Testing a Votecounter (prev. Any Mods Willing to Volunteer?)

[Why not]

maybe you could have the votecounter just build off from the last vote count or from the last post the last votecount considered?

that would make 23-page processing unnecessary

[Thesp]

maybe you could have the votecounter just build off from the last vote count or from the last post the last votecount considered?

that would make 23-page processing unnecessary

I've pondered this. I'm hesitant to do it from the last votecount, because mods often want to customize their votecounts (which would make pre-processing obscenely harder, if not impossible). Most likely I'd save it to a database so it could work from there (or just cache it), and allow an option you could check for it to bust the database/cache and start from the beginning of the day if you had edited posts for votes or anything like that. Maybe in a future release.

(And also likely to happen if this starts getting significantly more adoption, which hopefully it will.)

[xRECKONERx]

I wish you could customize the output somehow but I know that's not possible without account or phpbb integration

[fferyllt]

It would be very cool if Beli's vote count app and this app could be combined somehow.

[Maruchan]

Beli's app
?

[fferyllt]

It does some formatting and has a database that keeps track of info about each game/game-day etc.

It requires some offsite setup by the mod.

[Maruchan]

link to info?

[fferyllt]

I don't have one!

PM Beli? His app doesn't count votes, but it spits out a purty vote count with your mod text color of choice and the deadline countdown and stuff. There's a place to enter mod note text you want to include in the vote count also.

[Bicephalous Bob]

Hmm, okay, that's good to know.

Also, as a note... I'm currently using it in a game. It processed this as a vote for the player '4nxi3ty':

unvote
vote: zzzx

When I edited zzzx to be ZZZX, it processed it correctly for that player.

This is easily fixed by putting both the vote string and the possible matches in lowercase.

Also, I volunteer.

I've pondered the utility of this, and I really need to do some benchmarking, because it's already a bit slow (in part because I'm on shared webhosting). Parsing a 21 page game for votes takes about ~13 seconds of computation time. I've wondered if it's worth adding the additional overhead of lowercasing every votee, and running the final responses through another dictionary to match the lowercased player names to the correctly cased counterparts. (I also had illusions that players would generally be better about correct casing and by preserving casing, I'd more likely pick up abbreviations like "STD" for "Save the Dragons" better, which has shown some degree of success. I may be wrong in that regard, though.)

I'm not sure if my concerns about performance and the utility of preserving case are warranted or not, though.

In theory, you shouldn't have to run it twice. Just match the lowercase vote strings to the lowercase player names. Also, I don't know if you're already doing this, but parsing the game backwards is probably significantly faster. Once you found a vote of a player, you can disregard the rest of his posts. If you found a vote of every single player, you can stop searching all together.

[saulres]

If you do it backwards, then don't forget to reverse the order on output, so the votes come in the order they came in rather than in the reverse order.

[Why not]

If you parse it backwards, you'll have trouble handling hammers as well as voting behavior during Twilight.

[Rob14]

Real talk: why are people so obsessed about making automatic vote counters? If you plan to read the game, you don't need one. If you don't plan to read the game at all, honestly why mod it? You won't even get to see your setup play out.

[Kagami]

Because even if you read every post, it's inconvenient to keep a separate vote-tallying document and error-prone to do otherwise.

It also ensures that the quality of the vote counting doesn't decline during periods of extremely high player activity, or low mod availability.

[Kagami]

It also leads to better standardization of both the votes and vote counts, which makes datamining efforts a lot easier.

[Thesp]

Because even if you read every post, it's inconvenient to keep a separate vote-tallying document and error-prone to do otherwise.

It also ensures that the quality of the vote counting doesn't decline during periods of extremely high player activity, or low mod availability.

This.

Also, I can post an accurate, perfectly formatted votecount

from my phone

in under a minute. Why

wouldn't

I want that available to me in an easy-to-use form?

[Why not]

It also leads to better standardization of both the votes and vote counts, which makes datamining efforts a lot easier.

<3

[Zachrulez]

Real talk: why are people so obsessed about making automatic vote counters? If you plan to read the game, you don't need one. If you don't plan to read the game at all, honestly why mod it? You won't even get to see your setup play out.

Funny enough the ability to do vote counts got much easier when I used Thesp's vote counter. With my last modded game, if I had to do the vote counts manually it actually would have eaten into a lot of time I would have been able to read the game. (It also has done so in the past.) I actually had a lot easier time following along with my game because the vote counting was trivial. Even sorting out errors in the auto vote counter was ultimately much easier than counting everything manually.

[Thesp]

I wish you could customize the output somehow but I know that's not possible without account or phpbb integration

If this becomes widely adopted, it would be fairly easy for me to incoorprate a few common styles as drop-down selections on the first page.

[jasonT1981]

I am currently using this in a game and enjoying it. To answer Robs point. As mod I do try to read everything, however there are times it is hard to keep up and when you need to post a vote count quickly it is very handy. It is an easy tool for a mod to use which saves a shit lot of time.

Do not confuse using a auto vote count tool as a mod not reading the game at all. It actually helps make it easy for mods to keep up.

Anyway, my question. While it has not popped up yet. How do you handle the coding multiple replacements in the same slot?

[Thesp]

Anyway, my question. While it has not popped up yet. How do you handle the coding multiple replacements in the same slot?

I'm glad you're enjoying it! To handle multiple replacements, simply separate the replaced players' names with a semicolon and a space. For example, if Sue replaced Tom who replaced Lisa, that player line would look like this:

Code: Select all

Sue (replaces Tom; Lisa)

I hope this helps!

[jasonT1981]

Awesome, thank you.

[saulres]

Any way to make this work with custom "dead" and "alive" area tags? For those of us who like to use a little flavor in our standard information?

If not, can I embed your required tags in a collapsible spoiler, and I'll just duplicate the information?

[tn5421]

Any way to make this work with custom "dead" and "alive" area tags? For those of us who like to use a little flavor in our standard information?

If not, can I embed your required tags in a collapsible spoiler, and I'll just duplicate the information?

I have a site up and running now. If you want to try it, PM me with a link to your game that meets the formatting standards in the first post.

By the way, you

can

include the initial information in spoiler tags, so it doesn't take up valuable real estate in your opening post if you like. So, something like:

Code: Select all

[spoiler=Votecounter Settings]
[area=Living Players]
Bob
Carol (replaces Joe)
Sue (replaces Tom; Lisa)
Julio
[/area]

[area=Links]
[post=#3329643]Day 1[/post]
[post=#3329643]Night 1[/post]
[post=#3329643]Day 2: Post #532[/post]
[/area]
[/spoiler]

...will look just like this...

Spoiler: Votecounter Settings

Living Players

Bob
Carol (replaces Joe)
Sue (replaces Tom; Lisa)
Julio

Links

Day 1
Night 1
Day 2: Post #532

There's no reason to believe that you can't do the same with votecounts if you want to pretty them up.

people actually use those buttons?

I use them all the time, especially for the more obscure bbcodes. The only one I type out myself is vote, unvote, and post.

[saulres]

Oh hey, thanks. I went to the OP for information and didn't reread the thread. Good deal.

[Thesp]

Oh hey, thanks. I went to the OP for information and didn't reread the thread. Good deal.

I'm just confirming that tn5421 is correct - the setting can be spoilered (and often are). I need to re-do the opening post sometime soon.