Weekly Discussion #30 - Discord Reorganization

Deribus

The FAF Discord has become kind of inflated and chaotic with the sheer amount of channels, so I'm experimenting around with reorganizing some of them with Discord's new threads feature.

Here are some screenshots:

You should be able to opt in to the new threads, and makes it visually easier to find a channel instead of the current block of text.

There are also some miscellaneous changes. There's a new casts channel where casters can post things they've grabbed from #replays-to-cast. The various "meetup" channels have been collapsed into #pvp-games, and #gameplay-and-training has been split to have a separate training channel for replay reviews and things like that.

Unfortunately we can't turn a channel into a thread, so we'd have to archive the existing channels. Here's a list of those:

How do you feel about these potential changes? Anything else you'd like me to move/reorganize?

MadMax

archive these 2 as well (thats the unused submission forum)

MadMax

This post is deleted!

FtXCommando

Splitting gameplay and training in a reorganization based to remove clutter makes 0 sense, I don’t even know the difference between the two and I’m just gonna use both channels for the same thing anyway. Some mod is gonna tell you to move the convo cuz he’s the only one that knows the difference but nobody cares. Like what exactly is gameplay discussion that isn't covered by training or the new balance channel? Either you're looking to change something about the game or you're looking to understand it.

Also cannot comprehend why you would make the entire idea of “training” into a thread and therefore make it impossible for anybody to ever make a thread to review a replay.

Rowey

I mean with the new discord update you can hide channels out of view that you don't don't want to see which is surprising nice,

magge

I think this will be a good time to throw in some suggestion about changes to the tech channel:

We can make use of Discord's thread function. The user can create separate threads for each issue in the technical-help channel, and we can collect common solutions, add them to a sticky list, or create a new forum FAQ thread. This will make it easier to track issues and improve communication.

Make the technical-help channel a main landing page with an easy-to-follow guide (a simple image I guess) on creating threads, describing issues, and attaching logs. A new channel "Latest Issues" could be added under the main landing page to show all threads. This will make it easier to follow issues compared to the current layout of the tech channel.

Also, we can see which issue is currently in trend and needs extra attention.

Example for layout: https://i.imgur.com/hmf9pye.png

Edit:

The current workflow is this https://i.imgur.com/KL5MHiX.png

And it is getting quite confusing having several pings between different issues and random text noise. It works for a very small user base, but with FAF growing, it needs to be more professional.

Anachronism_

@deribus said in Weekly Discussion #30 - Discord Reorganization:

How do you feel about these potential changes?

I think these potential changes would be a mistake and I am against them. If you try to replace the regular channels with threads, the result will presumably be that they will be used a lot less and be much harder to find. I'd much rather stick with the current system. With the system you propose, I think we'd end up with a decent portion of people not noticing and or forgetting about many of the threads, and just being less likely to use them in general. And then we'd presumably see some combination of the remaining channels being more cluttered with more disparate conversations and or a decrease in FAF Discord use. I think the result would actually be less organized and less active than what we have now. If you want to make more channels opt-in or opt-out via the roles system, that might be a good idea, but I think the use-case of threads seems more consistent with more temporary offshoot conversations than long-term channels.

Also, replay reviews tend to naturally flow into gameplay and training concepts in general. Separating those to a new channel seems like it would unnecessarily result in gameplay and training discussions taking place in both channels without a clear enough distinction between them, and it would add channel clutter too.

Anything else you'd like me to move/reorganize?

Some ideas:

Make it so most channels can be opted out of.
Make the maps and mods channels not hidden behind the mapper/modder roles. (Presently, many of the users who join the server don't get the mapper/modder roles, and don't realize those channels exist, but could be itnerested in mapping/modding information and discussion. A number of people who aren't mappers/modders end up getting those roles just to see those channels.)
Add a client-suggestions channel or a more generalized suggestions channel for non-gameplay things.
Remove write-access and ticket functionality for the FAF Association Discord section for users who have been in the server for less than 15 minutes.
Add a #looking-for-game channel and a #looking-for-group channel. (The #under-300-meetup, #under-800-meetup, #under-1300-meetup, #under-1800-meetup, and #over-1800-meetup channels could potentially be removed/archived if this happens.)
Remove/archive the no longer used channels of #campaign-general, #community-game-night, #magnum-dong, and the matchmaker-submissions Discord forum (keep the regular #matchmaker-submissions channel).

maudlin27

I like some of the proposed changes (tidying up no longer used channels, consolidating the ‘looking for game’ channels) but Im not keen on discord threads. This is mainly due to how discord has implemented them as I find it easy to overlook a thread’s existence and only see the main channels. What about using channel groupings instead of having one channel but multiple threads (eg instead of a faf channel With threads for things like gameplay, faf memes, etc you just have separate channels for gameplay and faf memes but under a ‘faf’ channel grouping)

Giebmasse

@penguin_ said in Weekly Discussion #30 - Discord Reorganization:

Remove write-access and ticket functionality for the FAF Association Discord section for users who have been in the server for less than 15 minutes.

New members must already be on the server for 10 min in order to post anywhere or PM someone.

Anachronism_

I think applying an additional 5 minute wait to that section only would reduce the amount of posts from new users who misunderstand and post there for things that should be discussed elsewhere.

ThomasHiatt

I do not participate in the FAF discord, so it should be deleted.

SpikeyNoob

@thomashiatt i agree!

The_Janitor

@ftxcommando said in Weekly Discussion #30 - Discord Reorganization:

Splitting gameplay and training in a reorganization based to remove clutter makes 0 sense

Gameplay for talk about balance, units, tactics, maps, roles...

Training for delicated time to train people who wish it...

To me it makes sense since there is often a blurry line between training, gameplay and shitposting in a channel that it is ment (at least how i see it) to help players get better at the game.

I approve the discord cleanup, keep it comming.

FtXCommando

Gameplay for talk about balance

balance discussion channel

units

if it’s changing units, balance discussion channel
if it’s using units, it’s training

tactics

literally the definition of training

maps

yeah that’s training

roles

learning how to read a map is training

If these are gameplay just delete the training channel cuz then that’s pointless lol

haifron

I don't really get the point of this, that's the same amount of chats, just some are now threads which imho aren't as nice to use & are easy to miss in my experience. You can already hide or mute channels you don't care about, and search for the channel you want with ctrl+k so I find the discord in general pretty easy to parse & navigate as is.

I think magge's tech channel idea is really good though, that format's been really nice to use in other servers.

Deribus

I see the threads idea is unpopular and there are valid criticisms, so I'll scrap that for now. I'll also play around with incorporating some of the ideas posted here.

The idea behind splitting gameplay and training is that there's a dedicated area for trainers to interact with trainees, and then gameplay is a less formal/rigorous space to talk. This warrants more discussion though and I've asked the training team whether this would be preferable.

Are there any complaints about removing #balance-discussion in favor of individual threads on each suggestion or about merging all the pvp rating channels?

Tagada

I don't think balance discusion should be scrapped. It's not used solely for discussig balance suggestions.

Changing the suggestions channel format is a good idea, I was just too lazy to do it.

Anachronism_

@deribus said in Weekly Discussion #30 - Discord Reorganization:

Are there any complaints about removing #balance-discussion in favor of individual threads on each suggestion or about merging all the pvp rating channels?

What you say the pvp rating channels, do you just mean #under-300-meetup, #under-800-meetup, #under-1300-meetup, #under-1800-meetup, and #over-1800-meetup or something else?

Yes, #balance-discussion is desirable to have in combination with a thread-spawning #balance-suggestions channel, where #balance-discussion is for more general vand varied discussions regarding balance and the #balance-suggestions channel is basically just a list of suggestions where each suggestion can be made into a thread that would have relevant discussion.

Deribus

@penguin_ said in Weekly Discussion #30 - Discord Reorganization:

What you say the pvp rating channels, do you just mean #under-300-meetup, #under-800-meetup, #under-1300-meetup, #under-1800-meetup, and #over-1800-meetup or something else?

Yup, those

Deribus

Been busy with work lately but V2 is finally ready for your judgement!

Primary changes here are:

Removal of the thread channels
Reorganizing the existing General and Topics categories into FAF and Off-Topic
Splitting of #replays-to-cast with an addition of #replays-been-cast as per caster suggestion
Splitting of #gameplay-and-training into #gameplay, #training, and #replay-review as per training team suggestion (testing and open to change)
Condensing mapping and modding channels into a single category (name is a placeholder)
Moved the roles category up as most users won't see it anyway and those channels are important for those that do
Technical Support is getting a forum. @Rowey Is working on setting that part up

Still TBD:

May remove Random-Map-Gen category and most of its channels
The existing roles channel access has been integrated into a new Discord feature called Onboarding. I still need to investigate in more detail how it works, whether it would be an improvement over our current process, and whether it would require all existing users to re-onboard upon implementation