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#feedback

Edited by Baph: 1/11/2013 6:10:19 AM
14

Why B.next is a bad forum

This has, hands down in my opinion, been a horrendous update. Bungie has taken what used to be a clean, aesthetic, and most importantly, FUNCTIONAL forum and turned it into a pale, cluttered mess. The purpose of a Message Board is discussion, and that was also one of the primary functions of the old Bungie.net. Quality discussion requires structure. Structure would mean things like different and separate forums, organized by genre such as "Off-Topic", "Community Discussion", or "Halo 3". These forums would serve as loci for threads, which were discussions about a more specific idea that fit within the greater genre. These threads require structure too, in order to ensure that the discussion within them would unfold in a coherent fashion. This meant that posts were sorted in chronological order from oldest to last, so that the reader could EASILY follow the natural progression of the discussion as it evolved. This would allow for greater understanding when they posted. It also mean that replies to posts within a thread took the form of quoting that person, responding, and having your response appear WITHIN the timeline of discussion. The result? Forums and threads were easily identifiable, navigable, and easy to read. Bungie.next has completely done away with all of that. Posts in a thread are now sorted from NEWEST to OLDEST. Instead of quoting, the primary method of individual response has taken the form of a "reply" feature, in which your comments are hidden from view by a drop down button located beneath the post you've responded to. What's more is that these replies are sorted from OLDEST to NEWEST. It is a contradiction of structure, and it only serves to fragment threads into a series of reply trains. One has to wonder when at which point this makes the concept of the thread redundant in the first place. If you're involved in a discussion, you have to go to the thread, then go to the replies. It's tedious and insane. The abolition of separate and distinct forums by the introduction of hashtags is also pretty ridiculous and pointless. Forums gave threads a chance to live, as well as providing a single convenient location to manage your viewing of them. Needless to say, Private Groups have almost been completely ruined.

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  • I agree 100%.

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  • I really quite like this update. :-)

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    • Edited by Vien 'Quitonm: 1/12/2013 8:18:06 PM
      I second this... Well backed opinion and it isn't a wall of text of rants saying to "adapt" to these so called changes.

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    • -----This is a beta!----- Anyways....the hastags thing is actually quite brilliant. Bungie removed all of the forums for 1 huge forum filtered via hashtags. So essentially....each hashtah IS a forum! Just click on said hashtag, like #Flood and boom....Flood Forum. First forum of its type....and it really is a genius one.

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    • 0
      [quote] [i]This is a test! Don't panic![/i][/quote]

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    • Well said. Hashtags are a vile plague.

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    • Amen to all of that. I'd also add that Bungie.net had a 'culture' of it's own that grew over many years, and this new format has sterilized all remnants of it away, leaving nothing left but a generic facebook/youtube/reddit clone that panders to the lowest common denominator of low-attention-span speedy acquisition of large amounts of irrelevant data. Gone are the days of discussions of any significant depth - here is the era of twitter-like sentence-to-paragraph junk responses.

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      • ...bump?

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      • Edited by Dr. Phil: 1/11/2013 2:00:42 PM
        PREACH!

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      • Worth Bumping (I didn't mean to do a "reply" type of reply. rofl)

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      • I fully agree. This new layout would not have been as horrible were it not for this new posting system.

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        • Honestly getting rid of 3 things would make this a whole lot better. Hashtags, honestly sub forums were so much better. You knew where to go if you wanted to talk about a certain thing. Lets take the flood for example, were is it. The community that was the flood is scattered. So many hashtags for just the flood alone. The old posting format i agree is so much better then this. Not much else to say on that. And finally the white background, omg what is it with websites using a white background. It hurts the eyes, a nice and dark background with a lighter text so nice.

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        • Exactly, I could not have said it better myself. I don't even know what section I'm in right now. Am I still in the S7 group?

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        • I'll also add that the reply feature hides discussion from lurkers or readers of that thread. Whereas before all posts were equally visible and you could easily read a discussion between two members, those discussions are now hidden and less likely to get attention.

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