Honestly, I don’t mind about that. Not because I’m not affected, but because I never thought it would work anyway. A forum is not the best place for support, outside user-to-user help.
But, it might be good to, even if just trying and messing with settings, to post a little message in the announcements. So people at least know.
Same with new features.
Also in regards to other changes and comments about people not knowing/finding out about them.
I don’t think changes need to be announced beforehand. It’s your site and your rules, users can merely leave suggestions, tips or requests. You guys can do what you want with it (or not). But any good site I know will release an announcement thread at the same moment as the feature/changes go live (scheduled posts? idk if that works on these forums). Of course there’s also lots of communities that excel in non-timely information or no information at all (looking at you, Neopets haha).
If people don’t visit the forums for information, that’s on them. But perhaps it might be a good idea to somehow display the recent threads in announcements on the front page or something. Kinda like MyAnimeList does.
This whole forum is one huge censorship. First 500 people hated on the new changes, which resulted in closure of the thread. Then it was addressed as “POSITIVE and negative feedback” (really?) and we were told only positive things about Trakt are welcomed from now on. Like what the actual … And now you can’t even reply to things so that people won’t talk more negative things about the current state of Trakt. This is just getting ridiculous.
We have removed very few posts, and when we do it’s for very over the top stuff that deserves it. We’re not saying negative feedback is banned (not sure how we would even enforce that). In order to address concerns, questions, feature requests, etc we need to have more specific and actionable threads so we can assign them internally, address the topic at hand, and mark it resolved.
So, instead of using the built-in feature that lets you move comments into their own posts for easier tracking, you’ve decided to strip away the ability for people to give on-topic feedback directly under the corresponding announcement? Interesting choice.
Forcing feedback to be scattered across individual posts instead of keeping it in a central thread doesn’t make it easier for you to track—it lacks transparency and makes it harder for users to see the full scope of the discussion, organize their thoughts, and rally around shared concerns.
Considering the timing—right when the forums have been flooded with criticism over your recent changes—it’s hard to believe this is about efficiency rather than damage control.
You just make a new thread about it in the Trakt or Discussions section.
And if you have feedback and there’s already a thread about the same subject, comment on that topic instead.
That topic was absolutely not easy to look over. People complaining with media center issues, other posts about lists that free people manage that they would no longer be able to update, and some about the price being too expensive, lack of communication etc etc.
those could all go in separate topics instead you know. I for one would think that’s way easier to check out. But let’s agree to disagree.
And it’s a hell of a lot of work to go through each comment of move it into a different thread
Maybe you’re having a hard time understanding, but having a thread directly under announcements naturally encourages engagement—psychologically and from a UX standpoint (the natural flow of scrolling, visibility, etc.). This applies to both lurkers and contributors, allowing people to follow along (without extra work), or even feeling validated by other users’ words and joining the conversation when they had no prior intention.
I personally had no trouble following that thread, but I’m happy to give grace to those who did struggle. Some people in the thread had real questions, and they should have been moved to their own post. I’m so glad we both recognize and agree this is a pain point, but we also need to make note that just because somebody mentions something off-topic (in blanket statements and general discourse regarding recent distaste for changes, etc.), doesn’t mean they belong in a different post/topic.
One thing I’m failing to understand is why you think moderating a single thread and moving off-topic comments (because they should be going through each comment to do their job ) to new or pre-existing threads as needed using a single button (and giving it a title, if needed) is “a hell of a lot of work”, but bouncing between scattered posts (across multiple webpages), merging/deleting duplicate posts while moderating each comment section (new/existing) to keep things on topic and branch them out where needed is “way easier”? They should have already been doing this; this “new” system doesn’t negate the need for it to be done, but they opted to close natural discourse and force the extra workload on themselves to be more efficient? They’re doing an awful job at selling me the narrative that this isn’t damage control when large topics are not, have not, and never will be the issue—I’m in plenty of forums (some much larger) that handle this without any issue.
What I’ve realised over the last couple of weeks is that Trakt management are deliberately obfuscating - under the guise of altruism - in order to maximise control and profit. I can’t really blame them for wanting to maximise profit - after all, this is what businesses are for - but it seems they cannot make enough profit without being deceptive about the means of doing so.
There is no “community” here unless it suits their business practises to allow users to think so.
I’m actually quite impressed with the degree of spin mastery being employed here, though I loathe it. I can’t help but feel that Trakt management has convinced themselves that certain things need to be done for the greater good but this comes at the expense of anyone who doesn’t completely buy into their grand vision. And at the end of the day, Trakt - whilst very helpful - simply is not worth the money that is being charged.
I’ll also add here that I NEVER received an email from Trakt about the changes, even though I fall into the category of having more than 100 items in my Collection. I literally scoffed out loud when I read the post last night that everyone with more than 100 items on lists received an email. I check my spam box several times a day and I can say with 100% confidence that I NEVER received an email.
Right. And yet I’m still affected by the 100 item restriction and was never notified about this, therefore not being given an opportunity to do anything about it before the changes were introduced.
Stop obfuscating, @justin and just be upfront. You screwed up.
It’s funny because this was a community-built platform. If they had just said they wanted to explore other avenues, broaden the scope, but didn’t currently meet the financial quota needed to expand—and directly asked the community, if they’re not currently VIP but find value in the platform and its future, to subscribe—I’d wager that would have done much better, both from a reception standpoint and financially.
But what do I know about business? It’s not like I have a degree or anything, lmao.
100% agree with you. There is SO much spin and obfuscation happening and I’ve learnt the hard way to never, ever get onboard with anyone doing stuff like this.
While I understand where you guys are coming from regarding it seem pointless disable replies to announcements (majority of me agrees), this part (below) from the permissions announcement is probably the most relevant.
It’s worth noting that any thread that links back to the announcement will show up in the announcement thread, and anyone is welcome to create a thread regarding the change for people to use (which I guess sometimes happens regardless). eg.
Because the announcement is generally going to be posted across other socials also (eg. reddit) the world of feedback and reactions is already split in general. Personally I’d prefer everything point back to one place and discuss there but I doubt that’s going to happen.
The way I see the announcements section now is a “clean” spot for the announcements to live, and the respective threads can be created on demand as necessary, including a general one if necessary. If the general thread got popular, on reddit we’d probably call that person the lucky ‘upvote’ farmer or something, right?
Not to be pedantic, but this only shows the first/last five threads, with the rest buried under a “see more” button. Realistically, if you ignore this (and other) points, and the goal truly was unified, easy-to-find feedback, it wouldn’t have been shoved into the footnote, would it?
For what it’s worth, I only skimmed some of the other posts but I did see most of the post you linked. I also already mentioned I see what you mean, and tend to agree, but the fact is this is the solution that’s been decided on for now. Hence why I’m offering the perspective of seeing the announcements (moving forward) being in the forum but otherwise not being used as in the capacity of the forum with regards to the thread and instead more of a blog post.
I see it similar to how we’ve migrated to using the forum as our support system rather than a separate one.
Well reddit is it’s own beast, and while sure it could be disabled depending on whats necessary, I don’t believe there’s any intention to do so as it’s more a third party/public forum that happens to have a few of our staff as mods for users to distinguish replies as I believe many other subreddits do. Subreddits are generally (unless I’m mistaken), not as “controlled” by the company or entity/reason for the subreddit.
Yep, I agree it sucks. And yes the communication ball, somewhat ironically, was dropped again . But it’s been explained now, I believe. Nobody but staff can post in Announcements, but all others should be free for everyone, barring the VIP level forum. The “VIP only” allowance in Announcements at the start was, I believe, a mistake while testing the different permission options.
) to new or pre-existing threads as needed using a single button (and giving it a title, if needed) is “a hell of a lot of work”, but bouncing between scattered posts (across multiple webpages), merging/deleting duplicate posts while moderating each comment section (new/existing) to keep things on topic and branch them out where needed is “way easier”? They should have already been doing this; this “new” system doesn’t negate the need for it to be done, but they opted to close natural discourse and force the extra workload on themselves to be more efficient? They’re doing an awful job at selling me the narrative that this isn’t damage control when large topics are not, have not, and never will be the issue—I’m in plenty of forums (some much larger) that handle this without any issue.
. But it’s been explained now, I believe. Nobody but staff can post in Announcements, but all others should be free for everyone, barring the VIP level forum. The “VIP only” allowance in Announcements at the start was, I believe, a mistake while testing the different permission options.