THE FRONT PAGE

author=Versalia

author=sbester
What I'm saying is, I don't think we can fairly judge if someone is taking advantage of the front page in such a way.

From what I've seen, users always blog about a new version and explain why they're replacing the download anyway.

That seems like a pretty fair point to start judging. Also, kentona did say "every few hours" which leads me to believe someone was doing this WAY too frequently - people doing legitimate game updates don't need to worry unless they are doing this several times a day. (I know Fey had about 3 download updates, but they were spread across 2-3 days. Obviously not egregious.)

Completely agree, had to update my own download twice because of unseen issues that happened last minute during my testing phase.

author=kentona
a) what behaviour are you trying to curb
b) what solutions do you propose to accomplish this
c) is it the best solution to the problem
d) are there any other consequences of this solution

a) People posting useless, insubstantial or too many blogs that clutter up the front page and

Yeah, I guess blogs would be more appealing to browse through if I had more faith that I wouldn't just be checking out a series of tweet-worthy status updates.

make people less willing to browse them.


b) 1. A "report" button to draw mods' attention on a case-by-case basis; or 2. a blog post cooldown.
c) A blog post cooldown requires the least amount of staff time and attention as well as being entirely reasonable - nobody needs to post more than one blog in 12 hours, unless someone can cite a real and reasonable situation where this has been/could be a problem.
d) Nope. It just does not happen (as Solitayre put forward) that someone wants to make multiple rich and meaty blog posts in a single day. If you do, anything you have to add can be edited into a previous blog post, and then you can comment on that post ('Hey guys, I added a thing, check it out'). That draws attention to it, alerts subscribers as well as putting it on the front page in a less objectionable manner (because comments get pushed off more quickly). Short of that, it's a much better model to spread your posts out anyway. It gives you the maximum amount of exposure while shoving off the least amount of blog posts in a single go.

I'm not a big fan of hard-coded cooldowns. Actually the thing I'm more annoyed by than useless blogs are comments that say "this blog was useless you shouldn't have written it".

Personally I haven't noticed gaming the main page as a huge problem. There's few enough blogs. But if what kentona is saying is correct that someone gamed the system to get his game on the latest downloads for a long time that should have action taken against it. But that is an obvious case. And even in the most obvious of cases I think a polite PM is the way to go and if they don't stop doing it it's the banhammer. (same if someone spams ten blog posts in rapid succession that's obvious wrongdoing)

I don't think any real action is needed for the grey zones. (like newbies or that one time when you're just so damn excited or just got that bugfix up and want everyone to know about it)

So really the solution I think is the key is to have 1) things as they are now and 2) have some godsdamn guidelines in submissions, this site has always had a problem with a lack of documentation. Rules are scattered all over the place and usually not in the places they need to be.


Now a cooldown on forum topics? No more than one topic made per week maybe? That suonds like a lot sounder of an idea. Maybe a topic reply cooldown too to limit the number of replies to one every thirty minutes.

I could get behind that.

author=kentona
d) actually, I thought of an example:
Super RMN Bros 2.

There were 3 (or 4?) rapid fire blogs for tracking changes for levels A-D, E-N, 0-Z in quick succession!

(Not that this is a showstopper for the proposed cooldown idea, but it is an example of unintended sideeffects!)

Only the first two were in the same day. The rest were posted a day apart because I realized I was going to flood the front page and stopped myself.

author=Shinan
Maybe a topic reply cooldown too to limit the number of replies to one every thirty minutes.

I'm sorry, but this is really, really bad.
I simply hate reply cooldown, imo they are useless and frustrating as a forum is meant for communication and the sharing of ideas and opinions.
Especially a ridiculous amount like 30minutes.

author=Link_2112
Doesn't that mean that a staff member accepted his game once a day for 2 weeks?

I think they are talking about updating the download, not uploading a new download to be approved.
But if it was the latter, then yeah that's retarded if someone kept re-approving a game download.

author=GreatRedSpirit

author=kentona
d) actually, I thought of an example:
Super RMN Bros 2.

There were 3 (or 4?) rapid fire blogs for tracking changes for levels A-D, E-N, 0-Z in quick succession!

(Not that this is a showstopper for the proposed cooldown idea, but it is an example of unintended sideeffects!)

Only the first two were in the same day. The rest were posted a day apart because I realized I was going to flood the front page and stopped myself.

the system works.

Also,

Doesn't that mean that a staff member accepted his game once a day for 2 weeks?

nope. only the initial download appears in the queue.

bahleted

author=kentona
the system works.

Then we quite clearly don't need any moderation tools or the warning system Anky's working on. After all, *I'm* not a shitty poster so this means the current posting regulations work perfectly!

author=Fallen-Griever
If you really wanted to do something about the blogs thing, then instead of displaying each blog individually you could change the section so that it displays "latest updated blogs" instead. What I mean by this is that you'd put a link to a game's blog page instead of linking to each blog seperately, so that there'd always be 5 (or whatever) different blogs on the front page.

Quick, someone get this man a medal.