Possible forum upgrades

[Kloaked Spirit]

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=249460

Any features that you like? Dislike? Think that we could possibly modify? Other random suggestions while we're in the upgrade mood?

We were also looking to possibly add this feature (link below) into the forum as well:

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?threadid=159151

[the squid of despair]

That casino is a must! Please do that ASAP! Since we're giving ideas, how about cubbies :p

Any chance at a store where we can buy forum upgrades?

[Dymond]

I gotta go with Squid.. The Casino would rule!

[KACK]

maybe we could get rep back.

a casino would show my great losing money skills.

[holy shit]

sometype of audio... maybe choices of havin different music while we are in here... or maybe smilies and such with funny comments... would definitely make this place more interesting... hell we can swear as much as we like i wouldn't mind hearing it... maybe teh option of adding your voice in where messages would go... i have no idea if it can even be done but would be fun.

[Santo]

For the sake of work safe enviorment, say no to loud smileys.. The casino is something that would completly make us forget about the hated SB :P and it's long overdue.

[the squid of despair]

For the sake of work safe enviorment, say no to loud smileys.. The casino is something that would completly make us forget about the hated SB :P and it's long overdue.


No one even uses the shoutbox...

[holy shit]

For the sake of work safe enviorment, say no to loud smileys.. The casino is something that would completly make us forget about the hated SB :P and it's long overdue.


i agree with you but i am sure a mute button could be added if voice and sounds were possible

[hoos]

A Casino would be great idea. The ultimate poker champ can be found once and for all.

[Jacx]

sometype of audio... maybe choices of havin different music while we are in here... or maybe smilies and such with funny comments... would definitely make this place more interesting... hell we can swear as much as we like i wouldn't mind hearing it... maybe teh option of adding your voice in where messages would go... i have no idea if it can even be done but would be fun.

media is being talked about, but slightly seperate from the forum..will update another time after some negotiations are complete.

[Aeon]

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=249460

Any features that you like? Dislike? Think that we could possibly modify? Other random suggestions while we're in the upgrade mood?

We were also looking to possibly add this feature (link below) into the forum as well:

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?threadid=159151


I really like the idea of having a uploadable photo albums for users...

[Spork!!!]

Maybe a "special premium section" to give ppl. another reson to send $ to Rit. Could have "cubbies" and maybe even games/lucky draw prizes for said cubbies, tokens or codes available only to prem. acc. holders there.

[Tca]

i don't like the spam feature they're gonna add :eh:

[Uganja]

i like the look of 3.7... some really useful features.

I take it you'll be upgrading to that version regardless? Thus all the additional features are included?
Interesting to see them go down the social networking route, can only be a good thing i guess... I agree with Eryn, i like the photo album part, also the AJAX implementation for attached images and auto rescaling, thats useful. The ability to give your thread a prefix is also cool.

Is there a reason why rep was disabled in the first place? I personally think thats missed quite badly from here.....

[Puppy Dogs and Ice Cream]

what might be cool since people were talking bout audio, would be to have like "oddthought radio" and have certain people host certain segments. for example i could do an old school hip hop show for like 2 hours on a friday or an all day tribute t natasha bedingfield(my future wife) someone that likes metal can do a metal show that forum users could listen too while browsing forum or aruing in the shitbox. its something that ist hard to do and can be done seperate of the upgrade

[Jacx]

its called soundcast tung...im negotiating on it already... i got a few people who say they are happy to do 2 hour slots a week.

But till im sure of whats what the idea is great, its already being worked on..but it depends on some factors.

keep em coming people.

[Puppy Dogs and Ice Cream]

ohh the casino i vote for also lol

[Asshole]

did the casino even have poker??

and we all know unless its your own money you play it stupidly.. i want a vbookie section, with more vbookie events and more vcash, the current rate is too slow, will the casino tie in with vcash ?

[Jacx]

yes i believe it does

[Puppy Dogs and Ice Cream]

can we get a skin with natasha bedingfield on it

[the squid of despair]

did the casino even have poker??

and we all know unless its your own money you play it stupidly.. i want a vbookie section, with more vbookie events and more vcash, the current rate is too slow, will the casino tie in with vcash ?


From what I read the casino will opperate with vcash. If you lose all your vcash, you need to make more to play again. With that said, I think it will be a bit more competitive/conservative.

[Dymond]

Damn..

Here it goes and it hurts alot to say this.. But I do like tungs idea for the shoutcast style programming. I might even help him put his together since we know alot of old skool hip hop.

[hoos]

did the casino even have poker??

and we all know unless its your own money you play it stupidly.. i want a vbookie section, with more vbookie events and more vcash, the current rate is too slow, will the casino tie in with vcash ?


^^^vote him to be THE vBookie for Oddthought atm^^^

Seems that would be a good thing to do now....

[Kloaked Spirit]

i like the look of 3.7... some really useful features.

I take it you'll be upgrading to that version regardless? Thus all the additional features are included?
Interesting to see them go down the social networking route, can only be a good thing i guess... I agree with Eryn, i like the photo album part, also the AJAX implementation for attached images and auto rescaling, thats useful. The ability to give your thread a prefix is also cool.

Is there a reason why rep was disabled in the first place? I personally think thats missed quite badly from here.....

1) I'm pretty certain that we will upgrade to it regardless, and the features are going to be in that version. The final word is on Jacx/Rit/Tim but I'm pretty certain that it's happening. However, since they'll be working on upgrading the forum, they could possibly remove a feature that is really unnecessary or maybe modify it to better suit our needs.

2) Rep was something that we wondered about keeping because it was only being used by cliques to increase each other's rep. While that by itself isn't so bad, the fact was that the higher your rep was, the more influence you had on repping others. So one negative rep by someone with 5000+ rep outweighed the 40 or 50 separate people with 500 rep who may have given positive rep. It was disabled for good because it wasn't being compatible with the current version of the forum. We could easily consider having it come back though.

[Uganja]

fair enough actually, I can understand the rep thing, the way it works currently is pretty ridiculous....

Is there any way you can manipulate the rep application variables in order to reduce that impact? or do you have zero control over it? because if that could somehow be regulated so all people have the same ability to increase/decrease others reputation - regardless of their existing "rep status".. I think that would benefit the social dynamic of the forum quite alot. I personally miss being able to show my gratitude for a decent thread or funny comment

i'm assuming because you've already bought the user licence for vbulletin that 3.7 comes free of charge and all you need to do is install it on the server (correct?).... so then once given the nod by the rest of the team the intention is to install all the mods that come with it and then have a vote of what people think should be removed after? or the other way round?

[Dymond]

1) I'm pretty certain that we will upgrade to it regardless, and the features are going to be in that version. The final word is on Jacx/Rit/Tim but I'm pretty certain that it's happening. However, since they'll be working on upgrading the forum, they could possibly remove a feature that is really unnecessary or maybe modify it to better suit our needs.

2) Rep was something that we wondered about keeping because it was only being used by cliques to increase each other's rep. While that by itself isn't so bad, the fact was that the higher your rep was, the more influence you had on repping others. So one negative rep by someone with 5000+ rep outweighed the 40 or 50 separate people with 500 rep who may have given positive rep. It was disabled for good because it wasn't being compatible with the current version of the forum. We could easily consider having it come back though.

I actually went out with the #1 rep before you guys removed it but honestly what you said was spot on KS. It really was about cliques and popularity. Only reason I got so much was because I'm dead sexy... and helped alot of people with computer problems.. hmm probably more of the second.

[Kloaked Spirit]

fair enough actually, I can understand the rep thing, the way it works currently is pretty ridiculous....

Is there any way you can manipulate the rep application variables in order to reduce that impact? or do you have zero control over it? because if that could somehow be regulated so all people have the same ability to increase/decrease others reputation - regardless of their existing "rep status".. I think that would benefit the social dynamic of the forum quite alot. I personally miss being able to show my gratitude for a decent thread or funny comment

We do have control over the variables. However I feel we never got it to a point where it could be used for its intent without getting abused heavily by those in the clique or from multi use. I'm sure we could probably work something out with the variables if we bring it back, since the message feature about it was nice.

i'm assuming because you've already bought the user licence for vbulletin that 3.7 comes free of charge and all you need to do is install it on the server (correct?).... so then once given the nod by the rest of the team the intention is to install all the mods that come with it and then have a vote of what people think should be removed after? or the other way round?

This will be a question that Jacx/Tim/Rit would have more of a complete answer for, so I can't say anything about that with 100% certainty. If history is any indication, my guess is they either have it or plan on getting it very soon. Then they'll probably install everything for 3.7, leave it for you all to test out, and then take suggestions on what to tweak and/or eliminate while they're in the mood to upgrade.

[Stinger]

I like all of the ideas regarding sound...smilies, music hours, and voice clips...with the "mute" feature of course. Bring back rep with the aforementioned restrictions. I was not here for the "original" cubbies, but I thought they were fun for the brief time they appeared in rerun status.

Keep the Shoutbox for those who DO enjoy using it. The others have the ability to close that feature, so it really shouldn't bother anyone.

If the casino is to be played with "play money" it could be tied into the arcade, and you could earn "points" for play by getting good scores on the other games as well. Maybe there could be a daily limit per game (number of plays or amount of V-Money) or something...? You could also offer a "Game of the Day" that would earn double points. Just a thought.

[Jacx]

fair enough actually, I can understand the rep thing, the way it works currently is pretty ridiculous....

Is there any way you can manipulate the rep application variables in order to reduce that impact? or do you have zero control over it? because if that could somehow be regulated so all people have the same ability to increase/decrease others reputation - regardless of their existing "rep status".. I think that would benefit the social dynamic of the forum quite alot. I personally miss being able to show my gratitude for a decent thread or funny comment

i'm assuming because you've already bought the user licence for vbulletin that 3.7 comes free of charge and all you need to do is install it on the server (correct?).... so then once given the nod by the rest of the team the intention is to install all the mods that come with it and then have a vote of what people think should be removed after? or the other way round?

Rep yes will come back with any change assuming vb is the standard we stick to which i assume it is, im under the understanding its more stable now.


No 3.7 is not free, when u buy a product like this, they use a licence system, we got a years worth of free upgrades with the licence we had, but thats now out of date so its a re buy.

We do have control over the variables. However I feel we never got it to a point where it could be used for its intent without getting abused heavily by those in the clique or from multi use. I'm sure we could probably work something out with the variables if we bring it back, since the message feature about it was nice.



This will be a question that Jacx/Tim/Rit would have more of a complete answer for, so I can't say anything about that with 100% certainty. If history is any indication, my guess is they either have it or plan on getting it very soon. Then they'll probably install everything for 3.7, leave it for you all to test out, and then take suggestions on what to tweak and/or eliminate while they're in the mood to upgrade.

What the man said...however any changes will be in conjunction with a possible revamp of the site. Basically assume the upgrade will happen regardless at some point.


I like all of the ideas regarding sound...smilies, music hours, and voice clips...with the "mute" feature of course. Bring back rep with the aforementioned restrictions. I was not here for the "original" cubbies, but I thought they were fun for the brief time they appeared in rerun status.

Keep the Shoutbox for those who DO enjoy using it. The others have the ability to close that feature, so it really shouldn't bother anyone.

If the casino is to be played with "play money" it could be tied into the arcade, and you could earn "points" for play by getting good scores on the other games as well. Maybe there could be a daily limit per game (number of plays or amount of V-Money) or something...? You could also offer a "Game of the Day" that would earn double points. Just a thought.



Problem with the casino products for the forums are that they suck, they lag and cannot be currently cross compatible with the arcade system as the arcade is actually a addon itself.

Todays test showed me one major issue...ajax as wonderfull as people make out, gets very jumpy when too many applications are using it, todays fun actually crashed the forum, becuase the test run of the casino did not work well with the shoutbox running at the same time.

However rit gave me a nudge to look deeper into poker stuff, maybe we can do something in a few months.

[hoos]

Rep yes will come back with any change assuming vb is the standard we stick to which i assume it is, im under the understanding its more stable now.


No 3.7 is not free, when u buy a product like this, they use a licence system, we got a years worth of free upgrades with the licence we had, but thats now out of date so its a re buy.



What the man said...however any changes will be in conjunction with a possible revamp of the site. Basically assume the upgrade will happen regardless at some point.



Problem with the casino products for the forums are that they suck, they lag and cannot be currently cross compatible with the arcade system as the arcade is actually a addon itself.

Todays test showed me one major issue...ajax as wonderfull as people make out, gets very jumpy when too many applications are using it, todays fun actually crashed the forum, becuase the test run of the casino did not work well with the shoutbox running at the same time.

However rit gave me a nudge to look deeper into poker stuff, maybe we can do something in a few months.

If you ever need a tester for volume, give me a holler. And the poker stuff does look good, but as Asshole(?) stated, we need to tie in the money you use to some sort of penalty. Like you get 500 vcash a month, but that's it. That's all you get is 500 for the whole month. I'm going to start a diff thread about the poker, so we can not have 4 different running topics in one thread...

[Asshole]

More vbookie!

[Calienta]

what might be cool since people were talking bout audio, would be to have like "oddthought radio" and have certain people host certain segments. for example i could do an old school hip hop show for like 2 hours on a friday or an all day tribute t natasha bedingfield(my future wife) someone that likes metal can do a metal show that forum users could listen too while browsing forum or aruing in the shitbox. its something that ist hard to do and can be done seperate of the upgrade

So would this type thing be just music that the user has selected to play or do they actually have to speak into a mic or something? If all the person does is choose songs for 2 hours or so then I'd be interested in contributing but if you have to actually sit there and speak then I wouldn't lol.

[Puppy Dogs and Ice Cream]

would all depend on how the person chose to do there 2 hours i woud guess... i think it would be more entertaining having someone speak occasionally but i think however someone did it would be fine

[the squid of despair]

If we have a radio, the listeners could have chances to win forum prizes...

[Jacx]

Shoutcast is basically net radio...download winamp and u can see tons of free radio stations etc that run from sites.

Basically a media person within this site would work with people offering up 2 hour slots, so tung for example does a 2 hour set...he sets up the set on his own pc, he can do music, he can do talk stuff..hell he can record a coversation between him and another user as a interview whatever...he might just want to do rock while joe blogs on another compter is recording a RnB set. Anyway once they got 2 hours worth, they upload it to a area that we sort...our media person puts them all together.

Now that allows for 12 people to do 2 hour slots..., over the space of a week you would then be able to hear tungs 2 hour spot once each day..but at a rotated time allowing for people who can only lissen to the radio at certan times to be able to hear different people each day.


anyway..dont get too excited yet...nothing determined.

[hoos]

Shoutcast is basically net radio...download winamp and u can see tons of free radio stations etc that run from sites.

Basically a media person within this site would work with people offering up 2 hour slots, so tung for example does a 2 hour set...he sets up the set on his own pc, he can do music, he can do talk stuff..hell he can record a coversation between him and another user as a interview whatever...he might just want to do rock while joe blogs on another compter is recording a RnB set. Anyway once they got 2 hours worth, they upload it to a area that we sort...our media person puts them all together.

Now that allows for 12 people to do 2 hour slots..., over the space of a week you would then be able to hear tungs 2 hour spot once each day..but at a rotated time allowing for people who can only lissen to the radio at certan times to be able to hear different people each day.


anyway..dont get too excited yet...nothing determined.

So then someone just does a 2 hour segment, that's replayed 7 times, at different intervals during the week? It sounds like a good ideea to me. Though I'm not going to get my hopes up :cheeky:

[Dymond]

As for Shoutcast it really is like a radio program. You do your own music intros and commentary if you please or you could just put together a list of songs and play them continuously. I say we keep the bandwidth requirements low though, nothing higher than 64kb.

[Calienta]

Well I think it sounds like one friggin cool idea.

[Jacx]

ok for those that might not understand, im gonna explain how we would run shoutcast...IF it happens.

The oddthought.com channel is setup.

Persons who want to contribute will record on their own pc hour or 2 hour slots, these slots can contain music, talk about subjects that matter to you, basically things of interest to the community.

These slots will then get uploaded to a area we create. From that area a media person on our end will make a 7 playlists. So with 7 lists there is a different time allowcation each day.

Thus:

Bob creates a 2 hour slot about great bands and samples coming through myspace currently.

On monday his slot plays at 2 am

Tuesday at 6 am

Wed at 10 am

Thurs at 2 pm

Fri at 6 pm

Sat at 10 pm

Sun whenever


Point being is everyones slot gets played at a different time each day for 1 week allowing for different users who can only lissen in at spacific times to be able to hear bobs slot at some point.

[Aeon]

ok for those that might not understand, im gonna explain how we would run shoutcast...IF it happens.

The oddthought.com channel is setup.

Persons who want to contribute will record on their own pc hour or 2 hour slots, these slots can contain music, talk about subjects that matter to you, basically things of interest to the community.

These slots will then get uploaded to a area we create. From that area a media person on our end will make a 7 playlists. So with 7 lists there is a different time allowcation each day.

Thus:

Bob creates a 2 hour slot about great bands and samples coming through myspace currently.

On monday his slot plays at 2 am

Tuesday at 6 am

Wed at 10 am

Thurs at 2 pm

Fri at 6 pm

Sat at 10 pm

Sun whenever


Point being is everyones slot gets played at a different time each day for 1 week allowing for different users who can only lissen in at spacific times to be able to hear bobs slot at some point.

You know we tried this before and people just ended up quiting or not committing...
I wonder if it's not a waste of time for you.. just on that premiss

[Jacx]

it was not done by us...some users had done it on their own.

Anyway if it happens, its happening alongside some other stuff thats being talked about.

[the squid of despair]

I think the radio should be a live broadcast, very possible...

[Zeus]

I dunno if this has been brought up yet, but what if you allow cartels to have their own forum sections. Cartel leaders could moderate/police their own sections and be totally private from everyone else. I'm guessing its about as easy as just setting up class restrictions/user groups. Shouldn't be to hard and promote forum growth.

[Aeon]

I dunno if this has been brought up yet, but what if you allow cartels to have their own forum sections. Cartel leaders could moderate/police their own sections and be totally private from everyone else. I'm guessing its about as easy as just setting up class restrictions/user groups. Shouldn't be to hard and promote forum growth.


Why go to the trouble when they can make their own free forums?

Then you have to deal with "oh someone hacked my cartel's thread"
A good idea in theroy but.. I think it would cause too much headache.

[Asshole]

and bandwidth problems too if every cartel had its own page, wouldent be bad for a kind of premium service but moderators etc can automatically see every section, and as we all know its a bit competitve between some cartels, so daqq admin/mod could probably see the other cartles sections..

besides as said free forums dont have that bad bandwidth, infact its perfect for small groups of people and is probably best kept seperate, we dont want the forum slower than it is now, and poker will probably be a bit of a drain

[Kloaked Spirit]

We could make it to where only administrators would be the people other than the usergroup could see it. Since Ridge is now a super moderator, that means that no one outside of the usergroup that can see it actively plays. However, people would still believe that we'd be out to corrupt and make certain only other cartels win by giving our "friends" insider information or what not.

There's also the fact that making hidden sections and usergroups and modifying everything for every cartel section would be a low priority item. Even if we do get it all set up, the minute you needed someone added or kicked out of the group, you'd probably need staff assistance (although I'm sure there's probably ways to integrate the usergroups more in the forum.) Then there's the complete lack of customization you'd get from using the forum here. At least with a free forums you can make it reflect your cartel colors/logos/etc.

Plus the reasons already explained above are valid reasons why it wouldn't really be feasible to make that particular addition here. Now, I do know that at one point Jacx was working with the SB to make cartel only channels within the SB. I'm not sure what happened to that idea.

[Zeus]

Were is the overhead problems?, its just a few more private sections like an admin section. Its not as hard and taxing on the system as you think. Security problems wont be much of an issue, the admins pretty much can track everything. As for the free forums, nothing worse than a bunch of flashy ads everywhere that slows everything down.

edit: to KS, posting same time but I see a point. If it can be done and advertised in conjunction with the game, it would bring some fresh faces and ideas around here.

[Asshole]

Were is the overhead problems?, its just a few more private sections like an admin section. Its not as hard and taxing on the system as you think. Security problems wont be much of an issue, the admins pretty much can track everything. As for the free forums, nothing worse than a bunch of flashy ads everywhere that slows everything down.

edit: to KS, posting same time but I see a point. If it can be done and advertised in conjunction with the game, it would bring some fresh faces and ideas around here.

while a few hidden forums might not cause an issue pay thought for a minute to the sheer amount of cartels they are, now that would cause lag, you would also constantly need staff members dealing with those sections, making new ones adding users, removing so on so on, and even moderating them,

even if you did it only for cartels that have won medals thats still a shedload more forum.. while i respect youre bringing ideas to improve the forum i think that it will just divide the conversation more, kid of like all the subsections,

Which while on point health and home aint busy enuff to have 4 subsections, why not just merge it to one slightly more active section?

[Dymond]

I agree that I think private sub forums for cartels would be better if it was a premium service. Can you imagine making a private forum for every one off cartel that has come and gone?

[Asshole]

Isnt there a way to ensure your cartel name is not used in game? like you buy the name or something?

If it is like i seem to recall, then cartels that have purchased their name should be able to buy space on the forum? but i still believe when you got 20+ hidden forums your still just taking away from the general forums, + itll slow it down even more.. which is not something we need when we have a poker app running in here, or a shoutcast program

[Puppy Dogs and Ice Cream]

in a-1 v2 last round i know there were like 80 something cartels. i think i agree with most people above that its way to much to do when its just as easy to use a free forum or otherwise for communication. even if cartels modded them themselves a staff member would constantly have to make new sections and add or remove users such as the 300 people that pull on reset night. plus actually how many cartels have the exact players frm round to round.

[Uganja]

surely splitting the forum into seperate cartel subsections will actually just have a negative effect on general forum usage?


isn't the idea of forum improvements to make this place a bit busier?

I'll be honest, i'm not keen on the idea

[Asshole]

I severley dislike the idea, free forums are better for cartels..

imagine the uproar if the wron member was added to the wrong section.. what dramarama..


on second thoughts..

[odd th0mas]

can we get a skin with natasha bedingfield on it

i'd offer up my skin for her to jump on!