Should SQUAD post all KSP announcements on the official forum?

[GusTurbo]

Read the devnotes, Squad left it very clear: You are not a redditor then you are not part of the comunity.

That's only one interpretation. Reddit's voting system lends itself well to figuring out what's popular, making it a good place to put out that question.

I'm also on reddit and follow KSP on Twitter, Facebook, and Something Awful. Maybe that's atypical, but there's a lot of overlap between here and reddit.

[John FX]

I tried looking at reddit because that is where you go to be part of the 'KSP Community' but the format is truly awful and I could not stand it.

If we are to be forced to use that site simply to be listened to by SQUAD then I'll give it another go but it may be at the cost of this forum.

I only have so much time to devote to forums.

EDIT :

And with a few seconds viewing I find this.

"I think it's better to ask the questions here instead, both myself and Maxmaps browse Reddit on a regular basis so if it's something we can answer we will when we see the questions."

-KasperVld

Obviously the message is don't bother here if you want a reply from Maxmaps, go to reddit...

Edited February 11, 2015 by John FX

[monstah]

Wait, what, Engineers calculate Delta-V??? This DEFINETELY should have been posted on the official forums, seriously, what the hell?

[Richy teh space man]

I think it would be more productive to post questions on both forums - that way there would be a wider range of views.

If it's something that needed a poll then one could be done via surveymonkey or something like that so you don't get people voting twice and skewing the results.

[monstah]

I was writing a long update to my post but I just lost it... long story short:

I don't care for Reddit, Facebook, Digg or whatever new crap someone comes up with. They will all be replaced by something else which is actually the same thing, only forcing people to keep creating new accounts on whatever new cool community there is just to keep up with whatever opinions people could just as easily publish on their own blogs or... say.. "OFFICIAL FORUMS"?

I'm very offended by this. It may be open to interpretation, but to me it seems very, very, clear that, as said a couples post above, we see ourselves as the KSP community, but to SQUAD it is Reddit instead.

- - - Updated - - -

These announcements do end up on the Forums early due to word-of-mouth (or keyboard), when players who do read Reddit or Twitter and whatnot post about what they saw.

While that is true... wouldn't they just as easily end up on Reddit when players who keep up the Official Forum post it there?

[Alshain]

Reddit gives me a headache. Not because of the content or people, because of the absolutely crappy web design. The way they thread conversations is just absolutely awful.

It's a bit sad that we aren't considered part of the community.

Edited February 11, 2015 by Alshain

[RobotsAndSpaceships]

I'm not gonna lie... This hurts a little...

I'm not saying they shouldn't also use other mediums like twitter or reddit but I think it's kinda sad to see the official forum seems to be so detached from official feedback. Maybe it's all the "hate" they got from us or some marketing strategy but at the very least communications on other sites should be reposted here.

That sentence makes it look like "The Community" is the reddit base and not the official forum. If not for the awesome people here I'd be wondering why I was still hanging around...

Maybe they're just showing what they actually think of their community. :^)

[Alguien]

That's only one interpretation. Reddit's voting system lends itself well to figuring out what's popular, making it a good place to put out that question.

What other interpretation? They literally said "we asked reddit, and this is what the community decided" Newflash, reddit is not the whole KSP community.

Squad also has done surveys here in the past about the community and merchandising. So its not reddit's voting system either.

The whole point of the forums AND devnotes should be the fanbase having a "archive" where they can see and read the ingame info. NOT having to go around fishing in multiple sites like Squad is playing favorites or trying to hide something.

[RogueMason]

While I usually get the info from their Facebook page, I do think it should be displayed here, too.

[Warbird]

The methodology here seems to be that anything posted here as far as upcoming content is concerned is to be held to be a certain fact. Max tweets and posts around when stuff is less certain and he's either trying to build/maintain interest in the game or to troll. Reddit has a far larger potential audience it can reach, so it's no real surprise that he/they submit content there so often. With the recent case of him tweeting out about the inclusion of a stock DV indicator, it wasn't included within the dev update notes the next day. This is likely due to it's level of development having gone not much farther than being agreed on for including in the game. With social media, they have a degree of wiggle room that they wouldn't have posting an announcement here.

That being said, users that have issue with this have valid points. Squad has been pretty lousy about maintain centralized news and should look into bringing on someone that can maintain that. As Rows has just left, they should consider bringing on someone that could fill the position and guarantee that the forums would be a legitimate location to expect all centralized news. This would ideally be done by someone with prior experience with the game and community management. What's Skunky doing these days? He has both.

[klgraham1013]

As Rows has just left, they should consider bringing on someone that could fill the position and guarantee that the forums would be a legitimate location to expect all centralized news.

Breaking from the conversation a little, but if there's an open spot at Squad, it should be for an experienced tycoon game developer.

[Guest]

Wherever the information is kept it should be central, that's my big issue. Not at all insulted or angry about stuff being posted elsewhere, it's just frustrating having to wade through Max's television choices to see tidbits about KSP, and go to Tumblr to get the dev blog before it gets posted to the forums, and wait for someone with ~tenbux~ to tell me what happened on SA, and (try to) read Reddit in order to stay aware of community polls and opinions (or even be considered part of the community), etc...

Reddit is a total eyesore and, unfortunately, has the potential to be even more of a hugbox than these forums due to downvoting. Plus, their tolerance of MRAs and SJW Tumblr-shamers makes me never want to associate with the site. 4Chan is literally the butthole of the internet. Twitter is useful for ... nothing, except for vapid soundbites and teasing about features to froth up drama I suppose. Facebook is actually pretty good for having a conversation but the threading is terrible and my wife is on it all the time. Which leaves SA and these forums (maybe another venue?)

I suppose I wouldn't have a problem with SA; I have a few non-internet friends who use it and it's apparently a well-moderated place full of Good Posting. But then, so are these forums, and these are officially run by Squad.

vOv

Edited February 11, 2015 by regex

[Robotengineer]

Reddit is ugly, hard to read, etc. I tried to read the Elon Musk AMA, terribly hard. I don't have the time to go searching for KSP info on Reddit, so I am immensely grateful for those that do. I wish there was one place to get info, preferably independent of both the forums and Reddit. I would prefer not to have it be on another forum, but on Tumblr or something where people can't reply, but can take it back to their preferred source.

[biohazard15]

So, I'm aware of that Max posts on Reddit (which I personally don't like) and SA (which I can't access, obviously), but 4Chan? They REALLY do some announcements in that Internet cloaca?

You know what, Squad - get yourself a good producer, PR Manager or whatever Max calls himself. You know, the one who would respect official forum.

-snip-

Edited February 11, 2015 by KasperVld

[r4pt0r]

I love 4chan, but it is not the place for any form of official announcements, nor is it SFW in the least.

Le Reddit is garbage.

I dont have a Twitter but I check it once in a while, only for updates on the progress of Europa Barbarorum II

The only time I ever visit Tumblr is when the KSP facebook page links the devnotes there, and I have not read them here yet.

Really I think the "Official Forums" should be the official news announcement depository. If there is going to be a poll or whatever, make it here and announce it on all their other media outlets. At the worst they encourage new faces to join the forums in doing that.

[KasperVld]

I wanted to address the issue of these forums versus Reddit, Twitter and other channels.

If I were to vote on the poll, my vote would go to: "No, it'll end up on the forums", and here's why: we maintain connections with different parts of the community in different ways. We have several 'official' channels aside from these forums: the website, the Steam forums, KSP-TV and our Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr accounts for example; and then there are the 'unofficial' (for lack of a better term) communities on which we also have a permanent presence, the largest of which is the Reddit community, which is comparable to some of our official channels in size and activity. It is important to note that none of these channels will reach everyone in the community, and therefore we take great care to ensure that important information is posted everywhere, or at the very least in places where one could expect to find it. That does not mean however that all information gets posted in full in every channel, since they don't compare very well:

• A quick development update may be placed on Twitter, because it's great for sending out quick and small updates to a wide audience; these updates are often first tweeted by the person in charge of them such as Ted and Maxmaps, before being retweeted by the main @KerbalSpaceP account. Imagine if you will that all these small bits of information would be posted in their own threads on the forums, then the logical complaint would be that there's an information overload because of numerous posts. Information would still be fragmented even if you posted them into one thread because people would respond to them and the posts with the actual information would require a lot of searching to find.
  
• A larger article on development updates in general or a particular feature will usually be posted exclusively to the forums, and then referenced elsewhere, since these forums are excellent for sharing large amounts of content. Think of the recent Win64 article by Ted, or the cargo bays outline written by HarvesteR.
  
• Then there is content we post everywhere: the devnotes in particular. These notes contain the vast majority of development news, and reading them will keep you updated with what's happening. They are posted in full on the forums, on Tumblr and on Reddit, and are referenced elsewhere.
  

I honestly think that the current response to the Reddit being mentioned in the dev notes is somewhat over-the-top. As mentioned previously in this thread Reddit lends itself perfectly to get the information Maxmaps was after: not only does Reddit's format of up- and downvoting mean that the most popular answers float to the top where they can be quickly looked over, Reddit also attracts more 'new' players who haven't gotten much experience in KSP yet and can therefore share what problems they're running into. We're very much aware of the spread of the KSP community and therefore made a choice to ask this particular question on Reddit. What I will admit is that we could've communicated this a lot better here, so that you guys would also be able to join in that discussion. It's something we failed to do and should improve on.

My experience is that between the dev notes and the articles the forums still receive by far the most attention when it comes to development, and I intend to keep it that way: it makes sense. Keeping up with the dev notes and articles will keep you informed on 90% of the development news, the other 10% comes from other official channels. The picture that's being painted that we go to Reddit for all of our official announcements is objectively false. The mere fact that Squad is active on other channels than the forums, or that small bits of information aren't necessarily posted here is (in my opinion) not a reason to be insulted. We love our community, the whole of it. As mentioned earlier in this thread the things that are posted elsewhere usually find their way onto the forums very quickly, whereas the reverse is not always true. Examples of that are the weekly summaries of the KSP-TV Squadcast, or people posting Max's tweets here.

[basic.syntax]

...Reddit also attracts more 'new' players who haven't gotten much experience in KSP yet and can therefore share what problems they're running into...

This. While Squad could gather some information about improving the tutorials here, these official forums are mostly frequented by experienced players, and the ones who take the time to create accounts and make posts here, have moved a step up in terms of KSP experience, interest, or engagement. Reddit (which I don't enjoy parsing thru walloftext either) includes lots of casuals and non-players, the kind of people Squad would want to hear from, so that they can try to address their issues, and grow the KSP player base.

[biohazard15]

This. While Squad could gather some information about improving the tutorials here, these official forums are mostly frequented by experienced players, and the ones who take the time to create accounts and make posts here, have moved a step up in terms of KSP experience, interest, or engagement. Reddit (which I don't enjoy parsing thru walloftext either) includes lots of casuals and non-players, the kind of people Squad would want to hear from, so that they can try to address their issues, and grow the KSP player base.

That doesn't excuse them, actually. Sure, Reddit is full of new players - why is that should mean that we, official forum users, have no saying?

And posting development news in restricted (SA) or "bad" (4Chan) places is... well, that's simply BAD.

[Alshain]

I honestly think that the current response to the Reddit being mentioned in the dev notes is somewhat over-the-top. As mentioned previously in this thread Reddit lends itself perfectly to get the information Maxmaps was after: not only does Reddit's format of up- and downvoting mean that the most popular answers float to the top where they can be quickly looked over, Reddit also attracts more 'new' players who haven't gotten much experience in KSP yet and can therefore share what problems they're running into. We're very much aware of the spread of the KSP community and therefore made a choice to ask this particular question on Reddit. What I will admit is that we could've communicated this a lot better here, so that you guys would also be able to join in that discussion. It's something we failed to do and should improve on.

I honestly do not care about the tweets or spreading information elsewhere. I agree the devnotes are great and I don't understand this complaint at all.

However, the quoted paragraph is where I object. You may keep us informed here, but your basically saying you only listen to the Reddit community's opinion on how the game should be. You say communicating the discussion here would have helped us join in the discussion, but how is that so? I can't join in any discussion on Reddit whether you communicate it to us that it is there or not because I can't read that awful format. You could put a giant flashing picture on the top of these forums that said "JOIN THE DISCUSSION NOW!" and it would be irrelevant because looking at Reddit is like trying to read an alien language (or worse, it's exactly like trying to read the Windows registry).

So because I can't read that format, my opinions don't matter I guess.

Edited February 11, 2015 by Alshain

[razark]

Well, it's nice to get an official response.

Shame that it's "So what? STFU!"

[Robotengineer]

I honestly think that the current response to the Reddit being mentioned in the dev notes is somewhat over-the-top. As mentioned previously in this thread Reddit lends itself perfectly to get the information Maxmaps was after: not only does Reddit's format of up- and downvoting mean that the most popular answers float to the top where they can be quickly looked over, Reddit also attracts more 'new' players who haven't gotten much experience in KSP yet and can therefore share what problems they're running into. We're very much aware of the spread of the KSP community and therefore made a choice to ask this particular question on Reddit. What I will admit is that we could've communicated this a lot better here, so that you guys would also be able to join in that discussion. It's something we failed to do and should improve on.

I suspected it was about 'new players', that's why we don't see issues brought up by huge threads on this forum get addressed in devnotes. The devs don't even go on their own forum.

This is what you get when a marketing company tries to be a developer. They don't really care about people who have already bought the game because they can't get more money out of them, especially those that will get free DLC. New players however are catered to because they may or may not buy the game, so their opinions matter a hundred-fold more than people who have already bought the game. From a marketing viewpoint, this makes sense, how ever if you alienate your base users, they will not refer you too their friends, family and acquaintances. By alienating your base you shoot yourselves in the collective foot, by actually losing potential buyers do to negative reviews and/or people not recommending it or recommending that people not get it.

[KasperVld]

I honestly do not care about the tweets or spreading information elsewhere. I agree the devnotes are great and I don't understand this complaint at all.

However, the quoted paragraph is where I object. You may keep us informed here, but your basically saying you only listen to the Reddit community's opinion on how the game should be. You say communicating the discussion here would have helped us join in the discussion, but how is that so? I can't join in any discussion on Reddit whether you communicate it to us that it is there or not because I can't read that awful format. You could put a giant flashing picture on the top of these forums that said "JOIN THE DISCUSSION NOW!" and it would be irrelevant because looking at Reddit is like trying to read an alien language (or worse, it's exactly like trying to read the Windows registry).

So because I can't read that format, my opinions don't matter I guess.

For other people the format on these forum may be something they can't adjust to, or Twitter, Facebook or any other place we might ask a question. I think it's a bit unreasonable to demand we take into account everyone's individual preferences. Like I said we should've communicated that we were polling for the tutorials, but we can't make everyone happy in the way you suggest we should.

I suspected it was about 'new players', that's why we don't see issues brought up by huge threads on this forum get addressed in devnotes. The devs don't even go on their own forum.

This is what you get when a marketing company tries to be a developer. They don't really care about people who have already bought the game because they can't get more money out of them, especially those that will get free DLC. New players however are catered to because they may or may not buy the game, so their opinions matter a hundred-fold more than people who have already bought the game. From a marketing viewpoint, this makes sense, how ever if you alienate your base users, they will not refer you too their friends, family and acquaintances. By alienating your base you shoot yourselves in the collective foot, by actually losing potential buyers do to negative reviews and/or people not recommending it or recommending that people not get it.

The devs are regularly on these forums, mostly to see the feedback on the dev notes or from the QA team, sometimes browsing the suggestions forums. Fact is that their job to develop the game, not to spend hours browsing a forum. If you look at the recent dev notes thread, though, you'll see quite a few replies by Ted, myself, Maxmaps and HarvesteR.

Edited February 11, 2015 by KasperVld

[basic.syntax]

That doesn't excuse them, actually. Sure, Reddit is full of new players - why is that should mean that we, official forum users, have no saying?

And posting development news in restricted (SA) or "bad" (4Chan) places is... well, that's simply BAD.

We have our say in these forums all the time, anything Squad wants to research, they can just jump into a thread. We never know when they do, because they rarely post.

To your second point, the first mention of those sites I noticed are in a post by regex, making a passing comment about wondering what might be posted on SA, if anything; and he condemned 4Chan, didn't say anything was posted there.

[Alguien]

I honestly think that the current response to the Reddit being mentioned in the dev notes is somewhat over-the-top. As mentioned previously in this thread Reddit lends itself perfectly to get the information Maxmaps was after: not only does Reddit's format of up- and downvoting mean that the most popular answers float to the top where they can be quickly looked over, Reddit also attracts more 'new' players who haven't gotten much experience in KSP yet and can therefore share what problems they're running into. We're very much aware of the spread of the KSP community and therefore made a choice to ask this particular question on Reddit.

So short version: If you want your input to be read/listen, post it in Reddit.

[KasperVld]

So short version: If you want your input to be read/listen, post it in Reddit.

No, you're completely misrepresenting what I said: in this particular case we chose to go to Reddit. That does not mean that only Reddit provides information we use: these forums are often a great source of information, and sometimes we analyze data from social media.