Major changes planned for the Digital Spy forums!

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pinkteddyx64
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Major changes planned for the Digital Spy forums!

Postby pinkteddyx64 » March 22nd, 2021, 3:10 pm

@spotify95 https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussio ... -spy-forum

So, in one sense, it'll be like TSR removing MHOC all over again, except at least DS has the decency in giving people the chance to say goodbye and the threads will be still publicly accessible to refer to in the future, even if they are made read only.

I bet if this was to happen on TSR, Chat would disappear from public view altogether just like MHOC did, rather than be made a publicly accessible read only archive.


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spotify95
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Re: Major changes planned for the Digital Spy forums!

Postby spotify95 » March 25th, 2021, 9:46 pm

pinkteddyx64 wrote: @spotify95 https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussio ... -spy-forum

So, in one sense, it'll be like TSR removing MHOC all over again, except at least DS has the decency in giving people the chance to say goodbye and the threads will be still publicly accessible to refer to in the future, even if they are made read only.

I bet if this was to happen on TSR, Chat would disappear from public view altogether just like MHOC did, rather than be made a publicly accessible read only archive.


Thank you for this. I've changed the link (as the original one gave a permissions error) and moved this out of TBR, because, let's face it, this is a pretty major change, so other people need to know about it as well (which is why I left the TSR announcement outside of TBR).

So basically, it seems like they want the forums to be more in line with the news articles that they publish, and have more of a formal style tone to it?

I think that getting rid of General Discussion and making it read-only is not a good idea. A lot of forums have an "off topic" or "general" area for discussions that are not related to a main subforum, hence the names "General Discussion", "Off Topic Discussion", "General Chatter", "Chat", to name a few examples.

Politics is an area that I partially agree about removing from the main forums, and making an archive. Yes, it does mean that general politics discussion can no longer take place (unless there is a dedicated subsection elsewhere), but a lot of political discussions can often turn into arguments and moderation heavy areas, which can use a lot of moderator time, make the discussion area feel less welcoming and inviting, and result in plenty of warnings/bans given and threads being closed.
The same could also potentially be said about Showbiz, as a lot of content in there may be program specific and better suited elsewhere.
I do not agree on the removal of General Discussion as stated above.

However, the Digital Spy moderators do at least care about their users by putting up this sort of announcement, giving users enough time to make suitable arrangements for in case any discussions were to be given the chop. Furthermore, the DS moderators have announced that a read only archive is being used. This is much better than TSR's approach to the Model House Of Commons, as it means that prior discussions can still be viewed by users for future reference.
It does also mean that, should anyone want to continue a discussion on another medium (whether that be private discussions, discussions on another forum, or discussions on another form of social media), references can be made back to the prior discussions.

It is also good that DS are consolidating their forums, by creating more dedicated forums targeted towards discussion topics that require more structure. For example, consolidating content from various different categories into a Streaming based forum helps to consolidate the information and keep it all in one place, rather than have it in different areas of the site.

The main point that I will make, is this:

Chatter, which currently sits as a sub-forum in General Discussion, will be rebranded The Games Room and sit next to Advice on the forums index page.


I believe that this was long overdue as Chatter was mostly for forum games anyway; for anything that wasn't a forum game, there was General Discussion. The Games Room also lends itself to off topic chatter, for those that participate in the forum games, to help create a good atmosphere and a community vibe. The main thing is that the forum games, which is quite a big thing for some people on DS, will not be disappearing any time soon.

Forum Announcements: this is definitely a good idea and means that people can check this subsection for any major announcements and changes. We have a section about site changes (and related information) under Site News And Suggestions, and anything of importance can be made a Global Announcement, so that it is clearly visible. DS having something similar is definitely a good move, and consolidates information (it is also good that the Forum Rules are also going to be under Forum Announcements, as that is the area that you would expect the rules to be in, as they are a critical part of the forums).

Conclusion: whilst some of the changes may not be a good idea (in particular, the removal of General Discussion with no direct replacement), some of the proposed changes are definitely improvements for the site over what it currently is. The way that the information is conveyed, by giving users at least a few days notice, helps users prepare for the new changes and does not make the changes feel too drastic, overpowering and sudden. Furthermore, by keeping the previous information in an archive, it allows users to read and reflect upon previous discussions that have taken place, as well as the possibility of using internet archive sites to create a more permanent archive of the information. The way that Digital Spy are handling these changes are much, much better than the way The Student Room handled the Model House of Commons removal.



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