Escapist heading in "a new direction"

[Fiona Callahan]

....Transparency. Did the world just end and no one tell me? Damn.

Nick Calandra. Kudo's to you sir for being so transparent, please keep it up. We've had a few Community Managers who were transparent at first, but after a bit went silent and never were again.... Wow, that sounded alot more polite in my head.

I havn't been on for a while, First Wild Wasteland, then R&P, and the forum just generally slowly dying off at first, I kind of abandoned Escapist, ..I had an urge to come back and peak at things, and I find this thread and wanna go "Oh my god!"

 

[Drathnoxis]

Snip

Can the new direction include a separate subforum for Religion and Politics again? We used to have one but they axed it a couple months ago for reasons that were never explained to us. It's to the severe detriment of Off Topic to have the more active political arguments force other topics down the page and I don't think anybody here is really happy with the situation.

 

[Fiona Callahan]

I'm going to agree with Drathnoxis.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I'm going to agree with Drathnoxis.

And my axe.

 

[09philj]

Unfortunately with the site design you can't find it all unless you go to the latest tab lol, so I'm pushing hard to get this new thing ready so you can find the stuff we write!

Ah yes, I once brought up how it is counter intuitive for a website to have the same articles on its main page for days on end while "hiding" new articles under a second click on the website.

Good times, good times.

Yea...I've built quite a few Wordpress sites and when I got here and looked at the backend of this site I think I went back in time to a much darker place in history. We have to manually update the top of the front page to get new articles up there, and I can't reorganize any of the front page.

I think I've got OCD when it comes to website design and this one is causing me to lose sleep haha. New site design is much more modern and you can find everything easily.

A redesign or update to the site should definitely include First/Previous/Next/Last buttons for article and comic series, not just videos.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

This kind of involves the forum again, but if you can, make a thread in the forums for each content piece just as it was in the old days. This will allow you to not have to juggle two different commenting systems/communities at once and also drive traffic back to the forum again.

Oh, and the Badge system. That was pretty damn amazing and unique. I think everyone was sad to see them stagnate as they did.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

This kind of involves the forum again, but if you can, make a thread in the forums for each content piece just as it was in the old days. This will allow you to not have to juggle two different commenting systems/communities at once and also drive traffic back to the forum again.

Oh, and the Badge system. That was pretty damn amazing and unique. I think everyone was sad to see them stagnate as they did.

Honestly? The badge system is great. There's only 2 things I want to have carry over to the other forum for me personally. The amount of posts I have, and my badges. Losing all of those would mean I'm starting from 0, and I'd be rather bummed

 

[CheetoDust_v1legacy]

....Transparency. Did the world just end and no one tell me? Damn.

Nick Calandra. Kudo's to you sir for being so transparent, please keep it up. We've had a few Community Managers who were transparent at first, but after a bit went silent and never were again.... Wow, that sounded alot more polite in my head.

I havn't been on for a while, First Wild Wasteland, then R&P, and the forum just generally slowly dying off at first, I kind of abandoned Escapist, ..I had an urge to come back and peak at things, and I find this thread and wanna go "Oh my god!"

Thanks, Fiona! Communication will be a regular thing from me as we work to refresh The Escapist. I enjoy being part of the community and getting feedback, even if it's critical. I'd rather be doing this than spending time yelling at people on Twitter lol.

I'm gonna miss you with the next new direction.

 

[Avnger]

Snip

Just wanted to say good luck.

All of us who still use this forum are rather jaded about previous CMs and site management and their actions, so we can be somewhat blunt and quick to our guns when seemingly negative things happen; it's not personal against you.

You seem to be taking some good first steps though. I'd agree with the others that transparency about both the decision-making process for changes to the forums and the decisions themselves is the most important thing we're hoping for.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

New Direction wishlist

*Bring back the polls
*Bring back the badges
*Bring back the notification lights
*Bring back the integrated forums
*Bring back the sensible front page

Make the site functional again before you start flaunting new thinkpiece columns. Put out the fire first, THEN hire new employees.

 

[Red Sentinel]

Nice, we're getting R&P back again? It's almost like I'm a clairvoyant...

Users: "Hey um, there's a lot of threads about religion and politics in the Off-Topic forum, enough for them to have their own dedicated forum in fact."

Staff: "That's a great idea!"

 

[SupahEwok]

New Direction wishlist

*Bring back the polls
*Bring back the badges
*Bring back the notification lights
*Bring back the integrated forums
*Bring back the sensible front page

Make the site functional again before you start flaunting new thinkpiece columns. Put out the fire first, THEN hire new employees.

The fact of the matter is the first 4 items on your list don't make the site money. Not in its current state, anyway. Which is why we've been neglected since the buyout.

Well, there's probably more reasons. The buyout had like 2 major updates to the site in the first month, and then nothing that we could see until now. What is that, 8 months? Despite assurances work is ongoing. Working on websites is tough, but it's not that tough. Escapist probably got shafted on funding when it didn't become the world's foremost (and most lucrative) gaming pundit site overnight.

The front page has to be fixed, its true, and that's the #1 thing the new guys can do besides content to get more dollars. It doesn't effectively display or organize all of the ongoing features. That's no way to catch and retain an audience.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

New Direction wishlist

*Bring back the polls
*Bring back the badges
*Bring back the notification lights
*Bring back the integrated forums
*Bring back the sensible front page

Make the site functional again before you start flaunting new thinkpiece columns. Put out the fire first, THEN hire new employees.

The fact of the matter is the first 4 items on your list don't make the site money. Not in its current state, anyway. Which is why we've been neglected since the buyout.

I get that, and realize the don't look urgent, but the point I wanna drive in is we've had revolving door management for over a year now and every "new direction" seems to amount to "let's add more stuff!" instead of fixing the obvious, immediate problem: the site's architecture, which has been crumbling for quite a while. It's like worrying about interior decoration while the house's on fire.