1) Why was an open feedback & support forum partially replaced with a private support hub? How does ELO feel in regards to transparency with community issues?

2) What are the future monetization plans for the site and why was the introduction of ads announced inside an unrelated update?

3) What vision does ELO have for the future of the site past 2021?

4) Why were site statistics removed? Will new or existing features be given a paywall?

5) What are the plans in regards to handling site data? How will ELO handle backups for data and will submission backup data be available to the relevant communities? Having to rely on the existing API is far from an ideal solution.

6) Any plans on changing the current API? Again, will this be publicly available for all or should we expect a future paywall?

7) How does ELO plan to use SRC's social media & Twitch platforms?

Additional questions from other users:

8.) By default ELO collects cookies under the guise of “Legitimate Interest”. What info is being collected?
Posted by the user 1.

9) As a EU citizen, how can i request access to any collected data and information about how that data is processed, as stated by Article 15 of the GDPR?
Posted by the user shenef.

\8) By default ELO collects cookies under the guise of “Legitimate Interest”. What info is being harvested?

9) As a EU citizen, how can i request access to any collected data and information about how that data is processed, as stated by Article 15 of the GDPR?

Bump.

Bump

No response, huh? Guess this should come as no surprise to anyone, honestly.
The closure of transparent communication lanes, their rather cavalier handling of the site since they took over... this is sad, really.

Nah threads like these have been around since elo took over. No communication whatsoever, but hey, check out those "news" articles.

@lewisandsparklewisandspark also a bump

Elo always check the forums, even if it doesn't seems like it. They don't specifically need to answer the questions either but i get your point.

We know they see the forums, @starsmileystarsmiley has confirmed this. The issue is that they refuse to be transparent with us, they put out these stupid news articles that don't really give us much information at all about what is actually going on. Even something as simple as a forum like would go a long way to tell us that they're actually listening.

my main focus now is the reason behind making "just now" lowercase

They really oughta look up the internet's history, and see how the approach they're taking "worked" for ebaumsworld...

"We know they see the forums"
No we dont.

Just because they tell Star that they do doesn't mean they actually do. If they want us to think they look at the forums they could actually reply to something.

Bump. Let's keep this thread up for years if necessary.

Regarding my question how to request data as per the GDPR, i have submitted a request to support@speedrun.com using this template: https://www.datarequests.org/blog/sample-letter-gdpr-access-request/
Feel free to also do that. For me almost two weeks have passed and no answer so far.

1) Why was an open feedback & support forum partially replaced with a private support hub? How does ELO feel in regards to transparency with community issues?
Multiple reasons. We wanted to share things internally in similar ways that we gather feedback on some of our other sites. This makes it easier internally to route issues to the appropriate channels and teams if needed. Additionally, some people might give more honest feedback if it’s in a private forum rather than having to post it in a public place open to scrutiny. We’ve gotten a lot of great feedback from the new method and appreciate everyone who has taken the time to share their thoughts.

2) What are the future monetization plans for the site and why was the introduction of ads announced inside an unrelated update?
Currently Speedrun.com gets all of it’s monetization from web advertising. With the introduction of ads we’ve seen people asking for a premium monetization option that removes ads. We have a premium offering on one of our other products (Dotabuff) and it’s something we’ve discussed on Speedrun.com. I think one of the things that is really important to us is that the core functionality on SRC stays free and accessible. Additionally we don’t want to give any advantages to people who pay or anything along those lines. We’re still figuring out if there is even a viable angle that meets all of those criteria. On most of our sites we haven’t built a premium offering because we weren’t able to find a good balance of those values.
The introduction of ads were announced in an unrelated update because they launched at the same time.

3) What vision does ELO have for the future of the site past 2021?
We want to see speedrunning grow and be a part of that growth. Speedrun.com provides tools for communities to organize around speedrunning. There are no current plans to move away from that focus, and there is plenty to do to improve the site with that in mind. A large part of our focus so far has been on improving site health and stability, and we viewed the instability as something that was holding back the growth of speedrunning communities. We also want to find additional ways to improve the site. A lot of people use Speedrun.com and have for years so we’re cognizant that dramatic changes can be disruptive to how people currently use the site. At the same time there are a lot of improvements we want to make, such as improving moderation tools.

4) Why were site statistics removed? Will new or existing features be given a paywall?
The statistics page was removed for performance reasons and we don’t currently have plans to bring it back. We are considering bringing back site and speedrun community statistics in a more efficient and useful format.
No plans to have existing features behind a paywall. If we were ever to introduce new features behind a paywall it would be important that it didn’t impact the core functionality of the site or give users an advantage over others in some way. (see my answer to 2)

5) What are the plans in regards to handling site data? How will ELO handle backups for data and will submission backup data be available to the relevant communities? Having to rely on the existing API is far from an ideal solution.
We think one of our core missions and roles at Elo and specifically with Speedrun.com is to preserve gaming history. That’s very important to us. We use industry best practices for making sure the site data is backed up and reliable. We don’t currently have plans to add anything beyond the API. If you want to suggest what an ideal solution would look like, it would be helpful to understand what you’re imagining. But to be upfront it probably won’t be a priority in the short term.

6) Any plans on changing the current API? Again, will this be publicly available for all or should we expect a future paywall?
No plans for any major changes with the API. We have occasionally turned things off with the API for performance reasons. Broadly speaking we have been prioritizing keeping the site up over other uses, including the API.

7) How does ELO plan to use SRC's social media & Twitch platforms?
I don’t have a great answer to this question but I would love to see additional social media activity from us. I would love to hear from the community what they want to see. Have you enjoyed the written content and how do you think we should be contributing to the community more on these platforms?

Additional questions from other users:

8.) By default ELO collects cookies under the guise of “Legitimate Interest”. What info is being collected?
Posted by the user 1.

We only use cookies for things directly related to interacting with the site - signing in, dark mode preference, etc. 3rd parties (ex Amazon, Google) also use their own cookies for advertising purposes. Elo takes privacy seriously and support industry efforts to reduce the use of personal information in advertising. A good example of that is the privacy oriented features that Apple demoed at WWDC on Monday. We actively don’t want to collect any personal information if we don’t need to.

9) As a EU citizen, how can i request access to any collected data and information about how that data is processed, as stated by Article 15 of the GDPR?
Posted by the user shenef.
We’re working on a solution where people can do this directly on the site from their profile settings. In the interim you can email support.

I'm surprised that someone from elo actually responded to this thread. Hopefully this becomes a common occurrence.
I'm not really worried about the privacy stuff, I'm just curious if there is a time estimate for when the moderation tools that were promised in the last update will be available.

I'm Elo's CEO, not the Product Owner. We tend to want to avoid giving estimates because we don't want to disappoint people when things take longer than expected. We want to get mod tools out this summer, but that is a completely unqualified estimate since I didn't consult with the team working on it. Please don't punish them if things end up taking longer than expected. They've been working really hard to make sure everything is well planned and executed well.

@LawliepopLawliepop that's longer than I hoped, but I'm glad that they're making sure that everything works before releasing it. I wouldn't want another support hub-like disaster.

Also apologies on my vague answer that was really northern hemisphere biased.

@DelekatesDelekates