Request for input about the future of Quadropolis. Updated on 4th of May 2013!

Suicizer | 2013-04-08 20:29

[

points ]

(1 vote)

Information

As most of you all witnessed Quadropolis has moved to a new server. This should mean nothing else as we, the moderators and administrators of it want to preserve as much as possible. Despite that, this is the perfect time for some input from the community which uses the website to view and comment on nodes to give some input about how to actually improve the experience of Quadropolis.

The reason of this content is to stop posts on the official website of Sauerbraten, as that isn't the only game engine neither the only game which uses this website.

Notifications

It is uncertain that anything can actually be improved. But to start this as certain orientation about what other people than administrators or moderators think shouldn't be considered as a bad idea.
Any input (even and actually especially those which you agree!) will be saved on this node to keep a certain poll of what people actually like to see and what not.
I'll put your name after the title of the idea whenever you agree those certain points.
Everything will be considered as a honest and polite comment, as long as it's constructive and has no selfish means.

The Ideas

Well, it's has become a quite big number. Maybe one day I'll sort them out and merge certain requests together. But for now, just keep reading!

Layout

~~Old domain name~~ (Skur, Zamwa, SkiingPenguins, Suicizer)
"Since it's got nothing to do with this 4-cube page excecpt the host I think it should have it's old domain back."

New Look (SkiingPenguins, Suicizer, zombie-apocalypse)
"The new site needs to have a refreshed look, and i do not think we should keep the content from the old site. i think the old site's data should be kept somewhere, but not in a way that is indistinguishable from the new site."

Moderator/Admin Forum (Suicizer)
There isn't such a thing as a forum for moderators (neither for admins) to discuss about certain things on Quadropolis. I once bowed down about this but had not enough privileges to do the job.

Private messaging system (Mmeaninglez, SkiingPenguins)
Add a messaging system where users could talk to each other in private.

Fix up the pinned-weight order (Razgriz, Suicizer, Skur)
All lists around Quadropolis carry a pinned-weight order (like the frontpage, but even just nodes itself also as the node itself always appears above comments). But there are certain fix-ups to be done.

~~Making important nodes easier to find~~ (Skur, Suicizer, zombie-apocalypse)
Certain nodes (like the 10 commandments, packaging guide, etc) still seem hard to reach for newcomers. What about putting those under a page which is for guides only? There currently seems to be a header already, but when clicking on, uncategorised nodes seem to appear.

~~Cleaning up the header bar~~ (Suicizer)
The header bar currently consists out of Forums, New Content, New MODs, New Scripts, Best Content, Best MODs, Best Scripts, Guides, News Archive, Create Content, Login/Register. This seems to be pretty odd, as everything with the header New ... would already appear in the Recent Content column, while the headers Best ... are often pretty subjective. It doesn't makes it very organized also.
So what about cleaning up that bar and doing the very same with Best ... and New ... as what has been done with the header of Forums, if you jump to that page, different items will be shown all related to the forum.

Support social media (VampireFrog, Suicizer)
Quadroplis has no link towards any social media centre so far (not even IRC). Maybe it gets time for such option?

More icons around Quadropolis (VampireFrog, Suicizer)
A lot of things on Quadropolis are textual displayed. Some more icons next words could change the look of Quadropolis already.

Content-based input

Stop supporting old content (SkiingPenguins, Suicizer)
The old nodes still should be accessible to everyone, but shouldn't be on this server anymore. We don't want to keep Quadropolis like it actually was, are we?

Moderation tags (Razgriz, Suicizer)
Bring back the moderation tag-system as we once had, but then expressed shorter or by using icons.

Improved way for notifications (Razgriz, Suicizer, kz1)
Change the notification-tag system to something with icons instead of words like "singleplayer", "Win32", etc.

Separate page for bug-tracking (Razgriz)
Add a separate page to put comments on which is meant specific for mistakes/lackings within a map.

Clean up content creation page (Suicizer)
Whenever creating a new node (like content), things which are optional (the notification tags like the size of the map, which mode, etc) put them on another page or "hide" them until you click on a certain link within the create content-page to make them appear (pretty much like when you already have seen a certain comment and want to read it another time).

More dynamic screenshot resolution (Suicizer, SkiinPenguins)
So far the limit is up to 640x480 pixels whenever uploading a screenshot to a node. Maybe it would be nice if you are also able to upload something like 512x512.

Reward good content better (Suicizer)
In the past, after a certain number of good nodes (as in containing valuable information or an impressive map/mod/script), people often gained a rank. This has stopped about 3 years ago.

Voting System

Old voting system (SkiingPenguins, Suicizer, Justin, Mmeaninglez)
Let's go back to our old voting system with just an average of all votes.

Reduce the vote-scale (Zamwa, Skur, SkiingPenguins, Suicizer)
Just reduce the scale of voting from 9 options (1 to 10) to only 3 options (-1, 0 and +1). Our beloved Sauerbraten developer once had the theory the less options someone has to choose from, the less more chance the user does the right thing.

Implement starred content in voting-system (Zamwa, SkiingPenguins, Suicizer, Skur)
"Remove the "starred content" from a moderators control to an automated system based on votes over 5 and above 75% approval!"

Remove banned accounts from votings (Razgriz, Suicizer)
Let administrators and moderators be able to delete votes which are made by "anonymous" accounts (most of them banned whenever so). Automating this process would be even better.

Search Tools

Proper in-website searching (Razgriz, Suicizer)
"Using google to do the searches in quadro isn't exactly the most convenient method, given how it occasionally breaks down on itself regardless of browser used."

~~Really unpublish content~~ (Suicizer)
Any user is able to see unpublished contents in the search list, yet aren't authorized to access it. What about just completly censorize it? It adds question-marks for certain people on things which they shouldn't be able to see anyway.

Search by author (Somedude, Mmeaninglez, Suicizer)
Add a search option so you can search certain content by author also (without needing to track his history of commenting and posting).

Event-based input

~~Monthly Polls~~ (Suicizer)
Resurrect the Montly Polls from their grave.

More events (Suicizer)
Organize more events than just a website which you can post your stuff on and let it get reviewed.

User/moderator/administrator-related input

Advanced profile settings (Suicizer, SkiingPenguins, Skur, zombie-apocalypse )
Some more profile settings for normal users than just their full name, bio and website (like a profile image of 64x64?).

Changelog of content for users (Suicizer, Vampirefrog)
So far you need to post a comment on your own node to get some attention again if you've updated your map. This actually isn't the meaning of commenting. When users are able to see through the log that a content has been updated, they probably will check it out once more way easier.
Another plan to tackle this problem is to add a tag in recent content which says Updated!, instead of New!.

~~A new team~~ (Suicizer, SkiingPenguins)
Somehow we actually only have 1 moderator which is truly active, which is suprisingly me :(. I think a small clean up in this section could help and start with fresh team of new moderators and some small amount of new administrators.
This is not the right thread to ask if you can be moderator, neither admin. Our team will contact you instead.

~~Synchronize the ranking system~~ (Suicizer)
At the moment, you are able to be a warned user, yet have fully admin rights. This is a quite odd appearance and no-one except the person which grants the privileges knows about what certain people can do and what they can't do. Maybe we need more ranks, like silver stars for moderators or super users, for example.

Rating

points

(1 vote)

Comments

Suicizer | 2013-04-08 20:43

...

skiingpenguins | 2013-04-08 21:13

carrying over from the cube forums,

This is the stuff i think would be good:

"4.Remove the "starred content" from a moderators control to an automated system based on votes over 5 and above 75% approval!
5.Ability to vote on comments +1 & -1 useful for pointing out a trolling comment and praising a good idea!"

"Since it's got nothing to do with this 4-cube page excecpt the host i think it should have it's old domain back."

The voting system needs to be changed back to the way it was before. the new stuff is lame.

I believe quadropolis needs better leadership, better user interaction, and all around more information flowing through it. the place has been dead for what seems to me like atleast a year. We need a good way for registering users, keeping out spammers, and rating content. I believe the "Starred" content should like above copied from the cube 2 forum, be automated. but also, it needs to be allowable for an admin to star content as well. this would be used for announcements and general messages to the users.

I very much hope that we can keep the quadropolis name, because i dislike the newer '4-cube'. no offense to anyone.

The new site needs to have a refreshed look, and i do not think we should keep the content from the old site. i think the old site's data should be kept somewhere, but not in a way that is indistinguishable from the new site.

i think that the voting system could also be based on a smaller selection of options; such as -1, 0, +1. I also think that if we require the user to comment with a certain amount of characters it will help out people.

thanks for reading my rambling thoughts.

Zoocata | 2013-04-08 23:36

I feel like there should be some sort of tagging system. The current search tool is very weak, as it includes results shown in comments and not the map itself. Having a tag system, such as clicking on a tag and having other maps listed in that tag, would be a very useful addition.

Also, maybe we should have one of those word-art things like garrysmod.org has, which lists the most searched words in the biggest fonts.
See: http://oi50.tinypic.com/4jrx3o.jpg

SomeDude | 2013-04-09 01:07

I'd love to see a "search by author" option.

Mmeaninglez | 2013-04-09 02:04

I second this idea, I also think that it would be very helpful for those who want to use it.

I also second averaging overall votes, at least after some threshold is met. (after 5 votes, maybe?) I don't really want to see something with one vote outranking a 9.6 with 30 votes.

RaZgRiZ | 2013-04-10 08:11

There already exists such a feature, albeit quite hidden. Just go to somone's profile, and click on his name (it's a link :o), the site will take you to a list of submitted content from that author.

SomeDude | 2013-04-10 17:58

Well, adding it to the "search tools" just makes sense.

Also, I just tried checking Suicizer's content, but it always comes up with "page not found"; I'm guessing this is a Quad 2.0 bug...

-EDIT- I just noticed the "Full Name" field is optional; users that leave it blank have no such link.
-EDIT-AGAIN- Turns out you can also use the "Location" link, more or less.

Suicizer | 2013-04-10 17:43

This is true, but you also get to see that person's comments between so (as like replies and such on other nodes). So it's more about the activity of that account rather than the actual nodes.

skiingpenguins | 2013-04-10 20:06

the "Track" tab on the user profile also does this.

Justin | 2013-04-09 14:19

I am also for switching back to the old voting system. The new system is not as straightforward in separating good content from mediocre/bad content.

vampirefrog | 2013-04-09 16:49

It's always good to have a place where people share maps and comment them. I'm glad we have it. There's always room for improvement, but I think it's fine so far.

RaZgRiZ | 2013-04-10 08:24

Here's some of my improvement ideas:

Automatically discard votes from banned/non-existent accounts. Also allow moderators/admins to discard votes should a problem arise with someone deliberately downvoting someone's content
Proper in-website searching. Using google to do the searches in quadro isn't exactly the most convenient method, given how it occasionally breaks down on itself regardless of browser used.
Better clarification of content date and game compatibility. It really isn't something that we should have to deal with telling people who complained about old-content not working as described when using a newer client or something.
Bringing back moderation tags on content (such as no-screenshot, invalid packaging, etc.), albeit without taking up half the screen in space displaying those messages. Maybe subtle icons with the according tooltips on the side and a general message somewhere in the node informing people about those unresolved issues.
This is more of a fix rather than an improvement, but i think the weight of "pinned" nodes on the front page doesn't actually do anything about their order..
Now this is a big step i'm talking about here.. but we could separate a node's comment forms according to needs. What i suggest is keeping the general comment form present, but also adding another comments tab, this one dedicated to people posting about problems encountered in a map/script/whatever with the author being able to mark said "reports" as resolved. It should help greatly in keeping track what has been done.

Just these for now. I may think of more later.

skiingpenguins | 2013-04-10 20:10

I also support number four, and think this would be wonderful.

As for number three, I think it would be helpful to have a dropdown menu or some other way of indicating (while creating the node) what version of what game the content was made for. I would not suggest including a "most recent" or "current" as that is the problem we have now, but instead the specific release version names. Perhaps even incorporate which game it is for in the same input box. Bold names and then indented lists below it that require you to select the version.

Skur | 2013-04-11 19:15

1. I think the user and packaging guide should be a bit easier to find, maybe links could be added to the mainpage and users could be lead to them after creating a new account, since they might not be seen in the content creation page and most newbies propably wont find them in the guides section, which is the first place you would look for them. Maybe a sticky "beginners Guide" could be created aswell, which is always at the top of the guide section and includes links to all important guides for new users.

2. Mistakes in comments, people already replied to, sometimes cause confusion, because they cant be edited (by normal users) anymore. I think an edit function, which doesnt allow to modify the original comment, but add something to it, which could also be marked as "Edited", would be useful.

3. +1/-1 for comments

Besides that i think reducing the vote-scale would be good, but then i would like to keep marking content as starred a moderators decision, since the smaller vote scale would be less precise. I also wouldnt like the design to be changed too much (apart from layout changes such as a more detailed profile), since i like this simple oldschool look and think it fits sauer/quad really well.

zombie-apocalypse | 2013-04-13 15:21

old domain name, own search-engine, bigger upload filesizes, pm, an easy to find and short how to extract zip / set-up cfg-guide and maybe a fresh new css-look would be nice! =)

(and please no js, analytics or spyware like that! xD)

kz1 | 2013-04-13 18:25

Quad doesn't have any spyware or google analytics. It already has js which is being used for several things for a number of years. 2 out of three ain't bad...

zombie-apocalypse | 2013-04-14 12:03

oh yeah, I just wanted to note that! :D that's awesome, thanks! =)

and would be cool if you could release a new forum software under a free license :D

Suicizer | 2013-04-15 20:45

would be cool if you could release a new forum software under a free license :D

~~... What do you mean?~~

RaZgRiZ | 2013-04-15 22:39

Don't aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaask.
It's for your own good. He will rant about GPL and freedom of licences blablabla legal-stuff-induced headache inbound.

Mmeaninglez | 2013-04-16 03:28

I'll second having private messages to other users as part of the site. It would be helpful IMO to be able to contact specific users about well, things without users having to give out their email on their profile page.

skiingpenguins | 2013-04-16 18:50

+1 i agree to this.

Suicizer | 2013-04-16 19:06

Aren't we having an email address for that? Any way, I'll include it in the list...

skiingpenguins | 2013-04-16 19:11

to be able to contact specific users about well, things without users having to give out their email on their profile page.

Sweet | 2013-04-14 02:09

~~Could use some more images of nude women~~

a_teammate | 2013-04-17 12:17

Two points:
Firstly it takes way too long to see who made the post:
It will encourage people to have their "Name" on something, so place it properly.

Secondly, there should be a system similar the the ogros-stats: "Highest Voted this week/month/day/year/total". Maybe thats what could replace the starred content.

greetings

Suicizer | 2013-04-17 17:26

Firstly it takes way too long to see who made the post:
I guess you mean on nodes. Well, maybe we can increase the size a little. It always has been odd to me why the title of the node is the same font-size as the description of the node. So the only thing I could say is; good thinking!

There should be a system similar the the ogros-stats: "Highest Voted this week/month/day/year/total"

It's an interesting idea, but that would result a node which has the most votes would be on the frontpage and eventually stay there for the rest of it's life as it's the first thing people get to see. So I rather would like to see the opposite; content which had nearly to no attention at the page (while still containing a certain quality).

skiingpenguins | 2013-04-20 21:43

why is the old domain name part crossed out? it still says im on quadropolis.4-cube.com

Skur | 2013-04-21 10:54

for me both quadropolis.us and quadropolis.4-cube.com work fine.

skiingpenguins | 2013-04-21 15:56

yes, but i have to log in twice it seems and after that it is switched to quadropolis.4-cube.com

Suicizer | 2013-04-21 21:57

well, then the name of the domain when you try to find Quadropolis in overall is the same isn't it =P?

kz1 | 2013-04-24 14:10

Should be fixed now.

skiingpenguins | 2013-04-24 18:46

just confirming yes it is fixed ^_^ thanks

LandRiders7th | 2013-04-30 00:19

How about this. maybe this site should have something new like using HTML5 support on nodes for an example being able to view videos without leaving the node and the layout of this site could use an update too just make it alittle more intuitive and yet still keep the old style at the sametime.

If you guys need help then maybe I can do what I can to accomplish that.

This is LR7

zombie-apocalypse | 2013-06-22 12:47

Html5-Video support would be nice but would use a lot of traffic.

Another thing that came to my mind was: deleting and editing own comments (after someone replied). They could show "last edit..."

Could you add that please?

love, meow! =)

Windecker | 2013-06-26 00:24

This has nothing to do with anything important, but could we perhaps implement a feature to remove votes on maps from accounts that have been deleted? There have been instances where accounts are made simply to vote a map up or down, and the accounts get blocked/deleted. The vote remains, however. This is a bit unfair for some people.

RaZgRiZ | 2013-06-26 06:11

Already there, check the last entry of the Voting category.

Windecker | 2013-06-26 12:48

Hmm, not sure how I missed that.

Soo... when can we have it? :P

RaZgRiZ | 2013-06-26 18:26

No idea, i remain here so i can practically flaunt my stars in everyone's faces and show them how great i am.

But really i have no idea. I'm not responsible for any changes to quadro :P

Suicizer | 2013-06-26 18:28

Then maybe it get's time to get back to work again, shouldn't you =P?

RaZgRiZ | 2013-06-26 21:13

Nah, i have better things to deal with in life right now. Besides, i like the role of the watcher.

Windecker | 2013-06-26 23:40

You can have the role of watcher,
I shall take the role of Grand Overseer.

RaZgRiZ | 2013-07-04 22:27

Here's an idea, make the menus on the right sidebar expandable, so i can hide them if need be (now that suicizer messed with everything to make them better, they take up all my vertical screen space to see the recent content).

Pyccna | 2013-07-04 22:32

+1 if not programmed with Javascript.

Suicizer | 2013-07-05 16:43

I'mnot the only one who is messing aroundwith the menus...

IgC | 2013-07-05 13:56

it would take.. mmh.. 10 minutes to do it with CSS, hover to expand them.

Pyccna | 2013-07-05 22:16

Werx.