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Class Forums - How do we bring them back?
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Post by
Adamsm
I personally have noted a downtick of commentary and contribution since the wowhead news started being posted to general. Don't misunderstand please, I love Ashelia and Perculia's work, but when too much is done for you, you lose the motivation to do it yourself, you know.
Wowhead News has been posted in General; the news site shares a similar link.
Post by
Eccentrica
I are confused now Adamsm. Yes, the news is posted to general and links. I was just making the point that I've noticed a decrease in thread creation since Ashelia and Perculia turned the dial up on their own work.
Post by
Adamsm
I are confused now Adamsm. Yes, the news is posted to general and links. I was just making the point that I've noticed a decrease in thread creation since Ashelia and Perculia turned the dial up on their own work.
The only decrease I've noticed is from multiple threads that all say the exact same thing that the News threads say; and honestly, I prefer that. Yes the class forums are slow; but that has nothing to do with the News blogs.
Post by
Eccentrica
I wasn't critizing them. If that's the impression I gave perhaps I ought to edit my comment.
Regardless, I was pointing out a general trend I have noticed, and if you disagree, you disagree. Yes, 27 threads on the same topic don't make for exciting or compelling discussion. Yes, the class forums have been slow.
I reiterate that the solution is that we start contributing to them again, and it wouldn't hurt to refer people to them either.
Post by
Magician22773
I are confused now Adamsm. Yes, the news is posted to general and links. I was just making the point that I've noticed a decrease in thread creation since Ashelia and Perculia turned the dial up on their own work.
The only decrease I've noticed is from multiple threads that all say the exact same thing that the News threads say; and honestly, I prefer that. Yes the class forums are slow; but that has nothing to do with the News blogs.
Personally, I am not crazy about the News site threads linking into Wowhead General. It takes a little away from the "community driven" aspect of the site, if 95% of all relevant information is cross-linked from the News site.
I guess the most blunt way to put it would be "if I wanted to go to Wowhead News, I would go there"...rather than have it linked for me, into the General forum. I personally preferred it when the majority of the site was information provided by the actual community members, with the occasional topic created by an admin.
Post by
Adamsm
I guess the most blunt way to put it would be "if I wanted to go to Wowhead News, I would go there"...rather than have it linked for me, into the General forum. I personally preferred it when the majority of the site was information provided by the actual community members, with the occasional topic created by an admin.
I didn't/don't; I'd rather have the blog topics, then some of the messes made by other members of the forums. Especially since some of the topics that were created had out right wrong information(IE any of the....well, bull crap that was floating around before the start of Cataclysm expansion).
Post by
asakawa
I are confused now Adamsm. Yes, the news is posted to general and links. I was just making the point that I've noticed a decrease in thread creation since Ashelia and Perculia turned the dial up on their own work.
The only decrease I've noticed is from multiple threads that all say the exact same thing that the News threads say; and honestly, I prefer that. Yes the class forums are slow; but that has nothing to do with the News blogs.
Personally, I am not crazy about the News site threads linking into Wowhead General. It takes a little away from the "community driven" aspect of the site, if 95% of all relevant information is cross-linked from the News site.
I guess the most blunt way to put it would be "if I wanted to go to Wowhead News, I would go there"...rather than have it linked for me, into the General forum. I personally preferred it when the majority of the site was information provided by the actual community members, with the occasional topic created by an admin.
That's totally fair enough but does seem like a bit of a rosy, "good old days", view of things to me. After all, nothing's been taken away and no set list of talking-points is being set by the posts made in blue text. People can still make threads and raise topics for discussion. Does the discussion that actually takes place in a thread started by a staff member differ in any meaningful way from that of a user-made thread?
I suspect not and if not then why does it matter? The discussion about interesting new patch notes will take place in a thread in General whether the OP is posting in blue or white.
Post by
Magician22773
Does the discussion that actually takes place in a thread started by a staff member differ in any meaningful way from that of a user-made thread?
In some ways, it doesn't, but in some, it does.
Back in the "rosy, good 'ol days", a community member could pick up on a tasty new bit of information, and come here to start a topic about it. That topic may have prompted others to add in their bits of information, and others to do the same. And from that spark, s
tarted by a member of the community
, became a useful piece of information for others to learn about the game we played.
Now, we have instant information, often posted before any "normal" member of the community could have known about it, posted by admins. The information is often so complete, that it leaves no room for others to add anything but an opinion. And rather than feeling like we were able to add something that may have helped out others, we only have the option to come here and read a cross-posted version of Wowhead News.
I have often argued, usually when someone is being flamed for "not using the search feature", that there is nearly NOTHING that can be posted, or no question that can be asked, that hasn't already been posted or answered. And that is fine, if you want a News site. But if you want a
community
site, you need to allow the
community
to participate.
This kind of segways back into the issue with the class forums. I don't mean to call you out directly, Asakawa, but I think this fits the discussion. When you unofficially "ran" the Warlock forum, you had created such a comprehensive guide, that 90% of all questions that were asked, were answered with 1 of 2 responses. Either a link to your guide, or a link to SimCraft.
I fear that is the direction that General is now heading. Any information that is posted, has likely already been addressed in a News post. Any question that is asked has likely already been answered in a guide.
I do think it speaks volumes that if you look on page 300 (just a number I pulled out of the air), there are 3 topics on that page created by admin. There are 23 topics on the current page 1.
Post by
asakawa
Well, I would counter that back when I was maintaining a Warlock guide there were very many interesting things that were entirely up for discussion. I once made
this thread
, the purpose of which was to demonstrate that the difference between the definitive answer that people gave and the other potential options were often incredibly small and also point out the few options, differing from which would be a terrible loss.
The question is, does 20 threads made to ask "do I use Glyph of A or Glyph of B?" constitute a thriving and interesting forum? My purpose when writing a guide was not to try for EJ levels of detail but to quickly and concisely bring everybody up to a good level of understanding about the class. A Warlock101 you might say. At this relatively informed point the
really
interesting discussions can take place.
The trouble is that your argument essentially boils down to 'it's better when people are in the dark about stuff' and this same idea is applied to lots of things like movie marketing (would you have enjoyed Prometheus more without any hype?) or raiding guides (is part of raiding working out how to take a boss down because only a handful of guilds have that experience). People demand more information. They demand that it be delivered quicker and more comprehensively. They, perhaps, demand it despite it not being best for their levels of enjoyment in the long run.
(tangentially, a Blizzard higher-up recently made a statement about Titan that suggested that they've learnt their lesson when it comes to hype cycles and intend to keep things very close to their chests for as long as possible)
Meanwhile if Wowhead didn't gather and present the information then would people really chip in with a snippet here and a snippet there? Or would they just link an MMO-C article (two days later than we would have it here
;P
).
So, perhaps strong information has caused a drop in discussion but if so, is it a bad thing on the whole or just from the forum-level point of view?
Post by
Eccentrica
Well, asakawa, that rather depends on how the staff currently views the site, and the forums. Is this a news-site or is this a community? Which do you want it to be?
Wowhead is not EJ. I would naturally expect a different level of conversation in our class forums than in the EJ forums. Hell, anyone who has read the EJ posting guidelines is left with a complete fear of posting as should they commit a trivial error they face both public lambasting and being banned from posting. I always saw Wowhead as being kindler and gentler in that regard.
Every site has its own unique 'thing'. EJ, MMOC, WowInsider, and Wowhead all present good reads and in my opinion fulfill different needs. Let it remain so. Don't try to turn Wowhead into the end all be all. EJ is the class theorycrafter, MMOC is the dataminer, Insider is the news site and Wowhead is the community site where average Joe can post, discuss, whatever. We are kinder and gentler than EJ and more mature than MMOC. Recognize your niche, embrace your niche and protect your niche.
'Professionalizing' the forums has its benefits, but it also has its drawbacks and reduced community involvement is one of them.
Post by
asakawa
On EJ I was once given an infraction for answering a question that was deemed too stupid to exist. That will never happen here - someone genuinely answering a genuine query will never be discouraged (they may be by other users but we will do everything we can to prevent that also).
If you think that we over-moderate the forums (if that's what you mean by "professionalising") then I'd be very interested to hear about it but I fear it may be beyond the scope of this thread and would encourage you to make a thread in Feedback or send me an email to .
As for "niche" I think you make an interesting point but I think Wowhead
can
grow into other areas (where we can add to or improve upon what other sites do) without losing what we already had - it was originally a talent calculator after all and look at it now! I don't think there's enough evidence to suggest that strong datamining and blog content is a contributing reason for reduced forum discussion, let alone the
main
reason.
Honestly though, I think General is okay. It's the Class forums in which I'm most interested. I think the downturn stems almost entirely from the game but I would really like to know if there are ways we can make Class forums a more interesting place to go for people.
Post by
hatman555
Honestly though, I think General is okay. It's the Class forums in which I'm most interested. I think the downturn stems almost entirely from the game but I would really like to know if there are ways we can make Class forums a more interesting place to go for people.
I'd like to get in on this topic a little.
I started my wowhead experiance in the paladin forums. During Wrath and to a little extent Cata, we had much, much more activity. This was mostly from questions and character reviews that people had. These questions drove the creation of quick guides and stickies.
It was the lack of interest in the game Pre MoP that had the forums so quiet. Yet this has created a circle of negativity which is now effecting the forums in a different way.
No one playing before MOP means no questions asked about new stuff.
No questions about new stuff means no new content created
No new content created means no one comes to the forums to read it
No one coming to the forums to read it means no one posting questions about it
No one posting questions about it means no one caring to make new content
No new content created means...... and on and on and on.....
We are in this cycle right now, and I feel that the only way to break it is to generate content and then link it to bring more people here. Once more people come to use this content, the forums will get more people here on their own.
I have pulled off
the 2 main stickies in the paladin forums because they are really really out of date. This leaves a huge gap for people to come and write new content to replace these.
The
"Introducing Our User of the Month Program"
is a great motivator to create new content.
Noteworthy Thread's
give reputation. We might even look into changing the values of reputation that gold awards give to make them more tempting for people to go out and get.
Cheers,
Hat(##RESPBREAK##)16##DELIM##hatman555##DELIM##
Post by
nephthyswanderer
We are in this cycle right now, and I feel that the only way to break it is to generate content and then link it to bring more people here. Once more people come to use this content, the forums will get more people here on their own.
That is exactly what I'm thinking. We don't even need to generate new content, just post the relevent breaking news information in each of the forums as discussion topics. It starts there.
If the busines model has evolved to transition the site to more of a news/database site and the forums are just a sidebar, it still behooves zam/wowhead to encourage click-throughs and this would be an easy way to do so imo.
Post by
asakawa
To be fair, the site is a database first and foremost. That's been the goal of the site for years. The community is awesome and it's that side of the site that hooked me in but, what is the site? It's the best WoW database on the web.
The focus on News and editorial/guide content is newer but I still don't see how that negatively impacts the use of the forum. Those dots haven't really been connected in a way I can see yet.
Post by
lankybrit
I think the Class forums here are long past their prime, and really serve no purpose now.
Guides are where you go to find a guide for your class.
The official forums class forums are where you go to find out more, or ask questions.
Cheers.
Post by
Ashelia
I feel like everyone is really missing the point where almost every fansite (bar one that I can think of) has had a huge decrease in discussion. It feels like since Cataclysm, people have had less to discuss about their classes. They read about them on guides, or see developers interacting on the official forums (or MMO-C's), and go from there. Elitist Jerks is a site I loved, but its traffic has just fallen off, and so have discussions. People care a lot less about their classes nowadays.
I am all for ideas on how to icnrease discussion and promote that, but at the end of the day, when you see a site like Wowhead, you go to it for its comments/database. You do not go to it for its forums. It simply had such a great forum presence years ago because WoW was incredibly popular and incredibly deep--the simplification Cata brought and MoP continued has made it harder and harder to promote heavy discussion. And since so many people who were into WoW in that way quit circa Cataclysm, the community never rebuilt.
In running LolKing's community, I have noticed that discussion comes naturally when a game has a lot to discuss. ATM we can post a news post and it may get 1/5th the views an average Wowhead news post does, but it will get 10x the comments... why? Because people want to nitpick, discuss, and theorycraft League of Legends. They could talk for hours about a champion they recently fought. But people want to do that less and less for WoW, and by proxy, the forum and communities dwindled surrounding it. People would rather log into WoW and ask their guildmates for a good spec than search a forum for some dicussion on it.
So I don't feel like Wowhead's forums killed discussion, I feel more like WoW itself did. However, all that said, I do think there's ways we could spice it up and keep our community outgoing. The pageviews are there, we still are getting tons of database traffic, people just don't seem to want to stay and chat about what Warlock spec is superior any longer.
edit: As for Perculia and my posting at Wowhead News, it's only really benefited Wowhead and I don't really believe it killed off class forums or anything. Forum posts were shared in WoW General long before I was hired, the only difference is we started doing extremely detailed coverage as a regular thing when I was hired. But the traffic has been great from that; Perculia's pet guides get thousands of hits. Her transmog guides got millions, it's also something the community loves. So while I'm open to hearing how it can be negative, I just don't see it when it's increased traffic and been well received for the most part.(##RESPBREAK##)2##DELIM##Ashelia##DELIM##
Post by
lankybrit
I honestly believe that Guides killed the Class forums. I would go to the class forums to see the guides for the class, and end up in there talking about stuff.
With no reason to go to the Class forums to read a guide for your class, traffic will always be just a dribble.
What you could do to help is have a sticky in each class forum that has links to all the guides for that class.
Cheers.
Post by
nephthyswanderer
Agreed with lanky. Class guides moved, outdated and differing in quality, complete front page news in high quality format, and surging efforts from competitive sites.
Post by
Eccentrica
A couple of points on different things that have been covered over the last couple of hours :
Ashelia, the work that you and Perculia have done is superlative, but it's almost too good, if you know what I mean. Why research something and post it, when odds are a blue will be posting a superior version shortly? All the new discussable bits and pieces are pretty much now the domain of you guys, and don't get me wrong, you do it very well. It's just that, well, the only way I can put it without you thinking I hate you or your work is this: It's like chocolate fudge cake. It's perfect and delicious and you crave it, but too much of it puts you off.
On the subject of the class guides, sometimes guides are great when you want a quick and dirty answer, but class forums shine through when you have a something meriting discussion: Does x really happen after w? Would a combination of q then t be better? That kind of thing. You can't discuss anything on a guide. MMOC forums are somewhere I wouldn't venture without a bodyguard, and EJ makes me feel stupid (which rather makes me like them actually but I would never post there).
On the subject of site traffic, I have no doubt that Wowhead's stats are outstanding. I know that I refer everyone and their Grandmother here as I am sure that most regular readers do. Regular nods from the official forums and WowInsider (Yay! and Grats Perculia!) can only send the numbers into the stratosphere. The question is what do the staff (and owners) want to do with that traffic?
Wowhead is a constantly evolving creature. Yes, it started as talent calculator (I read the profiles of the founders and staff early on in my lurking days). The database was added and quickly surpassed the old go to, Allakhazam. The site has been morphing since creation and isn't the same as when I first started visiting. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but as I said earlier today occupying and perfecting a niche isn't a bad thing either. Brand identity can allow a longer life span than a one-size fits all approach.
Maybe ZAM wants all their sites to be the same but with different window dressing, I don't know. What I do know is that Wowhead's identity and community tone are different and in my opinion vastly superior to a lot of its competition and I would hope it would remain that way.
Edit: Oh dear. My rep number is now my birth year. :(
Post by
asakawa
Edit: Oh dear. My rep number is now my birth year. :(
I'm gonna rate up one of your comments and see if you get younger!
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