Long term health of mafiascum

[chamber]

i mean it may be, but I don't think having tons of sign up threads is any less confusing, and it substantially reduces the chance of a newbie finding his or her way into the newbie queue. Something like this might work:



At first it could simply be that those threads act exactly the same (except there would be an area for mods to enter in players signed up that would update the OP and the sign up number and a toggle for the game status) and the join this game button would automatically make a /in post and take you to the end of the thread, the replace into the game would either take you to a PM to the mod or type /replace. The thread could function exactly as before (in that if you click on the thread it takes you to the OP with info etc). It could also serve as the first step toward automatic sign ups. It'd still be curated by the moderator, but it would start the process of moderators entering into the system who is playing in what games.

Speaking honestly, automated signups are probably like 3-5h of work from having a functional beta. I powered through working on them quite a bit before I got fed up with working with you guys. The problem is once the functional beta is up, it would take a lot of feedback from the list mods and I just don't feel like dealing with it. They also work completely differently from how you are proposing this would work.

You want me to add a couple optional fields like game type and number of players? Sure. I'm not adding any sort of processing though (such as a sign-up button).

[zoraster]

keep in mind that I have very little idea about what requires minutes of work vs. hours of work vs. days of work. I try to guess at it, but I just don't have the experience coding to know.

If having a major advancement is in reach we should figure out a way to make that happen. Given automated sign ups have been a unicorn, I've always assumed they were more mythical than realistic so my discussions have been how to make the best of what tools we have rather than theoretically what we could have. If you're telling me that's not the case, that changes basically everything.

[chamber]

Convince me refining them with you guys isn't going to be a massive pain in my ass and I could probably have a beta up by saturday. But I would need to actually be convinced.

[Psyche]

a long-term solution to the bottleneck would be to have for this sort of thing people rather than person

[chamber]

For what sort of thing?

[reinoe]

a long-term solution to the bottleneck would be to have for this sort of thing people rather than person

what bottleneck?

[quadz08]

I believe psyche is trying to say "it would be nice if we had more coders."

[chamber]

But that's not a function of me. He's in the coding forum so he knows that it exists. People are free to help. (and three of us worked on automated signups?)

[Psyche]

oh yeah

[Porochaz]

I think for new players our queue system can be quite confusing and misleading as to how active we are. You can see very old signup threads on the first page, and often there wont be any because no large themes are in signups. It makes the signup process and activity level more visible if we give each game its own signup thread.

Wouldn't having a queue archive solve this?

[chamber]

I think for new players our queue system can be quite confusing and misleading as to how active we are. You can see very old signup threads on the first page, and often there wont be any because no large themes are in signups. It makes the signup process and activity level more visible if we give each game its own signup thread.

Wouldn't having a queue archive solve this?

That just means there are sometimes no visible games at all instead of dated ones.

[Bicephalous Bob]

do you have a replacement in mind? If so, you certainly have my permission for what little that's worth

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=23303

It's not a complete redesign, but the header is by far the most Web 1.0-ish.

please

[zoraster]

yeah i mean i love that graphic.

[Porochaz]

I think for new players our queue system can be quite confusing and misleading as to how active we are. You can see very old signup threads on the first page, and often there wont be any because no large themes are in signups. It makes the signup process and activity level more visible if we give each game its own signup thread.

Wouldn't having a queue archive solve this?

That just means there are sometimes no visible games at all instead of dated ones.

Im confused. I mean just remove the completed ones, rather than the ongoing ones. The problem of having no visible games if there are none running doesn't seem to be an issue to me? Especially since I would assume more people would be inclined to run a Large Theme lets say if there is no wait to do so...

[chamber]

I think for new players our queue system can be quite confusing and misleading as to how active we are. You can see very old signup threads on the first page, and often there wont be any because no large themes are in signups. It makes the signup process and activity level more visible if we give each game its own signup thread.

Wouldn't having a queue archive solve this?

That just means there are sometimes no visible games at all instead of dated ones.

Im confused. I mean just remove the completed ones, rather than the ongoing ones. The problem of having no visible games if there are none running doesn't seem to be an issue to me? Especially since I would assume more people would be inclined to run a Large Theme lets say if there is no wait to do so...

Its unintuitive for game signups to be in both queue threads and outside of them. Frankly its unintuitive to have them in queue threads at all imo and is just a product of how old they are and how they were originally done.

[quadz08]

Are you referring to the fact that the large theme does signups via individual threads, but everyone else does it in one mass thread?

[chamber]

Are you referring to the fact that the large theme does signups via individual threads, but everyone else does it in one mass thread?

I am. But not just that. I think signups being in a mass thread at all is confusing on it's own. But that there are 2 types absolutely has to add to peoples confusion.

[saulres]

Just brainstorming here: What about giving each type of game its own subforum under the Queue forum, except for Newbie games which would stay in the main Queue forum? Very easy for newbies to find, clear indication of variety, isolation of game type threads so they're not comingled.

[zoraster]

I actually agree with chamber, but the no-coding involved solution appeals to me even less. I've looked at chamber's start and I like the look of it though.

[quadz08]

I trust in chamber's automated signups vision, if he's got something workable (especially if zor is a fan as well).

[Porochaz]

I think for new players our queue system can be quite confusing and misleading as to how active we are. You can see very old signup threads on the first page, and often there wont be any because no large themes are in signups. It makes the signup process and activity level more visible if we give each game its own signup thread.

Wouldn't having a queue archive solve this?

That just means there are sometimes no visible games at all instead of dated ones.

Im confused. I mean just remove the completed ones, rather than the ongoing ones. The problem of having no visible games if there are none running doesn't seem to be an issue to me? Especially since I would assume more people would be inclined to run a Large Theme lets say if there is no wait to do so...

Its unintuitive for game signups to be in both queue threads and outside of them. Frankly its unintuitive to have them in queue threads at all imo and is just a product of how old they are and how they were originally done.

Ok, I was just referring to the Large Themes and old queue threads at the moment, and archiving the threads once they are done.

In reference to your suggestion I am still very much a large nope, for reasons stated upwards. We want to direct anyone with an interest in the site to get signed up to a game as fast as possible, I think currently (and I know your about to point me to the threads where newbies dont know where the queue is) the system we have is more efficient than what you are thinking of.

Even with all the colour coding in the world what your suggesting would be a mess and a lot more difficult to sift through. For older members it would be a pain, for newer members, they just wouldn't do it. The nice thing about the queue system as it stands (even with the flaws) is that you know where exactly to go for the kind of game you want. This new system would not do that.

(furthermore, eventually if you start colour coding for different games and then more colours for the state the game is in, it's going to look more like a site for people who want headaches rather than a mafia site)

[Majiffy]

Even with all the colour coding in the world what your suggesting would be a mess and a lot more difficult to sift through. For older members it would be a pain, for newer members, they just wouldn't do it. The nice thing about the queue system as it stands (even with the flaws) is that you know where exactly to go for the kind of game you want. This new system would not do that.

Newbie Games
Subforum: Newbie Signups

Micro Games
Subforum: Micro Signups

[zoraster]

i'm not entirely opposed but burying the newbie sign ups even more seems like a backward step

[Majiffy]

I don't think it's burying. It's just one subforum deep.

[Shadowmod]

I think some design changes would go a long way. There are many good options that distinguish this forum as one catering to playing games of mafia in it, like the iso function, private topics etc., but most of them are either (relatively) hard to find or badly placed. Why do I have to scroll to the top or bottom of a page to make an iso, check PMs or use most of the other interactive elements? Why do I need to check the OP or iso the mod if I want to view a complete player list or the newest vote count? Why can't I link private topics directly to a game they belong to, so, for example, players who have access to a private topic belonging to a game automatically get a list of links to those private topics if they enter the game thread? Sure, using multiple browser tabs can work a round some of these, but it is still not intuitive.

Seriously, GUIs of all kinds have been using stuff like static menu elements (like task, menu, quicklaunch, side bars etc.) for ever now. Why can't a forum adapt the basic principles to make navigation more convenient and purposeful?

I have no idea, how much coding work a forum redesign would actually be, but it is the one thing that would have a great impact on attractivity without the need to change any of the underlying strucutres, which is probably harder to do because the community would not support those changes.

And I agree that the standard blue theme looks kind of bland, old and unispired. Something more sleek and ellegant would be nice. But not the current black theme, please. It's really not that great in practice, I think, and I hate how it doesn't properly display half of the text colours.

Yeah, okay, that doesn't really solve the problem. though. And I can only iso one player at a time with that. The real issue is that all the site elements that make this forum a dedicated mafia playground are scattered around various little links and post all around the screen (and often enough off-screen), which really is easily explained by the grafual nature of their introduction to the site etc, but isnb't really optiumal at all. The simple fact that I totally forgot about this option is only proof of that fact.
You don't have to scroll to iso. There is literally an iso button on every post a player makes.