Eclipsed Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 Out of curiosity, did Tay give Nay the okay to gank the birthday? Quote
Nayleen Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 Considering all it needs is re-enabling the hook to have them back, nope, he did not. Quote
Eclipsed Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 Good, good. Tay, don't listen to the bullies. Revive the birthday section Quote
nohman Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 It'll be too cluttered with the b-day section, right? Something had to die. Quote
sanahtlig Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 Like balancing the budget, this was something that needed to be done. Â Nayleen has taken the kind of courageous stance that the US Congress could not. Eclipsed 1 Quote
Eclipsed Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 Or we could've left everything as is (2) and just implement the scrollbars rather than expanding them (4) + scrollbars and then ganking a section as a result. With 4 recent entries you already see stuff as far back as April for Dev B / Recruit ie they don't need that much real estate Quote
Nosebleed Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 I personally think project recruitment could likely be merged with dev updates. The recruitmeant board is easily the most inactive so I really feel like it could be merged somewhere else to save space, or just find another way to give visibility to project recruitment annoucements that doesn't involve such a large chunk of the sidebar to be occupied. Â I always thought the birthdays feature was fun, it's good to know when members you might know have birthdays so you can congratulate them and it's kind of sad to see it removed. Quote
nohman Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 Or we could've left everything as is and just implement the scrollbars rather than expanding them + scrollbars and then ganking a section as a result. Â As it was before was 2 threads visible, so do you mean 2 threads visible per section with a scrollbar? Looks kinda funky I'd think. Nosebleed's suggestion seems good though. Quote
sanahtlig Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 Would shortening the project recruitment display to 2 entries free up enough space? Â I don't think it would. Â The birthdays features seemed to take up 4-6 entries of space. Quote
Decay Posted June 5, 2015 Author Posted June 5, 2015 I've been secretly wishing the demise of the birthday section for a while now, good work Nay.  (not bitter that nobody wished me a happy birthday)  edit: For real though, there is only so much space available on the front page for these kinds of things, unless you want it to look ridiculous (which you shouldn't). I wouldn't mind the birthday section is there weren't more important or more interesting things to advertise first. But alas, it seems like a necessary sacrifice here. Darklord Rooke 1 Quote
solidbatman Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 I know some forums have birthdays listed at the very bottom of a page where the "Currently online users" are listed. No idea if that option is available with IPB, but it would be a possible compromise for those lamenting the loss of birthday displays. Â Quote
Nayleen Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 Mostly PHPBB-based or (for those who even still remember them) WBB ones. Would mean so much more work than I'm interested in putting into it... gah. Maybe on Sunday, I'm off drinking myself silly! Quote
solidbatman Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 Mostly PHPBB-based or (for those who even still remember them) WBB ones. Would mean so much more work than I'm interested in putting into it... gah. Maybe on Sunday, I'm off drinking myself silly! Yeah, its really not worth the work at all then. Drinking > birthday lists any day of the week. Â And because that sounds sarcastic, I'm not being sarcastic. I agree with you Quote
Darklord Rooke Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 It's still possible to find out who's birthday it is: Go to calendar, click the link which says "show all birthdays today", and you'll see them all. But I really have to question whether it's important enough a topic to actually shove into people's awareness. Half the problem is the Today's Birthday section took up about 6-7 lines on average. Then you shorten more important stuff to ugly 2 line boxes with scroll features. Furthermore having a bunch of 2 line boxes really paints a cluttered aesthetic, and doesn't give you a lot of information at first glance. Ideally the whole thing might need to be redesigned, maybe once the front sit is up there'll be better ways to call attention to things? Dunno. But the widgets already looks less cluttered and more manageable with the birthday section gone. I just made a post in the Birthday topic, the first in about 5 days by the way. I wished every user having a birthday a happy one, and named them all by name. Very simple, very easy, Tay is not going to be happy the birthdays have temporarily vanished… but I seriously don’t see the problem with this new system sanahtlig and nohman 2 Quote
sanahtlig Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 I just made a post in the Birthday topic, the first in about 5 days by the way. I wished every user having a birthday a happy one, and named them all by name. Very simple, very easy, Tay is not going to be happy the birthdays have temporarily vanished… but I seriously don’t see the problem with this new system Even if the birthdays are no longer with us, their memory will live on in our hearts and minds forever. (Nevermind that we're better off without them) Darklord Rooke 1 Quote
Tay Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 nope nope nope nope nope nope nope  *rummages around for a spare trench*  I may have found the hill on which I shall die, but defend it I shall to the last man. Mr Poltroon, Eclipsed and Nosebleed 3 Quote
Eclipsed Posted June 6, 2015 Posted June 6, 2015 All hail Archmage Tay, savior of the birthdays Obligatory (temporary?) victory DEFEAT fanfarecr. Maefdomn  Quote
Nosebleed Posted June 6, 2015 Posted June 6, 2015 Ey look, it fits perfectly on my android, no blank space, thanks Tay. Tay 1 Quote
Tay Posted June 6, 2015 Posted June 6, 2015 PS: I'm actually afk and on mobile so I apologize for short messages. Devs aren't using the recruiting blog as they should atm, so I'd be okay temporarily merging them on the forums sidebar.  PPS: Birthdays... that's... like... one of the very few things we've had since the very beginning of the reboot. Seeing them there and posting on people's profiles/the birthday thread feels like it's coded in Fuwa's DNA... Not trying to be a stickler (tho it's fun to dramatize the struggle), so I suppose I'm willing to maybe start considering the remote possibility of tentatively considering removing that block.  PPPS: But, c'mon, all you long-timers. Doesn't this feel wrong? Quote
Nosebleed Posted June 6, 2015 Posted June 6, 2015 Yes, i like the birthdays there, it's just embedded in me at this point. The other boxes feel more alien to me than the birthday one does. Quote
Guest Posted June 6, 2015 Posted June 6, 2015 Bring back the side bars ! Bring back everything to the side bars ! Bring back the crashes to the side bars ! Bring back Aaeru to the side bars ! Â Nah for realz, birthdays are cool there, and I'm gonna give y'all the huge hypocrit statement : "you can just hide them" so no probl3m Quote
nohman Posted June 6, 2015 Posted June 6, 2015 I get where you're coming from Tay, but I'm not really the sort to get sentimental over a widget.  Look at all this ugly white space:    Just ridiculous. Forum experience ruined.  Just kidding, I don't care. Quote
Decay Posted June 6, 2015 Author Posted June 6, 2015 The more clutter that is on the sidebar, the less willing people generally are to decypher it, and the less useful it becomes overall. Eventually it just becomes noise people filter out. Darklord Rooke and Tay 2 Quote
Tay Posted June 6, 2015 Posted June 6, 2015 RE: Combining both dev blogs: turns out the software doesn't let you filter >1 blog (meaning you can have a sidebar dedicated to one and only one blog, a la Rose and his team's recognition blog, but I can't set a sidebar block to pull from two blogs and only two blogs).  RE: Birthdays -- it does look really bad for regular users. Dang. Turned it off again. All those staff boards/LC/project/coordination boards really make my list longer than an average guest, so I hadn't seen the ugliness.  RE: Tweaking/Simplyfying -- I think Decay's right: simplifying the sidebar is a good idea. I tried scaling back the dev blog blocks to 2 entries each. What do we think about it as it now sits? My take: Right now people aren't posting much on those blogs, so it's do-able, but hopefully we'll be able to get more posts on there and we'll need to address usability.  I think Recent topics and Community Blogs could get 1-2 more entries (5-6 per list) and still look good.  As far as simplifying the "Recognition" section goes, it's Rose's call. If he wants to try scaling it down to only showing 1 post, we can try it, but it's his call to make. sanahtlig 1 Quote
Darklord Rooke Posted June 6, 2015 Posted June 6, 2015  RE: Birthdays -- it does look really bad for regular users. Dang. Turned it off again. All those staff boards/LC/project/coordination boards really make my list longer than an average guest, so I hadn't seen the ugliness.  It's a Gravity Green theme issue. There's more space on the right sidebar using the FuwaFabulous theme, but almost none when on Gravity Green. Try it for yourself  The problem is this - there's so many cool and useful things we're trying to call attention to now, things which will improve the site if participation is increased. If participation increases, then the size of the widget will need to be increased. The Dev blog can survive with a couple of lines now, but you're hoping for more participation in the future so you want to factor in that growth. Simplifying the Recognition system in the present is Rose's call, but what you want it to be in the future is partially yours and again any growth needs to be factored in. Including the birthday widget in the mix will do what Decay mentioned in his post and IMO the other stuff is a little too important to jeopardise with a birthday widget which is partially there just for nostalgia.  But that doesn't mean it can't be applied in some form, just not mixed in with all the important stuff you're trying to alert members to. Important stuff which might need more room in the future. Batman had a killer idea about putting it on the bottom, which Nay said he might try out on Sunday. That's a pretty decent solution.  But obviously your call.  PPPS: But, c'mon, all you long-timers. Doesn't this feel wrong?  sanahtlig 1 Quote
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