Fwurg

[Brend]

Hi everyone,

I want to replace the current News page with a different one.

The current news page provides an incomplete overview of new posts, is slow, and is very annoying to maintain. Instead of having a page that gives an incomplete overview, I propose to have a page that gives only relevant IC news (from the UCN thread), and at a later stage the opening of votes and events.

For now, I really want to disable the current news page because it is faulty.

What do you think?

[Mercury]

Seconded!

[Elmer]

What maintenance does the current new page requires? It works, so you no longer have to work on it right? Or are you speaking in terms of server memory and performance?

Any way, what I try to say is currently we have that page and it is working. Even though it does not provide you with all the functionalities you desire, it has at least some functionalities and I think it is a waste to throw that away, especially when there is not yet a new tool with the actual functionalities you desire. Sometimes I use the current news page to quickly check if there is something interesting posted, without having to log in. For example when I am in the living room of my house and want to see if someone posted something interesting.

And how do you determine what UCN news posts are relevant?

That being said, I really like the idea of a page which keeps track of the opening of votes and events, a calender page basically.

[Mercury]

Regarding maintenance: I've found that there have been various bugs in the News page, which does not always react well to special characters, long topic names, placement of tags and locations, etc. Moreover, when changes are made to the forum (such as updates to the software, adding new locations, etc), the News page may require maintenance. This usually isn't seen as it is performed when we fix other stuff, but it does add extra work. It also clogs up if there is a chat, for example, with all the new pages flushed out by the chat.

Regarding using the site: Chat clog up leads to the News Page being misleading, but that's not the only thing. The news page doesn't actually show you which posts are new: it only shows you the most recent X pages in the last few days or so. Moreover, it doesn't look at all forums to do this, so certain new posts are in fact skipped, while various private roleplays are actually being advertised for everyone to see despite the information not being known.

I agree with you that we should have an option to see what's new without having to log in. A concern I have is that the current News page doesn't address this accurately (it just looks like it does).

If we can set up a new -limited, but accurate- version quickly, would that help make the switch?

[Fedor]

Personally I follow all new posts on fwurg via the RSS feed and do not use the news page, so I do not mind if it is removed.

[Elmer]

I agree that the current news page is not perfect, and if updating the page after each forum is a pain in the ass I have no problems with it when the news page no longer is updated. It is just that it sounded now like 'I don't like it so I disable it' while it still had pretty reasonable functionalities.

In conclusion I think it is fine when maintenance on the news page is stopped and once the news page stops working we can disable it entirely. At the same time I prefer a page to quickly look up what is posted new when I am not logged in. I don't really mind if this is a quick fix or a more long-term though out process.

This should address everybody's ideas and concerns so far does it?

[Brend]

'I don't like it so I disable it' while it still had pretty reasonable functionalities.

It's not so much "I don't like it" and more "It is broken". And any clearly broken tool should be disabled, or at least people should be informed that it does not work as advertised.

At the same time I prefer a page to quickly look up what is posted new when I am not logged in.

But the thing is, even in it's current state it does not do that for you. The news page lies about: holomails addressed to you (it simply does not show them), at the same time it does show you posts in general roleplay between two characters not in any way related to you. The news page does not list holomails addressed to "Union Members", even though these are relevant. It mixes IC and OOC posts without clear distinction, it fails the styling of posts showing the posts differently from what they actually are, it shows at most the last 20 posts making it utterly stupid when chats are played (also a problem of the current chat system though).

All these things make it so that people who rely on the News page are missing out relevant posts. For example, some people missed the opening of the Election Vote because they checked the news page and it wasn't shown there.


The problem is that the News page is currently seen as a way to see what's new. The name "News" even implies that it should be used as such. But in reality it should be called not "News" but "Some posts"...