Questions about sticky threads

Hi,

I'm opening this thread to gather here all suggestions, remarks, comments concerning sticky threads in order to improve them. I hope my English-speaking colleagues will read the following messages with attention and take them into account by
1) updating the sticky threads
or
2) ignoring them and then tell clearly why.

Such a thread also exists in the French forum. In it, I sometimes delete all off-topic posts or posts taken into account (for suggestions either accepted or denied). I'm bound to doing the same here

This thread is designed to improve the help contained in the sticky threads, not to ask help of any kind . Thanks for your understanding.

I feel the main problem with the stickies is that the FAQ get missed very easily. A new user will only glance their eyes over them and get overwhelmed buy the amount of topics and probably never actually get down to reading them. It's exactly what I did and felt when I first started. The last thing you want to be doing is reading a bunch of stickies when you've just started a new fun cool game. So if it was up to me I'd get rid of as many as possible.

What I'd suggest with regards to 'Beginners help' and the FAQ's is to combine them. We don't really need a whole topic for just a handful of Wiki links (just one wiki link is necessary or at least keep the wiki links in the same post) and the further down links on how to taken screenshots for the maps and stuff which beginners certainly don't need to be bothering themselves with. A beginner wants a thread that tells there where they can find out about what all the bricks and powersups do etc but an excel spreadsheet for every shop known, or how to take and upload screen shots or some French ABC files (no idea what they are myself) will just deter a user from reading any of those topics.

With regards to the terms of use, I see no point in it being there at all. Right now is the first time I've ever read it actually and I've been following all the rules pretty good, you don't learn the rules by reading that topic but by reading the forum and you can see how and what people are posting and we all just follow suit. If the info has to be down somewhere, maybe combine with with the FAQ / Beginners Help.

'To see the French forum' again it's handy if anyone comes across it, but it's doing more harm that good (diverting attention away from more important stickies). At a guess a user is automatically placed into the right forum by their IP address anyway so that message is for people who are English but also speak French which is basically 1 or two people (however there's many people who are French who speak English). It should be deleted.

'Motion twin support' is the biggest offender, we don't need a whole sticky for one link. It could be easily tagged onto the FAQ, or maybe not as it's very rare that people actually need to contact them and if they do there'll always be a topic first anyway. Also most people can work out how to do it by going to the motion twin site by the link at the bottom.

The 'Level editing' topic i'm not too sure on, I feel that this is also useless as by the time forum members get all their stars they'll know how to edit levels regardless of reading the sticky. And also, if a player doesn't use the forum they aren't going to be reading the sticky anyway. What would be much more suitable is something in-game that comes up informing the player of the rules when they get all their stars. However, there was the announcement a few months ago which made it seem like there was lots of incorrectly edited levels so maybe it would only make the problem worse if it was removed.

In any case there really doesn't need to be more than 3 stickies, if there is they'll just get overlooked.

Thank you very much for your output.

Many of the ideas you mentioned have been considered by the moderators and we are currently working on what to do to bring optimal results.

With regards to the terms of use, I see no point in it being there at all. Right now is the first time I've ever read it actually and I've been following all the rules pretty good, you don't learn the rules by reading that topic but by reading the forum and you can see how and what people are posting and we all just follow suit. If the info has to be down somewhere, maybe combine with with the FAQ / Beginners Help.
As you said, the terms of use has to be somewhere, and having it added with the FAQ seems to be the best solution. Having a set of rules is very standard in any forum and having them written somewhere prevents any misbehaving user from using ignorance of the rules as a valid excuse. Your argument that reading the forum will be enough to learn the rules, but that is assuming someone actually reads much of the forums before posting and that all rules can be learned from observing the behaviour of users in a very small portion of the forum.

'To see the French forum' again it's handy if anyone comes across it, but it's doing more harm that good (diverting attention away from more important stickies). At a guess a user is automatically placed into the right forum by their IP address anyway so that message is for people who are English but also speak French which is basically 1 or two people (however there's many people who are French who speak English). It should be deleted.
You should know that this was added a long time ago when an English section was newly added and some people outside of France or other French-speaking countries were somehow stuck in the English forum and did not know how to return to the French forum. But, I agree that it should be deleted.

'Motion twin support' is the biggest offender, we don't need a whole sticky for one link. It could be easily tagged onto the FAQ, or maybe not as it's very rare that people actually need to contact them and if they do there'll always be a topic first anyway.
The MT Support is not just for contacting admins. It contains a short FAQ regarding mainly technical and payment issues.

Also most people can work out how to do it by going to the motion twin site by the link at the bottom.
You would be surprised how many people "overlook" the links at the bottom.

The 'Level editing' topic i'm not too sure on, I feel that this is also useless as by the time forum members get all their stars they'll know how to edit levels regardless of reading the sticky.
Again, you would be surprised how many bad edits were made while these guidelines were posted, much less before then.

What would be much more suitable is something in-game that comes up informing the player of the rules when they get all their stars.
Rewording of the Star Dust mission (among other missions... ) has already been suggested to the admins, but at the moment, nothing has been changed.

However, there was the announcement a few months ago which made it seem like there was lots of incorrectly edited levels so maybe it would only make the problem worse if it was removed.
Frankly, although having the announcement may have made some effect to those who had the stars, it probably caused more problems than solved as fairly new players started posting in the forums because they had no idea what the announcement was talking about (not to mention some of the more experienced users who felt annoyed publicly and privately).

Hi,

as a moderator, I'm giving some arguments why in addition to the "Beginner's help", two other threads should be kept stickied (at any cost according to me).

I think you both underestimate the importance of Terms of use of the forum. Of course, only few people read them carefully, but it shall always be put at the most visible place. It's a matter of principle, people must know that precise rules exist on this forum and moderators don't act arbitrarily. This way, if someone is moderated or punished, they can always read (again) this thread put at a place easy to be found to understand why. Putting these rules inside an FAQ amongst a bunch of things related to the game would only depreciate them and make the reader confuse. I'm definitely against making such a thing.

Concerning level editing, I'm not sure to understand what Npfan said. The truth is, there were a lot of editing abuses before the rules existed but there are hardly any now. Last October, when the editor tool became really effective (that is, when the teleportation ability for editing purposes was given to mods), we had about 5000 proposals to examine plus sometimes 50 new ones per day ! Among them, frankly speaking, at least 95% were abuses. The average player has no idea how great a blessing the bunch of announcements was for mods. Firstly, rules for level editing were written because hardly any player is even aware that the stars enable people to edit levels for everyone and not for themselves. Until a new "Star Dust" mission briefing is written (if an admin ever makes it), this has to pointed out clearly and a sticky thread is the best place for it. Secondly, since the Anomaly list is available, we mods are able to withdraw edition rights temporarily or definitely (we had no way to stop absuses before). Then comes the same principle as for the other thread: if people can be punished, they must clearly understand which rules they broke, so a thread (namely, the Rules for level editing thread) shall be given as a reference.

You would be surprised how many people "overlook" the links at the bottom.
maybe they should just get a new colour? it doesn't differ to much from the background right now, so it's only natural that they don't catch your eye immediately..

i can't find the thread i have to post my coordinats of terre in.. maybe there should be some more links in the stickied thread?

Hi,

that's a good idea ... I gave you the answer in the "accomplishments" thread, thanks for asking the question

Me, i agreed with caid.

the level edit rules and forum rules stickies deserve there own slot.

Above all else this is for convienience. If i want to remind myself what rules to follow when i get all the stars, there is a sticky. In the same motion, i can re-read the forum rules anytime to see if i can spot why a mod used this infamous smiley

It also helps i suppose that im an avid forum reader and the kind of person who looks and bothers to read stickies in regards to rules. but im sure there are others like me.

For those that break the rules, the mod have a convienient sticky to link to, just like caid said

The two stickies that could be easily combined, in my opinion, are the FAQ and beginner help ones. Beginners need help... and always have questions... often frequently asked ones

This thread gave me an idea:

Should AB-specific acronyms be listed in the FAQ or Beginner's Help?

For example:
SHC =
LHC =
etc.

Hi,

this thread is designed to improve the help contained in the sticky threads, not to ask help of any kind

All off-topic posts have been removed, thanks for your understanding.