GMC Forums GMC community suggestion box subforum is inaccessible - why?

csanyk

Member
Since the old GMC forums went to archive read-only mode, the Suggestion Box subforum has been inaccessible.

http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showforum=125

I've tried asking @Nocturne privately about this, and he said that it should be open, but permissions have been set to block visitors from reading the old Suggestion Box subforum in the GMC archive. He seems pretty busy, so I'm hoping one of the other forum admins can step in and either make the forum available again, or provide an official explanation why they're being withheld.
 
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jackhigh24

Guest
oh yes your right, what were the suggestions for in general, i can understand if it was suggestions for the forum, then there wouldn't be that much point as the new forum might not have those capabilities, but then again still might as well have it there for posterity.
 

csanyk

Member
oh yes your right, what were the suggestions for in general, i can understand if it was suggestions for the forum, then there wouldn't be that much point as the new forum might not have those capabilities, but then again still might as well have it there for posterity.
The Suggestion Box was a way for YoYo to receive input from its customers for what they should be working on. People suggested all kinds of things, mostly changes and new feature ideas for GM:S, but also suggestions for things with the GMC communities.

It's a part of the history of the development of GM:S. I don't see why anything there would be sensitive, especially given that it had been public for so long.
 
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jackhigh24

Guest
@csanyk seems that it would be good to have it open then, if there is something they did not like they could at least just cut that bit out, but no need to hide the whole thing, and really i would not cut anything out if it was me, like you said it was all there in view for a long time, so totally agree with you.
 

Mike

nobody important
GMC Elder
There is a topic in community for forum issues, and as we no longer need 1.x suggestions (and since it was for us really, not the community) it was hidden.
 
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Aura

Guest
@Mike: I guess you're misunderstanding them. They are talking about the Suggestion Box forum from the old GMC, not asking for one here. The one located here:

http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showforum=125

I don't see how setting the visibility of that forum to public would make people suggest changes to 1.x since you can't post there anymore. I'm pretty sure that doing that would be useful for reference purposes. But that's up to you.
 

Mike

nobody important
GMC Elder
Meh..... The archive is there for folk to find answers to GameMaker things, and I don't think subforum that helps in anyway towards that. I really don't think it's needed to make it visible. The less cruff the better. (although why off topic is there I'll never know...)
 

csanyk

Member
There is a topic in community for forum issues, and as weno longer need 1.x suggestions (and since it was for us really, not the community) it was hidden.
Thank you for the explanation. When I had asked @Nocturne about it some weeks ago, he had said that he thought all the forums should have been kept visible, and that hiding the Suggestion Box forum must have been a mistake, so I'd been waiting for someone to get around to un-hiding it. I guess he was misinformed, or there may be different thinking among the YYG and forum admin staff.

I do think that the Suggestion Box subforum should be available for public reading. For a few reasons:
  1. Often, someone would suggest "add new feature [x]" and someone would reply "but you can already accomplish [x] (via some workaround or technique; here is a description of how to) so you should just build it yourself." This advice on how to implement missing features yourself was just the sort of helpful information that a user of GameMaker might need, should they want to do [x].
  2. The yes/no response to suggestions helps users of GameMaker know what to expect, at least in the 1.x sequence. It's not quite as good as the roadmap was, but at least having the official response told us whether you guys were open to delivering on some requested feature or not.
  3. Hiding the response re-opens the questions again, since they no longer have answers that are visible to us with the questions. And I know most of the topics that were discussed in the forums would be closed after a time because YYG were adamant that the feature was not part of your vision for the 1.x sequence, no matter what arguments we might have for adopting the suggestion. I would assume that you guys don't want to re-hash those discussions all over again.
  4. Despite what you say, that the Suggestion Box was "really" for YYG's benefit, not the users, I think when it comes to things that a business such as YYG does in the public sphere, all of it is for the benefit of your customers. The Suggestion Box benefitted us because it allowed us the opportunity to engage in a direct dialog with the developers of the product that we use, so we could jointly shape its future. The history of that dialog is of interest to many of us users, I suspect. Fans tend to be interested in all aspects of a thing they're a fan of, after all. We crave to feel close to the creators and to have access and to feel like we're a part of it all.
  5. When @ShaunJS asked the community about the approach YYG should take with respect to the content in the old forums, there was pretty strong consensus among those of us who cared to respond that the old forums should be preserved entirely, and not a selection of content that was deemed valuable and useful, since there would never be agreement on what content was valuable and useful, and since weeding through it all to separate wheat from chaff would be a huge effort.
It's YYG's forum to administer as they see fit, obviously, but I do hope that you guys would consider these points, and perhaps allow yourselves to be persuaded by them. Thanks for listening.
 
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NPT

Guest
I figured it was a "bread and circuses" strategy.
Of course keeping the old-offtopic was a bread and circuses strategy, archiving the forums itself was a huge bread and circus strategy. The value that the old GMC adds is negligible and will become even more negligible with each passing day.

As far as trying to justify why Suggestions is gone but others remain is because of the relivence of the content is hogwash.

The Suggestions subforum actually had a great deal of good technical content in a lot of the suggestion followup and discussion. If the reason for making forums visible was there relavance then Portfolios and Job offers should have been the first to be flagged as invisible.

Ultimately, the reason that Suggestions isn't there is because YYGs doesn't want it visible anymore. Nothing wrong with that.
 

csanyk

Member
Of course keeping the old-offtopic was a bread and circuses strategy, archiving the forums itself was a huge bread and circus strategy. The value that the old GMC adds is negligible and will become even more negligible with each passing day.

As far as trying to justify why Suggestions is gone but others remain is because of the relivence of the content is hogwash.

The Suggestions subforum actually had a great deal of good technical content in a lot of the suggestion followup and discussion. If the reason for making forums visible was there relavance then Portfolios and Job offers should have been the first to be flagged as invisible.

Ultimately, the reason that Suggestions isn't there is because YYGs doesn't want it visible anymore. Nothing wrong with that.
What a strange response.

On the one hand, you're calling BS on the reasons given, providing some good logic for why the stated reasons are unlikely to be the real reasons.

On the other hand, you say it's fine for YYG to do whatever they want with their forums.

Well, no one has said that YYG can't do anything they want with their forums. I've only asked if it was intentional to hide the Suggestion Box, and provided some reasons why it would be good to keep it accessible (which you seem to agree with, at least in part, that there was valuable discussion that happened there.)

Ultimately, YYG will do what they want, for whatever reasons they decide matter to them. That's not to say that they shouldn't take into consideration what people who are the reason they're still in business want.
 
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NPT

Guest
I don't think it's inconsistent at all.

My position is that the decision to make one forum invisible when clearly other forums would fall under the same criteria demonstrates not much thought was put towards the decision. And not much needed to be because the archive is not important.

I have no problem with that, because I don't consider it a big deal. I think that the complaining and whining that many forums members took upon learning the GMC was to close was just that, complaining and whining. I'm guessing the majprity of those who were vocal about it being archived haven't taken advantage of it and won't.

Cripes, people barely used the historical posts when the gmc was live, of course it's not going to be used as it becomes more obsole.



I would love to see the stats on it's usage.
 

csanyk

Member
I don't think it's inconsistent at all.

My position is that the decision to make one forum invisible when clearly other forums would fall under the same criteria demonstrates not much thought was put towards the decision.

I have no problem with that, because I don't consider it a big deal. I think that the complaining and whining that many forums members took upon learning the GMC was to close was just that, complaining and whining. I'm guessing the majprity of those who were vocal about it being archived haven't taken advantage of it and won't.

I would love to see the stats on it's usage.
That's what gets me; if it's no big deal to you, why do you care at all? Why participate in this thread if it's no big deal to you?

The old GMC, being readonly, will not get used as much as the new forums -- obviously. I don't think that the new forums search integrates with the old site. However, people using google to search for answers of how to do things in GM:S will still find the old site, and there's plenty of stuff in there that's still useful to read, any howto info on stable features that haven't changed in many versions and are unlikely to change in the future are still relevant. There's plenty of non-obvious howto that is explained well enough that it deserves to stay around. And external sites (such as mine) that linked to articles on the GMC forums will continue to be able to do so without the links falling victim to rot.

I just think it's too bad that Suggestion Box isn't included.
 
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NPT

Guest
Becauase
That's what gets me; if it's no big deal to you, why do you care at all? Why participate in this thread if it's no big deal to you?
Because it's important that (overly) vocal don't impress upon others and YYC that they represent the will of the community.

Just because an issue is important to you doesn't mean it's an issue to all. There is nothing wrong with vocalizing that an issue isn't important. I'm guessing that the archiving of the GMC isn't important to the majority of the current members. And there's nothing wrong that being represented.
 

csanyk

Member
Because it's important that (overly) vocal don't impress upon others and YYC that they represent the will of the community.

Just because an issue is important to you doesn't mean it's an issue to all. There is nothing wrong with vocalizing that an issue isn't important. I'm guessing that the archiving of the GMC isn't important to the majority of the current members. And there's nothing wrong that being represented.
Again, I'm baffled by your reasoning.

For things that are not a big deal, the usual course of action is the one that requires the least effort.

Hiding the Suggestion Box was a deliberate action taken for a reason. If it wasn't a big deal, they would have left it visible to all.

Keeping the old GMC archive was also a deliberate action taken for a reason.

They ASKED us what we'd like to see done with the old forums, and community spoke. It was widely agreed upon that the forums should stick around.

Now, I suppose you can make the argument that the number of active user accounts in the new forums today is a tiny minuscule fraction of the overall population of planet earth. Most people on planet earth don't concern themselves with our forums. Therefore, one could use your reasoning to decide that NOTHING on these forums is a big deal. Therefore, they should just shut down the servers, because out of 7 billion people in the world, 6.999999 billion wouldn't think that it's a big deal, and that point of view is the one that needs to be represented, and is in fact the more important viewpoint as compared to the several people who actually use the forums and thus do care about them, and happen to care enough about them to be vocal about it.

That's just silly. It's obvious that's silly, right?

On any given topic, the number of people who participate in the conversation is a minority of the total number of people who have access to read the conversation. You're saying that people who don't have any inclination to make their opinion known on any given topic of discussion, despite the minimal amount of effort that this would require, deserve to have their opinion, which you can only infer from their silence and not actually know, be given more weight than people who actually speak aloud.

It's like you're advocating for a democracy by telepathy, where saying anything out loud is disqualifying. Only, there's no telepathy. So the people in charge just do whatever they feel like doing, because if there was opposition, there would be silent telepathic mindwaves speaking out in opposition, and they don't seem to be receiving any. And anyone saying anything out loud is to be ignored.

Truly mind boggling.

To the people who don't care if the old forums are up or not, let me tell you, the problem is already solved for them, because they're not trying to go to the old forums. It does nothing to further help those people by serving 404 errors instead of the old forums; they're already not going. But, for people who do try to go, if they get a 404 error where there was once an article that they were interested in reading, I guess their opinion doesn't matter because it's just that one person, even if they feel strongly enough about it to make multiple inquiries.

Do I have that right?
 
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NPT

Guest
I'm guessing that you're accustomed to being the squaky wheel and getting the grease.
 

csanyk

Member
I'm guessing that you're accustomed to being the squaky wheel and getting the grease.
Not really. I just don't see the point in people who have no particular interest in a topic stopping by to lob silly arguments against a perfectly reasonable proposal.
 
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NPT

Guest
Because me not caring whether the old GMC is archived, does not mean that I don't care that YYGs is devoting resources to what I consider unimportant.

And the fact that you don't understand why "don't care" is an important part of a demographic when decisions are made says a lot about you. You should work on that.
 

csanyk

Member
Because me not caring whether the old GMC is archived, does not mean that I don't care that YYGs is devoting resources to what I consider unimportant.

And the fact that you don't understand why "don't care" is an important part of a demographic when decisions are made says a lot about you. You should work on that.
You might have a point IF it took significant effort to keep a static web site running.

The "don't care" demographic is the majority for ANY forum, any topic. You might as well go through every single topic and say "You guys, I know there's like 2-4 people having a conversation here, but it's really important that you all realize that there's a few thousand people who use this forum who are NOT participating in your discussion, and they do not care about this topic. Therefore, why are you even having this discussion?"

Arguing with you is like a monty python sketch. Thank you very much for bringing it to my attention that I'm one of a small handful of people who cares about this topic. I've gotten a response from @Mike, and I've replied with some perspectives I'm hoping he'll entertain. If that one permissions bit flips on the Suggestion Box forum, I can assure you, you will not notice anything different in your life, or in the velocity with which YoYo are delivering new releases of GM:S.

You've made your point; it's wrong. Be on your way, then.
 

FrostyCat

Redemption Seeker
You might have a point IF it took significant effort to keep a static web site running.
Except it isn't a static web site.

My profile view count is still changing between visits, and I can still use the search box. This suggests that queries are still being made against the database, it's taking up processing power beyond regular HTTP work, and all of that leaves room for it to come under attack again.

Worse yet, given that this server has been compromised to the root level before, extra precautions must be taken so that it doesn't become a springboard from which to attack other servers in YoYo's roster.

I don't have information on how much effort they have put into keeping it on life support, but I'm sure it's still a tangible load --- and not all of it automated.
 

csanyk

Member
I meant static in that the site is readonly now, and that there's no further development going into it, not that it's static HTML. Obviously, there's still code generating the pages by querying a database and populating a page template when a HTTP request is being made.

But how does making one subforum off-limits reduce the effort they have to put into keeping the site running? I expect that there is essentially zero maintenance from a developer standpoint. Sure, there's operational costs associated with keeping the site around, but they're minimal to begin with, and if there's any tangible additional effort that is saved by making one subforum readonly, you'll have to explain to me how that's so before I'll believe it.
 
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Aura

Guest
However, people using google to search for answers of how to do things in GM:S will still find the old site
No, they won't.

And I seriously doubt that somebody is going to use the IPB search, for it's way too broken to work correctly. Plus a majority of people won't even care about consulting the old GMC; and people who use Google would have no option other than to create a thread here, for Google does not take the old GMC into account currently.

But that doesn't mean that the archive isn't helpful. It is still widely used for linking to resources and guides by Q&A regulars. I don't see why the Suggestion Box forum should be kept private either. But there's not much that you can do to persuade YoYo in this regard if the decision's been made.

(I remember @Alice maintaining a log to keep track of all the suggestions, but it disappeared soon after getting posted and pinned... are you still maintaining it? It could be particularly useful in such a situation)
 

Mike

nobody important
GMC Elder
It seems strange that they'd keep suggestions invisible unless they had something to hide there...
....................and so the conspiracies begin.

It's not visible because its all about changing and improving 1.x - mainly the editor, and we're not doing that. So to us.... it's now irrelevant.
 

HayManMarc

Member
I still use the archived GMC. Quite a bit, actually. The local search works every bit as well as it ever did (which was not ever well), so manually thumbing thru the pages becomes the next move. I usually find what I'm looking for, but it takes a lot longer now with no google search support.

Must be nice to be an expert, experienced programmer who doesn't have to care about novice/intermediate problems. No worries though --- in another 5-10 years, this new forum should have all those answers available. Good luck making your game, noob, and don't complain when you're told that your question has already been asked.

:/
 
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