mctrivia: morbid thought

emmett: programmer can only push so hard before a rest period.

A few things I've learned as a programmer:
1. Users ALWAYS want MORE.
2. A simple feature will always mushroom to a complex one.
3. There are no such things as bugs...only unwanted features!
4. Users HATE waiting for a new feature.
5. Users think they deserve to know the developer's Timeline/Schedule.
6. Timelines/Schedules are an "estimate" because Developement is creativity.
7. Developers make poor Users because they *think* they know how easy/quick a feature is to add.
8. The Developer knows what's best for the User


One thing I will say for Fencer. His site is remarkably free.

> One thing I will say for Fencer. His site is remarkably free.

Summertop: I agree 100% -- oops: rounding error

I just spent a lot of time looking at the fellowships. It has been suggested that they get organized alphabetically. That didn't happen, and I guess I can see some reasons why that isn't helpful. So another way that we could organize the fellowships is in order of the number of members, with the most popular fellowships at the top...

-One added perk to this idea is it might instigate fellowships to try and get more members so that they move higher up the list.
-Also, it will save us from having to wade through a lot of two and three member fellowships. I noticed several inactive fellowships (where the members or Big Boss has not logged in in over 30 days).
15 out of the 49 fellowships on the first page alone are inactive.

emmett: The fellowships are sorted by date.

On the ranking charts, I'm sure some would find usefull to have the possibility to chalange a player on the spot. Same like paying members have at discussion boards: after the player's name there's an icon to send him/her a message and then another icon to challenge for a game - this is what I'm talking about.

I think it makes much more sense to have the possibility to chalenge someone whose ranking you're looking at and comparing to your own than it does having that feature at discussion boards. So if it's here, why not there? ;)

joshi tm: I know that the fellowships are sorted by date. That doesn't help, because it is the older ones that are more likely to become inactive sooner. Like I said, 15 out of 49 fellowships on the first page are inactive. If we leave it at sorting it by date only, then we should have it from newest to oldest, with the newest ones at the top.
But I still think it is better to sort them by most popular at the top...

emmett: Maybe the list should be cleaned up by somekind of mod....

joshi tm: emmett makes a very good point. The list of fellowships is cumbersome, and in dire need of revamping. I've tried myself a few times to go through it to find those that might be interesting, but I got very frustrated after a few pages. Many are dormant, if not downright dead, and should be deleted or archived. Sure, it's a big cleanup job, but it should be done for the benefit of the membership.

Listing by size would not be of any particular use. Most of the active ones have enough incentive to swell their ranks as it is, and some are deliberately small yet vibrant.

Pioneer54: I think its a grand idea to archive 'dead' ones. Where the BB is now a pawn and there is no activity.. Maybe if FS's were listed by activity? The first in the list would be one with the most traffic?

i totally agree. i have even looked at a fellowship where over half the members haven't logged in well over a month.

emmett: as the fellowships are sorted now its easy to see the new ones , once you have looked through the list once its then easy enough to find the latest ones created , any other method would make new fellowships harder to find .

Jason: Unless the newest ones were displayed first...

I like Rose's idea about sorting by traffic, but I don't know how to measure that... by the previous day?....

emmett: How about just using the number of messages writen times a multiplier:

I.E:
messages writen in last x hours multiply by:
0 to 24 : x10
24 to 48 : x8
48 to 96 : x5
96 to 168 : x3
168 to 672 : x1
672 to 2016 : x0.5
2016 to 8766 : x0.1

mctrivia: I think I understand why you suggest a multiplier. It doesn't take into account those who visit a fellowship without posting any messages, though.

In the end, I am hoping for any kind of organization for the fellowship page. This all points in the direction of improving the fellowship experience in general. What I would really like to see is a list of team rankings that include wins and participation for team matches and tournaments for each type of game, and any other statistics that can be mustered. I love the idea of team play, and I think it can be improved on this site.

emmett: true though you could add another table for views also.

mctrivia: By views, do you mean the number of times someone views a link?

emmett: yes. though more acuretly number of people that view the fellowship board.

I think that that sort of sort would work quite well. I can imagine some reclusive egotist with himself as the only member of his fellowship returning to it again and again for hours trying to boost its visibility up the list. Another good reason why I should never start a fellowship :)

Some features that would be nice to cut down on needed bandwidth. Of course all of these options should be optional at users discretion:

1) On boards show only messages that are marked new or are part of the chain of messages marked new.
2) Remove the move and goto specific game
3) Limit number of games in the game list window to x number of games

emmett: lol, start one all else did

emmett: True that way I can't write a PHP script on my server to log on to just for pawns and me 20000 times a minute and have it always at the top.

mctrivia: on your number 3 are you referring to the main page? That already exists

Could - just like in Battleboats - the information on how good our guess was (the black and white pins) be updated immediately after we made the move instead of when the opponent enters the room? We could use the "stay here" option then instead of waiting until the game comes back to us.

Gordon Shumway:
Read Logik (AbigailII, 2007-01-31 15:59:47)

Fencer: Ahhh, that makes sense :)

Could the opponent's pieces in espionage, or any dark game, have constant numbers (like a sequence, according to their start position), so that we can add notes, to what we think they are according to a number. It's not to easy to keep notes, of a piece that is still moving

When a tournament goes past it's start time, and does not have enough players - it goes into extra time.

What happens is if the minimum players sign up, the tournament start process will start - BUT if one of those players don't have enough room, they are removed from the tournament and then the tournament is deleted!

Is there a way to put a check in there that if a player is removed from a tournament because they don't have enough space, that the tournament is NOT deleted and just simple put back into the tournament waiting list.

BIG BAD WOLF: Yeah, I noticed that too, and I was planning to ask for this as well.

pauloaguia: OK your right number 3 is already done I just didn't see it in the options.

mctrivia: Actually it's not exactly done. You've asked for X number of games, and as it is now, you have pre-determined options. One could be able to choose any number of games to show up

If I have someone as a friend, and that person also has me as a friend, can we override the 'cloak mode' on the friends page? Better yet, we could set a button to do so in the settings page. I know it is a small thing, but it is sometimes nice to know what a friend is doing, that is, if they allow you to see 'through the cloak'!

rednaz23:  I like that idea.  something like: disable cloak mode for friends  ;)

Gr☺uch☺: Why not just "disable cloak mode"

pgt:  that's right....for friends  ;)

Gr☺uch☺: Isn't everybody a friend?

I found out today that there is a link on profiles to see the messages a user has posted in public foruns (it's probably there for ages... but I only found it now).
So I got curious and started looking at some more profiles to compare people in the category Who is the biggest spammer?
If it's not too much trouble to code, it would be nice to have the total messages posted shown somewhere in that page too.

pauloaguia: Lol nice one :)

pgt: No, my general rule is that if you have cloak on you are not a friend.

grenv: Almost everyone is my friend. I hope anyway. LOL I had my cloak off for a long time. Then when I visited a couple fellowships here and saw ccp of places people were visiting, posted. That is when I went to cloak. If you have a cloak it doesn't mean you are not a friend. Unless you try to make something of it like now. My opinion only

Gordon Shumway: I like the idea as well... it wouldnt have to declare you the winner right away, nothing would have to change how a draw or a win is determined, just because we can see the results of our latest guess! Sometimes we have spent a lot of time making a guess, and our mind is fresh on the logic we are using behind it.It is helpful to know straight away how we did, and be able to take some time right then to figure our next play (if we indeed get one) or to know that we have solved out part and no need to toll over it anymore! Its stinks when you get a turn back after many days, and you have to try to figure out what the heck is going on all over again! Like I said, nothing would have to change as far as who wins or not to do this!

This request is if two members are friends of each other to be able to see what the other is doing instead of the cloak mode.

Meaning if you are not my friend, you will automatically see me in cloak mode, but if we are both friends of each other, then we will see what the other is doing, if that friend had that option turned to on.

I don't think this would be too difficult to program, but it is a minor thing anyways... I think it would be nice, I like going to my friends page and seeing if any are on my games, discussing something on a D.B., etc. That is, if they have they button turned to on...

Here is another request...

Go to next tourney game



This is one I wish we had!!!

This is just an idea...

Could you list the top visited public boards and then another one for the top visited fellowship boards?

That would be cool to see who tops the list!!

Wondering what are the most wanted requests (apart from autopass)

Some examples:
1) showing which backgammon piece on the bar is of what type (I would expect many votes for this)
2) team match - discerning (by italics for example) finished/unfinished game
3) random game color
4) possibility (button/link) to turn around game boards (especially useful for ships)
5) poll about most wanted requests :)

Harassed: 1)

Harassed: To be able to see my results in a logik game turn even though the result is not yet counted ...

then #1

Harassed: 1 and 3, then 4.

Actually, rather than showing race pieces as a different type of piece on the bar, I think it would be better to show them as standard pieces in another location, such as an extra column to one side of the board. But in any case there needs to be some way to distinguish them.

Harassed: 1) is long overdue. It makes Backgammon Race, Crowded Backgammon and Cloning Backgammon much harder to play then necessary. 3) would be nice, and the other features I'd never use.