Thanks for listening so kindly, to all our moans and groans.

Thank you GOG.com staff for giving us the opportunity to discuss this.

1. Functional search system. PLEASE PRETTY PLEASE OMG IT BUUURRRNSSSS USSSSS!!!
2. Rep system is a tricky part. There probably should be some visible way to see who is "forum veteran" and who is a "newbie" beside join date. But the current rep system is being abused big time and it gotta go. Maybe just keep +1 point for posting at least once a day and remove the effect of low/high rated post on the rep.
3. I see other people mentioned the option of viewing other users post history. Haven't thought about that before but it would be a great tool to differentiate "gimme gimme gimme code grabbers" from folks that actually participate in discussions on the forums.

Hope to see some nice changes concerning the above mentioned soon. Cheers! :)

No complaints here, mang.

What I'd like to see:

1. Better Search function (AND operator, sort by date.
2. More activity in the game specific forums, at the moment it seems easier to get answers in the General forum. Ideas for this:
a) Sort game specific forums by last post date
b) create a merge view of games specific forums so it's easy to read and help in topics about games I have played.
c) Icons if the new topics have been created in game specific sub-forums
3. Sub-forums:
a) Offtopic
b) Giveaways
c) Can't remember a game: As sub-forum, chances a higher people will read this after more than one day and reply
4. notifications by mail: Especially helpful if you ask a specific questions like 'Can't remember a game' or in a game specific sub-forum.
5. 'Go to first unread post' function.
6. Ability to edit thread title.
7. On rep: Haven't been hit by downvoting, so I suggest to keep up- and downvoting, restrict downvoting to posts made in the last 2 days, decouple forum privileges like posting links from rep.
EDIT: Also remove the rep increase for just posting something.

This thread has grown fast! I don't know if this has been mentioned but my idea for rep is to keep it but make down voting more costly. Here's my rules:

1. You shouldn't be able to vote if you have less than a certain amount of rep (say 10).
2. Up voting should otherwise remain unchanged.
3. Down voting someone else should remove rep from your own account

This could be tweaked slightly so that you don't lose rep unless one of your posts is down-voted so much it's hidden.

*shouts

HEY COME DOWN FROM THERE!... hows the view?

LOOK HE IS ABOUT To JUMP!! NO tinyE it isnt that bad!!! :P

I've only read half of what's posted here, the first page and then the last three. In general, I agree with most of what's been posted. I like these forums a great deal, and the obvious problems have already been mentioned - and really, mostly of the suggestions here are standard features on other sites.

Because I do not like Internet baiting, the only forum I spent real time on in the last few years, outside of these ones, is the Lord of the Rings Online forum. Like the forums here, they had a largely adult, mature, kind, helpful, and generous population - though not as generous as the GOG folks, I've never seen so much stuff given away so often. This is really a special place.

Which is why I think it's worth nurturing and treating with care.

When I first joined GOG, I bought a few games - actually, there must have been a kick-ass sale, because I bought a bunch, so probably I read about it on the PC Gamer site. It took some months before I joined the forums; generally I like a store to sell me stuff, and I don't really need to meet the other customers. I started with the Project Eden game forum, which was very helpful, and then ventured into the General discussion tab to see if anything there was interesting.

And it was! This is a great place. I won't say that the forums are a necessary part of the GOG experience; I have friends I've tried to entice in here, and they won't, and they like GOG fine. But for those of us who do partake, they turn GOG from a store into a club. They turned me from a guy who would have bought 30 or 40 games into a guy who just crossed 200 (yep). And I discovered how nice it feels to give games to people who want them, either through GAs or just by making an unexpected gift.

So I'd really like moderation and change to respect the special nature of this group, and I think Judas is a good person to do it.

Most of the changes are obvious: better search, YES. Post history, YES. Last-read, block jerk users, lock dead threads, YES. Preview your post, YES. I don't like sub-forums, particularly, at least not for the General tab - a Giveaway sub-forum, for example, would just be grabby, and an Off-Topic forum would isolate the general gleeful hubbub that is so great in here. I *do* like the game-specific sub-forums, which I think should stay alphabetical; I use them frequently when I'm playing a specific game. I think the great but ghettoized Support posts should be integrated into the game sub-forums more; each forum should probably have a Stickied link to the Support section on that game. I know I didn't even find the Support stuff for ages.

And then there's rep.

I like the down-rep button. I use it, now and then, and I like using it. I use it when people are being rude, angry, or mean. I use it when I am certain someone is trolling. I use it as a non-confrontational way to express disapproval, so I'm not sure I'd want it to be public, but if it were I would still use it the way I'm using it now.

I do think that it should be REVOCABLE. Perhaps no one with fewer than 50 or 100 posts could even use the down-rep button, which would address sock-puppet and inviso-accounts used for down-repping. If a moderator decides that a user has abused down-repping, the mod should be able to turn it off for a user - I'd say 30 days for a first offense, 90 days for a second, and permanent shutdown for a third.

Remember a few months ago when we had that Thorn1 troll, or whatever his user name was? Started threads on hot topics and used them to insult women, Jews, and liberals? Down-repping worked there just as it should. It took about a day for him to go into negative rep, and then his threads were reported for spam, and deleted. That's a community defending itself from infection.

The recent rep attacks in the Ninja Giveaway thread - I've filed a couple of tickets - are attacks that the community cannot defend against. Whether it's a couple of users with a set of sock puppets, which is what I suspect, or whether it's a group that just thinks it's funny to be mean to nice people, a set of targeted users (and some bystanders, like me) are hit with clusters of down-repping by anonymous users, on comments saying thank you, or chit-chatting about how much fun it is to give away games. I am not the only one who has complained or filed a ticket; mods should have responded long ago, investigating and suspending the offending accounts, outing them, or at very least removing their ability to use the down-rep button. This sort of thing should be routine; rep abuse should be met promptly with moderator responses - warnings for overuse, and revocation of rights for abuse. Sock puppet accounts, if they exist here, should be deleted.

I really think certain people are targeted for no reason. Some members get downrepped even if they don't post anything but others don't seem to have issues with it....

"Hey! I can see my feet from up here!"

Mistys will know that one. XD

Thanks for opening up this topic! I like seeing what others say, and I'd like to give my little piece about the rep system :)

I've been losing rep everyday for around a few months now. Before I was losing it, I had almost 300; now, well, you can see. At first, I just thought I had said something wrong on a thread, so I scoured all I could find, and I couldn't find a down-repped post of mine. I dunno who's downrepping me or why, but I can't get a net gain for a week, no matter what I do :/

Which leads me to this: I think the rep system should either be overhauled or thrown out entirely. I understand why it's here: a simple post count, like on other forums, doesn't differentiate between nice forum staples and old-seated trolls. However, I've seen people downrepped for every little thing imaginable. Either throw out the rep system, or retool it (especially the neg. rep part). At least let me search for what posts of mine are getting downrepped!

That being said, I wouldn't change anything else about GOG. The forum is usually wonderful, and I'm happy that I'm part of a group that has admins who care so much about their followers. You guys rock! :D

1) A post preview function. And/or a two- to five-minute courtesy window in which a post can be edited without being tagged as such. It's embarrassing and a bit frustrating to see my post marked "edited" when all I did was fix a typo or a broken link or somesuch.

2) I'd also love to see a "jump to first unread post in thread" button, or other such option.

Especially since by default, I have my settings on opening threads to the first page rather than the last, so that I can read the OP and browse thru the replies; but long-standing threads (like "What Just Updated?", "Corrupt a Wish" and "Blood Bowl") are in the dozens of pages, and all I care about what's been added since the last time I checked.

I only see problems with technical aspects (search, history, etc).

The rest is just :

1) People being childish with/about rep, and that's not the fault of the rep system in itself.

2) The price for a self-moderated board : some elasticity in behaviours, and a maturity that consists in ignoring trolls and potential flamewars instead of "fighting fire with fire" (which some people have reproached us users not to do).

People have whined about reps, people have whined about the existence of giveaway, people will while. You can safely ignore this. The annoying aspect is that, due to non-moderation, a couple of people have left because they didn't feel "actively protected" against some agressive morons. But I think that the kind of "active protection they hoped would have come at a high cost. The forum is quite well balances as it is (the aforementioinned self-moderation), and would probably be too dangerously transformed with more moderation presence and the various perverse effects of it (maybe even more agressivity because people would feel that they have safety barriers, or omnipresent cops who "would have stepped in" if they had gone too far, etc).

So, I think the whining comes from a negligible minority, that just "makes issues" (out of too many giveaways, about non-serious posts, about reputation) because they want drama or because for every thing there will be someone hypersensitive to it. I've been on quite a few forums, that one is by far the best, both on the angle of moderation policy and users mentality/behaviour (for the significantly overwhelming majority).

I desperately want a mod tracker. (the ability to see all mod posts without digging through pages and sub-forums).

I desperately want the ability to ignore forum members.

Searching for posts is currently useless. It does not sort by date or relevance. Please fix.

I would prefer the "general forums" to be broken up into a few main forums (with an option to view the current general as is, like a 'view all' page. One of the forums should be 'off-topic' which would allow those ONLY wanting to talk or read about games to not be subjected to the political and religious opinions of every other member.

As for rep... The number currently doesn't mean anything. Join dates are sufficient for most purposes. Either, give it meaning, or remove it. If you give it meaning, you need to create rules around what constitutes + or - rep. At this point, I doubt you want to provide the manpower to police all the whining that will ensue from rep disagreements.

IMHO, neg rep should only occur from violations. Rude posts, name calling, extreme off-topic, scams, trolling, etc. But again, giving a game away is considered trolling by some, so this requires quite a bit of effort to enforce... so, it may be much easier to just scrap rep since it currently has no real discernible value.

If you wanted to scrap rep you could have mod assigned status. For example:

Members are either red, green, or yellow.

Red = members are not active, have attracted the wrath of the admins, etc.
Yellow = new members, perhaps have received multiple warnings, etc.
Green = members of a certain length. Clean record.

IMHO, this would be sufficient if people are concerned with publicly identifying potential scammers, abusers, etc.

Finally, if GOG wanted to build giveaway tech into its site, that could be very handy and could also be used to help identify forum members with a certain status. (obviously this would only work with GOG games). Something akin to steamgifts were the system automatically picks a random winner and transfers the game behind the scene. GOG could track giveaways, provide stats, improve status, etc (possibly even provide temp discounts or sales for certain giveaway status).

/my 3 cents.

Edit to add:

I'm also in firm agreement with the following suggestions:

ability to search my own posts. (viewing other users post history would also be welcome).

Ability to see which of my own posts are generating rep (how many good or bad votes).