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It's on my list of things and has been discussed in the Archive feature/request thread. The code for viewing reviews you've left is jumbled with code for leaving reviews and viewing reviews on a story. Messing with the UI for sorting/filtering and even just making a new order and group output is less straightforward than I'd like. Generally, this is on my list of things to change but isn't a quick one off adjustment to make. 

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I don't know if anyone else is having this problem, or if it's just my dumb little iPhone's mistake, but whenever I'm on mobile, I can't see the time/date of people's posts. There's just like a blank spot where the time/date used to be (I think this problem happened once the forums were updated?) and though it's not like a major problem or anything, it just keeps throwing me off a bit. :P

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10 minutes ago, just.a.willow.tree said:

I don't know if anyone else is having this problem, or if it's just my dumb little iPhone's mistake, but whenever I'm on mobile, I can't see the time/date of people's posts. There's just like a blank spot where the time/date used to be (I think this problem happened once the forums were updated?) and though it's not like a major problem or anything, it just keeps throwing me off a bit. :P

That's just how the mobile layout is for the forum. I haven't looked to see if we can change it without getting crazy. 

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49 minutes ago, just.a.willow.tree said:

I don't know if anyone else is having this problem, or if it's just my dumb little iPhone's mistake, but whenever I'm on mobile, I can't see the time/date of people's posts. There's just like a blank spot where the time/date used to be (I think this problem happened once the forums were updated?) and though it's not like a major problem or anything, it just keeps throwing me off a bit. :P

Yup, Rose is right that it’s the way the mobile display works. IPB is built to be responsive, and the smaller your screen is, the more gets hidden (not counting stuff from plugins or applications like badges which aren’t part of the default software). You lose quite a lot on a tablet compared to a desktop and then even more going down in screen size to a phone.

I guess they think the date takes up too much room for some reason (it’s not a new thing since this last update). It bugs me too sometimes.

There is likely a way to force it to show. It would have to be an edit made to each theme individually. I’m making no promises, but I will make a note to research it further to see if I can figure it out or not.

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  • 2 months later...

Lovely Staffers!

I was just going through the badges section: the badge claim thread to be specific and just got an idea. 

I was thinking that we could automate the badge award system. I think it must take a significant amount of time of the staff in going through all the claims and making sure that correct badges are awarded to the members. 

We could automate the process and remove the overhead of the member claiming the badge and then staff assigning it.

For example, whenever a new member joins, they could automatically be given the join date badge. If the HPFT author page is attached to the user's profile, then the system can easily award the writing milestone badges.

There can even be a system generated message/notification sent to the user each time they get a new badge and they can be shown the next badge they can work towards, in each category, on their profile, all automated through the system.

I know it will be more difficult to automate in some cases as compared to others, but I'm sure we can figure a way out. I'm actually taking inspiration through a similar system on a popular tech forum Stack Overflow (M to be safe).

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I've experience with developing such stuff and can totally help with adding the feature to the site, if you guys allow me. We can start with one set of badges at a time and then complete it iteratively.

What do you think? I'm not even sure if you'd considered this before and then dropped it due to some reasons I'm not aware of, so would love to know your thoughts on this. 

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1 hour ago, SolitarySorceress said:

Lovely Staffers!

I was just going through the badges section: the badge claim thread to be specific and just got an idea. 

I was thinking that we could automate the badge award system. I think it must take a significant amount of time of the staff in going through all the claims and making sure that correct badges are awarded to the members. 

We could automate the process and remove the overhead of the member claiming the badge and then staff assigning it.

For example, whenever a new member joins, they could automatically be given the join date badge. If the HPFT author page is attached to the user's profile, then the system can easily award the writing milestone badges.

There can even be a system generated message/notification sent to the user each time they get a new badge and they can be shown the next badge they can work towards, in each category, on their profile, all automated through the system.

I know it will be more difficult to automate in some cases as compared to others, but I'm sure we can figure a way out. I'm actually taking inspiration through a similar system on a popular tech forum Stack Overflow (M to be safe).

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I've experience with developing such stuff and can totally help with adding the feature to the site, if you guys allow me. We can start with one set of badges at a time and then complete it iteratively.

What do you think? I'm not even sure if you'd considered this before and then dropped it due to some reasons I'm not aware of, so would love to know your thoughts on this. 

So to be clear, you are volunteering to code this for us and to create a bridge between forum and archive softwares? (None of us are coders...)

You're right, the badge system is kind of tedious and automation would be  cool. However, it's an application we bought, so it works the way it works, and we had no say in designing it.

Many things also I struggle to see how they would be automated...like the software doesn't know if you were named Head Student or if you judged a challenge. Are you proposing also building a way to enter that information somehow/somewhere so that the badge application looks at it and it triggers something?

If you are volunteering to be a coder for the site, please PM me, toomanycurls, and abhorsen to discuss it. There honestly are things more important than badges that could be done.

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Hi! I don't want to sound fussy, but quite a lot lately I've been noticing that email messages in threads that I am following, aren't always sent in the right order, or even in like, a 'timely' manner.

Also, is it possible to reduce the size of the 'You might also be interested in...' section in the notification emails? I know it is a good size on desktop, but often when reading my emails on my phone while I am travelling, they are absolutely massive and sometimes take up a looootttt more screen than the actual message/thread I'm trying to read.

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7 minutes ago, BlackPixie said:

Hi! I don't want to sound fussy, but quite a lot lately I've been noticing that email messages in threads that I am following, aren't always sent in the right order, or even in like, a 'timely' manner.

Also, is it possible to reduce the size of the 'You might also be interested in...' section in the notification emails? I know it is a good size on desktop, but often when reading my emails on my phone while I am travelling, they are absolutely massive and sometimes take up a looootttt more screen than the actual message/thread I'm trying to read.

The notification emails have been a bit weird since the last IBP update we had. The You Might also be interested in section is not something I've seen in the admin settings for something we can customize/config the format of. I've experienced both the issues you're describing but don't think they're issues we can easily resolve except by bugging IBP to make changes in future updates. 

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Something that I've kind of noticed with some of the newbies and myself when I've been away from a spell... it is near impossible to tell what house a lot of staff and prefects are in.  I mean I get that their title changes from house to their position but it would be nice to know what house they associate with or play with either with a tag line in signatures or something.  Or maybe at lest with the prefects they can keep their color and there be 4 prefect groups so their title would be Slytherin Prefect, Gryffindor Prefect... so on and so forth. 

 

Only frustration I can see is that there is 3 additional user groups that you have to remember when granting permissions to new forums which can be a pain - assuming that the functionality between IPBFree and all the other forums I've run function the same (ie, invisionfree, jcink, proboards, taptalk) Of course IPBFree could be a whole other beast and not have translatable skills from one forum to the other.

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12 minutes ago, scooterbug8515 said:

Something that I've kind of noticed with some of the newbies and myself when I've been away from a spell... it is near impossible to tell what house a lot of staff and prefects are in.  I mean I get that their title changes from house to their position but it would be nice to know what house they associate with or play with either with a tag line in signatures or something.  Or maybe at lest with the prefects they can keep their color and there be 4 prefect groups so their title would be Slytherin Prefect, Gryffindor Prefect... so on and so forth. 

 

Only frustration I can see is that there is 3 additional user groups that you have to remember when granting permissions to new forums which can be a pain - assuming that the functionality between IPBFree and all the other forums I've run function the same (ie, invisionfree, jcink, proboards, taptalk) Of course IPBFree could be a whole other beast and not have translatable skills from one forum to the other.

First off, I want to say I 100% see the merit in what you are suggesting.

We actually just introduced something on the newsletter/CR planning side to reduce the number of user groups that we have, because it is a pain to have so many (we already have a lot). We admins frequently get it wrong when having to create a new area or promote a new person. It really has been a pain.

Since we are just managing to make this slightly easier for ourselves, we aren’t going to be going backwards by introducing yet more user groups.

I agree it’s hard to tell. :( That’s one area where SMF was definitely better, because we could display those secondary user groups.

I am not sure if there is a feasible way to do it (signatures are hidden on mobile, but so are the profile panels)...I have looked at plugins, but we do want to minimize how many we have to reduce risk of them not being updated/remaining compatible.

It’s been a while since I’ve looked, though, so I can explore options again to see if genres anything than would work better than what I found over a year ago.

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Totally understand and get the pain.  I've made similar mistakes in my day and get you on not wanting to go backward.  Maybe something on the profile page?  I know I've clicked there when going 'now what house are you'?  I don't know how customizeable the profile page here is compared to that of say like JCink (lots of customization, if you know the right coding).  If it is easy to add a small section there then there is less concern for secondary groups or plugins.  (I don't think it is necessary to see things the second you look at the name but to get there in a click or two rather than going on a scavenger hunt would be nice) ?

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22 minutes ago, scooterbug8515 said:

Totally understand and get the pain.  I've made similar mistakes in my day and get you on not wanting to go backward.  Maybe something on the profile page?  I know I've clicked there when going 'now what house are you'?  I don't know how customizeable the profile page here is compared to that of say like JCink (lots of customization, if you know the right coding).  If it is easy to add a small section there then there is less concern for secondary groups or plugins.  (I don't think it is necessary to see things the second you look at the name but to get there in a click or two rather than going on a scavenger hunt would be nice) ?

Something on the profile page is one of the options I have in mind to explore. :thumbsup: But right now I am on my lunch break at work on a mobile device, so it'll have to wait until later.

 

 

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  • 3 months later...

I would really like it if in the reviews given area of our account on the archive, we could sort reviews we made by date order. Makes it a lot easier when going back and looking to see if someone has responded to questions you asked in the review. :)

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2 hours ago, Shadowkat678 said:

I would really like it if in the reviews given area of our account on the archive, we could sort reviews we made by date order. Makes it a lot easier when going back and looking to see if someone has responded to questions you asked in the review. :)

Totally agree - the way reviews are organized can be frustrating. @toomanycurls has this on her list of things that she'd like to do with the archive, but it's unfortunately not an easy fix, so we're not sure when (or if) it will be feasible to figure it out. :/ It is on our radar, though.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I wonder if it would be possible to add an "other sites" option to the Writer accounts box in members forum profiles, I belong to a couple that are not listed and would like to include them there. Another like would be to be able to link to my Forum profile from my Archive one if that is possible. I have no expertise to know how easy these ideas would be, it is also entirely possible that they can already be done and I have missed it, in which case my apologies for troubling you unnecessarily, but if they aren't I hope you will consider them for addition.
Tgfoy 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I was just wishing we an option as add stories on the archives to our Reading List (in the same way as favorite story).  No idea if this is possible, feasible, etc, but I haven't seen it mentioned so I'm just putting the idea out there. :) 

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  • 1 month later...

Is it possible to change editing permissions for a specific subforum?

I was wondering in particular if we could grant members the ability to edit the first post of topics they create in the Writer's Journals subforum. I see that a lot of people use their first post as sort of an introduction to their stories, but as they add more stories, they then have to ask a mod to update the initial post (or else just leave it "out of date") and reply to their own WJ below.

 

I know there are a lot of previous suggestions still under advisement, so no worries if this isn't possible/isn't a priority! ;)  Keep up the great work, Staff!

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8 hours ago, Renacerá said:

Is it possible to change editing permissions for a specific subforum?

I was wondering in particular if we could grant members the ability to edit the first post of topics they create in the Writer's Journals subforum. I see that a lot of people use their first post as sort of an introduction to their stories, but as they add more stories, they then have to ask a mod to update the initial post (or else just leave it "out of date") and reply to their own WJ below.

 

I know there are a lot of previous suggestions still under advisement, so no worries if this isn't possible/isn't a priority! ;)  Keep up the great work, Staff!

Editing is a user group setting, not a forum setting, so there is no way to customize it for a particular forum.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi guys,

Since joining HPFT, I've been looking around on this site for some place (named "Community" or something similar) that is a list of all the members, with color-coded dots to indicate their House and a number to indicate their number of posts.  Never having found such a place, I conclude that we don't have one.

Back when the MNFF forum was up and running, they did have a Community list, and I used it to do interesting statistics.  For example, I discovered that three of the Houses, R, H, and G, had roughly equal numbers of members, but Slytherin had only one-third as many members as any other House!  Of course this lack of numbers made it difficult for us Snakes to win competitions, including the House Cup, and knowing this disparity helped us formulate strategies to overcome the disadvantage (a Slytherin-ish characteristic, wouldn't you say?)

I was reminded of this matter when I read a post today by Deana/RoxiMalfoy in the discussion topic about proposed categories for Slytherin House writing awards in the Slytherin Common Room.  She was mentioning the fluctuating numbers of members in Slytherin House, and it made me curious about this subject in general.  Not that I'm proposing that you do anything about it since I'm sure you have your hands full, but it's just something that I think about.

Vicki

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@Oregonian - I've also really liked the ability to do that in the past, and I totally get what you're talking about - being able to organize even a small group can definitely help you overcome a numbers disadvantage. (We're actually seeing that right now here on HPFT - Gryffindor is the smallest house by a pretty wide margin, but they're doing really well in the house cup so far.)

@Alopex can correct me if I'm misremembering, but unfortunately, I think that this is just a limitation of our software. :/There is a way to check on the number of members in each house - you can go to:

Search -> Member Search

and then uncheck every box but whatever house you're curious to see the member stats for, but it's definitely a little roundabout and there's no way to search for members based on last log in date that I can see - just people who have joined the house at all. Sorry - I wish I had a better answer!

 

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Hi Branwen,

Thanks for the reply.  Your suggestion is much better than the the idea I was considering, which was to go to the archives and click on the name of every author there (assuming that our members post stories) to see what House was listed in each author's story shell. :/

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Just in case you're curious, I've looked into it. For the past year, those that have been sorted have been 14% Gryffindor, 28% Hufflepuff, 23% Ravenclaw, and 35% Slytherin. They may not necessarily be all active, but I'd say a lot of those numbers are. When we started I think Slytherin was a bit small (and didn't always have the most active members) but that's definitely not the case anymore. 😛 

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Thanks for those stats, Paula.  It's really interesting.  Here at HPFT, new members can choose their House, and if they opt to take the sorting test, they're not bound by the results.  So the House they're in is the House they want.  Thus, at present, more than a quarter of them want Slytherin and less than a quarter of them want Gryffindor.  It's fun to speculate why.

At MNFF sorting was done not by choice but by an obligatory test that had been written so as to prevent the new members' being able to 'guy' the test by guessing which answers steered them to which Houses. When I took the test, I tried to guess what the various answers indicated, but I finally gave up because I had no clue, and just answered honestly; I was shocked to learn, a few days later, that I'd been placed in Slytherin, the House of the evil wizards and jerks.  I just stared at the message and said "O.M.G."  (Later, my daughter tried to guess the questions so as to get herself placed into Slytherin and she ended up in Gryffindor.)

Again I speculated why.  Are Slytherins, when tested, really a more rare personality type?  My Head of House at MNFF said that Slytherins had always been the smallest House at that site.  Interesting.  And yet the 'real' Sorting Hat managed to come up with a pretty even split, I think.

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Older versions of IPB had a member list. Some of you may remember it from old HPFF and TDA. Unfortunately, it is a feature they removed for some reason that is a mystery to me and other users. They do not have plans to bring it back. The much less convenient way to find a member list is to search as Branwen mentioned above. 😕

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