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[Neonivek]

I don't know sometimes. Often I make suggestions and say "The heck with appearance, I am making this post for Toady/Game not the community's entertainment" and for the most part make a hazy heck but with what I think are worthwhile suggestions.
-Note: I've been trying to rewrite that phrase... I can't get it to sound right. What I mean is that the suggestions are for improving the game rather then for people to enjoy the actual post of.

Whenever I just make hazy heck I get very little response.

When I basically make Color Co-ordinated posts that are well organised, no matter how complicated I practically get applause. Heck I even seen other people making suggestions that have been done before many times, or that were barely suggestions, that got by with hands full of fluff presented in amazing ways.

Now I know I don't make them for the community (though I like responses because It gives me an idea of my suggestion's worth) but I also know that psychologically people are instinctually driven to give greater credit to "pretty" things even if their information is more faulty. Should I really bank on Toady resisting animal instinct that much after reading tons and tons of suggestions?

Just passing time, what do you think?

[mattmoss]

What? 

[Capntastic]

You post things on the forum to discuss them with other forumgoers.   If you want a direct line to Toady, just email him.

[Dakk]

I think organized sugestions just help you to pass on whatever information you want them to get. Plus its more fun to read and easier for toady to read and take it into account (or not).

[Neonivek]

Toady wants people to send him Emails/PMs for suggestions?

I wasn't aware, though that makes the suggestion forum sound a bit iffy.

[Footkerchief]

You post things on the forum to discuss them with other forumgoers.   If you want a direct line to Toady, just email him.

Even if the author isn't interested in discussion, the forum is still generally a better option because it lets others know that Toady has seen the idea already.

[Capntastic]

You post things on the forum to discuss them with other forumgoers.   If you want a direct line to Toady, just email him.

Even if the author isn't interested in discussion, the forum is still generally a better option because it lets others know that Toady has seen the idea already.

True, I suppose.   I think the core issue is that people will post a thread for any little idea that pops into their head, regardless of its merit or without following the "stop, look, listen" guidelines.   Actual 'new to the table' suggestions are rare, and the majority of discussed threads are "you should implement this like this" type things.    In my mind there's maybe four types of threads.

1.  Suggesting something that is already in the devnotes.
2.  Suggesting something that has been discussed.   This isn't as bad, but it can create problems when multiple threads for magic/whatever are floating around.
3. Suggesting something while fully aware that it's been discussed before.  This is only bad when there's nothing new being contributed to the idea, or if it's something Toady's explicitly said "No" to.   Like multiplayer or open source or whatever.
4.  A new idea proposed in depth, or a new take on an old idea, or a feasible solution for a problem.   These are golden and rare and precious.

Toady and Threetoe have already thought of basically 90% of things, the community has filled in 9% more, and it has become exponentially more challenging for a good, solid, and original idea to be brought up.   I make no attempt to hide that it frustrates me when people who apparently don't really 'get' what DF is aiming for make suggestions like 'add multiplayer', 'game needs numerical stats', 'you should add magic' etc.   I see it as disrespectful to the community, and especially to Toady.

[Sunday]

Speaking only for myself, I tend to prefer reading short, simple, easy-to-parse suggestions, and after that well-laid-out, longer ones.  I often skip the huge blocks of unbroken text.

Even if you only want Toady to read it and don't care about the community reading it, I think if you make it easy to read and understand, it'll probably get more consideration.  That's more a layout/writing thing in general, though.  Not just related to suggestions. 

You say, "people give greater credit to pretty things" even if the information is wrong, and I think that's only partly true.  To a large degree, I think it just has to do with the fact that with good layout and writing, it's a lot easier to understand what you, the author, intended - which parts you think are important and emphasized, and which parts are merely supporting 'fluff.'  It helps get the reader to the heart of what you're saying, rather than forcing them to sift through your post to find it for themselves.  That's why short posts don't need organization.  But I do think good layout helps with some of the mega-suggestions people have been posting.

Note: I don't think that a post has to have all kinds of colors and text sizes and bolding in order for it to be well-organized.

[Niveras]

Whenever I just make hazy heck I get very little response.

When I basically make Color Co-ordinated posts that are well organised, no matter how complicated I practically get applause.

Of course the quality of your communication, how seriously you take the people you're communicating with, affects how people will view your suggestion. Being, for example, a lazy bastard, or typing in leet, or otherwise demonstrating that your time is more valuable than the people reading it tends to affect your audience poorly. You probably don't need to go overboard with the organization, but being clear, concise, legible and having a logical progression to your thoughts will naturally affects how your message gets interpreted. There's a reason for "grammar nazi rage", and it's not just because crazy kids with their leet and texting won't get off the lawn.

I can't speak for Toady himself, of course, but I imagine he's people and falls under the same sort of principle. An additional consideration is that he's a busy man, so probably preface your suggestions with a general overview before going right into details. This way he can read the simple idea (more detailed than your title, less detail than the nitty gritty details) and decide whether it's worth his time to read further.

[Neonivek]

It mostly isn't that I am so lazy I don't bother to make it readable.

It is mostly that I don't professionally organise it (Color Co-ordinated sections) or stick to a very mechanical nature without fluffing it up.

Though maybe I should take one of my old unpopular suggestions and fluff it up (making an entirely new topic) to see the difference in reponse.

[shadowclasper]

So, basically make the game not ascii? better graphics you mean? It's kinda the last thing on the mind of Toady I think, let's get a playable game FIRST.

He put in options to allow people to make their own tile sets, thus, their own graphics. That's more than enough.

Further, when designing a game, in alpha, which DF is in, you usually have the most basic of graphics. Block images. This isn't ALWAYS the case, and on larger projects with large numbers of graphics guys working in tandem with the programmers and engineers, it's rarely the case. But you've got 1 person working on this dude. Count'em. 1. He's better off making the game more playable, getting all the features he wants in in, and generally working to make the game than he is making it pretty. Especially once you consider he gave people the ability to mod in their own graphics. When the time comes, he might just pay (or ask, I'm pretty sure a lot of people here would give him it for free) somebody to give him a totally complete graphics set. No repeats, all distinct images, really nice looking 2d imagery. I seriously doubt this will ever be 3d, and I'm not sure I want it to be either...

edit: or are you talking about suggestions as in "should my actual post looks a certain way". And to that, a resounding YES. The better grammar, spelling, punctuation, format, organization, etc.etc. the more likely people are to take you seriously.

[Neonivek]

It is the second.

So apperantly fluff and color is important.

Well then Ill have to revise one of my suggestions for later... Though to be honest I don't like the idea that by just making my posts look better, while not changing the content, can make people who would otherwise disagree or ignore, pay attention and agree. It is one of the reasons why humans are horrible.

[Footkerchief]

There's a somewhat artificial distinction being drawn between content and presentation.  If the idea has been thought out well, with coherence and focus, most of the essentials of presentation are already complete, because your mind has already organized the idea and stripped it of extraneous content.  Colors, bullet points, etc. are best used to present content that would be annoying to express in words, like a hierarchy of related concepts.  Using them purely to make your post "look better" is missing the point -- yes, certain horrible humans may like it more if you do, but I doubt there are many of them here.

That said, I don't think your posts are sorely lacking in presentation, Neonivek.  Though if you had some particular examples in mind, they might be helpful.

[Neonivek]

Well here is one.

My Template Suggestion originally that didn't get a lot of attention

Then when I spruced it up later

I don't remember if that is the same topic or two seperate ones.

Though maybe I ought to find them instead of referencing them.

p---------- Edit addition -------------------

so I found the topic, from what I remembered it was rather unpopular until the new look. I didn't change any of the content though.

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=26006.0

Though I cannot exactly remember the story I believe I changed the looks specifically because I wasn't getting many responses.

[Barrel Roll]

What?