Union reform confirmed!

I still have problems without the editor which kind of makes me angry and with the editor I can barely post anything.:Pshadowchronicle

Thanks to a tip from another member, the editor is working fine for me now, including links and images.

[QUOTE="Ovirew"]

I'm tired of people sending me union invites all of the time, that's what I think needs reformed.

Azaru32

But then I have to learn HTML. And I don't want to!

c_rake

I would love to have the unions redesigned maybe then I could finnaly bring back The Raptr Union.

sadly it looks like its YES

As creator of the Unions: Version 2 thread (6 Years Ago.....lol) I vote yes for union reform. In my original thread, I split the updates into two different categories, functionality and advertising unions around the site. A lot of the ideas are outdated because the website has since changed designs many times, but there are some updates that I think should still be considered.

My favorite idea was the widget system, where GameSpot would have different types of widgets to choose from, each of which displayed different types of information or feeds, such as latest posts, articles, leader board, picture of the day, the daily poll, etc... The union leader would be able to choose any widget they wanted to display and just drag and drop it wherever they wanted it to be located. This would make the union home page completely customizable and would allow for more variety. It would allow the union leader to adjust the home page to organize the content around the overall theme.

Another idea I liked was the ability for larger unions encompassing more games to be able to customize its forum. You'd be able to create boards for each game you covered, for example my old union, The HeadCrab Union covered everything from VALVe Software. I would have liked to create different boards for each popular game we covered. You'd also have greater control over who was allowed to post on your union, through the use of suspension or ban lists. A union leader board or customizable union levels would also boost activity. You could also create community announcements for all your members to read when they came to your forum. This would help a union leader to get a message out to all their members very quickly, instead of having to telegram their entire list. The community announcement would be visible only to those visiting the main union forum. Just check the mock image of this I had linked on the original thread.

Besides union functionality, I mentioned advertising also. The site has changed too much for me to list any specifics here, but basically after an update unions would need to be advertised around the website again in highly visible places. If somebody liked a certain game and there was a union for it, the union should be advertised to them in some way. Marketing unions like this would go a long way toward boosting their activity again. Many complain about the unions being dead, but it doesn't help when they're completely hidden from view. I would have no idea how to find them if you asked me. This needs to change in order for activity to return to what it once was. Hopefully there will be a change soon. I would advise the admins to look over my previous thread to get ideas about what they could do to reform unions.

I think improvements to the Unions could be a good thing for this site. It will likely come with bugs, but that's one of the side effects from updates here.

GameSpot should at least make minor changes for the few Unions that are still active. There doesn't need to be a period in which to "test the waters". By making changes to the Union system, those Unions that are still active will have more people chiming in, then more people will use Unions as a whole.

wonder when this going be end?Nightmare-_-

It would be nice for the unions to get an update. Mine has all but died out; however, this could be exactly the thing to bring it back to life. Even if it's only slightly.

I would love to have modern unions. I always wanted Unions Version 2.0, and that is indeed a long time ago, but I think the ideas behind it could still very much work, just in a much more modern fashion (with the modern Gamespot design).Willy105

pretty much,there is only so long Gamespot can neglect unions

I was here back when message boards were all the rage; probably at the height. All premium GameSpot users were allowed to create their own message boards, making the position of Admin and Mod a big deal. There were message board "mergers" and some were exclusive like the 'Mullet Union' and 'Members Only Union'--where only the friends of the Admin were allow to view and access their message board. Naturally people did a lot of brown nosing in order to join and exclusive message boards even had an application process to see whether you were "worthy" enough to post in their boards. Message boards were primitive, relative to Unions, so much so in fact that "Admins" would create threads that contained a list of message board 'members'--if you can believe it.

When 'Unions' came out in 2005 I was slow to adapt, much like many other users acquainted with the message boards era. Sure there were message boards that created Unions with the same name but most of the activity happened in their original message boards. And it wasn't long before message board activity started to die off. So much so in fact that exclusive boards that were held in high esteem were forced to open their doors to everyone. Like many others involved in the message board scene, I eventually joined the Union craze. It took a while before my resentment for Unions subsided to the point that I eventually acknowledged the fact that "Unions" were a natural progression from message boards and it was something I had to learn to accept.

The problem this time around is saturation, anyone can create a union--as long as you have an idea and some charter members, you're set. And I believe that is the primary reason the Unions' rise and fall was so dramatic. Unions can only be placed into 15 categories and the largest category just so happens to be "Games - General" with over 1100 Unions out of a total of 3,922 Unions on GameSpot. So you have 1100 Unions talking about the same general crap, with the same layout and everything else. No uniqueness except the name and the Union banner. Basically Unions right now are glorified message boards. Of course it's going to get dull. There needs to be another natural progression and that progression begins with exclusivity and I think people tend to underestimate its impact.

If the GameSpot were to ever get back on the Union bandwagon they should start off by making Union creation and the Union leader position exclusive to premium users and or users who pay a specified monthly fee (whichever GameSpot decides). They should also purge all Unions that are inactive and ones whose leader doesn't pay the fee after an allotted time window. During the allotted time window the Union Charter becomes "pending" and union loses some of its functionality. If the Union leader is not a premium user and or can't afford the fee they can choose to transfer leadership to a premium user to make the Union Charter "active" once again and regain total functionality. And lastly as stated earlier, if they can't transfer leadership to a premium user or are unable to pay the fee, the union is purged. That way there are fewer of them and the money paid by subscribers can go towards the Unions update. It's better to have a smaller number of very active Unions compared to having a large number of Unions that are sporadically active or not active at all. If GameSpot were to better implement advertising in Unions they could take advantage of this and make more money that could go towards supporting the Union overhaul.

After that, GameSpot should actually showcase Unions instead of completely hiding them in their website. Unions are no longer highlighted on the GameSpot Forums main page. They only show up on the bottome right corner when you enter a message board. And they are not prominently place in any other legitimate places on the website. They also should receive more attenion on the GameSpace pages. If I wasn't already a member of some Unions I don't think I would have known they even existed. GameSpot should include a "Unions" drop-down tab when you hover over the "Forums" link. Union search and categories also needs to be overhauled. When all this is done, then GameSpot should move on to Sentinel's ideas.

I remember seeing Sentinel's post back in 2006 and I thought it was a very thorough and detailed plan for the Unions overhaul (the BEST out there) and I was almost certain that GameSpot would act upon it. They were good ideas that COULD be implemented and most importantly, from a business perspective, they were FREE ideas! They didn't pay Sentinel to do it, he took time and effort to configure his ideas and thoughts and handed them right to GameSpot. And GameSpot gave him, along with the Union community, a big middle finger and decided to ignore Unions for the better part of 5 years. Maybe one day GameSpot will come back to their abandoned child and decide to fix it. I would be surprised if anything happened this year. Maybe in another 5 years...

How about at least a purging of all the dead unions? This would be a great way to see how many active unions are still going. Set it to wipe out any union that has had no forum activity within 90 days and/or no news/bulletins within the last two years. I hardly think that unions that fit this criteria are coming back. Then we will know if there is a real community behind it all.

Plus it would help active unions be seen better without all the clutter.

Thoughts?

EDIT: I would like to add that as of the time of this posting, there are more than 3,900 unions registered in the union database.

While there are many pages on GameSpot that are in desperate need of a reboot... Unions will be addressedGameSpot Developer Lark Anderson

Union reform confirmed!: [QUOTE="GameSpot Developer Lark Anderson"]While there are many pages on GameSpot that are in desperate need of a reboot... Unions will be addressedmichaelP4

YESSSSSS!

People voting no because they thing "unions are fine as is": Stop being afraid. Unions deserve an update. They deserve the same attention the rest of the site gets. They're taking in a sizeable amount of traffic to the site once again and it's worth seeing them in the same design as the rest of the site. Unions need this boost. I vote yes. A thousand times yes.Cloud_765

The difference is though, this time we have actual confirmation from a developer that something will be happening. Unions will not be left out in the cold. This is a first from GS - we've never had this before in all the years I've spent campaigning for union reform.michaelP4

meh I'm still pretty skeptical.

Not CNET anymore it is CBS now.

Was a supporter since Sentinel first created an elaborate layout design for the unions. Would have thought some of the ideas, if not all, would have been implemented into what appeared to be a promising GameSpot-feature in Unions.LTomlinson21

Not CNET anymore it is CBS now.

iowastate

in some instances a UCB is better than a union.

several years back I failed to get enough people to start a footy union so I used my UCB.

after about 2 seasons it was dead in the water so if I use the UCB again I'll have to delete the entire 2 pages and start over:lol:

UCBs already can be used for unions and soon - as Michael noted - they could replace them entirely.

it is nice to not need four co sponsors to start up although that does help show there is an interest in your subject.

Will this be happening anytime soon?

it is in effect now