Yearly Suggestion Check-ins by TJ

[angelicdragonpuppy]

57 minutes ago, Dragon_Arbock said:

This. I never got this. Valentines is barely a holiday at all. The most real life stress it causes is remembering to give your sweetheart some flowers (if you even have one to begin with) it's not at all comparable to Christmas, there's no family gatherings and long travel times to possibly interfere with the game.. so why does that holiday need a limit?

 

I think Halloween is more popular, honestly. I think the logic for Valentines was “share!”, but Halloween has already proven that more dragons to go around = more sharing. Plus exponentially more second hand sharing via the AP since you can have literally multiples of the amount of CBs breeding.

[Cinspawn]

12 hours ago, TJ09 said:

If I don't close a thread, it's because I explicitly want to see where it goes. I definitely could chime in more, but it's incorrect to conflate silence with lack of attention. The general consensus I'm seeing is that people would rather I just shut things down, though, rather than wait and see if anything useful comes of it, so I guess that's what I'll try to do more.

 (emphasis by me)

 

I don't think the general consensus is to "just shut things down". The general consensus is people would like more communication, which includes (sometimes) shutting things down when they have absolutely no hope to be implemented.

 

I just looked through this thread and here is what I see:

 

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Even if something WON'T happen, let us know why

 

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open up that channel of communication

 

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Or at least more communication

 

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I do very much agree that it would be wonderful if we could get *some* communication

 

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More communication between members and staff is a suggestion I'll always approve of.

 

 

I'm very glad to see the threads that have no hope whatsoever, be shut down. Because there is no point in continuing to discuss those threads. It won't ever happen.

But if, like you said yourself, you still want to see if the idea could be worked out better - communicate that to us, or steer us in the right direction - so we know what to do, and are not left waiting wondering if you even like 1% of the idea.

Or if you don't really like the idea - but there might be room for improvement! Communicate that. We can't communicate edits of the idea that you maybe sort of liked, if you shut it down too early. Which is what happened with the CB Holiday limit in my opinion, because a lot of people have counter arguments against the 'least stressful' argument. You know what's even less stressful than having 2 CB slots? Having none, because it means I don't have to worry about Dragon Cave at all around the holidays.

But would that be fun? No, obviously not. There's a balance to be found and I think a lot of users agree that with the 2 limit on release, unlimited on the years after, you're taking away most of the "stress" but maximizing the fun.

I don't even know if specifically that idea (2 CB limit on release, unlimited on the years afterwards for that breed) was shut down or not, because in your post in seems like you just disagree with the "unlimited everything" idea. I don't know if I need to make a new post, or post this in the new "hard 4 CB limit" thread, because it's not really about that. I don't know if I should post it here. I guess I'm just posting it here?

 

TL;DR Communication is a two way street. Shutting down threads where the core idea absolutely has no future, that's great. I'm glad you're starting to do that. It moves the focus to more important things.

But please don't shut down things that you yourself think might still be tweaked, or if you didn't react to the arguments given in the thread (instead of only the original post/title of the thread). Because I feel that's what happened with some of the threads you closed.

 

Give us the chance to react to you, too. If you're sure you fully understood that idea, and still don't like it, please tell us THAT ("No, the edits also don't seem like a good idea because x y and z") and THEN close the thread. I think that would be the most efficient way.

[olympe]

And that's exactly why I pionted out that the OP for suggestions needs to be kept up to date. So TJ won't have to sift through endless pages of "yes, please" and "support" and "agreed" when the community has reached some kind of consensus.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

It can be hard to keep OPs around when topics go years and years with little communication, though. I understand what you’re saying, but it can be difficult.

 

While I’d be fine with more informal communication instead of the “yearly check in” I suggested, perhaps that’s a point in the latter’s favor, sort of. If a thread is still loved enough after a year that someone puts together a post of the newest iterations (if there are any), the mods could put it in the OP and compile a helpful list of “Hey, this thread hasn’t seen love in a while but still has a lot of user interest. Here’s the latest update on it, please check it out.”

[Dragon_Arbock]

Well, I thought that's what making 'recommended' posts was supposed to be for. Mods could just as easily pin a compilation post a user has made in a thread- but what I'm also thinking is maybe the threads that start to change in idea should just be made as a new thread.

[purplehaze]

16 minutes ago, Dragon_Arbock said:

Well, I thought that's what making 'recommended' posts was supposed to be for. Mods could just as easily pin a compilation post a user has made in a thread- but what I'm also thinking is maybe the threads that start to change in idea should just be made as a new thread.

If they change drastically that might be okay, but a lot of times they just sort of evolve as we discuss them. At what point do you decide to make a new thread?

 

I do think having a compilation post for some of these long-running discussions could be good. If it is agreed that it covers most of the points made in the discussion then a mod could pin that and maybe bring it to TJ's attention, either by pinging him or by behind-the-scenes communication. If he would then actually react to the points in that post maybe we would know what direction to go with our discussion, if he feels there is any hope there.

 

I don't feel that most of us want him to just shut things down. It would be much better if he would steer us toward ways that an idea could be made acceptable. That would be preferable to him just leaving a thread open with no comment to help us know how he feels "something useful" could come of it.

 

Edited December 3, 2018 by purplehaze

[olympe]

Well, I doubt that the "steering us in the right direction" thing is actually going to happen. If he knows the direction to steer us, he doesn't need us to hash things out. However, he could prevent us from going in circles about stuff he doesn't even consider to implement.

[SkyWolf25]

On the subject of managing OPs - if the original suggester is inactive, someone in the discussion can put together an organised post and PM me with it once in a while and I would be happy to put it in the OP for you!