Here's the rating system summed up in an image:
- Without the rating system, would two people have posted? No.
- Did the rating system prevent two amazing posts from being written? No.
- Did it lower the barrier to feedback and enhance @Captain Jordan's post? Yes.
- Did @TheMaster99 sheepishly like it? Yes.
- Is it kinda funny/fun? Yes.
- Did some people think that revealing user post-count and join-date would lead to peen-measuring contests? Yes.
- Did it lead to peen-measuring contests? No.
- Does anyone care about post count? No.
- Does anyone care about join date? No.
- Will anyone care about aggregate ratings? No. Not until proven otherwise, and I'm always willing to be wrong.
But I'm rarely wrong.
What I actually do need help with:
- I need people with opinions about the Etherpad integration to give me ideas for how to implement it. What would be the most useful for them? Does anyone have a vision?
- I need people with opinions about the dice integration to also give me ideas. What's the ideal?
Here's the rating system summed up in an image:
- Without the rating system, would two people have posted? No.
- Did the rating system prevent two amazing posts from being written? No.
- Did it lower the barrier to feedback and enhance @Captain Jordan's post? Yes.
- Did @TheMaster99 sheepishly like it? Yes.
- Is it kinda funny/fun? Yes.
- Did some people think that revealing user post-count and join-date would lead to peen-measuring contests? Yes.
- Did it lead to peen-measuring contests? No.
- Does anyone care about post count? No.
- Does anyone care about join date? No.
- Will anyone care about aggregate ratings? No. Not until proven otherwise, and I'm always willing to be wrong.
But I'm rarely wrong.
What I actually do need help with:
- I need people with opinions about the Etherpad integration to give me ideas for how to implement it. What would be the most useful for them? Does anyone have a vision?
- I need people with opinions about the dice integration to also give me ideas. What's the ideal?
Want to like...defies principles. Gahhh!
Anyway, I mentioned being able to create an etherpad as a supplement to a PM conversation. What about a cloned PM feature that would create Etherpads instead of PMs? It would be a much simpler creation interface (simply a textbox with space to add comma-delimited usernames and a button), but the options would have to be expanded to allow new users to be invited later.
I see it working like invite-only Google Docs:
I send an Etherpad (new, fancier name should be invented) invitation to @Mahz and @TheMaster99.
Now Mahz, TheMaster99 and I can write and edit my Etherpad.
Mahz suggests that @LegendBegins be invited.
Only I can invite LegendBegins, and I decide to do that.
Now Mahz, TheMaster99, LegendBegins and I can edit my Etherpad.
LegendBegins thinks @Hank should join us.
I don't invite Hank to the Etherpad. No one else can, either.
Only Mahz, TheMaster99, LegendBegins and I can edit my Etherpad.
When we are done with the Etherpad, I click the Close/Lock* button.
Now no one can edit the Etherpad, including me.
The contents of the Etherpad are still available to myself, Mahz, TheMaster99 and LegendBegins.
*Now, I haven't dived too much into Etherpad. Is there a way to disable it from further edits? If so, I'd suggest a Close/Lock button that the creator can use when the Etherpad is finished. The other way to do this might be to extract the Etherpad text and chatlog, create a PM with the contents of both and the users on the Etherpad, and destroy the Etherpad instance.
Just my $0.02 on the matter.
I send an Etherpad (new, fancier name should be invented) invitation to @Mahz and @TheMaster99.
Collabinator 6000.
On topic, I agree with your description of what the system should be like.
But also, the 'GM' of the Collabinator 6000 should be able to preview, to check the BBCode/admire/etc.
Here's the rating system summed up in an image:
- Without the rating system, would two people have posted? No.
- Did the rating system prevent two amazing posts from being written? No.
- Did it lower the barrier to feedback and enhance @Captain Jordan's post? Yes.
- Did @TheMaster99 sheepishly like it? Yes.
- Is it kinda funny/fun? Yes.
- Did some people think that revealing user post-count and join-date would lead to peen-measuring contests? Yes.
- Did it lead to peen-measuring contests? No.
- Does anyone care about post count? No.
- Does anyone care about join date? No.
- Will anyone care about aggregate ratings? No. Not until proven otherwise, and I'm always willing to be wrong.
But I'm rarely wrong.
What I actually do need help with:
- I need people with opinions about the Etherpad integration to give me ideas for how to implement it. What would be the most useful for them? Does anyone have a vision?
- I need people with opinions about the dice integration to also give me ideas. What's the ideal?
Wonderful. Though I do have one more idea regarding the format of ratings. I'm in favor of moving the rating to the bottom left of the post. In my opinion, that way, it's less intrusive, and doesn't interrupt the immediate flow from post to post. Would you (or anyone else) support that idea?
I'll look into the code and implementation of Etherpads. I believe they should be fully optional/toggleable. That way, it doesn't eat into mobile user data, since live feed bites a chunk out of it.
With dice, I had a bit of an idea. What if, for example, when a dice was rolled, it put the result into its own post, almost as if the dice roller was a user. Though, it should be smaller than a full post, taking up a line or so, and with every roll made by a user at once into a hider. I think that way, you won't have huge pages of dice rolls being displayed, but instead, something that looks like
A 20 sided die was rolled. The result was 6.
^Which would be standing alone by itself. That way, a user cannot edit and cheat it, nor will it take up too much space.
As far as etherpads go, I don't see any reason to get overly complicated with it. Having an on-site tool to be able to collaborate together would be an awesome improvement all in itself, and I hardly think anybody would be against the idea. A PM system clone, converted to an etherpad does sound like a good way to do it, though I have negative experience in coding so I wouldn't quite know.
However I think you should just take the 'New Reply' box, clone it into a module, and add the ability for others to join like a convo system. The 'new reply' box has everything you need, and can be controlled by whomever started the 'conversation'. Add a little window for present users, an add/remove user button, and maybe a small chat box.
As for the dice, the biggest issue is the ability to people to discretely re-roll until they get the number they want. I would recommend maybe another, optional?, tab 'Dice Logs' will a roll button, that records the user's name, roll number, and an optional box for them to write in the action they are rolling for.
I'm so excited for the 'etherpad' of awesomeness to happen.
Just imagine writing in your roleplays, *LIVE* with your partner. No pauses between posts. Live roleplaying.
er mer gerd.
---
Anyway, everyone seems to be having the same general idea about the 'guildpad' as I was.
Since I've agreed with what everyone has posted about it so far, I'll leave it to you guys. @mahz has been doing a great job thus far and I will continue to lurk about. I can't forget about the other contributors as well!!
Love the rating system btw, I feel it will make people feel happy that their literary work is being acknowledged by other people.
No complaints what so ever.
Keep it up.
All of you are awesome.
-Awaiting Future Updates, Anxiously-
-Best Forum Code Ever-
-Fan Girling Haha-
- Without the rating system, would two people have posted? No.
- Did the rating system prevent two amazing posts from being written? No.
- Did one of the two people post right above Captain Jordan? Yes.
- Do we still not have the faintest idea what is going on in the other's head? Yes.
- Did @TheMaster99 sheepishly like it? Yes.
- Is that the very person who posted just above Captain, and as far as I know, might not be opposed to ratings to begin with? Yes.
- Did it lower the barrier to feedback and enhance @Captain Jordan's post? Yes.
- Is it kinda funny/fun? Yes.
...I personally don't find it funny - rather in the "lazy" category. On forums with stricter spam-policies, posting possibly aggravating one-word posts that don't contribute to the thread in any meaningful manner may get you a strike for spam. I am really not sure what the intended message of a single-word post that can signify anything from tiredness to implied moral superiority atop of a halted-until-Mahz-replied (read: finished for the time being) conversation is... It is less amusing and more "not sure if meant to mock or not".
- Did some people think that revealing user post-count and join-date would lead to peen-measuring contests? Yes.
- Did it lead to peen-measuring contests? No.
- Does anyone care about post count? No.
- Does anyone care about join date? No.
- Have I seen multiple people going "I have been here for longer/have roleplayed more" as a serous argument and/or justification on RPG before? Yes...
- Will anyone care about aggregate ratings? No.
- Do people care about such things in many other places? Yes.
- Did most of us want ratings stats on our profiles? No.
- Did any of the points really cover why we need those things on our profiles, rather than just have independent counts under the posts? No.
- Will having a total likes/laughs/thanks count on profiles ever enhance any posts? No.
- Is having a total likes/laughs/thanks count on profiles fun for anyone but people who are like-hoarders? More to the "no" side.
- Is seeing a person's total rating counts useful to me unless I want to peen-measure? No.
- Does it look massive on our profiles and can be considered ugly? Yes.
- Could hiding the things prevent other people from measuring their peens against mine? Yes.
- Hidered, since, well, it is mostly pointless.
Again, I personally don't really care about the ratings that are at the bottoms of posts (although the pop-in of the buttons is mildly annoying - make those permanently visible? - and as someone pointed out, I agree the likes and whatnot would look better on the same line as the reply button, possibly just as a number next to the perma-visible buttons so they'd not break the layout of posts as much).
I only want the massive pointless social media gimmick on my profile to go away, and consider implementing it a wrong move. I don't know whether it was lost in translation, but most of my personal disapproval stemmed solely from the fact the ratings system comes with the on-profile count-thingy (which I need gone).
The social laziness is just a minor additional thing that also tends to unfortunately come with it. (Well, and in my experience, people tend to upvote questionable and/or pointless things over posts that are actually good or informative. Also, does upvoting harassment count as harassment?)
Also, there is very, very rarely a good justification for not making something that is a gimmick at best optional. Let people who want it or plain don't care keep it on their profiles, and people who absolutely don't want it hide it. What's the issue with that?
- We already have invisibility. I personally see little advantage to it, but I am hardly saying that it should not be available for users if they want it. Why would putting in a "Hide rating statistics" button be any different?
What about a cloned PM feature that would create Etherpads instead of PMs? It would be a much simpler creation interface (simply a textbox with space to add comma-delimited usernames and a button), but the options would have to be expanded to allow new users to be invited later.
I see it working like invite-only Google Docs:
I send an Etherpad (new, fancier name should be invented) invitation to @Mahz and @TheMaster99.
Now Mahz, TheMaster99 and I can write and edit my Etherpad.
Mahz suggests that @LegendBegins be invited.
Only I can invite LegendBegins, and I decide to do that.
Now Mahz, TheMaster99, LegendBegins and I can edit my Etherpad.
LegendBegins thinks @Hank should join us.
I don't invite Hank to the Etherpad. No one else can, either.
Only Mahz, TheMaster99, LegendBegins and I can edit my Etherpad.
When we are done with the Etherpad, I click the Close/Lock* button.
Now no one can edit the Etherpad, including me.
The contents of the Etherpad are still available to myself, Mahz, TheMaster99 and LegendBegins.
*Now, I haven't dived too much into Etherpad. Is there a way to disable it from further edits? If so, I'd suggest a Close/Lock button that the creator can use when the Etherpad is finished. The other way to do this might be to extract the Etherpad text and chatlog, create a PM with the contents of both and the users on the Etherpad, and destroy the Etherpad instance.
I'd think I am in support of this format. What I see as Etherpad doing is, well, basically exactly just taking over the role of Titanpad/Piratepad/Google Doc for collaborations - instead for going off-site for that, you can now just go to the hypothetical "Collabs" tab next to PMs and access any of my collabs and/or create a new collab.
As a sidenote, isn't PMs sending alerts a bit superfluous? I noticed that whenever someone PMs me, I get both a PM notification and an alert. It would be cleaner if PMs just gave the PM-notify and left alerts alone; right now I appear to need to separately go to the alert tab to make the alert go away, too.
What if, for example, when a dice was rolled, it put the result into its own post, almost as if the dice roller was a user. Though, it should be smaller than a full post, taking up a line or so, and with every roll made by a user at once into a hider.
That is essentially ow chats do it... Let the dicebot be a special user that only has username, so rolls would look like posts with dates, only username in the user field, and the rolls as content. And no one would be able to tamper with the rolls since those are essentially another user's post.
So yeah.
RPGdicebot | Shienvien rolled 2d6: 4, 3
I said this in jest, but people took me seriously. That seems to be a rather big problem these days...
Anyway, here's a collected list of the ideas so far:
Collabinator 6000
Guildpad
Collabs
More to follow, I'm sure.
I said this in jest, but people took me seriously. That seems to be a rather big problem these days...
Anyway, here's a collected list of the ideas so far:
Collabinator 6000
Guildpad
Collabs
More to follow, I'm sure.
Collabinator 6000 is a fun name, but I think it'd look a bit long on the hypothetical tab. Keep it as that for the full thing, and just note down "Collabs" for the tabs. (C6000's, if you want to make it sound like you have a terminator army.)
Collabinator 6000 is a fun name, but I think it'd look a bit long on the hypothetical tab. Keep it as that for the full thing, and just note down "Collabs" for the tabs. (C6000's, if you want to make it sound like you have a terminator army.)
Collabinator 6000 is a quite chuckleworthy name. Far more interesting than "guildpad". we should not simply use a primitive twist on others' names for such. We should have something that makes it truly unique, the way the guild itself is unique.
I noticed that
>results in colored text.
Thank you @Mahz and anybody affiliated with it. I wonder if this is in light of the spam adventure games, but nonetheless it is very much appreciated!
I approve of the Collabs/Etherpad/Guildpad/Collabinator 6000 tab being a system similar to PMs, as proposed by Captain Jordan.
I don't have much experience with dice systems, so I can't provide much feedback on that I'm afraid. Inserting the rolls below a post seems okay. Hey, how about you do the same thing for rolls as you have currently for the likes?
(although the pop-in of the buttons is mildly annoying - make those permanently visible? - and as someone pointed out, I agree the likes and whatnot would look better on the same line as the reply button, possibly just as a number next to the perma-visible buttons so they'd not break the layout of posts as much).
I prefer the pop-in buttons for the ratings. They would be a bit garish against the simple grey theme of the Guild if they were permanently visible. But I do agree that the count of ratings on a post should be moved into a more discrete corner. It is probably the way it is because that was the easiest way to format it, but I say it should be changed soon.
Haven't caught up in this topic yet.
But I did just push up a change: The guild now resizes images and hosts them itself.
- Max avatar dimensions changed from 150x150 to 150x200 (150px wide, 200px tall)
- You can choose an image larger than 150x150 and the guild will resize it to 150x200 for you (maintaining aspect ratio)
- You must upload your old avatar manually to move it into the new system. In a week or so, I'll be removing all old avatars. If you go to your "Edit Avatar" form, you'll be able to access your old avatar so that you can conveniently upload it into the new system.
- Performance boost on pages that display avatars since you use my fast host and I aggressively cache avatars.
Lemme know if you have an issue. I also ask that you don't try to break the upload system by selecting non-images or massive images. It's kinda fragile.
I noticed that
>results in colored text.
Thank you @Mahz and anybody affiliated with it. I wonder if this is in light of the spam adventure games, but nonetheless it is very much appreciated!
I noticed that people in Spam use it a lot so I decided to silently start styling it as greentext yesterday.
Haven't caught up in this topic yet.
But I did just push up a change: The guild now resizes images and hosts them itself.
- Max avatar dimensions changed from 150x150 to 150x200 (150px wide, 200px tall)
- You can choose an image larger than 150x150 and the guild will resize it to 150x200 for you (maintaining aspect ratio)
- You must upload your old avatar manually to move it into the new system. In a week or so, I'll be removing all old avatars. If you go to your "Edit Avatar" form, you'll be able to access your old avatar so that you can conveniently upload it into the new system.
- Performance boost on pages that display avatars since you use my fast host and I aggressively cache avatars.
Lemme know if you have an issue. I also ask that you don't try to break the upload system by selecting non-images or massive images. It's kinda fragile.
Fantastic. Hopefully this will let you move on to bigger and better things.
Update: Added some minor restrictions to signatures since they have such a massive toll on the pageload speed of the guild. A lot of them are simply of out control and there's no incentive for users to keep them small.
- Max signature height reduced from 300px → 200px.
- Signatures that exceed the max-height no longer have scrollbars, they simply get truncated at 200px.
- After a week, I'll start enforcing the 200px max height by modifying signatures (usually removing large images) that exceed 200px when I stumble across them.
- Without the rating system, would two people have posted? No.
- Did the rating system prevent two amazing posts from being written? No.
- Did it lower the barrier to feedback and enhance @Captain Jordan's post? Yes.
- Did @TheMaster99 sheepishly like it? Yes.
- Is it kinda funny/fun? Yes.
- Did some people think that revealing user post-count and join-date would lead to peen-measuring contests? Yes.
- Did it lead to peen-measuring contests? No.
- Does anyone care about post count? No.
- Does anyone care about join date? No.
- Will anyone care about aggregate ratings? No. Not until proven otherwise, and I'm always willing to be wrong.
But I'm rarely wrong. 
What I actually do need help with:
- I need people with opinions about the Etherpad integration to give me ideas for how to implement it. What would be the most useful for them? Does anyone have a vision?
- I need people with opinions about the dice integration to also give me ideas. What's the ideal?
1x Thank
The ratings table is now restricted to only your own profile.
I noticed that people in Spam use it a lot so I decided to silently start styling it as greentext yesterday.