thing I'd like to mention specifically: announcing the exact beginning and ending of events. Obviously, sometimes you can tell that events are over through context, but it would be nice if the site would remove some of the ambiguity and say "NEW YEAR'S IS OVER, NO MORE TOKENS" on the news page. I realize sometimes the opening announcement says the closing date, but the reminder of the end would be appreciated greatly -- my memory's not very good (like, medical-grade not good) and I don't like having to go back two weeks in the news to try and dig it up.

Also I'm laughing nervously because I'm totally one of those weenies who complains everywhere. Oops.

I see a thread where people are saying they wish a news post had been made to say the Free Shop giveaway was over. I see another thread where people are wondering why there wasn't a news post saying the New Years Tokens wouldn't be given out from quests anymore...

Interesting how some users see Subeta staff as communicating well, while others still see flaws in how they operate.

Most of us do say that things got better (coming from absolutely horrid communication everything is improvement). Doesn't mean we don't see the flaws. This is a pretty big flaw to not see :p

I'm beyond unhappy that after all progress they made they still make a huge mistake like this. Hey lets stop a site event by just making it stop working and not announcing it is not the way to go.

THIS. Very much, this.

As an older player, Subeta has definitely come a freaking long way, especially during the dark days when all seemed lost...yet the community came together as a whole, and countered all the crap thrown our way. When things got real bad, we united and held strong.

Heaven forbid something like EnderNeko or 4chan ever come our way again. But I suppose such events test a userbase's loyalty and perseverance.

With this, I can honestly say communication between staff and users has gotten better over time. Yes, there are still moments of miscommunication, or lack thereof. Humans are flawed creatures, and it's not just staff who commit communication flaws. ;)

-->I have an idea that might resolve the whole "event ended, but no announcement?!": on the news page, where the daily goal bar, check out sections are, when there's an event going on and a date has been set for the event to end, why not put a reminder end date underneath the event itself?

Here's a rough mockup of what I mean, cause I fail with words:

There has been improvement, it's true. Any improvement is to be celebrated, so in this aspect I'd like to say I'm happy things have been changing for the best, especially with the new siteupdate ping group! It's good to see staff around the boards more often.

But I still feel there's a long way to go. If, before, we had the argument that not everything warranted a news post, I feel like the same thing might happen with the siteupdate group. IF that's a line that's ever followed, I wish we could get a little page, like the new server status one, where we could check the status of minor changes made to the site :/

Two random cases I have in mind while typing this:

• Siteupdate was not used to alert us that now we can only ping up to 10 people in a forum post;
• Siteupdate was not used to alert us about a potential new forums layout preliminar (?) test for feedback. A few days ago, a friend of mine messaged me nervously after getting this pushed on her. She didn't have any idea the forums were going to change, whether it was going to be permanent or not, or literally WHAT was happening. The only blurb about the subject was posted on Keith's Subeta Tumblr, which... shouldn't be the primary way we'd find information about changes that are about to come live, even if they're only temporary. She checks the forums often, so do I, and we had seen nothing anywhere on Subeta.

---

About the New Year resolutions, I obviously agree with the Tumblr one, haha. When it comes to replying to people on the forums, though, I think it should relate more to the content of the person's post than who they are. If it's done based on who they are, I can see things becoming frustrating. .-.

What on earth is THAT?! O_O

Why the hell isn't there a "beta-test" forum ping group anyways? If it doesn't fit into siteupdate, then let's add another forum group purely for beta-testing. Then EVERYONE can be in the loop on what changes may or may not be coming/changing on the site, and you'll get more feedback to fine-tune said mock-up changes.

It's this, but I have no idea if there are plans to move further with that layout or... literally anything else besides what's in that post. I must try and get a hold of my friend again, so I can ask her if the forums layout ever returned to "normal" or if she's still seeing that new interface...

[edit] I would support a group for beta testing, of course! Sounds like it would be useful, since everyone wants to get siteupdate news but not everyone would be up for beta testing.

I was more or less being rhetorical there, but wow. Another forum re-design?

Jfc that's nice and all, but how about fixing everything that's glitched or broken at the moment? Ping history; Ice King RE (can we please have a day of Ice King to make up for the broken RE?); wishlists; amount of people we can ping...these are way more important than drawing up a new forum re-design.

Offhand, we DO have a lot of forums/sub-forums. Are there any we could even remotely get rid of?

Ah! Well, I guess it can still be useful if anyone else didn't see his Tumblr post ^-^; I hardly use Tumblr myself so I keep missing things, lol.

Yeah, my thoughts were the same, we still can't invite people to ping groups yet we're getting potential new forum layouts. Plus, I really like how I can see the most recently posted thread of every forum at a glance, I don't think I'd ever exchange that for a forum feed... you'd think they'd take some feedback before pushing a beta (the Tumblr comments were pretty much "pls no" ) and then take more feedback before making it live.

Back on topic, the point was that we're still getting things pushed on without any sort of warning, so we still have a way to go with information going around... :/ I'm all for more staff ping groups if that helps!