This is the second version of this thread. The first one was locked for having gone off topic.
And rightly so, in hindsight, and I'll be the first to admit that I contributed to that.
Lacuna stated the thread had been forwarded to Tess and we would be provided with an update if there was any new information.
But since nothing has happened in the month since and my ticket from almost two months ago is still unanswered I think it would be adequate to repost this suggestion thread to give people once more a way to discuss what can be changed or improved regarding admin-player communication.
Please remember that this is not a place to vent about suggestions of yours that haven't been addressed. It is not a place to talk about what could be done to "revive" Chicken Smoothie. This is not a place to vent.
This thread's purpose is to talk about ideas about how to improve the admin's communication with their players and how they could show us that we are being seen and heard. Talk about what you've seen work for other websites or discuss suggestions made by other players.
Please try to keep to the rules so this thread doesn't have to be locked again.
Statistics from the first poll:
I agree it would be nice if the admin team could provide feedback. 82 votes - 63%
I think feedback would be a good thing, but the admins shouldn't feel pressured to give feedback. 35 votes - 27%
I don't think the admins need to give feedback at all. 4 votes - 3%
I want to see the results. 10 votes - 8%
This suggestion is slightly inspired by ElementalInsanity's Suggestion to have extra coders for more updates and .Wolfrin.'s suggestion to Advertise The Site in the extent that I, along with several other users, agree that the site definitely needs to change something. Nothing ever changes here and it shows. Users are frustrated. The record for the most active users was set in 2017.
But there are several suggestions dealing with changes.
My biggest problem is that it appears staff doesn't really care at all.
You've given us this suggestion forum but nothing happens here. No one gives feedback. There are posts that are several years old [or from freaking 2014] and have tens of pages of support and not a single member of the admin team has shown up and given an opinion. Not a simple "We'll consider it" or "We like that idea, let's see if we can implement it" or "Right now we don't have the resources but maybe in the future" or anything at all.
I checked.
There's a masterlist of the most popular suggestions but even there it just says what can't be done and what's active.
There's no indication as to whether any of those suggestions will ever become reality.
A game I play marks the title if they discuss something and mark it differently when they are planning to implement something. They also have masterlists for things they like and are probably coming in the future.
I know the admins are busy and I appreciate the work they do, but I think it could be feasible for one of them to look through this thread once a month or every few months or even once a year, and give some feedback on whether you're actually thinking about our input or if we're wasting our time.
Because that's honestly what it feels like.
I hope this doesn't sound too mean but it's frustrating when you love a site and have spent years on it only to see it slowly wither and die.
Every year is the same. Same species, same events, same all.
And you want to improve it, you have great ideas, your friends love those ideas, even strangers love them, so you post them in the place you are told great ideas go and the idea is still great and no one could care less.
And you know a lot of people think the site is dying slowly, so many that staff must have heard, and to you it seems like the admin team isn't really interested in the site anymore, because even if there are new monthly pets there are no changes and the lack of feedback makes you they don't even want changes.
So, in short, my suggestion is this:
Please find a way to give feedback to suggestions, even if it's short or doesn't make any promises.
Anything is better than the feeling of being ignored.
14-04-20 Edit:
I have sent the admin team a ticket on April 8th asking them to read this thread and kindly address it either in a reply to my ticket, or, ideally as a post in this thread for everyone to read. As of yet, there hasn't been an answer.
Also, Tailish [thank you very much!] has summarized the thread and compiled a list of concrete suggestions / requests that you are very welcome to discuss or refine. Any input is appreciated!
Tailish wrote: 1. Tell us how the system works
Frequent readers of this thread, or the suggestion forum as a whole, know by now that mods and general helpers do not respond as CS representatives on this forum. This is not immediately clear for people who are new to CS or new to the forum, especially since mods do help in filtering out threads that either aren't constructive or are repetitive. Provide clear explanations of who can do what. For example, state clearly in one of the stickies that only admins can respond on behalf of the site, or something along these lines.
Furthermore, if there is already a staff policy on how to process suggestions, tell us the bare bones of how it works. Does a mod read over this forum and pass on useful ideas? Is this what the directory is for? Do Nick and Tess simply browse about once in a while to see what's happening? Explain to us what you're already doing, and why you're doing it that way. If there's no internal procedure, consider implementing one.
2. Let us know how you're planning to acknowledge well-supported suggestions
I think it's fair to say that whatever procedure is currently in place for dealing with suggestions is either not realising its objectives, or is missing some objectives. Put in place some clear, explicit method of acknowledging well-supported suggestions. This would involve users knowing that their suggestions have at least been noted down by staff or admins, even if they aren't discussed or immediately accepted/denied.
A way of doing this could be by using the site suggestions directory as a compilation of suggestions that either have been acknowledged, or have enough support to be passed on to the admins. Suggestions that have been passed on could be noted with a small dot (•; to avoid the associations with approved/denied tied into checkmarks or crosses). It should be made clear that acknowledged suggestions aren't actively worked on or any closer to being implemented; they've simply been seen. This would ensure that the admins don't have to read or follow every single thread, but also that users know that their suggestions aren't being thrown into the void.
3. Provide appropriate feedback for well-supported suggestions
Even though it's not necessary to provide feedback on every single acknowledged suggestions, feedback should be provided for suggestions that have existed for a very long time, that have a very wide base of user support, or for which a concrete answer exists at the moment. Very old suggestions are clearly not being implemented; why not provide a reason why? Very widely supported suggestions (+10 pages or so) are obviously something people are interested in; why not provide a short response to let people know what you're thinking? Suggestions for which the answer is known* (even, or perhaps especially if the answer is "not happening") can be easily responded to with that answer; why not do so?
Feedback does not need to be a yes/no answer; it could simply be "hey, we've seen this suggestion, and we like it/don't like it for reasons; we do/don't have plans for implementation." Even a "not now" or a "we read this" is better than nothing. Again, feedback does not need to be yes/no; it simply needs to be a response. For example, an appropriate response to this thread could be: "While we have no plans to change the way we deal with suggestions, we appreciate your input." Again, there's no need to respond to every single suggestion, but there should be some evidence of interaction. The above categories of suggestions would be good places to start.
4. Let us know what's happening
Only part of this thread is about suggestions; the other part is about the lack of communication around in general. Implement a way to keep us up to date of minor-ish site changes. The thing is that CS has plenty of channels to keep players up to date, but for some reason they seem to fall short: we have the "announcements" forum stickies for major things like the new Oekaki layout, or staff applications, but it's been mentioned before that this leaves out a very important category of minor announcements. The site news is only used for semi-regular news, like the monthlies and events, and as such doesn't provide "news" so much as reminders. The announcements/tips header at the top of the forum covers some useful information, but it's mostly tips rather than announcements. Things like downtime, or even event end-dates, are currently not being clearly communicated**.
Consider that players need to know of changes or events at times proportional to their impact: downtime can get away with a day's notice, but event end dates should ideally be clear from the middle, if not the start of the event. Either use the announcement board to also keep us informed of these slightly more minor things, use the announcements/tips header for announcements more frequently, or implement some new way to keep players up-to-date of what's happening. Let us know you're around.
5. Keep up the good work!
Having players involved in the discussion for the Oekaki boards was extremely welcome. That's great! More of that, please! It lets us players know that you're actively considering our opinions and our experiences in the gameplay. Furthermore, it helps us bring to light issues that might not have been included in the original plan, such as the distinction between species and one-off adoptables. A win-win, all around.
*I'm not talking about suggestions that have been previously denied; I'm talking about suggestions that haven't been explicitly denied but will also never be implemented. I'm sure there are some of these floating around.
**Arguably there should also be more informal announcements and staff interactions, but I haven't thought of a good way to phrase that yet.
