Suggestion for Suggestions board ..
It's been fairly quiet around here for a while, so I just wondered if it was worth starting a discussion about the possibility of a forum in order to toss around ideas and suggestions to improve GL sites from the structure/workings point of view. I realise that we have the Uservoice feedback/suggestions site, but because it's seperate I think it sometimes tends to be forgotten about and I'm wondering if we need some place here to link into conversations and suggestions there.
For those who don't know .. GL has a seperate site where each user gains 10 "votes". You can use up to 3 votes on each suggestion.
You use the site to make suggestions for things you'd like to see implemented into your site (not bug fixes or to deal with troubleshooting) and see what other suggestions have been made by other users.
Those suggestions that get lots of votes (or perhaps are a "quick fix") are more likely to be implemented. Obviously there are times when suggestions cannot be implemented for one reason or another - but plenty of other times the only reason it's not available is because no-one thought of it.
So, for example, I've made the following suggestions over the years (bearing in mind I'm a World of Warcraft player, so all of my suggestions come from that "angle" but may well affect other games/sites too):
The ability to import in-game calendar events into the calendar on our site. (Enable guild members to view events that are in the calendar in-game, on our website, without the need to manually enter them).
Guild roster tracking on the website (track changes over time to your roster - increases/decreases in characters/members, etc).
Add an option for an "if/then" question in the application form. (for example, ask a question, and then IF they answer "yes" then they get another question, IF they answer "no" they don't - ie "do you want to raid with us .. if they answer "yes" then ask "list previous raiding experience", otherwise skip that question).
Add more options in relation to dealing with applications. This specific one is related to applications where we've not been able to immediately reject or accept, but have asked for further information and are awaiting a response. However, I do feel the applications process could do with an overhaul. For example, we often have applicants where we accept their application, but then they change their mind. I'd like to change "accepted" to "closed", but once you've accepted an application you can't then change it,
I'd also like to be able to amend application posts when they're shown on the forums. For example to lock the thread, I need to edit the application post .. but doing that completely throws out the formatting.
It would also be good to have a setting BEYOND "accepted" to change the status to "JOINED" - that way I can tell who is outstanding waiting for an invite. Admittedly I could simply change the heading of the forum post with the application in .. but again that mucks with the formatting.
Report Post & Like Buttons on Forums. The ability to report posts to admin (especially on support forums, for spam posts) and improvements to the like/dislike buttons.
Sub-sub-forums. I see someone else suggested this a while back (and I'd mentioned it direct not long ago). It would be nice for this to be implemented. For example we have forums for raiding, so our forum structure is:
Section Headings (Officer Forums, *Member Forums, Public Forums)
Forum names (General Discussions, *Raiding, PvP, Class Guides, Addons, Absences)
Sub Forums (*Boss Tactics, Guild Raids)
What I'd like to be able to do, is then create another set of sub-forums related to raid instances. Currently we have a thread for each boss, in each raid, all muddled together. So if someone comments on a boss fight from a previous raid tier, it could easily end up being at the top of the forum over the tactics discussions for the current tier.
So ideally sub-sub Forum (Antorus, Nighthold, Emerald Nightmare, etc) .. each one then with a thread discussing individual bosses, and potentially an additional one for discussing the raid in general (how to get there, ilevel requirements, etc)
*is the related forum/section.