Strolen's Citadel

Administrators · Legacy archive

Admin Chatter

Started by manfred Mar 4, 2006 1,314 posts Locked

  1. Re: Admin Chatter

    #521
    That seems rather appropriate.  :evil:

  2. Re: Admin Chatter

    #522
    Actually we could attribute it to the quest subjects themselves. The last one was a tough category. That is why I am always pushing for a theme like Sky or Ocean, it is so broad anyone can come up with something for it.   Space subtype would be a nice one too.


    We could attribute it to the active and quiet periods of the site itself... independent of the quests. (the last one was in that)

    We could attribute it to the fact that it takes people a while to "gear up" for the quest. That is why most quest subs are either the first day or two OR the last few days.

    We only get subs for a quest when people post subs for a quest. In fact the subs seem to be the only effective advertising for the quests.. as people seem to ignore those notices on the front page.

    Have we not heard the phrase, "Strike while the Iron is Hot"? Or similar metaphor.

    If people were in "quest mode", ready to do a directed submission because they just did one, we would have people:
    a) more inclined to do one, because they were just doing it
    b) people were already interested in the quest process. That would lead others into it.
    c) people weren't whining and complaining about the quest... and we would just get on with it. 

    So now that we have a delay... we have to restart interest in the quest again. We have to get people interested in posting a focused post. Most annoyingly, people will have time to kvetch about why this and why that.. when if we just had posted up the next quest in line... they would not of had the time to bother with that.. they would of just been posting up the next post.

    So... now you guys need to whip up some excitement and interest in the next quest. Or otherwise it will just fizzle and go luke warm.

  3. Re: Admin Chatter

    #523
    The Quest
    I can only speak for myself:

    We need to let people breathe. We need to deliver good, broad quests. In my opinion war has more appeal than Sky. The meaning of this quest, as envisioned by us in the chat, was to make people really wanna post. War was agreed upon by all as a really good alternative. We had a loooooooong brainstorm trying to come up with something that would REALLY hit home. I am sorry MoonHunter, but to me at least Sky and Ocean only manages to raise minimal enthusiasm. Sure, I could make a sky spirit or keep or something, but... I want WAR or DRAGONS or something equally macho and cliche :)

  4. Re: Admin Chatter

    #524
    My opinion doesn't hold much weight in this matter as I have only once (or maybe twice, not sure) submitted something to a quest.

    I like quests happening. Unless there is another event that is going on or another focus we are trying to advance, I would rather have an extended quest that is available than no quest at all. Even a quick broad one. Maybe a quest with no "winner" just a bonus quest. "For 10 days only, submit a _________ and get 25 extra XP."

    Anything to generate an interest besides the normal site submissions.

  5. Re: Admin Chatter

    #525
    Random thought: Extra XP for commenting on "In Work" submissions. Extra XP for commenting on a submission of somebody else that is currently online. Extra XP for comments on a submission that hasn't had a comment in over 60 days. Extra XP for ...

  6. Re: Admin Chatter

    #526
    Actually those would work. They would help the In work- advice. (good)  Comments on older subs good! That would stir the pot AND promote reading of the old. 

    Comments on a sub that the person is online favors the person who logs in and doesn't do much..

  7. Re: Admin Chatter

    #527
    I wonder if it would be possible to do little badges or images or something people could put in their profile or homepage or whatever for doing stuff like that... maybe capitalize on people's attraction to collecting things.  Of course, that's probably going a little too far, but there's a lot of members who've reached the point where XP doesn't much matter to them.

  8. Re: Admin Chatter

    #528
    Oh, the titles and rewards topic again! :)

  9. Re: Admin Chatter

    #529
    Where is AG? He is suppose to design some stuff. I can't do anything without graphics and Kate has been unavailable.

  10. Re: Admin Chatter

    #530
    Oh.

    Not available at the moment. Work is a bitch and priority number one. I'll be more available in a week or two though.

  11. Re: Admin Chatter

    #531
    In the meantime: What do you need?

    I need the following info:

    -Size in pixels or centimeters
    -Target (Tee or gif or what?)
    -Motive suggestions
    -For what will I make this (Reward for X or Y or what?)
    -Desired colour schemes? (Earthtones, blues, pastels, chromes, any, etc)

  12. Re: Admin Chatter

    #532
    Oh, and I appoint Ria Hawk as my personal artist feedback consultant during the project! (If it is okay with her. Sorry guys, but you are... guys)

  13. Re: Admin Chatter

    #533
    Huh?  :shock:  I'm doing what now?  I'll help you however you want me to, just let me know.

  14. Re: Admin Chatter

    #534
    Quest question:  I don't mind removing subs that don't fit the quest criteria if it's a freetext based quest.  But is this gonna be like the time everything submitted (entry or not) was attatched to the quest?  And is there a penalty for a sub being removed from the quest?  I don't want there to be.

  15. Re: Admin Chatter

    #535
    http://www.strolen.com/guild/index.php/topic,2731.msg49322.html#msg49322

  16. Re: Admin Chatter

    #536
    If you were to pick war, with no other category requirements, then each quest would have to be flagged with free-text or something and I would have to manually update it in the database. There is no code mechanism in place to do a sitewide quest. The biggest quest the code allows for is a major category (item/npc/ect).

    Right now, honestly, I will be tested if I need to update multiple submissions with quest number and XP award. I just don't have time for that kind of stuff nor time for a way to code an "add to xxx quest" button that has to be generic and available to select whatever quest.

    I am having great difficulty trying to think of any algorithm that will correctly select only quest submissions besides a free-text search of the quest "keyword" that will flag an addition to the quest. That might be an option in the future, but not for this one.

    My suggestion then is to at least narrow it down to a category so the code can do its work and I don't have to. Normally I relish a chance to modify code to some cool new feature but it is bad timing.

  17. Re: Admin Chatter

    #537
    Looks like the quest page is broken now anyway since my upgrade. Not sure how to fix that at the moment so once the quest is decided, I can manually put that in. Sorry about that inconvenience. Admin page seems all broke.

  18. Re: Admin Chatter

    #538
    As for war, should it be picked: Freetext works fine! At least that is what I think ;)

  19. Re: Admin Chatter

    #539
    Let's try it differently:

    Can we, the admins add a sub to a Quest manually?

    The simplest, albeit a little annoying option would be to let the users mark a submission with 'War', and we would add it to the Quest. Unless there would be hundreds of submissions (which I doubt but hey :up: ), it should be manageable. There are several admins present every day, so when there is a new sub with 'War' not yet in the Quest, we just click a link, and it's done.

    (Eventual controversies about whether a sub belongs to it or not are to be solved later.)


    Sometimes, raw power is better than complicated algorithms. Isn't it a sad recognition from someone who lives in the IT universe?  :lol:

  20. Re: Admin Chatter

    #540
    Hmm...

    manfred is right!

    Whenever there is a quest, a checkbox tagged "Add to quest?" could be generated from the database. It would appear during submission creation.

    That would be real easy like, dontcha think?

  21. Re: Admin Chatter

    #541
    Yep, that wouldn't be too bad at all.

    Just have it only available during an initial submission and not during an edit and we are shiny. With this there can also be an easy switch to allow admins to have that checkbox available all the time so if somebody missed it, an admin could add it.

  22. Re: Admin Chatter

    #542
    Yep, the admin switch was asked for - a quick hack that will make the current Quest doable.

  23. Re: Admin Chatter

    #543
    Can someone either create a new section in the Freeform Roleplay boards or tell me how to do so?  I want to make a separate Archive for out of date OOC stuff, so it's not lumped in with the game threads.

  24. Re: Admin Chatter

    #544
    Are they that much in the way?

    I can make a subforum under the freeform archive so we don't have another archive forum extended the amount of forums even more.

  25. Re: Admin Chatter

    #545
    I don't know about in the way, but it annoys me.  It's not a big deal, just if you have time sort of thing.

  26. Re: Admin Chatter

    #546
    Only got time for the short version as I spent my freetime writing PMs.

    AG quit. Used his admin rights and deleted his account. He halfway explained it but I won't splurge his details as they were in a PM and it is not my place to say.

    We are hoping/expecting that he will return, but who knows.....

    Just wanted to let you know as you will see that all his posts turned into "guest" type posts. I reinputted his id and name so that the main site's submissions wouldn't get fushnickened but that is about it.

  27. Re: Admin Chatter

    #547
    baffling, but after reading through a few PMs, I am beginning to understand his reasons. I hope he'll be back eventually. His reasons are less empirical and more emotional. He is a rare talent, always on top of his game, and I think he'll be back.

  28. Re: Admin Chatter

    #548
    AG's gone?!
    Where did he go and why?! I seem not to have gotten an advance warning.
    Oh well. I'll miss that cheeky bastard.

  29. Re: Admin Chatter

    #549
    What the ...?!

    I am confused, and sure as hell don't want to lose that guy from the team. Let's see how this turns out.

  30. Re: Admin Chatter

    #550
    http://www.ancient.strolen.com/edhansen/

    Has a contact me form on it that I would assume he would still get. I sent one with no reply...yet.

    I sent him a rather long mail so maybe it would be best to wait a day or two before he gets more, but you can use your best judgement.

  31. Re: Admin Chatter

    #551
    That form doesn't work...

  32. Re: Admin Chatter

    #552
    Well, I don't understand, but it's his decision to make.
    I certainly hope he comes back some day.

  33. Re: Admin Chatter

    #553
    He has quit before. Twice. Though not in such a dramatic and seemingly permanent fashion. He has come back both times.

  34. Re: Admin Chatter

    #554
    For the love of....

    He is back. Will try and reinstate his username on Monday. Going to see snow in Kansas for the weekend....there better be snow anyway.

    Have a nice weekend all you U.S. fools who celebrate dead people.

  35. Re: Admin Chatter

    #555
    Ahhhh.

    There are many good ideas floating around lately. Help me prioritize else I will do my willy nilly. But what do YOU want me to fix/update first.

    I am starting tonight, am going to make it a late night and get some shit DONE!!

  36. Re: Admin Chatter

    #556
    Settings?  I was thinking of starting a thread for that... just to prioritize features and such.  Manfred got organizational again.. and we bounced ideas off each other...  it was scary.  I will put it up as soon as I can dig out our notes.

  37. Re: Admin Chatter

    #557
    Phew, now that is a diffilcut question...

    I'd say Bugs have priority, it's bad if something doesn't work. Go for the most obvious/most used things first. My various Polish findings can wait, unless you feel like doing something neat now and then. :)


    Settings and the like are all development, so no need to code stuff yet, but some thinking needs to be done - but let's have Moon dig out the notes first.

    One thing that Moon was interested in, was 'sorting' the posts in a Codex (moving them around as desired). Incidentally, in a completely different post today, the sorting of scroll entries was considered. We should look into both features.

    ---

    Okay, this was very general... need to see the list of Bugs we still have.

    ---

    On a somewhat unrelated note, if we plan to add some more JS or AJAX to the site, we should really consider what kinds of browsers have our users? I'm pretty sure that 90%+ have the equipment... but don't know. We sure have some stats on that... I don't know to exclude too many users from new exciting features. ;)

    ---

    Update on Bugs:

    - there is this empty line that keeps appearing in the shoutbox. Suspicion is, that it happens when a sub is suggeste. Annoyance, but visible .

    - there is something wrong with the parsing of HTML links in posts. I'd class it medium, though rarely visible.

    - how about voting? There were occassionaly complaints that users can't vote on a sub in various situations; had myself a few, but don't know if it still happens. Medium if still present.

    (Did I forget anything?)


    As for Polishing, take your pick. If you happen to take any particular stab at our beloved special characters(tm), it would be great.

  38. Re: Admin Chatter

    #558
    I messed with the voting today. Found something that could have definitely been driving the problem. Commented in other thread.

    Also put another check in place to try and get rid of the blank chat messages.

    Will continue to bug hunt for now.

    Any more bugs, throw them in your other favorite thread so we keep them together please. :)

    ======

    Priorities...

    1. Bugs
    2. Search
    3. Freetext
    4. Stats
    5. Polish
    6. Stubs (mostly because I am still vague on what good they will do for us)

    Is there others floating out there?

    10. Settings (more of a 3.0 initiative where we have an idea of what we want, then we will concrete it in NY)

  39. Re: Admin Chatter

    #559
    Off current topic, as is tradition:

    Due to some thread, I wanted to peek at the Seventh Sanctum for how it's link the Citadel looks like. Was down or something at the moment, so I googled around to be sure of the address, and noticed that thing has it's own Wikipedia page.

    Then I was hit by this little stroke of megalomania... could we have our own Wikipedia page? Or is too much of a stretch this time?  :twisted:

  40. Re: Admin Chatter

    #560
    I tried to get to that page last night too. Couldn't either.

    We can have ANYTHING you want!

    But is it something that will be used and enhances the Citadel or is it something that would dilute the core vision of what we are doing.  Wiki would be easy as it doesn't require much coding beyond putting it up and making it pretty. No logins or cross code really necessary.

    Along the wiki thing, we talked about 'definitions' at one point. A type of submission that was basically a link to a submission or an actual definition that would be autolinked. So we would have a wikipedia type entry that discusses a certain topic, defines a word better, or a codex of a very specific term and when anybody on the site used that word in a post or submission, that word would be autolinked to our definition.

    So if we made 'assassin' a definition and pointed it to "a new look at assassins" (or whatever) if somebody put that in there post it, 'assassin' would be autolinked to "a new look..."

    I also thought about allowing personal blogs to at one point so people could do their own thing that way too. Personal if they want, or my hope was blogging their games they ran or played in or something like that. Another easy thing that may draw a few people...maybe?

    Another dream is a better play by post type thing then the forum. Something that can allow a more freer and easier way to run a game. Have no idea what or how, but would love to do something like that.

    I still need to get the links going too which will hopefully be useful.

    Definitely worth discussing and we may solidify any decisions at StrolenCon.

Administrators · All categories · Guildhall