Suggestion Better Consistency & Better Use Of Prefixes & Sorting

GuestAccount · Sep 2, 2015

My suggestions & information is in the form of an image.
Image link - https://i.imgur.com/xKPq1mx.jpg

I Apologize for the typos in my image, it was very late, which I know is not an excuse, but please be forgiving.

I believe that the overal ease-of-use of the forum can be improved by utilizing various methods, this post touches on one such method.

- - - - - - - - - -

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GamerzHell9137 · Sep 2, 2015

+ for that. It would look a lot better.

FAST6191 · Sep 2, 2015

I am not sure of the need for consistent naming as you have it there. Most of the DS sections were born out of demand (homebrew and ROM hacks used to be one) or how things shook out -- there are custom firmwares for the DS but most people only use one, if they use one at all, and there is basically nothing to configure on it. DS wifi is pretty much dead at this point, save for things like http://gbatemp.net/threads/save-nin...e-online-servers-for-ds-and-wii-games.362717/
On the other hand I am a fan of navigation similar to that (if I am floating around a Japanese forum and I figure out nds ゲームエミュレータ is dealing with nds emulation then even if I can not be bothered to properly decode some kana then gba ゲームエミュレータ is probably worth looking at. Ignoring that, some of the sections might benefit from a name rejig but I am still not convinced a harmonisation is the way forward.

I am not sure how the and, & situation came about. Probably from a longer section elsewhere in the forum. Not sure if it needs resolving or how to.

On prefixes and tags. It would be lovely if they were used. We had something similar called tags, though they functioned in pretty similar ways rather than the more blog style thing you might be envisioning, before the move to xenforo however long ago that was. The staff and a few members used them pretty extensively but... well you know how it would be nice if people loaded the dishwasher rather than leaving things on the side? I would heavily oppose a move to make it mandatory, to say nothing of having to reclassify the years of existing stuff (just splitting the computer section up a few months back and moving threads around was a pain, I can not imagine this will be easier). If you are running a small forum or a blog with dedicated authors/fiddlers then prefixes/tags are great but not for a large general forum with members of the public posting.

On the prefix colours thing then looking at the css it looks pretty similar where it can be (the .prefix.prefixSilver having a changed font colour for readability reasons), however this is a making things look pretty situation so I will leave it. Though I did change it to Fixed and black text and it looked OK.

Xenon Hacks · Sep 2, 2015

Makes finding threads and filtering trash much easier, have my vote on this.

GuestAccount · Sep 2, 2015

FAST6191 said:
I am not sure of the need for consistent naming as you have it there. Most of the DS sections were born out of demand (homebrew and ROM hacks used to be one) or how things shook out -- there are custom firmwares for the DS but most people only use one, if they use one at all, and there is basically nothing to configure on it. DS wifi is pretty much dead at this point, save for things like http://gbatemp.net/threads/save-nin...e-online-servers-for-ds-and-wii-games.362717/
On the other hand I am a fan of navigation similar to that (if I am floating around a Japanese forum and I figure out nds ゲームエミュレータ is dealing with nds emulation then even if I can not be bothered to properly decode some kana then gba ゲームエミュレータ is probably worth looking at. Ignoring that, some of the sections might benefit from a name rejig but I am still not convinced a harmonisation is the way forward.

I am not sure how the and, & situation came about. Probably from a longer section elsewhere in the forum. Not sure if it needs resolving or how to.

On prefixes and tags. It would be lovely if they were used. We had something similar called tags, though they functioned in pretty similar ways rather than the more blog style thing you might be envisioning, before the move to xenforo however long ago that was. The staff and a few members used them pretty extensively but... well you know how it would be nice if people loaded the dishwasher rather than leaving things on the side? I would heavily oppose a move to make it mandatory, to say nothing of having to reclassify the years of existing stuff (just splitting the computer section up a few months back and moving threads around was a pain, I can not imagine this will be easier). If you are running a small forum or a blog with dedicated authors/fiddlers then prefixes/tags are great but not for a large general forum with members of the public posting.

On the prefix colours thing then looking at the css it looks pretty similar where it can be (the .prefix.prefixSilver having a changed font colour for readability reasons), however this is a making things look pretty situation so I will leave it. Though I did change it to Fixed and black text and it looked OK.

I'm not sure what your post is trying to convey, this forum can be better organized, the features exist to sort & categorize items within it.

FAST6191 said:
I am not sure of the need for consistent naming as you have it there

Why should names no be consistent? What is your argument against something that seems extremely logical.

FAST6191 said:
Most of the DS sections were born out of demand

Of course, does that suddenly mean they cannot be changed? The initial URL of such sections would not change, so broken links or whatever you're getting at would not occur due to the suggested changes. Old tagless threads could be tagged, not never tagged. The important thing is to start organizing NEW threads using sorting tags.

FAST6191 said:
decode some kana then gba ゲームエミュレータ

What? Relevancy?

FAST6191 said:
I am not sure how the and

What?

FAST6191 said:
On the prefix colours thing then looking at the css it looks pretty similar where it can be (the .prefix.prefixSilver having a changed font colour for readability reasons), however this is a making things look pretty situation so I will leave it. Though I did change it to Fixed and black text and it looked OK.

Do you not understand that css class names can be anything? Making changes to the css files would be easy & take nearly no time. The only defining factor is organization & consistency
tag.games {
}
taggold {
}
etc

FAST6191 said:
well you know how it would be nice if people loaded the dishwasher rather than leaving things on the side? I would heavily oppose a move to make it mandatory

Absolutely the most ridiculous statement in your entire post.
The changes suggested require initial work.
Furthermore you are not the person who would be performing that work, why do you care how much work it is.
Of course it would be "mandatory", it makes no sense to make it optional.

You've lost me entirely.
Your arguments & reasoning are terrible, or, at the very least, all over the place & weak.

I've done website work for many years, I could make these improvements in less than a day, including improvements which have no been mentioned within my thread.

What is holding GBATemp back is the fatal flaw of being unable to quick & easily find what you're looking for. The overall readability of the website is also severely lacking in quality.

FAST6191 · Sep 2, 2015

noirstronaut is that you?

Anyway yes the forum probably could be better organised and there is always room for improvement, likewise I could have expounded further upon points rather than implying things. Back on topic your example made the 3ds and DS sections the same when sections usually arise based upon demand, as you did not make any other great remarks I had to assume it was the names that were the focus. Names are anything but static but I saw no reason to mirror the 3ds section setup, specifically because the DS and 3ds have taken somewhat different paths in their approach to hacking. Maybe 3ds homebrew dev and emulators could be made to match the ds emulation and homebrew style, however nds flash carts and custom firmwares makes very little sense beyond appeasing some kind of OCD from where I sit.

"decode some kana then gba ゲームエミュレータ...
"What?""
That was one of the few things I could think of that would be in favour of homogenising the section names (make life slightly easier for the significant portion of the userbase that does not have English as a first language-- if I know GBA ゲームエミュレータ means GBA emulation then DS ゲームエミュレータ will probably mean DS emulation, no need to even know kana). For those not so familiar with English to help navigation a bit, it is a weak justification though.

On the CSS thing I was just pointing out an example of the code changing and if someone else wanted to play along at home, nothing to do with the coding style choices.

Old threads could be tagged, it is a maintenance nightmare though and from experience not enough will bother to use the thing and then nobody uses a half working feature (see also things like a bad search is almost worse than no search). Maybe if it is timed properly and maybe a few years down the line it will good enough but it will take me to convince me here, of course I am not the one implementing it but hey.

"Absolutely the most ridiculous statement in your entire post."
It is called an analogy, granted it is usually an attempt at humour rather than something in a marginally technical discussion but I have to do something to spice these sorts of discussions up for myself. In this case like how it would be nice if people would put things in the dishwasher but it never happens (if it does for you then congratulations, you live in a better household than most I ever meet) then tagging would be nice but nobody really does it. Also the part after the question was not supposed to be read as a continuation of the previous sentence. The idea was that if nobody does it then the next thing people say is "make it mandatory" and making barriers to posting is a bad idea -- the fewer "non necessary" interactions made the better things work. It is why anti spam measures do not include a little challenge or something for each post and instead the mods shoulder more work. It can work in smaller sites, sites with greater post turnover (a ROM is a ROM and thus a 5 year old thread often has info in it just as good as the day it was made).

"I am not sure how the and & thing came about"
One of your points seemed to be the mixed use of the & symbol and the word and to join section titles together. I was saying I do not know how that came about, theorising that it was probably a copy and paste job from a longer section title that benefited from something slightly short. Mind you I have not really seen style guides discourage mixing the concepts.

GuestAccount · Sep 3, 2015

FAST6191 said:
It is called an analogy, granted it is usually an attempt at humor

I was not referring to your attempt at humor, I understand fully what you meant, but you're implying that what is being asked for, a little organization & text changes, is too much.
Which is nonsense. It is hardly anything at all to request such small changes.

I will say that the use of consistency in the wording is a separate issue entirely & not nearly as important as using "tags" or prefixes to help organize & sort the forum.
Finding a specific help topic or download is much harder than it needs to be. It could very wll be the cause of lower user activity.

I understand being a "reporter" rather than a normal user, you have to side with the staff rather than users. Even if your argument is very weak.

FAST6191 said:
noirstronaut is that you?

I've learned my lesson when people begin to accuse me of being someone else because of my responses.
I can assure you, whoever you think I am, I'm not.
Such accusations have had me banned before.
So i'm choosing to end the conversation we're having.

tbb043 · Sep 3, 2015

If you don't want people assuming you're someone else's alt, maybe making big board change suggestions on an account less than a week old with just a handful of posts isn't the way to discourage such thoughts.

GuestAccount · Sep 3, 2015

tbb043 said:
If you don't want people assuming you're someone else's alt, maybe making big board change suggestions on an account less than a week old with just a handful of posts isn't the way to discourage such thoughts.

Excuse me? How did you draw that conclusion?
A suggestion thread suddenly means I have an alternate account?
All I can say is you're mistaken.

So I could be an evil angry genius on some random alternate account
going to destroy GBATemp
and my secret plan is...
to make a thread with suggestions to improve the forum!
ITS BRILLIANT, A FLAWLESS MASTER PLAN! ITS SO DIABOLICAL!

FAST6191 · Sep 3, 2015

The text changes and shuffling is fine and as far as I could tell we were having a discussion about the merits of various suggestions made. My issue that warranted the analogy was the prefix/tag stuff -- I can install a blog software that rivals anything else out there in a day or so, hours for something that'll do, however finding content and readers is somewhat harder and I foresee issues of similar magnitude, and without even the added bonus of build it and they will come. You say my arguments are weak, and such things are far from impossible, but I do try to at least base things on experiences of myself and others that have gone through it or something very similar. If I could wave a magic wand and have enough topics tagged to make it all work then I absolutely would call for it, said magic wand is going to take the form of an awful lot of work though and that means we get to consider whether it is worth the effort when there are many other things that are already in the pipeline or will crop up as a result of it.

I side with nobody other than the ones that want to keep GBAtemp going, as do the staff and site operators as a whole. 1 post, 10,000, 1 day, 5,000 days, staff or not staff.. it matters so very little as anybody can have a good idea -- just today I frontpaged the results of the very first post of someone's account made just today and that is nothing odd. Naturally those that have been around and/or contributed for longer are more highly represented but that is not really unexpected.

I was not actually accusing you of being an alt at this stage (I have no suspicion, much less any evidence); it was something of an in joke for various others that might be reading. That said we have had several that seem to favour the "just some suggestions" method of stirring the pot, and it is a logical follow on from a lot of stuff covered in https://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm .

GuestAccount · Sep 3, 2015

FAST6191 said:
post

Look, current topics are not tagged, they cannot be sorted unless someone manually applies tags to categorize them.
However, when creating new topics, the user can be forced to select a prefix/tag, which is then used for sorting purposes, easier readability & other things I mention below in the pros section.
I'm very confident about this because as I have said before, I have ran forums, with high activity, (and websites in general, but that is beside the point)
Your mention of a magic want is silly, I could do this, you could do this, we could make the forum drastically easier to read & sort by adjusting the prefix/tag system slightly.

The Pros:
Sorting, less sections, meaning no risk of dead sections, sections seem more active, less reports & question threads, easier readability, the list goes on.

now

The Cons:
None. A bit of work, less than a day, & the process is finished. The website does not change, Everyone who loves GBATemp the way it is will still love it it. This is just an optional improvement that users may choose to use or ignore.

I'm enjoying your replies, although they are getting slightly hard to read, I guess you're tired.
I'm simply asking, what are the cons of my proposal. It has plenty of pros, what are they cons.

Thank you for your time.

FAST6191 · Sep 3, 2015

I have kind of already said why the tagging system would be hard to pull off effectively.

"Mandatory"
I already covered this. Putting such a barrier to posting is a poor idea. It would be nice if we could but I have only seen it work for places with editorial control or support forums with narrow scope. Maybe if it was a new forum section or a new forum but this is not that.

The magic wand part comes from the nightmare of having to categorise the existing posts, or at least a couple of years of them -- tags are basically a prebuilt search function and bad search functions are not something you want on a forum/site. A superfluous feature is one thing but poor searching is quite another. The missing post/search result thing kind of works at the very high end (google, facebook and co already demonstrating such things) but the effective equivalent on a forum/site is bad news every time I have seen it. If you want an example then enforce letter cases in your search and watch the complaints roll in.

The baseline implementing of the system is not the problem, I said as such, but so few things is website creation are just the software these days, especially when you have legacy data to figure into it.

GuestAccount · Sep 3, 2015

FAST6191 said:
I have kind of already said why the tagging system would be hard to pull off effectively.

Literally have pulled it off on other websites.
I don't think you know what you're talking about or have the experience needed to explain to me or anyone else what would be "hard to pull off".
Sorry. Just being honest.

puss2puss · Sep 9, 2015

..this guy have a serious issue with people who doesnt agree with his ideas/opinions..

..Damn i wish his presentation thread was still there so that people can see better how he is..

He's like ''i have an idea, and if you dont agree its because you dont know what you're talking about! I dont want to continue this conversation with you."

Let me guess, you will give an answer to each phrase i said? Or you're gonna say that you dont want to continue talking about this? Oh wait, are you gonna get subtily-rude and say that i'm the one who feels insulted? Thats what you did in your other thread anyway..

You feel attacked when someone disagree with you, but still, you come on public forums to share your opinions.. why cant you learn to have a better attitude toward others opinions?

Sorry if i sound rude, its not in my habbits, but you seriously prooved a bad side of you on your presentation thread, right after i wished you the welcome..

p1ngpong · Sep 9, 2015

GuestAccount said:
Excuse me? How did you draw that conclusion?
A suggestion thread suddenly means I have an alternate account?
All I can say is you're mistaken.

So I could be an evil angry genius on some random alternate account
going to destroy GBATemp
and my secret plan is...
to make a thread with suggestions to improve the forum!
ITS BRILLIANT, A FLAWLESS MASTER PLAN! ITS SO DIABOLICAL!

First off I am not at all opposed to the changes you are suggesting, they make sense and shouldn't be too difficult to pull off if Costello is for the idea.

I should tag him and Tj so they can take a look at your thread @Costello and @tj_cool

Secondly don't get all defensive and patronizing when people wonder who the fuck you are. You have obviously put some effort and thought into this and if you don't have some kind of a history here why would you even care about these kind of details? So rather than hiding behind an alternate account and obnoxious responses why don't you just tell us who you are. You can even PM me your identity if you like, if you have been banned before don't worry about it we might give you a second chance here if you are sincere and have changed your ways.

GuestAccount · Sep 25, 2015

p1ngpong said:
Secondly don't get all defensive and patronizing when people wonder who the fuck you are.

I should, because I don't know any of you people & suddenly I'm "someone who needs to tell you I've changed my ways? I don't know you or any of the people here. This has been a big discouraging event. I don't really feel like posting anymore now due to being labeled as some secret evil pretender that needs to change my ways. Absolutely ridiculous.

I
AM
NOT
SOMEONE
YOU KNOW

I'm just a knowledgeable person who wanted to help.

Why don't you tell me who you think I am?

p1ngpong · Sep 25, 2015

GuestAccount said:
Why don't you tell me who you think I am?

I am past caring who you are in all honesty.

Thanks for the help.

GuestAccount · Sep 25, 2015

p1ngpong said:
I am past caring who you are in all honesty.

Thanks for the help.

Yeah back then when I made this post some of you treated me like like an enemy for no reason. An apology would be nice. I know I won't get it though. So whatever.

p1ngpong · Sep 25, 2015

GuestAccount said:
Yeah back then when I made this post some of you treated me like like an enemy for no reason. An apology would be nice. I know I won't get it though. So whatever.

Sorry about that.

GuestAccount · Sep 25, 2015

p1ngpong said:
Sorry about that.

Thanks. Everyone makes mistakes, some people just make alot more than others.

Suggestion Better Consistency & Better Use Of Prefixes & Sorting

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