Discovery Gaming Community

Hello.

Well, it's been a while since I first thought of making this thread and whatnot. I'm not particularly a fan of long posts so I'll just get to the point before my self-consciousness starts being an arse. I don't even believe that this will gain traction, but at least I gave it a try.

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As the topic states;
I had a gut feeling that maybe opening a discussion about it might, at the very least, give me some insight as to why people feel or have felt the need for more transparency from the staff team. Be it devs, admins, or even mods. As far as I can tell, this topic has been going on and off with varying frequency among our community and I'm not entirely sure has it been driven to the ground or just hasn't resurfaced as of late. But alas, I digress.

In honor of simplicity, I am going to ask a simple question.
Does transparency, in your eyes as people whom are part of this community, help somehow in any useful fashion?

I've been going on and on in my own head regarding what transparency might help with, especially on the staff side on things such as Player Requests/SRPs/etc. Though I have never tried to gather people's opinion into a single thread/poll-style discussion. So might as well try it now.

Comment away as to what you would be in favor for, and why. Please keep it civil for once and try not to go after each other's throats.

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P.S. If the rest of the mod team and the admin team can be so kind as to let me moderate this thread on my sole discretion, I'd heavily appreciate it. Better yet, contribute to the discussion yourselves if you can! Though I can understand if moderating a thread on my own might not be the "best" solution.

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Update/Edit #1 12:58 UTC/15:58 UTC+3 (25/09/2018): 15Y/1N/2Other
Not gonna say that I didn't expect that kind of result, but I do wonder where the other three are coming from since there's no real comments. Unless people are withholding comments for later, which happens.

Update/Edit #2 16:58 UTC/19:58 UTC+3 ((25/09/2018)) 20Y/1N/2Other
Thanks for the thoughts so far folks. Getting some nice suggestions honestly.

Update/Edit #3 07:09 UTC/10:09 UTC+3 ((27/09/2018)) 25Y/2N/2Other
Nice to see even a single elaboration from a No vote. Well I'll take this as "completed for the time being". Hoping I can make something out of this in the meanwhile.

Inaccuracy/Inconsistencies are welcome to be corrected and mentioned.

Yes. Look at all the times a lack of transparency has created drama or had a big detrimental impact. Being honest with people is always important, in any context.

From my own concern and experience, what particularly makes me lose interest quickly is how long any process seems to take, and seeing this process in the open would greatly aid in the process of patience. It would also help to know what processes are used in any capacity, so we know what to expect; Accountability, if you will. I don't need to see who voted what, but I can't make adjustments or negotiate in any way. It takes 1-3 months to process virtually anything (You have lives, I get it) and at the end of that time, the request was denied for various small reasons. To keep it short:

1. Please give us a separation between faction requests; A section for addressing problems with tech cells, ID's, stations, ship-lines, FR5's, or other problems within the faction; and faction perk requests; where factions get new mining bonuses, tech cells, stations, etc.

2. Please make a specific section for individual Unique ship requests that are handled outside a faction as a non-perk. Individuals want special snowflakes too.

3. Please give us an FR5 subsection so we can see who is actually FR5'd to whom, as well as a specific place to post FR5 requests. This could be it's own section connected to the tracker, or put with the Faction request subsection as described above.

4. Standardize the formats for the above sections with clear locations and templates to avoid confusion for requests so we don't waste everyone's time. This will save the mod and admin team a lot of organizational hassle.

Edit: swapped 3 and 4 to avoid confusion.

I believe what really is necessary is a deadline for people of the staff to vote on things. It should be a month, so people cannot claim that 'we have lives too' while still significantly decreasing the amount of time an individual request takes to pass. If someone does not vote in this one month period of time, their vote is considered a yes and they may not change that stance, as they obviously did not care to vote for an entire month. The idea behind this is to shorten wait times by employing a system where unanswered requests are considered granted if nobody cares to answer them. By having the respective subforums be visible to everyone (or just the creator of the post), people can monitor their own request and remind people when the time is over.

Edit: Alternatively, one could just set a set deadline of a month and in the end only look at the for and against votes and completely ignore the people who did not vote. That would also speed up the process considerably. Of course, the thread(s) would still need to be visible at least to the one who posted it. People are putting themselves out there to ask something of you in a request. At least let them see what you think of their ideas.

A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity.
~ The Dalai Lama

Would like to see a Developer Thread that is locked, but constantly updated bi-weekly or monthly on what is being done behind the scenes of this server. A list on what is coming up on the next patch. Having a list that is visible to the community of what they plan to add/subtract/fix in next upcoming months.

Also, I understand that our Developers, including me, have tedious and important things to do in life before putting time on this game and the community with our art and talents; voluntarily. However, I see an issue when trying to communicate with a developer respectfully, i get the silent treatment. That is low for a dev member to act. Be open minded and speak, reply to the community concerns. Does not have to be instant but when you get the chance, browse through your skype/discord chats and see who have pending questions. If you honestly, here comes the "transparent" in play, do not know, tell them that - atleast they got an answer out of a Dev!

Communication is a MAJOR key in Gaming Industries with the people who play your games that you put effort on. More or so the backbone of any game. Not saying that you guys (developers) are not communicating, but it needs to be more usual than what it is right now. Having a dev post with upcoming patch notes/plans is a great start!

That is all.

(09-25-2018, 03:51 PM)Felsvar Wrote: [ -> ]Would like to see a Developer Thread that is locked, but constantly updated bi-weekly or monthly on what is being done behind the scenes of this server.

We literally used to have "Teerin's Transparency Tuesday" which was effectively that. I wouldn't mind a Xalrok version. We also had various other dev QnA threads over the years. Things like 's 'Newsroom' or 's system dev discussions. Were I an actual developer, I would be happy to do something like this, but I just do FLHook stuff which has always been a side thing within Disco because of the way it's implemented.

With that all said, I think transparency is a fine line. Too much is bad, too little is shooting yourself in the foot. The right dosage is when the Devs/Admins can come out with something really cool, but not take three years developing the surprise without anyone having so much as a hint. No hints short term stuff or small subtle hints long term stuff (at least in terms of development / events).

Didn't read the topic as I am too tired, so here's an answer to the quetions:

Some transparency is good, however full disclosure would lead to situations where staff members could be harassed for certain decisions or coerced to not cast the votes to avoid that harassment in the first place. Transparency on exact reason of the sanctions/bans/rule changes without bullshit and ability to discuss the latter with community before the change would be really beneficial.

(09-25-2018, 04:31 PM)Laz Wrote: [ -> ]With that all said, I think transparency is a fine line. Too much is bad, too little is shooting yourself in the foot. The right dosage is when the Devs/Admins can come out with something really cool, but not take three years developing the surprise without anyone having so much as a hint. No hints short term stuff or small subtle hints long term stuff (at least in terms of development / events).

And i agree with "too much info" is bad. But right now, we are shooting ourselves in the foot, if we put it in your terms. Something like highlights of expected contents.

Anyways, like i said, I agree with you Laz, but that didnt lasted for too long.

Edit: Do we have a Dev Blog?