OFFICIAL: Forum feedback requested

Hey Everyone,


We've been meaning to ask you all what you think of the forum in its current state?

- How easy is navigation around the place for you? e.g. Are there too many sub-forums?

- Are you able to find the necessary information about your questions before you open a thread for your query?

- How about the engagement from staff and moderators? We already touched up on the subject in a different thread but please feel more than welcome to share your thoughts once more! :)

- And, of course, what do you think and feel about the visual design of the forum? Any improvements you would like to see in this aspect?

- If you could change anything about the forum... what would it be?

If we come up with any additional questions as the thread goes, I will add them under an "UPDATE" line. :)


Furthermore I am adding a poll to the thread with some specific options to get some hard numbers as well! Everyone looooves numbers.

Overall I believe that it's not only important to get the numbers but to have a conversation and engage with the people and their thoughts/opinions, thus both a poll and open questions have been included.

:)

Is really nice to see somebody asking about the forum and trying to do something but we need action because for to long forum was left alone by official staff of Nordeus.

I would ask to some questions and add something else:

- How easy is navigation around the place for you? e.g. Are there too many sub-forums?

For me the old format was much better, now we have just to many sub forums, way to many. For example on football I don't think is necessary to have 4 sub-forums, one forum is more then enough, create a sticky thread where you can link the most important threads and that's it, is also pretty much same for the rest.

- Are you able to find the necessary information about your questions before you open a thread for your query?

Technically yes but I guess here is just up to people, they just open a new thread for their needs because is much easier but also to many sub-forums can affect your chances to find the info that you need.

- How about the engagement from staff and moderators? We already touched up on the subject in a different thread but please feel more than welcome to share your thoughts once more!

I will start with the forum moderators (regular players who manage the forum). I think we got at a level where we know pretty much everything and nothing at the same time. In order for us to offer a better help we should be trained more often because just as them we are regular players and sometimes when new changes are coming we pretty much don't know what to say. Otherwise everything is quite OK but expect moderating we can't do very much. Personal I think moderators could do way more for the forum but for that we need a much better communication with the official staff.

Administrators, who are them? Without being rude from the position of a regular player (well not really my case), even an regular forum user have no idea who are the administrators because the activity of admins is basically almost 0. Recently was some activity from 1 admin but there where very long periods of time, talking about full months when nobody said a word. Pretty much only the admins have the real power to change the forum activity. We also need answers from the developers from time to time.


- And, of course, what do you think and feel about the visual design of the forum? Any improvements you would like to see in this aspect?

On a forum is more about content quality I assume so the visual design at the moment is OK. I guess there is place for better but I am happy even with this one.

- If you could change anything about the forum... what would it be?

I would ask the administrators to be more active, create more contests and promote more the forum.




Thanks for opening this thread and I really hope something will start to change here....

Let me approve the thread^^

And pricop and myself.


Now yes, everybody see the thread, so guys feel free to give your opinion and suggest. :cool:

Great moderators and great administrators! Thank you all! You deserve 1,000 tokens for each :-)

I only wish that I could filter out al the subfora that are not English

Hmm, 100 views but only 4 replies.

Well... I my self am for promotions as this will definitely help with forum attentiveness AND may very well spread the word that we *gasp* have an official forum!

More and more people will keep coming back to check up on things and may find threads, or open such, that are in accordance to their interests.

Not promising anything here, just my own two cents on the topic. (The topic I wrote lol)

I'm very new here but since you want feedback, I can give it a go

- How easy is navigation around the place for you? e.g. Are there too many sub-forums?

Considering I was extremely active these days and I haven't seen this thread, I'd say there's a problem.
There are 3 buttons that do pretty much the same thing (What's New, New Posts and Today's Posts) but none of them do what I'm looking for (only list the English threads)
Search options seem to be fine and I mostly find what I'm looking for. Also adding pictures to posts is easy and nice.


- Are you able to find the necessary information about your questions before you open a thread for your query?

Mostly yes, there are also some good stickied posts with links to other stuff.

- How about the engagement from staff and moderators? We already touched up on the subject in a different thread but please feel more than welcome to share your thoughts once more!

There are a few who are constantly online and helpful. I noticed a few moderators who haven't logged in for a while.
If you use the option of moderating new members/content, please have it high in the list of priorities, as from first hand experience, it can be a long wait when you see your thread not showing up yet despite several moderators being online.

- And, of course, what do you think and feel about the visual design of the forum? Any improvements you would like to see in this aspect?

Visually it looks nice, but functionally it could be better. I have a big monitor and right now the actual forum only covers at most 30% of the screen. I'm also typing in a very small box, while there's all this unused space around it (seems like I can only drag it down, instead of to the sides)
I'm also not a fan of signatures with large photos (there could be a pixel limit)

- If you could change anything about the forum... what would it be?

Easy access to recent posts from English subforum (maybe there's already a way and I don't know it)


Thank you and I hope I wasn't too harsh, people here are nice and are doing a great job.

Yeah, I was going to reply to this. Then I forgot.

- How easy is navigation around the place for you? e.g. Are there too many sub-forums?

Looking at the Top Eleven English Forum only, I don't think there are too many sub-forums. I think they all fulfill a purpose. I do however tend to miss out on Announcements and just discovered yesterday there's a Discuss Football section as well :D. I don't think I will use that a lot. The reason I come here is to gain info on the game.

- Are you able to find the necessary information about your questions before you open a thread for your query?

That's a bit hard. One reason is that the search function doesn't work great. For example, searching for a specific formation (eg. 4-1-4-1) doesn't yield any results. But it's not easy to phrase the right question anyway. I think a lot of new topics are being opened because people can't find what they're looking for, and that's another reason. A lot of new topics are being opened, a great deal of them concerning the same issues ("why did my players lose a star?"). Useful topics will drop quickly to page 2 or 3 and will be hard to find again. More moderation on that would be nice, but then we'd have to have a place to point people to (FAQ or other useful topics).

- How about the engagement from staff and moderators?

I think the mod's are doing great but maybe could do more (see above). Lately there's been some involmement by some admins (you and Moi), which I think is a great development.

- And, of course, what do you think and feel about the visual design of the forum? Any improvements you would like to see in this aspect?

No opinion, it's fine by me. ;)

- If you could change anything about the forum... what would it be?

Less topics and a little more organized by stricter moderation.

[QUOTE=Duncton;420388 For example, searching for a specific formation (eg. 4-1-4-1) doesn't yield any results. But it's not easy to phrase the right question anyway.[/QUOTE]

It's true that lots of searches must be for specific formations.
1) A tag function could improve finding formation-specific content
2) A lot of formation discussion is very dated, cleaning up the stickies and updating content would help.

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A lot of new topics are being opened, a great deal of them concerning the same issues ("why did my players lose a star?").

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or about my cup opponent/ why I lost from that team/ is he a cheater ...:p
I agree that general discussion is a little chaotic.
But if threads with the same subject like
cup opponent/ why I lost from that team/ is he a cheater/...
if would be merged, this would help or maybe could make them too chaotic, with 50 pages each.

If General discussion had 10 (for example) sub categories ?
like games/players/cup/CH.L/info/records ...

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Originally Posted by LeManiaque

It's true that lots of searches must be for specific formations.
1) A tag function could improve finding formation-specific content

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Just noticed there is a tag cloud when you go to advanced search. You can even search for specific tags. But then people should use it when opening a new topic. I don't think a lot of people do that.

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Originally Posted by nikolgiorgos

or about my cup opponent/ why I lost from that team/ is he a cheater ...:p
I agree that general discussion is a little chaotic.
But if threads with the same subject like
cup opponent/ why I lost from that team/ is he a cheater/...
if would be merged, this would help or maybe could make them too chaotic, with 50 pages each.

If General discussion had 10 (for example) sub categories ?
like games/players/cup/CH.L/info/records ...

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Could be a solution but that would mean more sub forums. I do get the impression people think there are enough of those already. :p

I've thought about it a bit, but I don't have the solution either. Some things you could do though:

- "My players have lost a star!" -> "It's explained here: point to Jeeves topic (Lost Star). This topic will be closed." -> close topic. It will disappear quickly.
- Rant -> point to / merge with Vent thread
- Lot's of topics about not honouring token offers and vid's not working -> move to Bugs & Technical
- How do I recognize a fast trainer -> point to / merge with your guide

- Or maybe opening new topics could be discouraged a bit (emphasize on search first)

- Or maybe you need a newbee section where players up to level 3? / 5? can ask (and get answers to) their "newbee" questions (with some useful topics stickied, like Lost Star).

One recent example (nothing personal). This one:
http://forum.topeleven.com/top-eleve...am-member.html
could have been posted here:
http://forum.topeleven.com/top-eleve...-gone-mad.html

Which is a great read anyway and shouldn't get lost.

Exactly what I wanted to see!!! :D

Thanks for replying everyone! Keep it coming, we're taking notes here. :)

Some bullet points:
- Clean up the place!!! Lot's of old threads, some actually being out of date to what the game is atm.
- I'm sharing the view about the sub-forums. (I may be an admin but I'm fairly new here as well as you may have noticed. It's a bit chaotic for sure!)
- Try to educate newcomers. i.e: Explain how the advanced search function works, and to search before posting new threads.
Which brings me to:
- Check that adv. search function and start making use of the tags!

Thanks for the continuous participation. :)

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- Or maybe you need a newbee section where players up to level 3? / 5? can ask (and get answers to) their "newbee" questions

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Yes, that's what I was talking about for sub categories in General disc.
"Wiki" questions for example
http://forum.topeleven.com/top-eleve...e-no-gift.html

Quote:

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One recent example (nothing personal). This one:
AM the least useful team member
could have been posted here:
assistant manager gone mad

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I agree with you, but ...

this thread http://forum.topeleven.com/top-eleve...deo-bonus.html
has the same subject with this which is fresh
http://forum.topeleven.com/bugs-tech...-training.html, among the first ones in Bugs section.

Why someone is making this as new thread ?

He doesn't read or care about other threads, just want a solution for his problem ?
He just like to start new threads believing that it's more important instead of adding a post in an older one ?
Starting a new thread, he believes that it 'll attract more views and answers ?
He prefer to start a thread because he can find it more easy (looking at his profile/threads) ?
Who knows.

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A lot of new topics are being opened, a great deal of them concerning the same issues ("why did my players lose a star?"). Useful topics will drop quickly to page 2 or 3 and will be hard to find again. More moderation on that would be nice,

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But we, the mods, don't have the specific "training"/"guidance" (?) to decide when we must merge threads or not.
* in this, or lttle more complicated threads.

So maybe will be good idea do a thread in some place to explain how to search and how to use tags in order to help the search engine easily....

ex: #441 #323w2 #counterformations #fcbayernmunchen

xD

In some cases of merge posts that are repetitive is true that, as with the complains we can bring people to the vent thread, we can re-direct managerts to related posts but then can be complicated track the monthly complains and so as we need to search for months and this is not so simple...

Myabe some cases like the associations issue, were people can not see the match yes, we can at this point just use the same thread and let the new closed to do a easy count of complaisn and bugs and so.... even if is just doing a copy paste of the thread to the main thread and invite the manager to use the main... well, more or less xD

Edited;

Maybe too... there are 8 sticky posts in the general discussion subforum...
this for example can go to tutorials and guides as sticky, as is a common question and helps:
http://forum.topeleven.com/top-eleve...-level-up.html

Others I don't know what to do... I see the one with Useful threads with initially 2 links, and then a long list that Nik did lol

Maybe we can edit this and keep the lists of links but, as Ive said in the first lines we can talk there about how to use the search engine and tags. A educational post, keeping the/a "Index". I always like to do index to a better order.

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then a long list that Nik did lol

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i did a lot of job there you know.
I searched back almost all the forum, I used threads I had as bookmarked in my browser (so warn me before delete it - LOL).
For example you can find there the limit of the fans per level.
How else can a new member can find it ? With "search" button ?
Or going back 50 pages ?
No, he 'll start a new thread/question , lol

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Originally Posted by nikolgiorgos

i did a lot of job there you know.
I searched back almost all the forum, I used threads I had as bookmarked in my browser (so warn me before delete it - LOL).
For example you can find there the limit of the fans per level.
How else can a new member can find it ? With "search" button ?
Or going back 50 pages ?
No, he 'll start a new thread/question , lol

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Well is true that, there is a lot of info.... repetitive threads so when a newcomer comes here seems complicated search, and find a "actual thread between all the threads created in years" ...so is more easy open a new. lol

My idea as mentiones is not delete the list you did, is keep it and edit the initial post in order to have too, a "How to use the forum tools guide" ...all can be more easy with tags and so, but, as said, the psichollogy makes a lot and people want "ask from 0 and see a mentor/master" teaching them many times. Is called emphatize or something like this, wich is not bad if you don't find a troll master xDDD

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Why someone is making this as new thread ?

He doesn't read or care about other threads, just want a solution for his problem ?
He just like to start new threads believing that it's more important instead of adding a post in an older one ?
Starting a new thread, he believes that it 'll attract more views and answers ?
He prefer to start a thread because he can find it more easy (looking at his profile/threads) ?
Who knows.

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or maybe because he got a new GK :p
http://forum.topeleven.com/top-eleve...-question.html
http://forum.topeleven.com/top-eleve...rsion-%3B.html
I mean, they are ....

We want some answers from the administrators for "difficult" subjects , where mods or older members cannot answer
like this
http://forum.topeleven.com/top-eleve...tml#post420580

not easy questions like why I didn't get an extra gift
http://forum.topeleven.com/top-eleve...e-no-gift.html
this was already answered.

Also more help about techical stuff and problems.
Like why X2 training bonus sometimes is workin and sometimes not ?
At least there are some answers and help activity lately.

We've been discussing of creating a thread(s) among the lines of "Ask the developers" where we will be gathering community questions and directly addressing them to the devs, either regularly or at certain times. (Fully depends on volume of questions that we receive)

As I commented on this notion here, I will also say it in this thread - We support this idea.

There's a lot in the works atm. :)

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In regards to the request to have answers from the developers - This is something we've been discussing and we think it's a very good thing!

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Great !

Τhere could be a better way of organize the Bugs section.
I mean there must be a sticky thread with all the recent bugs so someone can find them, identify his problem and the solution (if there is one).
Every while, someone from TE should check this thread and make an update.

So, in General Discussion it's this
http://forum.topeleven.com/top-eleve...-help-wtf.html

in Bugs it's this
http://forum.topeleven.com/bugs-tech...ake-offer.html

and in Greek forum it's this
http://forum.topeleven.com/%CE%A3%CF...%B5%CF%82.html

and I think there is another one in Spanish forum with the same subject.

* it's about that we can't make an offer to players from nego list.
There is no solution yet.

@Niko

Wanted to do this for a long time so I'm actually compiling a "Known issues" thread at this very moment.

I want the people to be informed as to what is known and worked on in regards to bugs.

Will post it tomorrow though - I am communicating with our support team and the tech. department to make sure that everything included in the thread is 100% confirmed. :)

Im on my mobile so sorry i can't quote the questions.

In my opinion the forum needs a lot of improvements, some technical and some behaviourial. I will start with the technical suggestions:

- There are many language subforums currently that make everything confusing. Why not instead create a forum each for the most active languages and maybe group together the rest? For example something like en.topeleven.com/forums for the english language and so on.

- The captcha is too restrictive in my opinion and is not needed at all in some situations. Why does it have to appear with the first search? making it appear after a number of tries will be much user friendly.

- The search function could do with some tweaking. If i remember correctly it sometimes returns "your search returned many hits" or something like that and asks you to narrow down your key word. Why not show the most relevant 50 hits and leave the rest? Surely returning something is better than asking me to search again and solve a captcha and so on. I remeber i made two searches before giving up and using google.

- As mentioned by others the forums need much cleaning. Its very confusing to know what currently applies to the game and what has been changed.

Among the behaviorial suggestions are:

- Active moderation of the forums. Merge, move, delete topics with notes explaining why and eventually people will learn.

- Courtesy to some forumers. Moderators should feel like representatives of top eleven.

Updating of forum moderators and giving moderators acces to special forums where they can chat about forum moderation but also exchange views with top eleven. It doesnt look serious reading your own forum moderators complaints in the general forums.

Im on my phone, sorry if i sound arrogant or what, i have to keep it short.

In regards to my last post - "Known Technical Issues / Bugs / Glitches" thread opened in the "Bugs and Technical Issues" forum. I will continue to moderate this thread and update it accordingly as time goes.
I'm actively in contact with our tech. department and the support team in order to keep track of the issues.

@sparklinginsilence - You definitely don't sound arrogant, on the contrary, that's some well written feedback. Thank you for which.

You bring some really good points of interest and your opinion seems to be shared among most of the rest. I my self have similar thoughts as to what needs to be done around this place.

There's a LOT of work to be done but nothing unfeasible, surely. :)