Gamegrene Third Edition launches
If you're seeing this, it means you're currently viewing the new and improved Gamegrene.com, running on a new server with upgraded software and theme (but the same old green). This is the first iteration of Gamegrene Third Edition, and is focused on "just" getting the site to work. New features will continue to drop in over the coming weeks. For now, read on, poke around, and give us some comments on how it's lookin'.
As above, the goal of this week's release was "just" to get the site working. Four years worth of software upgrades, and a completely different server with its own set of upgraded software, combine to a lot of variables and case scenarios. We want a full week of "live testing" to complement the extensive local testing we've already done, so that we can fully focus on any remaining bugs you may discover.
Your comments, first and foremost, are appreciated. Tell us about anything that's broken, rubs you the wrong way, or just feels weird -- this is the first major upgrade in years and, whilst we don't foresee making any major changes (ie. "go back to the old theme" or "the old software worked better"), we do want to hear what you're feelin'.
You may want to take a read of the new About Gamegrene too.
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First post. Just to get that out of the way.
I like the new look.
The dung beetle is definitely a nice touch!
Congrats! The site's looking slick, and great to see you're continuing to leverage the best tools for the job.
I agree with all of the above; the site looks great. However, I'm very confused by the way replies work. The advantage to the old way was that the replies made their own little section that was easy to see; however, it looked clunky, though I liked it a lot better than most sites where it just goes on the bottom and nobody knows where it came from. Is there any way we could synthesize the two, so replies are organized and easy to find (as well as know what, specifically, they are replying to), but not cluttered?
There's a healthy amount of problems with threading, least of which is its inevitable clunky display. I don't expect to turn on threading again, but sometime in the coming weeks I'll be implementing a [quote] tag. Just as you see "reply" now on individual comments, you'll also see a "quote" link. Clicking it will bring you into a reply window with the previous message already quoted, similar to how other forum software currently works. Gamegrene will also soon be emulating other aspects of common forum software, such as moving the poster information to the left hand side of the comment, with support for avatars and so forth.
Hrm. Here's one possibility: say you click on "reply" or the new "quote" link (to come). In both cases, we store, on the backend, the ID of the comment you're replying to (or quoting). I could, at the beginning of each comment, include a small line like "in reply to [user] on [date]", which a link to the actual comment. Clicking it would send the browser to that comment on the page (without refreshing the page). That'd be one possibility for keeping the replies "organized" (a reply would always link back to the parent). This wouldn't really work if one were replying to (or quoting) multiple messages all at once though (since there'd be no indented indication that all these comments are tangibly related to one another).
That sounds very clever. Ideally, though a topic post will flow through a single thread. Perhaps there should be an option to split into a new thread -- starting a new topic with the linked replies.
*two thumbs up*
Everything looks good so far. The beetle gave me a good laugh. Is it a permanent addition or just for 4E? ;-D
It's intended as a permanent addition, yes :)
That strikes me as a good way to do it, Morbus. As for replying to multiple things, it's not that hard to just do separate comments. We should be able to handle it. Looks good, man! Keep it up.
Also, something's up with the poll. I think I could vote twice and ruin it's truth value! ;) So, when you feel like it, that's something else, in case you wanted to know.
Theoretically, you should be able to vote only once when you're logged in. I have, however, turned on anonymous voting for the poll, which tracks by IP address (so, sure, one vote from your account, and then X votes for how many IP addresses you have). Anonymous commenting is also enabled in Third Edition (which had been off for years due to lack of a good spam tool).
Thought we all might be interested in this, a piece on the environmental impact of our new mascot, the dung beetle (and his invertebrate friends): http://www.newsweek.com/id/139455?tid=relatedcl
The only question, to me, is, extending the metaphor, does that mean that all us users are all flies and that these gaming websites are little pieces of crap?
Hi.
Things look fresh and crisp on a first glance.
Two issues, though:
First of all, what happened to the "New" tag on new replies?
EDIT: Found it. Not very eye-catching. Maybe do it in yellow?
Second, when clicking Recent Posts I get lots of ancient articles (circa 2000) marked as new articles.
I'm also not so sure sure about what reference the dung beetle is for.
"Second, when clicking Recent Posts I get lots of ancient articles (circa 2000) marked as new articles." - that's my fault, and you'll see a bunch more in the coming weeks. I'm doing some standard edits and quality control on the older articles, so they end up showing in the tracker. As for the dung beetle - there's a lot of metaphoric intent there; you can find some on the new About page.
Suggestion: Go back to having to preview a post before you can post it. I think it helps in legibility of and prevents some errors in posts.
Done.
I gotta disagree with zip on this one. It does help with legibility, but most people don't even bother rereading their post, they just go down to save. I think it's much more convenient to not have to navigate through another page to post it. Those who are prone to errors can go through the preview page or just reread their comment right here. I don't think it's a necessary step and don't necessarily like that we have to go to the preview page. I think both options works better.
Like this! ARGH preview page! lol
Personally, I find that I'm usually too lazy to re-read and preview my post if I dont have to. When I have only the preview button I means I'll give it anoher pass before submitting.
But that's just me.
I'm with Zip on this one, being to preview everything before you post it does help in legibility. It also gives those of us who tend to be less coherent in our writing a chance to make sure that it really does sound as good and flowing on paper as it does in our head.
And just so you know Tzuriel... there are people who reread their posts... every time... :)
Some more thoughts on this, Morbus, if you're open for 'em.
I'd like it if there was a fairly obvious tag like "Archives" or something that puts us on the articles by authors page. When I first came to the site, that was really handy and we don't want all gamegrene's older articles to fade away becaue their not on the recent posts! So, yeah, if that could be on the side or somewhere to allow new people to look through the site, and old people every now and then, too.
Also, it'd be cool if we could "revote" on the pools, like if we changed our thoughts on it. Something that would erase the vote from this IP address and then allow you to revote. I don't know how complicated that would be, but if it wouldn't be too much to do it, that'd be cool. Other than that, I love it. Looks great.
Well, just saw the cancel your vote thing on the poll. So never mind. hehe :)
Tzuriel - the author's page is accessible from About Gamegrene > Writer's Index in the sidebar.
I know it is, but that's rather difficult to find if you're new to the site. I consider myself fairly internet-savvy, but it isn't intuitive to have it there, as it's hidden, and you usually think "About Gamegrene" would have, well, stuff about Gamegrene, not an Archives link. I just think an explicit, out in the open link would be better and easier for those poking around and for us older visitors, too.
Fair enough. I'll throw it on the list.
Thanks. Again, a minor concern, when you have time. Don't kill yourself.
Hey Morbus,
Maybe a bit of scratch space on the server for verified users to save draft responses? It would save me having to use Notepad. You could limit it to one draft response per user.
Just a thought.