Let's face it. The suggestion system is broken and in desparate need of a repair. The subforum used to be great for members sharing ideas and thoughts and about how the server could improve, with staff internally bringing up ideas and giving extra viewpoints of how suggestions could/couldn't work. What is it now? It's just a pit of repeated suggestions with poor, unclear descriptions, staff not even trying to read most of the suggestions and feedback, useless threads ranting about how the anticheat doesn't ban everyone on the server which drag attention away from everything else, some suggestions being ignored for years and then finally being added because an admin happened to see them, good suggestions being ignored because there's more than 1 suggestion in the thread with only the occasional good suggestion.
Something needs to be done, and this is what I think should be changed.
Accept some suggestions from compilation threads:
So, a while back I found out that if a user makes a "compilation" thread to post a clump of usually smaller suggestions in one thread, they all get denied immediately if even one small part of it will not get accepted. The reasoning behind this is apparently because if Cube was to only implement some suggestions and not others, there would be too much backlash. This reasoning is ridiculous. Sure, it's possible that some people could be unhappy with only one suggestion out of a selection being implemented but there will be more backlash for continuing to straight up deny to implement it based on such a petty reasoning. If people complain, give a reason on the thread for why the others weren't implemented. This allows for more transparency as well as helping people post better suggestions in the future, with no real negative. Actively ignoring the things that the community want is honestly far worse than making the low chance of making a couple of people somewhat unhappy.
Instantly lock and/or delete pointless suggestions:
Everyone knows the threads I'm taking about - ones complaining about the anticheat mostly. While they're now less common than they used to be, these threads are just tiring to see at this point. Most of the time currently they are left open to replies and end up with god knows how many people posting the exact same message about it, leading more people to view it and dragging attention away from the threads that actually deserve it. They might as well just be made for message and like farming as the only positive outcome for anyone is the people who reply with the same message as the 10 people before them and get a message as well as a bunch of likes from it. These threads should just be deleted or locked as soon as they're seen by a staff member. They're basically spam at this point.
Reminders about format and how to write a good suggestion:
While there are still plenty of suggestions, overall they definitely have declined in quality over time. There are plenty of good ideas out there, but they often aren't read as their titles are unclear or they just don't seem interesting enough and people just ignore them, which is a shame. This is something small, but I'd like to see a link to
this thread in the thread post menu of the suggestion subforum, with a little bit of text somewhere reminding people to read the guide as it can benefit them as it's a really good guide for writing suggestion threads, and getting it out there more will help.
Staff should read all suggestions:
A lot of suggestions aren't bad, and could definitely be implemented in some way shape or form. The issue is, staff do not pay anywhere near enough attention to the suggestion subforum. Most suggestions never get a staff member reading them, leading to decent suggestions often getting ignored. Up until now, we've accepted the idea that there are too many suggestions and not enough staff for them all to even be read. This is not an excuse anymore. There are over 40 mods and sr mods now, and despite that they can't read at most 10 threads a day, usually far less? I can personally keep up with almost all the suggestions, at least reading at least 50%, if not most of them. There is not a chance that a team of over 40 people can't keep up with the current suggestion unless something is seriously wrong with them all. Whether it's laziness, poor leadership from the admin team, a horrible behind the scenes system or something else I have no clue, and I shouldn't speculate on why it's wrong but I can most certainly conclude that something is seriously wrong with the staff team for them not to be able to read this few suggestions a day with a team that large. All suggestions should have a reply explaining why they will or won't be implemented and if that's too much, they most certainly deserve to at least be read by a staff member at the very least.
Prioritise user suggestions more:
I know that a lot of people are going to accuse me of being biased and wanting my suggestions to be implemented just because I want them to be, but that is not what this is about. Search for all the implemented threads and you'll see what I'm taking about somewhat. There are around on average well over 100 suggestions a month, despite that on average less than 5 suggestions are implemented a month (usually exceptions after a new game is released). Far too few suggestions are implemented considering how many decent suggestions are made. (I know these examples are mine, so I might be slightly biased but the point still stands). A good example would be
this thread, which I made a few months back. Despite it being on a time limit, quite easy to implement and something plenty of people would have enjoyed, it was put as a very low priority and they didn't bother to implement it before halloween passed, the reason given being that "it was not a priority". There are plenty of suggestions like this that get ignored and left for ridiculously long periods of time just because cube would rather focus on other things that the staff team and particularly the admin team personally think that cube needs, rather than what the community wants. It's good to have a mix of both, but as of current the community's voice is barely listened to in the suggestions subforum.
Escalated threads:
This is a historically controversial topic but the escalated thread system needs to be revamped and fixed. The current system supposedly works on the idea that if a moderator likes a suggestion, they escalate it and discuss it internally. This system does not work. Not only have I received information that there isn't even a proper behind the scenes system, but the whole escalation system lacks absolutely any transparency whatsoever and lots of the threads are just left and forgotten about after being escalated. Looking back, there are dozens of suggestions dating back over 3 years, nearly 4 years now that still are very viable suggestions that were escalated and have yet to receive any update. There are 3 parts to how I feel this should change to be better.
Escalated threads - Replies to threads and transparency:
As I said earlier, I feel like staff should be able to reply to all threads with a reason to implement/not implement them but I can understand that this much might be a small stretch. However, staff giving replies to all escalated threads explaining if they were denied after internal discussion and why with a chance for members to discuss and argue why the decisions made with a chance to be discussed internally again. If suggestions are decided after internal discussion to be viable, a reason is given for the decision and a timeline or priority is given. This will give far far far more transparency to cube which will make everyone happy, and is something that we as a community have been asking for for a long long time. I'm not asking for daily updates on every single escalated thread in existance, just updates and a general priority to be given when an escalated thread is done with internal discussion.
Escalated threads - Internal discussion and team:
I talked about internal discussion of escalated threads a lot a minute ago, but this is something I'd like to see change as well. As I said earlier, I've received information suggesting that there isn't even a proper formal system for escalated suggestions and everything is done informally. I'd like to see a team setup within the staff team, made up of a group of moderators, sr mods and potentially admin(s) whose role is to look at all the escalated suggestions and discuss/make decisions on them. I'm not 100% familiar with the internal system so I can't say exactly what I think should change, but something needs to urgently change with the way escalated suggestions are handled internally.
Escalated threads - Priority:
I discussed my thoughts on increasing the priority of all suggestions earlier in the thread, but escalated threads are different. I feel like escalated threads which are approved after internal discussion should be given far more priority than they currently have. These are suggestions that could work, the staff team thinks would be beneficial and most importantly - what the community wants. An example is
this thread, which was decided to be implemented and is definitely something a lot of people want, but has been left for nearly 4 months with no update other than "it won't happen for a long while" because it's been set to such a low priority. This is something that affects people on a day to day basis and leads to a lot of issues with moderation on the discord, and despite this it has been set to a ridiculously low priority and been forgotten. This thread isn't alone. There are plenty of escalated threads that were never implemented due to being put at such a low priority.
Escalated threads - Previously escalated threads:
As I said earlier, there are loads of threads that were escalated in the past and have just left alone and ignored for a long time. I feel like it's time that cube went back and spent a while going through all the old escalated threads, gathering ideas for new updates and things to add to the network that the community actually wants - rather than what the admin team feels like what we want. Fairly straightforward.
Conclusion:
It might have seemed in this thread that this was just me being salty that my suggestions weren't implemented, but that's not what this suggestion is about. This is an issue that has been plaguing cubecraft for a long time, and many people have spoken out about it a lot of times before, but I thought I'd post a more formal, formatted reply adding lots of stuff together and adding my own two cents to it. It's something that I feel quite strongly about, and I know a lot of the community does too. There was a lot of noise about this a couple of years back I believe, but nothing much came out of that so it's about time we made some noise again, as it still is an issue that needs massive improvement.
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