Forums Feedback

[Inkthorn 1434]

Hi! Here is some feedback on some ways the Tech Team could  improve the website and forums experience.

 

1. Forum Roleplay Category Misuse - The Forum Roleplay category was made for dedicated off-server, not-LOTC forum roleplay sessions. These are not popular nowadays. Instead, many new players for some reason post on-server, in-roleplay threads into that category. The category is totally misused. Either enforce its use and move threads to the appropriate categories, rename it for further clarity, or retire it. Here is the forum in question,

 

2. New Topics Feed Issues - The new topics feed has different displays depending on whether you are in a) index view (/forums), b) thread view (/forums/topic/xyz), or c) category view (/forums/forum/xyz). Settings must be configured individually for sidebar widgets on each of these views. The views display inconsistent feeds, and many unusual inclusions are in some of the views. For example, some applications that one would assume should not be public, including secret character information, are made public by these feeds. Separate hidden feeds restricted to certain roles (eg, Story Team reviewing relevant lore applications in a separate feed) can be made in the Invision software (here is a link to the activity feed creator on this site). If the goal is for people to see these, then great, but it feels like there are so many things that show up that should not be. Also, many things that should show up do not. Due to the way the widget editor works, when new forums are made, they must be manually added to be included. I would suggest making a SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for creating new forums that includes additional steps like this that are needed to be done.

 

3. Archival Problems - It is impossible to find older threads, some as recent as a year or two or three old, within the current search parameters. Often, the only surefire way to locate them is to remember the author, navigate to their page, then review the potentially thousands of posts they made to find the object of your inquiry. Clarity regarding what is going on with the apparently broken search feature would be helpful. I vaguely remember discussions regarding a proper archive being made, and there is even a link to archives.lordofthecraft.net on the main menu, but I have tried accessing it multiple times over the last month and it appears to have remained offline or inaccessible.

 

4. Dynamic Map - The dynamic map has been a mainstay that many people use to better understand the shape of the world and to help them navigate it. If it is planned to no longer be in use, then okay, there are many reasons that could be the case, perhaps meta concerns. But if it is planned to be in use, clear communication around its re-implementation would be helpful.

 

5. Unused Features - There are a tremendous amount of features in the Invision software that could prove useful for our community. For example, I have seen @Urahrapost her very awesome diary blog posts. There is blogging software that we have access to, but it just needs enabled, tweaked to our use case, etc. The clubs feature also shows great promise, for example, communities with restricted access, such as spook lairs, could use clubs to only show forum posts to people who should be able to access, controlled by their own settings. I would encourage just a healthy review of the Invision software and a spirited discussion of what bits and bobs could be adapted to innovate in terms of the community experience.

 

Overall, the website has seemed to be going in a good direction these last few years, but these are just some things I noticed that could perhaps use some attention. Thanks for reading!

 

 

[xDK 1205]

On 1/27/2026 at 3:47 AM, forwhatpvrpose said:

Hi! Here is some feedback on some ways the Tech Team could  improve the website and forums experience.

 

1. Forum Roleplay Category Misuse - The Forum Roleplay category was made for dedicated off-server, not-LOTC forum roleplay sessions. These are not popular nowadays. Instead, many new players for some reason post on-server, in-roleplay threads into that category. The category is totally misused. Either enforce its use and move threads to the appropriate categories, rename it for further clarity, or retire it. Here is the forum in question,

 

2. New Topics Feed Issues - The new topics feed has different displays depending on whether you are in a) index view (/forums), b) thread view (/forums/topic/xyz), or c) category view (/forums/forum/xyz). Settings must be configured individually for sidebar widgets on each of these views. The views display inconsistent feeds, and many unusual inclusions are in some of the views. For example, some applications that one would assume should not be public, including secret character information, are made public by these feeds. Separate hidden feeds restricted to certain roles (eg, Story Team reviewing relevant lore applications in a separate feed) can be made in the Invision software (here is a link to the activity feed creator on this site). If the goal is for people to see these, then great, but it feels like there are so many things that show up that should not be. Also, many things that should show up do not. Due to the way the widget editor works, when new forums are made, they must be manually added to be included. I would suggest making a SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for creating new forums that includes additional steps like this that are needed to be done.

 

3. Archival Problems - It is impossible to find older threads, some as recent as a year or two or three old, within the current search parameters. Often, the only surefire way to locate them is to remember the author, navigate to their page, then review the potentially thousands of posts they made to find the object of your inquiry. Clarity regarding what is going on with the apparently broken search feature would be helpful. I vaguely remember discussions regarding a proper archive being made, and there is even a link to archives.lordofthecraft.net on the main menu, but I have tried accessing it multiple times over the last month and it appears to have remained offline or inaccessible.

 

4. Dynamic Map - The dynamic map has been a mainstay that many people use to better understand the shape of the world and to help them navigate it. If it is planned to no longer be in use, then okay, there are many reasons that could be the case, perhaps meta concerns. But if it is planned to be in use, clear communication around its re-implementation would be helpful.

 

5. Unused Features - There are a tremendous amount of features in the Invision software that could prove useful for our community. For example, I have seen @Urahrapost her very awesome diary blog posts. There is blogging software that we have access to, but it just needs enabled, tweaked to our use case, etc. The clubs feature also shows great promise, for example, communities with restricted access, such as spook lairs, could use clubs to only show forum posts to people who should be able to access, controlled by their own settings. I would encourage just a healthy review of the Invision software and a spirited discussion of what bits and bobs could be adapted to innovate in terms of the community experience.

 

Overall, the website has seemed to be going in a good direction these last few years, but these are just some things I noticed that could perhaps use some attention. Thanks for reading!

 

 

Hey, thanks for the in depth feedback. I agree with every single point here. I just wanted to comment here for some clarity, as sometimes things could use a little transparency.

1. Forum Roleplay Category Misuse - The forum categories and the moderation of forum categories should ultimately be handled by the Moderation team, however whether or not the moderation team is aware that this is the case, I cannot speculate. I already proposed the re-introduction of a forum moderation team, but alas the previous experiences with this has not gone well.

2. New Topics Feed Issues - omg 100%. The ultimate problem here is that we are VERY limited in what we can do on the web team with invision community (I have access to themes, that's it), so the widget layout/pages layout/application forms (and everything else) is Admin area. This means that we need to contact an admin if we want to change this, and by admin I mean Daisy, and only Daisy, as the other admins don't want to be "blamed" for any fuckups if we guide them through what to click...

 

3. Archival Problems - Yes, I actually implemented a fix for this a little while ago, but maybe it didn't get the attention that it needed, or perhaps something went wrong in the "CRON" job when we archived most the of the posts on the forum. In the search feature there should be a checkbox that looks like this:

Which allows you to search through archived content.

 

4. Dynamic Map - The Dynmap is problematic, because only Daisy has access to this part of the forums. And it appears that this is far down on her priority list.

5. Unused Features - If you knew how much I have pitched these ideas to the different teams you would laugh. The problem is that if we were to implement things like blogs or clubs it would change the already existing way that the different staff teams are operating their tasks as staff. Which when pitched, the answer I get back is "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" type stuff. But yes, if I had full reigns over the things I could do, then I would add a lot of new improvements to the Forums/Website.

 

Last thing I would like to say is that, the web team and the tech teams working with the website, HATE invision community and we are slowly attempting to move away from invision community as the backend architecture. This is also why we are reluctant to "fix" a lot of the glaring issues on the website (because why fix it, if it will be replaced at some point anyway). This ultimately stagnates any progress that can be done. I am motivated to continue to push small changes here and there, and my last change with the new editor functionality has been received well. I hope that I can continue to make these small improvements, but it is going to take some time for the major improvements to happen :)

 

PS: I am not meaning to say that your feedback will not be worked on, it absolutely will. I just thought that a little peak behind the curtain/transparency might be nice, just because there are definitely people still passionate about the improvement of the website, we are just very limited in scope. Also I would like to point out that these things do not fall on Daisy's shoulder, it was done this way on purpose as the server has been burned in the past by letting people have too much "power" to change things on a whim.