New Forum Feedback

[Dark0ne]

3 minutes ago, showler said:

Is there any functionality for the "Top Games" sidebar to only show Communities that we've joined?  Between the number of Communities included that I'm not interested in and the somewhat odd way it lists them in different order every time it is less useful than it could be.

I concur, and the answer is "I don't know". Looking at it quickly there are filters and sorting options to only show you clubs you have joined or to change how the list is sorted, but it doesn't remember the setting so when you leave and come back, it shows you everything again. Which isn't exactly great. 

[Dark0ne]

Just now, LenaWolfBravil said:

Below the first post? That's odd. I would have thought above the first post would be more appropriate... or below the last one. What a strange choice.

The world of Invision Board programmers. I'm not sure it's the same world as ours.

In an ideal world it would let users decide it they want to see that information at all. But alas, it does not.

[zixi]

31 minutes ago, showler said:

Is there any functionality for the "Top Games" sidebar to only show Communities that we've joined?  Between the number of Communities included that I'm not interested in and the somewhat odd way it lists them in different order every time it is less useful than it could be.

I'd agree with that or I'd use that space to put the alpha list which  currently appears at the bottom. Many of the issues will go away with clearer navigation as someone mentioned way up there somewhere. If that alpha list at the bottom is a major pathway for navigation then it needs to be more prominent and more obvious (and complete).  If you want to group games then it doesn't matter at that top level where they are - the pointer just goes to whatever the group is and that section of the forum divides itself into appropriate sections. 

I think also that a clearer connection between the mods and the forum associated with them will fix some of the problems as users are likely to return to the mod for help. But it depends why most people come to each part of the site... and what you're trying to support/offer. 

 

[TheVampireDante]

To be perfectly honest I'd prefer if that sidebar list went back to most recent topics posted like it was on the old forum setup.

Having it as  "Popular Game Communities" seems like wasted real estate to me since most people looking on the forums already know what and where they intend to post/view.

 

[showler]

5 minutes ago, TheVampireDante said:

To be perfectly honest I'd prefer if that sidebar list went back to most recent topics posted like it was on the old forum setup.

Agreed, but only if "NexusSiteBot" can be muted.

[zixi]

1 hour ago, Dark0ne said:

In an ideal world it would let users decide it they want to see that information at all. But alas, it does not.

Absolutely. And there's a tension between people who've been here for a zillion years and are used to the other system however flawed it was. Even if the new forum was better from a usability point of view, it would still need unlearning of the old site for the old hands. It's a really tricky problem. Usually, the advice is to stay as close to the old system as possible *if* the user base is stable - if there's a lot of turn over then it needs to be easy to learn... ie they look at it and know what to do... 

[Guest deleted34304850]

4 hours ago, Dark0ne said:

You just need a bit of patient. We did say answers would be coming, and they are still working on this as a project. When it's done and ready and they actually know how everything works, then it can be communicated.

I'm not using Clubs/Games at all but I just found them by hovering over Browse and then clicking "Top Games". Not the best name for it - but I'm pretty sure that's the list of games/clubs.

Can you give me an example of a search you want to do that you can't do due to consolidated forum categories?

I think the number of times this would happen in a year would be very small, if non-existant. The game would have to be a break-out sleeper modding hit for us to not have already setup a dedicated forum for it and those are very rare. AAA games we know are going to be modded, for example Hogwarts Legacy and BG3 from this year, would have dedicated forums setup ahead of time. If there is a sleeper hit and the community team need to do some post moving then there is the option to leave re-direct links when moving posts. The community team haven't done that for the Forum Category to Club move because those forum categories are being removed entirely, so it's pointless. That should avoid any confusion in this very rare issue.

RE: the other points, I'm not sure what you mean by "wasteful screen real estate", because when you're looking at forum topics inside a club it looks and acts exactly like a normal forum. I also don't agree with your navigation issues either. If anything, all the categories within a club/game are shown at the top of the club and you can easily click between them, so you can actually switch between categories in clubs/games faster than you could before in the old forums. Perhaps this is an issue of you not being willing to just let the dust settle and give the system a chance (and giving us time to actually finish the job before coming in hard on the negativity).

 

Hi,

I don't think I'm "coming in hard on negativity", I thought I gave some fair feedback, pointing out areas of friction that I've found. that isn't being negative - its feedback, with context, designed to illustrate areas where the upgrade has caused me some issues.

Like i said, i get it from the technical, server/bandwidth/response side - no issues at all - but from the user perspective - its not a smooth transition.

In terms of an example of a search: The Vortex support forum is now consolidated with the vortex discussion forum. a wise move here, and i do not disagree with this at all.

recently there was a post from a user who asked about making the columns in vortex adjustable. I knew that this had been discussed previously, but, for the life of me, i couldn't find it in the new vortex forum. in the end, Showler found the topic - i believe he used Google with a site-specific search (I could be mistaken here), but anyway, that thread was found and the answer given. However, using the in-build search didn't work out too well - now, that could be for a variety of reasons, including the indexing of the forum may not have been complete - so i get it. but this is one example for you to consider.

on to communication - if the strategy here is to upgrade "blind" as in - its an upgrade but we don't (yet) know how it works, then fine - i get it - it seems a bit counter-intutive, but i get it. i was operating under the assumption that you'd had the new software for a bit, and played around with it before doing a live upgrade. if that's not the case, and you're in the same boat as the users in figuring this stuff out, then that's quite alright - but - again - not communicated.

for the clubs/community thing - invision - i get it - you can see that the "top games" is not really intuitive - would it be possible to rename the link to what it is? "clubs/communities" so that you have the same one-click navigation - going from website/club/community to forum in a click and then going from forum to club/community? "top games" is slightly oblique, but now I know it's there, then that's all good.

for the screen real estate - same issue as several other posts so won't repeat - the format is nice - its just wasteful. i presume this is for mobile/tablet use where i'm sure it would look just fine, but the right hand side of the screen (the most obvious) is an egregious waste of screen space - again - I know not nexusmods - its invision's themes at play here - i am hoping one day there'll be alternative themes available to resolve this.

so there you go - dont take anything i write as shitting on nexusmods for the sake of it - i think my history shows there's a bit more to what i write than "nexusmodssux hur hur". I try to be constructive, i try to provide actual feedback. i get this is new for everyone and its coming up to holiday season so you're going to have people out and progress is going to slow for a couple of weeks - nowhere am i demanding "fix it now" - this will take time and it will make it better - but for now - i stand by what i said, the new forums, new changes have been detrimental compared to previous - my experience.

[HeyYou]

The board searches have NEVER really worked all that well.

[zixi]

6 minutes ago, HeyYou said:

The board searches have NEVER really worked all that well.

I don't know of any board searches work that well and the larger the forum the bigger the problem. I have wondered if it's better to chuck old posts away... it's never clear they'd be found again... which effectively means they're lost.

@1ae0bfb8

No one could doubt your sincerity.

I don't think this is an easy problem to solve. I'm retired now but I worked in usability and I'd run screaming from this problem at this distance. It really depends on how much flexibility there is in the forum shell...  I will say that staff and users might not want the same thing from the system... and catering for both might mean compromises.

[HeyYou]

14 minutes ago, zixi said:

I don't know of any board searches work that well and the larger the forum the bigger the problem. I have wondered if it's better to chuck old posts away... it's never clear they'd be found again... which effectively means they're lost.

@1ae0bfb8

No one could doubt your sincerity.

I don't think this is an easy problem to solve. I'm retired now but I worked in usability and I'd run screaming from this problem at this distance. It really depends on how much flexibility there is in the forum shell...  I will say that staff and users might not want the same thing from the system... and catering for both might mean compromises.

Using some other search engine, google, yahoo, etc, and specifying the site to search actually works really well.....