Feedback to prepare for JKHub Redesign Part II (or JKHub 2.1)

[Circa]

So a couple years back, we had been teasing JKHub 2.0 for awhile, saying it would be more modern, include more features, and include a complete redesign. We managed to upgrade to the modern version of the software with some bumps along the way, but with Caelum's absence shortly thereafter, not much was done past that. I have polished some things here and there, but our main goal was to make the new software feel as much like the old one as possible while also including the smoothness and features of the new one, in order to keep people that hate change to slowly ease into it (and let's be honest, that applies to most people here).

However, the actual redesign is still coming, and I'm now in the process of planning it with some help with the other staff. We discussed some things we'd like to see done, but I want to know what you guys think. What are some features you'd like to see on JKHub that either you miss from our past or just think are needed?

Keep in mind the current climate though. The population of the Jedi Knight community is quite small. Asking for weekly or even monthly contests isn't going to happen, but we will be doing more contests. Or asking for more news posts isn't happening either. One big change (which I've already alluded to in the current design) is not making news posts so prominently displayed. There was a point where we didn't have a news post in over a year and it just makes us look inactive. News posts will still happen, but they won't be the focus of this website going forward.

We want to focus on what we do well: mod hosting, showcasing, and discussion. Obviously our file section has always been the focus, but we want newcomers to know that, and make it easy to find. We also want them to know where to go to find anything JK related, such as tutorials, walkthroughs, popular servers and clans, etc.

So here's what is planned for sure so far:

• New design from top to bottom. The old theme will always be available for those that end up hating it.
• New home page with valuable info on who we are and what we offer
• Discord Integration (at least the ability to sign up with an account, further integration TBD)
• Rewards system for contests and other events (gives a badge or something on your profile)
• New wiki/tutorial system (unsure how this will work right now, but our wiki needs some love)
• Yes, more contests and mod features will be done (had to put it here for those that skimmed)

Outside of those things, is there something you wish we would do or have? I'm putting this as a poll but I want actual responses more than votes.

Edited June 10, 2021 by Circa

[mrwonko]

I'd like to second the wiki/tutorial system plan. Some more detailed ideas:

Firstly, it should be collaborative. The best results are almost always arrived at by improving iteratively. It might be a good idea to have all content under a suitable Creative Commons licence. Contributing has to be easy, to encourage as many people as possible to share their knowledge.

The content should not be tied to JKHub. We've had multiple sites go down in the past, taking vast amounts of tutorials with them. Use a system that makes it easy to access and export the content.

In terms of structure, we need to provide clear paths for modders trying to learn a new area, like how to make a player model. There will be overlap between paths, for example I expect most will contain information on pk3 files. So there would be a single page explaining pk3 files, which is then referenced by multiple paths.

Another use case are code references. A page on mapping might list the jump heights at each force level, it would be useful if it could then link to the relevant piece(s) of the source code that determine(s) this height.

Another common use-case is "this thing isn't working, how do I fix it?" I'm not sure what the best way to present this kind of information is.

[Circa]

45 minutes ago, mrwonko said:

Firstly, it should be collaborative. The best results are almost always arrived at by improving iteratively. It might be a good idea to have all content under a suitable Creative Commons licence. Contributing has to be easy, to encourage as many people as possible to share their knowledge.

The current wiki is technically like this already. Anyone can make an account and edit things. The issue is that it's a separate account from the forum account, and traditional wikis are a pain to deal with or learn at all.

45 minutes ago, mrwonko said:

The content should not be tied to JKHub. We've had multiple sites go down in the past, taking vast amounts of tutorials with them. Use a system that makes it easy to access and export the content.

If it's not tied to JKHub, that's outside this conversation. Anyone can make a wiki on the various wiki hosts out there. If a group wants to make one outside of JKHub and it ends up being better than something we do, I would love that. If people don't want a wiki here, I will gladly remove it, as long as there is a suitable replacement out there.

EDIT: I should clarify, this feature is built into this forum software, it's going to be a matter of getting it set up and transferring existing wiki pages to it.

Edited June 8, 2021 by Circa

[Raisinbrand]

I think a more prominent place for the community section would be nice, mainly the Art, Media, and Technology area.  There are so many good pieces of art, short and feature length fan-films as of writing this today, and so much more. As someone relatively active in the art crowd, I'd love to see contests relating to that too if it isn't too unrealistic. While art isn't as useful as a skin, and the 'Our Picks' section is also appreciated for spotlights, I feel a more active place could be cool, to show that it's not all mods and more of a community--a hub. Excited to see what happens next, whenever it happens. 

Edited June 8, 2021 by Raisinbrand

[Tompa9]

Finally make file section for models with ported parts!

[Circa]

1 hour ago, Tompa9 said:

Finally make file section for models with ported parts!

This is also in discussion.

[Bubbles]

Ye relaxation of the rules when it comes to ported content. (Maybe allowing uploaders to use external download links to free yourself of any copyright issue? i dunno).

For example creating a download page to EternalJK with a link to the github. (Maybe a poor example)

I suppose thats a main issue a lot of people dont reupload stuff because they dont know whoses content it is or they modify someone else content but maybe cant upload it due it not being all their own work.

I also think it is disapointing that the JK2 community is not more engaged/apart of the JKHUB. I played recently and noticed a lot of interesting content that is just not on JKHUB because JK2MV has autodownload. Which is fantastic but it also means that a lot of maps/models are not backed up anywhere permenant.

Discord integration may be cool but I dont know how effective it is. I personally think the larger clans still active such as JoF, JAWA maybe could do more to keep JKHUB active as they do still have an active JKA community.  It is obviously not their responsibility to do so but JKHUB itself benefits JKA players as a resource.

 

Not sure how big an issue ported content is because on Steams workshop for garrysmod is basically all ported content from other games.

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=4000&searchtext=star+wars&childpublishedfileid=0&browsesort=textsearch&section=home

[Circa]

4 hours ago, Bubbles said:

For example creating a download page to EternalJK with a link to the github. (Maybe a poor example)

I also think it is disapointing that the JK2 community is not more engaged/apart of the JKHUB. I played recently and noticed a lot of interesting content that is just not on JKHUB because JK2MV has autodownload. Which is fantastic but it also means that a lot of maps/models are not backed up anywhere permenant.

I would love if EternalJK was on JKHub, but Bucky specifically didn’t want it on here for some reason when I had asked him a couple years ago. No idea why.

JK2 is another story. It’s another issue with that group of people not interested. They made their own community (JK2.info) and have made it clear they don’t feel the need to be here. Not all, but a lot of them did when I had asked.

All of that is up to those people though. I’ve done a couple campaigns going around to get people to get more involved and get feedback and I usually get the same responses along the lines of them not seeing the point. For mods, I really don’t get it, other than not abiding to our rules I suppose.

Also, the whole issue with clans and players not spending time here is kind of a lost cause nowadays. That’s why I want to kind of switch gears with our mission statement and not try to force people to talk on this forum if they have nothing to contribute other than memes and spam (which we had a big issue with when we had those sections of the forum). Focusing on mod-related things and a wiki/tutorial/database is going to be our best bet going forward I think.

4 hours ago, Bubbles said:

Discord integration may be cool but I dont know how effective it is.

The plan is to at least just make it easy to sign up for an account with a Discord account. Anything further may be a more complicated process that we’d need to team up with the JKC server on, and would be a further out project than this redesign. TBD.

4 hours ago, Bubbles said:

Not sure how big an issue ported content is because on Steams workshop for garrysmod is basically all ported content from other games.

We will most likely go back to the previous rules we had that allow ports under certain stipulations, but we will post about those changes. That might happen before this redesign. The current rules were kind of set out of my control, I wasn’t a fan of changing what I had set before, but it wasn’t necessarily my decision.

[Wolfeye]

>Holiday contests (Halloween / Christmas / St. Patrick's Day / April Fool's Day / New Years / etc... just not Thanks Giving. )
>Super fancy forum badges for contest victories

It's the simple things. Contests for JKH haven't been consistent but I think there'd be more participation if there was a reliable expectation of them.

Also yea, revamping the wiki would be great. But I've been saying that since like 2016  never seen a good solution to it come up though. Its the kind of thing everyone complains about because it sucks but no one bothers to suggest a better alternative. And I'll be the first to admit, I have not thought up any alternatives.

[Circa]

3 hours ago, Wolfeye said:

just not Thanks Giving. )

You mean you don't want to run around as a turkey in JKA?

3 hours ago, Wolfeye said:

Also yea, revamping the wiki would be great. But I've been saying that since like 2016  never seen a good solution to it come up though. Its the kind of thing everyone complains about because it sucks but no one bothers to suggest a better alternative. And I'll be the first to admit, I have not thought up any alternatives.

It's already a feature of this new software (called databases), we just never got around to moving everything over because it's going to be a massive pain. There isn't a conversion tool that will make it automatic, we'll have to manually copy and paste things over. But it will be worth it in the end I think.

[mrwonko]

23 hours ago, Circa said:

If it's not tied to JKHub, that's outside this conversation. Anyone can make a wiki on the various wiki hosts out there. If a group wants to make one outside of JKHub and it ends up being better than something we do, I would love that. If people don't want a wiki here, I will gladly remove it, as long as there is a suitable replacement out there.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be hosted on JKHub, this is probably the best place for a wiki, I just mean it should be easy to download a backup in case we ever need to move it elsewhere.

[DarthValeria]

A Discord server for JKHub would be so cool and new design for this website

[Bubbles]

20 hours ago, Circa said:

I would love if EternalJK was on JKHub, but Bucky specifically didn’t want it on here for some reason when I had asked him a couple years ago. No idea why.

Well with respect to Bucky and any other people you could simple provide a link to the github without hosting it.

May sound pedantic but I see JKHUB as a directory of mods.  Doesnt work so well when a lot are just not on here. For example the same with Movie Battles. A simple information page with a download link that links to the movie battles website.

The way I see it is a win win.  When new players write JKA mods into Google this is one of the first sites they see.  So they should be able to get some information about the most popular mods and clients out there.

I also liked the layout of the old JKA Filefront homepage in which the main page was basically https://jkhub.org/files/   So people could see straight away the most popular downloaded files and what is new. Because I highly suspect most people that use this site are only interested in downloading mods.  Maybe a minor gripe as the current JKHUB homepage does show the most popular downloaded files in a small section.

 

[Circa]

2 hours ago, Bubbles said:

Well with respect to Bucky and any other people you could simple provide a link to the github without hosting it.

May sound pedantic but I see JKHUB as a directory of mods.  Doesnt work so well when a lot are just not on here. For example the same with Movie Battles. A simple information page with a download link that links to the movie battles website.

We can’t host files if the creators specifically don’t want them here. Even just linking to them. They’ll just ask them to be taken down, and we’d have to respect their wishes. There are reasons people have for not posting here, and that’s on them. There isn’t much we can do as staff. It’ll come down to them putting their stuff up themselves. If there’s a mod that is missing, request it to the creator. Maybe if enough people ask they will do it.

2 hours ago, Bubbles said:

I also liked the layout of the old JKA Filefront homepage in which the main page was basically https://jkhub.org/files/   So people could see straight away the most popular downloaded files and what is new. Because I highly suspect most people that use this site are only interested in downloading mods.  Maybe a minor gripe as the current JKHUB homepage does show the most popular downloaded files in a small section.

That’s essentially what I’m planning, yeah. Better to have actually relevant info.

[Bubbles]

Only other thing I can think of is a rep system that is showed next to someones name. Again like the old filefront forums. Probably a little meaningless now due to forum activity though. I also doubt it will be effective in getting people to contribute to discussions. Probably be pretty easy to implement though.

[Aldro Koon]

Just a word of caution: We're absolutely booming on our {JoF} community forums to the point of the activity being overwhelming and a big part of that (outside of constantly recruiting new members) is that we don't officially endorse/use Discord. We believe it detracts from forum activity (and we have past data from experimental attempts to back that up). Discord is faster and more modern, people will form groups with each other and just quickly share links/questions there rather than bring up a forum and start a topic, waiting longer for replies etc. So whatever Discord plans you have, It'd be a good idea to tread carefully (assuming the aim is to increase or maintain forum activity here).

We also try to share what we're up to every now and then here (especially custom created content). I made a topic earlier wanting to share some of our screenshots/videos as we have monthly picture and video contests but I don't know where to place any of that without the fear of it coming across as aggressive marketing. But I generally believe it would be of benefit to have new gameplay footage rolling in on the forums. It basically scratches an itch to get ingame when you see footage of others having fun.

Other than that, tutorials, competitions and just all things JK related is gold here. We link to JKHub in many cases inside of our pinned topics. Expanding all of that would be a good way to go.

[Circa]

8 hours ago, Bubbles said:

Only other thing I can think of is a rep system that is showed next to someones name. Again like the old filefront forums. Probably a little meaningless now due to forum activity though. I also doubt it will be effective in getting people to contribute to discussions. Probably be pretty easy to implement though.

It's already a feature, I just have it disabled because I never really saw the point of it. I may consider adding it back.

2 hours ago, Aldro Koon said:

Just a word of caution: We're absolutely booming on our {JoF} community forums to the point of the activity being overwhelming and a big part of that (outside of constantly recruiting new members) is that we don't officially endorse/use Discord. We believe it detracts from forum activity (and we have past data from experimental attempts to back that up). Discord is faster and more modern, people will form groups with each other and just quickly share links/questions there rather than bring up a forum and start a topic, waiting longer for replies etc. So whatever Discord plans you have, It'd be a good idea to tread carefully (assuming the aim is to increase or maintain forum activity here).

It's a valid concern, however we didn't create the JKCommunity discord, and we can't really control people continuing to create JK-related things. We can control our brand and that's about it. The plan is never to make a JKHub discord. When I say Discord integration, I mostly just mean a plugin that allows people to create an account here using their Discord login, which nearly everyone in the gaming world will have. We won't be making a server or sending our traffic elsewhere necessarily. I'm not entirely sure how it'll work yet but your points are well made, for sure. We can't control where people post their stuff though. Some people are just straight up against using JKHub entirely, for no good reason other than ignorance from my perspective. Posting something on Discord will just get lost, but a forum thread or post can be seen at any time easily.

I love Discord and feel like it's a tool that serves a different purpose than a forum does nowadays, but they can go hand in hand, it's just a matter of people realizing that a forum has it's uses.

3 hours ago, Aldro Koon said:

We also try to share what we're up to every now and then here (especially custom created content). I made a topic earlier wanting to share some of our screenshots/videos as we have monthly picture and video contests but I don't know where to place any of that without the fear of it coming across as aggressive marketing. But I generally believe it would be of benefit to have new gameplay footage rolling in on the forums. It basically scratches an itch to get ingame when you see footage of others having fun.

The problem is you're the only group that is doing that. If more clans and groups would do the same, it would feel less spammy. I'm willing to reduce the time limit on how often you guys can post, but I am also considering adding a new media section where artwork and other media like videos can be showcased a little better.

[afi]

As someone who has spent way too much time on improving and contributing to the wiki:

The wiki does what it's supposed to do and is not worse or better than any other wiki-system (for the most part). The only thing that is currently broken are the profile-pages.
Like all wikis, the quality is a matter of the people who contribute and overall there are not more than 3 people who contribute regularly in the last years.
The wiki already has a lot of unique and quality content but I think that many people are not even really aware of it's existence, the search engines rarely index the wiki on relevant subjects. If the wiki was part of the regular jkhub profile system, that would definitely help.
But I don't think that wiki and tutorials should be mixed.

[z3filus]

We need more tutorials in general. In text format. 

This website is the number one go-to page for files and information about Outcast and/or Academy. As such we should have as much information available as possible. That's the only thing that troubles my mind year after year; talented people show off their skills but never really care to share their knowledge. How do area portals work? How to use the 'hint texture'? How to make a fountain or a waterfall that actually looks nice? How do I create a new HUD? I would run out of space here if I wrote down all the questions. My point is that if all we do is brag with our projects, then this website is pretty much a private fanclub for a handful of people. 

So perhaps we could have more interviews? From the authors of the latest HOT files for example. How long it took to make the map/model. What programs did you use, What inspired to create this file. So on and so fourth. Just a few juicy lemons here and there to squeeze out that golden knowledge so others might also contribute once they've learned some new tricks. 

[Bubbles]

There are quite a lot of tutorials out there. Though not as much now as there used to be due to websites losing down. Maybe users could go through old forums and ones still active and put them on here for reference. 

 

I also think maybe a community staff member would be a good idea. Someone who could speak with the active clans and encourage participation and do events and to keep a dialogue.  For example a clan tffa league with the table on the main page.   Also maybe promoting clan events on the main page.  e.g. if JoF or Jawa  do some event. 

 

[afi]

8 hours ago, Bubbles said:

I also think maybe a community staff member would be a good idea. Someone who could speak with the active clans and encourage participation and do events and to keep a dialogue.  For example a clan tffa league with the table on the main page.   Also maybe promoting clan events on the main page.  e.g. if JoF or Jawa  do some event.

Oh, don't get me started with that. I hoped JKHub would become the main place for all JKA players but in reality it always catered mostly to the modding community. I don't think that will change at any point.

[Futuza]

I know Discord integration was kinda popular on this poll, and now that JKHub 2.0 is basically here, I thought I'd mention that WidgetBot is a thing that exists.  I use it for JKG's announcement feed, but it can do a lot more (such as an iframe with a the integrated Discord inside of it).  Not necessarily sure such a thing is necessary/fits, but just wanted to let you know that that's an option that is free (though they do have a patreon that let's you get early access to the next version and do more customization etc).

[Circa]

52 minutes ago, Futuza said:

I know Discord integration was kinda popular on this poll, and now that JKHub 2.0 is basically here, I thought I'd mention that WidgetBot is a thing that exists.  I use it for JKG's announcement feed, but it can do a lot more (such as an iframe with a the integrated Discord inside of it).  Not necessarily sure such a thing is necessary/fits, but just wanted to let you know that that's an option that is free (though they do have a patreon that let's you get early access to the next version and do more customization etc).

I think people don't really know what they want with Discord integration. The most I'd really want to do is the ability to login/register with a Discord account to make it easy for new people to join, and maybe have new threads pushed to it. Anything more than that would require basically taking over the JKC or creating a whole new server which I think would be counterproductive. I plan to talk with the JKC admins soon about it all.