Update wishlist category

Discussion Hub General Discussion
1

I think we need seperate subforums for the big categories in the wishlist forum. (and within these subforums we really should enforce one wish per topic)

In the last Q&A Sebastian mentioned we need more specific topics. And I agree, ‘improve AP/ATC/flight model/…’ is a bit broad and the content of the topic tends to be all over the place. Separating these into smaller bits will make it more clear to Asobo what we really want to see improved first. It allows them to take ‘babysteps’, which is a good development practice.

Ofcourse, dividing topics into smaller subjects probably means fewer votes. Perhaps you could upgrade the wishlist overview on the Q&A with: 10 most upvoted general requests, and then 2 - 3 most upvoted within a big topic.

My suggestions for the big topics would be: ATC, AP, Flight Model, Airport (parking, visuals, services), UI, SDK, new airliner/airport requests (I don’t think these requests make sense, especially airliners. but oh, well many still do)
I guess you could come up with some more, but these would be a good start.

I know we currently have tags to categorize topics. But there are several problems:

  • They are not enforced.
  • For me at least it doesn’t help keeping a good overview of this subforum
  • People still put a lot of requests in a single topic, and bigger requests often result in more votes. While dividing your request into pieces actually allows Asobo to take better steps to implement it.

It would also make it easier to spot identical request and merge them, or close topics when they are implemented.
I firmly believe topics should be closed if Asobo considers them implemented, and if we’re not happy with the implentation a new topic should be opened. This again makes it easier for Asobo to spot our concerns.

2

Hi @Tjoeker.

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. Because the #self-service:wishlist category is best suited for game features, and not forum improvements, I have moved your post to General Discussion.

Please bear with me as I attempt to cover multiple aspects of your post:

The moderators and community managers regularly discuss the category structure on the forums. We have recommended adding new categories/sub-categories in the past when we felt it was necessary, for example, the wishlist/bugs archive #self-service:resolved-bugs, and the new #sdk-discussion.

However, we need to avoid having too many categories. More categories means there is more clutter and for our newer users more places to incorrectly post topics.

Having a wishlist category with subcategories could also cause other issues. For example, the (top) votes filter would not show you the top votes amongst all categories, you would have to collate that list manually. Another issue is where would/should a user post a topic if they feel there are no categories that accurately suit their topic.

While we have encouraged users to post one issue per topic in #self-service:bugs-issues and #self-service:wishlist, we recently updated our category guidance to reflect this. We are now empowered to relocate posts that fail to meet this requirement to General Discussion. Though it is our preference where possible, to keep the post in the original category if the OP can make some changes.

Tags are a fantastic way to help filter content, unfortunately, a large number of users don’t apply tags to their post.

While I would have to review our settings, I believe TL1 and above can tag their own topics, and TL3 and above can create new tags. If anyone below TL3 needs a new tag they are free to PM @moderators with their request so one of us can take care of it.

While tags are not enforced (and probably shouldn’t be), we can definitely encourage users to use them. The easiest way to encourage people to use tags is to use them on your topics. If people see tags are being used, they are more likely to use them themselves. In addition to this, I am looking at recommending a possible CSS change that would make tags stand out and hopefully more appealing.

Have you tried using the tags filter at the top of a category? It is a very good way of narrowing down results based on the topic.

I agree with this. It is something I have on the agenda to discuss at our next team meeting.

3

Thanks for taking your time to read and answer my post. :slight_smile:

I agree, too many categories doesn’t equal better. However, I feel like having all major themes together just makes people combine multiple requests into one to gain more traction. ‘Better AI traffic’ with many requests inside would certainly gain more votes than ‘high speed exits on runway’. But the latter is certainly preferred as a developer. If there is a subcategory for AI traffic people would be more engaged to split their requests.
This in turn makes it so that devs can easily spot what requests are higher within a theme.
Then they can actually finish a request or two per theme per month, which would result in a ‘see the devs are listening’.

I think having all individual requests in separate topics within one single generic sub would result in a non navigable mess.

That’s true, but I don’t think it matters. The developers are working on all themes all the time, and this would infact improve visibility of what we wish for the theme a certain team is working on.

The only time it matters would be the wishlist during the Q&A, but that would probably end up looking like this:

wishes
wishes1024×576 402 KB

I don’t think there is a need to have a top list of all themes combined.

I would still keep a general category for this. Having a single wish per topic should also allow mods to quickly relocate the topic to the correct sub.

I think tags are a good way to keep places clean where they don’t have better functions at hand like on Reddit. But on a forum we have better possibilities? :slight_smile:
Filtering by tags makes no sense at the moment because 95% of the topics don’t use them. I’m not sure if people will start using tags, since it is not a necessity or doesn’t really have any direct benefits for them. (but I’m not an expert in psychology :smiley: )

Overall I think it will benefit us all:

user:

  • Do I add my simple yet important/cool request in a 200 post generic topic and possibly have it ignored because devs don’t read all posts, or do I create my own topic with a small request and have it drowned by other big topics that are only big because they contain many requests?
  • I have a simple request that may or may not have been mentioned in this 200 post topic, now I have to read it all to see if somebody mentioned it.
  • My vote would go directly to the one feature I want implemented instead of voting for a dozen requests at once and possibly end up with devs ignoring the most important request of them all.
  • Easier to follow discussion on specific feature.

mod:

  • Do I close this partially implemented topic?*
  • Easier to spot off topic talk

dev:

  • Better able to see exact what they want of a specific feature.
  • No longer needs to go through massive request topic.
  • Able to give good status report on feature implementation

*I bet devs are less likely to revisit partially implemented topics. While a popular partially implemented topic would remain in the top 10 for a long time, and probably remain active until the users are satisfied.

I would probably have the sub categories of the wishlist on a third level. (so ‘self-service’ → ‘wishlist’ → ‘AI & ATC’ for example) This would reduce the new users from thinking their question belongs there, as they can’t see these sub categories until they opened the wishlist subcategory or the self service category.

These are just my thoughts of course, you and the team do with it what you want. I just think it would stop smaller requests from being hidden by big topics.

edit: I could add that we could use a stickied topic on each major theme discussing how individual requests would work together.