GWJ bugs, feature requests, and updates

...if any of ye mateys are interested in starting a little crew on one of the oceans someday, please start a thread and I will be there <3

I did not know about how the amazon linking worked, but will ask what it's set up for.

Amoebic wrote:

...if any of ye mateys are interested in starting a little crew on one of the oceans someday, please start a thread and I will be there <3

https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/...

Malor wrote:

If GWJ showed Puzzle Pirates ads, they had good taste. That was fun.

They did! Until people complained about it and they went ad free from then on.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Malor wrote:

If GWJ showed Puzzle Pirates ads, they had good taste. That was fun.

They did! Until people complained about it and they went ad free from then on.

They ran ads every year in the ~month leading up to & through the donation drive. You know, just to help reinforce what the donations were (partially) used to prevent.

I think it was when the ad rotation software inadvertently let something sketchy (and non-gaming related) show that ads finally went away for good? Sh*t. I've been here too long.

I think I was around back then, but I have completely forgotten all of that. I started in 2005, maybe that was a little late?

Of course, I've been running an adblocker so long that maybe I just didn't notice when they showed up or disappeared.

Regarding the language filter, it seems to be fairly easy to circumvent. I reported this to Certis a few years back, and I would consider it to be a bug. (I want to emphasize that I'm reporting this as a bug. I'm not posting this as an instruction guide.)

You can easily circumvent the filter by using HTML escape codes for the censored letters. For example:

f*ck

Will be censored to "f*ck".

However:

fuck

Will not be censored. (You'll need to quote to see the text.)

ClockworkHouse wrote:

fuck

That's a lot of damn work just to fucking swear.

Yeah, hell damn fart!

I still prefer umlauts. They're more metal.

I wish that "likes" worked differently in a couple of ways. I would like the system better if:
1. You could not like your own posts. Presumably one likes what they are posting, otherwise why post it.
2. You could not see how many likes a post had until you liked it yourself. But you always see the number of likes your own posts have.

I suspect there are technical challenges that make this more difficult to implement than I think it is, however.

The amazon tag adder is broken, its incorrectly parsing ASINs out of some urls
details here

(it shouldn't be altering the url path at all and should be just messing with the url params, but if it is the canonical link for any item on amazon is amazon.com/dp/ASIN )

Chairman_Mao wrote:

I wish that "likes" worked differently in a couple of ways. I would like the system better if:
1. You could not like your own posts. Presumably one likes what they are posting, otherwise why post it.
2. You could not see how many likes a post had until you liked it yourself. But you always see the number of likes your own posts have.

I suspect there are technical challenges that make this more difficult to implement than I think it is, however.

Or whenever you like your own posts, your tag changes to "Fairy Narcissist" for a day.

(Whenever I see a post with one like, it's usually in a back and forth between two goodjers where I presume one is liking the other's post. I see this as a non-issue personally.)

I have no way to prove it, but I suspect a lot of likes are people who are liking their own posts. Especially during heated debates where people are slinging judgement between the lines. Assume all likes have a secret -1 modifier.

Thanks, boogle. Looks like I don't have access or jurisdiction regarding the am*zon thing. That will require sitting down with Shawn when he's not literally out in the woods without access to technology to sort out, so will likely not happen for a little while. As it's not an urgent, site breaking issue, that's not likely to happen until early fall unless something more urgent pushes things further down the road.

A lot of 'ease of use' and general updates (i.e fixing or removal) to decades-old implementations were on the table when the site was still quiet and we hadn't yet been hit with a pandemic/fascist regime that caused dramatic influx of site activity and issues, and it was a lot easier for doogiemac and just myself to handle. Since we're both work from home now, and the work/life boundaries are now very blurred, we may need to look into getting more folks on board to assist with site implementation.

Once I get these GWJCC side projects rolling and out the door, and wrap up the personalized stan drawings, I'll have a lot more room on my plate for back end stuff! The timing of everything really couldn't be much worse

There's absolutely a way to prove whether or not people are liking their own posts. It must be in the database somewhere, and a simple SQL query away. Not that I care at all whether someone likes their own post, though it does seem kinda silly that this is a thing; on Reddit, all of your own posts & comments are inherently automatically upvoted by yourself (not that I'm trying to make GWJ more Reddit-like; just comparing technological and sociological approaches).

I think that keeping likes as a strictly positive thing on GWJ (i.e. no down-voting) was a good move, though I'm still disappointed that the thumbs-up icon was chosen over the humble Like Like:

IMAGE(http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/nspw/images/b/b7/Likelike.gif/revision/latest?cb=20130324230401)

And yes, I'm recycling this joke from 4 years ago.

merphle wrote:

There's absolutely a way to prove whether or not people are liking their own posts. It must be in the database somewhere, and a simple SQL query away. Not that I care at all whether someone likes their own post, though it does seem kinda silly that this is a thing; on Reddit, all of your own posts & comments are inherently automatically upvoted by yourself (not that I'm trying to make GWJ more Reddit-like; just comparing technological and sociological approaches).

I think that keeping likes as a strictly positive thing on GWJ (i.e. no down-voting) was a good move, though I'm still disappointed that the thumbs-up icon was chosen over the humble Like Like:

IMAGE(http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/nspw/images/b/b7/Likelike.gif/revision/latest?cb=20130324230401)

And yes, I'm recycling this joke from 4 years ago.

I'm sorry I should have been more clear. Im sure we could look, but I also don't actually want to know. It feels creepy to spend that much time being that invasive.

Agreed, as I hope I had made clear.

Whelp, now I will begin liking my own posts!

garion333 wrote:

Whelp, now I will begin liking my own posts!

I'm definitely going to like mine now too because of the "fairy narcissist" reward!

Maybe we should get rid of likes........

staygold wrote:

Maybe we should get rid of likes........

I'm not against it, personally. I think part of it was the reddit effect, I think another part was to reduce the number of

Something someone said

THIS.

as well. Although the "THIS x100" trend died off several years ago and isn't as much of a concern these days.

It kinda just strikes me as popularity contest bandwagoning most of the time, and encourages people who get high off the smell of their own cleverness. I'd be lying if I didn't fall into that camp like anyone else. Doesn't make it any less insufferable.

The "this" mentality seems to have gone away, yeah, but my worry (which I think I mentioned back when this was implemented in summer 2016) was that it would inadvertently cut down on constructive replies. I.e. if someone's post is close enough to what I would have said, I might just hit "Like" instead of posting a new reply that has my own slightly-different take on the matter at hand.

I understand that it was also instituted as a way for people who want to show support for a post or idea, without publicly outing themselves. I generally don't venture into P&C/D&D, so I don't know what sort of effect this has led to; is it productive, or reductive?

merphle wrote:

The "this" mentality seems to have gone away, yeah, but my worry (which I think I mentioned back when this was implemented in summer 2016) was that it would inadvertently cut down on constructive replies. I.e. if someone's post is close enough to what I would have said, I might just hit "Like" instead of posting a new reply that has my own slightly-different take on the matter at hand.

I understand that it was also instituted as a way for people who want to show support for a post or idea, without publicly outing themselves. I generally don't venture into P&C/D&D, so I don't know what sort of effect this has led to; is it productive, or reductive?

Generally productive, in my opinion. I think though that seeing how many likes a post has prejudices our brains either in favor of it if it has a lot or against it if has has 0-1, so therefore it would be best to keep the count hidden until after one decides to like it.

edit: missed Amoebic's post above, but I agree with this. I def get a momentary high off my cleverness too.

Amoebic wrote:

It kinda just strikes me as popularity contest bandwagoning most of the time, and encourages people who get high off the smell of their own cleverness. I'd be lying if I didn't fall into that camp like anyone else. Doesn't make it any less insufferable.

The "THIS" trend died at the same time that likes were introduced. I've been under the impression that the link was causal and that removing likes would just put us back on pages of "THIS" and "+1". Which is fine, but it resulted in a lot of complaints about dog piling.

This.

Come on, you know you wanted to.

staygold wrote:

Maybe we should get rid of likes........

We could probably make them go away for individual users with a Greasemonkey script. I have no idea what effect Likes have on anything. If its not the content of the post or the the user's picture, it gets brain filtered.

Are they really a problem or are we just making them into a problem?

bekkilyn wrote:

Are they really a problem or are we just making them into a problem?

+1

Spoiler:

The likes have absolutely cut down on the +1-ing in P&C

.

It kinda just strikes me as popularity contest bandwagoning most of the time, and encourages people who get high off the smell of their own cleverness. I'd be lying if I didn't fall into that camp like anyone else. Doesn't make it any less insufferable.

Wow, that's what I was trying to say when I was resistant to the idea when it was first rolling out, but you put it so much better than I ever managed to. I like getting +1s on my comments. I like it too much, and I don't think it encourages careful, thoughtful behavior.

In other words, I don't like how I react to a voting environment. I pay too much attention to the score, and too little to the content.

edit: that said, the arguments in favor do carry a fair bit of weight. Maybe the ability to express silent encouragement outweighs the drawbacks?