So what's the deal on this eplaya summit?

DE FACTO · Post by **DE FACTO** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 1:29 pm

precipitate wrote:> these days you need the graphics to further enhance ones point.

Only if you can't communicate coherently in your language of choice.

like executives do at thier board meetings.

DE FACTO · Post by **DE FACTO** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 2:35 pm

Had to post this here too.

This is something that needs to be repeated continuously.

Life is change. Get used to it.

RA

Kinetic II · Post by **Kinetic II** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 2:45 pm

precipitate wrote:> these days you need the graphics to further enhance ones point.

Only if you can't communicate coherently in your language of choice.

Some of us have short attention spans. Graphics help catch our attention. They function as booster rockets for some people to help lift their ideas into orbit. And just like all those Russian Proton and European launches you have some fantastic successes and some spectacular failures.

precipitate · Post by **precipitate** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 2:58 pm

Oh, gimme a break. They're window dressing. Fun, maybe. Essential, I
don't think so. Tools for the lazy and inarticulate.

If you're really too ADD to read a complete sentence, then I have a
feeling I don't have anything to say to you.

Then again, kids are learning to use PowerPoint in school these days as
an "essential learning tool," so maybe it's the wave of the future. Doesn't
mean I have to respect it, though.

Oh, and the "you" in this thing isn't you personally, K.

Kinetic II · Post by **Kinetic II** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 3:36 pm

precipitate wrote: Then again, kids are learning to use PowerPoint in school these days as
an "essential learning tool," so maybe it's the wave of the future. Doesn't
mean I have to respect it, though.

Speaking of Powerpoint, I have to put together a presentation on PDA / Pocket PC support inside Sprint in 2 weeks. And not only do they want the PP show, they want full sound and animation to boot. This is another area I'm split on. Sometimes I love graphics. But with projects like this I don't. At least PP 2003 has cool backgrounds to play with so I can try and have some fun with it.

Lydia Love · Post by **Lydia Love** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 3:40 pm

And who the hell is threatening to take all your blinky, gooey, smiley faced, avatar-fun fulled graphic heavy experience away? Huh?

No one. Some people have requested that they be able to make the personal choice of seeing less of it themselves. Interfering with you NOT AT ALL. And apparently (bless them) the admins are choosing to respond to that request.

Oh - and change isn't always necessary, and isn't always valuable and isn't always good for everybody in every situation. You love it?!? Fan-fuck!-ingtastic. Could it PLEASE be ok with you if other people have a different opinion of how a useful BBS looks? Especially since it isn't going to inconvenience you in the least bit?

BlueBirdPoof · Post by **BlueBirdPoof** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 3:43 pm

I have the feeling that, if not already, in the very near future Powerpoint will come to have its own cliches of total obviousness. Then someone can put together a Powerpoint presentation that hits all these cliches with some totally ludicrious text. Sort of like "Buzzword Bingo" in it's complete understanding of the laziness in these management/communications fads.

I will worship this "someone" as a genius.

rogue agent · Post by **rogue agent** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 4:25 pm

BlueBirdPoof wrote:Then someone can put together a Powerpoint presentation that hits all these cliches with some totally ludicrious text

Something like http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/?

RA

DE FACTO · Post by **DE FACTO** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 4:48 pm

rogue agent wrote: Something like http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/?

RA

wow that was a pretty sad pp presentation

III · Post by **III** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 5:16 pm

>a pretty sad pp presentation

that's the point, i think. pp, for all it's bells and whistles, ends up (thorugh the use of the wizards and templates) having a very low signal/noise ratio.

for something closer to what bbp was suggesting, consider http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/000931, which itself contains a reference to the above mentioned page...

technopatra · Post by **technopatra** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 5:23 pm

III wrote:>
i hope that, in the time since you've started providing feedback to the users of the bbs, that the tone of the conversation on our side has improved to acceptable levels.

That's exactly what I mean. The whole bbs is in a better mental state, both on the user and admin side. Having learned our lessons from the past couple of months, we're all moving on.

De Facto, I truly appreciate the support, but if you keep it up in such a...um... passionate manner, everyone's going to end up hating us again. We're all trying to just focus on the work, and not get into this cycle again.

DE FACTO · Post by **DE FACTO** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 5:25 pm

technopatra wrote:
De Facto, I truly appreciate the support, but if you keep it up in such a...um... passionate manner, everyone's going to end up hating us again. We're all trying to just focus on the work, and not get into this cycle again.

I'm pretty positive we are all way passed that now.

we've been moving on pretty well today.

ok Mom?

technopatra · Post by **technopatra** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 5:46 pm

[quote="DE FACTO"
ok Mom?

[/quote]

Yes, dear.

DE FACTO · Post by **DE FACTO** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 5:53 pm

Hey here's a wierd one. I wonder if anybody else is having this problem:

when I get paged from eplaya to my email I click the link and it sends me to the thread that has paged me.
when i go to the bottom of the page it has the link that gives me the choice "Watch this topic for replies".

the opposite happens when i'm not paged.

I'll post this also under bugs and fixes.

aforceforgood · Post by **aforceforgood** » Fri Nov 07, 2003 5:36 pm

Now that I've read over the posts of the last few days, I was glad to see that I wasn't as offensive as some have vilified me as over in "Barlow essay on Schwarzenegger", rather, that there are some on this board who are just argumentative, and will pat themselves on the back for attacking people who say something that even sounds like something they don't approve of. Or even has words in it that sound like things they disapprove of.

Please count this post as my vote for more signal and less noise in posts in general. That is all. Thank you.

Zane5100 · Post by **Zane5100** » Fri Nov 14, 2003 1:40 pm

Kinetic II wrote:At least PP 2003 has cool backgrounds to play with so I can try and have some fun with it.

You can't be serious...

Man, I'm starting to really worry about you.

Lilly Flower · Post by **Lilly Flower** » Sat Nov 22, 2003 4:26 am

DE FACTO, How do you post a picture ?

Excuse me. I'm new here.

DE FACTO · Post by **DE FACTO** » Sat Nov 22, 2003 4:29 am

Lilly Flower wrote:DE FACTO, How do you post a picture ?

Excuse me. I'm new here.

If you understand HTML then do this;

find a pic and copy the url and replace it as is in the example above

if you dont understand then PM me.( private message)

hope you understand.

Lilly Flower · Post by **Lilly Flower** » Sat Nov 22, 2003 4:30 am

I understand. I'll PM you.

nipples · Post by **nipples** » Tue Nov 25, 2003 7:12 pm

about a month ago i wrote some things on this thread that i have deeply regreted.

i felt betrayed, that my freinds were leaving and advocating abandonment.

i was very much mistaken.. it was i that had abandoned my freinds.. whom were only trying to keep stuff alive when they too felt alone.

i wrote some stupid ass poetry about it last week but pulled it cause it needed an intro lest i be misunderstood... a sure sign of bad haiku.

i thought you left me
took all the other dogs
left me tied to tree

that was never though
touch warm smell my nose alive
you are here always

what we go on walk
yes walk run breath deep heather
timeless doggie fun

anyways, i am frequently an ass, but never before so evidently to me as when i heard while lurking a song i'd forgotten to sing. too pansy-ass by half... sorry about that. if you'll have me back no more whining from me.

DE FACTO · Post by **DE FACTO** » Tue Nov 25, 2003 7:45 pm

Well all I have to say is 2 things,

1. the poem is nice although it does sound like a country western.
2. mabye you should create an apology thread.

I'm sure there are a lot of people here on eplaya that will be using it from time to time.

Hey, if I've offended you by posting this then I'll go to the thread and apologize.

Spokes · Post by **Spokes** » Tue Nov 25, 2003 8:50 pm

nipples wrote:timeless doggie fun

~delurk~
<wagging tail>
~return to lurking~

Lydia Love · Post by **Lydia Love** » Tue Nov 25, 2003 8:58 pm

I've missed ya Nipples.

Tiara · Post by **Tiara** » Wed Nov 26, 2003 9:47 am

Hiya nipples! We've been wondering where you were, and hoping you were well.

stuart · Post by **stuart** » Wed Nov 26, 2003 1:11 pm

The whole bbs is in a better mental state, both on the user and admin side.

cites?

really now?! I was one of the diehards but I find myself spending less and less time here, both posting and reading.

technopatra · Post by **technopatra** » Wed Nov 26, 2003 9:58 pm

stuart wrote:
The whole bbs is in a better mental state, both on the user and admin side.
cites?

really now?! I was one of the diehards but I find myself spending less and less time here, both posting and reading.

When I first got on the vast majority of posts I saw were rants & complaints & cries for help about how awful the tool was. (not to say this wasn't justified)

Then they were about how awful the eplaya admins were. (not to say this wasn't a justified perspective, given the lack of warning/communication from our end)

Then they were about how awful a couple of individuals that need-not-be-named-again were. (ok these were pretty justified, imo, but the community polices itself and learns how not to support trollism)

While there were some good converations sprinkled between these, I see that now there are longer, more thoughtful dialogues happening. Some of which you have been involved in, so I'm surprised to hear you say that your contributions continue to dwindle. I really like hearing your point of view. I've gone back to the old eplaya to see what the differences in tone/length/cadence are, and it looks pretty similar at first & second glance - it's just that some of the main players have changed, and there are a lot more converations happening.

What would you say your main deterrent is? Trolls? Uninteresting topics? Navigation issues? Volume? The holiday season?

III · Post by **III** » Wed Nov 26, 2003 11:05 pm

>What would you say your main deterrent is?

for me, the main issues are:

readability - i'm hoping that b's new skins help this out. there's just too much graphical cruft between the actual words.

navigation - i have a hard time keeping track of what i find interesting to follow, and what i want to ignore. this is actually a combination of a couple of factors: too many different areas, inability to easily pick up where i left off in a thread, and having to weed through a bunch of threads i'd rather not read to get to what i personally find good.

response time - i'm hoping the server change helps this too. the multiple clicks through several different pages to actually get to something i want to read aggravate this problem.

Spokes · Post by **Spokes** » Thu Nov 27, 2003 8:33 am

III wrote:>
navigation - i have a hard time keeping track of what i find interesting to follow, and what i want to ignore. this is actually a combination of a couple of factors: too many different areas, inability to easily pick up where i left off in a thread, and having to weed through a bunch of threads i'd rather not read to get to what i personally find good.

Still number one on my list.

Bob · Post by **Bob** » Thu Nov 27, 2003 9:29 am

Ditto on what III said about server response. Based on having been an end-user of both the eplaya and the volunteer db, it's likely to get progressively worse as communication picks up in the new year.

Speaking for myself, I think I post much less because of frustration with the response time, and not having the ability to navigate quickly through topics of interest (eg via subscriptions).

Posting less, and less frequently, it would help to be able to review previous posts quickly, but the ability to do so is hampered by not having a choice of "Board Style" ("skin"?) that aids legibility, not having a choice of number of posts per displayed page, and an arguably feeble search engine.

No design is perfect, and no group of designers can be expected to be completely aware of all user issues -- while the topic organization and basic graphic elements are improved, as III and I have been pointing out, the feature set has effectively regressed in moving from WebX to phpBB -- in a nutshell, comparitively less user control, poorer readability, and more visual cruft.

I'm not sure what to conclude from the new emphasis on instant messaging features that are only useful for the subset of users who choose to be wired in this way. I would have relegated such links and other contact info to users' profile pages, rather than clutter up the thread displays.

In the "Post a reply" page layout, the tiny font size in the text entry field has been driving me nuts, even more than the smileys staring me in the face. The space sacrificed to the page headers, and forcing the "Topic review" table to show up near the top of the page, could be used to make the text entry field larger, with a larger font size. The topic can be reviewed simply by paging back to the thread display, and there is no particular need for displaying the full headers on the reply page.

For me, this all contributes to an attitude of just wanting to fire off a post and get the hell out.

stuart · Post by **stuart** » Mon Dec 01, 2003 1:41 pm

I had started a technique of never opening a thread created by a particular user and never checking a thread, even if I was interested in it, if the last post was by said user. It's sort of my DIY plonk. It aint perfect, but I find it important to not let perfect get in the way of good. Unfortunately the ratio of the above situations remains very, very high. Frustration ensues as pleasure decreases. Still, I tough it out due to the intermittant positive re-enforcement.

So what's the deal on this eplaya summit?

Well, I feel better now