Posted April 17, 2014
Being able to encase spoilers and have the text 'blacked out' or something would be excellent.
Example:
[Spoilers]The butler did it![/Spoilers]
Poll type threads could also potentially by fun, I'm all for it. ^_^
SpellSword
CGA EGA VGA SVGA
Registered: Dec 2009
From Canada
Being able to encase spoilers and have the text 'blacked out' or something would be excellent.
Example:
[Spoilers]The butler did it![/Spoilers]
Poll type threads could also potentially by fun, I'm all for it. ^_^
DieRuhe
my glasses are dirty
Registered: Sep 2008
From United States
Posted April 17, 2014
I'd like to see a few sub-forums; one for giveaways, one for general gaming topics, one for completely off-topic things (books, music, tv, "look at this Kickstarter", etc.). It would just be nice to not be looking at a "wall of everything".
And I'd vote for getting rid of the rep system. I like what some sites do, which is use various titles to indicate where one is in the "hierarchy", and maybe get one star for each year of being here or something along those lines. I don't see anything good about down-repping, but I think the arguments for and against are kind of moot when one can get at least a point a day just by logging in and posting something. So I'd say that should go too. :-)
And I'd vote for getting rid of the rep system. I like what some sites do, which is use various titles to indicate where one is in the "hierarchy", and maybe get one star for each year of being here or something along those lines. I don't see anything good about down-repping, but I think the arguments for and against are kind of moot when one can get at least a point a day just by logging in and posting something. So I'd say that should go too. :-)
HypersomniacLive
The Reluctant Voter
Registered: Sep 2011
From Vatican City
Posted April 17, 2014
OK, I'm confused now. My question was the result of your exchange with Coelocanth regarding the ability to still report spam. You brought up the issue of possible abuse and measures to prevent it. If the report spam function remains as it is now, why would you be worried about potential abuse?
TRUMP MUST F U C K I N G HANG
Find me in STEAM OT
Registered: Dec 2012
From Other
Posted April 17, 2014
I'm watching that game. Been a die hard Cards fan for 38 years, had season tickets for 10. I think the score is just fine. :D
OldFatGuy
Old Fat User
Registered: Nov 2008
From United States
Posted April 17, 2014
Yeah, I figured you were watching it too. 8-0 now. So I can say it now. Fuck.
JudasIscariot
Thievin' Bastard
GOG.com Team
Registered: Oct 2008
From Poland
Posted April 17, 2014
"What's the current system of preventing spam report abuse?"
Then my reply is: You can only downrep someone once and the same goes for the spam report function AFAIK :)
Post edited April 17, 2014 by JudasIscariot
HypersomniacLive
The Reluctant Voter
Registered: Sep 2011
From Vatican City
Posted April 17, 2014
high rated
Being able to encase spoilers and have the text 'blacked out' or something would be excellent.
Example:
[Spoilers]The butler did it![/Spoilers]
Poll type threads could also potentially by fun, I'm all for it. ^_^
It also comes with a number of other useful features, like quick reply - which would also be nice to have as a native function of the forum.
Maybe we should all go to bed already, at least us in the European time zones ;-)
Post edited April 17, 2014 by HypersomniacLive
SpellSword
CGA EGA VGA SVGA
Registered: Dec 2009
From Canada
Posted April 17, 2014
Indeed! Whatever the solution, it currently is a bit of a mess. (imo.) >_>
At the moment I use the "This is my favourite topic" button in the upper right of each thread I'm reading/posting in just to prevent having to sift through that every time. >_<
However I think there is at least one advantage, by keeping all the traffic centralized it does keep the forum kind of lively. Whatever is done I hope that sense of activity isn't lost. ^_^
At the moment I use the "This is my favourite topic" button in the upper right of each thread I'm reading/posting in just to prevent having to sift through that every time. >_<
However I think there is at least one advantage, by keeping all the traffic centralized it does keep the forum kind of lively. Whatever is done I hope that sense of activity isn't lost. ^_^
Gilozard
Registered: Apr 2011
From United States
Posted April 17, 2014
GOG forums need:
Standard forum discussion functionality. The user scripts provide a good list to get started on. I definitely include:
Ignore users
Track threads
Better navigation
Longer posts list
Central page to track threads the user started
Edit thread titles
Tying ignore and rep / bragging rights together was a bad idea. But we do need a way to not see posts we don't want to see. This is standard forum functionality, as well as standard RL social functionality. It's something that GOG needs to have.
We don't need faux social network fluff. We don't need or want user profiles, 'GOG friends', etc. GOG's forum benefits by not having those around. The drama is significantly lower.
Game-specific forums should get overhauled to be more useful. My suggestion: a 'General Game Specific' page to display recent threads in the game-specific forums. The threads actually reside in the game-specific forums. The General page simply provides a central place to see the most recent threads so questions could actually get answered.
Search functionality needs to work. Even if it's just a Google Custom Search. GOG search is fundamentally broken. It simply does not work. And in 2014, having a search that returns results that *don't even include the search term* is genuinely appalling.
WIshlist:
If we could also get an 'ignore threads' functionality, that would be great. There are umpteen bazillion threads on politics around here, and they mostly wind up saying the same thing. Some days, I just don't want to get politics in my gaming. Subforums would largely address this, but have the downside of splitting up the forum. I don't want to see that happen.
Standard forum discussion functionality. The user scripts provide a good list to get started on. I definitely include:
Ignore users
Track threads
Better navigation
Longer posts list
Central page to track threads the user started
Edit thread titles
Tying ignore and rep / bragging rights together was a bad idea. But we do need a way to not see posts we don't want to see. This is standard forum functionality, as well as standard RL social functionality. It's something that GOG needs to have.
We don't need faux social network fluff. We don't need or want user profiles, 'GOG friends', etc. GOG's forum benefits by not having those around. The drama is significantly lower.
Game-specific forums should get overhauled to be more useful. My suggestion: a 'General Game Specific' page to display recent threads in the game-specific forums. The threads actually reside in the game-specific forums. The General page simply provides a central place to see the most recent threads so questions could actually get answered.
Search functionality needs to work. Even if it's just a Google Custom Search. GOG search is fundamentally broken. It simply does not work. And in 2014, having a search that returns results that *don't even include the search term* is genuinely appalling.
WIshlist:
If we could also get an 'ignore threads' functionality, that would be great. There are umpteen bazillion threads on politics around here, and they mostly wind up saying the same thing. Some days, I just don't want to get politics in my gaming. Subforums would largely address this, but have the downside of splitting up the forum. I don't want to see that happen.
Post edited April 17, 2014 by HGiles
mondo84
hwgr
Registered: Apr 2011
From United States
Posted April 17, 2014
I'd love a "go to first unread post" feature. Either the colored icon next to each thread title could serve that purpose, or when you hover in line with a thread title on the forum a button appears between the thread title and post count.
Regarding splitting the forums, at most I think creating an "off-topic" forum might be helpful, but I think splitting things too much could be more of a hindrance.
This is a post I made some months ago about doing something like "topic tags", in case people didn't want to split the main forum up.
Regarding splitting the forums, at most I think creating an "off-topic" forum might be helpful, but I think splitting things too much could be more of a hindrance.
This is a post I made some months ago about doing something like "topic tags", in case people didn't want to split the main forum up.
I have an idea but am not sure how much work it would require. If GOG or forum members didn't want to separate the general discussion into subforums, what about creating topic tags?
General Discussion would remain the primary forum. When you create a topic, you would check a box marking the topic with one of the following tags: gaming, giveaway, or off-topic. You also wouldn't be able to press the "post my message" button when creating a new thread unless you mark a tag. This way every topic is appropriately marked under its respective sub-category.
On the forum page threads could have a different color for each tag (right now we have blue for announcements, yellow for questions, orange for sticky/FAQ). They could add a few more colors for the suggested tags (green for gaming, purple for giveaway, white for off-topic, for example).
In addition to this, the real suggestion I have is that on top of the forum page where you browse threads, people can check which topics they want to view. For example, if you don't want to read off-topic posts, you deselect that box and your general discussion page just shows gaming and giveaway topics. Or, you could save the URLs to each different list of threads if you want to browse them separately (instead of switching around between tags constantly). Something like:
http://www.gog.com/forum/general ........(shows all threads OR the combination you've selected per your settings at the top of the page)
http://www.gog.com/forum/general#gaming .........(shows gaming threads only)
http://www.gog.com/forum/general#giveaways ..........(shows giveaway threads only)
http://www.gog.com/forum/general#offtopic ..........(shows off-topic threads only)
If the current forum infrastructure allows such a configuration, this could be a compromise between giving people an option to filter topics without actually splitting the forum up. I don't know how feasible or possible this is, though. It's just an idea so please don't hold my feet to the fire.
General Discussion would remain the primary forum. When you create a topic, you would check a box marking the topic with one of the following tags: gaming, giveaway, or off-topic. You also wouldn't be able to press the "post my message" button when creating a new thread unless you mark a tag. This way every topic is appropriately marked under its respective sub-category.
On the forum page threads could have a different color for each tag (right now we have blue for announcements, yellow for questions, orange for sticky/FAQ). They could add a few more colors for the suggested tags (green for gaming, purple for giveaway, white for off-topic, for example).
In addition to this, the real suggestion I have is that on top of the forum page where you browse threads, people can check which topics they want to view. For example, if you don't want to read off-topic posts, you deselect that box and your general discussion page just shows gaming and giveaway topics. Or, you could save the URLs to each different list of threads if you want to browse them separately (instead of switching around between tags constantly). Something like:
http://www.gog.com/forum/general ........(shows all threads OR the combination you've selected per your settings at the top of the page)
http://www.gog.com/forum/general#gaming .........(shows gaming threads only)
http://www.gog.com/forum/general#giveaways ..........(shows giveaway threads only)
http://www.gog.com/forum/general#offtopic ..........(shows off-topic threads only)
If the current forum infrastructure allows such a configuration, this could be a compromise between giving people an option to filter topics without actually splitting the forum up. I don't know how feasible or possible this is, though. It's just an idea so please don't hold my feet to the fire.
SpellSword
CGA EGA VGA SVGA
Registered: Dec 2009
From Canada
Posted April 17, 2014
Much better than just using sub-forums and it keeps the activity centralized. (imo.) ^_^
Gilozard
Registered: Apr 2011
From United States
Posted April 17, 2014
Regarding splitting the forums, at most I think creating an "off-topic" forum might be helpful, but I think splitting things too much could be more of a hindrance.
This is a post I made some months ago about doing something like "topic tags", in case people didn't want to split the main forum up.
I have an idea but am not sure how much work it would require. If GOG or forum members didn't want to separate the general discussion into subforums, what about creating topic tags?
General Discussion would remain the primary forum. When you create a topic, you would check a box marking the topic with one of the following tags: gaming, giveaway, or off-topic. You also wouldn't be able to press the "post my message" button when creating a new thread unless you mark a tag. This way every topic is appropriately marked under its respective sub-category.
On the forum page threads could have a different color for each tag (right now we have blue for announcements, yellow for questions, orange for sticky/FAQ). They could add a few more colors for the suggested tags (green for gaming, purple for giveaway, white for off-topic, for example).
In addition to this, the real suggestion I have is that on top of the forum page where you browse threads, people can check which topics they want to view. For example, if you don't want to read off-topic posts, you deselect that box and your general discussion page just shows gaming and giveaway topics. Or, you could save the URLs to each different list of threads if you want to browse them separately (instead of switching around between tags constantly). Something like:
http://www.gog.com/forum/general ........(shows all threads OR the combination you've selected per your settings at the top of the page)
http://www.gog.com/forum/general#gaming .........(shows gaming threads only)
http://www.gog.com/forum/general#giveaways ..........(shows giveaway threads only)
http://www.gog.com/forum/general#offtopic ..........(shows off-topic threads only)
If the current forum infrastructure allows such a configuration, this could be a compromise between giving people an option to filter topics without actually splitting the forum up. I don't know how feasible or possible this is, though. It's just an idea so please don't hold my feet to the fire.
Post edited April 17, 2014 by HGiles
HypersomniacLive
The Reluctant Voter
Registered: Sep 2011
From Vatican City
Posted April 17, 2014
I'm not sure I understand what you mean/ refer to by the ones I highlighted, could you please elaborate?
Gilozard
Registered: Apr 2011
From United States
Posted April 17, 2014
Much better than just using sub-forums and it keeps the activity centralized. (imo.) ^_^
Standard forum discussion functionality. The user scripts provide a good list to get started on. I definitely include:
Ignore users
Track threads
Useable subforums and navigation
Longer posts list
Central page to track threads the user started
Edit thread titles
snip
Longer post lists = I meant to say 'Longer recent posts lists'. GOG only tracks a very few posts back. I often find myself wanting to return to a discussion and not being sure which one, especially if the forum is active and the thread got a bit off topic. It's not like this would be very hard, either. Just up the count.
Post edited April 17, 2014 by HGiles
SpellSword
CGA EGA VGA SVGA
Registered: Dec 2009
From Canada
Posted April 17, 2014
I think you can already (kind of) do this via the 'This is my favourite topic' button located in the upper right of each thread or are you suggesting something different?
It does get a bit messy though using the existing 'This is my favourite topic' feature for several threads at once. (imo)
It does get a bit messy though using the existing 'This is my favourite topic' feature for several threads at once. (imo)
Post edited April 17, 2014 by SpellSword