Here at MTS2, we truly want to provide the best Sims 2 help we can. As a result, we've been making decisions and changes for quite a while now.

It's now time to tell you about those changes and gather some feedback / suggestions.


1. Category icons:
Initially, the help section looked pretty messy. The categories didn't have icons, and were merged with the titles, so you'd get:
If you imagine 20 more of those per page, you'll see it wasn't particularly easy to read.
The categories were initially given their own column, which was better but forced the title to cram into quite a small space, which led to many line wraps.
tkdjunkie then designed the category icons you see today, and I hope you'll agree that everything looks good :D


2. FAQ section
The FAQ section has been cleared out of old threads and everything has been updated for Nightlife. It's not perfect and more work is needed, which is slowly happening - your suggestions on what could be improved are welcome.

To clear up some confusion, the reason you can't post in those sections is very simple: To keep them clean.
If they were open to posts then people would
1. Post replies, either "thanks" or "I don't get it???" or "I have an idea...". There's a button for thanks, if you need clarification about something you can post it here, and if you have a suggestion you can PM me or post it here - good suggestions are integrated into the existing FAQ threads.
2. People would post their problems in those sections, which would make finding the FAQ posts difficult. Of course, we could sticky them, but as stickies are on every page, you'd have 20 stickies and 5 normal posts per page - how annoying would that be?
As a result, they are locked and this forum open.


2a. www.sims2techguide.net
Regulars have probably seen the above site in my signature. What you may not know is I own that site
The reason for my site is because sometimes a list of instructions such as
just isn't good enough (in my opinion). What are drivers? What are you looking for? These aren't explained by the list givers.
As a result, I created the above site to provide plain English explanations and instructions, and I included screenshots so people knew what they were supposed to be looking at.

After much thought, I've decided that rather than linking to there, I'm just going to integrate my pages directly into MTS2's help. This will take a little time as the threads are being thoroughly checked for ease of use and accuracy as I go along, however it is happening. Have a look at this thread for an example.
Hopefully by Christmas at the latest, all the threads will have such detailed instructions


3. The Great Clearout

Recently, the help section has been given a proper sort through. Two forums have been created:

3a. The Solution Center
The Solution Center is a forum where all "solved"/"answered" threads go.
This is the ideal sequence of events:
1. Person 1 asks for Sims 2 help
2. People answer
3. Person 1 asks for clarification until the question is answered
4. Person 1 says "ok thanks, it's solved now"
5. Moderator closes the thread
6. After a day of it being closed, it gets moved to the Solution Center

3b. The hidden archive
There is a second forum which isn't visible to anyone but staff called the hidden archive. If a thread has not been closed (i.e. if it hasn't been confirmed as answered) and has had no replies for 14 days, it gets moved to this forum.
The upside is that it keeps the help section relatively tidy and we don't have open threads back to February hanging around.
Of course there are downsides: Sometimes a solution is given however Person 1 doesn't confirm that it works, so it can't be closed. Sometimes Person 1 does say that it works, but a moderator doesn't notice, so it isn't closed.

It is important that you say "thanks, that worked" when someone posts a working solution, so that others can benefit if they have a similar problem

Therefore, if you're thinking "I posted a thread but I can't find it", it may have gone there although I remind that only threads without a reply for 2 weeks are moved there.

At this moment there are nearly 3000 threads in the hidden archive. We're not really sure what to do with them, we could ask people to identify their threads, but since they couldn't find time to say "yes it worked", we're not sure that would be successful. If anyone has any thoughts...

3c. Deleted archive
There is a third forum, kind of. Threads that have been closed, but are not relevant or supported are moved to another forum, again with a day's delay.
Examples of these threads:
1. Social stuff that should be on Sims 2 Community
2. Asking for help with illegal stuff
3. Threads asking for help about other websites - we can't support other websites.

These are all threads that are not useful to MTS2 help, but have been "answered" in some way.


4. Thread closures
I've just talked about where threads go after they're closed (or not closed as the case may be), however why exactly are they closed at all?
The answer is pretty simple: De-clutter.
The help section is treated like a company support might be: Each person is individual, you have a problem and when that problem is solved, the "support ticket" is closed.
This might seem bizarre and illogical: What if another person has a similar problem, why not just re-use the thread. Because then threads have dozens of replies and no one wants to read so much to find their answer and will just post a new one anyway.

Overall, it works very well.


5. Summarise all that for me!
Okay so basically this is the way it works:

• On-topic Solved/answered threads are closed and moved to the Solution Center, off-topic ones are deleted.
• Unsolved, unreplied-for-14-days threads are moved to a hidden archive where we need to decide what to do with them.
• Useful/recurring threads are turned into FAQs and placed in the closed FAQ sections.

We do want to make this the best help section it can be therefore this thread isn't closed as I am welcoming comments or suggestions, however:

• Make sure the comments are constructive/helpful. "You suck" or "you all rock" aren't really constructive and won't help the help section become better.
• Suggestions need to be well explained "You need to change the FAQ section" isn't well explained and won't help anything.
• If you want to talk on a personal level or privately, feel free to PM me.
• Do not ask for help in this thread. Your post will be split off.

Last edited by bairy : 20th Oct 2005 at 02:43 PM.

Thanks for this - you have explained things well. I think your intention to intergrate your technical suport to MTS2 is fantastic. One suggestion I would like to make is that a notice of some sort is put at the top of the help section asking people to post that the solution(s) offered worked. As you say - everyone should do this - but many don't seem to know they should.

I think that a gentle reminder of old threads, maybe a PM listing them, sent to members who've started a help thread and haven't posted back about it working or not.