How would you like your mafiascum?

[mith]

As you may or may not know, I'm working on writing brand new discussion forum software (mostly for this site). I thought it might be a good idea to start this thread, asking what features you would like to see included. Ideas so far include, but are not limited to:

A very plain, graphics free, skin (actually what I will write first, to get a feel for perl).
A personal page for each user, which would have your private messages, list of games you are in (and other tagged threads), and other things like that.
Modules for several different games, to be designed as I get to them (Mafia being first, of course). Each would have an automated waiting list, which the admin/mods could set up to hold however many games of each type, size, etc. When it is a mod's turn, it would send him a message on his personal page, telling him it is his turn, and asking for a number of players. It would start a sign-up, including an option for pre-registration by the mod, and a banned list. Once the sign-up is completed (or before, even), the mod can put in the list of roles, and, in the case of basic games, what the roles do. The forum would randomly assign roles, and send them to the players.
In game threads, there will be a difference between night and day. Possibly a skin change, but more importantly, all posts in day are public, while all posts at night are private. At night, you can specify who your post is to (fellow group members, the mod, or both). This will hopefully speed up nights a bit.
Automatic vote counts, with an option for the mod about whether lynching takes place immediately, or a set time after majority, or when the mod says so, or after confirms, or whatever.
Some other stuff, which I can't remember right now, but which I will hopefully think of, or you will remind me of.

So, what would you like to see?

[cuban smoker]

Post numbers are convenient.

Better quoting software. Basically, make it easy to quote people (maybe I'm just ignorant, but I rarely quote because it's such a big pain.)

The ability to choose your own title after hitting a certain post number (say, 100)

Different font types (within reason)

More usergroups!

[jeep]

Filters on a topic. So I could, for example see only the posts made in Mafia Game X by Player A. This should be a relatively simple thing to add.

-JEEP

[SaberKitty]

I'd like to keep my title
but also, will the mafia games get screwed up like last tiem we changed forums? (like all the spaces and suff was annoying) no more paragraphs or formatting of any sort)
can we change boards without that trouble?

also, mith, could you post ant's article about making even games? please?

-SK

[jeep]

Oh, another thing: I really like how the GL shows you the start of the latest post if you hover your pointer over the name of the last poster.

-JEEP

[MeMe]

Would it be possible to make it so that only those who are actually still alive in a game can post in that thread? I'm getting pretty tired of dead people talking too much and I growl every time someone *cough - IS - cough* sticks his nose into a game he's not playing.

I love the personal homepage thing, especially the feature of having all games you're currently alive in gathered together.

[Night Stalker]

Having occasionally posted in threads I died in (and with most people usually posting "ghost" messages at least once) I'd disagree with that one.
As an alternative, may I suggest something that forces non-players to post in a different font, or in italiacs? Or perhaps something that makes it the choice of the game moderator?

For that matter, give various powers to the moderators/thread starters. Allow them to be able to change the subject lines to their thread (so they can update the day, etc) lock/unlock the thread, and other powers usually reserved for administrators - but limited to just their game.

Also, automatically make people's sigs a smaller font size then their posts.

[MeMe]

I wasn't wanting to start a debate, but the non-player posting is a real problem, in my opinion. For examples:
--In DP's Haiti game, Damelon was killed overnight after attempting to kill a zombie. Polotet claimed that he was the one who put the bullet-hole in the zombie...Damelon denounced him as a liar, not realizing that he had expired and shouldn't post pertinent information. If I were Polotet I'd have been extremely irritated. (In Damelon's defense, when he realized his error, he deleted the post -- but I had seen it, Polotet had seen it, and possibly more)
--in Mini 20, IS was replaced by Werebear and logged in to say "no big deal." I have no idea who's mafia and who's not in there (I'm not playing in it) but if Werebear indeed turns out to be a non-critical role, I'd cry "foul," as that's how I took IS's post.
--in Ankh-Morpork, CS logged in (before he was playing as a replacement) to express his view that we should definitely

want

a Patrician, as it's a theme game and a Patrician is in keeping with the theme. Well, as we were still debating the point, he had no business possibly skewing the outcome.
--in mini 19, Werebear logged in to claim "cop" just for fun, as most of the players in there were making similar claims. Yes, it was funny, but also potentially damaging to gameplay.
--several instances (especially in RL games -- but I've seen a few on here) where an investigative role is killed and the victim says something like "and I just found a mafia, damn!" It's often obvious who an investigator would have checked that night by the way the conversation was going on the prior day.

When I'm in a game, I try to "read" my fellow players...sometimes I can get away with spewing crap as I know these particular players take comments at face value...other times I have to be extremely careful as some players can rip a simple comment to shreds. It's simply not fair to have an extra voice chiming in and possibly pointing things out that those playing wouldn't notice on their own. A different font would only draw even more attention to the post, it would seem. To my way of thinking, a mafia game should be something like a sequestered jury -- no outside opinions allowed!

Sorry for the looooooonnnng post; but I feel strongly about this.

[Werebear]

re: personal pages... does that mean you can add whatever mafias you like to your own personal screen, so you can see all of them at once?

[jeep]

--in Mini 20, IS was replaced by Werebear and logged in to say "no big deal." I have no idea who's mafia and who's not in there (I'm not playing in it) but if Werebear indeed turns out to be a non-critical role, I'd cry "foul," as that's how I took IS's post.

Actually, if it works that way, then you must know that Werebear DOES have a crucial role... but...

Anyway, IS' post did not degrade the game. He merely said that Werebear had already started the role and IS would get into the next game. I'm sure he'd have said exactly the same thing no matter what role he had been assigned.

-JEEP

[mith]

Re: Dead/other people posting:

I was going to fix this by setting it up so that if you are in a game, you can only see posts by live/active players. Anyone else (logged in, otherwise live players might see something they shouldn't if they log out) can read posts by anyone, and anyone can post.

Post numbers might be a bit tricky with the whole public/private post thing, but I think I can manage something. Probably just do post numbers for public posts.

What's the problem with quoting?

The title thing was in ikonboard I think, should be simple.

Fonts and colors will probably be up to the user, but there will definitely be an option so that I can ignore them. I don't want to read posts in pink.

Filters should be cake.

I'm not sure how I'm going to transfer games. I do think, however, that the formatting problem was just something to do with the way Q did the transfer, and not something that will necessarily happen here. I'll think on this one, if anyone has ideas, let me know.

The hover thing isn't too hard to do, I think (I'll just ask hy how ).

Moderators of games will have full rights over their threads. Starters of other topics may or may not (there will probably be a forum-wide option).

Re: personal pages: Hopefully, there will be lots of stuff we can do with them. At the least, it will have links to all the games you are in, the role for them, you can leave yourself notes about them, other tagged posts, etc. Maybe more.

[mith]

Oh, also, logging in will be much less necessary. You won't need to log in to post normally, for example. You'll need to for personal page/private messages, and some other stuff (like seeing dead people's posts).

[cuban smoker]

You make my post in ankh-morpork sound like it could even potentially have damaged game-play. jeep also said I shouldn't have said anything, but: holy cow! I respected the spirit of the law if not the letter. So outside players aren't supposed to post. Look what I posted:

comment from impartial non-playing observer:

It seems to me that you would want to have a Patrician, even if he was going to screw the town, because you are playing (voluntarily, I might add) a Theme game that calls for a Patrician. Oy.

more importantly, look what Polotet (mod) posted IMMEDIATELY before:

I plan to have a Patrician at the end of today, no matter how the votes are. If that means a random choice from among certain people, or even from among everyone, that's how I'll do it.

Does what I say do anything except point out that you're going to have a patrician, and all those who were whining about there being a patrician were out of luck? The sign-up thread said there would be a new patrician elected, even without a majority.

My key point here is: what I said has no effect on the gameplay. The mod had just said: there will be a patrician. I wondered why people were playing in a game with a patirician if they didn't want to have one. OY. I even went to the trouble of pointing out that I wasn't playing in the game. Would ANYONE have noticed if I hadn't put the disclaimer? Probably a select few. OY.

[MeMe]

All right, everybody. The lesson I'm learning is: those who post in games in which they're not playing love the ability to do so and want to protect that ability. Got it.

Please, though. Can anyone admit that even if you disagree that the instances I used as examples were damaging/potentially damaging, posting when you're not an active player could be a problem when utilized by those who aren't masters of subtlety and wit? Maybe it would be a good idea to cease just so those not as good at it won't try to join in the fun. Whaddya say? How 'bout setting a good example for the youngsters who just can't handle the delicate balancing act required to post in other people's games.

[cuban smoker]

What you say, MeMe, is fair and reasonable. I do agree, in principle.

[Sugar]

I'm in complete agreement with MeMe regarding the issue of non-players posting in games. I'm honestly not sure why this is being debated. I am new to online Mafia, but I read the rules thoroughly, and worked my way through hours of archived games (taking notes, even!) before signing up for my first game. I was well aware of the rule that dead players are not allowed to post until the end of the game, and although it isn't spelled out as clearly, that players not involved in the game should not be posting, either. Why would they want to, really, when any little comment made will likely be analyzed, and whether or not they want to believe it, could (and probaby will) somehow influence the game? I'm sure it's very tempting to toss in an opinion or joke, but I'd like to see it stopped, either by the mod deleting such posts immediately, or by us players controlling our need for extra attention

Regarding the board setup... thanks, Mith, for giving us a place to get our Mafia fix. This is one of the most pleasant and user friendly discussion forums I've ever visited, with some of the most intelligent and creative (and funny) players on the net. Can't think of any improvements, really... except I like cuban smoker's suggestion of being able to choose one's own title after a certain number of posts. That would be fun, and give newbies something to look forward to.

[cuban smoker]

Yes, and an incentive to post! This could solve the problem of laggin first days. Think of all the posting!

[jeep]

I'm in complete agreement with MeMe regarding the issue of non-players posting in games. I'm honestly not sure why this is being debated.

I don't think that the concept that "non-participants posting is bad" is being debated. I was debating that his examples weren't adequate to demonstrate it. I.e. at least one example didn't degrade the game in any way.

Also, we need to make sure that replacements are handled in the new board. It would suck to change the active players and have all the original players posts disappear.

-JEEP

[jeep]

Oh... instead of simply having titles that change with day or night (as well as the skin change), I think you should have a fixed title or title/subtitle (eg. "Mafia 42-The Answer") and a changable status that would appear in parens.

"Mafia 18- The Answer (Night 1- the question has not been discovered)"

Anyone else (logged in, otherwise live players might see something they shouldn't if they log out) can read posts by anyone, and anyone can post.

Remember that some people have multiple aliases, so could see the alternative discussion. It might actually be worthwhile to have each game start with a corresponding "discussion" thread.

Also, if you put night discussions hidden in the thread, then you should thread them. So that if the post order is:
Group 1 posts something
Group 2 posts something
Group 1 posts something else
Group 2 posts something else

It should be threaded so that all of group 1 discussion are together. For something like that the tree structure that some other discussion groups use is probably better than this style. Maybe embed the night discussions in an expandable tree... I don't know if you could make it look good though.

What is the appeal of setting a custom title...

-JEEP

[SaberKitty]

I don't see any new articles.... (please?)

-SK

[cuban smoker]

Hmm... that's wierd. I think in the board, we should fix the timestamps. You see, the time stamp of the message is currently set to when you CREATE the message, even if you spend 30 minutes composing it. For example, see minigame 20, where jeep started his night story at 1:08, but didn't finish it till some time later, but it appears before my comment, which makes my comment look out of place (I posted it after jeep started his story, but before he finished it).

[jeep]

That's because I editted it. I posted "night" then editted that message.

-JEEP

[Muser]

I have to say that I really dislike it when people not actively involved in a game (that is, they died or they were never in the game in the first place) post in that game. No matter how innocent the comment is, it will be interpreted to mean something.

I initially disliked the idea of hiding the non-participant discussion from the active players, because an active player could log in with an alias and see it. But then I figured, if people wanted to "cheat" and pass information outside the game, there were plenty of other ways to do it. So I guess hiding non-participant posts from active players might be a nice solution. Non-participants could comment and debate as much as they like, and not disrupt the game at all. People would still need to refrain from divulging any "insider info" though.

The feature I'd like to see? Automatic, timely vote counts integrated into the thread as posts whenever someone votes. For example, as soon as I vote, my post should be followed by an automatic post that shows the updated vote count. It could be nice and fancy, with a colored horizontal bar graph and an indication of the number of votes needed for a lynch. Also, voting should be accomplished through some other means than

bold text

. Adding a "Vote" button to the post page, and then presenting the poster with a list of active players to select from (which also shows current vote counts and votes needed to lynch) would be nice. We could also have a "FOS" button.

Count my vote for nice filters too. I'd love to be able to easily see all of one person's posts, as well as the vote count over time.

[jeep]

I'd prefer that vote counts be kept in another location. It's definitely possible to have too many vote counts. I'd like a running tally at the end of the thread (not in the thread, but generated in your view) or in the initial post. It should be relatively simple to have every 10 posts (or whatever) be a vote count.

I like the idea of vote tags VOTE: someone which display votes however your skin defines them. (Maybe I want to ignore all color tags, but have votes be blue... that clearly won't workf well for SK.)

-JEEP

[MeMe]

Oooh, good suggestion Muser. I want vote updates, too! It's just way too easy to miss vote changes, etc. as sometimes they're buried in a post or not in bold or whathaveyou.