General Feedback

[tynic]

You don't have to, you want to. Considerable difference. And yes, it is against the rules, and no, I don't know when NaS will have the time to do name changes again.

[!AA!]

I am sorry for addressing this matter: may I have my username change and to whom should I request this from?

At first when I registered in this forum, I don't have any other ideas of what username to use and I was using a PC, so I blindly entered the username I have now so that I could start posting (was for solving a prob I encountered with the [S] adventures in Homestuck).

But when I try to log in with my mobile device, it keeps giving me errors due to the symbols in the username and have made me being unable to log on for some time already. I only returned to this forum when I am using a PC.

I hope the problem can be solved by having my name changed. Thank you in advance.

[kwinse]

A couple times in the past, NotaSenator opened up submissions for name changes, requiring that members contribute something in order to earn the name change. He's a very busy guy though, so we don't know if and when he will do another round.

[!AA!]

Is it okay if I PM NotaSenator about the problem?

[kwinse]

Most very likely not. As I said, he's very busy (those major changes having been coming to the forum soon for months now), and name changes aren't a priority.

[Blueberry]

He might make an exception for the symbol thing but it's not likely. I'll ask.

[PetPeeve]

Would it be possible to completely hide messages from ignored users? If I've gone to the trouble of ignoring someone, I like to not see that they wrote a message I'm ignoring.

[AProcrastinatingWriter]

Would it be possible to completely hide messages from ignored users? If I've gone to the trouble of ignoring someone, I like to not see that they wrote a message I'm ignoring.

On the one hand, I can see why you'd want to do this. On the other, there are situations in which you need to see what someone posted, even if normally you're ignoring them.

Off the top of my head, you may find yourself playing a game of Mafia with a forumite you rather dislike. In Mafia, it's very important to see that they've made posts and almost as important to know what those posts say, e.g. have the option to turn off the ignoring for that post.

There are less obvious situations with less alternate solutions, I would assume, in which you'd need to see that someone is posting. Though admittedly I cannot think of any at the moment.

[Wesley Foxx]

Or just so that you can see someone posted so that when people respond to them without quoting you can figure out what is going on, or when a thread updates but nothing new has been posted that you can see.

[PetPeeve]

Make it an option then, or maybe based on the subforum?

I was a usenetter for many years, and lived on killfiles. It didn't hurt a thing to make posts disappear completely, and I think it would work fine here too.

[simon.clarkstone]

There might be something you could do with a custom stylesheet, if blocked posts have a specific CSS class on them.

[PetPeeve]

There might be something you could do with a custom stylesheet, if blocked posts have a specific CSS class on them.

This is an interesting idea. There's a specific list class for ignored messages (postbitignored) - I'm going to have to see if I can do a little tinkering with greasemonkey to do the job. From what I can tell, it could definitely be done at the CSS level too.

Edit: "Remove it permanently" made this a total snap. I just had to right click on an ignored post and tell it to remove all similar items of "postbitignored postbititm". Thanks guys!

[Eoghan]

I just wanted to share this handy little thing I made for AutoHotKey, because I think it's really useful, but I aint gonna be racking up twelve posts or whatever so's I can start my own thread anytime soon, and if other peeps find it as handy as I think it is then it'll get spread 'round.

It's a hotkey that automatically pops open the pesterlog/whatever-log box on a Homestuck page (or, on a page with no whateverlog box and just a link to the next page, it automatically clicks the link).

And goddamn I wish I'd thought to make it BEFORE I finished my archive binge up to present! I don't know how much time I woulda saved from not hunt-and-clicking all the time. The ergonomics!

(All it does is send twelve virtual hits of the tab key followed by an enter. Obviously can be easily messed up if you do other stuff on the page after it loads before pressing it, like clicking on interactive flash pages or highlighting white text. I set the hotkey to windowskey-q, but you could change it to whatever.)

Anyway yeah, just copy-paste this:

#q::Send {TAB 12}{Enter}

(Directions are exactly the same as under "Creating a script" on this page, just you use that line rather than "#space::Run www.google.com")

(AHK is only for Windows, as far as I know.)

(I actually thought of it cuz I was looking for a way to turn my useless scroll lock button into a caps lock, so I could use my caps lock as a second backspace. Which is, incidentally, just "Scrolllock::Capslock" and "Capslock::Backspace". Or "Capslock::^Backspace" (ie ctrl-backspace) if you want to make it delete the whole damn word to the left of your cursor cuz you typo SO HARD that you just need to do the whole word over completely to achieve some shade of a sense of peace and closure.)

;EDIT: New code

#z::send {TAB 12}{Enter} 
; Pops open the whateverlog on a page that has it, else goes to the next page

#x::send {TAB 2}{Enter}
; goes to the next page if the last thing you did was pop open a whateverlog

; #z is windows key-z
; #x is windows key-x
; ctrl ^
; shift +
; alt !
; or just use plain
; z::blah blah
; x::blah blah
; if you don't mind not being able to use the z and x keys normally while the script is running

[Thedude3445]

I'd just like to congratulate the forum on no bans in the month of june and only two in may (both on may 30), according to the ban log. How a forum this large can accomplish this is utterly beyond me, and it's awesome.

Anyway yeah I GUESS that counts as feedback.

[Crumplehat]

I've been somewhat concerned about the volume of posts on particular threads, where a handful of very energetic individuals generate most of the "content", usually making it impossible to follow any conversations there outside that dozen or so users. I've noticed in the last few months moderators have tried to institute policies to try and stop the IRC-izing of the threads (such as issuing warnings for extremely short, content-less posts), but the problem in my opinion remains.

I'm wondering if something might be done to regulate this better, such as a 3-posts-a-24-hour-period-to-the-same-thread restriction?

I'm guessing that forum software probably doesn't allow for that, though.

[Varkarrus]

He might make an exception for the symbol thing but it's not likely. I'll ask.

I somehow doubt he'd make an exception. I've been stuck with this name of scorn for over a year now, something which was supposed to only last for a month as a joke, and he still tells me I have to wait until the forum updates.

Anyways, I came to ask if there's any chance we'll get hovertext on images? Especially because we've got the Candy Corn thread now.

[SkaianRedeemer]

That would be really helpful with the corns. There's so many that it can be hard to find all but the more esoteric ones.

[AProcrastinatingWriter]

I'm wondering if something might be done to regulate this better, such as a 3-posts-a-24-hour-period-to-the-same-thread restriction?

You are going to read any game of mafia on this forum, and then you are going to try and institute this policy again.

...but in all seriousness...okay, some people talk more than others about certain subjects on the forums. Some people talk about certain subjects more than others in real life. This is not a bad thing???

And even if you disagree with me, you are attempting to punish all users for what some users do. Again, note my comment on forum mafia.

And even if you disagree with me, it sounds less to me like people are going off-topic in these threads and more like they're posting too often for you, personally, to enjoy yourself. If I'm wrong, I get that, but unless there is more to your story I'm not sure if there is.

[Crumplehat]

You are going to read any game of mafia on this forum, and then you are going to try and institute this policy again.

...but in all seriousness...okay, some people talk more than others about certain subjects on the forums. Some people talk about certain subjects more than others in real life. This is not a bad thing???

And even if you disagree with me, you are attempting to punish all users for what some users do. Again, note my comment on forum mafia.

And even if you disagree with me, it sounds less to me like people are going off-topic in these threads and more like they're posting too often for you, personally, to enjoy yourself. If I'm wrong, I get that, but unless there is more to your story I'm not sure if there is.

I suppose it depends on what you consider the use of a forum is for. It's just that on some threads, they're practically IRC channels now, and often only tangentially have anything to do with their subject. They better resemble a chat room with about a half dozen people dominating the discussion in a tit-for-tat manner, often a few lines with less than a minute of each other. I've jokingly commented that the IDE thread is a better discussion thread than the actual discussion thread because of things like that. Sorry if I was unclear about what I meant.

[AProcrastinatingWriter]

I suppose I can't say I disagree. But then, now that I'm not as cranky (no idea why I was but very sorry about it), I think I can say something a bit more levelheaded.

I don't believe limiting people's posts is probably going to change that. It will just make conversations much slower.

[Crumplehat]

It's okay - the very fact I'm commenting about the volume of staccato posting is indicatively similar.

Likely a restriction would cause posters to condense and not go with the post-every-minute circumstance.

I think this is academic though, as I'm not sure the forum software could actually do this sort of thing.

[Wesley Foxx]

We try to discourage it, but its going to happen sometimes. Just remember you can always discuss the comic in the comic discussion thread if you want to try steering it back on course.

[Fish]

Comic Discussion has really improved over the past few weeks (since the institution of a skype chat). It is now even more dominated by a small number of posters, but the amount of content per post has greatly increased.

Except for a few exceptions.

[PetPeeve]

I've jokingly commented that the IDE thread is a better discussion thread than the actual discussion thread because of things like that. Sorry if I was unclear about what I meant.

I'm in total agreement about this - the main comic discussion thread is so noisy that it's essentially write-only unless you're obsessive, or one of the dozen or so people who use it as their all-day-every-day chat channel. I still very occasionally post comments in there right after an update (note, there has been no update), but you're lucky to get any answers to it before general noise level swallows you up.

You may be onto something with a post-per-day limit in certain boards. I recently proposed making a new topic for every update, and only leaving it open for 24 hours, but the idea that you're throttled to so many new replies per time period (say, once per hour) might be better. On the other hand, it would probably just make the chatters edit their posts instead. The moderators didn't like that, and I don't really blame them - continuity of the topic as ongoing discussion would be a good thing, in fact it WAS a good thing, before the "comdisc chatters" became a thing.

How about this as an alternative - make a dedicated home for the chatters, keep it sticked so it's easy to find. Then you can leave the real comic discussion as it is, with the idea that if a discussion goes off-topic, those posts can be moved off to chat-land. I don't have ANY problem with people wanting to have fun and talk, but I'd like a place you can talk about updates (note, there has been no update) and just that.

A special report button would be nice too, one that says "this person isn't being a pilweef, don't infract them, but this post is a good candidate for the chat topic". What I really want to see, if I go into the latest comic discussion topic, is chat about, say, what Serenity or one of her fellow fireflies is doing inside the lamps, not stuff about long-ago updates or what avatar fad everyone is so excited about. Those discussions are fine for the forums, but belong somewhere else.

[Blueberry]

we used to have a dedicated home for the chatters. it was removed because it created the kind of atmosphere the admins don't want on the boards (that's an extremely paraphrased version of the events and is not a formal statement on behalf of the mod team)

really if you want to encourage chat about the comic all you can do is get in there and start chatting about the comic.


edit: creating arbitrary restrictive rules is not what this forum is about, and attempts to make changes to the way the community runs itself have not gone very well in the past. the admins might consider implementing any reasonable and useful suggestions, but limiting posts would not work out for a number of reasons, some of which have been brought up already.