EPTSharing some thoughts - Page 3
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SixStrings
Germany2046 Posts
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Yergidy
United States2107 Posts
But the things you are willing to do away with for this new system are the exact things that differentiated TL from the competition. I don't understand why you would trade the things that made you special for the upsides of being like everyone else... You're just going to fade into the background of every other dota site, and there are a TON of them and they are all the same. You're also destroying the cross-pollination that comes from covering multiple games on one site. I know I was getting into smash when you started covering it, but I doubt I will now that I will be on the dota site the majority of the time... | ||
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Zealos
United Kingdom3576 Posts
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Yacobs
United States846 Posts
It sounds to me like there was mostly a web design / organizational / interface issue with TL... why not simply have "filters" on the top that excludes games you don't want to see? Why did it necessitate a fragmented community? | ||
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Capped
United Kingdom7236 Posts
Other then that, have a nice day  | ||
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FiWiFaKi
Canada9859 Posts
Out of all the negativity, I'm truly happy that you guys were able to sort through what the users were complained about, and find the best solutions. I think the community forums is by far the biggest thing (like many others), and I thing the next big thing is have some complete calendar/stream list for all the games that teamliquid and sister sites cover. I think if that is done, there is essentially no reason for people to complain, and then all that is required is waiting... Just so people give the other site a try and realize for themselves that the change is for the better. | ||
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r.Evo
Germany14081 Posts
If Gosugamers coverage in 2008 had been better, would you really have chosen them over TL, or would the fact that it wasn't a dedicated site have made you come to TL and our community feel? People come for the content and stay for the community. Once they stay for that the content matters a lot less. Personally, and I imagine most TLers are similar, I don't even know how good gg.net coverage is for example. Why? Because TL.net content is good enough that I don't care about it. If you feel at home anywhere - whether in your regular life or your virtual life - you don't have the desire to change that. The goal should be to offer that feeling of "home" to as many people as possible. As many streamers or youtube channels know the amount of views you get doesn't say whether you're doing a great job or not - the amount of subscribers, of regulars does. The Liquidhearth blogs are a perfect example of what kind of "community" a cut like this is encouraging. I can't imagine that this is what the TL administration loves to see, especially with a perfect example right there. You have no idea how to filter it and eventually just don't feel like this is a home for you. Originally we thought that with our filter system we would be able to attract new Dota fans and have them be a part of our Dota community. Unfortunately, we have come to the realization that the filter system is only used by people experienced with the way TL works. Let's assume we run a gigantic store for a moment. We started noticing that people start getting impatient before even finding the product they desire and they end up leaving without buying anything. We now introduce a system which shows the shortest route to anything they want to combat this situation, people only have to type in what they want and the display at the bottom of their shopping cart will show an 8 bit arrow pointing towards it. For some reason this doesn't really change the behaviour of our customers and we decide to break our huge store down and start building multiple small ones in the nearby area to fix the problem. The reason new people don't use the filter system properly is because it sucks. Not the idea, but the implementation. Plain and simple. If, as a random unrealistic example, we would have huge buttons instead of the teamliquid.net banner every single new user would instantly see what's going on and use it. I am not a programmer but in all honesty I can't see an issue with having a domain (e.g. liquiddota.com) that points to another domain (teamliquid.net) and activates all filters for dota 2 at the same time. Solved. Every new user that comes to TL via liquiddota.com gets a dota 2 only view of the site. He then has the option to add and or modify that view after he decided he likes what the site offers. Done. There is zero reason to use badly implemented filters as an excuse for a "solution" that's completely blown out of proportion in comparison. I want to ask you to look at it from another perspective. TL used to be a family open to anyone. In our BW and SC2 days people felt like they could come over and feel at home. New users and old users alike. That is what gave TL the feel that it has today. The way TL is currently set up is near impossible to get into for anyone from the outside. That is not how TL used to be and it is not how TL should be. With the new Dota site we create two families that are open to anyone and I completely stand by the belief that it is a better approach to taking care of communities. Time for anecdotal evidence? I started lurking TL in 2003-2004. The main reason it took me so long to make an account (and it took me even longer to post regularly despite being highly into BW) was because teamliquid was scary. There were very few people with moderating powers, the quality of content was high and compared to today I feel as if you could get away with a lot less shitposting. Over time and especially with the growth after SC2 the quality of posts you could get away with gradually decreased. The image TL used to give me as a new user back then was one of "THIS IS OUR HOUSE" and I was given the choice to play by the rules set by people around longer than me or gtfo. That's what made teamliquid great. It's impossible to get into TL nowadays? Look at the amount of people registered 2010 and onwards (most of which who came with the SC2 hype) and look how they integrated, became contributors and staff members. Look at how lots and lots of these users argue in these very threads about a change the majority of them seems to highly dislike. Sure a new users will be intimidated by talking back at people with 5000 posts here and there but he should be. That's one of the fundamental rules of TL that keeps the quality of its content up and if I remember correctly a new user who doesn't care about that isn't welcome in the first place. The main point that we saw kept coming back is the sharing of community forums across sites. Previously we have been on the fence about this, in part due to technical difficulties, and after reading your feedback we're going to make it a priority to have shared community forums across all sites. Technical difficulties? Again, I am not a programmer, but why was it seemingly easy to add the Dota 2 subforums (integrated with all the customization features TL had to offer) but now it seems like a challenge to add a couple more Dota 2 related subforums and integrate them just the same? In that light it seems like an excuse. It's fine if the stance is "It's a new site because we wanted it to be a new site that's not integrated" but it's not alright to explain it as a technical difficulty when every single user here, new and old, has seen new subforums implemented just fine. The second main complaint was that it was so convenient to have a calendar supporting multiple esports. This is something I have been thinking about a lot since yesterday. It's really nothing more than just a thought right now but in the future I would like to try and build an in depth calendar that covers the calendar inputs from our sites that everyone would be able to customize it as they wish. It's just an idea for now, but I'm hoping to make it a reality some day. Again. Filters, filters, filters. Unregistered user coming via LHearth sees only HStone events. Unregistered user coming via LDota sees only Dota 2 events. Unregistered user via tl.net sees all events with filter buttons in reach. Registered user via any site can customize whatever he wants. Done. It's literally that easy from a design perspective. One last time: I am not a programmer, but from my amateur perspective the only reason this can be a challenge would be if the databases of the TL-franchise sites were deliberately kept separate with the intent to not integrate them into the main site. Even if I assume this was done for performance reasons it really doesn't seem incredibly hard to share certain things across all franchises. | ||
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FiWiFaKi
Canada9859 Posts
1) Your store example is incorrect. There is such a thing as stores being too big, and that's why you have stores specialize in what they do. There's a reason Home Depot doesn't sell fruit. Teamliquid can either be a Walmart where they don't sell quality product, or they can be a specialty store that is getting really big filling with new stock, and it just becomes too much to handle. Think of any hobby store, they are generally very specific, and very well versed on what they do. You'd rather go to the specialty store rather than go to help in a general store. Maybe a weird analogy, but I hope it sort of makes sense. 2) I started reading teamliquid in 2007, so not as early as you, but I think the quality has been pretty similar to what it is today. Actually, I might even argue that more was allowed then, especially for senior members. Of course when SC2 beta came out, teamliquid become more lenient - for a while! With such a high influx of users, giving them some time to adjust and slowly weeding the bad ones out simply seems like the best idea. In my eyes that was necessary to keep teamliquid a premier Starcraft community, and leader in reputability. Teamliquid is tightening that noose, and not being as easygoing on bullshit as it used to be two years back. Look how little balance whine there is relative to the beginning of SC2. 3) It's not just "creating community forums", what is attempted is syncing two forums from two different sites that you two different data bases. Meaning some people would have a Dota 2 icon, and some would have a SC2 icon... I know a little about computer science, and this doesn't seem like something extremely easy to do. I'm not sure exactly how complex it is, but it's completely fair that they were struggling with it. Remember, programmers, especially good programmers, cost money... And I believe the only programmer they really pay is R1CH, there is only so much you can do with volunteer staff with such big projects and obligations, especially for a profession that would make good money doing it elsewhere. 4) I see what you're saying, but I think having filters doesn't allow you to to have true freedom with all of your features. For example, what icons will be used for users if you only filter? I think the complexity is quite high for the users, and the other big things is how the site gets recognized. LiquidDota is Dota, and everyone will know that, but if someone tells you to go to teamliquid, and they have 10 games they cover in great depth, it'll be hard to navigate everything. Essentially giving Dota its own site will make people feel more at home, will allow more of their features to be implemented, etc. How exactly does this site existing hurt you, considering the community forums and international calendar gets implemented? I just think you should try having a more positive outlook. Believe me, I was impulsively complaining to everyone in that thread, I was calling out staff members and such... I took a breather, and I am seeing the positives now. | ||
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
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Numy
South Africa35471 Posts
On May 13 2014 03:25 FiWiFaKi wrote: How exactly does this site existing hurt you, considering the community forums and international calendar gets implemented? I just think you should try having a more positive outlook. Believe me, I was impulsively complaining to everyone in that thread, I was calling out staff members and such... I took a breather, and I am seeing the positives now. It seems really weird to me that this was implemented without the community forums or calendar. Those two pieces are rather vital and a deal breaker when it comes to splitting. I wonder there's features are even coming in the near future. If they are then why has the site been pushed through incomplete. | ||
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Kerotan
England2111 Posts
On May 13 2014 00:22 MavivaM wrote: Happy about the changes since I don't know anything about Dota, nor do I care in the slightest: it was midly annoying on the "on air" events stream list ^_^ I don't get the reason of the criticism, guess they have their reasons... in any case I have full trust in your decision and in everything TL raises its holy hand upon. Afaik, time has always proven you right, be it in the TL site re-design and so on. This is a prime example of someone that didn't understand the site customisation options. I would love a shared calendar and community forums. that would ameliorate my concerns about the split. I'm glad to hear that you are considering the concerns. | ||
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mahrgell
Germany3943 Posts
And even if we ignore that example... The multigaming aspect is, what made TL unique all these years. Now you may tell me, but in the BW days... I'm on TL since the BW days... And even then there was a frequent disussion about all kinds of stuff outside of BW. And it made TL so awesome. Many people have brought the Smash example, as a more recent one. Hey, I even watched some Smash streams lately, even though i have no clue about the game at all. But it was fun. Only because of TL. Otherwise I would have never done it. By sperating communities like that, you lose all such synergies. And when HS was on TL, i read all those highlighted articles, because they had some really good quality content. But would I go to Liquid hearth to read those articles? Certainly not. Before this two splits, basically I could load TL at any daytime, and find something fun. May it be SC, Dota, HS, some blog, some stream, or an intresting offtopic thread. Will this be the case for me when I now load LD? Certainly not... I may check the site maybe for some events like TI. But it surely won't go into my usual clicking routine. And well... I have to hope, that I notice via readmore, that some interesting tournament is happening... Because while I certainly would notice it via TL before the split happened... in future i certainly won't. | ||
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Koromon
United States304 Posts
On May 12 2014 23:04 Liquid`Nazgul wrote: If Gosugamers coverage in 2008 had been better, would you really have chosen them over TL, or would the fact that it wasn't a dedicated site have made you come to TL and our community feel? When I saw that TL had expanded to a Dota 2 exclusive site I was initially a bit annoyed. I'm lazy and I don't want to have to open two different tabs just to browse news but... this is so true. I initially followed gosugamers initially and when things weren't clear enough I may have searched elsewhere. Now... I visit gosugamers like once a month and TL is my most frequently visited site (sorry schoolwork... ). | ||
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Waise
3165 Posts
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Numy
South Africa35471 Posts
On May 13 2014 03:46 Waise wrote: some people's reasoning is beyond me. people are actually complaining that they aren't going to see content on TL anymore because they aren't going to come to TL anymore? well if you want to see content here then keep coming here?? honestly i think people are just complaining for the sake of complaining about something new, just like how any time a major site redesigns their interface or layout people flip shit for a couple of weeks and then forget how it even looked before That's not what people are saying at all. They are saying the greater TL community is still on the TL site but now if you part of both it and TLDota there's two different places you want to be. It no longer creates a way for someone to go from a TLDota member to a TL member. | ||
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supereddie
Netherlands151 Posts
My first thought after reading about the split though: Why a different domain? Now I can't use my custom site settings / css / javascript, and I have to login again (cookies are not preserved since it is a different domain) and I feel it is not easy for users to understand. If instead you'd used a subdomain, like dota2.teamliquid.net, there should be no problems. First, you could still use www.teamliquid.net as the overview site with all the data. Second, I think this system is easier to understand (sc2.teamliquid.net for SC2 news, heartstone.teamliquid.net for heartstone stuff, etc) Third, cookies are preserved and any custom settings I have made Fourth, it should be possible to redirect to a different webserver based on the subdomain, so server load should be managable. | ||
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Blazinghand
United States25563 Posts
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Iceman331
United States1306 Posts
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ahswtini
Northern Ireland22213 Posts
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NKexquisite
United States911 Posts
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