I like how accusations are made towards staff for not encouraging activity while only 1.14% of total members (3.9% of active members) are in staff. It's not like we should be the ones to tell you guys what to do or post about, ffs.
As for us not listening to, let's check the first page of posts in this section.
Request for graphics section re-organization - granted
Request for stricter moderation of the LTD thread - done
Feedback for v2 of the rules - accepted
"fun" section - granted, GF
GF posts out of the new post list - granted (with the note that it doesn't seem to work anymore - needs to be fixed)
"Part X" threads - tried, didn't catch, abandoned.
Request for explanation of The Venue being in a subsection, debate section - explanation given, debate section created
Chat room - Not granted
White skin - Not implemented
Etc etc etc. I've taken a quick count, and am only seeing about six or so feature requests not being granted - either due to a lack of motivation or because its use was unconvincing, or because of a lack of implementors (the features that would require a lot of custom coding or styling), but most of these suggestions also received little support.
So yeah, I don't get where this six months blargh is about. And I'm probably re-fueling this situation now, just wanted to get that off of my chest. We can't say yes or no to a suggestion if it isn't formulated properly, let alone if it's not formulated at all.
And the ones we did accept and implement often didn't show results. Teams? Not enough activity (and don't blame that on the staff, see above). RP section? Low activity, but it's high-quality so we're giving it a half-assed second chance. The so-much awaited and often even
demanded spam section? Compromise was given and it was implemented, activity 's low - only a few hundred posts more than the RP section, for example - granted, RP's been up for a few weeks longer, but still.
And the music section was a specification of the entertainment section, it was created when the teams shut down due to its high quality content at the time and the relative attention that music had compared to other entertainment.
I need to quit replying to points made ten pages ago, costs way too much of my time.
I like how an accusation is made for overzealous staff (in terms of handing out infractions (the ones that count)) when only eight or so have been handed out during the last month, only half of them for flaming. What.
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Anyways, it seems a consensus has been reached, that the shoutbox will be added. I guess I agree - although I don't believe it'll increase overall activity - but I'm willing to give it a shot. Under the following conditions:
* The experiment will last for 3 months (ish), where an evaluation will be held around new year's.
* If the shoutbox is abused during this time, due to for example flaming back and forth, posting of excess macros that haven't been adjusted to fit in the limited space of the shoutbox (I'll allow 3-line high images, i.e.
), repeated shit posts (i.e. someone spelling out their sentence one word at a time), or whatever is generally considered not appropriate use of a shoutbox, the experiment may end prematurely.
* If the shoutbox uses up an excessive amount of CPU or bandwidth (which shouldn't happen if it's written well), an alternative will be searched for first. If the low-cost version (if found) also causes problems in the performance area, the experiment will be ended prematurely.
* We'll take activity into consideration during the experiment / trial. I won't say it has to increase activity overall - as it most likely will have the adverse effect - but it'd be fun to see what happens. Attached is an analytics report of the last month - 250.000 pageviews, 17 minutes average time on site, that kinda thing - and a printout of the posts made this month - averaging at 291 posts / day, with peaks of 522. I'm afraid it'll have to go if it draws away too much from the activity, but as I can't predict its effect on activity as it is now, we'll have to see.
* I'll have to look around to see which shoutboxes are somewhat recent and up to date and that doesn't use up all the resources (cpu limit) we have. We can probably lower its effect on the site by increasing the delay between automatic re-checks for new posts and / or lowering the amount of time until the thing goes into idle (to see what I'm referring to, check
http://ffof.nl's shoutbox). But I'll have to see which shoutbox is most suitable for this.
I'll see if I can install it tomorrow, as it's rather later over here right now.
If there's anyone that disagrees with the above terms, please state so, list your reasons, and they'll either get adjusted, or we'll say that we haven't reached a compromise, and the suggestion will not be put through. If no complaints or adjustments have been given, we'll assume a compromise on this matter has been reached, and the suggestion has been officially accepted - albeit with a lot of argumenting, but that sometimes can't be helped.
/official