Site suggestions/bugs

Here's a bug for you. Just checked the "users online" box as it's at 23 at the moment and it included the following:

habboi :: Just logged on...
habboi :: Browsing General Banter board
habboi :: Just logged on...
habboi :: Just logged on...
habboi :: Just logged on...
habboi :: Just logged on...

That's a lotta habbois...

Also, I can't seem to get past the first page of the Competition
thread. It says there is only one reply and only one page, but I just
posted on a second page!

More Habboi's than anybody could handle :biggrin:

I just noticed another bug. The competition thread has quite a few
replies, but I noticed it said on the general banter forum that it only
had one. I clicked it, sure enough there were loads of replies, and
when I went back to the forum view again it had changed to say there
were 0 replies.

EDIT: Err, yeah, what Loco said :smile:

site, running sooo slow. FF 4am EST -5

55sec load time on this page.

I think the Habboi and topic-post-count things are related problems to do with the server, and not my dodgy coding. Hopefully it won't come back :/

I thought SnarkPit was a gonner. Dead for two days.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

It's running super quick now.

Not really, it doesn't seem like they've upgraded the server at all (though I did find out that I'm hosted on the same IP as about 900 other websites... hmm).

HOWEVER it does seem that something serious happened to the server over the weekend, and right now nothing can be written to the server- meaning I can't fix bugs, chapters won't work properly, and things such as map screenshots, files can't be uploaded and obviously pits won't work :/

Sorry about that, Lep. I have two suggestions. Dunno if they have already been pitched or not:
1. Have being able to 'see all' smilies an option for when you reply to a messege...not ONLY when you are editing a messege you already wrote.
2. Have a 'delete post' button for double posts.
The second one I can understand why you wouldn't want that, as people may use it to just delete their posts, but...

Suggestion:

Front page news is important events. Not to minimize the importance of mappers news, the front page needs to be about "site" news primarily.

I suggest that site news be sorta like a sticky thread, where it remains on top for a predetermined time. With this method in place, if several mappers have news all at once (which our total member numbers may have happen more often) the real news would not slide down the page into oblivion so rapidly.

Also, if the news on the front page had links to the mappers news, instead of two pages with the same news, this would make less to read on the front page. IE Orpheus releases new map today... Reno updates work in progress.. Wildcard gets pilots license today.. the links would lead to the profile of the individual, without the need to clutter the front pages with less world shattering tid-bits.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

That's an idea, though perhaps it would be more useful to put some 'quick news' thing like that next to 'proper' news! (like PHL used to do with its hosted sites)

Looks like the pits are back. I've just managed to update mine and upload some files.

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My site

taps foots impatiently

HEY!, wait a cotton pickin minute...

My thread finally regains first place and suddenly the topic with the most replies disappears?

I WANT MY STAT BACK! :razz:

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Hey, Lep, why did you dump the weekly map round-up thing? It was a
great idea and it would be nice to have something like that when
snarkpit will finally be fully stable again since there have been quite
a few good maps released since then. If you don't know what i'm talking
about, look at the top of the news page, at your own post actually :smile: .

http://www.snarkpit.net/index.php?page=archive&date=02/2005&site=

Because im curently on study leave for my GCSEs im doing alot of
revision its leaving me little time to visit the site. I added the RSS
news feed but it doesnt wanna work properly, all the links are going to
snarkpit.com rather than .net and it hasnt got all the news in it.

I'm not really sure if you are aware of this, Lep, but Opera users can't post (myself included, unfortunately I'm using IE to type this). Each time I go to post, I get this error: http://img275.echo.cx/img275/5821/sperror2io.jpg

I've tried turning JavaScript off in my preferences, and it didn't work. I tried using quick reply AND normal reply, and neither worked. My friend couldn't make a topic, but I haven't tried.

Please sort it out, it's frustrating having to come in IE just to post. :smile:

Thanks in advance.

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I seem to have done toilet on your floor

It's meant to detect Opera and force you to use standard textarea posting, but if it doesn't then you can click on that 'having trouble posting' link and save your preferences..?

Recently, as in the last 20 minutes, I've been getting an error.
I'll be clicking around, and maybe 1 in 5 times, I get a white page
with this text;

The Error Message; said:
There was a problem connecting to the database; please press refresh or come back later.

Then I press back on my browser (firefox) and click the link again and
I get in fine. It's not really a big deal since I can get in
easily by doing the aforementioned, but I just thoguht I'd bring it to
your attention.

Leperous said:
It's meant to detect Opera and force you to use standard textarea posting, but if it doesn't then you can click on that 'having trouble posting' link and save your preferences..?

Well, a couple things. I've tried turning Java off in my preferences, and still have nothing - it just stops the menus and stuff from working. Also, the 'Having trouble posting' link doesn't even show up on Opera.

I'm certain it's not just me because me friend who also uses Opera cannot post either.

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I seem to have done toilet on your floor

Testing whether disabling JavaScript in Opera helps at all.

[edit] It worked! I'd still like this to be fixed though, since I don't want to have JavaScript disabled in every site, just to post on this site.

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I seem to have done toilet on your floor

It doesn't do it for me, with the newest version of Opera. Is it trying to do the fancy WYSIWYG editor with formatting buttons, or just a plain old textarea with no formatting buttons? Can you please post a full screenshot, rather than just that of the error message?

Hmm.. just testing it out.

[edit] Wow, it seems to be working now. Cool. :eek:

[edit again] It was just a plain old textarea with no formatting buttons, no formatting buttons or anything.

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I seem to have done toilet on your floor

Andrei said:
Hey, Lep, why did you dump the weekly map round-up thing? It was a great idea and it would be nice to have something like that when snarkpit will finally be fully stable again since there have been quite a few good maps released since then. If you don't know what i'm talking about, look at the top of the news page, at your own post actually :smile: .

Can you please point some out, I've been away for the last few days and don't have much time to root around?

I said this earlier (not in this thread) but this came up below the Post A New Topic in "Half-Life 2 Editing":

Warning: mysql_fetch_array(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /usr/local/psa/home/vhosts/snarkpit.net/httpdocs/forums/newtopic.php on line 22

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www.filefence.com. Free vmf hosting!

Not sure if I missed this before, but I'm liking the new "go to page" drop down menu.

Unfortunately, it's still pretty ugly :sad:

shrug

With me its function over form.

2 things:

1. I don't know what ATM was referring, but the 'GO TO' finction is in front of the regular drop down menu (}like if you drag your mouse over forums, it goes behind the go to feature.)

2. Have you considered adding Competions and such under the 'features' section?

Great site, Lep, and keep it up. :smile:

Not a suggestion or a bug. I just noticed a curiosity.

My spell checker used to always want to replace "Snarkpit" with "Snakebite" It now seems to accept Snarkpit, but it wants to separate it to "Snark" and "Pit"

The spell checker must either update periodically, or learn from the times I use it. :razz:

Snarkpit is moving up in the world. :biggrin:

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Suggestion/Complaint:

With the influx of so many new members, there has been an increase of score boosting in the maps section. To many new faces are scoring s**t maps highly because they are buds someplace else on another site or in a clan somewhere.

I feel it should be considered to impose a probationary period on members to be eligible to vote/score on any maps posted. Most especially when the join up date is within days/weeks of joining the snarkpit and comments uproariously on a map.

Sure, this might/could scare off a few new members but would it be any great loss since their only contribution in many cases is commenting on said map and departing?

I hate even suggestion this because it stinks of elitism, but its becoming apparent that some sort of a probationary period is necessary. I hate having to impose restrictions that should be already instilled in people.

Please consider this before discarding out of hand.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I agree entirely with Orpheus. Might I also add that there are many
members with only 1 post as their entire snarkpit activity and that
many of the people who join only post 1 or 2 times in the forums before
disappearing.

I don't really see why thats a problem Andrei, nor what anyody could
ever do about it. We can't ensure people are turning up for the long
haul :sad: The other issue is more of a concern.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

ReNo said:
The other issue is more of a concern.

I agree. I do not see how we could make people return.. I do not see why someone would not, but.. shrugs

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The best things in life, aren't things.

All i'm saying is that members who are on "trial period" (until they
have 100 snarkmarks or something) should have their profiles removed if
they don't post anything for large periods of time. That way we won't
have a 2 million member list with only 1000 users who are actually
active.

Andrei said:
All i'm saying is that members who are on "trial period" (until they have 100 snarkmarks or something) should have their profiles removed if they don't post anything for large periods of time. That way we won't have a 2 million member list with only 1000 users who are actually active.

We tried something similar once. My number used to be "21"

Apparently its a lot of effort on Leps part so it hasn't been done again.

All we can do is accept that some will not return.

Except for the first few hundred numbers, I really do not look at membership numbers anymore. We have a lot of quality members with very high place counts.

In other words, member 2000 may be as good, or better than 150 is. (for example, I am not gonna look up who 2000 or 150 is)

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The best things in life, aren't things.

<div class="quote"><div class="quotetitle">? quoting Andre:</div><div class="quotetext">All i'm saying is that members who are on "trial period" (until they
have 100 snarkmarks or something) should have their profiles removed if
they don't post anything for large periods of time. That way we won't
have a 2 million member list with only 1000 users who are actually
active.

</div></div>

I don't see the point of that. It's not like the members who
don't show up anymore are cluttering things or getting in the way of
anything. I don't think you should have to pass a certain margin
of posts or SM before you're safe from becoming an "unperson."

Back to Orph's original idea. While I see your point and I agree
that some crap maps are getting fairly high scores (from what I've seen
during my short time here so far), what you're hoping for is the
implementation of some sort of standard rating system. But I
think it will be impossible to make everyone rate maps as
harshly/fairly as you. I think the system works fine as long as
everyone has a chance to voice their opinions. If someone rates a
killbox a 10 and you rate it a 2, hopefully a person browsing the
comments will see that your reasons for the low score make sense while
the person who rated it a 10 is just biased/insane.

This site is welcoming because it doesn't have some sort of tiered
feature system. I don't know what I would have thought about this
site if I couldn't have rated anything until a month (or whatever)
after my sign up.

Addicted to Morphine said:
This site is welcoming because it doesn't have some sort of tiered feature system. I don't know what I would have thought about this site if I couldn't have rated anything until a month (or whatever) after my sign up.

But, think how good you would have felt afterward. Milestones do have a positive effect, sometimes.

/methinks, it could be a filtration system if it was clear BEFORE you joined that you would not be permitted to bloat a score just by signing up.

Its not like it happens too often, and the ones doing it would not be missed if they didn't join because of the probation.

As I said, it stinks of elitism, but I see no way around it... Other than just permitting it to continue.

shrugs

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The best things in life, aren't things.

But if you are saying it doesn't happen that often, then why limit what
legitimate new users are able to do on the site just to avoid these
rare misuses?

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

ReNo said:
But if you are saying it doesn't happen that often, then why limit what legitimate new users are able to do on the site just to avoid these rare misuses?

I know.. Why do you think I have not mentioned it before, or often Duncan.

Its not too often, but it does undermine the situation by eroding the system.

sighs

gimme a break will'ya, I am still annoyed at the screenshot situation but have pretty much let it drop for lack of support. I hate seeing wrongs uncorrected for lengths of time. :/

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The best things in life, aren't things.

If you find a map that you think has been over-rated, then play it yourself and give it a poor rating if it turns out that it is rubbish. Unfortunately, as we've seen from killboxes and fy_ maps, people have different tastes, and there's not much you can do about it except offer your reasons for disliking something. I'm not going to introduce some 'trial' membership period or delay before being able to post.

Why did I have the feeling that it would come down to "my" having to put out effort to remedy this? :sad:

Yeah, its my problem so it stands to reason but.. I was hoping. You know what? when you consider that we (all of us) could gang bang these maps and solve the issue, thats not really a good thing either. It would send out an even worse message. I was hoping to get the message across with the least amount of confrontationalism.

shrugs

nevermind.. in the end, I know which maps suck ass, and I am all the better for knowing it. When it comes right down to it, my record for distinguishing the two is pretty damned good.

You are right.. /me bows.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

If you're ever looking for some new implementation ideas:

A 'hiding' or parsing feature for the forums would be pretty cool (being able to turn it off and on in the control panel would be a good idea as well, as with any large change)

For example: You could have it parse the list of threads alphabetically by title or creator.

Date of creation is another one. Hide locked/closed/old threads.
Parse by number of replies. Hide non- ?fire? threads, or hide fire threads. It'd be a nice addition I think. Stickys should stay at the top though, I think.

Also, expanding the Search function to find user's threads, etc.

Taking that php executes for every person that visits whatever page writing some new functions wouldn't hurt performance much. I doubt it'd have more impact then refreshing one of the forums pages.

Anyway, it's just a thought.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

That sounds interesting, though I'd prefer to do it through cookies than the database. And yes, the site search should be better- I'll work on it over the Summer.

Hey, what's the ETA on some new interviews? Someone should interview Reno or something!

We could have an interview with jam13 from PFL. :biggrin:

I think Des has run off again, so I'll get round to doing some after my exams (which are coming up this week... argh!)

Line 103, Line 42, both character 3. Javascript errors on whatever software this (and a few others) internet terminal runs.

Small problem but I thought i'd point it out..

Object doesn't support this property or method

Yes I've noticed that, but I can't seem to figure out exactly what's causing it :/

I get the line 103 error when I check snarkpit on the road.

I was gonna report it, but kept forgetting.

Something to do with truckstop net providers I had assumed. :/

[edit] your timing is off again. The old/new post thingy is borked. It says its old news, the second I click it.. course, it could be considered old news, but time wise, I had just seen it.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Yes, that's new, it remembers when you've read a thread now :razz: