is this.... is this an announcement to check "announcements"? ROFL omg my sides hurt
One would think, seeing as it isn't like a hidden location, that if people are the types to be reading the announcements, they wouldn't much need a reminder to check over there now and then.
Sadly, it seems few people actually read the Announcements forum.
I'm basing my sirentific conclusions about this on the resounding lack of response to the current round of Where's Bruce, which has been open for almost two weeks and has attracted only 49 participants, more than half of whom are repeat victims and almost none of whom are new players. I'd thought with the reopening of player invites that more would want to jump in, but the vast majority of people who submitted snaps heard about it not by seeing the announcement -- they heard about it via word-of-mouth or from seeing my update or being there when I announced it in Global chat.
Which was HORRIBLE, by the way. Global chat, I mean. That place is scary.
Anyhow, yeah. Either no one is reading the Announcements forum, or everyone is sick of Where's Bruce. Either way, it kind of sucks.
Yeah, I agree with you Sirentist. Not many people are remembering to check Announcements.
I have had a few people ask me about why I was doing another Bruce photo thinking they had been excluded as it was a private invite this time around and had to point them to Announcements. (I'm certainly not sick of Where is Bruce BTW).
I'm running a competition for the chance to win 3 Rube Potatoes and I haven't had the response I would have had in the past.
I find the same thing if I have an idea, I prefer to put it in general, because it seems no one reads the others. Then it's always filled with about a hundred captain obvious saying "oh great idea, you should put this in ideas" yeah, I would if people paid attention to it...
The reason I posted this in here, was simple. People forget to check the announcements forum, it's new. Some wonderful get-togethers, parties, games and contests happen in Ur and many of the new players don't know to look in the announcements forum. I hate to see anyone miss out on all the fun that is to be had in this game due to a change of forums. And, thank you all who arrange such sport for us, I have met some good friends at these events.
When the announcements page was created I predicted that it would result in player announcements being mostly unread. One of the devs mentioned that there *might* be a universal landing page in the future which shows the latest links from each forum. I hope that feature is still being considered.
Now, there are a few differences in terms of the amount of bumping that's going on, as well as the fact that people are seeing the post for the first time. But given the fact that original post was made 50 days ago, and announcements was created 30 days ago, I think the numbers speak for themselves.
Awesomesauce - the ideas forum is a lot less for the users, and more for the users to tell the dev's something. Sure, it is nice to see a bunch of people asskissing ideas we come up with, but really it isn't the users that make the changes it is the devs - they are who you want to read the ideas forum.
And adding to Pixie, the devs have stated multiple times that they read every thread in the ideas forum, even if they don't post, so all is well on that front. But yah, I do agree that the announcements forum doesn't really work how it should, but I also felt the same way about marketplace when it was first introduced. Now the markeplace is pretty well watched. Maybe it'll just be a matter of time before the announcements page will catch on?
The idea of posting announcements on the forums is to try to get as many people to read it as possible, but with the Announcements forum, it seems to me that very few people actually read them. I posted an ad for my tower in Announcements with a picture, and it had only 32 views. But I've posted other stuff In Photo contests before Annoncements forum and they got hundreds, and it wasn't even the main post. But when announcements were posted in General, tons more people read them, and tons more people participated in or went to the event. General wasn't even crowded before Announcements was created. And Announcements has only 2 full pages of posts over a month. I think it would be nice if all the announcements were moved back to General, that way more people would read them and more people would go to the event.
I'm glad there is a seperate forum. I don't care much for announcements. They were moved because, much like "WTB/S" threads, they cluttered up general. I would hope the community could just get used to the change and if they are the types to care about in-game gatherings, contests, meta games, etc that they would check it out now and then. The other problem is that a lot of people just stopped making announcements on the forums because *people aren't reading them* but maybe *people aren't reading them* because they aren't there.
Utilize the forums proper, and it will work out {just like the marketplace forums did}.
You know what would be a radical way to get people to read the Announcements forum? If TS staff actually posted game-change announcements there.
Not that I think anyone should go on all the staff posts in the General forum and say, "This is great, but it really should be in the Announcements forum," or anything. In fact that thought never even once crossed my mind.
Sirentist - I TOTALLY agree that staff should be posting announcements in the other forum as well.... But not for my clutter reasons above. Didn't everyone think that's where they were going to be in the first place?
I also thought "Announcements" was for TS announcements. I never remember to look and almost missed Where's Bruce 3. I found it by accident when I saw someones WB3 snap. I have probably missed some things I would like to have known about and would have known had they bee in this Forum. I am trying hard to remember to check it daily but my brain is already under great strain as it is.