Topic: Have Your Say: Future of these Forums (+ Features)

I was thinking, if there was a way for us to have a more Detail profile, then just a pic.
Or a way, to let us know, whos online, like a Friends list.

Did we ever decide if we are going to have reader scores for reviews or not?

@Panda

Ah, forgot about spoiler tags, +1.

Also, regarding quotes within quotes, while a quote limit would be ideal, another possibility I've seen in action is collapsible quote boxes, where all but the most recent quote just shows "____ said" and you have to click on it to show the message, so you still get the context, but without covering the whole page unless you click to reveal it.

@Panda, thanks as always for your thoughts
@JumpMad, Probably, but I can keep that functionality part of the main site rather than the forum itself.
@Admin, FluxBB has a quote limit so should sort that.
@irken004, let's keep this about the forum only please.

I would be fine if it said 'administrator', 'moderator' or 'user' was under usernames but not 'new user'. If I was new I wouldn't feel part of the community if I had 'new user' under my username and it would make me seem inferior to users that just had 'user' under their username.

@mariofanatic128, I guess what we'd be trying to achieve is a way for users/moderators to see who's new - generally people 'trust' longer term members more than people who are new to the site - it also allows people to spot trouble makers quicker. Perhaps you could suggest different terminology?

It could have a negative effect, people getting picked on because their new, but we'd hope most members to recognise that someone is new and therefore perhaps be MORE polite or patient with a new member.

One thing that might be cool would be in regards to the "active threads in the forum preview box thing" on the main page. Perhpas an option to extend or replace this with threads the individual user has been viewing/posting. This might be helpful for those who post everywhere and don't watch all the threads.

Also, I like the way Backloggery shows how long someone's been a member. It's something I l think NL should look at, in adding below the username.

Ant, why not just not give a new user a rank? Not that I think "new member" is bad or that I think more than one or two people would ever have a problem with it, but if it would be a problem with the terminology, you could just give them no terminology to complain about. It'd be just as easy for old-timers to recognize but they would likely think nothing of it.

Alternatively, to avoid the rank issue altogether, just show the join date or the number of days the user has been a member under his name instead of a rank. Perhaps with some sort of badge after a certain length of time if you still feel the need to separate users into binary groups, old and new.

@Adam, Hmm yeah, I think your right actually. "Member" / "Moderator" / "Administrator" then a Joined: "Today" / "Yesterday" / "2 weeks ago" / "2 months ago" / "2 years ago" should help people understand who's new and who's not.

Arn't I important to you Ant??

_{also gif avatars??}

Maybe you could put the info that you see when clicking on their username/avatar below their username. So as Adam said it could show the date they joined. It could also show their country below their username.

One thing I'd like, is to have some control of what appears on the forum topic area of the homepage, for example the ability to select/deselect what categories are displayed, or ignore individual threads, so your more likely to spot forum updates or new topics your more interested in.

Oh yes, I'd love to see the country flags on the forum, or just the country names. It would end a lot of confusion when discussing what's released and what's not, especially for VC / WW.

Reala, perhaps having the VC board tied to the VC tab, and likewise for the other boards/tabs, with all boards tied to the home tab? I don't know how easy that would be to do, but it'd make sense.

@Aviator, the site already supports GIF avatars, we may introduce an avatar gallery (of defaults) but they can get confusing when multiple people use them, it's also a site wide thing - rather than forum specific

@Reala, can't promise that - although we may change the homepage as part of another development - maybe it could be more user orientated, noted

@Adam, yes we'll probably include country flags on the forum, I agree that'll help.

I do not like the idea of 'ranks' at all -- as already mentioned, it would single out new users, possibly in a negative light, and/or make them feel uncomfortable when making their first few posts. anyone who's hung around the forums for a while knows who's new and who ain't, and if you aren't sure, you can always check out their profiles to see their join dates. I like Adam's idea of displaying join dates below usernames; i've seen that on plenty of other forums and it works out just fine.

About the shields, though -- we get a lot of confusion (especially from new members) regarding staff vs. plain moderators, because both have silver shields. Can we please maybe have a different color of shield to differentiate the two user levels? Me an' V used to joke about us having platinum ones, lol, but as long as you're asking for input... :3

edit: another thing I just thought of -- would it be possible for us to have a list of recent posts we've made on the forums in our profiles, viewable by everyone? sometimes I get sidetracked and forget that I had replied someplace asking something or that i'd been expecting someone to jump on me for something i'd said, or sometimes thread titles get changed and i lose track that way. there's also times i'm curious about seeing what a particular user might be up to and maybe diving into a conversation with them, but i can't see where they've been posting recently without checking every single thread on the forums. I know I've already kinda requested this feature via the doc ('user-based comment filter') because this ability would be a big help behind the scenes in terms of cleaning up spammers' messes, but i wanted to put it out into the open too.

how about a way to re-read your posts and edit them like you can for comments (it can be annoying going through 10 pages if you need to change a little bit).

I like TBD's idea for having recent posts on our profiles. I, too, am often more interested in what particular users are saying rather than following specific discussions.

I second this. I really want to put some other things in my sig but I'm really tight on room because of all my frriend codes. Maybe there could be a little Earth symbol by our usernames, and you could hover over it to show a list of friend codes?

Also, I find it annoying that watched topic e-mails link you to a URL something like "https://www.nintendolife.com/forums/section/threadtitle*?start=25*#reply-25". Since the posts are displayed 20 at a time, shouldn't the number after "?start=" be a multiple of 20?

An easier way of formatting things would be nice too. How about a row of buttons that puts formatting tags for you?

Yeah, no rankings. I really don't have that many ideas, but the spoiler thing Panda said is a good idea. But yeah, can't think of anything.

Regarding spoiler tags, I know it's been suggested that this be done the old-fashioned way by just changing the color so you have to highlight the text to read it, but if it's not more work, some sites instead put the text in a collapsible Spoiler box (like a Quote box except instead of saying "So and so said" it just says "Spoiler"). When it comes to spoilers, either gets the job done just as well.

However, the collapsible box is useful beyond just spoilers. If someone makes a giant post that can be divided into subsections, sometimes spoiler boxes'll be used. Can't think of better examples at the moment, but it can come in handy. Either solution would be lovely though.