So, how are we doing?
TappedOut forum
Posted on May 12, 2016, 6:05 p.m. by ChiefBell
I periodically do these threads just to check in with general users and see what people's thoughts are about the site, the content, and the way things are going.
So how are we doing?
On forums:
Are there issues in the forums that bother you? Is everything labelled clearly enough? Are threads often in the wrong place? Do they get moved promptly?
On admins:
Are individuals with admin duties visible enough and well known? Do you feel like you can talk to them?
On articles:
How do you feel about content on the site? Do you understand how articles get submitted, just in case you want to do something yourself? Is there anything you'd like to see more of?
Any other business?
Any generic points, questions, or tips?
RE admins:
I know yeago is the true "site admin/owner" and that Epoch has been assisting in admin duties for forever... and that you, Chief, can move threads... and some other people maybe can too, I think? Femme is always talking like she's an admin... but then says she can't do things, which is odd cuz she has great ideas and input and sounds like she knows what she's talking about (from an admin standpoint)... I guess what I'm saying is no, I don't think individuals who have admin abilities/duties are known to the greater community.
May 12, 2016 6:25 p.m. Edited.
vampirelazarus says... #4
I am angry with everything and everyone on this site.
Just kidding. Or am I?
May 12, 2016 7:06 p.m.
ducttapedeckbox says... #5
As alulien said, I don't think the roles, responsibilities, and privileges of admins are well-known throughout the community. Are they listed somewhere? Is there a list? If I were a new user coming to the site, I'd like some way of easily identifying the admins other than asking around.
Another thought that's been in the back of my mind is what happens if Go', for whatever reason, can no longer support TappedOut? Since I joined years ago, the player base on this site has vastly grown and many use it as their go-to Magic domain. It seems that Go' (rightfully) has complete control over everything that happens, and I would hate to see it disappear should he be unable to work on it. This topic brings back memories of when Go' was out of country and the site went down.
From his perspective, developing a "contingency plan" like this takes a lot of work and requires trust - something that is not easily developed online, but I think it is worth it. Maybe it does exist and I'm just not aware of it.
Other than those logistical items, this site is great. This community has helped me grow as a player and collector, and serves as my go-to Magic site.
May 12, 2016 7:11 p.m.
No worries, I do have a contingency plan in place if I were to get hit by a bus or something.
Things are good, thanks for asking Chief! Just changed up the 'Archive Comments' feature on Deck Updates. Instead, its just a new form on your deck form. That should stop people from having to create junk deck updates. I am also trying to draft up a statement about AdBlocking that doesn't set everyone on fire :P
May 12, 2016 7:20 p.m.
Generally, things have been going pretty well from my observations. You definitely notice that there are certain cliques (vendilion?) that are formed relating to the formats, but that's bound to happen, especially with such a large community.
May 12, 2016 7:27 p.m.
My only suggestion has to do with the admins. It would be cool if we could have a easy way to access them besides finding them somewhere that they have posted. What I mean is like a search feature that could find not only cards and decks, but users. That would really help me and I assume other users when addressing a problem with an admin.
Other than that the site it looking great, I have noticed that a few updates have appeared which is awesome! Thank you!
May 12, 2016 7:45 p.m.
VampireArmy says... #9
As a Forum mover/demi-admin or whatever we're calling it, I'd like to note that we've been having an increase of new accounts attempting to sell and/or trade cards lately. I've had to shut down quite a few myself. Is there something in the works to block the non binder holding members of the site from using the trade forum?
May 12, 2016 7:49 p.m.
The biggest issue I know of is that, somehow, so many people still post Rules questions in the forums and ask for deck help in the Rules Q&A section. However, I don't think there is really anything extra you can do about that.
Oh, actually, new users posting in the Rules Q&A usually don't know about tagging cards until after their first post as the formatting tips aren't suggested straight away. Maybe, when creating a new Rules Question, have it say at the top Please link all cards in your question. Use double square brackets [[]] around the card name to do so.
Otherwise, the admin thing. It would be good to have a list of who they are and what they can accomplish.
May 12, 2016 8:18 p.m.
amazingdan says... #11
I think there are some small things that could be implemented that would reduce the workload of admins in the long run. For example:
If a player posts a link to a deck in a forum other than Deck Help, there could be a reminder box telling people that deck help threads should be in the deck help forum and a "Did you mean..." check box, posting it in the correct forum.
A ? on the text box and on some features on your profile( T/O rank, Helper rank, "Deckspert", etc.) that would link you to a page that explained what the buttons did/what they meant. I've been using this site for about a year now and I still have no idea what some of the buttons do/how to use them.
And stuff like that. Little things that simplify a user's experience and reduce workload for admins. There are definitely more, but I can't think of any right now.
May 12, 2016 8:27 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #12
That's actually a really good idea amazingdan, and can be extrapolated to be solutions to many other aspects.
Basically, whenever a url, image, deck link and card gets posted in the wrong place or not tagged properly, a notification will appear during the preview section to alert the new users of certain functions and proper locations.
For a url, image, user, or card, if it isn't linked properly, notify the user in preview about the proper methods to link those items. If it is a deck list, notify the user that they should go to the deck help forums if they are asking for deck help. I don't think these notifications should require users to hit preview again, but should just be something they can be alerted to.
But yeah, the biggest thing this site needs is a tutorial. I completely forgot to even start on that thing. I'll have to get back to it when time permits.
As for having a list of users that perform administrative duties, the Community page should be the place for that.
I also need to start learning how to code so I can work on all the ideas I have for that page ...
The biggest issue I have with this site right now is the forums page. It isn't properly organized and can be more compact.
May 12, 2016 9:12 p.m. Edited.
McSleuthburger says... #14
my 2 pennies
Forum side:
Going off of what Denial048 said, I would say new people are asking questions in the general forum area because they are not aware of the "Rules Q&A" area. It might be they think the "Rules Q&A" might be website rules and such, not the actual game rules / questions. That or people just dont read and just want their question answered asap. There always people that are just going to ask their questions the first chance they get. Like for a website I moderate for we have a chatbox for just normal users to talk with each other while they are on the forums. There are always new users asking the same old questions. If they looked around the forums for like 2 mins they could find there answer but its easier to just ask away and hope for the best.
VampireArmy I would say maybe not block them but prevent them from creating new threads? It would suck being blocked from it all together (If I am understanding you right, if not my apologies) Im not sure how you could differentiate members accounts without alot more work though.
Probably the biggest issue I have personally is when I go on the forums each section shows the 5 threads with the latest responses but if you go into that section then the threads are ordered by the date they are created. So sometimes I have to search for specific threads if they are farther down the list (I know it is a stupid problem but meh)
With the stats on everybody's profile page, there are always people asking what each of the numbers mean. I dont know if it is worth having the ones that dont do anything. (IMO)
Admin-wise:
I feel people that are active forum users are fine but newer peeps might not really know who to go to if something needs changed. What I fear with that is if you make yourself more visible there will be more people asking you questions every time something does not go 100% the way they intend (whether its formatting, questions about the game, or whatever else)
Lastly I always love me some more articles
May 12, 2016 9:34 p.m.
VampireArmy says... #15
McSleuthburger the only reason i say block completely is that those without binders shouldn't really be trading here. When a user without a binder trades, they kind of undermine our ability to prevent people from getting scammed. Without getting too deep into how that works, that's just why we do it that way.
As for how to implement. The system would have to recognize if your binder is active or not and either not show that forum to those who don't or forbid those who don't from entering the forum. I suppose adding "you must have an active binder to use this forum" to the description would be helpful too
May 12, 2016 9:51 p.m.
And then it was so. You cannot post there without a binder as of now.
May 12, 2016 10:47 p.m.
JANKYARD_DOG says... #17
How about a stickied 'Advertise your Deck' post for each format? There is one currently in general deck help, but it is overloaded so much that the page breaks (?) when you make a new post. Were it spread out across the different forums not only could you get more specialized help from people more devoted to said format, but it would also clog less and could be managed were it to get too full. Also I believe it could reduce the amount of individual posts per forum.
I had more... but my memory sucks. Lol
May 12, 2016 11 p.m.
Ooh! Mobile ad takeovers kill me. I've got a screen of the offender (I get hit by the same one on the daily), any email to send the info to?
May 12, 2016 11:05 p.m.
i'm cool with that, Mj3913. if nobody objects i say do it up.
May 12, 2016 11:09 p.m.
JANKYARD_DOG says... #21
So... you're saying... Make them up, and you'll sticky them, or you'll handle it? Just curious.
May 12, 2016 11:39 p.m.
Konjiikhan says... #22
I am new here.Hello all.I don't forsee this as a problem but with so many on this site, why is it so hard to get feedback on a deck? Is there some special place i should post them or is it all good when i just hit save deck ? I know some are looking at them but no responses and i do say in description..feedback is good or help with this or that thxs...Other than that i'm doing fine. Like the site.
May 12, 2016 11:43 p.m.
ducttapedeckbox says... #23
Check this out, Konjiikhan.
In my experience, either the competitive decks that have work put into them or the really janky decks are the ones that get the most feedback. Creative titles, informative descriptions, and simply showing that you've put work into your deck are qualities that I look for before investing time in commenting and giving my input.
Feel free to link me to the deck on my profile and I can try to help you make the deck more appealing to talk about.
Back to the original topic: is there an About page? Perhaps a little on your motivation to create this site, yeaGO? This could also include a list of the admins and their responsibilities/abilities/etc. Maybe this could be added to the Community tab? I'm on here nearly every day and was not aware of what it contained until a minute ago. Maybe I'm alone in that, though.
May 12, 2016 11:59 p.m.
ducttapedeckbox says... #24
Oh, hey, I have a quick suggestion!
Would it be possible to have the ability to remove multiple binder/wall posts (but not all) simultaneously? Or the ability to sticky some, so that the clear function would remove the non-stickied ones? Having to remove one at a time can get rather tedious with the binder reloading each time.
Sorry, another.
Quick-add to binder/inventory? Streamlines the updating process.
May 13, 2016 12:05 a.m.
miracleHat says... #25
Forums:
Fine (will get to that later)
Admins:
Fine
Articles:
WANT MORE
Misc:
Com Discuss: Modern Chat is too big. It drains the rest of the community as more than 50% of all modern-related conversations are on that forum, 'sucking the oxygen'. I quote, "This is the most active thread after all ;)" (the alex person), and it is too true. It is very difficult to join/enter the chat because it is overly dominated by 12 users...
May 13, 2016 1:48 a.m.
I always wanted the modern chat thread to be a place where new and old players could go for advice but I've been less than impressed at some points with general attitudes in there including hostility and some real negativity.
It may be worth doing away with it so that modern users have to make normal threads like everyone else. It'll be more accessible for other users.
The downside is that as soon as anyone posts in the modern thread all of the most vocal modern players get a notification because we're all subscribed to that thread. That's really useful because it basically guarantees that like 15 people just got a notification about your comment.
Upsides and downsides. I think less reliance on it is a good thing.
May 13, 2016 2:12 a.m.
miracleHat says... #27
While you get the most vocal modern players all at the same time: you start missing out on the other 100 modern players who might say something, but can not or will not because there are the 15 dominating players. And a lot of the topics and subtexts are portrayed in a negative view...
@Bell/ModernChat
May 13, 2016 2:17 a.m.
I mean yeah, I agree.
There are problems with that thread.
May 13, 2016 2:22 a.m.
miracleHat says... #29
At the same time: it is the best resource on tappedout. The access to info that it provides is very hard to find.
May 13, 2016 2:41 a.m.
Well, if we're posting improvements we would like to see - a big one of mine is limiting the number of displayed decks on a user's home page. I get that people want to show off their decks but when people have 30+ decks on their home page, it defeats the purpose.
Also, this is a bit of a nitpick thing but stripping a lot of code functionality out of deck/user pages on mobile browsers can actaully be more annoying than helpful. Especially when scrolling though decks with primers. Most of them have a show/hide button that natively hides the text. But disabling that on mobile browsers to help the page load faster ends up meaning a crap load more scrolling.
Same with image resizing - I have an image on my homepage which resizes fine on desktop but on mobile versions just blows the page out becasue custom image sizing is disabled.
Also, having a button which takes a user straight to the bottom of the page/comments box (especially on mobile browsers) would mean a lot less scrolling.
May 13, 2016 2:42 a.m.
To all of you who want more articles, I've had brief chats with yeaGO regarding myself creatkg a more consistent stream of content (even considering up 5x weekly). I think this would serve the community by further engaging the regular users in more discussion and dissemination of ideas, as well as retaining new users with the allure of a "highly active" content schedule. That, and most users seem to enjoy my content in the first place.
Once this current Poor-Man deck challenge winds down in the coming week or two, I'll kick things into high gear on that front.
May 13, 2016 3:25 a.m.
miracleHat says... #32
@zandl: five times a week?! Who would you be co-writing with or are these going to be very low-key articles...?
May 13, 2016 3:33 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #33
Why don't we separate the individual chats away from the forums? Like, stick them into the Blind Eternities. That will solve that issue.
May 13, 2016 3:35 a.m.
Haven't nailed it all down yet. Obviously, I can't just do 5 rounds of deck challenges in 5 days, so they'd likely be a bit on the shorter side. This leads me to three potential options: (1) Partner up and dole out content responsibilities, (2) keep the content more simplified by using recurring themes and series, or (3) go a bit deeper and aim for a M-W-F schedule, or something.
May 13, 2016 3:37 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #35
Article writing is kinda hard to do without incentive for some users. Also, can we get a view counter on those article pages? I want to be able to see just how many people are actually viewing my article, and how it is affected over time.
May 13, 2016 3:38 a.m.
Well, that's the last time I try to convince people I'm a good writer while falling asleep, typing on my phone.
stares at typos
breathes heavily
May 13, 2016 3:39 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #37
As for article writing concepts, I might be interested in tagging along with you for an article series on Current (M15 and onward) to drive up a player base for it if you are interested in that concept. Once Eldritch Moon comes out, I'll be hosting some tappedout tourneys with feature tokens as the prize (I have 750).
May 13, 2016 3:41 a.m.
I do agree on the page counters, perhaps one to track unique viewers and another for overall hits (to see repeat traffic). I already add counters on all my articles via outside sites that give you codes, but it seems like an unnecessary step.
Maybe even give the option to make them publicly visible or not, too?
May 13, 2016 3:42 a.m.
miracleHat says... #39
You have 750 feature tokens...!
Can I have some for free?
Anyhow! I am always interested in reading more articles on tappedout!
May 13, 2016 3:43 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #40
I'll probably end up with another 100 after Eldritch Moon. So each block I can give a tournament. Might even do each set.
May 13, 2016 3:55 a.m.
KillTheIslandUser says... #42
I'm still waiting on combos to get reset so we can actually tackle that problem. I'm not going over 10000000000000000000000000000 pages of crap. My powers are pretty small, and I just fix random card issues I see, or add things here and there from sets that are missing. RARE but.. I try to exist
May 13, 2016 6:33 a.m.
amazingdan says... #43
I think a comment counter on threads would be nice. Although it tells you the last activity on a thread, it doesn't tell you if that's the creator of the thread or an actual comment. It would help distinguish what threads have gone unanswered and what threads have been answered.
I think a section somewhere on the homepage(or at least a link) that has a list of older threads that are still active, seperated by forums. That would help with the Modern discussion a bit. That, or the Modern discussion could be perpetually featured which would help get more users on it(although maybe too many). Another option is to "cycle" it onto the homepage weekly, although I'm not sure if that's possible.
May 13, 2016 6:44 a.m.
Player3.14 says... #44
I find tappedout to be a great site; I'm so glad I found it! The only real suggestion I would have is to allow for sideboarding during playtesting. I'm not sure if the way the code is set up would allow for that, or what a potential user interface would look like, but because sideboarding is a significant aspect of most constructed formats, that would be a cool feature to see.
May 13, 2016 11:14 a.m.
So I don't have enough time to read all of this on my break, but looking over a few comments I noticed a few people already mentioned my only concern out of what you listed Chief.
Who has admin privileges and to what extent is not clearly known. Maybe that's part of your strategy but it would be nice to have an easily accessible and centralized list somewhere that just lists who's in charge, who can do what, and maybe signifies some degree of hierarchy (in the event personal issues arise that involve other admins).
Maybe also include a "contact an admin" button that allows people to inbox one or more of you with issues you'd like resolved privately. If people abuse that power then make sure there's a switch to turn that privilege off for those people. (Nobody likes spam.)
Otherwise you're all doing a great job, as I have said many times before.
May 13, 2016 11:16 a.m.
yeaGO - Thanks for the counters, though I'm a bit puzzled. The counters I've added from outside sites have always seemed reliable (i.e. they go up by 1 each time I refresh, but the unique visitors counter does not). The counter you added, though, has numbers which are completely different from the ones I had on my own counters. Do you know how this could be, or which ones are more reliable?
May 13, 2016 6:03 p.m.
If I pull up the page and comment, I don't count that as two views. Mine are a little less susceptible to things like that.
May 13, 2016 6:11 p.m.
Now I'm really confused, because I see (for example) 661 views with your counter on this article, but 639 total on my own.
May 13, 2016 6:15 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #49
yeaGO, I personally don't like the method of archiving comments. I want to be able to access those comments and have others be able to access them as well if they choose to do so. The method to comment clear on updates is also nice as it allow you to separate your comments on clear time stamps of certain progress points on your deck. This has been a great help on much more popular decks like my "Path to Perfection" deck.
However, I can see that some others like this method. Perhaps bring back the old method too? Not everyone is going to know of this new one either.
May 14, 2016 6:02 a.m.
miracleHat says... #50
Oh, me forgot to add that certain plainswalkers, their loyalty counters is represented in power, not the counters themselves... It shows Karn Liberated entering as a 6/0...
shadow63 says... #2
I think it'd be better if we could see more then just inner column of decks of the front page of the site maybe two columns. But over all I think the sites pretty damn near perfect
May 12, 2016 6:22 p.m.