778 réponses à ce sujet

[David7204]

Apparently, quite a few people here have little to no grasp of one of the most basic tenets of statistics.

Let's think for a moment. Who are the people most likely to post on a thread discussing proposed changes to the BSN? The people concerned with the proposed changes, obviously. Thus, any thread discussing such a topic will obviously be enormously biased to represent people who care about the topic compared to those who don't.

So attempting to portray a thread like this as indicative of "unanimously negative reception in open, public discussion" is really just very, very silly. And more importantly, utterly wrong.

Modifié par David7204, 17 novembre 2013 - 11:15 .

[Cainhurst Crow]

So what you are saying david is that because participation isn't mandatory and the only people responding in the thread are those who have an active interest in the changes, they shouldn't be taken seriously at all?

How undemocratic.

And as someone who frequents these forums as much as I do, I find the removing of 4 different features from this site, albums in particular, though the others are all probably very significant to various people in different combinations, to be questionable for the improvement of the site.

Streamlining perhaps, saving cost as well. But imporvement? That is a strech by many definitions. Especially when none of the features being phased out appear to have any plans to be improved and introduced later. Simply cut out of the equation.

Modifié par Darth Brotarian, 18 novembre 2013 - 12:31 .

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Darth Brotarian wrote...

So what you are saying david is that because participation isn't mandatory and the only people responding in the thread are those who have an active interest in the changes, they shouldn't be taken seriously at all?

How undemocratic.

And as someone who frequents these forums as much as I do, I find the removing of 4 different features from this site, albums in particular, though the others are all probably very significant to various people in different combinations, to be questionable for the improvement of the site.

Streamlining perhaps, saving cost as well. But imporvement? That is a strech by many definitions. Especially when none of the features being phased out appear to have any plans to be improved and introduced later. Simply cut out of the equation.

Along with little more than a promise for 'new' and 'exciting' features that will come at an unspecified later point in time. 

Really, I think David is holding a contrary opinion to a hold a contrary opinions now. Unless he can explain why he thinks the removal of these features is a good thing?

There's no source or posting on BW's part of how they came to their conclusion that this is what the community wanted. BW is simply saying the community has said this content is expendable due to feedback from an unspecified source that seems to contradict what most people here seem to support.

My personal opinion is, where are these supposed people who support the removal of these features? What part of the community wants this? Seems that the most active, most vocal, most involved members of the community are completely against these changes. Why are the passive, silent, and non-participating lurker majority  (who went through the trouble to create an account just to vote on a poll or reply to a forum wide survey or what have you that none of the active users knew about) being catered to instead of the people who have a vested interest in the site? I'm not saying that is the case, but with this statement of 'feedback from the community leading to these changes' it definitely seems to be that way from my own perspectve. I think that they're just using HR speak again to explain why, due to budget cuts, they have to cut these features and thin out the site. I don't know why they can't just be honest with us (which is a disturbing problem I've personally felt is an issue with BW for the last 3 years almost) and resort to lying. Sure, people aren't going to be happy, but they'll be a lot more understanding about it than they are when you say things like "Thanks for the positive feedback everyone! In accordance with your desires, we're going to cut several social features from this social network site. But don't worry, we have new, exciting features that are in development! They will be implemented soon!" 

Modifié par MassivelyEffective0730, 18 novembre 2013 - 12:48 .

[Sanunes]

AresKeith wrote...

Or it's the obvious fact that are being removed as a cost cutting measure, but instead of saying that they claim it to be "feedback" from the community

I am not sure why you are so skeptical that it isn't based on what they took from the community. They have the thread from here dated five months ago and unless my memory serves they had a survey they told us about (and maybe even sent out an email notification). If people didn't rate those features very high on their priorities on the BSN it is based on feedback. Sometimes companies will take actions as feedback as well for the user is telling them what they are interested in by their actions, so a large portion of people not making use of those areas of the BSN could be something they are considering as feedback as well.

There will always be a cost measure to things, but I doubt its just that for if they had a large number of visitors making use of the impacted sections of these boards I am pretty sure they wouldn't be in the process of locking them even if the cost was high.

[David7204]

Darth Brotarian wrote...

So what you are saying david is that because participation isn't mandatory and the only people responding in the thread are those who have an active interest in the changes, they shouldn't be taken seriously at all?

I'm saying that claiming that BioWare's statistics are wrong on the basis of 'this is a thread full of people who don't like it' is really stupid.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

David7204 wrote...

Darth Brotarian wrote...

So what you are saying david is that because participation isn't mandatory and the only people responding in the thread are those who have an active interest in the changes, they shouldn't be taken seriously at all?

I'm saying that claiming that BioWare's statistics are wrong on the basis of 'this is a thread full of people who don't like it' is really stupid.

Then where are the people supporting it? I've seen no one who had more than mild contentment with the changes here throughout this entire thread. 

[David7204]

I don't think anyone really 'supports' less features, because the benefits are pretty much intangible to users. But I'm certain there's a very great deal of people who don't care.

[AresKeith]

Sanunes wrote...

AresKeith wrote...

Or it's the obvious fact that are being removed as a cost cutting measure, but instead of saying that they claim it to be "feedback" from the community

I am not sure why you are so skeptical that it isn't based on what they took from the community. They have the thread from here dated five months ago and unless my memory serves they had a survey they told us about (and maybe even sent out an email notification). If people didn't rate those features very high on their priorities on the BSN it is based on feedback. Sometimes companies will take actions as feedback as well for the user is telling them what they are interested in by their actions, so a large portion of people not making use of those areas of the BSN could be something they are considering as feedback as well.

There will always be a cost measure to things, but I doubt its just that for if they had a large number of visitors making use of the impacted sections of these boards I am pretty sure they wouldn't be in the process of locking them even if the cost was high.

I hardly see how removing features regardless of how many of the users actually use them is an "improvement"

And if this truely is a result of "feedback from the community" then this falls under the category of Bioware's "if they don't like it remove it instead of improve it." That plagues their games

[MassivelyEffective0730]

David7204 wrote...

I don't think anyone really 'supports' less features, because the benefits are pretty much intangible to users. But I'm certain there's a very great deal of people who don't care.

And the people that don't care would go out of their way to say they don't care matter more why? The people that don't care wouldn't care about the site changes one way or the other. 

So how does that lead to the people who don't care coming out and voicing their opinions in support of the change make them not care?

No, I think BW is being misleading without reason, when all they really have to say (if it's the case, as I suspect) that due to budget issues, maintaining the site as it is is simply not economical anymore and that certain features will need to be excised to cut costs. 

[David7204]

I have no idea what you're trying to say. The people who don't care don't post anything at all. They matter more because they're far more numerous.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

David7204 wrote...

I have no idea what you're trying to say. The people who don't care don't post anything at all. They matter more because they're far more numerous.

So the people who don't express their opinion have somehow expressed their opinion to BW how?

If they don't care and don't post anything, how does BW know their opinion?

How is their opinion, that they don't express, of any value?

Without value of their opinion (that they don't express), how do they matter?

Please inform me how you came to this conclusion Mr. Nixon.

Modifié par MassivelyEffective0730, 18 novembre 2013 - 01:12 .

[dreamgazer]

David7204 wrote...

The people who don't care don't post anything at all. They matter more because they're far more numerous.

The people who express nothing matter more?  Really?

[David7204]

dreamgazer wrote...

David7204 wrote...

The people who don't care don't post anything at all. They matter more because they're far more numerous.

The people who express nothing matter more?  Really?

If your concern is numbers, yes. Really. You might consider the fact that expressing no opinion is not the same as having no opinion.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

David7204 wrote...

dreamgazer wrote...

David7204 wrote...

The people who don't care don't post anything at all. They matter more because they're far more numerous.

The people who express nothing matter more?  Really?

If your concern is numbers, yes. Really. You might consider the fact that expressing no opinion is not the same as having no opinion.

We're not mindreaders like you David, so you're going to have to explain how people who express no opinion are really any different from people with no opinion.

Neither express their opinion. Therefor, their opinion really does not matter. As I said, we can't just pull out our 8 Balls and Oujia Boards and determine that the guys who aren't voicing their opinion really feels this way or that on a matter. It's up to them to tell us. And if they don't tell us what their opinion is, they're telling us that their opinion doesn't matter.

Have you ever heard of the rational ignorance effect in democratic voting? And how it ties into Voter apathy?

Modifié par MassivelyEffective0730, 18 novembre 2013 - 01:36 .

[Allan Schumacher]

MassivelyEffective0730 wrote...

Then where are the people supporting it? I've seen no one who had more than mild contentment with the changes here throughout this entire thread. 

I don't share my PM history publicly.


PRECURSORY CLARIFICATION: I don't know where Jessica receives all of her information to fuel this request.

What I am seeing, however, is stuff like this:

My personal opinion is, where are these supposed people who support the removal of these features?

If you're looking for opinions that say "Please remove all of these" you probably won't find any.  However, if they give a list of grievances for what they dislike about the BSN (or, in the case of some that definitely won't be posting here because they feel chased away by the BSN - such feedback would be received in other places and certainly less publicly), it IS possible that upon further investigation by Jessica and her team that these complaints find themselves manifesting a lot in a certain way and in certain locations.

My earlier post briefly hinted at some aspects of the social aspects of the site that make me feel very uncomfortable and how they can introduce additional, and unnecessary, drama into a foray into the newsfeed.


Note, for my 2 cents, I have no beef with an off topic forum either.  Some stuff just ends up straying and it's a useful place for some discussions to happen.  Every game forum I have been a part of still has one, as well as a general gaming section as well.

[Inquisitor Recon]

People feel "chased away" by albums, polls, and projects?

I find the notion that this stuff is being removed because a few people complained (vs the bulk who like it or don't care) more offensive than it being just a matter of budget and time. If these complaints were the issue wouldn't solutions like improving the feed activity filter make more sense than cutting features entirely?

[ElitePinecone]

AresKeith wrote...

Or it's the obvious fact that are being removed as a cost cutting measure, but instead of saying that they claim it to be "feedback" from the community

They're spending time and money developing a new site, it says right there in the first post. 

And what is the issue exactly with cost-cutting when it involves expensive, bandwidth-heavy features that few people actually use? They're not a charity, after all, and there's no obligation to provide a service for what is essentially a small minority of the BSN's total userbase. 

[HiroVoid]

I always found the PM harassment weird since I was under the impression that you could simply block the user which would block any incoming PMs. In fact, I thought that was basically the only thing the block feature did. If people were using multiple user profiles to do this then, then yeah. That's more understandable.

[Allan Schumacher]

Inquisitor Recon wrote...

People feel "chased away" by albums, polls, and projects?

Or they help manifest bad things and are non-trivial to fix for reasons beyond me?  This probably applies less to projects, however.

I
find the notion that this stuff is being removed because a few people
complained (vs the bulk who like it or don't care) more offensive than
it being just a matter of budget and time. If these complaints were the
issue wouldn't solutions like improving the feed activity filter make
more sense than cutting features entirely?

NOTE: Speculation parts because I don't work with the online team
It'd depend on how much effort it'd take to fix it.  It doesn't take much to see that a lot of the social features of the web site are subpar, especially compares to a lot of other social sites.

But that starts to become a rabbit hole, especially when looking at opportunity costs for applying manpower (i.e. how much should it compete with the effort being put into, the Keep for Dragon Age, for example?).  Never mind if there may be infrastructural issues that I'm oblivious to as well.


For example, as a programmer I once worked on the ScriptEase project through the University of Alberta.  While we were able to do the things that the grad students needed to do for their research, eventually (due to a rotation of interns and whatnot, myself included)  it was concluded that it'd be ideal to just rebuild it from the ground up.  (Clarification: No, I'm not saying the BSN is going to get rebuilt from the ground up...)

[Allan Schumacher]

I always found the PM harassment weird since I was under the impression that you could simply block the user which would block any incoming PMs. In fact, I thought that was basically the only thing the block feature did. If people were using multiple user profiles to do this then, then yeah. That's more understandable.

Alt account circumvention to blocking was a huge issue not too long ago.

[MerAnne]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

NOTE: Speculation parts because I don't work with the online team
It'd depend on how much effort it'd take to fix it.  It doesn't take much to see that a lot of the social features of the web site are subpar, especially compares to a lot of other social sites.

But that starts to become a rabbit hole, especially when looking at opportunity costs for applying manpower (i.e. how much should it compete with the effort being put into, the Keep for Dragon Age, for example?).  Never mind if there may be infrastructural issues that I'm oblivious to as well.

For me it comes down to the way it was announced and the short time frame before it happens (Read-Only).  I have to deal with people who try to put a positive spin on things every day.  And it is incredibly rare that the 'positive spin' even comes close to anything resembling the truth regardless of the best intentions of the spinner.  Stating that this is something that was asked for and implying that there would be something bright and shiny to replace it .  That was pure spin. :wizard:Stating that projects should go elsewhere even though there is no 'elsewhere' for some of them.  OK, that wasn't spin doctoring that was just a total departure from reality.

The truth would have been a nice departure from the spin technique.     

[ElitePinecone]

I definitely agree that harsher moderation needs to be a priority. There are truly awful people who seem to spend every waking hour of their life on here being toxic, and regular bans don't seem to be changing that behaviour.

There might be an argument that the ecosystem of features outside the forums encourages some of those toxic people to stick around and become more toxic, though. Some of the super-hardcore people barely seem to post on the actual Bioware games forums, and just bicker about stuff on other parts of the BSN.

[Chashan]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I always found the PM harassment weird since I was under the impression that you could simply block the user which would block any incoming PMs. In fact, I thought that was basically the only thing the block feature did. If people were using multiple user profiles to do this then, then yeah. That's more understandable.

Alt account circumvention to blocking was a huge issue not too long ago.

And introducing a toggle for individual users bothered this way to block PMs by anyone who is not a mutual friend of theirs wouldn't have been the more reasonable step here?

No need to answer in detail, Mr Schumacher, you did point out that you are not with the maintenance-crew for the site.