[META] Mods - start cleaning up this forum. seriously.

[gibnewitems]

The forum itself uses a pretty outdated layout, not that this is something inherently bad -i love old web designs- but there are a lot of "dead" space and things that can dissapear and it wouldn't make much difference.

For example, you can see the layout is old as it still names Skype on your profile configs:
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I believe this whole category could be revamped totally so it doesn't show every single embed people posts or deleted, I really doubt people go everyday into it and say "man, i really wanna see some hideout screenshot"
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This is also something I'd consider deleting
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And I'd move the already existing heros feedback to a more visible place, you have to scroll to get to it and I can see why people tends to post their inquires in the creative forum instead, if you come here with and idea what'd you do? 1. open the forum thread with "hero ideas" in the name 2. scroll all the way down to find, inside all the private threads, the one dedicated to your specific demand?

yeah

For a new css I'd love the forum to have a theme more close to what deadlock actually is, I'm gonna use an example for one of the forums I used to live on back in the day as an example of branding your web towards its users:
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The deadlock forums use XenForo, but I believe ForumFree or ForoActivo might be a better hosting options and it's somehwat easier to use and customize, you could get a full deadlock themed forum in no time:
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In a side note, I'd love to be able to design the forum UI, need to make that degree shine lol

While I wish that we could turn back time and make this forum look like an early 2000s or 2010s forum (those were incredibly kino), there's probably a good reason why Xenforo was chosen (easy to set up, 1 billion addons, etc).

I feel like someone at Valve enlightening us plebs on why they chose to make the important forum for their next big game pretty much just stock xenforo would be welcomed. @Valve @Yoshi It's your time to geek out and shine, whoever had the responsibility of spinning up the forum in the first place.

EDIT: aaaand they both logged out, right as I posted this. how wonderful.

 

[photon]

I've been thinking more and more about what Valve could do to better the forum. Now that this thread has been up long enough (about 10 days since OP created this thread), I feel like it's finally time to post what I came up with.

What Valve can do NOW (within a single hour):

• Create & pin two containment threads for current hero and item balance discussion.

Once upon a time, the Bug Reports section of the forums was flooded with threads complaining about matchmaking. Because this was drowning out more important topics like actual bug reports, Valve had a very smart idea to create the bad matchmaking thread.

Rather than spending all that time deleting those bad matchmaking threads, they just created & pinned a single space where people can go and bitch about matchmaking keeping them in low elo. Now, you just never see a thread complaining about bad matchmaking outside of the containment thread.

I believe that 90% of current hero balance threads would not exist if there was a publicly visible space to vent about current balance, like there is for matchmaking. It would go a long way in cleaning up the forums.

What Valve can do SOON (within a day):

• Add self-serve tags to the forum

If we are going to stick with bland stock xenforo, at least shop around for some basic addons. Tags are long overdue for this forum. Don't like seeing AI? Just add a tag and allow us to tick a check mark in settings to hide every thread with AI. Hell, even being able to add a (SUPPORT) tag in the title would go a long way in describing our concepts.

What Valve can do LATER (in the future):

• Overall visual overhaul

While this might take quite a long time to complete, I think it is vital that we start making this forum look less like a teen's first web forum, and more like something you'd see within the Deadlock universe. Go nuts.

Agree with everything here, also another easy solution would be to just get new moderating staff but instead global staff just add specific-forum staff and let popular individuals from each forum just moderate their own. No need to let them have any access to sensitive stuff; just ability to delete and lock forum threads in their domain.

e.g., for a popular individual from community items who is really active there, just offer them to mod that forum (he's active there anyway!) and let clean it up on the way.

 

[gibnewitems]

Agree with everything here, also another easy solution would be to just get new moderating staff but instead global staff just add specific-forum staff and let popular individuals from each forum just moderate their own. No need to let them have any access to sensitive stuff; just ability to delete and lock forum threads in their domain.

e.g., for a popular individual from community items who is really active there, just offer them to mod that forum (he's active there anyway!) and let clean it up on the way.

I think the forums are just too small to have specific-forum staff (only 5 subforums), and I don't think Heroes and Item concepts are dissimilar enough to warrant having their own sets of moderators. If we are going to get new mods, I prefer them to be global so they can also clean up the odd spam bot that occasionally posts within the localization forums once a blue moon.

I also don't think the mods can see what's posted within the private forums, nor DMs (i'd love to be proven wrong, if that's the case).

 

[Playeroth]

I think the forums are just too small to have specific-forum staff (only 5 subforums), and I don't think Heroes and Item concepts are dissimilar enough to warrant having their own sets of moderators. If we are going to get new mods, I prefer them to be global so they can also clean up the odd spam bot that occasionally posts within the localization forums once a blue moon.

I also don't think the mods can see what's posted within the private forums, nor DMs (i'd love to be proven wrong, if that's the case).

pretty sure it can for private feedbacks, i have reported my own post to be moved to another place and pretty sure it did, while ago, but not 100% sure.

 

[gibnewitems]

pretty sure it can for private feedbacks, i have reported my own post to be moved to another place and pretty sure it did, while ago, but not 100% sure.

PaulM probably did it, considering he's both a mod and a Valve employee.