DKC Atlas Forum

[Qyzbud]

This thread is for discussing the formatting, content, etc. of user profiles, and the design of the post profiles, which are visible next to each post (currently on the right).

If anyone has ideas for how the profiles (both types) can be improved, feel free to share them here.

Feedback is appreciated, as y'all know!

[cfh]

There should be fields for Friend Codes, namely Smash Bros. Brawl.

[Jomingo]

Birthdays would be nice. And there should be a way to see the top ten posters on the site.

[cfh]

I don't know about the top 10 posters thing, it might make people post just to boost post count... but then again, it might encourage users to be more active on the forum.

[BlueTronic]

It would definitely encourage users to "race to the finish".
Post W****: Almost there. Almost the top poster. YES!! I'm in first place!!
*Jeff Gorden signs up and zooms to first place*
Post W****:

It's probably best not to put it, but we'll see what Qyzbud thinks.

[nickp17]

Sounds like a iffy call to me.

More users would be great but spamming would really piss alot of people off. I believe I speak for everyone when I say that. I agree to let *Qyz* nip this in the *bud*

[Kowbrainz]

Mm... we had a top 5 posters/topic creators at another forum I go to a while back, but it only caused trouble with certain members. I think it would be best to leave as less of the site as possible revolving around post counts or awarding people for higher amounts of posts. Ranks are enough.

[CM August]

Postcounts and ranks in general slightly annoy me. Of course it feels great to look at it, and reflect on how much you've been able to talk about within the forum, but the feature becomes a nightmare in the hands of those who post senseless crap. Not that I feel this board will have a problem with postwhores. As Kowbrainz put it, it really shouldn't go further than ranks.

[Qyzbud]

There should be fields for Friend Codes, namely Smash Bros. Brawl.

Fields for both WiiConnect24 codes and Brawl codes exist currently. They are in your main profile section (use the UCP to enter them in).

Are you requesting to have these details displayed in mini profiles (seen beside each post) as well?


Jomingo, you are able to view the members list using the relevant link on the right of header navigation bar. All you have to do to view the top posters is to click on 'posts' table column heading once, then again... and it will display members in highest to lowest post count order. Or just click here.


I'd like to remove fields that nobody plans to use. Will anyone miss the ICQ/Yahoo/Jabber messenger fields if they vanish?

[cfh]

Oh, I didn't see those Friend Code fields. Thanks.

[Kiddy14]

I'd like to remove fields that nobody plans to use. Will anyone miss the ICQ/Yahoo/Jabber messenger fields if they vanish?

I'm showing my Yahoo right now. If they vanish will I be able to delete it?

[Kiddy14]

Ok, I think they vanished now, excusing the double post.
Mini profiles are now too small, and hard to understand. Will this be kept for a while?

[Jomingo]

Yeah, when pushed to the side anyone with a long location description (Kongfu's in particular) makes the page stretch. And the Avatars overlap the Online sticker. If you're going to keep it this way you should at least move the "edit, delete, report, etc. " buttons over to the side.

[BlueTronic]

Tiptup's is longer than mine, and I still don't see how it stretches the page.

[Jomingo]

I was just using your's as an example, I'm sure it's not the longest. And it stretches the page vertically, making single lined posts like the one you just made much larger than they should be. It's also a little because of your abnormally large avatar, but that's besides the point.

[BlueTronic]

I know. What I meant was it didn't seem like either of ours were stretching page.

[Qyzbud]

Mini profiles are now too small, and hard to understand. Will this be kept for a while?

This is actually a side-effect of a forum mod I installed... I didn't intend for the mini profiles to change at all, but it seems they have... and I haven't yet found how to resize them to appear correctly. Rest assured, I'll improve them as soon as possible. Until then, I urge you people who have their location as a long string of text to please change it. They are a bit silly anyhow.

* The mod I installed enables thumbnail avatars to be displayed on the Members list.

[Kiddy14]

Interesting. I didn't noticed it though. Do you have the link for the mod? Maybe other people have also this issue and replied to its thread.

[Jomingo]

Oh yeah, I already noticed the avatar-member's list thing, but I didn't think the two things were related. I just figured they were some of the many changes you've been doing.

[Qyzbud]

Do you have the link for the mod? Maybe other people have also this issue and replied to its thread.

I've been reading through it... but my time is limited. Maybe you can find a useful post - MOD: Avatar on Memberlist

Oh yeah, I already noticed the avatar-member's list thing, but I didn't think the two things were related.

Well, I don't blame you. I can't see why or how they're related... but one seemed to cause the other.

[Kiddy14]

There's nothing useful there. However, they said some other problems may be related to other mods which may be doing some incompatibility stuff. Do you have any other mod?

[Kiddy14]

Sorry...
I see the mini-mini profiles problem is fixed and the members list is still showing the images, cool.
And I see there's now a little sparkle in place of the "ONLINE" mark. Much likely like the KONG letters sparkly effect? =)

Oh and will you be adding some kind of flag instead of this: ?

[Qyzbud]

Well observed.

Yes, I've been tinkering on and off for a few hours, and am liking the simplicity of the formatting. Post count is now visible when a user's avatar is hovered over, but I've removed most of the 'contact user' buttons. Did anyone use the MSN/AIM buttons?

That sparkle is a more Kongish online indicator, hopefully it's an improvement. I might work on its positioning/animation a bit more.

I've thought about having country flags to indicate a user's nationality. Might be a bit of work, but I can look into this. What do you guys think?

[Tiptup Jr.]

I'll have to get use to the feel of it all, but I s'pose this layout is cool. And the flag idea sounds awesome too. (Like how it used to be on YouTube, but now there are only "Worldwide" and "English" options. )

[Jomingo]

I'm not sure what you're talking about Qyzbud. For me the "online banner thing" is the same it's always been, I see no sparkles. And the thing about the post count appearing when you hover over the avatar doesn't work for me either.
From the way you guys have described it, it seems pretty cool, but I don't see it.

I have noticed that the profiles aren't squished to the side anymore, and their are less buttons and info to clutter, and those changes look good.

[Qyzbud]

Jomingo, try holding the Ctrl key and pressing F5. Some browsers/situations require what's known as a full refresh (or hard refresh among other names...) in order to update all involved files.

[Jomingo]

Ah, well after doing that full refresh thing I can now see the sparkle, but I still can't see the post count when I hover over it. Hmmm.....

Anyway, even though I can't see it, I think the concept of the post count popping up when hovered over is cool. Maybe we could remove the location, and then just have all your neccessary information pop up when you hover over the avatar? Might be cool.

[Qyzbud]

Ah, you've reminded me that IE-based browsers handle those 'tool tips' (hovering labels) incorrectly er, differently.

I'll look into sorting this out, but it's not top priority at the moment.

[Kiddy14]

Country flags would be cool =)
But I think you should make the sparkle a little bit more "noticing". People might get online and not know what it means and finish off asking about it (new users or guests) =/

I don't like the Posts in hover though. Not that is a bad idea, but it seems off; it's like if you hover over the Mozilla Firefox icon in your desktop and instead of appearing "Location: C:/blah blah/Mozilla" it appears "Version: 3.0.1". But that's just my opinion xD

[Kowbrainz]

Removal of the 'foes' part of the profile? Perhaps the friends and foes section altogether? I've just seen it cause a few hassles around other forums; kinda like how people treat others if they aren't in their friend's top eight on myspace, if you know what I mean.

[Jomingo]

Yeah, the foes section in particular we could do without. The friends part can come in handy, doesn't it just move that persons pms to the top of your list or something? That helps, but I see no actually value from the foes thing.

[Tiptup Jr.]

I don't have any Foes (or Friends) at the moment, but maybe we should leave those sections open. Just in case.

[Jomingo]

But I think you should make the sparkle a little bit more "noticing". People might get online and not know what it means and finish off asking about it (new users or guests) =/

Well, I agree that they are much less noticeable, but I think that's a good thing. It's a nice little incicator, but it doesn't get in the way of anything.

[BlueTronic]

There should be a link to show a user's topics they created. I think you can search topics made by a certain user, but a link to their posts would be easier.

[Jomingo]

I don't think you can even search users topics. I tried and it just showed what topics I've posted in.

[BlueTronic]

You have to change the "search within:" field from "post subject and text" to "first post of topic"

[Jomingo]

Ah, I see.

[Kowbrainz]

I don't have any Foes (or Friends) at the moment, but maybe we should leave those sections open. Just in case.

... just in case what? It's not like they'll be gone forever if we get rid of them anyway, but all the same they aren't doing any good...
I've used a friends system on another forum, and while you'll get a few people sending requests around etc, there really isn't any benefit that I can see in using it, other than to say that somebody is your 'friend'; which isn't true really since a lot of people just send out requests to whoever so they can build up a large friends list for whatever reason.

[Tiptup Jr.]

Yeah, maybe we should get rid of the Friends field. On more community-oriented sites (MySpace, Youtube, etc.) Friend Lists are awesome, but I haven't really tried it out here.

[Simion32]

Come to think of it, the friends field is pretty much useless.

However, I do believe I may need the foes field in the long-term future. I don't want someone PM'ing me endlessly about the DKCLB... I've already seen such a user on YouTube that was pestering CFH via video comments.

[Tiptup Jr.]

Except on YouTube you can block the people you hate from commenting on your videos/channel and prevent them from sending you Personal Messages. Does the "Foes" section have similar effects?

[Simion32]

I should think it has similar effects, but according to further inspection of the situation: "Foes are users which will be ignored by default. Posts by these users will not be fully visible. Personal messages from foes are still permitted. Please note that you cannot ignore moderators or administrators."

Hrmm... So apparently this friends/foes thing is effectively useless.

[Rodent]

I'd like to see post counts back. It gives an indication as to how active a member is, how long they've been around, so on. It gives new members something to look forward to really. Without it, it sorta feels like you aren't talking to the members you normally know but new members all the time.

I do realise having post counts means some members will post pointlessly to raise their count, but this can have a simple solution through a punishment for spamming, or preventing some boards raising your count.

[Kowbrainz]

Oh, wow... didn't notice that the post counts had gone. :/

I didn't neccessarily think they'd need to go; the only reason they would I M O was if someone was spamming to boost their rank; in which case changing the basis of ranks were given out would make more sense than hiding post counts altogether.

[Jomingo]

I think it's all just to remove the clutter on the side of the screen, though I think that Rodent is right about the usefulness of post counts sometimes.

[Qyzbud]

As Jomingo said, I'm aiming to minimise clutter, and post count seemed like something I could hide from view. They are visible by hovering over a user's avatar (at least in Firefox), but it's no big deal... I'll put them back for all to see.

Friends and Foes are fairly pointless for our community. I think the main use would be for those wanting a 'contacts list' for PM purposes; friends are listed as quick contacts, I believe. Haven't used this feature myself, though. May as well disable this feature, at least for now.

[Rodent]

Thanks for putting the post count back, much appreciated.

What do you have planned for people obtaining ranks? Will it be post based or a reward?

[Jomingo]

All ranks are currently post based except for the "special ranks" given by Qyz to a few people. We have not yet used ranks as a reward for anything, but it's very possible we may do so in the future.

[Qyzbud]

I'm planning to reassess the Rank system, so that post count is only part of the requirement for a 'high' rank. I'm also going to introduce a 'groups' system (discuss in this topic, please) which will allow members to specify any skills/interests that they would like to be known for. A 'badge' or graphic/text of some kind will appear on a user's post profile to indicate their membership in such a group.