Petsite

[Boltgreywing]

Hey guys where did my duelingpets site go to? Now i can't find it.

[Mobotropolis]

Ah. That's odd. 

Last month I did an audit of active games using two lists; the wiki and the games list here. It looks like the Game List is gone. 

Your site is over here, but I did not initially mark it as active because it failed the simple four-prong test I was using. 

[Boltgreywing]

On 6/4/2018 at 5:28 AM, Mobotropolis said:

Ah. That's odd. 

Last month I did an audit of active games using two lists; the wiki and the games list here. It looks like the Game List is gone. 

Your site is over here, but I did not initially mark it as active because it failed the simple four-prong test I was using. 

@Mobotropolis: I kind of noticed this. What four pronged test exactly?

It kind of makes me question this site.

[Mobotropolis]

@Boltgreywing I was doing some research in May in regards to design.

Specifically, I was mulling over what should be on the front page of a game to create a good first impression. To consider that I looked at the front page of about ... 200-some games to see if I could see a pattern.

Since there were so many games between the Wikipedia Page and the Game Directory I attempted to use some matter of criteria to narrow down the list. I decided to focus only on games that were still active. 

How I Defined " Active " - 

 

The game had to meet one of the following criteria in descending order: 

 

- Have a News Post released since New Years 2018 

- Have a Forum with a post from a Staff Member since New Years 2018 

- Have activity from the games' members that happened since New Years 2018

- Had over 25 active users when I checked the site 

 

Oh, and I had to be able to tell this without logging in. 

 

Things That Did Not Fool Mob - 

 

- Having a 2018 Copyright (you can code it that way) 

- Having Today's Date on the Front Page (you can code it that way) 

 

Things That Almost Fooled Mob - 

 

- I removed a game that, upon further inspection, appeared to have fake stats.

Went to the same game twice on different days and the stats were the same. 

 

The results were ... actually pretty good. There were over 50 games that met the criteria. 

Edited June 13, 2018 by Mobotropolis

[Martyn]

Hello @Boltgreywing,

I addressed the missing Gaming Directory on another topic, please feel free to see my reply here.
Sorry for leaving replying to yourself this long, I've had some other things in real life that took up my time.

[Boltgreywing]

On 6/13/2018 at 6:17 AM, Mobotropolis said:

@Boltgreywing I was doing some research in May in regards to design.

Specifically, I was mulling over what should be on the front page of a game to create a good first impression. To consider that I looked at the front page of about ... 200-some games to see if I could see a pattern.

Since there were so many games between the Wikipedia Page and the Game Directory I attempted to use some matter of criteria to narrow down the list. I decided to focus only on games that were still active. 

How I Defined " Active " - 

 

The game had to meet one of the following criteria in descending order: 

 

- Have a News Post released since New Years 2018 

- Have a Forum with a post from a Staff Member since New Years 2018 

- Have activity from the games' members that happened since New Years 2018

- Had over 25 active users when I checked the site 

 

Oh, and I had to be able to tell this without logging in. 

 

Things That Did Not Fool Mob - 

 

- Having a 2018 Copyright (you can code it that way) 

- Having Today's Date on the Front Page (you can code it that way) 

 

Things That Almost Fooled Mob - 

 

- I removed a game that, upon further inspection, appeared to have fake stats.

Went to the same game twice on different days and the stats were the same. 

 

The results were ... actually pretty good. There were over 50 games that met the criteria. 

@Mobotropolis: There are a few things that I still don't really know how to code. Having 200 games on the front page is a bit overwhelming for those on slower connections, so I am opting to just have three images per section. Its not the greatest idea but I am hoping it works. The first three options are kind of hard, but the fourth one is easy. I am looking to have a stats page that lists everything.

On 6/19/2018 at 4:38 PM, Martyn said:

Hello @Boltgreywing,

I addressed the missing Gaming Directory on another topic, please feel free to see my reply here.
Sorry for leaving reply this long, I've had some other things in real life that took up my time.

@Martyn: I will check that out.

[Mobotropolis]

8 hours ago, Boltgreywing said:

@Mobotropolis: There are a few things that I still don't really know how to code. Having 200 games on the front page is a bit overwhelming for those on slower connections, so I am opting to just have three images per section. Its not the greatest idea but I am hoping it works. The first three options are kind of hard, but the fourth one is easy. I am looking to have a stats page that lists everything.

I think there might be a misunderstanding? 

When I did the audit back in May I looked at over 200 different Pet/Sim Sites.

I wasn't looking for all four criteria on all sites/games. Having just one of the four was a Pass. Your game Duelingpets initially failed the Test because the last news update was February 2017 which makes the game seem to be inactive/abandoned. 

Advice? Just update your News Page if you can. 

The first (and main) criteria I was looking for was a game that had updated since New Years 2018. It was five and a half months later when I did the first audit so that should be enough time to have at least one update. Since this was a "first impression" Test where I in many cases acted like a New Users I had to tell that the game had been updated without registering or signing in.

How do I tell that? If it's not on the front page, I looked for the News or Forum. Many games presumably built with Mysdia failed the test because the News and/or Forum Pages were only accessible to Registered Users by default. Since so many games were failing the first three criteria I did another sweep while adding a fourth; looking for active users.  More than two dozen people online would mean either the site was still being updated or offered something else that made people come back.

Still. only 2-3 games met that criteria while failing the other three.

[Boltgreywing]

11 hours ago, Mobotropolis said:

I think there might be a misunderstanding? 

When I did the audit back in May I looked at over 200 different Pet/Sim Sites.

I wasn't looking for all four criteria on all sites/games. Having just one of the four was a Pass. Your game Duelingpets initially failed the Test because the last news update was February 2017 which makes the game seem to be inactive/abandoned. 

Advice? Just update your News Page if you can. 

The first (and main) criteria I was looking for was a game that had updated since New Years 2018. It was five and a half months later when I did the first audit so that should be enough time to have at least one update. Since this was a "first impression" Test where I in many cases acted like a New Users I had to tell that the game had been updated without registering or signing in.

How do I tell that? If it's not on the front page, I looked for the News or Forum. Many games presumably built with Mysdia failed the test because the News and/or Forum Pages were only accessible to Registered Users by default. Since so many games were failing the first three criteria I did another sweep while adding a fourth; looking for active users.  More than two dozen people online would mean either the site was still being updated or offered something else that made people come back.

Still. only 2-3 games met that criteria while failing the other three.

@Mobotropolis: I see, I thought there was going to be more that succeeded than that. As to my site its a bit inactive  due to problems involving spambots, and unrepairable configuration errors which I goofed up. Not to mention that I didn't implement activity tracing till much later. So there is a lot of problems with the original site which I am fixing up in the new version.

The spambots and bugs is what caused the site to fail along with my own inexperience in designing a functioning pet site. I still want a site that can cater to slow connection such as 56kb/s or less while providing access to higher bandwidth users. The reason there as still users that have slow connections like this and I need to make certain I don't affect my slower users too much.

I also really hate ignore/block buttons and I know I don't want to have them on my site but there are certain circumstances that call for them. I feel my bias with the ignore/block button is getting in the way cause I have seen this feature abused all to often by people blocking others for no apparent reason. I also don't believe in permabans or perma ignores as I see them as causing more harm then good.

I want to have a feature called an apology letter if one of these features does indeed get used for circumstances of users putting aside their differences and becoming friends again.

[Mobotropolis]

@Boltgreywing That is an interesting Rules Philosophy. 

I got (or am rather still getting) into it with someone on a certain Sim site about exactly this. They are adamant the game should have a Block/Ignore Feature because they dislike one annoying but still rule-abiding user who has a knack for derailing a thread. I explained that Block/Ignore would not only not solve this issue since said user can easily bait users who did not block them into derailing threads but it could do more harm than good with users blocking over any or no particular reason. I think intentionally ignoring someone (block-as-a-feature or not) can be just as toxic of behavior as demanding to be the center of attention. Either-or doesn't really promote healthy community growth.  

My response to them was simple.  

The game had a community that involved boards that were both open to the public, boards hidden behind a paywall with mostly adults, and boards that could be considered private as you can invite your friends and close them off to the general public. When posting on the public boards available to most users anyone whom the Moderation Team deems worthy of posting should be able to post. Should a user be too toxic/dangerous to keep on the public boards then it should ultimately be the Moderation Team/Game Owner's decision to remove them, not the users. And that should ultimately be done as a last resort for repeat offenders and/or users who are unlikely to change their behavior. 

I don't have a game currently but have owned and managed over a dozen games/communities in the last 15-20 years. I ultimately feel like the goal of a community should be to create a place where all of its users feel welcome and (hopefully) get along.

A user generated block/ban list seems to get in the way of that.

[Boltgreywing]

On 8/3/2018 at 8:05 AM, Mobotropolis said:

@Boltgreywing That is an interesting Rules Philosophy. 

I got (or am rather still getting) into it with someone on a certain Sim site about exactly this. They are adamant the game should have a Block/Ignore Feature because they dislike one annoying but still rule-abiding user who has a knack for derailing a thread. I explained that Block/Ignore would not only not solve this issue since said user can easily bait users who did not block them into derailing threads but it could do more harm than good with users blocking over any or no particular reason. I think intentionally ignoring someone (block-as-a-feature or not) can be just as toxic of behavior as demanding to be the center of attention. Either-or doesn't really promote healthy community growth.  

My response to them was simple.  

The game had a community that involved boards that were both open to the public, boards hidden behind a paywall with mostly adults, and boards that could be considered private as you can invite your friends and close them off to the general public. When posting on the public boards available to most users anyone whom the Moderation Team deems worthy of posting should be able to post. Should a user be too toxic/dangerous to keep on the public boards then it should ultimately be the Moderation Team/Game Owner's decision to remove them, not the users. And that should ultimately be done as a last resort for repeat offenders and/or users who are unlikely to change their behavior. 

I don't have a game currently but have owned and managed over a dozen games/communities in the last 15-20 years. I ultimately feel like the goal of a community should be to create a place where all of its users feel welcome and (hopefully) get along.

A user generated block/ban list seems to get in the way of that.

@Mobotropolis: Thanks. I was actually told by another user on another site to use the block/ignore feature but like you said it didn't help matters and instead made the situation more volatile. Another person jumped in avoiding the ignore I put in place to prevent the previous person from comments from being viewed. I decided to stop going to that site because of that type of situation as there was absolutely no mods available to keep the issues from getting worse.

This has kind of made me resent websites that only have one type of forum, cause if people don't agree on things they have to go else where. This is why my pet site will always have multiple forums. Removing users should only be done by mods not by users.

I have decided that in the interest of my website that I will have pre-moderation on every user submitted content to prevent inappropriate content from being viewed by other users. Comment sections can become quite vile so I have decided to not show any comments to guests except for the public forums. The site is designed this way to prevent guests or returning users from getting easily triggered.

I am considering have shouts on the users main profile being pre-modded as well. I don't know if this is a good idea but I feel the user's shout page should be kept as clean as possible. The downside to pre-moderation is that content needs to be reviewed first before it ever shows up to the public.

I'd rather go this route rather then let unapproved content have to be retroactively removed as by then the damage has already been done. Automatic approvals/disapprovals is also a very bad idea as bots can be cheated causing users videos or content to be taken down just because one person doesn't like them or a small group doesn't.

I also know that I can't premod every user comment cause that would slow the website to a crawl. So I am choosing to focus on one particular section. User shouts are not group restricted. Every other comment section is user restricted. PMs will not be premoded cause pms only go between two users. No other user can see pms.

Edited August 4, 2018 by Boltgreywing