Let's Talk Boards Org (part two)
...annnnd we’re back. Check out the initial discussion about NA Boards organization here, and our original post about upcoming changes to the boards and our thinking behind them here.
What we discussed
To very briefly summarize, here’s what we covered in our first post:
- Too damn many sub-boards! In addition to many current sub-boards being stagnant, this slows the front page, keeps lots of content hidden, and contributes to certain topics being overly dominant.
- We want to slim the current roster down, but how to do so while still covering the vast array of League topics?
- Use case rather than subject matter - why you want to use a board becomes more important than strict topical exactitude and allows, for fewer, more lively Boards.
- We proposed a slimmed down roster of Boards with placeholder names. Also acknowledged the potential need for filters / tagging to make a slimmed-down sub-board roster workable.
- We asked for your feedback - thanks for providing it!
Our major takeaways regarding your guys’ thoughts include:
- No significant objections to the concept of consolidating existing sub-boards, or the proposed Riot Plz, NA LFG, and various utility boards.
- Minor concerns around the proposed ‘Level Up’ sub-board, mostly related to naming or certain topics potentially dominating.
- Significant concerns around the proposed ‘League Creations’ sub-board, especially related to naming but also concerning topic segregation.
- Widespread concerns around altering GD in any way.
Lessons and conclusions
First of all, we’ve decided that no boards re-org will take place until we’re ready to implement tagging / filter tech. We already suspected this would be more requirement than nice-to-have, and your strong feedback helped us confirm that. We’re tentatively pegging the overall boards update to whenever the Boards dev team is able to deploy this feature, and we’ll be sure to keep you guys in the loop regarding that timeline (we’re working with the dev team to get you more continuous / visible info about boards dev - think patch notes).
While waiting for this tech should neatly solve many of your (not to mention our) concerns about a slimmed down sub-board roster, some of you also expressed particular concern regarding the placeholder sub-board names. As you’ll see below, we’ve updated some of the placeholder names in response to your feedback, and continue to be open to suggestions (we’ve got some time while waiting for tag/filter tech).
That leaves GD and the future of the Misc. / Off-topic / General space - let’s break this one down a bit. Our core objectives here are essentially two-fold:
- Bringing all these topics (misc, off-topic, general) into one sub-board that contributes to the front page like the other main content boards.
- Replacing “General Discussion” as a name - as we mentioned in our previous post, we’re looking for something that will more closely jibe with the sub-boards’ eventual guidelines regarding it being the place to discuss topics beyond League that still reside in the same cultural space.
We fully understand that some of you may disagree with these goals, however, we’re convinced that they’re necessary for making sure the upcoming updates have a meaningful impact in securing the long-term health of the NA boards. That doesn’t mean we don’t value your feedback on this proposed space:
- We’re holding off on the re-org until tag/filter tech is implemented, which should address some of the concerns around topic segregation (memes and games, etc). We also plan to chat with you guys down the line about what those tags look like.
- Naming - several of you pointed out the potentially confusing overlap with the community show. As with some of the other sub-boards, we’ve offered a new placeholder below, and continue to be open to suggestions.
- Prior to the eventual Boards updates, we’ll be back in future threads to chat with you about Boards-wide topics like moderation, the Universal Rules, and future dev.
Updated sub-board organization plans
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As stated, no boards re-org will take place until we’re ready to implement tagging / filter tech (tentatively ~2-3 months out).
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Slimmed-down roster of listed “content” sub-boards (PLACEHOLDER names below - suggestions remain welcome). These will all contribute to the boards front page and use vote-based THREAD sorting by default. ‘Strategy & Tactics,’ ‘Story & Creativity,’ and ‘Riot Plz!’ will use nested comments, while ‘NA LFG’ and ‘The Jungle’ will use chronological comments.
- Strategy & Tactics: Peer-to-peer education, tips & tricks, tutorials, big play videos, and balance/meta discussion.
- Story & Creativity: Discussion of official creative content, creative videos, fanart, cosplay. (Fan fiction / roleplaying to potentially be integrated at some point based on efficacy of tag/filter tech.)
- NA Looking for Group: Team recruitment, live event info, and out-of-game connections.
- Riot Plz!: Feedback posts / requests regarding any and all aspects of the League experience.
- The Jungle: Video games, movies, anime, “nerd culture,” and any of the many other fandoms that exist in the same cultural space as League.
- Utility boards to stay mostly consistent, with one addition. These will not contribute to the front page, and will all use vote-based thread sorting and nested comments. We may explore condensing them based on efficacy of tagging tech, but it's not mission-critical.
- Boards Feedback: As current.
- Help and Support: As current.
- Report a Bug: As current.
- Behavior and Discipline: Discuss moderation and receive feedback around PB measures affecting accounts.
What’s next
Once again, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Beyond this conversation, we’ll be back in the next couple weeks to talk about moderation as part of our overall discussion with you guys regarding the upcoming boards changes.
We’ve also got the usual suspects on hand to chat:
- ADillonMostDirty
- Keyru
- dArtagnan
- RiotZwill
- WookieCookie
I appreciate the update on what's going on since that other thread went radio silent as I assume you guys were talking about the things you read there.