Tweaks... - Socoder

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Socoder -> On Topic -> Tweaks...
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Sat, 27 Dec 2008, 17:09
Jayenkai	I asked for 3 examples. I can think of ONE good thing on Facebook.. ONE.. And that's Scrabble.. There's sticker APIs, Give Someone a Hat APIs, We all like The Beatles so lets have pictures of Beetles on our Facebook APIs, and other such nonsense.. But nothing that ever makes me go "Hmm.. That's useful".. If there were, it'd be on here. --- Oh, and as for the Poll thing.. 1. I said earlier (actually, it was on another topic) that I oughta add polls to the site.. 2. But it wouldn't actually work here, because every time a new thing is suggested, the poll would end up having to be reset, and then everyone would get totally pissed off at "Jay's Buggy Poll" even though it's nothing wrong with the poll!! -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Sat, 27 Dec 2008, 17:22
Stealth	I think Jay would be very willing to add it if you actually named three things. 1. Creating extended functionality for SoCoder. Jay is busy and it would help SoCoder rapidly expand. 1a. "What I am working on (current status type thing)" App 1b. "I need a quick answer" App 1c. "News feeds from other websites" App 1d. "Games submitted to SoCoder rating" App 2. Data from SoCoder could be quickly imported in to a game somebody made. Just click a link that takes you to SoCoder and authorise the game to use your data, and then it learns your name, email, etc etc. 3. SoCoder integration with other websites. For instance, a SoCoder app on Facebook. -=-=- Quit posting and try Google.
Sat, 27 Dec 2008, 17:35
Jayenkai	1a. "What I am working on (current status type thing)" App ie, Twitter. I integrated Twitter into Socoder about 2 years ago, and everyone whinged about having to register with Twitter, so it fucked off.. 1b. "I need a quick answer" App So, um.. Ask!? 1c. "News feeds from other websites" App Will slow down the site whilst it gathers them. This is only a GoDaddy website. It does what we need it to, as far as a forum, but I ain't going to trust it scouting the internet for information. I won't risk the already dodgy speed of the site, for the sake of having just another chunk of text on the sidebar, holding something that you could get from elsewhere. Use a feed reader. That's what they're there for. Google Reader does that. 1d. "Games submitted to SoCoder rating" App Socoder Rating? Have you ever noticed how very few people bother to actually Vote when they post a comment?! What was the last WW entry that anyone voted for? I can't even be bothered to hunt for that!!! 2. "and then it learns your name, email, etc etc." HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAAHAHHAA No If a game wants my email address, it'll damn well ask me for my email address, not my Socoder password. \|edit\| OR... I type my USERNAME ONLY into the game, it grabs my profile page using bog standard html transfer, it reads it, it does it without any API. \|edit\| 3. "A SoCoder app on Facebook." I can imagine that would be useful for bundling folk together.. If I say "I'm a Socoder member" and then the next guy does, they get linked into a Socoder group. A thought. Instead of "1. Add Socoder App, 2. Insert Socoder Username+Password, 3. Wait a tick", why not... "1. Join Socoder Group" -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Sat, 27 Dec 2008, 17:41
Stealth	See my point Phoenix, he wasn't actually going to take me seriously. That is why I didn't post a list. Will slow down the site whilst it gathers them. The site already links to a ton of external media. I won't risk the already dodgy speed of the site The code for the app would be stored externally. If an app is making your page loads slow, everyone would remove the app. it'll damn well ask me for my email address, not my Socoder password. It would use a system of API keys. Throwing around peoples passwords isn't safe. OR... I type my USERNAME ONLY into the game, it grabs my profile page using bog standard html transfer, it reads it, it does it without any API. This is what an API is designed to do. -=-=- Quit posting and try Google.
Sat, 27 Dec 2008, 17:48
Jayenkai	I took points 2 and 3 seriously. There were just ways of doing it without APIs Point 1a was a moot point since it'd already been done, and rejected by the members of the forum. Point 1c was placed within a bag of "Seriously, this site's on shakey ground, let's not rock the daddy" and Point 1b was rejected because I didn't really understand why you wouldn't just use the Forum. A forum is there to record questions and answers for future folk.If all the questions and answers go in the Mudchat, or the Shoutbox, then the usefulness of the site is 0% .. The only one I didn't take seriously was 1D.. Because.. I really don't have a clue WTF you were on about with that one.. I did take you seriously. I have serious reasons why they're not very good reasons. -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Sat, 27 Dec 2008, 17:53
Stealth	Like I said, it's your site so you can do what you want with it. I'm not going to get bent out of shape because you wont implement something. I am mostly not happy because of how quickly you said "fuck that" to the idea. It doesn't need further discussed though. The decision is final. No API system. -=-=- Quit posting and try Google.
Sat, 27 Dec 2008, 21:02
HoboBen	I liked the SoCoder highscores ... maybe you could add a bit more to that like Steam achievements. Wouldn't need the person's password, just their username, because the worst that can happen is someone unlocks an achievement for you. -=-=- blog \| work \| code \| more code
Sat, 27 Dec 2008, 21:37
JL235	Dynamic Polls: I agree a poll that is built as a topic expands would be better then one simply placed at the top. Especially for discussions. Issues: the items added last will probably get the least number of results because they have been up for the least amount of time. Polls tend to be abused or only reflect one users perspective. Tagging / Summarise List / Indexing: An alternative to dynamic polls. A user can 'tag' their posts with a 'summary' which is limited to 10 words or less. Other users can then click on the tag to 'digg' or 'bump' it. A tags score can only be incremented, never decremented. The top 10 tags are listed at the beginning of the topic and is a link to the post it comes from. This would allow it to be community driven. API: I fully agree this isn't FaceBook which is why the site would get have different extensions. I really like this idea because potentially some of these features could be built as a SoCoder extension via an API rather then as full forum features. If a user could then tick which plugins they want and which they don't, then they can use as much or as little CPU as they want. It could also be pushed out to be run on the users machine rather then the server. Also FireFox the browser and it's overkill amount of memory and disk usage slows my system down far more then JavaScript. So does my crappy internet connection. So pushing out the CPU usage to the user isn't such a big deal. Especially if they have a choice about if they want it or not. Besides an unused CPU is a wasted CPU. Tags: Dynamic polls good but I vote no, Proposed summarise/indexing/tagging system, an API could allow others to build these features.
Sat, 27 Dec 2008, 22:00
Stealth	Two other things: Disk cache. The forums take forever to load and I think a simple file based cache system would speed it up greatly while being more gentle on CPU power. (Also, I've got a decently fast server if you are interested in free hosting, and it's reliable, it's not going to disappear overnight.) A revised theme system. I still am having great difficulty making a good theme because the css classes are sparse. Also, the theme builder kit is a bit out of date. It would be nice to see that updated. -=-=- Quit posting and try Google.
Sun, 28 Dec 2008, 00:17
Mog	maek teh site ntirely n flash lololololol it r cool, add lots o smooth transitions w opacity n music dat follo'z u aroond lol pls pls pls...also maek it a wiki so we cn post personil jokes btween us that no1 will get. The thing with the Apps idea is, there is such a flood of bullshit ideas that anyone can throw up, it's pointless. Want to know a secret? Those annoying apps on FaceBook that everyone bothers you about? Yeah, The company I work for writes a majority of them. Do you realize the purpose of these apps? to blindly entertain you and draw you back in to spend more pointless hours so we can cram marketing subtly into your minds and gather statistics. Boo! Hiss! I will burn in hell for it, don't worry SoCoder doesn't need it AT ALL, we just need pure helpful content, no flash, no sizzle, no gimmicks. I personally think we need more exposure.. fresh faces and new ideas. Put forth a little effort into getting the name out instead of mulling over how the site looks or what features are added. I personally think it's fine as is. EDIT Jay, next time you're on MSN - hit me up. I have a few things to suggest but not within the forums. -=-=- I am Busy Mongoose - My Website Dev PC: AMD 8150-FX, 16gb Ram, GeForce GTX 680 2gb Current Project: Pyroxene
Sun, 28 Dec 2008, 00:29
Stealth	The thing with the Apps idea is, there is such a flood of bullshit ideas that anyone can throw up, it's pointless. I disagree. We could design a bunch of bullshit apps, but it's not like we are going to. These apps would obvously be more coder related and less "spamware". Besides, an API has a greater purpose than to just to make apps. -=-=- Quit posting and try Google.
Sun, 28 Dec 2008, 01:30
Afr0	I like how this topic is developing. Finally there's some serious discussion going on (multiple times - even after Jay rejected Stealth's idea), although I still would like some kind of voting option! So, I wholeheartedly support JL235's idea about tagging/Summarize List/Indexing. Please consider it Jay. Oh, and I'm glad you took my 'Polls' idea seriously and actually understood it (unlike Phoenix - he failed to understand I only wanted it for these kinds of topics). I understand your problem-point, but... if we were going to implement dynamic polls, then maybe we could summarize the last results before the poll was reset and then the total results of the poll would get summarized whenever you couldn't vote anymore? That would be kind of like a mix between dynamic polls and JL325's idea about tagging! That said, I also quite like JL235's idea as is. -=-=- Afr0 Games Project Dollhouse on Github - Please fork!
Sun, 28 Dec 2008, 01:48
Stealth	Really what it comes down to is making a rule. "Polls should be relevant to the topic subject." Then crack down on people who don't. It's how we keep other affairs in order, why not use the same system for polls. -=-=- Quit posting and try Google.
Sun, 28 Dec 2008, 01:56
JL235	To be clear, I'd vote no on dynamic polls, and no on polls in general. I've very rarely (if ever) seen a good poll for a topic. Even when used properly I usually disagree with the list of options given. The point of dynamic polls is to allow users to add poll options as a topic is discussed, but this makes the options heavily biased. One item is there for three weeks, another for two days. Even if you allow users to change vote the first item will always get more. You can't reset the poll either as then you've lost users votes. Plus who sets what is added to the poll and what isn't? Topic creator, admin or any user? If it's topic creator or admin then one person has direct control over a key piece of content in the topic. They get to decide what points are important and what aren't, not the community. If it's anyone then it will be abused with 20+ elements in one poll. The tagging system is meant as an alternative because it solves many of these issues whilst allowing a user generated list of options to be dynamically generated (like the dynamic polls). The community is in charge of selecting items that define the 'index' or 'summary' of a topic. If a tag isn't bumped then it's just out of the way at the end of their post. The index is kept to a set number of elements. A user can also bump multiple tags (including all if they wish). It's not a one cast vote. This should help to stop early tags being heavily bumped more then later ones, although I'd expect it may still happen but to a smaller degree. It's also not meant as a poll but to summarise what the community sees as the important points. This helps to solve another problem I have where I am interested in posting to a long topic but have not been following it's content as it was posted. I then just don't bother reading back and so simply don't post. Mog I personally think we need more exposure.. fresh faces and new ideas. I second this. Regardless of how it's done, I believe that fresh blood is the most important requirement for SoCoders future. Stealth Really what it comes down to is making a rule. "Polls should be relevant to the topic subject." Then crack down on people who don't. It's how we keep other affairs in order, why not use the same system for polls. In practice it just doesn't work. The moderators only step in if it's a big abuse. You end up with the majority of polls being about the topic at hand but with one or two silly suggestions. When some users complain others then think they are being too pedantic.
Sun, 28 Dec 2008, 02:36
Stealth	I second this. Regardless of how it's done, I believe that fresh blood is the most important requirement for SoCoders future. I third. I think the first place we need to start is a fresh clean look for SoCoder. Maybe just forget the theme system and let a few designers on the forum come up with a completely new design. (I've tried getting a lot of people on here, and I constantly hear bickering over the look.) Then SEO would be a good next step. A lot of our traffic is derived from search engines. (I still think buying socoder(dot)com would be a good idea once it becomes available again.) Then speed. We need to make this site optimized and simplify it. As a user, I not only need pages to load fast, I need to be able to easily find what I want to use. (This probably goes back to the design/look of the site.) After that, we need a community. We have a small one right now, but getting this small community pumped up will be great for new users. They will want to stay. The showcase seem focused mostly on software. I'd love to see more support for other types of development (such as websites and graphic design). I realize it's possible to post these kinds of things now, but it doesn't seem like thats what it's built for at first glance. Finally, lets make this place fun. Give me a reason to come back. A daily poll on the homepage is a good start, but more things like that would be nice. Thats my take on this. We could turn SoCoder in to something great if we put the effort in to it. -=-=- Quit posting and try Google.
Sun, 28 Dec 2008, 02:48
Afr0	You can't reset the poll either as then you've lost users votes. That's why I said this: 'if we were going to implement dynamic polls, then maybe we could summarize the last results before the poll was reset and then the total results of the poll would get summarized whenever you couldn't vote anymore?' Edit: Again though, I'm not against JL235's suggestions! -=-=- Afr0 Games Project Dollhouse on Github - Please fork!
Sun, 28 Dec 2008, 03:39
Jayenkai	Dynamic polls are nasty things, and they're not worth the hassle. A straight up "And now, here's a poll" is the best way to do it. The dynamic "Up a Post" thing is also a nice idea, but I wonder how/where I would point those out to people? Perhaps a list on the sidebar which changes constantly to display the most "SoUpIt" posts? shrugs And, as for the design, I did say AGES ago, Stealth, and have repeated on many an occasion, especially to you,that if someone can ever come up with a better design, I'm willing to pull+stretch the site to fit the style. I implemented Socoder2.0 "Skinnable!!" ages ago, but pulled it due to the fact that it was hard enough making a bog standard theme, let alone rearranging everything, what with all the different ever-changing sections on the site.. So I made it my own task, and asked everyone for design ideas. Then I tried to change it to this, and was overruled. Meh, what can you do.. Folk need "Info Info", that's already here.. -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Sun, 28 Dec 2008, 05:59
Afr0	The dynamic "Up a Post" thing is also a nice idea, but I wonder how/where I would point those out to people? Perhaps a list on the sidebar which changes constantly to display the most "SoUpIt" posts? Sounds good to me! -=-=- Afr0 Games Project Dollhouse on Github - Please fork!
Sun, 28 Dec 2008, 07:16
shroom_monk	To be honest, I like the current site design; it's very well organised. Simple top header bar, forums and comments on the right, blogs, articles, and other site access on the left. Content in the middle. I think it works quite well! However, searching is an issue. The search system could possibly be improved a bit. I don't use it much, but when I do I find that it doesn't seem to be very efficient. Other than that, I think the site seems OK. -=-=- A mushroom a day keeps the doctor away... Keep It Simple, Shroom!
Sun, 28 Dec 2008, 09:23
Phoenix	Stealth's post up there... Not saying that it's a bad idea, but it's a lot of work. That would mean completely recoding SoCoder. Would be cool if it was exectued though. I don't see what the tagging/indexing system is supposed to do though. Adding tags to individual posts?
Sun, 28 Dec 2008, 10:30
Jayenkai	What, the speedup-cache thing.. Could potentially work, but all the times would bugger up, and you'd need a secondary script that could parse all the times, and things.. Plus everyone's themes/smilies are different, and things like that. It's not that difficult, really, and I don't think it'd mean a complete and total restructure.. But.. best to start small, with the sidebars perhaps. If they fuck up in the next day or so, imagine I'm doing that! As for tags, I've started work on that (whilst still being in Lazy-Mode) it's not too hard to do, and I think it could work out rather well. -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Sun, 28 Dec 2008, 11:38
Stealth	And, as for the design, I did say AGES ago, Stealth, and have repeated on many an occasion, especially to you,that if someone can ever come up with a better design, I'm willing to pull+stretch the site to fit the style. I thought you said that system was "gutted out". My apologies. I'll come up with some mockups and show them to the community. It's probably best to let the community decide if they like how it looks. Then I tried to change it to this, and was overruled. To be honest, I like the current site design; it's very well organised. Simple top header bar, forums and comments on the right, blogs, articles, and other site access on the left. Content in the middle. I think it works quite well! I don't plan to move anything (like in the screenshot). I think all the data is placed perfectly. I think it just needs a fresh clean look. What, the speedup-cache thing.. Could potentially work, but all the times would bugger up, and you'd need a secondary script that could parse all the times, and things.. Plus everyone's themes/smilies are different, and things like that. That is a good point. I think the best alternative would be putting the site on a faster server. I have a personal web server running Ubuntu 8 with slicehost.com. You're welcome to host the site on it (for free). I know your probably concerned about reliability and code privacy. You'll have both. I server is paid off and will be for quite a while (if for some reason I decided to stop buying it, you'd be warned far in advanced). It's not going to disappear overnight like Oscars server did. And it'll be full hosting. Personal FTP access, personal MySQL databases, lots of space and plenty of bandwidth. It has automated backups too. I know moving it is messy and time consuming, plus then you have to worry about reliability. So if your not interested, I understand. -=-=- Quit posting and try Google.
Sun, 28 Dec 2008, 13:19
Afr0	So, are we getting polls for topics like this as well? Or are you only doing the tag thing? Just wondering since you said: Dynamic polls are nasty things, and they're not worth the hassle. A straight up "And now, here's a poll" is the best way to do it. -=-=- Afr0 Games Project Dollhouse on Github - Please fork!
Sun, 28 Dec 2008, 13:22
Jayenkai	I do still think that polls have their purpose, every now and then. We'll see. -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Sun, 28 Dec 2008, 13:29
Stealth	How about a place in our profile to put languages we are fluent in? It'll help us connect with other coders that have similar interests. -=-=- Quit posting and try Google.
Sun, 28 Dec 2008, 13:32
Afr0	Yes and a place in our profile stating whether or not we are available, our favourite perfumes and our favourite clothes designer! It'll attract more women and make the guys more readily available. -=-=- Afr0 Games Project Dollhouse on Github - Please fork!
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