Denied Close the Suggestions Subforum (More Often)

[Emilia Foddg]

What does this suggestion change/add/remove:​

Close the suggestions subforum (more often. Remember December? Just do that... More, basically).

Has something similar been suggested before? If so, why is your suggestion different?:​

I would be extremely surprised. I guess the closest things are my old suggestions about changing the way the suggestions subforum works? But this is in a completely different direction, focused more on actually getting things done serverside, as opposed to changing the flow of how suggestions work. Given that this subforum is also a new thing since last year, this is likely also already planned, at least for major holidays/break times, etc.

Possible Positives of the suggestion (At least 2):​

• CT don't go crazy.
  
• More time & opportunity to work on the massive backlog of things that need to be done for server content.

Possible Negatives of the suggestion:​

• People get to make suggestions less often.

Based on the Positives & Negatives, why should this suggestion be accepted:​

I know the forum's a little screwy at the time of writing, but when you get the chance, you should look through both the public dev tracker, as well as the resolved suggestions. I get that a good majority of these things aren't/cannot directly be worked on by CT (or even non-core devs, as for example - Some things to be changed need direct access to core addons, which is only doable by 2 people on staff at the time of writing, one of whom also owns the entire network). I also appreciate that obviously, seeing to suggestions isn't the only thing CT does - But based on past suggestion responses/discussion relating to this topic and the fact that new submissions for the suggestions subforum was closed at all during December heavily implies that this is a significant part of CT activities. You also have to remember that every CT member is also a staff member and therefore has their CT duties on top of their ordinary staff duties. It stands to reason then, that a reallocation of the time used would be beneficial in every given aspect.

In addition... I don't know who else has noticed this, if anyone, but - Suggestions kinda feels different than it does from say, a few months ago. And I don't mean in terms of mechanical changes to the subforum itself such as with the flairs; I'm more referring to the general feel of the suggestions we're having recently. Obviously new content is going to influence what suggestions are about, since a lot of suggestions right now are about either trying to balance, frustrations or otherwise something related to 22415 - But even besides that, I've noticed a distinct decrease in constructiveness. Interestingly enough, this is the final suggestion on my backlog and it's been there for a few months; So while I did anticipate a good amount of this, I'm still moderately surprised by how very often lately that I'm reading through a suggestion and... I don't know, it just feels wrong.

Like don't get me wrong, there are a lot of decent active suggestions right now. But I think that since we've already burned through and had a lot of important discussions over the past year or so which now sit in resolved, we're getting into more... I guess petty, more trivial? Concerns - I mean, I could do the whole thing again where I go back through resolved and pick out the suggestions where the discussion resolved in a way, wherein I believe that there could have been a better/revised outcome that may have resulted in some functioning and agreeable plan for a necessary change to the server; The main issue with that is, of those that I immediately notice and feel like re-opening, a good 90% of those are situations that are at an impasse imo, situations where I fundamentally disagree with the denial, wherein the claims of the suggestion itself are still valid, but I know if I re-opened it, I'd get the same response and situations where I get why it was denied and just disagree based on a personal bias.

On top of that - There appears to be some inconsistency? For instance;

Denied - Custom Chemical Ordering In Vials

What does this suggestion change/add/remove: Allows you to customise the order of chemicals inside of Injection Vials I.E Players would be able to make Injection Vials that have Potent Duloxetine on top, and Corticosteroids on the bottom Has something similar been suggested before? If so, why...

civilnetworks.net

This denial from February suggests that chem re-ordering in vials is planned, however,

Denied - Make corticosteroids heavier than other chems

What does this suggestion change/add/remove: Make corticosteroids "heavier" than most/all other chems (i.e. when you put it in a flask with another chem, it will sink to the bottom). Has something similar been suggested before? If so, why is your suggestion different?: Not that I could find...

civilnetworks.net

This denial from the past week suggests the same thing is not happening. Obviously, I get the concept of impermanence and changing your mind on an idea - That suggestion acceptances aren't absolute; And a planned implementation can just be scrapped if something turns out to not be a good idea for whatever reason, but suggestions kind of exists in a sort of vacuum? And this is... A little confusing? I'm not quite sure how to put it in a way that makes sense, but I hope what I've put comes across.

On top of that - There's still a distinct schism between the community and staff. People still want assistant slots. People routinely ask for small content additions that staff see as not needed/unnecessary. I think we're at a point where... We're kinda stuck? It seems that largely in cases where the community want X, it will be rejected, but X will still be desired. Admittedly, closing the subforum off to people (more often) won't solve this, if anything it will make that contention worse. But if the preference is constructivity and longevity, I see little other choice. I doubt if something like banana bread gets brought up 10 times, that suddenly it'll be accepted on the 10th time. In terms of whether or not the suggestion would be accepted, it ultimately makes little difference if that's now or later.

As a result, I think this is likely the best, albeit probably not most popular, choice for improvement at this stage. The time can simply be spent on better things. ...If possible. Or even... Nothing at all. I don't know.

 

[The Guardian]

I feel like a lot of these pains are coming from just a complete lack of communication between staff v staff and staff v community. Community continually want things that staff will continually deny with not a lot of reason.

Staff could do with communicating more in general and I think that would help with the community's response to the server in general, resulting in less salt and soy showing up in the forum suggestions.

(This is also just part of a greater lack of communication betwixt staff. (Updating written rules, anyone? Staff deciding on a single ruling, instead of everyone having their own idea?))

Or I'm just yapping I dunno.

(Also wrote this between customers so it probably reads like shit.)

 

[Niox]

can you explain this is layman's terms

 

[The Guardian]

can you explain this is layman's terms

Players too angy, make salty suggestions, so we close forums and remove ooc

 

[Bohemia]

I think we should make more suggestions

 

[grunger]

Maybe we just need a list of hard-and-fast rules outlined somewhere so that people don't make hastily-thought out suggestions with little rhyme or reason. Put it on the front and top page of the forum, maybe call it the... frequently asked suggestions...? Force people to make suggestions that are little more than buff/nerf a role/weapon because its OP/underpowered...? Sounds like it could work.

I sympathize with your frustration seeing bugs and reasonably small additions on the dev tracker from months ago remain untouched, even major additions that were seemingly in the works in purgatory, getting caught up in final stages of testing or re-evaluated for its place in the current game state. To my knowledge, developers are volunteers that usually have the liberty of working on whatever, whenever they feel like, so it's not like closing the suggestions forum is guaranteed to make a sizeable dent in the backlog. They're naturally going to gravitate towards the exciting new content instead of patching the old.

 

[Niox]

Players too angy, make salty suggestions, so we close forums and remove ooc

makes sense
+Support
-fuck OOC all my homies hate OOC
-fuck suggestions only like 6 people make actually good suggestions

 

[Emilia Foddg]

I feel like a lot of these pains are coming from just a complete lack of communication between staff v staff and staff v community. Community continually want things that staff will continually deny with not a lot of reason.

Staff could do with communicating more in general and I think that would help with the community's response to the server in general, resulting in less salt and soy showing up in the forum suggestions.

To my knowledge, developers are volunteers that usually have the liberty of working on whatever, whenever they feel like, so it's not like closing the suggestions forum is guaranteed to make a sizeable dent in the backlog. They're naturally going to gravitate towards the exciting new content instead of patching the old.

Pretty much all the staff are volunteers - I can only think of a handful of people behind the scenes that get paid. That's kind of besides the point here, though - And I think a lot of what I was trying to say has been missed; I think current cycle of... Just what suggestions is, overall, is not helping anyone right now.

Like again, just look back through resolved and you start to see what I mean. Lots of the same stuff opened with little change, varying quality in responses, etc. CT hold meetings roughly... Every week? With the apparent aim of trying to deal with... If not every, then as many as they can feasibly fit into that section of the meeting, Non-rule, non-NL suggestion on the subforum. That's my understanding of the process. And you look at all this and you just see what looks like this giant cycle of frustration on all sides. The actual staff makeup of CT itself changes so often that from the outside it just looks like a revolving door - And to be honest, I don't blame them. Dealing with us sucks. I just think things could stand to be better.

 

[FrostByte]

+ Support
The vast majority of suggestions get denied anyways. And even the ones that get accepted will never see the light of day for possibly 2 - 3+ years and it gets forgotten. There's no point in having a suggestion forum if every accepted suggestion takes a whole generation to add, even simple stuff like a broom swep. So just close it until it can actually be handled.

 

[Yeke]

DENIED​

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Good afternoon @Emilia Foddg

Thank you for taking the time to make a suggestion

After discussion we have chosen to deny this as we have reworked how suggestions are handled by allowing content team the time to go through them at their pace and provided a transparent view here to how suggestions are handled.

Unfortunatly closing and re-opening only allows a catch up response, playing cat and mouse in the long term is unsustainable, and as seen every time after closing, suggestions will get battered by responses making content team feel even more under pressure.

I appreciate the sentiment in looking out for the team, however the current methodology provides the team the ability to take their time and not rush decisions on the basis a "suggestion has taken over a week"

Kind Regards
Network Leadership​