Author Topic: List of Suggestions  (Read 20875 times)

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Offline Edisim

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« Reply #50 on: February 06, 2003, 08:58:40 PM »
Thanks, Rick. Don't worry, I won't hold my breath or anything; it's not a big deal. I figured it couldn't hurt to ask (even if it's been asked before), so I asked (thinking it was just a matter of clicking a few buttons)... If a news item or article or whatever doesn't fit neatly into any one category, it could be posted to the two or three forums where it sorta fits, with only the thread in the most appropriate forum (or the one with the most activity), er, reply-able, and the threads in the other forums locked and maybe with a note/signature saying where the unlocked thread is...

Okay, that does sound like a lot of work...

Anyway, great site, don't miss those pop-ups at all.. great job all around, PGC'rs.

Offline Kulock

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« Reply #51 on: February 08, 2003, 02:46:56 PM »
Interesting, I'm not begging or griping, but I bought both the E3 DVD and the PGC shirt (tucked in an extra donation too, check David Eggleton), but never received a title. All well, I suppose I didn't tell them my username, but it was never asked for.

And I do like the new forums, but I admit it's quite a bummer that I lose my ezSupporter ad-blocking functionality on these new ones.

Quote

Originally posted by: Frozen-Solid
The stupidity here comes from people not being able to read.  I said "avatars would be nice but are not needed" - I'll take bannerless, popupless forums that are hosted on a site's own over some pointless avatars any day.

These are easily some of the fastest and best looking forums I've ever used.  Let's keep it that way.


Yes, we don't want overtly-wasteful BMPs and badly-dithered GIFs scattered about, but come on, griping about tiny avatars (and I know PGC would keep them tiny, they wouldn't even allow graphics in a sig back on ezBoard (where the sigs are universal for all the boards someone posts on, as well as your sig preferences), and went after anyone with an avatar over... 7k, was it? There's a point when it just seems to get too picky, and I know it's not my place to dictate, which I'm not, but my opinion is that it was already getting enforced a little too much, now totally removing avatars? Avatars let people ID others at a glance. A simple graphic mnemonic so you can see, "Oh, there's Windy, there's Rick, there's Kulock", and so on. Yes, people can read, but, especially with the de-emphasized names on the left (they're just hard to see at a glance for some reason), it takes two to four times longer to find it, read it, and click who it is. Avatars can be seen out of the corner of the eye and you know who it is. But the text looks the same at a quick glance no matter who it is, and yes, sometimes it matters who is saying what (especially on the PGC forums, where saying the wrong thing to a moderator can result in an instant ban :/ ). Allowing small avatars would allow people to immediate click who's saying what as they scan down a topic, it's just far easier. It's not just a luxury.

Most forums allow you to restrict the avatar, not only the size, but the file size, so if that's an issue, like it was before, that could hopefully be prevented. Bandwidth for avatars is obviously external, and as for speed of the forums for the users, I don't think it'd make any real impact. The current layout is incredibly graphics-light as it is (to the point of sparse), anyone complaining about their download speeds would be splitting hairs and trying to squeeze life out of a 2,400 baud. I have a 26k dial-up connection (not 56k like most, 26k thanks to the lines out here), I handle far worse during the day, and the old ezBoard threads never gave me much hassle even with the avatars, I'd often open up multiple windows at once, and they'd load pretty swiftly (avatars last, but most browsers don't wait for every image to totally finish downloading before the page is properly rendered).

That's pretty much all I have issues with. I just think avatars are a necessary addition, just restrict the size and file size.

If I had one other qualm, I'd say move the "Planet GameCube" group of forums up to the top so Talkback is frequented more again (I like the news article links that now tell you how many people have replied since), but it looks the forum categories are in alphabetical order, that might be a default you'd have to fight with.

Offline Bloodworth

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« Reply #52 on: February 09, 2003, 08:12:07 AM »
Quote

Originally posted by: Kulock
Bandwidth for avatars is obviously external


I know that people are talking about avatars just about everywhere so you've apparently missed the main reason for excluding them.  This software was not designed with off-site avatars in mind, and hosting avatars was what hogged our bandwidth and forced us to use ezBoard in the first place.  There is a chance Rick could go in and re-tool some of the code to allow externally hosted avatars, but it's not a priority since there are still a number of things we have to watch out for: bandwidth theft, file size, questionable images etc.
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Offline Kulock

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« Reply #53 on: February 10, 2003, 02:15:40 PM »
True, but people can be just an inappropriate with sigs or usersnames as they can with an avatar, even with a word censor in place. :/ (lewdity/cussing in a sig or username versus nudity/violence in an avatar) And due to PGC's previous rules on avatar sizes, bandwidth theft would probably not be that great of an issue, at least in the sense of the impact of the offenders. But I understand right now you have other concerns, it is merely suggestion for later on, avatars can go a long way into personalizing forum members, and frankly, making it easier to read threads. It feels like that left bar is wasted space, currently, there's barely a name and a generic title in it.

Was this forum something you guys significantly coded _yourselves_? Because most premade forum scripts offer and often default to allowing external avatars. I'm surprised FuseTalk totally lacks that functionality and would require it to be coded in...

Offline RickPowers

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« Reply #54 on: February 10, 2003, 02:19:54 PM »
Quote

And due to PGC's previous rules on avatar sizes, bandwidth theft would probably not be that great of an issue, at least in the sense of the impact of the offenders.


That's about as false an assumption as one could make.  Even a small, under 20K avatar can cause a huge bandwidth problem when it's downloaded by thousands of users.  Remember, just because there's only 1100 people registered here, anyone can VIEW the forums without posting.

As for off-site avatars, I've explained that quite thoroughly now ... FuseTalk doesn't support it.  Period.  I can try to hack in something, but there is no way for me to just turn it on.  And right now, I have much larger fish to fry.  
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Offline Bloodworth

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« Reply #55 on: February 11, 2003, 10:00:37 AM »
Kulock, please stop acting like we purposely went out of our way to get rid of avatars and kill everyone's fun.  The software does not support off-site avatars, and on-site avatars are simply not an option. That's really where it ends. The other things are just side issues.
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Offline Fammy2000

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« Reply #56 on: February 11, 2003, 10:53:26 AM »
I'd like to see an options to specify your default "home" page. Be it the Today page,  the current Home page, or any or the sub-Forums.
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Offline Uglydot

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« Reply #57 on: February 11, 2003, 11:05:30 AM »
Is there a way you can change the color of the name, make it larger or something?  People's eyes tend to skip over that dull black deal.  I never used an avatar in all the time I spent on the ezboard, so that doesn't bother me in the least, but some sort of emphasis over there would be nice.  

Offline Mingesium

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« Reply #58 on: February 11, 2003, 05:31:14 PM »
here is some suggestions:

Spoiler Tag. I saw this in the gaming age forum. The text had a black backround so you would have to highlight to see the spoilers. I expect people to post more spoilers when Zelda comes out.

Sarcasm Tag. I saw this in a sports message board. They just changed the color of the text to purple. It makes it easier to see that the poster was just kidding around.

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Offline Grey Ninja

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« Reply #59 on: February 11, 2003, 07:06:29 PM »
Yeah, I got spoiler tags put into the last forum I was an active member at.  I would really appreciate having it here too, as I am a spoiler sensitive person.
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Offline Uglydot

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« Reply #60 on: February 11, 2003, 11:42:47 PM »
I like the sound of those spoiler tags.  I managed to avoid all spoilers for Metroid Prime, and was having a great time going through the game completely alone until I borke my thumb.  Doing it yourself just makes it better.

Offline PaLaDiN

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« Reply #61 on: February 12, 2003, 09:02:43 AM »
I agree about spoiler buttons... They'd make life a lot easier.

And besides, they could give you guys one more reason to bust out the instaban stick... so everybody's happy.

One more thing... I have no idea what those emoticons mean... what's a Louie or Casey emoticon? I'd randomly test them, but I don't wanna get banned the first day I get the forums to work properly.
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Offline RickPowers

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« Reply #62 on: February 12, 2003, 09:17:07 AM »
If you want to see what they look like, just start a new thread or reply to a message, and click the "symbols" link at the bottom of the window.  It'll show you all of the emoticons.  
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Offline PaLaDiN

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« Reply #63 on: February 12, 2003, 09:36:41 AM »
Thanks Rick...

I can't believe Louie and Casey didn't click. I mean, Louie clicked, I just didn't remember that icon from the old forums... but I completely forgot about Casey. Forgive my ignorance, Rick... I bow down in front of the King of Beagles. Won't happen again.

Now, how about those spoiler buttons? Think it's feasible? Certainly sounds like a neat idea.
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Offline DevilishDude

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« Reply #64 on: February 12, 2003, 01:25:51 PM »
i was surfin the net a few days ago, and i ran into a wrestling message board, well i dont like wrestling at all but i decided to check it out, anyway, i fould out they had a point system that if you post you got 5 points and if you reply you get 3 and there were lotterys every once in awhile, anyway they had a store that you could redeem your points for different things like you could get your name by every post to glow and i thought that might be a great addition to the site
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Offline Bloodworth

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« Reply #65 on: February 12, 2003, 01:59:55 PM »
No. Post counts are hidden intentionally.
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Offline Mingesium

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« Reply #66 on: February 14, 2003, 04:40:00 PM »
another suggestion

When you edit a post, can you make it so topic gets bumped up to the top. I think that right now the topic stays where it is and can only go up if someone replies.

Offline RickPowers

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« Reply #67 on: February 14, 2003, 07:44:17 PM »
It is set that way by default.  You changed your settings ... go into the "customize" menu to change it back.
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Offline Uglydot

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« Reply #68 on: February 15, 2003, 12:56:38 PM »
Since soooo many of us have Animal Crossing, perhaps an AC info field or perhaps a general Game info field could be added to the profile?

Offline rodtod

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« Reply #69 on: February 17, 2003, 05:01:25 PM »
will there be different board skins? sorry if this has already been answered.
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Offline Cashcow

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« Reply #70 on: March 20, 2003, 02:59:39 PM »
OK, I know you guys don't want us to have avatars because of competition between forum users (whatever), so I have a suggestion. How about you provide a list of 10-100 avatars and we can all choose one? I think that would be cool.
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Offline Bloodworth

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« Reply #71 on: March 20, 2003, 03:10:17 PM »
erm...We don't want avatars because it would needlessly suck up our bandwidth.  Everything else is just a side issue.
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Offline Cashcow

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« Reply #72 on: March 20, 2003, 03:28:55 PM »
Quote

Originally posted by: Bloodworth
erm...We don't want avatars because it would needlessly suck up our bandwidth.  Everything else is just a side issue.


Well Rick said on the first page that it was mainly because of competition between forum users. It seems that everyone wants some sort of visual, though, so I thought my suggestion might solve that problem.
Oh well. It was worth a try.
 

Edit: Well, you say bandwidth. Can't we just upload them or something? Or would that use bandwidth too?

(Sorry, I'm not on expert on this)  
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Offline Bloodworth

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« Reply #73 on: March 20, 2003, 03:34:42 PM »
The forum software is not designed to handle avatars hosted off-site.
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Offline RickPowers

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« Reply #74 on: March 20, 2003, 03:38:17 PM »
Off-site Avatars are coming in the next version of the Forums.  Patience ...
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