Does anyone else find the new set-up of the "official" segments of the forum a bit... strange? Rather than having the discussion under the relevant articles, you now have to click over to another, dedicated forum. But then if you, in said forum, click the link to see an article - it takes you to the DTL Article "Discussion" Forum. And of course we'll still have the unofficial discussion threads as always. I just feel like this is a clumsy and rather pointless way of doing things. Most traffic on here goes to the GD Forum, so why not create a sub-forum for discussion threads or, if we're being sensible here, unlock the DTL forum again and make use of the "unofficial" discussion threads. We also, of course, have the Feedback threads where one would suggest the 'important' stuff from Dovetail's perspective would be concentrated. Why have three official threads (one locked) + the one unofficial one?
Hey trainsimplayer, All good points, let me comment on a few of them. During the initial discussion about forum changes, we saw a lot of mentions regarding multiple official threads being open for discussion. These being the DTL Article Discussion threads like "xyz Coming Soon" and "xyz Now Out" threads. The point was being made that, if we want to streamline discussions we should prevent multiple official threads, as that dilutes conversations - A sentiment we agree with. This is why we're currently trialing keeping the DTL Article threads closed and to funnel discussions into official channels. Both the Articles and Official Discussion subforums are visible from the main forum page, and we've added links between the different threads for easier navigation. User created threads will of course still be a thing under General Discussion, but as we mentioned before, our moderation capacity is very limited, which is why we're focusing on the "official" parts of the forums with Feedback and Official Discussion threads. So ideally, people would either come to the forum and See the Official Discussion, partake in the discussion there and use the navigation links of the original thread to navigate if necessary OR See the DTL Article thread, use the link in the article to navigate to the official discussion and continue from there Remember that this is all in an attempt to keep things relatively tidy, without the need to interfere with General Discussion too much. We won't stop people from creating their own threads there, but ask to use common sense when creating new threads and avoiding duplicates. Please keep in mind that a lot of these changes are still very new, so we all will need some time to readjust. And as this is currently a trial phase, things might change too. I hope this helped to clear things up. If you have any further questions I'm happy to answer them if I can. All the best, Jan
Thanks for that Jan, much appreciated. I'll throw in that personally (and I, of course, don't speak for everyone) feel like having the content and discussion in two separate threads is a bit awkward, although I do understand the thinking behind it at least.
Wouldn't it make more sense to move the 'new DLC coming/out' into the Announcement section instead of the DT live article discussion? And remove DT live article discussion completely? Then you would have every news/streams at one glace, and links to the discussion/feedback in the article
To me, creating new threads with links back to the previous discussions and locking old threads with links to the new thread whenever a new article/release stage is reached makes sense to me. The root question is, what are the phases of discussion, and where should they be? We have the following stages: Rumors / "What is developer [x] doing next" (User-initiated, so probably General Discussion) Roadmap (Will each content get a separate thread? Does the roadmap need to be discussed "as a whole"?) Roadmap Content Updates (1x-3x) (Should each update get a new thread? Or re-use existing?) Coming Soon Release (does this need a separate thread for feedback?) Feedback (Should "feedback" be just bug/performance reports, or about general positive stuff?)
Maybe it's my advancing age or my failing eyesight, but I find the new forum setup thoroughly confusing. Some of the new sections need clearer descriptions. The general discussion may have been " saved ", but it's so far down the list it feels like an afterthought. And what are real railways and model railways doing in a section that's supposedly about TSW? They should have kept the " Off Topic " section for sure. I always found a nugget or two there. If I had a thread or post to contribute, I'm not sure where it would best go. Guess it's trial and error. Oh well, even a blind squirrel finds a nut occasionally.
We've taken up the "Off Topic" stuff into the new forum so DTG didn't have to host it all here. https://www.rail-sim-community.com/forum/index.php?board/9-off-topic/ So there is a place for it, just gotta go create threads there. A few other different things as well that aren't featured here. Different forum with a bit of a wider scope since DTG wants to (understandably) focus more on their own specific interests. That one is more focused on the "community" part rather than the specific content related to DTG.
Feedback is now a right old mess. We have route feedback, loco (train) feedback and patch feedback. So do I post issues with the Class 170 in the Fife Circle thread (as the 170 doesn't have its own thread being originally bundled with FCL) or the patch section? To cover the bases I put it in both but there's a certain irony that DTG were in a hurry to kick out what they regarded as extraneous sections of the forum to simplify management, but actually succeeded in making it a confusing fuddle.
