Board Notes

[Renasko]

The rating system is going to be interesting, but I don't see it working in any positive fashion. I know one guy on here who is going to find every post of his gets -1'd by yours truly. Heh.

[Eyelesbarrow]

Oy, we can write status updates on the profiles. Like!

[Renasko]

Ugh. I like my social networking kept aside from my board-time, as I expect mindlessness from the former and actual discussion from the latter. But hey!

[Alarich]

First of all, I find the integration into the westeros site quite well done. I also like the design, but then, I gladly took on the black on white change after ezboard so I'm already used to a lighter screen.

I don't see what additional value this rating system will give to our community. Alright, we could get another Brady-Jacen war; that might be amusing. But it seems to me that this option is highly susceptible to abuse in both directions. I would prefer it if it stayed the way before we had the change (i.e. profile views :p). What do we gain from the fact that some has something like +4 or -3 ranking. If we disagree, we could just as well post a reply. Just clicking the button seems rather lazy and uncommunicative to me and it's basically an invitation for anonymous sniping.

ETA: Didn't read the first post properly

[King Nobody]

Does anyone else have to scroll down to see a thread now after clicking on it? There's a big empty space that goes down as far as the ads on the left of the screen for me.

[MinDonner]

Looks like you need to click on the actual profiles if you want to see the status updates, so I can't see that feature being too useful (other than as easter eggs for stalkers)...

[kuroishi]

Is there any part on the rating system in the Help section ? I couldn't find any, but I think it'd be good to have a clear explanation of how it works, how many times one can do it a day, how it has an influence on the total rate of the member... If only to help prevent misusing by newcomers (which we all are right now).

It can become a cool and useful feature, but I really hope it won't turn into a popularity contest or some sort of witch-hunt in controversial topics.

[Arlingzen Bill]

Does anyone else have to scroll down to see a thread now after clicking on it? There's a big empty space that goes down as far as the ads on the left of the screen for me.

<Raises hand>

[Eyelesbarrow]

I thought about that, that it could be annoying, but I spend more time here than on social networking sites and i don't look at other people's profiles much. i don't mind. :D

another comment about the board: i get this huge brown space between the pages tab on top and the message board. anyone has the same problem?

ETA: Ok, I have the same problem as King Nobody.

[kuroishi]

Does anyone else have to scroll down to see a thread now after clicking on it? There's a big empty space that goes down as far as the ads on the left of the screen for me.

I thought this was what Ran was speaking of in the first post of this thread.

[kungtotte]

Your fears aren't completely unfounded regarding the voting system. Most of what you all describe is already taking place at Reddit, which feature's up- and down-voting of comments (and article submissions, but the main issue is with comments).

All the things you describe do happen over on Reddit, and they are a problem, since the voting system is supposed to be used to self-police comments (burying spam/trolls/offensive stuff) and to percolate informative and good posts to the top. Unfortunately people tend to use votes as "I agree"/"I disagree"-buttons, and the peer pressure votes are a big problem (once you hit -3 over there, it's over. You'll get to -5 shortly, which will auto-hide it, and the avalanche doesn't stop there if people are feeling vindictive).

The voting feature is important over on Reddit, because the entire site is built around voting on submissions (again, percolating the good stuff to the front page) and for comments it is necessary to self-police as they aren't moderated the way most forums are. But still, it gets abused.

The good news however is that the abuse is purely a question of etiquette and behaviour. As long as people stick to the rule of upvoting comments that are informative/good and only downvote things that are really disruptive or offensive, we'll do fine. If you don't feel strongly about a post, just don't vote either way. Not voting should be the default mode of action, because it delineates good/average/bad posts from each other. As a rule of thumb, the best answer to a question should be upvoted, the best theory in a R+L=J thread should be upvoted and just plain good posts should be upvoted (e.g: EHK's and Werthead's descriptions of their antics in various strategy games). A factually incorrect answer to a question should be downvoted, an offensive post (women should stay in the kitchen, she was asking for it, etc.) should be downvoted and so on. Everything else should be left alone.

It's a simple principle, and if we stick to it we get to reap the benefits of a voting system and ought to avoid most of the drawbacks. It will be easy to scan a thread for 'green' posts and thus catch up quickly to a debate, or learn the answer to a question posed in the OP, and it will be easy to just skim or avoid entirely 'red' posts since it is unlikely you will gain anything from reading them.

As for reputation, I'm not sure it has a place on our forums. It's useful for super-large forums because you can get a quick read on the posting history of a person (high reputation means just that, high reputation, they generally post good stuff), but I mean, we all know each other here, don't we? I don't need a number to tell me how I feel about any of you. Personally I tend to ignore reputation on posters, preferring instead to form my own opinion based on that person's posting history, and I think we'd be well served to all do the same. Don't give any reputation, and don't read anybody's reputation score, and we'll be fine :)

[Xray the Enforcer]

Sorry Xray, didn't mean to downrate you, but it said I'd run out of my quota of positive votes so I tried a negative one and unfortunately it worked... :leaving:

<---wants the smileys back

Awright harpy, it's ON.

*brandishes knife*

[Stalker]

I like the idea of voting on posts/threads and awarding reputation to users. I've seen the system in practice elsewhere (mainly Slashdot and Reddit) and it usually works out, the main problem being the human factor (people start systematically downvoting posts by a certain user, and/or use downvotes as an "I disagree"-function rather than to bury incorrect or disruptive posts) but I think we'll be relatively safe from that around here, given that we're such a relaxed and groovy bunch.

I would like to know what the threshold value is. Assuming there is one.

[Frosty]

First off hats off to R&L for all their hard work – blood, sweat and tears. If you ever need like really stupid grunt help or beta testing please let me know Ran.

I really, really like the way the skin looks like parchment – it is so Westeros. The CSS coding is obviously quicker and solid and I like the profile change buttons in the right hand corner. Change is good for our minds and sharpens our wits – goodness knows I need that.

So far is has a nice feel and looks fairly incognito at work – where many of us post from. I think perhaps an optional footer or header of the top 20 posters of the day would be cool – but then again I am a spam troll.

The rating systems bothers me not one bit. After my bizarre childhood and offhanded lifestyle I could care less what people think of me in general. I do see the possibility of hurt feeings – but hey life is hard – suck it up and get used to it. Sorry but if you have not gotten kicked in the teeth yet by life you are lucky. The balancing out is cool also – I see Raidne’s point about plus and negatives but I don’t think it will be a big issue.

Loon I did not let you down – you got a plus from me. Sjohn and I will prop you up with a stick or two under your armpits or elsewhere – no worries mate!!

[theMountainGoat]

Thanks for all the hard work Linda and Ran. A few little quibbles aside I think the change has been for the best overall.

Regarding the parchment background my problem with it is that it stands out a lot. While I am at work I want the site to be as plain and give out the message to coworkers "don't look at this non-work site thing" as much as possible. I used the Stark skin before the change which accomplished this very well.

For that reason I just installed Stylish on my Firefox and used it to override the CSS to make the background plain white. For anyone else that does not like the background or any other styles for that matter you can do the same thing and override the standard CSS :)

Use the following code to make the background white, oh yea and block the parchment image with the Adblock add-on.

body { background: #FFFFFF !important; }

[MinDonner]

Ooh I've just spotted a new feature - if you click on the tiny green icon next to a person's name it brings up a sort of mini-profile (including the status update) without leaving the page you're already viewing. Like!

[Datepalm]

Ooh I've just spotted a new feature - if you click on the tiny green icon next to a person's name it brings up a sort of mini-profile (including the status update) without leaving the page you're already viewing. Like!

Clicky click!

Though now I have another empty visible profile thing...I still need to come up with a title and a sig!

The little green google style tab that pops up is a bit disconcerting. I'm pavlovianly expecting my e-mail.

[Eyelesbarrow]

Ooh I've just spotted a new feature - if you click on the tiny green icon next to a person's name it brings up a sort of mini-profile (including the status update) without leaving the page you're already viewing. Like!

Oh yeah. I didn't notice the icon until you pointed it out. So that's what the status update is for.

[Usotsuki]

Ran and Linda,

thanks for the time and effort you both put into the upgrade, the reply function does seem to have a far superior layout.

As for the click your clique buttons, I've only seen that in action once and that was at myDD during the primary wars where ninety five per cent of all posts were complaints about rating abuse.

But I doubt that will happen here, well not outside the WoT threads anyway. :P

[Stalker]

On to a last point: I'm using Firefox and I'm having the following problems:

- no smilies

- the thread and the reply box are below the left sidebar, horizontally it fits well, I just don't see anything on the screen unless I scroll down.

- Appartently there is no Umlaut conversion.

This is not an FireFox issue, it's board level, thus should happen on all browsers. CSS perhaps.