The Epic Halflife2.net Improvement Thread!

Ennui

Ennui

The Freeman
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Righto. I figured my 9,000th post should be something constructive and honorable, as 9,000 posts on a video game site is rather embarrassing and pathetic, more so that I'm proud of the distinction D:

Anyway, as the title reads. We want to bring you the best possible Halflife2.net, and we'll be working very hard to over the next few months. Comments on our current state are welcome, but what we're really asking for here are suggestions - they can be as minor as changing the description on a forum, or as major as switching the site to a Teletubbies fansite (since we're not bound to actually DO these things).

What's anything you've ever wanted to change about the site?
 
The miniscule amount of buttsecks. WE NEED MORE! :O
 
I quality of the newbs should be better. Seriously where do you guys find these people? It's like they came from the store where the hobos shop.


Other than that the site is in good standing. For now.
 
There's nothing wrong with this website, it's simply lacking threads that are worth posting in, or almost every thread becomes a bunch of pseudo-gay statements, people acting wierd to get a response or trolling
 
Or that every thread turns into a discussion about 1 equaling .9999...

:x
 
a) TheSomeone shouldn't be allowed in 0.99=1 threads.
b) Custom skins! I can dream, can't I? :sniper:
c) More features like the mailbag to keep us mindless drones busy.
 
A permanent sticky relating Halflife2.net History and Mythos so new arrivals can no what the hell some of you older members are talking about.
I was a lurker during the Jackson Browne Incident, and I was able to dig up the old kngHenry threads.
I still don't know anything about the Munro Incident(s) though.
Someone should write a mock account, like the Halflife2.net entry on uncyclopedia.
 
Thunderclap said:
A permanent sticky relating Halflife2.net History and Mythos so new arrivals can no what the hell some of you older members are talking about.
Click to expand...
That's the point of having history that's unwritten so that the newbies have no ****ing idea what the hell you're talking about.
 
make me an admin... I can fix up everything

Trust me.
 
People that get permabanned, stay banned, they don't come whining back.

Be tougher on morons, trolls and spam - some spam is fun, but when a whole thread turns into it.

Be tough on spelling words correctly, no "u" "da" "ur" or any of that lazy text language crap.

Get people involved in things, all you lurkers - sign up, take part in contests and discussions.

Take part in rumours and speculation, some arguments are fun and cool ideas are developed.
 
Shodan said:
People that get permabanned, stay banned, they don't come whining back.

Be tougher on morons, trolls and spam - some spam is fun, but when a whole thread turns into it.

Be tough on spelling words correctly, no "u" "da" "ur" or any of that lazy text language crap.

Get people involved in things, all you lurkers - sign up, take part in contests and discussions.

Take part in rumours and speculation, some arguments are fun and cool ideas are developed.
Click to expand...
What he said.

I'd like to see the 12 year old n00bs who just post an 'orly' owl into a serious thread banned. How about a warning system, I would really like to see one.

The mailbags a fantastic idea, and I'm sure when things get organised it will run smoothly.

Also I'd love a few special people to be unbanned, but they brought it on themselves.
 
AUTOBANNED FOR BEING DUMB. The forum has a system that deducts points from your 'smartness' level every time you post something dumb (spelling, grammar). You were at the top of the dumb list this hour with 3953 smartness.
Click to expand...

Smartness system. That is all.
 
Lots of people need some tempo bans.

I swear, some of these 1k posters need to lighten up.
 
That's covered by the warning system.
 
How many moderators are online at a given time?
 
No worries there are plenty to cover the load right now!
PHP:
But with some of the idea's me and Ennui have be going over, probably going to need to expand the staff in the near future, we'll let you know :)

But i think its a great idea for the little problems people have and what things you think to yourself 'ahh that would have been nice', without being silly! I refuse to leave the site like this, we are going to make it better and even more addictive :)
 
I think the #1 problem right now is dealing with the bad things like trolling and spam. Solutions to this would be to hire more moderators, make all moderators Super Moderators, or to bring back the Warning System. One of these three should help out.

I know that some staff was hired last week, so we'll see how things go.
 
I think we she keep the new members on "Probation" for 1 month. Then after the one month either have the staff or members of HL2.net vote them in as a Scanner. The title for them could be like Probationary Scanner. They can still post and make new threads everything that a regular scanner could do. I don't know I was just thinking this might get some better members in here. And of course you don't have to vote them in :D
 
More temporary - one day or one week - bans. Harsh, but not for long.
 
I like the idea of a probation system, but taken slightly further. New members only have access to a limited, probabationer-specific forum - like the "Newbie Central" section we had now. They can only post in there until they're deemed to not be a spammer/troll/moron, and then they can be allowed into the rest of the forums.
It would also allow a kind of non-ban ban, where a member can be demoted to probation and only be able to access the newbie section for a while.
 
That's a good idea, Pi.

We're getting a warning system whenever the next vBulletin version has an RC version - that is, whenever it goes out of beta and into final - and perhaps instead of banning users once they've reached the full amount of warnings, we put them in that forum. Shouldn't be hard, just a usergroup with strange permissions.

Jintor said:
How many moderators are online at a given time?
Click to expand...
Usually one or two.

Thunderclap said:
A permanent sticky relating Halflife2.net History and Mythos so new arrivals can no what the hell some of you older members are talking about.
I was a lurker during the Jackson Browne Incident, and I was able to dig up the old kngHenry threads.
I still don't know anything about the Munro Incident(s) though.
Someone should write a mock account, like the Halflife2.net entry on uncyclopedia.
Click to expand...
To be fair, half the fun is talking cryptically about past events :p but mostly the reason there's no History thread is because it'd be a LONG, LONG thing to write and no one's done so. It's possible I'll get up to doing that, but I have some of our new content to work on first :)

Shodan said:
People that get permabanned, stay banned, they don't come whining back.

Be tougher on morons, trolls and spam - some spam is fun, but when a whole thread turns into it.

Be tough on spelling words correctly, no "u" "da" "ur" or any of that lazy text language crap.

Get people involved in things, all you lurkers - sign up, take part in contests and discussions.

Take part in rumours and speculation, some arguments are fun and cool ideas are developed.
Click to expand...

I agree with you - but there gets to be a point where bannings are too harsh. If we are to be this hardcore, with spelling words correctly, and trolling/spamming, we need to make it crystal clear first that we're to be doing this, and the entire staff needs to adhere to these standards. It's not fun to get caught in a shitstorm because you banned someone who had a lot of friends, despite that they deserved it.
 
I really don't like the idea of putting newbies automatically on 'probation' - not only is it a bit snide and nasty but it'll discourage people from joining, and especially intelligent, mature people who might happen to disagree with the policy of 'guilty until proven innocent' (I know I, personally, mightthink "wtf? Well if they're going to be like that I'll go somewhere else"). I don't think it's really necessary either.

The other kind of restriction, on the other hand, is a good idea. Say you've got someone who tends to get into ridiculous flaming debates and act like an arse about it. You could forbid them from entering the Politics forum for a week. I like the idea of quarantining uberspammers to the newbie forum for short spaces of time to teach them a lesson.
 
Oh, I thought Pi's idea was for offenders to be put on probation, not for new members. Well, I like THAT idea, not his original one.
 
Personally I would like to see the probationary system come into affect on
this web page. Just my opinion.
 
Pi|Mu|Rho said:
I like the idea of a probation system, but taken slightly further. New members only have access to a limited, probabationer-specific forum - like the "Newbie Central" section we had now. They can only post in there until they're deemed to not be a spammer/troll/moron, and then they can be allowed into the rest of the forums.
It would also allow a kind of non-ban ban, where a member can be demoted to probation and only be able to access the newbie section for a while.
Click to expand...

I've seen something like this on some other sites. They don't restrict access to other sections for Newbies, but they have a section for bad members.

For example, in a hockey forum they have a section called the Penalty Box where if you are a troll/spammer/breaker of the rules, you would be banished there (and only there) until your penalty has expired. Other members are able to view and talk with those in the Penalty Box, but those who were banished there are only allowed to post in that section until they are released.

We could also arrange it so that your post-count does not increment if you post in that section. The dangers of this becoming a spam section would be minimal because if you spam in that section (i.e. taunting those stuck in the "jail"), you could end up a prisoner too. :O

We could even call this Temporary Stasis or something like that to fit with the Half-Life theme. :D
 
I was just thinking maybe I could "assist" with the probationary members if we make it you know sense I recommended it :D
 
I like the idea of the 'Pen' - a cage for bad members :D

Would be piss easy to implement as well.
 
Solaris said:
What he said.

I'd like to see the 12 year old n00bs who just post an 'orly' owl into a serious thread banned. How about a warning system, I would really like to see one.

The mailbags a fantastic idea, and I'm sure when things get organised it will run smoothly.

Also I'd love a few special people to be unbanned, but they brought it on themselves.
Click to expand...
Pretty much what Solaris said. Maybe a three strike warning system.

Just letting people know when they've done wrong is good enough. Ninja deletes keep the forum clean but don't get the message across well enough. I'm sure there's a lot of moderating work that goes on behind the scenes, but because I don't see evidence of it I'm given the impression that 'there aren't enough mods' or 'they're not doing their job'. The fact of the matter is that in most cases they are doing their job, you just never hear about it, apart from the permaban incident, but I'm glad that was dealt with because otherwise it gives completely the wrong message. It's just a pity it had to include AL, but if he wanted to go then I guess you can't stop him.
 
Yes thats a good point Crispy, theres plenty of people striving to keep things clean here, and i think it does go unnoticed how much is deleted. A warning system like we had a long time ago would be an effective remedy at detering members and indicating the presence that things are being kept sweet! But as Ennui said, that's something coming along soon as part of this redevelopment.

Keep firing any other problems or things you'd like to see, i'm getting them all written down, the community knows best. :)
 
-Crispy- said:
It's just a pity it had to include AL, but if he wanted to go then I guess you can't stop him.
Click to expand...
To be clear here - he asked to be banned, for, and I quote him, "mental health reasons". He was not a part of the group that spammed to kingdom come and recieved bans for it. It was just around the same time.
 
Hectic Glenn said:
the community knows best. :)
Click to expand...

No, they don't. They might have some good general ideas, but they don't know best.
 
Hehe if there was anyone i could think of to challenge that statement it would have been yourself! Ok generally speaking not always, but the community is full of many educated and well-informed individuals who do have an idea of sensible ideas for improvement. These people are the connected community members and they do have a good inclination.
 
Well if the goal of a forum is to have a happy community, and the community obviously will want what will make them happy, then you could say the community knows best as a result of simple logic there. Problem is some members have views of a "good community" that aren't too great.
 
vegeta897 said:
Well if the goal of a forum is to have a happy community, and the community obviously will want what will make them happy, then you could say the community knows best as a result of simple logic there. Problem is some members have views of a "good community" that aren't too great.
Click to expand...
I can imagine if 13537 took over...

899-20040814195137.jpg
 
I like the mailbag idea...

Would like to see a sub-forum under "General Games" where we can arrange on-line matches for different games - anything from CS to Pro Evolution Soccer to Command & Conquer, etc.

It was talked about a little while ago but nothing has come of it despite interest being expressed...If there isn't much traffic, whats the worst that can happen...
 
You guys should seriously think about the warning system. It can work wonders let me tell you.

As for the probationary thing, meh. That is kind of snobbish if you ask me. Having the mailbag is a nice idea however.

If you have enough moderators then that should be enough to get rid of the trolls and spammers.

The ability to have images in your signature would be nice. I think I understand why you guys never did it, but it would be a nice thing to have.

Cheers.
 
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