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world renowned whogivesafuckologist
retired moderator
#26 Old 17th Feb 2014 at 12:10 PM
Quote: Originally posted by zigersimmer
I always thought that was because they were lazy.


Yeah, maybe? But like... it's a website, not a job or a chore we're asking people to complete. We're not trying to provide help because people jump through the right hurdles - just expect them to be relatively polite and to make use of the guides we have whenever possible. Making sure they can find the right place is part of site navigation and presentation, not the responsibility of the user (unless they truly are just clicking the first thing they see or posting in an utterly random forum - which does happen from time to time but not that often). But when Help questions posted in Discussion has been an ongoing issue for yeaarrrrrrs now and continues to happen in spite of however many announcements, stickies, and before-you-post-read-this stuff we put in front of peoples' faces with giant bold red text... I think the problem is not with there being so many dozens upon dozens of lazy people, but something in the layout or presentation of the site that needs addressing.

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retired moderator
#27 Old 17th Feb 2014 at 12:39 PM
When I first started posting here, which was years after I joined because on my first few look overs i couldn't figure out how to find anything... Now that I'm used to it, I don't see anything hard about going up to site ^above, clicking site map and scrolling down to help and support. That's how I currently find things. For all I know there could be an easier way, but that's what I discovered by poking around. Maybe other people think site means something else and don't check it. Most other boards look like the site map without clicking a site map-if you know what I mean. I really don't know why people keep asking for help in discussion though, as I don't think that is easier to find.

OP, you can expect to not get good answers if you post help questions on the discussion board. That's more for talking about game play or who your favourite pre made is, stuff like that. people who like to help, and I'm one of them tend to look for help posts on the help board, although sorry I only visit the sims 2 help section as i know nothing about sims 3.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Top Secret Researcher
#28 Old 17th Feb 2014 at 12:52 PM
As far as navigating the site goes, I tend to do the same as joandsarah, and use the site map. Maybe part of the issue is when you are in help, and see only say, thirty people viewing, then go to general, and see over one hundred? And people think since more people are viewing this particular place, I'll fix my broken game fifty million times quicker! That's not always the case, of course, but maybe that's why some people tend to post here rather than there. At any rate, there are buttons to select which EP topic to view, could another one be put to merge the help topics in too?
Ms. Byte (Deceased)
#29 Old 17th Feb 2014 at 4:05 PM Last edited by CmarNYC : 17th Feb 2014 at 4:21 PM.
First: For the longest time I couldn't find the Help forum here to save my life. My suggestion (which I've made before) is to call it "Game Help Forum" or even more clearly "Game Not Working? Ask Here!" Or something similar. To me, "Game Help Q&A" suggests a FAQ section, and I didn't think to click on it for quite a while. Also, to me it's confusing that there's a section under Help for Sims 3, for Sims 2, and then separately for "Game Help". IMO a little reorganization and clearer wording could go a long way.

On the thread topic...

OP, ideally your thread would have been moved to the correct section instead of closed. However, the mod very nicely suggested that you post there after pointing you to the self-help info. I really don't see how that was in any way wrong or not helpful. From your comments it sounds like you wanted them to first ask whether you had gone through the guides before closing the thread, meaning they'd have to ask, come back, and then respond again. I hope you see that that's not a reasonable expectation, especially since you said nothing about the guides in your previous posts. You're a person dealing with one problem while the mods / site helpers are dealing with many, many people's problems. It may sound harsh, but that makes their time more valuable than yours.

No one should lose sight of the facts that the people providing help here are volunteers, that no one is obligated to help anyone, and that it's often frustrating, repetitive, and unrewarding. This doesn't even count the occasional abuse and snide remarks. One of my pet peeves (in Help and mainly in supporting my own mods) is when I spend half an hour researching a problem and writing a response and the person never comes back to say if it worked or even if they read it. Another is the person who apparently can't be bothered to read the instructions, stickies, previous comments, etc. but seems to think I won't mind answering the same question 100 times. Also the person who complains that no one answered fast enough, or that no one answered at all without considering that maybe no one knows an answer.

And now I sound like I'm moaning myself. Anyway, OP, mods and site helpers are just as human and sensitive as anyone else, and your protesting about your thread being closed plus the unfortunate comments about customer service, came across as a bit entitled. I'm sure that's not how you meant it, but that was my initial reaction. I guess I'm saying you should be a little more understanding - you're not perfect and neither are the mods and helpers, but we all try our best.

Please do not PM me with mod, tutorial, or general modding questions or problems; post them in the thread for the mod or tutorial or post them in the appropriate forum.

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Née whiterider
retired moderator
#30 Old 17th Feb 2014 at 4:43 PM
One of the things we're considering is making the Help forum (wiki FAQs would remain separate) a subforum of the Discussion forum, or even merging it into Discussion completely with a category for help-type threads. What would you guys think of that?

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Forum Resident
#31 Old 17th Feb 2014 at 7:08 PM
I've been on and off this site for many years now, but I don't remember ever needing to find the help forum (the guides have solved my problems, thankfully). Just for the sake of this discussion, I started looking around the site and trying to "find" the help forum.

It was actually harder than I expected. My natural inclination was to go into "Community" > "Sims 3" and then look for a place to post for help. I think "Community" seemed natural because I was looking for a forum, and that's where all the other forums seem to be. Once here at the discussion forum, there is a link for "HELP" but it leads to the guides, with no immediately obvious link to a forum.

My next instinct was to click "Help" at the top of the screen, but my eye is naturally drawn down the list of "Sims 3" topics and I almost didn't notice the "Game Help" heading at all. (This may have more to do with the current "view" settings on my browser than anything else; I use my tv as a computer screen and have to keep the zoom up high to read text from across the room). If it hadn't been mentioned earlier in this thread, I don't think I would have recognized "Game Help Q&A" as what I was looking for.

By far, the easiest way to find the help forum was going through the site map as others indicated, but honestly it's not something that came immediately to mind. I'm sure you have links to the help forum inside the stickies and such, but I didn't explore those for this experiment.

Given all this, I think it might be good if the help forum was actually in the "Community" section rather than "Help & Support," or at least it was more accessible from both. A few more links might be a good idea. I'm not sure if other people's instincts are the same as mine, but I hope this will be helpful to someone.
Ms. Byte (Deceased)
#32 Old 17th Feb 2014 at 9:30 PM
Agreed! IMO a good arrangement would be a link under Help / Sims 3 (and under Help / Sims 2), and a Game Help link under Community.

Please do not PM me with mod, tutorial, or general modding questions or problems; post them in the thread for the mod or tutorial or post them in the appropriate forum.

Visit my blogs for other Sims content:
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Offline Sims - adult mods for Sims 3 and Sims 4
One Minute Ninja'd
#33 Old 18th Feb 2014 at 12:12 AM Last edited by eskie227 : 18th Feb 2014 at 12:18 AM. Reason: always read the full thread before jumping in
Quote: Originally posted by CmarNYC
First: For the longest time I couldn't find the Help forum here to save my life. My suggestion (which I've made before) is to call it "Game Help Forum" or even more clearly "Game Not Working? Ask Here!" Or something similar. To me, "Game Help Q&A" suggests a FAQ section, and I didn't think to click on it for quite a while. Also, to me it's confusing that there's a section under Help for Sims 3, for Sims 2, and then separately for "Game Help". IMO a little reorganization and clearer wording could go a long way.


This!

I too couldn't figure out there was an actual discussion forum devoted to help for the longest time, either. When you (well, when I click on it in FF) click on Help, you see all these available FAQ's, then Game Help, and Game Help Q&A. It's not an intuitive click to think it will bring you to a help discussion forum. I just noticed it's also the way to the WCIF forum, which I never knew you could get to from there (I always thought I got there under community, but that's what happens when you just bookmark stuff like that rather than navigate there each time).

Having a path through the Community pull down would be more "user friendly". You click and get sims discussions/ts2/ts3/ts4/tsm, and just over are the creative forums. Having the help subforum reachable right from the community/sims discussion menu would be far more intuitive, and would also probably increase traffic there for folks who don't normally think to even go there, and perhaps with more eyes would come more help. And I agree, changing the name to Sims 3 Help/Sims 2 Help would be more user friendly than Help Q&A. And I'm not suggesting physically moving the help forum onto the discussions page and mixing help questions in among general discussion threads, simply providing an alias to reach it in a more intuitive fashion.

Besides, coming to this site and seeing the menu bar on top, if I needed Help, I'd probably go to the Wiki first anyway, because that's where I would intuitively expect help FAQs to be found.

Edit: I jumped the gun. I read your first post Cmar, and was in complete agreement. I didn't bother to keep scrolling down to see how late to the party I was. Regardless, I strongly concur with your and Best_Leopard's idea that a simple change in name might make a big difference in usability.
Top Secret Researcher
#34 Old 18th Feb 2014 at 3:50 AM
I can not resist throwing in my two simoleons here. I have been a member here for years (longer than what my current user name reveals) and have tried to help out when ever I could and have to admit I am on the fence with how to "fix" the issue at hand. I can agree with HP in that it's not always so many lazy people rather something in the layout or presentation of the site that needs addressing to some extent but then I remember when Delphy was working on the new layout...God, all the complaining. Many, it was obvious were not even giving the new experience a chance. It was change and some didn't want it and then everyone wanted to see something different. You can't please everyone. This site is one of the best for great Mods and support for those mods as well as other "fun" stuff. I have mostly been helping over at NRaas these days but have tried to help out here when I can. I just cleaned out a bunch of threads I subscribed to where I was helping people...sometimes for several days, doing a lot of research on some of the issue and they just faded away without another word. And for some of those it was obvious, if it took taking more than two steps to resolve the issue or they had to read more than one paragraph they were not interested. Although I'm not condoning it, it is understandable that once in awhile the people trying to help might be a bit impatient. I see all sorts of questions on Mods from other sites and members here trying to help. I wish I had a nickel for all the times I've linked people over to NRaas FAQ'S for help with Story Progression or Master Controller or other NRaas Mods or back over to the Asylum. One thing I can suggest is: this does not have to be a one size fits all type of site. CMAR's suggestion for Game Help Q&A sounds like a good work around but then, Game Help to one person is not going to translate the same to another unless they read how to use the site. There are a lot of categories here, General, Gameplay, Information which might well be consolidated. Personally, I've had very little trouble navigating in here. A few posts were moved by a moderator to a more appropriate forum and I believe that is how it should work. It just took a little getting used to and taking advantage of available tools like Subscribed Threads, Favorites, etc. The Moderators and members here have done an excellent job with the forums and I thank you all for that. I'm sure with everyone's suggestions a few changes will be identified that will make it easier for all.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#35 Old 18th Feb 2014 at 7:07 PM
Quote: Originally posted by fairycake89
VixenKitty - I read your post with interest and felt compelled to mention, in defense of my fellow MTSs, that this place is one of the more user friendly Sims forums online at this time, so I don't want you to get the impression that we are the Unnatural Spawn of Hell Simmers here.
I know this doesn't answer your problem or condone your suggestion, but I just wanted to put it out there that in Other Places you would have been treated to a pile of abuse, called an idiot, and no one would have engaged with you other than to abuse and berate you. I know that's sad, but it's a fact.

Oh yeah I understand that. Which is why I posted here and have mention the person that commented didn't actually have a go but again just that it was a wrong assumption made on their part and i felt like I'd just wasted my time because they thought I was wasting theirs. Its ok though. Just genuinely wanted to add a little bit of help for the FAQ section so people like me can find stuff more easily.

The first person to reply though was pretty damn rude considering though refering to me as a nightmare customer in terms of the analogy I used but hey ho!
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#36 Old 18th Feb 2014 at 7:21 PM
Quote: Originally posted by HystericalParoxysm
Nah, not really aimed at you. There was a delightful one a couple months ago... Simple, common problem, I posted a link to the FAQ they needed to go through (and clearly hadn't done already) and then accidentally closed their thread. Noticed quickly, apologized, reopened it, and then they refused to look at the FAQ and demanded a better answer, and then got abusive, thread got closed again because of the abuse, and they posted all over the place calling me all sorts of names. Not uncommon, that - demanding help, dismissing it when given, then throwing a fit about it. I have no idea what makes some people do that but it is -exhausting- to deal with and really wears down people doing help as volunteers in their free time.



A large part of the problem (not specifically with you, again, but just addressing this point) is that a great deal of people seeking help say "I've done all that" when referred to a FAQ, when actually, what they've done is glance at the FAQ and decide it doesn't apply... Or they have done one part of it and missed others... and honestly, I can't think of a good solution to that. We've asked people to please detail what they've done in their own words (not just "I did everything in the FAQ" but "First I moved out my user files, then I stood on my head, and recited the Lord's Prayer backwards...") so we can ensure it's all been done and they didn't miss anything or misunderstand something. And I have no idea how to get around that because a lot of times when we have specifically asked for that, people get a bit stroppy and say "Look I've done all that, just tell me how to fix it."



Actually... you being inexperienced and posting in the wrong place and stuff is exactly what is a helpful perspective here, because we (MTS staff) are trying to figure out how to reorganize things... Because you, like maaaany people, decided to post in discussion rather than help. Can you perhaps try to explain why discussion seemed the more obvious place? Are the help forums difficult to find? New post button difficult to find in them? Discussion more prominent/active/full of badgers?

Because, tbh, most of the staff has been around since the beginning of time, we're used to the site organization and we know where to go to find what we want - but other people clearly do get lost, I guess how you don't get lost on the way to your own bathroom but your guests might try the closet first even though you told them it was the third door on the left...

So where would feel like a natural place for you to look for help here? Is there a way that you feel would make sense for it to be presented? I ask this not just of you specifically, VixenKitty, but anyone else who wants to chime in.



(And by the by, the help forums are not going away - there are still a lot of helpful people and having -some- place to put questions not covered in the faqs is a good thing. I'm still not entirely sure about the whole thing myself but I'm plenty willing to put a bit of effort into seeing if we can fix it before we just decide to nuke it entirely.)


Ok, so now that I'm feeling less ill (possibly also part of the reason I missed it because my sight was playing up) I clicked the 'Help' tab at the top of the page. I finally spotted the Techincal and Graphics FAQs but then because the layout looks different I did feel a little lost. I then spottd the really tiny font 'MTS Q&Q Forum' link near the top of the page and this is where I probably would have posted it.
I will admit maybe some of it is to do with imaptience but I honestly the other day did not see that section and for some reason couldn't see a way to get to the help page from the main discussions page. I guess when I first went to the help forum area the other day, because the layout looked different to how I remember it looking the last time I logged in I assumed I'd gone to the wrong place and so when I found the other forums, it looked familiar so despite the stickies, I thought I was in the right place. So I apologise for that but maybe at the very least the link for the 'MTS Q*A Forums' could be a little bigger/bolder/easier to spot in general? Just to sort of 'idiot proof' it?

Thank you for taking the time to reply to this thread anywa. I fully get that you guys aren'#t paid to do this stuff and I have seen how some people can be on various different parts of the internet full stop and I know I wouldn't wnt to deal with someone hurling abuse online just as much as I don't like it where I work IRL.

I just hope this hasn't been seen as an attack on you guys because it really wasn't meant to be
Mad Poster
#37 Old 18th Feb 2014 at 7:26 PM Last edited by simmer22 : 18th Feb 2014 at 7:48 PM.
I've been a member at MTS for about as long as I've played TS2 (2006), and even I've had troubles finding the help area of late (not the FAQs and the wiki, as those are easy to find, but the place for posting general help questions). Not that I've needed to find it very often, but I do tend to forget between each time, and have to go looking yet again.

I only saw it yesterday in the subforum in the sims2 discussion topic, the tiny "Need HELP? Click here!!" thing, which only leads to the general help forum (can be found at the top as well, making that link-button quite useless), and from there I have to click the "sims2" picture (which links to the FAQ area, and might even look like an unclickable picture for new members), and look through all the links to find the correct one, which is a small link at the bottom called "Sims 2 Game Help Support Forum".

There's also the issue of having to get used to the new forum look, which makes it a whole lot harder to find the links because everything looks the same. Yesterday I didn't even notice the grey links to the EP-spesific topics, because the new outlay makes them look like grey blobs with text, which my brain completely ignores unless I'm activately looking for them, because the background is almost the same color tone as the links.

I've had the same trouble with the help area for CC-creation as well, and have to spend some ten minutes looking for the correct area every time I want to ask a question there, because like the other help area I can't remember where it is. Probably why I don't use it very often...

I can very well understand why people post in the discussion forum - it's easy to find, and sort of a logical choice if you can't find a posting area for help questions.
Top Secret Researcher
#38 Old 18th Feb 2014 at 8:58 PM
Quote: Originally posted by VixenKitty
The first person to reply though was pretty damn rude considering though refering to me as a nightmare customer in terms of the analogy I used but hey ho!


I said you would be one if you called up the sales department and expected them to troubleshoot for you. Since you're insisting that "nightmare customer" refers to you, I take it you would expect them to?
Site Helper
#39 Old 19th Feb 2014 at 12:36 AM
Quote: Originally posted by simmer22
I've been a member at MTS for about as long as I've played TS2 (2006), and even I've had troubles finding the help area of late (not the FAQs and the wiki, as those are easy to find, but the place for posting general help questions). Not that I've needed to find it very often, but I do tend to forget between each time, and have to go looking yet again.
<snip>

I can very well understand why people post in the discussion forum - it's easy to find, and sort of a logical choice if you can't find a posting area for help questions.


I'm glad I'm not the only one who had trouble learning where to find it. And I'm one of the ones who likes to help.

There are also people who want to post in discussion because they want to get an answer that is a bit more personalized than "Have you done all the steps in the Game Problem FAQ?" Even when the "personal touch" is simply walking them through the FAQ step by step. Having the Game Help be a sub-forum of Discussion, or at least linked with "Game not working? Post here" sounds like a wonderful idea to me, too.

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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#40 Old 22nd Feb 2014 at 10:11 AM
Quote: Originally posted by hugbug993
I said you would be one if you called up the sales department and expected them to troubleshoot for you. Since you're insisting that "nightmare customer" refers to you, I take it you would expect them to?

No I wouldn't. You worded it that I sound like a nightmare customer so of course it referred to me. I'm no longer replying to you specifically because you missed the point of why I even posted here and you were less than helpful about it and just sound impatient and rude if anything. I have my opinion, you have yours. Lets leave it at that
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