Board Thread:Administrators' Noticeboard/@comment-5275700-20160127184723

Hello TES Wiki!

I’m here to check in with some questions and notes about the Discussions feature, and of course I’m happy to answer any questions that you might have.

(Have no idea what I am talking about? Please see Thread:889470 and http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/d/f/1706)

My first general question is — how are things going? We’ve got lots coming up to address some of the issues and requests you likely have (see below), but I would love to hear some general feedback and impressions. Both about the feature and about the app users that it’s made it possible to observe and connect with.

For those of you who have been participating in Discussions, are you finding them to be enjoyable and engaging? Are there differences from the types of conversations that happen in the on-wiki forum?

For those of you who have been moderating, how has that been going? We’re on the cusp of releasing some tools to make your jobs much easier (again, see below for details) but I would like to know some of the most common issues you’re seeing.

Last question — have you noticed any “app users” that might be good to recruit for a moderator role? Right now it can be challenged to contact them directly. The app users don’t always confirm their email addresses, and so won’t get notified about Message Wall posts. But we can help out with that if needed (contacting them via email, etc.) Let me know if we can help with that.

Now, on to what’s coming up! Moderation tools were always high on our list, and so very shortly (possibly this week), we’ll be releasing “View all posts and replies” for a user (available to everyone) and “Delete all posts and replies” for a user (available to mods and admins). This will be in the web interface only right now, not coming to the apps until later in February, but web is where most of the moderation is happening right now. “View all posts and replies” is also a top request from the app users, of course.

Other moderation tools coming soon are locking posts to new replies (aka closing threads) and setting up a way for regular users to “report” content for review by mods and admins. That last one is pretty exciting, since it will be the first feature that expands beyond what we have now in the forum.

We’re also finishing up the early conceptual and design work on thread categorization (i.e. subsections, the equivalent of boards in the current forums). That will help users find existing threads more easily. It will also feed into the eventual dedicated search function and is necessary to migrate the forum content to the new system.

One more question! During the moot I attended (and in previous feedback about the current forum) it was clear that you guys wanted a more flexible structure for the boards/categories. Could you tell me more about how that would look, in your most ideal world? Use the current boards as an example (unless you can describe it better in some other way). Note: Your response here will not be “binding” in any sense, it’s just to help us understand the type of organization you want to see.

There’s lots more being done behind the scenes, of course (examples: SEO work, email notifications, improved presentation of links) but I want to hear from all of you! 