Master Yoghurt
Oct 22nd, 2003, 09:40:36 PM
Its ok, just trying to give some creative input. I kinda figured most of these hacks would probably not be used, since I know you frequently visit that site for updates. However, conciderable amount of thought went into these suggestions, so I will have to comment on some of those, in order to explain the rationale.
Spider Hack: Great to see you found something that could be used!
Quickstats: People who tested it says it runs fine with 17k users and an average of 300 users online. The hack author also claims that since it runs in a separate window, it reduces the server load somehow. Not sure how that works. Is it only when a poster views the stats database queries are generated, or are the stats updated continously increasing the overall server load? In any case, I agree its not that important of a feature. Adding a bit more details to the stats would be nice at some point though.
Miserable Users Hack: You are right. I actually did not expect you to implement the hack 'as is', in this extreme form. I partly posted it for the laugh. However, it may be worth looking into alternative ways of dealing diciplinary action. What I have in mind would be a milder form of punishment than an outright banning. Removing or reducing *some* of the posting priveledges may prove more educating and effective at getting the message across than constant and repeated PM'ing by moderators in some cases. Excactly what these reductions in posting privileges entails in, may be up to debate when/if it becomes an idea to concider in the future.
User Thread banning: It would work for super mods and above though, who are probably the only ones going to need such a powerful tool anyway. When enforcing it, only useraccounts which reasonably could be expected being used in the thread should be affected. If the user in question switches username, it is evidence of deliberate circumvention of forum staff policy and may be grounds for other and/or more stricter diciplinary actions. I see great potential in such a feature. It allows a mod to stop a poster from persisting in rule breaking behavior in an offended thread. That way, if its an important thread, it can continue without the risk of being locked down. I have seen examples where this feature could have been effectively used.
Forum specific signatures: Fair enough. If its complex to implement, its probably not worth the effort.
Search members by profile fields: Well, thats a good point. Not everyone fills the profile fields with nonsense though. Take a look at my profile for example. A random user can search for the keyword 'Norway', and come up with all the users who live there. Search for student, and you see all who are studying. Search for movies, and you find the users who have this interest listed. If someone were searching for a RP character, try searching for 'Sith' or 'Jedi' or group keywords like "The Sith Order" or "Kuklos Ataxia", and you will find members affiliated with these factions. The biography field often contains many good keywords as well. Maybe its not the most powerful or significant feature, but I think it could be useful to some extent.
Custom User Status by Usergroup: Well, its a way of showing who is supporting the community, much like the ezsupporter icon. I can see your concerns though. I suppose the custom profiles will serve the purpose of this information, without being too visible.
Members Photo Gallery: Sounds like reasonable reservations there, Ogre. If it somehow turns to be possible, its great.
Bigger PM box: Yay, thats a great Premium feature IMO! Safe to say, I decided to support our forums and become a Premium user myself
Set Style based on usergroup:
Appologies, my mistake. I meant the hack linked in that same thread: 'Styles for Premium Members'. The point is of course not to limit the amount of style sets, but extend the amount of style sets available for Premium users. Thus you have an extra incentive to sign up for Premium. <a href=http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=48953>Correct link here</a>
Phew, that became a long post. Anyway, thanks for listening to my ideas. I will think about it, and see if I can come up with something else :)