Communications (Gameside) Tech development thread

[Wymondham]

Thoughts on this (a suggestion for modifying the way the manual TG queue works to better support smaller regions) would be much appreciated

[Katganistan]

3 times a day for muting isn’t nearly enough. When spammers are muted, they create a new nation.

The argument I’ve heard against muting is that it prevents illegitimate governments in GCRs and founderless regions from abusing power. But the state of gameplay at present (and for the vast foreseeable future) precludes the necessity to assist anti-coup actors and defenders.

I would also be very against turning the RMBs into a kind of mini forum. It simply doesn’t fit the purpose and style.

Perhaps a kind of news section, similar to NS++? It would be near identical to dispatches, but you subscribe to newspapers and the results are formatted like a newspaper would be. Sort of like a news aggregator (and maybe notifier as well).

This just seems like dispatch with a skin on it, to be honest....

[Katganistan]

So If I post a Genocide poll that offers two choices:

1. Yes! (I support genocide prevention measures )
2. No! (Genocide isn't a thing anymore)

I can the descriptions to

1. Yes!(I support genocide for any reason)
2. No! (Genocide needs to be reserved for ethnic cleansing)

That would be fine?

I specified in my last post what I was thinking. Don't take my words out of context, thanks.

How, exactly, could it be coded so the software "knew" what you were changing?
This simply does not seem possible.

[Bassiliya]

How, exactly, could it be coded so the software "knew" what you were changing?
This simply does not seem possible.

I'm not sure what the question is here? I'm not suggesting that the software "know" anything. I'm suggesting a change to where the poll description, the block of text not the poll options themselves, be editable after posting and previewbale prior to posting.

[Doge Land]

"RMBs as their own mini-forums"

Any progress on this? This seems like a good idea; I'm in an RP region where all RP is done on the RMB and it gets chaotic when it goes fast and it's still hard to read even at normal pace (1 per every couple hours) since RMB posts can exceed 400 words (and usually do).

It could even be an opt-in feature; for regions who want to keep the traditional nature of the RMB, they can stay opted out of the system, and for regions like the one I mentioned before they can opt in to help people organize their roleplay and allow people to keep up with RPs they participate in.

[Bears Armed]

for regions like the one I mentioned before they can opt in to help people organize their roleplay and allow people to keep up with RPs they participate in.

Or they could just do what many regions already do, without needing any changes to the game, which is get offsite forums of their own for this purpose...

[Haganham]

for regions like the one I mentioned before they can opt in to help people organize their roleplay and allow people to keep up with RPs they participate in.

Or they could just do what many regions already do, without needing any changes to the game, which is get offsite forums of their own for this purpose...

the push for rmb as miniforums comes from the expressed desire to avoid the trend of players moving content offsite.

[Esternial]

"RMBs as their own mini-forums"

Any progress on this? This seems like a good idea; I'm in an RP region where all RP is done on the RMB and it gets chaotic when it goes fast and it's still hard to read even at normal pace (1 per every couple hours) since RMB posts can exceed 400 words (and usually do).

It could even be an opt-in feature; for regions who want to keep the traditional nature of the RMB, they can stay opted out of the system, and for regions like the one I mentioned before they can opt in to help people organize their roleplay and allow people to keep up with RPs they participate in.

I'm curious, why do you have a makeshift RP forum in the RMB when Nationstates already has dedicated RP forums?

Your reasons may very well be useful for the forum-development portion of this NS revamp.

[Leutria]

"RMBs as their own mini-forums"

Any progress on this? This seems like a good idea; I'm in an RP region where all RP is done on the RMB and it gets chaotic when it goes fast and it's still hard to read even at normal pace (1 per every couple hours) since RMB posts can exceed 400 words (and usually do).

It could even be an opt-in feature; for regions who want to keep the traditional nature of the RMB, they can stay opted out of the system, and for regions like the one I mentioned before they can opt in to help people organize their roleplay and allow people to keep up with RPs they participate in.

I'm curious, why do you have a makeshift RP forum in the RMB when Nationstates already has dedicated RP forums?

Your reasons may very well be useful for the forum-development portion of this NS revamp.

My region has this sort of thing. For us, I am pretty sure it is a mixture of convenience (the RMB is right there), having an easy to see indication that new posts were made, and intimidation of the forums.

[Merni]

I'm curious, why do you have a makeshift RP forum in the RMB when Nationstates already has dedicated RP forums?

Your reasons may very well be useful for the forum-development portion of this NS revamp.

I can't speak for them, but a lot of regions do have RMB RPs, and one of the main reasons I'm aware of is that there are a lot of players who participate solely in the RMB (and polls, etc), not on the site forums, offsite forums, Discord etc. Such players may not be aware of an RP existing if it happened on the site forums, and even if they were aware participation could be reduced as the forums aren't as obviously tied into the gameside region page, with notifications for likes/quotes, and are instead almost like their own separate site.

[All Wild Things]

I'm curious, why do you have a makeshift RP forum in the RMB when Nationstates already has dedicated RP forums?

Your reasons may very well be useful for the forum-development portion of this NS revamp.

I can't speak for them, but a lot of regions do have RMB RPs, and one of the main reasons I'm aware of is that there are a lot of players who participate solely in the RMB (and polls, etc), not on the site forums, offsite forums, Discord etc. Such players may not be aware of an RP existing if it happened on the site forums, and even if they were aware participation could be reduced as the forums aren't as obviously tied into the gameside region page, with notifications for likes/quotes, and are instead almost like their own separate site.

Would add that NS forums don't show up well on mobile phones.

[Esternial]

I can't speak for them, but a lot of regions do have RMB RPs, and one of the main reasons I'm aware of is that there are a lot of players who participate solely in the RMB (and polls, etc), not on the site forums, offsite forums, Discord etc. Such players may not be aware of an RP existing if it happened on the site forums, and even if they were aware participation could be reduced as the forums aren't as obviously tied into the gameside region page, with notifications for likes/quotes, and are instead almost like their own separate site.

Would add that NS forums don't show up well on mobile phones.

The solution here would be to modernize the forums rather than build another forum in the RMB, and perhaps actively motivate players to migrate their RPs to the forums if they'd like to make use of forum tools and features rather than have the code monkeys reinvent the wheel.

If you want to throw some suggestions for the forum, here is the Communications (Forums) Tech development thread.

[Phydios]

Would add that NS forums don't show up well on mobile phones.

The solution here would be to modernize the forums rather than build another forum in the RMB, and perhaps actively motivate players to migrate their RPs to the forums if they'd like to make use of forum tools and features rather than have the code monkeys reinvent the wheel.

If you want to throw some suggestions for the forum, here is the Communications (Forums) Tech development thread.

The admins do have a modern, built-from-scratch forum solution in development. No ETA yet. Might be years off, but it's coming.

[Sedgistan]

Bear in mind that Kat asked for this thread to be an index of ideas; discussion of each belongs in its own separate thread.

[Doge Land]

RMBs as their own miniforums

[SherpDaWerp]

Don't really think this needs a thread as it's really just book-keeping but feel free to split this post if I'm wrong.

More TG categories and more specific guidelines around said TG categories, so that people can block specific types of campaigns or recruitment.

Especially with S/G coming in as a game-wide election twice a year, players should be able to block S/G campaign TGs without also blocking literally every other player-sent WA tg.

[Sedgistan]

Especially with S/G coming in as a game-wide election twice a year, players should be able to block S/G campaign TGs without also blocking literally every other player-sent WA tg.

That's already part of the plan, as discussed in the S-G thread.

[Haganham]

It would be nice to be able to mark telegrams as unread, so that it is still marked as new, and have it's... I don't know what they're called but those red dots.
For those of us that get a lot of telegrams it is common to get many that need a response but can't be responded to right away. Being able to keep the little dot so we don't forget about them would be helpful.

[Almonaster Nuevo]

Prompt Nations to TG Main Nation - Give users an option in settings to put a generic message above the telegram box on their nation to please telegram *Input* instead of this nation. (Details in link)

Another option might be to notify the main nation that the puppet has received a TG.

[Panagouge]

It would be nice to be able to mark telegrams as unread, so that it is still marked as new, and have it's... I don't know what they're called but those red dots.
For those of us that get a lot of telegrams it is common to get many that need a response but can't be responded to right away. Being able to keep the little dot so we don't forget about them would be helpful.

That is the function of the "Expand All" feature. It opens all TGs for you at once, marking them all as read.

[Frisbeeteria]

Another option might be to notify the main nation that the puppet has received a TG.

We don't have any designation that any nation is the "main" nation. Absent an enormous change in how nations are created and stored (such as the much-revered Accounts) this is a non-starter.

[Trotterdam]

We don't have any designation that any nation is the "main" nation. Absent an enormous change in how nations are created and stored (such as the much-revered Accounts) this is a non-starter.

You could just let players enter the name of the nation they want telegrams forwarded to. The downside of this is players malicious forwarding telegrams to a nation they don't own, but that surely isn't going to be more common than unwanted spam as it is.

[Almonaster Nuevo]

Another option might be to notify the main nation that the puppet has received a TG.

We don't have any designation that any nation is the "main" nation. Absent an enormous change in how nations are created and stored (such as the much-revered Accounts) this is a non-starter.

This has nothing to do with nation creation. The "main" is up to the player.

Is adding a "notify [nation] of new TGs" option to nations really an "enormous" change?

(You might possibly want to re-use the "same Email" check if you are worried about abuse.)


EDIT: ^ sniped, and well put.

[Gyflada]

Hi

I am just getting back into Gameside stuff really. As I do my factbooks, I have to edit the size of the image on my computer, before I can use it in my Factbook etc. Would it be possible to explore adding in an image resize functionality into dispatches etc?

Apologies if this has already been mentioned

[Merni]

Dispatch searching.