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A Few Changes

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ElectroMaster

ElectroMaster

Administrator
Hi All,

Just made a few changes which i hope will help out.

New Users

Are now no longer allowed to post urls or emails in their first 3 posts. This is to restrict spam from getting into our forums.

User Display

The user info next to each post has been updated. It now looks much better and has a few more details about the user to help determine the 'trust' a user has.

Reputations

This is part of the new user display next to each post. It allows you to see a persons reputation which is generated from actual feedback from other members. There is a possible of 4 reputation levels:
  • Newbie
  • Okay
  • Good
  • Excellent
If you actually cause trouble on the forum you may see a "Bad". Hopefully this system will be better than the older one which was simply based on post count.

Your suggestions and comments are most welcome.
 
What do the three colours, green, yellow and red on the Activity progress bar actually mean.?

I would have thought the Join Date would indicate the Longevity.
 
Last edited:
ElectroMaster said:
Hopefully this system will be better than the older one which was simply based on post count.

Your suggestions and comments are most welcome.
Click to expand...

Hi ElectroMaster!

The old system was based on reputation points (the green/red square game). The little word under the username was based on number of posts ("Experienced Member", etc). At least, that was how I understood it to work. So if I went and looked at, say, UAEFame's posts now, would it say "Really bad" or just "Bad"? That user currently has two red squares--no offense intended to UAEFame; that was just the first example I thought of.

The new method of showing reputation has less granularity than the old method and, to me, is less visually intuitive. Green and red boxes are quite eye-catching. Of course, the rep thing is just a sub-game but it can be somewhat useful. I'll give it a bit of time but my initial feeling is that the new display is less useful.

As for the rest of it, the "Longevity" thing is nice but as Eric noted, redundant. The "Activity" bar is also nice but perhaps a popup explaining it would be a good idea. I don't know whether vBulletin supports that, though. No biggie.

I'm afraid I can't agree that the new sidebar presentation is more appealing--the old one was cleaner. That is of course a purely aesthetic and subjective judgement. :)

I don't suppose the software allows the sidebar display to be controlled by a User CP option, huh? ;) That would be really cool.

Actually, it just occurred to me that what would be *really* cool would be vBulletin providing an XML or similar feed with site and user info which could be used by, say, a Greasemonkey script to display things in whatever format the user desired. That said, I also want a pony. I don't think vBulletin does that and I don't think it's likely to in the near future.


Torben
 
Pommie said:
I agree.

Mike.

Last edited by Pommie; Today at 01:18 AM. Reason: clarification. Lol.
Click to expand...

I was wondering about that, pre-edit. ;)


Torben
 
Last edited:
I quoted the whole of your sentence and it was unclear which part I was agreeing with. I just couldn't resist the clarification comment. :D

Mike.
 
Torben said:
The old system was based on reputation points (the green/red square game). The little word under the username was based on number of posts ("Experienced Member", etc). At least, that was how I understood it to work. So if I went and looked at, say, UAEFame's posts now, would it say "Really bad" or just "Bad"? That user currently has two red squares--no offense intended to UAEFame; that was just the first example I thought of.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you are correct. However, the problem with the "Experienced Member" was that it was somewhat missleading, as in if UAEFame had more than 30 posts he could have Experienced Member yet, a red bar.. Now he will simply have a "Bad" reputation.

I do also plan to re-introduce the original green/red bar but in a different way.. This will be in conjuntion with the reputation as it was before but with different graphics - like resistors, caps or something like that..

Torben said:
I don't suppose the software allows the sidebar display to be controlled by a User CP option, huh? That would be really cool.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately no..
 
Hi ElectroMaster,

Is it possible to make everything below the avatar a little
bit bigger, it's getting difficult for me to read those small
capitals. And perhaps place longevity below activity.
I can't distinguish the yellow from the green bars without
changing glasses.

on1aag.
 
Torben,
The posts you refer to were made before the new system was introduced.

I like the activity section because it gives more of an indication of recent activity than the post count or the number of posts per day.

The longevity section is a bit pointless as the join date is clearly indicated.

I don't know how I feel about the reputation thing, the square thing caused a couple of disputes in the past so perhaps this is better but the square system also provided more information.

The reputation section doesn't say bad for users with negative reputation.

It just says "Reputation: is infamous around these parts" which doesn'tr mean anything.
https://www.electro-tech-online.com/threads/oh-thats-right.41702/
https://www.electro-tech-online.com/members/goblin_techies.html
https://www.electro-tech-online.com/members/-coool-.html
 
Last edited:
ElectroMaster said:
Just made a few changes which i hope will help out.
Click to expand...

My $0.02.

From another forum, I saw two guys (an electrician and an electrical engineer) trying to convince the OP that a circuit breaker in his house was bad.
I also saw 15 electricians unanimously telling a guy to check his neutral connection.

In both cases the OPs were unconvinced.

From that I learned that it doesn't matter if you know you are an expert. What matters is what others believe.

Anyway, bottom line, I don't know if you can have a fuel gauge indicator in the post box for "credibility", or how you would even determine it, or if this is even desirable on a public forum.
:confused:
 
Last edited:
okay, im listening..

here are a few more options..
 

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Pommie said:
What are the yellow and red cards at the bottom of the panel?

Mike.
Click to expand...

I'm guessing they're supposed to be something to do with soccer (football, outside of North America).

Am I close?

If so, maybe a symbol which would mean something to Canadians and Americans would be good--many of us wouldn't immediately know what that meant.

If not, please ignore my wibbling. ;)


Torben
 
futz said:
Number 2 is better than the current one. It's big enough that you can see the color.

I prefer the graphic to Number 1's text.
Click to expand...

Agreed. So negative rep will no longer be displayed? Or will there be a way for that to be shown too?


Torben
 
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