Mahz's Dev Journal

[BBeast]

For the few people that read my dev journal: Do yall have any examples of the most frequent searches you do or would do if the Guild supported it?

I'm also working on a simple tag search.

@Mahz

I use the search system pretty much solely for searching for posts within a single thread. I quite like how that search is. It is quite capable of tracking down particular posts when I need to find them.

I can't speak for searching across the forum, though.

[Mahz]

I've started experimenting with a merged roleplayerguild.com/roleplays view that lets you filter roleplays by tags and sort them by either the latest post or roleplay creation.



It's missing some stuff like pagination and filter options (like join-status).

Also, interest checks will eventually get the same treatment.

[Mahz]

@Ellri Tag limit bumped from 5 to 7.

Test out roleplayerguild.com/roleplays.

I need to add some more tags from the suggestions list.

[Ellri]

this is what we got:

Hider

Roleplayer Guild
================

__________ ____ ____ ____
/ ____/ __ \/ __ \/ __ \/ __ \
/ __/ / /_/ / /_/ / / / / /_/ /
/ /___/ _, _/ _, _/ /_/ / _, _/
/_____/_/ |_/_/ |_|\____/_/ |_|

You've encountered a server error.

If the page was loading very slowly before you arrived here,
the server timed out.

The Guild has been suffering time-out errors lately
and I'm currently dedicating the week to figuring out
why.

If you were trying to submit a post/pm/thread, you
should be able to recover your progress by pressing the
back button.

Thanks,
Mahz

This message was last updated: 1 May 2017

Tags used:
Advanced
Large Group
Sci-fi
Fandom

oh wait, second try was better.

EDIT:
does it give a max number of threads?

We tried the tags of our (slow-paced) RP and it did not pop up.

[Mahz]

@Ellri I haven't implemented pagination yet so it just shows 20 topics for now. This is just a stopping point for tonight.

I'm not sure how you got an error. I can't reproduce it.

Unfortunately, my logging service wasn't logging errors just then (had to upgrade my account), so I can't investigate the cause.

[mickilennial]

I still don't see a "Wild West" or "Victorian" tag in time period or genre. Mahz, we talked about this!

[KoL]

@Mahz

I noticed the update to the tag system, which is very good (thanks for that), but I can help but feel that the Guild is still missing at least one major genre of fiction there.

Would it be possible to add a tag for horror there? Maybe psychological and thriller as well? It's not rare to see good RPs within those niches here but searching for them would be impossible without a proper tag.

Ps: In the matter of searches, the thing I'd like the most it's the ability to search through my PMs. I miss something like this very much, given the size of my box.

[BrokenPromise]

I still don't see a "Wild West" or "Victorian" tag in time period or genre. Mahz, we talked about this!

@Inkarnate

But 1x1 rpers now have that all important 18+ tag. _{(likely in preparation for the split non-erotic/erotic sections)}

[Mahz]

Update: roleplayerguild.com/roleplays is now paginated

@KoL I added "Horror". Yeah, PM searching is on the horizon.

@Inkarnate I added "Western".

New rule: when suggesting a new tag, you have to also supply me with a description for it which appears when you hover the label.

Now that I got the /roleplays page started, I need to think of a better solution for tags.

I might add 2-3 custom tag fields so that you can pencil in your own extra tags, and then I can absorb and replace the popular custom tags with real tags.

i.e. I need to find a trade-off between custom tags and the ability for people to filter by tags.

[BrokenPromise]

Maybe the RP search could go by a tag AND keyword system?

So if I wanted to find a zombieland RP, I would check for the fandom tag, then I would type "Zombieland" in the search field. So anything that had "Zombieland" in the OOC and had the fandom tag would come up right away. You're never going to have a tag for everything.

[HeySeuss]

The functionality for the tag search might be better improved if it includes filtering options that allow for specifying exact matches, such as "modern" and "fantasy" and "advanced" to narrow output.

As it stands right now, a Modern-Fantasy-Advanced search returns results that qualify one or two out of the three criteria. The 'all or nothing' option would help here if doable.

[Mahz]

@BrokenPromise @HeySeuss Agreed, I'd like to offer an "AND" filter instead of just the current "OR" filter.

Not sure how to implement that off the top of my head, though.

[NuttsnBolts]

Ancient, Medieval and Future don't have descriptions. Perhaps?

Ancient: The distant past, extending back to the beginning of time.
Medieval: We have a castle, a dragon... and winter is coming.
Future: In a time that is still yet to come.

Any better suggestions are fine. Just noticed the lack of a tag.

[Ellri]

since it only happened once, we suspect it was probably just a timeout or somesuch, @mahz.

one big question for new tags:
Do you want fandom-specific suggestions (Zombieland, star wars, star trek)?

as well as "or" and "and", it would be useful to get "not" filters.

[NuttsnBolts]

I might add 2-3 custom tag fields so that you can pencil in your own extra tags, and then I can absorb and replace the popular custom tags with real tags.

i.e. I need to find a trade-off between custom tags and the ability for people to filter by tags.

@Mahz

So if I wanted to find a zombieland RP, I would check for the fandom tag, then I would type "Zombieland" in the search field. So anything that had "Zombieland" in the OOC and had the fandom tag would come up right away. You're never going to have a tag for everything.

@BrokenPromise

one big question for new tags:
Do you want fandom-specific suggestions (Zombieland, star wars, star trek)?

@Ellri

I'm a little confused with how this would work, mostly because if someone wants Star Wars then there's gonna be a select few that also want Firefly, or even Babylon 5, so how should we judge what's popular? Also, would that then create an issue with people gravitating towards those genres, or staying clear cause they feel that it might be overdone?

Maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way, but I usually feel that fandom stuff is very seasonal depending on popular media at the time.

[Mahz]

@Ellri I think I need to figure out a longer-term plan for the tag system before I venture too far into niche tags.

For example, maybe a middle ground is for people to choose the "Fandom" tag and then flesh it out with an extra custom tag that I mentioned above.

Allowing people to pencil in custom tags lets me absorb popular tags that people actually want to use which is a better way to populate the tag system.

[skidcrow]

For the few people that read my dev journal: Do yall have any examples of the most frequent searches you do or would do if the Guild supported it?

@Mahz

i search for my posts on my previous account so i can shake my head and regret how cringy i was.

edit; nice new search system btw.

[ArenaSnow]

Searches for me consist purely of finding specific lines and/or names to validate my post's consistency, and little else, in response to the prior page's question.

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

@Mahz, you officially made my day by adding an "Ancient" tag and allowing me to search for it.

[Mahz]

@HeySeuss @BrokenPromise I got the "Any" vs "All" switch working on roleplayerguild.com/roleplays.



@Ellri A "Not" filter is a good idea but involves too much labor to be a priority.