Just catching up with the thread, there might be things that I've missed still, but I'll try my best to provide answers, and engage in the conversation. Please, be assured that I'm genuine and sincere here, and I hope my words will convey just as much. If not, I apologize, and will try to clarify myself if need be.
From my personal point of view, as someone who has moderated forums almost as big, if not as big as Era, this reaction to the addition of tags is genuinely surprising. I personally like them enough, I think they're an extremely useful feature, and I remember the times when I first posted on Era a year or two ago, feeling absolutely lost in what felt like a humongous maze-like amount of threads, not neatly organized enough for me to get to where I wanted when I wanted it. I have seen many forums with such feature before, whether implemented from the start, or later afterwards, and I always found this incredibly useful and practical. I have never seen users on those forums being so vividly against this feature, ever. This is a first to me, truthfully.
Now, I'm left wondering why is that the case here. I'm reminded of how changes is often met with negative reactions every time it happened on any social media networks I've been on in the past 15 years. At times, I was part of those negative voices, at others, I didn't care or was happy about the changes. But with each changes, the same negative reactions were still there. Do we fundamentally dislike change as human beings? Probably so, I suppose. But then, is this change a benign one that people will grow to get used to eventually, like we all grew to use and (maybe) like the many iterations of Twitter/Facebook/etc, or is it one akin to the major redesign that Snapchat did a few years ago that lowkey killed their platform because people hated it way too much? The thing is, this tag feature, in essence, is really nowhere near a major redesign, not even remotely so, it feels like a very minor change to me, so I'm still left feeling astounded at the intense reactions we initially received about this feature. I'm genuinely trying to understand it, and I hope you can believe it, but I'm still struggling here.
But maybe my perception is wrong? Surely my personal experiences are mine, and many users have different and valid experiences and opinions as well, and I don't want to negate that either. And I'm not saying that this feature, as is, is perfect. It can be improved, and I've seen people sharing photoshopped screenshots of what they think might make this feature better. I love those, I think they're nice and open up a lot of possibilities, granted that they are even possible to execute on the technical side. There's always ways to improve and perfect, and we're definitely open to that for sure, as proven by the many number of iterations a feature like Giftbot has been through since release. But this feature is here to stay still, we genuinely think it will help a lot of people and will make Era a much easier forum to navigate into. Hopefully we will reach that point in the future. We're already working on bettering it based on feedback we received. We're really trying, and I'm sorry if it seems it isn't enough.
I've seen suggestions about the fact we should have created a thread to announce the feature preemptively, in order to let people know about it and be prepared for it. I think that's a fair one, although maybe a bit difficult to execute technically. See, we don't have a fixed schedule, most of the staff being volunteers means that most of us work on Era when we can, oftentimes juggling between personal/family life, and professional life, and that doesn't even account for timezone differences. The absence of an announcement here was definitely not out malice nor because we wanted to "be sneaky about it", it's mostly because we didn't take the proper time to plan for it, partly because we didn't think we needed one for such a minor change we thought wouldn't be met with such negativity, and partly because we worked on this feature for quite some time and wanted it to go live as soon as possible, excitedly so. Some on staff (I wasn't part of Era back then) also have some reservations about the legitimacy of an announcement thread, vividly reminded of how that didn't help things in the slightest when Era got the 2.0 upgrade back in 2018. Such a thread didn't help to mitigate feelings at all, and apparently 2.0 rollout was still met with intense negativity back then as well anyway. With that being said, I'm in favor of making announcement threads still (accompanied with a site-wide notification), and we'll try to let our users know of upcoming features rollout a few days before they happen, as much as it is possible. It might help, it might not either, but it costs nothing to try for sure.
The other thing that was talked about most is about the creation of an official General Feedback Thread, which we have thought of, and even tried in the past. Again, I wasn't active (and much less part of staff) when it happened, but apparently one already existed before, and turned into such a shitshow that the Staff Team back then decided to scrap it entirely as a result, and to prioritize the Contact Us form over it. I do see why, and I understand it, it's a thorny situation. People have abused the existence of such thread in the past, in ways that became untenable for us to handle properly. That kind of thread is usually a very easy way for many bad faith actors to come and create trouble in a way that we felt wasn't healthy overall. Suggesting one seems like a proper idea as a user, and I had that exact same idea when I got contacted to become a mod back in August. But now, after a bit more experience under the belt, I'm left wondering how would such thread work in a way where users feel heard and listened to, where bad-faith actors are weeded out and don't spoil the conversation, and where staff feels safe enough to freely engage without being overtly antagonized. It's a tricky question, and I'm interested in whichever ideas you all might over this.
Because right now, and I'm aware this isn't something a lot of people want to hear, but our staff team is wearing thin. Most of us are exhausted, mentally, emotionally, simply because this job, in essence just is. We are often confronted to the worse this forum has to offer, on a daily basis, and it takes a toll on us all sooner or later. I remember someone in a post mentioning the fact that we have to take the higher ground and be willing to take any kind of criticism at all times, and that's generally the mindset I'm coming from indeed. However, that also generally leaves me drained, with poor mental-health, and needing regular breaks from moderating (or from even interacting with the forum as a whole) just to recenter myself and feel good enough again. This is, in big part, the reason of our staff turn-over. People get burned out doing this, and end up leaving because they couldn't handle it anymore. This is how we lost many of our minority mods as well (because the mental and emotional toll on us is very often THAT much bigger than for the rest of the team), who often are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to replace. I myself have already thought about quitting the staff team half a dozen times in less than a year already. The apparently common sentiment that mods are easily recruited, and that they easily agree to become staff, and dedicate their time and energy to this forum, is sadly far from our actual reality, and the reason why it makes any single departure that much harder to handle.
This isn't a "woe is me" bit, because I also definitely agreed to do this voluntarily, and because I also know that as an admin, I do have power over other users in this forum, and I do not wish to wield it unfairly and unnecessarily, I feel a huge responsibility over this, knowing the power balance can be shifted when people interact with me, solely because of the existence of the staff title. Quite frankly I often think I'm not worthy of it in the slightest, but I still feel like I ought to try, just because Era is an important place to me, one of the rare ones in which I feel safe enough to be myself. Rest assured, many people on the Staff Team feel similarly as well.
Sorry for this tangential bit here, I hope people won't think I'm trying to deflect, I'm genuinely trying to share my perspective, but feel free to ignore it if isn't helping to see the bigger picture. I kinda lost the thread of this answer, and I probably missed a lot of things I wanted to talk about in the first place but I feel I wrote so much already. But I do hope that this opens up a dialogue, hopefully a productive one. I have taken notes about what needs to be done in order to avoid this situation from happening in the future. I can't promise that you all will like all of what we have in store, but I'll try to make sure we communicate better about those future features, hopefully it will better prepare our community for them, and make our users feel heard and accounted for.
So far, I think those steps can be implemented easily in the future:
- An announcement thread about a new feature being added, a few days before it's been added, with a site-wide notification. Maybe screenshots to showcase the feature if we have proper ones at the ready.
- An official feedback thread about the new feature as soon as it's added, with a site-wide notification, in order to let people have a space to voice their opinions on it as well as ways to maybe help make it better. We won't necessarily always change or tweak a feature, but if the feedback is solid enough, we definitely might.
We are a community of tens of thousands of users. As such, it's always going to be difficult to satisfy each and every one of us, truthfully, and I hope that it is something people are also aware of and keep in mind. With such a huge number of members, there's no other way to go than trying to compromise and make concessions. However, we should still try to open a line of discussion, and hopefully reach a point where most of us are in a good-enough place with it all.
I definitely want to try that.
From my personal point of view, as someone who has moderated forums almost as big, if not as big as Era, this reaction to the addition of tags is genuinely surprising. I personally like them enough, I think they're an extremely useful feature, and I remember the times when I first posted on Era a year or two ago, feeling absolutely lost in what felt like a humongous maze-like amount of threads, not neatly organized enough for me to get to where I wanted when I wanted it. I have seen many forums with such feature before, whether implemented from the start, or later afterwards, and I always found this incredibly useful and practical. I have never seen users on those forums being so vividly against this feature, ever. This is a first to me, truthfully.
Now, I'm left wondering why is that the case here. I'm reminded of how changes is often met with negative reactions every time it happened on any social media networks I've been on in the past 15 years. At times, I was part of those negative voices, at others, I didn't care or was happy about the changes. But with each changes, the same negative reactions were still there. Do we fundamentally dislike change as human beings? Probably so, I suppose. But then, is this change a benign one that people will grow to get used to eventually, like we all grew to use and (maybe) like the many iterations of Twitter/Facebook/etc, or is it one akin to the major redesign that Snapchat did a few years ago that lowkey killed their platform because people hated it way too much? The thing is, this tag feature, in essence, is really nowhere near a major redesign, not even remotely so, it feels like a very minor change to me, so I'm still left feeling astounded at the intense reactions we initially received about this feature. I'm genuinely trying to understand it, and I hope you can believe it, but I'm still struggling here.
But maybe my perception is wrong? Surely my personal experiences are mine, and many users have different and valid experiences and opinions as well, and I don't want to negate that either. And I'm not saying that this feature, as is, is perfect. It can be improved, and I've seen people sharing photoshopped screenshots of what they think might make this feature better. I love those, I think they're nice and open up a lot of possibilities, granted that they are even possible to execute on the technical side. There's always ways to improve and perfect, and we're definitely open to that for sure, as proven by the many number of iterations a feature like Giftbot has been through since release. But this feature is here to stay still, we genuinely think it will help a lot of people and will make Era a much easier forum to navigate into. Hopefully we will reach that point in the future. We're already working on bettering it based on feedback we received. We're really trying, and I'm sorry if it seems it isn't enough.
I've seen suggestions about the fact we should have created a thread to announce the feature preemptively, in order to let people know about it and be prepared for it. I think that's a fair one, although maybe a bit difficult to execute technically. See, we don't have a fixed schedule, most of the staff being volunteers means that most of us work on Era when we can, oftentimes juggling between personal/family life, and professional life, and that doesn't even account for timezone differences. The absence of an announcement here was definitely not out malice nor because we wanted to "be sneaky about it", it's mostly because we didn't take the proper time to plan for it, partly because we didn't think we needed one for such a minor change we thought wouldn't be met with such negativity, and partly because we worked on this feature for quite some time and wanted it to go live as soon as possible, excitedly so. Some on staff (I wasn't part of Era back then) also have some reservations about the legitimacy of an announcement thread, vividly reminded of how that didn't help things in the slightest when Era got the 2.0 upgrade back in 2018. Such a thread didn't help to mitigate feelings at all, and apparently 2.0 rollout was still met with intense negativity back then as well anyway. With that being said, I'm in favor of making announcement threads still (accompanied with a site-wide notification), and we'll try to let our users know of upcoming features rollout a few days before they happen, as much as it is possible. It might help, it might not either, but it costs nothing to try for sure.
The other thing that was talked about most is about the creation of an official General Feedback Thread, which we have thought of, and even tried in the past. Again, I wasn't active (and much less part of staff) when it happened, but apparently one already existed before, and turned into such a shitshow that the Staff Team back then decided to scrap it entirely as a result, and to prioritize the Contact Us form over it. I do see why, and I understand it, it's a thorny situation. People have abused the existence of such thread in the past, in ways that became untenable for us to handle properly. That kind of thread is usually a very easy way for many bad faith actors to come and create trouble in a way that we felt wasn't healthy overall. Suggesting one seems like a proper idea as a user, and I had that exact same idea when I got contacted to become a mod back in August. But now, after a bit more experience under the belt, I'm left wondering how would such thread work in a way where users feel heard and listened to, where bad-faith actors are weeded out and don't spoil the conversation, and where staff feels safe enough to freely engage without being overtly antagonized. It's a tricky question, and I'm interested in whichever ideas you all might over this.
Because right now, and I'm aware this isn't something a lot of people want to hear, but our staff team is wearing thin. Most of us are exhausted, mentally, emotionally, simply because this job, in essence just is. We are often confronted to the worse this forum has to offer, on a daily basis, and it takes a toll on us all sooner or later. I remember someone in a post mentioning the fact that we have to take the higher ground and be willing to take any kind of criticism at all times, and that's generally the mindset I'm coming from indeed. However, that also generally leaves me drained, with poor mental-health, and needing regular breaks from moderating (or from even interacting with the forum as a whole) just to recenter myself and feel good enough again. This is, in big part, the reason of our staff turn-over. People get burned out doing this, and end up leaving because they couldn't handle it anymore. This is how we lost many of our minority mods as well (because the mental and emotional toll on us is very often THAT much bigger than for the rest of the team), who often are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to replace. I myself have already thought about quitting the staff team half a dozen times in less than a year already. The apparently common sentiment that mods are easily recruited, and that they easily agree to become staff, and dedicate their time and energy to this forum, is sadly far from our actual reality, and the reason why it makes any single departure that much harder to handle.
This isn't a "woe is me" bit, because I also definitely agreed to do this voluntarily, and because I also know that as an admin, I do have power over other users in this forum, and I do not wish to wield it unfairly and unnecessarily, I feel a huge responsibility over this, knowing the power balance can be shifted when people interact with me, solely because of the existence of the staff title. Quite frankly I often think I'm not worthy of it in the slightest, but I still feel like I ought to try, just because Era is an important place to me, one of the rare ones in which I feel safe enough to be myself. Rest assured, many people on the Staff Team feel similarly as well.
Sorry for this tangential bit here, I hope people won't think I'm trying to deflect, I'm genuinely trying to share my perspective, but feel free to ignore it if isn't helping to see the bigger picture. I kinda lost the thread of this answer, and I probably missed a lot of things I wanted to talk about in the first place but I feel I wrote so much already. But I do hope that this opens up a dialogue, hopefully a productive one. I have taken notes about what needs to be done in order to avoid this situation from happening in the future. I can't promise that you all will like all of what we have in store, but I'll try to make sure we communicate better about those future features, hopefully it will better prepare our community for them, and make our users feel heard and accounted for.
So far, I think those steps can be implemented easily in the future:
- An announcement thread about a new feature being added, a few days before it's been added, with a site-wide notification. Maybe screenshots to showcase the feature if we have proper ones at the ready.
- An official feedback thread about the new feature as soon as it's added, with a site-wide notification, in order to let people have a space to voice their opinions on it as well as ways to maybe help make it better. We won't necessarily always change or tweak a feature, but if the feedback is solid enough, we definitely might.
We are a community of tens of thousands of users. As such, it's always going to be difficult to satisfy each and every one of us, truthfully, and I hope that it is something people are also aware of and keep in mind. With such a huge number of members, there's no other way to go than trying to compromise and make concessions. However, we should still try to open a line of discussion, and hopefully reach a point where most of us are in a good-enough place with it all.
I definitely want to try that.
Last edited:
