Speech and open topics

[James Adams]

Ok, two completely separate ideas here, but I thought I'd group them into one topic.

The first is speech. We all use it, so I was thinking about making it quicker and easier. I have two ideas for this, one probably impossible coding wise though! The first is to have a code which recognises quote marks (") in a post, and wraps it with the BBCode which you specified in the 'default post styling options' part of the Code Settings page. When the next " is found by the code, then it finishes the wrapping of the BBCode. I do think this might be impossible though, so onto my next idea: be able to specify default speech BBCodes in the same way as above. However, you add a [speech] BBCode or something which then wraps everything in that code as the default method.

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The second thing i wanted to bring up is perhaps having a list of 'open' threads somewhere which are less than say a week old. This would then give people a list of RP threads they can participate in quickly without plotting needed.

James

 

[Nicolas King]

Hi James,

Thanks again for the suggestions, and sorry for the bit of a slower reply. In part, I was waiting to see if you'd respond at all to my implementing your last suggestion.

I'll answer your suggestions in reverse order of you suggesting them because it's easier that way:

For the open topics list, we won't need this once ZetaBoards search is fixed so it reindexes the board nightly. You would just search for all topics with "open" in them and have quite a fine list. See here for an example search. Like I said, it's not up to date as search only reindexes sporadically at the moment but nightly indexing is how it should work and a fix is being worked toward.
So to come up with a whole other way to track open topics and create more work for the staff (in keeping a topic/system/whatever tidy) and/or users (in submitting links to open topics with relevant information) just to have a (far better) solution made available again in hopefully the near future just doesn't make sense to me.
This is something that has been suggested in the past (when search did index nightly) and this was my response then, too: just use search. Right now search is partly b0rked… but once it's not: just use search.

For the customizable BBCode wrapping around character's speech: because of the automatic detection of quotation mark and matching un-quote (and the possibility of odd number of quotation marks - or people not wanting all speech wrapped the same if multiple characters speak in their post), that becomes fairly complex (whereas the current default post BBCode is pretty simple, because it's just there for you to start your post with). Now, it just being complex doesn't automatically mean it's a 'no' but in such situations I have a fairly simple "is it worth my time?" test - because there are always little things I can do, and I suggest all kinds of mostly pointless code ideas to Cyndi, but very few come to any sort of realization because of this test and my very limited free time to work on projects.

So here it is: work required must be less than either how useful it will be to how many people or how much it will impact overall activity on the site.
A couple of examples for this test in action:[ul][li]The Quidditch system:
[ul][li]High amount of work required.</LI>
[li]High amount of usefulness, but to a fairly small set of users on the board.
[li]Very high impact on activity on the board (Quidditch becomes the talk of the town!).[/li][/ul]If it was just highly useful to a handful of people I probably wouldn't have done it: but its impact on board activity tipped it over the edge and made it worth my time.
This is also why the duelling system is currently a 'no' - it, too, may be highly useful to a fairly small set of users, but I'm not convinced it would have a very high impact on site activity. Which is why I'm letting you guys prove me wrong over the next several IC years by keeping duelling active.
[li]Default post-styling options:
[ul][li]Medium amount of work
[li]Low to medium amount of usefulness for medium amount of users
[li]Little to no impact on site activity[/li][/ul]This could have gone either way, since it's a medium amount of work with about a medium amount of usefulness: but it was a neat concept for me and I had more free time, so it happened.
[li](Your last suggestion) Mass clear notifications
[ul][li]Low amount of work
[li]Medium usefulness to high number of users
[li]Little to no impact on site activity[/li][/ul]Here, it being an easy enough thing producing a pretty useful effect for a number of people made it something I'd implement.
[li](This idea) Default speech-styling/quotation mark automation:
[ul][li]Medium to high amount of work
[li]Very low to low usefulness for low to medium number of users
<LI>[li]Little to no impact on site activity[/li][/ul]That breakdown, plus my very limited time around, makes this something that I just can't see investing time in.[/li][/ul]
Now the BBCode button idea (that would remove the need for auto-detection but allow for more customization) is okay, and maybe something that could happen in the future: but it's still borderline on the test and, to my mind, most people just bold/italicize speech (which is already a BBCode button) and the handful that go all out with a unique font choice or colour don't need special catering to.

I've explained this whole thing to you not to crush your idea (which I'm still open to considering the BBCode button for in the future, maybe - it's filed away in my head for now, at least) but to help you see some of the thought process from my end of things as we evaluate suggestions and maybe to help you as you come up with other ideas walk through this yourself to see if it's something that could reasonably happen on the site, or if it's too much work for too little change or impact.

Let me know if that makes sense, or if you have any questions or concerns and I'd be happy to help clarify!

All the best,

~Nick

 

[James Adams]

Nick,

My apologies for not replying to the last thread, I was under the impression that as it had been implemented, it was archived and therefore not needing of a reply. A big thank you for it though, it works perfectly.

I see, and I didn't realise that searching would search in the Topic Description as well as the Topic Title. I understand now why this would be a pointless code; i guess we just have to wait until Brandon gets round to fixing it at some point.

With the other code, i see your points - they make perfect sense having been explained to me. I understand your reasons now, and I thank you for taking a look at the suggestions anyway.

Many thanks,

James