Closing development threads and migrating them to a blog/web

[jontsuba]

I've been thinking something lately: Wouldn't it be better showing the development of ProMods in the blog than in the forum? That way, there would be the posts from the developers and comments to them. That way developers messages would be more prominent and people would find info easier. That would avoid people asking for thing that already have been said but that are difficult to find in a 50 page thread in a forum.

Another idea would be a wiki.

[Rocar 512E]

A wiki was my idea and i think it's a good one.
And i think better is to post in the forum and in the blog

[jontsuba]

But the best way would be encouraging using more the blog and less the forum, otherwise, it wouldn't make much of a difference. Forum should be bugs, show the love, off-topic... But not development.

[KubaJAM]

That way developers messages would be more prominent and people would find info easier. That would avoid people asking for thing that already have been said but that are difficult to find in a 50 page thread in a forum.

Are you sure? People get impatient incredibly easily and comment threads will soon fill up. The same stupid questions will be asked and the structure will be just as hard to contain. Just look at the idiocy on the SCS Blog.

Another idea would be a wiki.

Difficult to access in my opinion. None of the wikis I know look very good and for being an encyclopedia they are surprisingly hard to navigate.

[jontsuba]

Are you sure? People get impatient incredibly easily and comment threads will soon fill up. The same stupid questions will be asked and the structure will be just as hard to contain. Just look at the idiocy on the SCS Blog.

But I don't read to comments in SCS blog That way, in a blog, you can completely ignore comments and go to info quite straight. All development threads could be closed in the forum and just creating a "ask your question" thread where only the most patient users would be there to answer to lazy posters.

And yes, making good wikis is hard, but not imposible (I know quite some examples out there about videogame series) But of course, I prefer that ProMods team spends it's time mapping and not making a wiki. Making a blog otherwise is much easier.

[Thore]

Just make discussion threads and post the important stuff in a blog.

[KubaJAM]

All development threads could be closed in the forum and just creating a "ask your question" thread where only the most patient users would be there to answer to lazy posters.

I completely get where you're coming from. But this takes it to the other extreme. If the developers didn't care to look through the pages of questions, (which let's be honest most are quite frustrating when repeated at least a hundred times) then someone would have to be there to relay criticism or feedback to them. And if it were me, I'd forget. You'd get to the point where developers aren't exposed to enough feedback. This could lead to all kinds of issues.

[jontsuba]

But in reality, not everybody is interested in giving feedback or answering questions: you've got developers, interested in feedback; hardcore users, interested in giving feedback, helping, answering to questions; lurkers, those who just look for info about the project, not everybody else's opinion or questions; and one hitters, those who just come to ask something they are interested in and go back forever.

With a blog, the developer gives the info. Lurkers can read and go while hardcore users give their feedback and developer read and (sometimes) answer to them. One-hitters can make their question maybe on the comments or a asking thread in the forum. But with this system, important info would more relevant and you'd avoid useless question which are made just because important info is amid a flood of less important comments in the thread.

Just make discussion threads and post the important stuff in a blog.

That would just double the work of poor developers.

[LA-MJ]

My experience is no matter if you give the info on the platter there will always be people to ask stupid questions. And by stupid I mean those that have been answered, posted everywhere, bolded, stickied, what have you.

Some people just don't read, period. Because asking a question is easier than learning to research. But that's a foolish approach obviously, as learning to research is like being taught to fish instead of having been given one.

I forgot the equivalent English expression but here we say those people are as if 'they fell down from the moon just yesterday'. It's sort of like 'living under the rock' + 'born yesterday' but more mean

[jontsuba]

Well, anyway in a blog it would be easier to lurkers or to users too tired of lazy one-hitters to avoid them and real important things. We'd still get our daily those of moon-fallen but hey, that'd be an improvement.