Allow non-admins to post in the server status thread

[Ezella]

I won't be doing this. It was proof enough it just turns into a **** storm, so I'm regulating these topics in such times.

agreed. always better to have an official thread without any comments, where anybody can instantly check what the server status is up to. to be honest the past comments of the open threads were just like x times 'whats going on? i cant...' garnished with many whinings and brown-nosings.

[LordTercept]

I'm pretty new here but I feel like the official thread is the way to go. I'd like to see less posts regarding connection issues when this official thread isn't updated to the minute (which realistically it won't be). This happened last night where there was clearly an outage, but the official thread hadn't been updated yet. Within 10 minutes of the outage people are just creating dozens of topics across all kinds of forums about not being able to log in.

The first thing I did when I got disconnected is look on the forums to see recent posts and if anyone else was experiencing that problem. I then posted within the same topic a number of people had. However I feel many people don't look before they post. It creates a bloated forum environment.

I used to be a forum mod for an online community and that kind of thing always gets to me for some reason.

This isn't on the staff here, it's just good forum etiquette that everyone should be following.

[Danielle]

We had one for the community, then it become useless. Even when that was accessible to the community, people still insisted on creating new topics about the same thing, instead of reading.

The simple fact is: No one reads, and they refuse to when told to over, and over, and over.

Noone is arguing the new regulated thread isn't useful, it is useful and having only GMs and devs being able to post in it keeps it on topic and makes it organized and clean that way. However, could we perhaps please also have an unofficial server status thread in addition to the official one? There players can share information when official information isn't available. Having another user confirm that the server is down for them too can help to ease worries, rather than for an individual to start considering whether something is wrong on their end.

With one official thread and one unoffical (community) thread you keep the advantages of both. Frustrated users have somewhere to post, potentially spamming less new threads and more importantly players can communicate with each other about whether the server is down or not in situations when GMs and mods aren't around. At the same time you have an official threads where only mods/devs/gms can post that keeps things clean and organized.

Especially given that there is a known issue with the launcher, where it's sometimes required to restart it multiple times for the game to start, knowing that another user can't log on can save valuable time and effort. I would prefer to have a mess of an unmoderated unoffical thread in addition to the official one, rather than having no channel of communication for the users to talk to each other about server status.

[Specialpatrol]

When I can't connect to the server, I also always check the website/forums first thing.

Where it sometimes gets confusing, is when the "Realm Information" box on the front page says "Online" with xxx number of players online (as it does currently), while the Server Status thread doesn't reveal anything to the contrary (i.e. it hasn't been updated).

So would there be any chance of simply fixing the "Realm Information", so it displays correctly when the server is up or down? If not, maybe simply remove that box, until it works properly - to avoid extra confusion during downtimes (and absence of admins).

[Mithdraz]

Server up.

[Elven]

I have no intention of opening up a community topic thread for the server status at this moment in time.

I don't see the need for one at this moment given the current state of the server.

[Akari]

Getting a community reaction is the quickest way to find out if the server is offline or if i'm having issues on my end. Is there really no way community speculation on the server status can be accommodated? The server status thread, despite all the off-topic posting, was valuable in quickly telling me that the server was down as opposed to being a problem on my end. I could go do something else in the meantime instead of trying to troubleshoot a problem that is out of my control.

[Zealote]

I can understand why ppl are asking for a community thread for when there aren't any staff online, but can't you just make a thread when it happens if you really feel you need confirmation that it's not an issue on your end?

Then when a GM or whatever comes online and can update the official thread, the other one (and the pretty much inevitable stack of others) can just be locked?

[Mithdraz]

Server crashing 3:25 PM EST.

[stillwaterww]

Mostly when I cant get on the server 1st thing I do is hop onto the irc.
http://webchat.quakenet.org/?channels=martyrs_square
Usually get a quicker answer then the forums, also if more people were to use this we might have less "serverdown/cantconnect" threads popping up during a crash.