Update logs and changes

[Lelios1]

Description of the idea: This is entirely on the devs (and SA+ when they make changes) and if they can be bothered with it but:
The idea is basically to log all changes that are made and are noticable to the normal player and make them into update logs.
Examples of changes that were not on an update log (or at least that I am not aware of):

• Removal of ratings on certain parts of the forums.
• This addition on the ideas & suggestions forum
  
• The Re-Addition of the replies on the shoutbox.

Can't think of any other examples.

Why should this be added? (pros):

1. It's always good to be informed of change, makes the dev-player relation feel closer.
2. Having all changes announced opens more possibilities for discussion and feedback.
3. Some of the changes might seem questionable, thus, by pointing them out in the first place and having a small explanation alongside to give the reasoning of an addition or change might prevent players from reaching the wrong conclusion and/or want a revert.
4. Stuff being changed without the player's knowledge might make the player feel like he has no say on what the developers do.

What negatives could this have? (cons):

1. Understandably, some changes might be forgotten by the devs so not mentioning them isn't necessarily on purpose (if at all). If they use trello though it shouldn't be that hard to log them.

Had some more in mind but forgot them in the process of writing this.

 

[Creepis]

It's not really updated, but we had one https://perpheads.com/changelog.html

 

[Husky]

Shadow updates really are the worst, I think development has come a long way in being transparent with the community compared to early 2019.

We have @Samuel and his 4000 News & Announcement threads to thank for that

 

[Madda]

We try to announce changes that we do, especially important changes. Although announcing every single thing we change will quickly consume a lot of time, and it will be a whole lotta update posts. Changes like you've suggested here happens on the fly quickly, seeing as they are not big at all and are usually decided over slack (As we don't see the need to discuss them in meetings, again, waste of time).

Nor do I really think small stuff needs to be announced, like the examples you've given here. The changes you've mentioned are pretty self explanatory and should not really need an announcement.

 

[TinySlayer]

Everything significant gets logged in the server updates. Sometimes we forget to add something due to the large volume, but most things get covered. We can do this easily because we merge a bulk set of updates into the live server at the same time. However the changes you are suggesting are all related to the forums, which are changes that happen instantly. This makes it inherently annoying to post update logs for as often they would just be a single line, and many of these changes go through many iterations before a final solution is chosen as we don't have a development environment for the forums.