gathering opinions

2009-02-11 10:19:06 pm

recently i had an idea - i should be able to modify the forum in such a way that you could enter a topic and see people talking in there live without having to refresh the page. so new posts would pop up the moment they're posted instead you having to reload the page. just sit back and watch. you could also join in on the conversation just as you would using irc or another form of live chat (seeing your posts get posted without any delay or having to reload the page once).

this would not replace irc but augment it.

what do you think?

Thread title:

Siyko

2009-02-11 10:34:29 pm

I used to be athiest until I realized I was God.

Seems like a solid idea, but I'm not sure the forums are active enough that it'd come into play that often.

Plus forums are more about long posts than the short messages of IRC, so generally I'm going to finish typing my paragraph and then submit without checking for updates.

Although a 'random chat' or whatever topic could emerge... it seems like it'd just split folks who usually are on irc between that and irc though.

slowbro

Edit history:

slowbro: 2009-02-12 02:11:08 pm

2009-02-11 10:35:56 pm

Wild, each thread would work like a shoutbox.

If it doesn't tax slow computers I'd vote yes, the convenience would probably outweigh the possible distraction.

edit: I think I'm outvoted Smiley

but even if this idea doesn't make it I'm still glad nate's trying to think of ideas to make the site better.

NoiseCrash

2009-02-11 10:46:24 pm

@_@

There are quite a few potential benefits and I can't really see any reason why this would cause a problem. I say it sounds like a good idea.

VorpalEdge

2009-02-12 12:08:47 am

welcome to the machine

Let me make a few semi-educated guesses as to how this could be implemented.

Usually, when your browser requests a forum page, it sends the request to the server and then the server sends back the page. After that, the server forgets you exist until you talk to it again. For pages to dynamically update... I'm no longer a CS major, so I don't have to pretend to know what I'm doing anymore, but wouldn't updates require either your browser querying the server every so often to see if there's been an update, or the server maintaining a list of connections, or something like that? I'm going to assume you don't plan on completely rewriting the boards in Ajax or something, so...

It's a neat feature, but it sounds like it'd increase the load on the server, which I'm kind of leery of, since there's significant lag sometimes. Plus, forum activity is too slow for it to be extremely useful. I wouldn't mind it if I had it, but as it is, implementing it doesn't sound like a good use of time.

Of course, you actually know what you're doing, and since you're considering the idea to begin with, I'm probably completely wrong (as described in this pic). So whatever.

Let me make a few semi-educated guesses as to how this could be implemented.

Usually, when your browser requests a forum page, it sends the request to the server and then the server sends back the page.  After that, the server forgets you exist until you talk to it again.  For pages to dynamically update... I'm no longer a CS major, so I don't have to pretend to know what I'm doing anymore, but wouldn't updates require either your browser querying the server every so often to see if there's been an update, or the server maintaining a list of connections, or something like that?  I'm going to assume you don't plan on completely rewriting the boards in Ajax or something, so...

It's a neat feature, but it sounds like it'd increase the load on the server, which I'm kind of leery of, since there's significant lag sometimes.  Plus, forum activity is too slow for it to be extremely useful.  I wouldn't mind it if I had it, but as it is, implementing it doesn't sound like a good use of time.

Of course, you actually know what you're doing, and since you're considering the idea to begin with, I'm probably completely wrong (as described in [url=http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d123/sirmaur/this_is_a_bad_idea.png]this pic[/url]).  So whatever.

LLCoolDave

2009-02-12 12:44:07 am

Sounds pointless, promotes spam and uses additional server ressources. I'm not sure if the forum alerts you if you are about to post and new replies were sent that you have yet to see, but that's all I think there should be. The benefits the avarage user has appear to be almost negligable compared to the additional processing power wasted, as well as catering to some of the more spammy members.

Veto.

moooh

2009-02-12 02:36:41 am

Exoray

I agree with the previous poster. It seems that this might cause a trend towards topics with alot higher postcount making the finding of relevant information even harder than it is now in certain 600 post topics.

Yes, this forum warns you with a red text notice if someone else posted while you were typing. I believe this feature is sufficient.

Lag.Com

2009-02-12 02:56:26 am

sda loyalist

Yuck. Seriously, don't make SDA into one of those 2.0 Ajax sites.

Hattori HANZo

2009-02-12 06:29:15 am

contraddicted

I'm not sure what to think of that.

A possible side effect could be, that topics tend to be more like conversations. With short postings no one would really want to read again. The rsik of crippling the forums into some weird IRC addon might be rather low here, but i'd also prefer sticking to a plain old board.

If you want to see a site that utilizes 2.0 crap, AJAX and related crap, take a look at www.motor-talk.de
I quit the site because it had evolved from something like SDA into a feature bloat that uses more cpu time for displaying pages than full HD video. And I am completely unable to browse it with a PDA.

Norrec

2009-02-12 01:05:17 pm

That's a good idea in my opinion, but I also think that this could/would not be used as it is supposed to. It would be an advantage for discussions concerning "frequently runned games" when there is a big news or when there is a dispute about the rejection of a run or something like that. But this would not be worth it due to the less forum activity, I suppose.

andrewg

2009-02-12 01:25:11 pm

Hi! I'm andrewg!

I don't like the idea really. I think that threads could potentially get spammy.

I guess it could work, but I'd say I'm against this. We already have the "someone posted while you were making this response" thing before we can make the post.

EDIT: Actually most threads don't get too many responses in a short period of time. I think it'd be convenient for the bigger threads (zelda ones). So maybe it could work.

Manocheese

2009-02-12 01:53:41 pm

Yes, a cucco riding the ground.

I think this is a bad idea for the reason other people have mentioned: it would be conducive to spam (imagine if two spammers happened to be in the same topic at the same time... there would be pages of idiotic conversation clogging the thread) and would lead to shorter, lower-quality posts in general because people would write more conversationally. It would also probably cause lag.

Kabuto

2009-02-12 02:05:29 pm

I don't like that idea either. Would make it too similar to IRC, provoking useless responses like "anybody there?" or "hello xyz!". The SDA forum in its current version is much more likely to generate well-thought responses.

And by the way: you can simulate persistent connections with JavaScript by delaying the answer to an async XMLHttpRequest. It's a bit tricky but works well with most browsers.

UltimateDarius

2009-02-12 02:07:53 pm

Back in the game!

Ok, I have next to zero idea how this could possibly work, but I'll make a suggestion anyway. Whether or not it's possible is another story entirely. Roll Eyes

What if you did what you're talking about here with the PMs only? Make those like PMing in IRC? I could definitely see that being more useful. At least I would make use of it.

DRybes

2009-02-12 03:24:44 pm

O Zlda?

Solution: add a meta refresh with time of 600 seconds to every sub-forum's thread display page (general discussion, newer consoles, etc), automatically refreshing the view every 10 minutes. or do 5 minutes, etc. and perhaps it could be done on the main forum page that lists all the sub-forums, too. this effectively lets you leave SDA open and see if updates were made just by glancing, but without turning the forum into some shitty ajax application. We should be limiting ajax to places like the KB where people can click a term and have a dictionary definition DIV pop up and load the definition content, or something.

VorpalEdge

2009-02-12 04:50:49 pm

welcome to the machine

nate, I'm sorry. When I mentioned Ajax, I didn't intend to scare everybody. Please forgive me.

Siyko

2009-02-12 04:52:44 pm

I used to be athiest until I realized I was God.

this would be tragic while typing a post if your browser does not have form memory.. i dont know if the server can fill in the text box with what was there when it auto refreshed... probably, but it feels sloppy

Emptyeye

Edit history:

Emptyeye: 2009-02-13 05:43:57 am

2009-02-12 05:45:06 pm

Talk to the Hand

If I want SDA chat, I'll go to SDA chat.

That is all.

(EDIT: Okay, that sounds rather curt, so to elaborate a bit, I'm not exactly sure what needs augmenting about chat in the first place. I also don't know how often this really comes into play, though that's as good a reason to implement it as not, I suppose. In short, chat serves a different functions than the boards; I don't see why leaving it that way would be so awful, and I think you have a solution searching for a non-existent problem here).

DRybes

2009-02-12 07:15:49 pm

O Zlda?

Quote from Siyko:

this would be tragic while typing a post if your browser does not have form memory.. i dont know if the server can fill in the text box with what was there when it auto refreshed... probably, but it feels sloppy

Yeah. Likewise, if you had a thread open for reference. Which is why I said, only auto-refresh on the forum list / thread list, not on any other pages.

Enhasa

2009-02-13 10:56:10 pm

everybody wanna tell you the meaning of music

This is a completely terrible idea and I would never visit the forums again, or at least until chrome gets customizable adblocking. The reason for this is that I assume it would be implemented like the new queue, which is extremely sluggish and memory leaks in firefox like a little bitch. Because of this, both me and Mike never keep the queue open, we open it right when we need to change something and close it immediately, which ironically means that the auto-update feature means that we keep it open a lot less now.

Of course, I'm not knocking the auto-update since it means we don't need locking anymore. And closing the tab and opening a new one when I want to look at the queue is really no different than keeping the tab open and hitting f5 to refresh.

This leaking problem is in addition to the fact that I'm completely against the idea in principle too, lol. Please never implement this in any fashion, anywhere. I hope this post has been sufficiently negative! Grin

Edit: Ok, now that I skimmed all the previous posts, everyone already shot this down anyway, hah. I thought it was just my comp is 10 years old, but apparently ajax is shitty for everyone.

This is a completely terrible idea and I would never visit the forums again, or at least until chrome gets customizable adblocking. The reason for this is that I assume it would be implemented like the new queue, which is extremely sluggish and memory leaks in firefox like a little bitch. Because of this, both me and Mike never keep the queue open, we open it right when we need to change something and close it immediately, which ironically means that the auto-update feature means that we keep it open a lot less now.

Of course, I'm not knocking the auto-update since it means we don't need locking anymore. And closing the tab and opening a new one when I want to look at the queue is really no different than keeping the tab open and hitting f5 to refresh.

This leaking problem is in addition to the fact that I'm completely against the idea in principle too, lol. Please never implement this in any fashion, anywhere. I hope this post has been sufficiently negative! ;D

Edit: Ok, now that I skimmed all the previous posts, everyone already shot this down anyway, hah. I thought it was just my comp is 10 years old, but apparently ajax is shitty for everyone.

slowbro

2009-02-13 11:31:56 pm

My first reaction to this thread was 'Hey, nate suggested this so it would probably be very good for SDA,' an attitude that generates intelligent responses like 99% of the time, so I posted in favor despite having reservations...

I'm just posting this post now because I think it's funny (and true though), I'm not really trying to defend myself. btw I'd dislike an increase in short spam posts as much as anyone.

DJGrenola

2009-02-17 03:45:59 pm

guffaw

I know of at least one other site that has implemented this idea, or something close (but I can't link you to it because you need an account to use it). It works very well, and it's quite an experience to sit and watch posts materialise and automatically shift down the ones below. However, I'm not sure it would promote the kind of focussed, no-nonsense, think-first-post-later discourse that tends to be preferred here.

your_name_here

2009-02-18 05:32:27 am

Quote from DJGrenola:

I know of at least one other site that has implemented this idea, or something close (but I can't link you to it because you need an account to use it). It works very well, and it's quite an experience to sit and watch posts materialise and automatically shift down the ones below. However, I'm not sure it would promote the kind of focussed, no-nonsense, think-first-post-later discourse that tends to be preferred here.

As a member of a site like that, i find that it's very unobtrusive, and there's no problems with performance. Of course, having it here would be entirely pointless. While I don't think that it would promote faster posting, it's more centered towards sites that do.

xXIkuto

2009-02-20 10:56:18 am

sup

i like the idea, and it could prepare SDA for the hopeful future that it gets so popular there's constantly fast posting.

everyone with a negative opinion: why not just try it for a few days, and if it sucks nate changes it back?

lots of people think they can predict the future so they end up not trying things that could change the world Sad

rolandoftheeld

2009-02-20 11:09:32 am

This isn't world-changing material. This has been tried, and is used, and is full of terrible, terrible consequences. IRC is for chat. Forum is for information, primarily. Well thought-out information. I cast my own spit into the sea of negative replies.