Ok, This is just my opinion, but what if ya added the [ size ] and [ align ] tags to the post form? -More formatting options for beginners who aren't familiar with BBcode.

The Snarkmarks info page is a good addition!

About the currently awarded snarkmarks:

Now that we can measure the ratings with snarkmarks, a lot of users who posted stuff before won't be receiving those snarkmakrs because I hardly believe anyone will be rating old items. What I mean is, we used to have a rating system on the SnarkPit that was max out of 5 -the same as what we've got going on here. Is there a way to retroactively fit those old ratings into the new system? There should be an old table for it right? Not doing so would mean we're forgetting about all the past work done for the site (and therefore some people not having $M who deserve them). So some original content will never have their ratings and that will throw off some people browsing for quality.

Will that be too bothersome to retrofit? -It would mean re-associating the accounts that submitted those ratings to show up again in the map discussions.

Can we define some limits for the unlocks?

Added Control Panel > Snarkmarks for info on them

I want to move toward getting this finished off. The site has come one hell of a long way from what is currently on globat, I think we've got most stuff people are after included, plus plenty of extra improvements.

I'm gonna work at getting the last bits finished off with these snarkmark features and a couple of other little things, then I think we should try and move over.

Woops, forgot to reply to this before...

I'll get back to it later.. hehe, I g2g now :P

Er, if you like... just say what buttons you want and I'll add 'em in

Sweet! I already changed the forum posts multiplier from 0.01 to 0.1! Nice! That's a cool feature!

About the $M as money

Sounds like a cool idea, but if snarkmarks start fluctuating because people are spending them, then that would mean they'd lose their original purpose. In my mind, they were a measure of respect. The more you have, the more you've added to the site. If someone spent their snarkmarks (to where their actual number would be lowered, then $M would no longer be a measure of activity and pointless to display them in posts) Instead, I think the rewards should be more like unlockables. If you achieve so many snarkmarks, you unlock new feature A on the site. That way, your number keeps increasing and it keeps its respect purpose, but also rewards you in other ways for getting so many.

Plus, after the problem you mentioned about: "you could end up with people having negative equity" then that would become a weird issue. So all-in-all, I'd like to keep them as just measures of respect with rewards. Not necessarily as 'money.'

Possible unlockables (in no particular order):

• Custom Titles
• new theme
• Personal Pit
• badges (images)
• make your maps more prominent in lists
• ability to change other people's titles
• other stuff I can't think of right now

-Will you be adding any more formatting buttons to the post forms?

There is now an option on the super admin panel that will let you change all the snarkmark rates Riven!

Renaming the HL2 forum to 'Source' (or whatever) was just a suggestion, since obviously it would now include all manner of stuff like TF2/Portal/CS:S since HL2 originally appeared.... just would seem to make more sense to me as someone coming from the outside. As fishy says something like 'Source Editing' might be better, "Source Games Mapping & Editing" or something maybe... whatever

The forum name can be changed from the admin panel anyway, so up to you really

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I could code an admin panel that would let you change the number of snarkmarks being awarded for each item, so you could just change it anytime you wanted. Shouldn't be an issue since they're calculated dynamically... I could let you put a formula in, so you could have something basic like '50 * article rating %', or have '10 + 100 * rating %' if you wanted new maps to give 10 snarkmarks + whatever the amount x rating amount is.

I did have a little think about what you could actually do with them... in the past on a msg board me an Gwil patronise they used to have a currency system, and one of the most popular things was a custom title mod where every user had a custom title that anyone could pay, say, $1000 of the forum currency to change.

For example I could be minded to pay 100 snarkmarks to change Mr Fishy's title to "Auditor"

It was quite fun, and people tended to get their titles changed every now and again to comical effect based on the stuff they posted.

Theres other little things along those lines... custom icons maybe... possibly make the flag icons cost so many snarkmarks etc

Of course if I spent a few snarkmarks on something, and then you lowered the number of snarkmarks rewarded for stuff, you could end up with people having negative equity Not that that would be any big deal, they'd just end up with negative snarkmarks, perhaps in bright red to highlight their financial imprudence. And change their custom title to "Head of HBOS" or something

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I'll have a think about the links page thingy... bound to be some way of working it.

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The thing about the front page was just an idea... obviously one of the things I'm always thinking about is how code or features could be exploited, as unfortunately there are a lot of malicious people out there.

But yeah I agree that it's better not to have a restriction. If there are ever any issues in the future such a check would be trivial to add to the code anyway.

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Yeah I'll clean up those admin things... tbh all the admin pages are very rudimentary as there's only a couple of people ever gonna see them so I don't spend too much time thinking about them... so yeah, just lemme know if there's anything I can add to make them easier to work with.

If articles are to be so highly rewarded, then we should make sure that any approval is justified. Too many existing articles are either inadequate, misleading, or just plain wrong. A good example is the "adding new skins to an existing model", which is all three. (sry aaron, but it is)

Source Engine Editing sounds a bit too much like editing the engine.(can that even be done? ) Plain old Source Editing might be a bit less confusing to the likes of myself.

Ok, I've re-read all the posts since my last in-depth post and have formulated some responses!

larchy said:
Would the HL2 forum be better renamed 'Source Engine Editing' or something similar?

-That would make sense, but I just like the old name. I suppose I could adapt as it would make more sense for noobs to better understand where to post their issues and save us some trouble :rolling:. I want to hear someone else's opinions on that before we go ahead and change it.

About snarkmarks....

forum posts equaling .01 is too few IMO. A whole 100 posts just gives 1 little snarkmark? I'd say .1 would be a much more fitting reward. 10 posts = 1 snarkmark. That makes more sense to me. For someone like me, I don't post a whole lot and it would make a snarkmark worth a whole lot more than it should be.

fishy said:
Used as a reward or bribe or bday present etc. Make $M currency.

I like that idea A LOT! like, if you can muster up say 1000, or 5,000 snarkmarks, you can get free webhosting via a pit! -with an approval from an admin of course. Or you can get a little trophy or picture to accompany your profile or posts. (much like TWHL has trophies for competition winners)

Snarkmarks should be worth as much as the site needs the content. I mean, if we want the site to be more beneficial to people, we would order the most important things people use on the site in the list first. For example, I would say most people (guests) that visit the site are here for the articles. Sure, they may not be the most time consuming task to make, but I would argue they are the most valuable asset this site has and therefore should be worth the most. (if maps are 100 $M, then articles should be 300 or even 500 I think (approved)). I like downloads at 50, that makes sense to me. Also maps @ 100 $M look good as well.

We could add a section on profiles that breaks down someone's snarkmarks and shows how many they accumulated doing whatever on the pit (just an idea).

Admins, could appoint snarkmarks for competitions, or whatever reason they justify I suppose.

Ratings vs. Snarkmarks...
When maps are initially posted,I think the user should get some credit. (like 5 $M or something) then when ratings are applied, that number will add on to the 100M*rating%. To give them absolutely nothing immediately would be to make them feel like the system was messed-up.

About the download filter...
Ok, I understand the uselessness of making sure someone has clicked the download button before rating a map, but could you at least add a simple reminder/warning to let people know that they should DL first!

About User links...
Ok, so yea, 7,000 accounts with thousands of links on the Links page may be a bit much. But could we add it as an option (not to be posted on Links page by default) that begins now? If old users come back and find the option, then they can click it on and add their old site to the links page. So, enable the feature now, and we can moderate it as time goes on. (also, could admins deliberately add unposted links from profiles to the Links page?, -for those users that never got around to it?)

About restrictive front page content...
To restrict it to just users with 100 or 200 snarkmaks might be a little much. We've never had a problem with porn on the front page, and i don't want to deal with a preventative system just so we could make sure it never happens. Part of the joy for a newbie to add their map to the site is to see it put in front of everyone's face. For someone that's been waiting to join the pit until they finished their map, they'd be sorely surprised. Please, let's not make it restrictive unless something like that does happen. If it does, it can be moderated and deleted if need be. A lot of current members first actions on the site was adding a map. So, doing that might keep people out.

The control Panel
-For the Games section, It'd be nice to see the little icons for the games on that page so it saves me some time when adding more.

Also on the smiley's page, can you add a little check mark image next to the 'edit' button that let's you know instantly which ones are already on the post reply pages? (Now that we have the option to choose which smileys appear on the posting pages -that's really cool!)

-And I think that about covers it! -am I missing something?

-Let me know what ya think? -And thanks for all the great explanations larchy!

HAHA, -just a few, fishy, just a few...