Topic: Ideas for the site

I noticed recently that I was unable to post a link in a comment on an article.
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/09/cuphead-is-finally-...
When I would include a link to the Cuphead listing on GAME UK's website, the link would not be visible even though the BBCode tags were evident when editing the comment.

Was this a recent policy change to hide links to combat spam?
I was still able to communicate the important point about the listing, but not being able to share the link was less convenient.

@RupeeClock sounds more like a bug — that certainly isn't intentional. Can you put it back to how it was (not working) and then I can debug it?

@antdickens
Sure thing, I've edited the comment to re-insert the link.
Links still get wrapped in [url.external] tags like before, but weren't visible in the comment on the article.

Note that since I posted the comment, it actually looks like GAME UK removed the listing for Cuphead from their site, but it's the same link I was trying to use before.
https://www.game.co.uk/en/cuphead-2664114

The link is also failing to display in this post.

@RupeeClock so, the link is appearing for me — on both the comment and the forum post here. Can you send me a screenshot of the page/comment? [email protected] also, are you using an adblocker as that might be removing the link.

@antdickens
It looks like my adblocker was the culprit.

Upon disabling the ad blocker, the link would render.
It looks to be a feature of ublock origin I was unaware of, I've never seen an ad blocker outright remove clickable links from a webpage in viewport before.
This would be because Nintendolife automatically converts certain links into affiliate links like click synergy.

My bad, I'll keep the adblocker disabled, I used to have it running for performance reasons on a struggling laptop, but I no longer have that issue since changing to a new laptop.

Personally I enjoy a lot of the 'Random' articles. It's nice to read about some things that are not big news but just fun little things that are going on. Now I don't care about that Minecraft guy and the article about his face does seem slightly out of place here, but presumably some people here will be interested in it so I don't have a problem with it being posted. I just didn't click on it and moved on with my day. If every other article was just about YouTube drama I'd feel differently, but it's easy enough to just ignore the occasional article you don't want to read.

@RupeeClock ah okay no problem, that explains what is happening though! We're actually going to be launching our ad-free supporter option very soon, so if you were interested that would be another way to do it

@antdickens
That's great, I've actually wanted that sort of option for Nintendo Life for a long time now and would totally be on board.

It's not the content of the adverts that bother me necessarily, so much as performance impact, privacy concerns, and how they can make the elements of the page jump around erratically during viewport construction.

@antdickens OK, that's a relief. Thanks for addressing it.

Would it be possible to implement a way to block articles with certain tags from appearing on your personal home page, as a method to avoid spoilers for an upcoming game/new game until you’ve finished it?

@Munchlax not currently, but it's something that has cropped up from time to time. Out of interest which game are you trying to avoid? and any examples of spoilers as editorially we will try to avoid major spoilers in our headlines/lead-images anyway.

@antdickens I’m now trying to go into Scarlet and Violet without knowing the new Pokémon, to make it more surprising, but the articles reporting on them normally include the images in the thumbnail. I’ve seen a few other people share a similar sentiment.
I imagine in a few months time I’ll be doing a similar thing for Tears Of The Kingdom, but I’m guessing those spoilers will be easier to avoid.
Thank you for taking the time to reply 🙂

@Munchlax
Really, the problem there is TPCi's marketing strategy.
They love to do weekly reveals up until the game's release, teasing some of the new stuff to find.
They have a real bad habit of revealing too many surprises.

I don't know if the news tabs for each game are auto-created or manually, but is there any way for those tabs to include more articles which mention/discuss the games?

For example if you go one of the games in the Best Switch Games...That Don't Fit In Other Lists list you won't see that article in the news tab so you won't know it's a 'best of' game, something very relevant while browsing games. This is true for most of the 'best Switch games' lists.

Similarly the 24 games we missed article from today doesn't end up in the game news tabs but it would be nice if it did since this article is the closest those games currently have to a review.

Ideally any article really talking about a game for at least a paragraph would end up in news for that game, though if the process is automatic I realize it can be a subtle distinction and if it is manual that is probably too much nuisance.

Did a new update go across the site that added related articles at the bottom of an article?

I'm just curious because I think it looks really nice

@Eagly If you're looking to upload photos, my advice would be to go to https://postimages.org and put your image file in there. That's what I've been doing to upload my images to the site and it's worked pretty well (you can even adjust sizes!).

@Fizza you can change sizes???

You guys need to stop post such polarizing articles. This is getting ridiculous as of late that when I go to comment on an article the comment section is locked. This latest one is about the gaming store that was robbed. I went to comment in it and it was locked by a mod and the reason, it's the end of the days for us so it's being locked?? What kind of reason is that?? It's not even Noon where I am at. Maybe you should get some new staff where Noon isn't the end of the day for them. Either that or maybe you guys shouldn't post polarizing articles if you can't handle the comment section. So it order to post a comment, I need to go by your guys schedule but if I don't I a can't.

Just seems a bit unfair that you let some people post their comments but others after a certain time you don't. That fine I guess those who don't go by your schedule aren't welcomed here.

@Tasuki I think some new mod blood could do the site some good.

@Tasuki
I completely agree. While this recent article was much better in the comments than most articles of this type, it has no place on a gaming website. The reasoning I was given was since it was a retro gaming store it counted as gaming news. If a site is going to allow comments on their stuff, they need to either not post such controversial topics, or realize that those threads might get political. But locking down the comments is never a good option.

How long have the current mods been active?