Howdy, folks. This thread is a place for us to discuss suggestions which could improve the website, particularly the forum. The idea is to give the new community manager, fables22, some friendly ideas to work with. I'll compile a list of the most viable/talked about ones here on the OP, along with links to the discussions about them.

In the case that the new CM winds up jumping off the roof of the GOG headquarters after seeing this place, this thread can still be used to compile suggestions. In this case, I'm sure many of you may be wondering "Don't we have a wishlist for that?", but in this thread, we can actually discuss 'em back and forth, talk about improvements to ideas, etc.

Current issues:
What is the community manager capable of?
Suggested fixes:

What powers SHOULD the community manager have?
Suggested fixes:

How should the issue of alt accounts be dealt with?
Suggested fixes:

How should the issue of rep be dealt with?
Suggested fixes:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/community_suggestions/post4

How should the search function be fixed?

this should be good

Taking what I've said in the other thread, some questions to ask ourselves and the community manager:


1. What can the community manager do? What few suggestions we have all revolve around changing the very structure of the forum, like revamping the rep system, how realistic is that? Can the community manager ask for these things to be implemented? Will they do it? Or do we have to work with what we got somehow?

2. Mod intervention: Is that even a thing that should happen in the forum? What should a mod do? Ban people? If not that how can we deal with people breaking the community guidelines? The only other privileges we have are starting topics and posting links, and the way the forum is programmed people can already worm themselves out of the second one, so it's not like there is any other privilege that could be taken away, there isn't much a mod can do inthis forum besides either banning or doing nothing.

3. Alts: banning, warning and anything else you can come up with to enforce any rules you create are rendered meaningless by the existence of alts. What keeps anyone from starting an alt and going right back to what they were doing? I suggested requiring the account had some games to its name before using the general forums. Zeogold spoke of IP banning users, I assumed that might be more trouble than it's worth, but is it? Is it feasible? If not, what other measure can there be to crack down on alt accounts?



These are the three most pressingmatters to discuss: What can we ask of the community manager? Should mod intervention exist and if so in what form? If it does, how to stop alts from undermining that system?

Rep system reform. Not because rep matters but because bad rep can and does negatively affect people (inability to post links, etc). The Rivals forum I frequent (Fighting Gamecocks forum) for my college football team uses a system I'd like to see. Likes given to a post are denoted by who liked it. You get points for likes. You don't lose points, there is no dislike button. There is no real function for points or likes except to show how popular you are around the forum. It is abusable, but as it has no real effect, who cares?

That's if you don't favor just dumping rep altogether in favor of post counts. But I do like having a like system. It is nice to see you're picking up support from people who like what you said, but don't feel like posting a retort.

Introduce a "go to first unread message in a thread" function.

Introduce an Ignore function.

Don't waste lots of time and energy on moderation. If someone is a troll just ignore them. Trolls thrive on attention.

Divide the general forum into two: one for general discussion about games and related issues, and another for general shit chat and giveaways.

I have to disagree, considering there's so much hilarious banter that goes on in the game threads.
...of course, I'm arguably a bit biased since I'm more often than not contributing to that banter.

Plus, don't we have the subforums for that anyway? The only issue with them is that they're so empty all the time.

i agree with this
this place is unmoddable anyway
but these measurements would be a good stuff to make things manageable for everybody

This.

Also, a specific "new post" notification, like almost every other message board has by default. Right now, the notification flag has been doing double duty:

Threads titles are bolded if there are unread posts.

Thread titles are unbolded if either: 1) there are no new posts, or 2) the OP was downvoted, whether there are new posts or not (with the implication that there's nothing worth reading in such a thread, which isn't always the case).

Sounds good Again sounds good Once again sounds good.

Tell Fables22 here's the starting point and let's see what happens.

Edit: And a search function that works right.

1) No idea what a CM can do, yet to see one do jack shit.

2) Remove spam, clsoe threads, Remove impersonators, nothing more.

3) Not sure, first you'd have to establish what accounts are alts, without the innoccent being tangled up in the great purge that may follow...good luck with that one.

4) Rep...kill it off, it doesn't do anything.

Just gimme a ignore button, i can do the rest myself.

meh.

a working search function ?!
oh you so silly ! ^^

I thought what the hell I'll shoot for the moon. ;)

Funny enough search function in forums are really easy to implement it is simple as building a database query and returning the database results.

I disagree. If a user posts something particularly vile (including, for example, slurs directed at another user), a mod does need to step in.

(I have been the target of such posts from at least 2 users who have already posted in this thread.)

awww poor baby
is it all about you again ?

most mods usually will tell you to ignore the other person