Dominion Strategy Forum

Miscellaneous => Forum Games => Topic started by: faust on August 10, 2018, 12:54:07 pm

Title: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: faust on August 10, 2018, 12:54:07 pm
So in this thread (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18889.0), we were discussing how to get more people into playing games here, and the opinion has been voiced to open this subforum for guests, so they see that this exists.

Therefore I want to put this to the poll. There were reasons to keep this invisible, I am sure. One is the "post your picture" thread, but that could be moved to e.g. RSP (which I think is also users only).

I will let this run for 7 days and then decide on further action.
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: silverspawn on August 10, 2018, 12:55:52 pm
If some people have non-obvious arguments, it might be good to hear them before voting.
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: Skumpy on August 10, 2018, 01:02:52 pm
There were reasons to keep this invisible, I am sure.

Another that just occurred to me is making them public enables upvoting, specifically in mafia and the deception games where it'd be problematic if you're expected to acknowledge every single post that you agree or fake-agree with. But I assume there's an option to manually disable it.
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: faust on August 10, 2018, 01:12:48 pm
There were reasons to keep this invisible, I am sure.

Another that just occurred to me is making them public enables upvoting, specifically in mafia and the deception games where it'd be problematic if you're expected to acknowledge every single post that you agree or fake-agree with. But I assume there's an option to manually disable it.
I don't think the two things are connected. Forum Games Awards is upvot-able despite being hidden.
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: Robz888 on August 10, 2018, 01:23:23 pm
I think the original reasoning was that we wanted some level of privacy, I guess, given the intensive nature of the game. Maybe? I don't actually remember.

In any case, I support opening it up!
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: silverspawn on August 10, 2018, 01:27:01 pm
The main reason I don't see opening up as problematic is that anyone can just make an account in 2 minutes anyway.
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: LaLight on August 10, 2018, 01:54:39 pm
The main reason I don't see opening up as problematic is that anyone can just make an account in 2 minutes anyway.

If they know how much silver costs
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: gkrieg13 on August 10, 2018, 02:28:12 pm
I mean we could always make them hidden again after if something unforeseen happens. 
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: silverspawn on August 10, 2018, 03:29:31 pm
The main reason I don't see opening up as problematic is that anyone can just make an account in 2 minutes anyway.

If they know how much silver costs

dude. not for sale.
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: Simon Jester on August 10, 2018, 05:36:42 pm
The main reason I don't see opening up as problematic is that anyone can just make an account in 2 minutes anyway.

If they know how much silver costs

dude. not for sale.

I mean, the spotprice is changing everyday and.. oh, better joke. Nevremind. .
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: iguanaiguana on August 10, 2018, 08:00:59 pm
Adam Horton completely gave up on f.ds forum survivor and abandoned the forum because it was private. I hated seeing him go and wholly support opening it up. Feel free to quote this if you contact theory.
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: luckat on August 11, 2018, 04:36:20 am
I don't really have a stake in this, but for what it's worth, it looks like the original reason the forum games were hidden was to keep the large number of Mafia posts from overwhelming the RSS feeds (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2576.msg41643#msg41643). I'm not sure if the topic has been seriously revisited since then and other good reasons to keep this subforum hidden came up. (The post your picture thread was moved here in the first place because this subforum was hidden from guests and isn't much of a reason to keep it invisible as long as there's somewhere else for that thread.)
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: faust on August 11, 2018, 06:19:59 am
I don't really have a stake in this, but for what it's worth, it looks like the original reason the forum games were hidden was to keep the large number of Mafia posts from overwhelming the RSS feeds (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2576.msg41643#msg41643). I'm not sure if the topic has been seriously revisited since then and other good reasons to keep this subforum hidden came up. (The post your picture thread was moved here in the first place because this subforum was hidden from guests and isn't much of a reason to keep it invisible as long as there's somewhere else for that thread.)
Thanks for that link! I am a bit confused though, it seems in that discussion there was already another way pointed out to keep the RSS feed clean, so... I am not sure I see the necessity? I guess theory will bring up any concerns he might have should we contact him.

EDIT: And I think option 2 would still solve this (keeping only signups open for all).
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: faust on August 13, 2018, 10:17:52 am
I would like if some of the people who voted option 2 would explain their reasoning. So far we are unanimous in wanting to open up some to the subforum, but we have to decide how much, and I would like to be aware of arguments that might want to make us not open everything, since everyone who weighed in so far was in favor of complete opening.
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: SpaceAnemone on August 13, 2018, 07:35:53 pm
How would things like web spidering to index content change if it's public? Would it make us more easily-targetable by random bots?
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: faust on August 14, 2018, 03:53:27 am
web spidering to index content change
I have no idea what you are talking about, but I imagine it has to do with several eight-legged tiny creatures crawling all over f.ds and taking stock of all of the posts here.
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: Robz888 on August 14, 2018, 12:32:40 pm
web spidering to index content change
I have no idea what you are talking about, but I imagine it has to do with several eight-legged tiny creatures crawling all over f.ds and taking stock of all of the posts here.

I'm definitely changing my vote, if true!
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: Awaclus on August 14, 2018, 12:59:24 pm
I guess there's the concern about Post Your Picture being public.
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: sudgy on August 14, 2018, 01:28:57 pm
I guess there's the concern about Post Your Picture being public.

RSP?  Although then I don't know if I would want to open that thread ever again...
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: faust on August 15, 2018, 03:30:16 am
I guess there's the concern about Post Your Picture being public.
There is always the option to make a subforum with just this thread, or something. PYP being here is a workaround, and I'm confident that theory would find another one.
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: GendoIkari on August 15, 2018, 10:36:50 am
I guess there's the concern about Post Your Picture being public.
There is always the option to make a subforum with just this thread, or something. PYP being here is a workaround, and I'm confident that theory would find another one.

I feel like it would make sense to just have a general forum for "Registered members only". PYP could go there; and so could anything else that someone wants to post but not make available to the general public.
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: Skumpy on August 19, 2018, 05:58:17 am
So in this thread (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18889.0), we were discussing how to get more people into playing games here, and the opinion has been voiced to open this subforum for guests, so they see that this exists.

Therefore I want to put this to the poll. There were reasons to keep this invisible, I am sure. One is the "post your picture" thread, but that could be moved to e.g. RSP (which I think is also users only).

I will let this run for 7 days and then decide on further action.

Any update?
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: faust on August 19, 2018, 02:43:19 pm
So in this thread (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18889.0), we were discussing how to get more people into playing games here, and the opinion has been voiced to open this subforum for guests, so they see that this exists.

Therefore I want to put this to the poll. There were reasons to keep this invisible, I am sure. One is the "post your picture" thread, but that could be moved to e.g. RSP (which I think is also users only).

I will let this run for 7 days and then decide on further action.

Any update?
The subforum will be made accessible to guests in the next 1-2 days.
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: theory on August 20, 2018, 07:05:24 pm
I am all for democracy.  But before I change the settings, the reason the forum was originally private is, I think, to allow people to be more frank and open in playing games without fear of it being public.

So, three questions:

1 - are there things that people posted with an expectation of privacy that I'd be violating now if I made it all public?

2 - what benefit are we aiming for, given that you still will need to register an account to post and play?

3 - would your purposes be served if I created a wrapper public forum that people could chat in, but kept this as the subforum of that?  Or would that be too complicated?

I don't actually care one way or the other, just wanted to make sure we thought through everything.
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: iguanaiguana on August 20, 2018, 09:10:34 pm
1) As far as forum mafia goes, I don't think so, but I would definitely let other people chime in there too. As it stands, anyone can read anything by making an account, meaning complete strangers can and will read the old games. Opening the forum to guests widens the group who can see the content, but it's still the same type of people mainly who would be looking at it, just more of them.

2) The benefit I see is that guests who are looking at the forum may see that we play forum mafia here and be interested enough in the prospect of it to make an account where otherwise they may have always just lurked. It also makes us more visible to the greater forum mafia playing world so that we may more frequently get people who come here specifically for that purpose.

3) TBH I don't understand what you're proposing, but I think that keeping parts of the forum games section private while at least showing guests that the forum games section exists is better than nothing!
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: iguanaiguana on August 20, 2018, 09:11:55 pm
Anecdotally, I lurked on the forum for a year or two before making an account, and then I was actually confused by the sudden existence of forum games. A while after that, I wanted to play. I may have made an account sooner if I had access to forum games and could have read them while I was lurking.
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: faust on August 21, 2018, 06:22:51 am
1 - are there things that people posted with an expectation of privacy that I'd be violating now if I made it all public?

2 - what benefit are we aiming for, given that you still will need to register an account to post and play?

3 - would your purposes be served if I created a wrapper public forum that people could chat in, but kept this as the subforum of that?  Or would that be too complicated?

I don't actually care one way or the other, just wanted to make sure we thought through everything.
1 - it is not a concern for forum games I think, but currently the Post Your Picture thread is here and likely should be moved.
2 - what iguana said.
3 - I think people are more likely to try mafia games if they were able to read through some games, so I personally would prefer everything to be public. But some people (still a minority) have voted to keep the subforums (i.e. Mafia/Non-Mafia Games Threads) private.
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: theory on August 21, 2018, 01:18:44 pm
I will make this forum and the game threads public, and I will create a separate forum for Post Your Picture and make it accessible to members only.  Thanks for your feedback.
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: faust on August 23, 2018, 04:27:05 am
The change to this subforum seems to have messed up some special settings concerning ability to lock thread and modify posts here. I have contacted theory about it.

I can still modify posts.

Yes, the issue is that I think everyone can now edit their own posts.
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: theory on August 23, 2018, 11:59:02 am
Did that fix it?
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: iguanaiguana on August 23, 2018, 06:18:32 pm
Did that fix it?

It looks like my ability to edit within topics I created is gone, which I need for modding.
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: LaLight on August 24, 2018, 03:59:40 pm
I too can not change the number of the day or any of my posts really; this is quite inconvenient
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: LaLight on August 24, 2018, 04:00:14 pm
The change to this subforum seems to have messed up some special settings concerning ability to lock thread and modify posts here. I have contacted theory about it.

I can still modify posts.

Yes, the issue is that I think everyone can now edit their own posts.

I think it's because you're a mod.
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: theory on August 25, 2018, 11:05:09 am
I too can not change the number of the day or any of my posts really; this is quite inconvenient

I fixed this.  Let me know if there's other bugs.
Title: Re: Should this subforum be visible to guests?
Post by: GendoIkari on September 07, 2018, 01:08:47 pm
I will make this forum and the game threads public, and I will create a separate forum for Post Your Picture and make it accessible to members only.  Thanks for your feedback.

I see that Forum Games is now public, while Post Your Picture is members-only... but are you still going to move Post Your Picture somewhere else? It seems really weird to have it under Forum Games. It seems like it would be nice just to have a sub-forum called Members Only in general, and Post Your Picture can just be a regular thread under that.