Proposal Discussion Making the Alpha forums public

Riedquat

Riedquat
Considering there is no NDA and that everyone in the world can view Alpha videos, I was wondering why the Alpha forums would be private.

Even if it just contains mainly bug reports, it would be nice to be able to have them as read-only for non Alpha participants, would possibly also help to alleviate the 'when is next alpha/beta' posts as people can keep more up to date with the current situation.

what do you think?
 

Gibbonici

Gibbonici
Riedquat said:
Considering there is no NDA and that everyone in the world can view Alpha videos, I was wondering why the Alpha forums would be private.

Even if it just contains mainly bug reports, it would be nice to be able to have them as read-only for non Alpha participants, would possibly also help to alleviate the 'when is next alpha/beta' posts as people can keep more up to date with the current situation.

what do you think?
Click to expand...

Read only access sounds like a good idea to me. Out here in the non-alpha wilderness we really have no idea what issues there are with it or what's going on. As you say, it could help with the communication deficit many are starting to feel.
 

Ayo

Ayo
I don't mind there being a private forum for bug/issue reporting and tech support for the alpha. It keeps discussion about that stuff to only the people who have the most informed opinions, which is more useful for the developers.

I'm not sure if the alpha forum really has much more info about what is happening than the rest of the forum, but any important/big news tends to filter though anyway by the looks of things.

Overall I don't have a problem with the alpha forum being private, but I would love to have access all the same :)
 

jabokai

jabokai
Riedquat said:
...it would be nice to be able to have them as read-only for non Alpha participants
Click to expand...

Read only - can't see any reasons why anyone would complain about that, if the forum software can handle it! It makes sense that only people actually using the alpha can post there otherwise the devs would have a problem discerning whether it was a comment from someone watching videos on Youtube and not from an actual participant.
 

Capt. Hook

Capt. Hook
jabokai said:
Read only - can't see any reasons why anyone would complain about that, if the forum software can handle it! It makes sense that only people actually using the alpha can post there otherwise the devs would have a problem discerning whether it was a comment from someone watching videos on Youtube and not from an actual participant.
Click to expand...

Same, read only seems fair.
 

Hellhawk666

Hellhawk666
Sounds perfectly reasonable to me for it to be read-only for non testers. Don't know how really useful or interesting it would be, however. All the juicy stuff is being reported here in general by us anyway - a lot of the rest is just argy-bargy about connection problems and bugs.
 

X2Eliah

X2Eliah
Myeeah. All the interesting stuff trickles out to public sections very fast. The vast majority of content there is genuinely boring/basic stuff, talking mostly about router configurations and reinstalls.
 

Razorwire

Razorwire
Before I upped to Alpha, I also though the alpha forums should be read-only.

Now, not so much.

There is really not a lot of useful info in there if you are not a tester. Most of the mechanics/content discussions are either mirrored in general access threads or available to view on youtube (or both).
Announcements and dev comments get mirrored quickly.

I can see a case for keeping it secret too. I could see people might use the alpha threads to discredit E-D or sling mud after the issue was fixed.

Honestly, you're not missing anything.
 

Andrew Sayers

A
Riedquat said:
what do you think?
Click to expand...

A DDF-style delay seems better than real-time read-only. Say a new forum is created for each release, and the old one made public at the same time. That means the archives become public in good time, without the risks Razorwire mentioned or the risk of parallel threads being created in the main forum.
 

alchemy42

A
If you make them read-only isn't that only going to spawn mirrored discussions in other threads.

Digests are better. The 'unofficial news for non alpha backers' thread is a good plan.
 

insanephoton

insanephoton
I'm torn on whether or not the Alpha forums should have something like the DDA. On the one hand it might help dispel the impression that the Alpha players are all happily playing the game and holding up the Beta. On the other hand most of it isn't all that relevant to non Alpha players. For example, stuff that is already fixed or will be fixed by the time Beta is released.

As it stands, all the useful, interesting and relevant stuff gets reposted in the general forum within hours.
 

Riedquat

Riedquat
Razorwire said:
Like Unofficial Alpha news for beta backers by Pecisk, maybe?
Click to expand...

Bah... foiled again!

curses-foiled-again.serendipityThumb.gif
 

Mobius

Mobius
A look at the Alpha forum topics, pretty much what you see here is available as a discussion on other parts of the forum, your not missing anything that is going to change your life,

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Richard Voorhees

R
Mobius said:
A look at the Alpha forum topics, pretty much what you see here is available as a discussion on other parts of the forum, your not missing anything that is going to change your life,
Click to expand...

But you will still get some folk who will be curious and want to have a read through it anyway.
 

Rog

Rog
Only in Beta here, and I'm quite happy with the Alpha forum remaining closed. Anything interesting seems to get passed on the the rest of us (thanks everbody).

As an aside, what's going to happen when Beta kicks in?

Is the Alpha forum going to be renamed and opened up, or a new forum started? Not really important of course, just wondered.
 
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