Mahz's Dev Journal

[Ellri]

heh.

[Mahz]

I'm back.

I'll spend some time this week catching up with this thread, our mods, and other basic things. For example, the sidebar is a bit out of date.

Also, @TheMaster99 pointed out that the source code doesn't cleanly build, so he was unable to help with some bugs. I'll sort that out.

[Ellri]

We found a Mahz... May we keep it?

[Mahz]

I can't actually start any code updates until I get home from work, but I'll start a general checklist of things I need to do in the short-term.

Checklist:

- Update current contest in the sidebar.
- Update latest newletter in the sidebar.
- Retro-reward trophies to all contest winners.
- Add contest subforums to list of forums excluded from the anti-necro system (Reported here)
- [Bug] Fix the Guild for people with only numbers in their username (Reported here)
- Investigate any causes of downtime since I've been gone. I need to figure out the main causes of downtime and figure out any major bugs that caused them.
- [Bug] Users report being unable to change the status of their topics here.

Can anyone illuminate some of the main issues you've had during my leave? Those are the kinds of things I want to tackle.

I'm looking forward to catching up with this thread.

Also, mostly note-to-self, but here's another checklist I made in this thread, but it consists of improvements of lower priority than the ones in this post's checklist.

[Ellri]

We sent you a PM a few weeks ago or so,@Mahz. That one covers most major issues per that date.

[LegendBegins]

I can't actually start any code updates until I get home from work, but I'll start a general checklist of things I need to do in the short-term.

Checklist:

- Update current contest in the sidebar.
- Update latest newletter in the sidebar.
- Retro-reward trophies to all contest winners.
- Add contest subforums to list of forums excluded from the anti-necro system (Reported here)
- [Bug] Fix the Guild for people with only numbers in their username (Reported here)
- Investigate any causes of downtime since I've been gone. I need to figure out the main causes of downtime and figure out any major bugs that caused them.

Can anyone illuminate some of the main issues you've had during my leave? Those are the kinds of things I want to tackle.

I'm looking forward to catching up with this thread.

@Mahz

It's wonderful to have you back. Personally, I've been keeping up with the data management and vulnerability of the Guild. Since you left, we've had two major down spikes, which appeared to be DDoS attacks, and one minor one, which could range from an attack to a server error. I did some research into the matter and came to the conclusion that it was either an attack or a major server error, but figured it was more likely the former. I spoke with those in the IRC of my findings, and kept them updated whenever downtime occurred, so they could let those who came to find out the issue, but also told them that there would be no way to be sure until you returned.

[Mahz]

@LegendBegins About how long are each of these downtimes?

Hours? A full day? Multiple days?

[ArenaSnow]

The downtimes I've seen were for roughly an hour (possibly less) as I remember. It was less that the site was completely down as it was having extreme connection issues on the server end; some portions loaded after 5 minutes, or they "loaded" (with nothing appearing on the screen) for a few minutes and showed up with an application error.

[LegendBegins]

@LegendBegins About how long are each of these downtimes?

Hours? A full day? Multiple days?

@Mahz

Each was multiple hours, but the minor one was only about one.

The downtimes I've seen were for roughly an hour (possibly less) as I remember. It was less that the site was completely down as it was having extreme connection issues on the server end; some portions loaded after 5 minutes, or they "loaded" (with nothing appearing on the screen) for a few minutes and showed up with an application error.

@ArenaSnow

They were longer than an hour, but what you describe is part of why I believe it to be an attack. It seemed like the server was overloaded with requests, so few got through.

[ArenaSnow]

<Snipped quote by Mahz>

Each was multiple hours, but the minor one was only about one.

<Snipped quote by ArenaSnow>

They were longer than an hour, but what you describe is part of why I believe it to be an attack. It seemed like the server was overloaded with requests, so few got through.

@LegendBegins

I must have missed those, then.

Or I checked in the later portions; if it was attacks, could have been a timezone thing.

[Phantomlink959]

Probably not my place, but what about the thing where npbody can change the join status of their RPs?

[ArenaSnow]

Probably not my place, but what about the thing where npbody can change the join status of their RPs?

@Phantomlink959

That's in the middle of Mahz's high priority list.

[Phantomlink959]

Ah, alright then.

[LegendBegins]

<Snipped quote by LegendBegins>

I must have missed those, then.

Or I checked in the later portions; if it was attacks, could have been a timezone thing.

@ArenaSnow

I'm on the Guild just about every waking minute, so I keep fairly close tabs to the status and server states.

[ArenaSnow]

<Snipped quote by ArenaSnow>

I'm on the Guild just about every waking minute, so I keep fairly close tabs to the status and server states.

@LegendBegins

Fair enough.

[Mahz]

<Snipped quote by whizzball1>

Here's a crude mockup:

@Captain Jordan

Brilliant. (Context)

It's a nice workflow proposal to click a notification to visit a thread and then, while
you're there, clear out any other notifications tied to that thread. It's a
simple and low-impact enhancement to the user experience which is my favorite
kind of enhancement!

<Snipped quote by TheMaster99>

Honestly, I'd prefer a system that puts quotes into an expandable box with a bit
of a preview of the quote within the box.

@Etcetera

This is another simple but low-impact enhancement that would clean up the
frequent sort of post that imposes the full length
of a quote upon all who read it. (Context)

It'd be nice if the quote was contained in a box with a max-height that you can
instantly expand by clicking it.

I'd rather not, in turn - it often just means that I
have more things I have to specifically click open to see. Scrolling is an
action much easier done than clicking. Found them [collapsing quotes] annoying
more often than not on other sites that use them...

@Shienvien

Then I can simply implement the above feature as a toggleable user-preference.

I would certainly prefer that quotes aren't fully expanded until I click them,
but I can appreciate the preference either way.

Yes, it would be convenient to have the buttons be quote, @quote &
@Mention or somesuch.

@Ellri

There's an idea. Have the buttons be (@|Quote) (@Mention). If you get what I
mean, no padding between the (@) and (quote) so they appear to be two parts to a
single button, making the (@) a mentionable quote.

It'd be no smaller than the rating buttons, so it's not exactly hard to hit. It
preserves space. And being directly adjacent to the quote button, it makes it
clear what it does.

EDIT: Mockup, because I could:

@Captain Jordan

Another nice mockup! (Context)

@Shienvien had requested this ability long ago (the ability to opt-out of
quote notifications), but I expressed reluctance because I think people should
generally err on the side of over-notifying.

For example, if notifications have the ability to be bothersome, then that's a
concern I think I should address on the receiver's side. The sender shouldn't
have to make the distinction nor do I think it's their responsibility to guess
whether the sender would want to receive a notification or not.

Another example is that I depend on notifications as my to-do list when I visit
the Guild. When I have limited time, I *only* read posts that show up in my
notifications, so opting out of notifying me will simply prevent me from reading
your response.

Finally, I had over 100 notifications today when I came back from my leave of
absence. I found it a pleasant experience to start from the oldest notification
and work my way through them.

That's just my reasoning.

However, since @Shienvien painstakingly prunes the notification out of almost
every quote just to spite me, I may implement this feature is a user-preference if anybody
including Shienvien actually cares for it.

I do like to cater to the preferences of anyone that spends considerable time on
the Guild. Even if Shienvien is the only user. It also helps me
procrastinate the actual hard features/bugfixes that 99% of people want by
catering to one or two users. Like that Saturday I spent implementing Shienvien's
ability to tab.

Hey, just throwing something in randomly here, so pardon me if I'm out of line.

So the status up top where you can change things from Apply to Full and back?
I've noticed that once Full is clicked, it's not possible to change it back to
Apply, and since I've had a couple of drop outs right at the beginning of my RP,
I'd really like to reopen it and let people know to send some sheets. So if
possible, would it be able to get that requested to be able to switch back? Or
should I just re-post in the Interest checks?

@NeoAC

This is an issue I'll look into as soon as I get home frome work. I feel so bad
that it has been an issue since the feature was implemented, but it's the
highest priority bug on my list!

I sometimes use desktop versions on mobile when I find that the mobile version breaks my preferences more (such as relocating userbits to tops of posts which I find rather disruptive to reading posts, or using font sizes that, ironically, are too big for my cell screen).
I don't think the rating buttons appear too small to hit? They're about the same size as the formatting buttons of the reply box, and the latter I've not had issues with. My cell phone is Samsung Galaxy S II, so it's screen isn't humongous.
(If anything, editing out a single character requires much more accuracy than hitting a button of that approximate size.)

@Shienvien

(Context)

Remember back when I tried to make the guild render at the device's width?

The main reason I rolled back that change to the current setting (desktop
version for all) is because you and some other users showed screenshots of the
guild's font-size in post varying wildly for no reason.

I found out recently that this is simply a bug in (IIRC) Chrome/Safari's underlying rendering
engine. (You were using Chrome or Safari... right?)

I'll have to try again in the near future and get some updated feedback. Of
course, like last time, you'll be able to opt out of the mobile-mode by toggling a
user-preference.

Just a random thought: if a RP's IC has a marker for the page you were last on,
shouldn't clicking on the title of the RP in forum view not take you to said
marker rather than the very first page of the IC?

@Shienvien

There should at least be some way to jump to that spot. We'd think the link arrow on topic should take to "latest unread" rather than to "latest post".

@Ellri

(Context)

I believe the original idea was to either replace "Go to last post" with "Go to
last unread" logic (if applicable to the currently signed-in user), or maybe
even brainstorm a distinction in the UI if we could think of a non-cluttered
idea, but once I finally implemented the unread-post system, it was such a drag
on server performance that I wasn't even sure if the feature would last.

I'm still catching up in this thread, but I don't see much feedback for the
unread-post system at all. I'm not even sure if yall think the feature (in its infantile
form) is acceptable or if it's just ignored because it sucks. But I guess
I'll see for myself as I use the forum again.

IIRC, the unread-post feature was quickly released in a "good enough" state, but
I won't remember what kind of improvements I had in mind for it until I play
with it. Can anyone give me some feedback?

Idea: How about a delete PM function? That would be great for deleting PMs that were sent to you that have no meaning and are useless flame.

@UltikanaRe

(Context)

The most often requested feature by far. I'll implement this sometime after my current
list of bugfixes/to-do's and before the next major feature release. I like to
keep my promises vague and amorphous these days so that I technically don't ever
break them.

I seem to be logging off annoyingly often on laptop. Same browser, remember me
ticked, no cookies eaten, no similar issues on other sites.

@Shienvien

(One more spontaneous logout has occurred. It seems to happen every time the
browser is closed and opened, no matter how briefly - something that cookies
should survive unless specified otherwise. Browser is set to keep cookies until
they expire, and the cookies of other servers do survive. Remember me is always
ticked.)

@Shienvien

(Context)

Sounds to me like the guild's "remember me" function is not working correctly in
your browser. It's supposed to be setting a cookie with a far-future expiration,
but in your case it's apparently only setting a "session" cookie (an ephemeral
cookie that your browser forgets once you close the tab).

I'll try to remember to PM about this once I finish this megapost.

Are we ever going to be able to delete our own posts? Or at least be able to
delete a post of ours that hasn't yet been responded too in case we accidentally
post something?

@SugarRush

(Context)

It's something I want to implement. At least allowing users to delete their post
within some window of being posted. Not a big priority though since you can at least
ask a mod to delete the post for you and I'd rather focus on other issues.

Is there currently a plan for a 'mark all' as read, as it pertains to threads,
or is something likenthat already available?

@Rilla

(Context)

I'd like this sort of feature, but it would require some reworking of the
unread-post system which means that it's not a feature I see myself doing
anytime soon.

Hey @Mahz, when you come back from work, do you think we could get an option
to filter threads by a criteria other than the most recent post's time-stamp.
I'd like to be able to filter them by the date they were created. I don't really
care much for an RP started three months ago with the most recent poist being
two minutes ago. I just want the option to filter it with other criteria.

@Melkor

(Context)

This is actually a feature I think would improve the lives of a lot of people
since it's semi-frequently requested.

I now consider this to be on my "medium-priority" list... if it wasn't already.

For a few days that's a little excessive, I agree, but Mahz hadn't logged in for
over a month when I decided I wanted to know if he was still alive.

@Hank

@Hank Yeah, I think I'm the only one that has been in contact with him at all, for the most part. Besides you doing so now, of course.

Just a heads up to you guys, if anything else in the future happens while Mahz is away, emailing him won't work; I told him about what you guys suspected was a DDoS and that was the first he'd heard of it so presumably he either hasn't been checking his email at all, or does so infrequently. He said he pretty much depends on me for guild news at the moment, so I guess it's safe to say that no other way of contacting him will work at this point. So I guess just bring up anything important that happens here, and I'll make sure he knows about it?

@TheMaster99

(Context)

I'd like to thank @Hank, @TheMaster99, and @HeySeuss (when I'm on IRC) for
prodding me off-site and generally being available when I ask about
the status of the guild.

I admit I forgot to check my [e-mail] email during my
leave, but I would like to encourage yall to continue reporting issues there
because I've added that inbox to my email client a few hours ago. I've started going through
my inbox to catch up with the emails. Sorry about the email neglect.

(End of megapost)

[Shienvien]

I found out recently that this is simply a bug in (IIRC) Chrome/Safari's underlying rendering
engine. (You were using Chrome or Safari... right?)

No... For me the tinytext in case of shorter inputs occurred with Firefox, too. Tinytext occurred whether or not device width forcing was enabled.
Forcing device width resulted in HUGE text on my cell phone that I could not scale down. As in two words per line huge, and several times larger than even my desktop monitor (which is a meter from my face, unlike my cell when I hold it) normally has.

However, since Shienvien painstakingly prunes the notification out of almost
every quote just to spite me, I may implement this feature is a user-preference if anybody
including Shienvien actually cares for it.

I'll sooner just use nameless quotes than flood other people with superfluous notifications. :P
While we are at it, a quote with the @ removed from before the name still seems to send the notification... (Something I've been especially noticing since the greyed out @-less quotes of my text still pop up as notifications for me.)
And yes, I still disagree on over/under notification. I as an avid patroller tend to find them annoying whenever I notice them after I have read the actual thread, and have to delete them separately coming from the thread (which is nine times out of ten). In turn, I'd like to just use notifications when I need to summon a person I don't know whether will come and read the thread without. Letting people disable entire categories of user-generated pings kind of negates the purpose of them existing in the first place.

Sounds to me like the guild's "remember me" function is not working correctly in
your browser. It's supposed to be setting a cookie with a far-future expiration,
but in your case it's apparently only setting a "session" cookie (an ephemeral
cookie that your browser forgets once you close the tab).

This still happens. (Ubuntu FF 38.0 as of current version, has been doing so since 36.something.) If I remember to I can try to hunt down the RPG cookie and see what it looks like on my end. Problem still hasn't occurred with any other site.

[LegendBegins]

@Mahz

Ever since the notification system was introduced, I've been in favor of a customized notification ability, or at least an opt-out option. I personally read every word of every thread I'm subscribed to/post on, so I just get a number stacking up in the upper-right that never gets clicked.

I like the last-read post function, though there is a bug where the "last unread" post brings you to your own if you were the last one to post on a page (at least I believe that was the criterion). It was suggested at one point to make the yellow arrow the "last-read post" while making the time stamp link to the latest post on the thread. I'm impartial to that, but I can see it being beneficial.

[Mahz]

While we are at it, a quote with the @ removed from before the name still seems to send the notification... (Something I've been especially noticing since the greyed out @-less quotes of my text still pop up as notifications for me.)

@Shienvien

Oh... #willfix

At a glance, the code doesn't seem like it would do this. For fun, can you test it on me?

And yes, I still disagree on over/under notification. I as an avid patroller tend to find them annoying whenever I notice them after I have read the actual thread, and have to delete them separately coming from the thread (which is nine times out of ten). In turn, I'd like to just use notifications when I need to summon a person I don't know whether will come and read the thread without. Letting people disable entire categories of user-generated pings kind of negates the purpose of them existing in the first place.

@Shienvien

Ah, I see. Thanks.

Do you think I could address this issue then by implementing some form of @Captain Jordan's suggestion of letting you easily clear all notifications for a topic while viewing that topic?

That would let you immediately perceive (and then clear) any notifications while viewing that thread instead of stumbling upon them after you've already caught up with a thread.

[Mahz]

@Mahz

Ever since the notification system was introduced, I've been in favor of a customized notification ability, or at least an opt-out option. I personally read every word of every thread I'm subscribed to/post on, so I just get a number stacking up in the upper-right that never gets clicked.

I like the last-read post function, though there is a bug where the "last unread" post brings you to your own if you were the last one to post on a page (at least I believe that was the criterion). It was suggested at one point to make the yellow arrow the "last-read post" while making the time stamp link to the latest post on the thread. I'm impartial to that, but I can see it being beneficial.

@LegendBegins

This has come up in the past and I think @Shienvien is right: shouldn't your @mentions be guaranteed to send a notification?

As far as I can tell, being able to put yourself in a position where you wouldn't receive a notification would remove a guarantee that gives the @mention system its value. But perhaps this can be resolved by the proposal in my previous post where I simply make it more convenient to see and clear all notifications from within a topic while you're viewing it.

What do you think?