Planetarion Forums - Petition to reinstate Announcements Forum

Leshy · 9 Jan 2004, 00:34

Back in the day, the forums used to have an 'Announcements' forum. This was used by the Creators (and occasionally other PA Team members) to communicate issues and information to the general public. If anyone wanted to know what was going on, a quick link to the forums was enough.

Then, at some point someone came up with the unholy idea of moving all announcements to the portal, despite no one ever visiting it. The decision was based on the logical fallacy that you should draw people to where the announcements are, instead of bringing the announcements to where the people are. The portal announcements are currently severely lacking in several key areas; It is impossible to backtrack through old announcements, it's hard to see when a new announcement is posted, it's hard to see when an announcement is updated and announcements are very infrequent. In addition, the portal in it's current form is still fairly useless and not worth visiting for anything besides announcements.

Adding an announcements section back to these forums would solve many of these issues. PA Team members spend more time on the forums than on the portal, hence they'll be easier inclined to post announcements about stuff the community should know. For some reason, they've now resorted to cross-posting sticky threads duplicating portal announcements on the various PA-related forums. I'm sure you can see the irony in this. In addition, I don't need to explain why it's easier to get an overview of the newest announcements from a vBulletin thread listing than from the portal front page, how older announcements can be read through on the forums, and how the handy coloured icon will show everyone visiting the forums whether or not there are new announcements.

Especially in this time when the future of PA is insecure and uncertain, the users need regular updates from PA Team in order to know what is going on and what will happen - unless you want to drive even more people away who don't want to stick around and wait if anything will happen. Putting the announcements solely on a site that people might visit once a week because they remember, instead of at the place where a good deal of people are on a (semi-)daily basis is not a good thing.

Hence, this petition to bring back the Announcements forum. I'm signing it first, who will sign it with me? \o/

W · 9 Jan 2004, 00:40

No.
An easilly accessible and checkable announcements forum would mean more players would expect updates, and the crew would have to update more. Or their lack of updates and general apathy towards the crowd would be so much more vissible. Better to let it stay as it is, or perhaps hide the announcements a bit deeper in the portal.

Leshy · 9 Jan 2004, 00:49

Shoo, shoo. This is a positive thread :(((((((((((((((((((((

GReaper · 9 Jan 2004, 00:56

Signed, imo!

Down with crossposting!

Karmulian · 9 Jan 2004, 01:18

well this petition is pretty useless, as it will be back

For Rnd11 the new passport will come into effect (yes where you have to go via passport to login)

and any announcements posted on the portal will be duplicated on the announcements forum,
how do i know this - well i have already coded it and tested it....

end of story etc

Leshy · 9 Jan 2004, 01:27

Now that's a good bit of news. Any ETA of when implementation of that system can be expected?

NEWSBOT3 · 9 Jan 2004, 01:50

round 11.

heh.

Leshy · 9 Jan 2004, 01:53

Tactitus · 9 Jan 2004, 01:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leshy

Now that's a good bit of news. Any ETA of when implementation of that system can be expected?

Passport will be implemented next round.*

*Current_round++

Leshy · 9 Jan 2004, 02:00

You're too slow Tac

Tactitus · 9 Jan 2004, 02:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leshy

You're too slow Tac

I'm slow?

They were talking about implementing passport when I quit as mod... Let's see, that would be the start of R7.

Leshy · 9 Jan 2004, 02:09

Yeah, but even NB3 beat you to making that post

I am Idler · 9 Jan 2004, 07:40

Can we expect a Announcement every day?

Or must we wait 2 weeks for a single update ? (This is unacceptable really)

Karmulian · 9 Jan 2004, 08:19

Atm Eta is beginning of february, as with everythign pa will have to see :/

Karmulian · 9 Jan 2004, 08:22

as regards when announcement about that date is going up, waiting on something from jolt :/

(round name competition also coming up - so get thinking)

General1 · 9 Jan 2004, 13:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karmulian

well this petition is pretty useless, as it will be back

For Rnd11 the new passport will come into effect (yes where you have to go via passport to login)

and any announcements posted on the portal will be duplicated on the announcements forum,
how do i know this - well i have already coded it and tested it....

end of story etc

Did we have a passport this round

JC · 9 Jan 2004, 14:18

A complaint about not having an announcements forum was the first thing i did when i got moved into PA team Leshy

. I have been assured we will get one as Karm has stated above.

Ice-Lady · 9 Jan 2004, 14:43

There will also be a calender of events and announcements section on the up coming newsletter.

Qdeathstar · 9 Jan 2004, 15:48

OK, well i sorta have to ask..

Ice lady, being that you are in charge of making the news-letter.. wouldnt you be in contact with PA team... meaning that before you want to get a petition, you could ask them about what they wanted or already decided upon.. ?

Its not ur fault, i mean i know the new PA team is impossible to talk to....

:gollum: <---- this guy is having way ti much fun playing with his nipples..

A2 · 9 Jan 2004, 16:06

QDeathstar: Ice-Lady is in charge of the all-new Planetarion Newsletter. She is also a member of PA Team.
For details on what is planned for inclusion, and how to get involved please see her portal announcement.

Announcements in r11 under the new passport will be made on the portal, which will automatically cross-post to the forums. Some announcements will also be mirrored in the newsletter, especially ones like announcements of speedgames and round dates.

Cochese · 9 Jan 2004, 17:59

Three cheers for forum announcements!!!

Dave · 9 Jan 2004, 20:06

Its a step in the right direction.

Now hopefully you can recover your player base from other games. giggle

Qdeathstar · 9 Jan 2004, 21:23

wich only proves my point further, before making a petition, she should have found out rather it was needed or not..

Ice-Lady · 9 Jan 2004, 22:07

The newsletter was suggested on the suggestion forums, so we thought we'd add it back in but change the style of it. It used to be quite popular, hopefully so again now it's not going to be via an email.

Leshy · 9 Jan 2004, 22:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by JC

A complaint about not having an announcements forum was the first thing i did when i got moved into PA team Leshy

.

I know a lot of people lobbied for it. But since I hadn't heard anything, I decided to use a more direct approach

)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qdeathstar

wich only proves my point further, before making a petition, she should have found out rather it was needed or not..

*checks his pants* Phew. Everything still in order.

The problem is that there have been many questions regarding announcements, but there have been no definite statements regarding it. Even now, all that's known is that it will return at some point, but we still have to wait and see when exactly this will actually happen. While there will have to be made many announcements between now and R11.

One can only hope not everything requires a thread like this on the forum to be announced.

Qdeathstar · 9 Jan 2004, 23:36

i think i made a mistake about who started the thread.. sry ice lady O.o

Qdeathstar · 9 Jan 2004, 23:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leshy

One can only hope not everything requires a thread like this on the forum to be announced.

/me checks into making a petition to make round 11 free thread

dabult · 10 Jan 2004, 00:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qdeathstar

/me checks into making a petition to make round 11 free thread

Incase you didnt know, the upcoming speedrounds are hopefully giving us a free r11 (best case scenario and intentions atleast).

Qdeathstar · 10 Jan 2004, 00:07

i know they are trying to give us a free round 11, :-) but i figure if i post a new thread (j/k that would be spam) then they would confirm it ;-)

Qdeathstar · 10 Jan 2004, 00:08

but i dont think the speed rounds will factor in as to wheter or not we get a free round.

dabult · 10 Jan 2004, 00:09

They will.. if enough people are willing to pay enough for speedrounds, cash will have been raised for r11 ^^

Qdeathstar · 10 Jan 2004, 00:13

no, its not up to Karm or any of them, if they get lucky, jolt might throw them a bone.. the speed round will have little to do with it trust me...

::rolls eyes::

dabult · 10 Jan 2004, 00:16

I didnt say Karm or any of the team decides, ofcourse its up to Jolt in the end.. if you think the 'speedrounds may pay for r11' - is a scam, thats up to you (:

keep spamming..im back to my movie and want something to read when it ends

Qdeathstar · 10 Jan 2004, 00:18

what are you talking about.. keep spamming? dont throw stones in a glass house, as Parracida said.

dabult · 10 Jan 2004, 00:53

Well we did kinda spam for a while both of us ..thats all i meant

wakey · 10 Jan 2004, 19:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ice-Lady

The newsletter was suggested on the suggestion forums, so we thought we'd add it back in but change the style of it. It used to be quite popular, hopefully so again now it's not going to be via an email.

Wouldn’t it make sense to stop referring to it as a newsletter as it’s actually very misleading? Whether the usage is right or not the term newsletter has become synonymous with what are effectively mail shots either in hardcopy form (ie piece of paper handed out or mailed) or emailed. It simply doesn’t describe what this is going to be and I see it actually harming the readership as the ill informed might just skip over it due to not wanting to receive email off PA or assuming they are signed upto it already by playing PA