The Epic Halflife2.net Improvement Thread!

Haha. We HAVE a report post button.

We used to have a warning system, but it got lost along the way.

And we'll NEVER have image sigs ever. Sorry, but that's the way it is.
 
ComradeBadger said:
Haha. We HAVE a report post button.

We used to have a warning system, but it got lost along the way.

And we'll NEVER have image sigs ever. Sorry, but that's the way it is.
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Damn you caught me. I edited my post after I noticed that you guys had it. My bad. I joined this site a long time ago but don't visit to often as you can tell by my post count.

I still think you guys should look at a warning system for those troublesome folks, but that is just my opinion.
 
We have looked into a warning system, we're waiting for the next RC of vB - and a stable plugin :)

Anyway - it was certainly useful back when I used it a few years ago :)

(Heh, postcounts mean nothing, I used to have a very high one :D )
 
I agree with you ComradeBadger on all points. And yeah the warning system is quite nice. Maybe you can couple it with giving the mods the ability to disable posting for those problem members. (For a certain time period anyways).

Post counts do really mean nothing. I do visit the site but don't always have something to say. As for the images in sigs, I still think it would be nice (as long as you have rules for them such as sizes and what is allowed and/or not allowed in them). However to each his own. :)

Maybe I could talk you into a slight increase in the size of avatars? :smoking:
 
Didn't badger leave?? BAN HIM!!
 
SixThree <3

Trooper said:
I agree with you ComradeBadger on all points. And yeah the warning system is quite nice. Maybe you can couple it with giving the mods the ability to disable posting for those problem members. (For a certain time period anyways).

Post counts do really mean nothing. I do visit the site but don't always have something to say. As for the images in sigs, I still think it would be nice (as long as you have rules for them such as sizes and what is allowed and/or not allowed in them). However to each his own. :)

Maybe I could talk you into a slight increase in the size of avatars? :smoking:
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Disabling posting for problem members = temp bannings, and yes, we do use these :p

Images in sigs + Avatar size increases I'm afraid really aren't going to happen, sorry. Image sigs look garish, and are open to abuse.. we think it looks neat and tidy this way ;)
 
Images in signatures will never be added. Avatar size at 50x50 is fine; believe me, it's the best way to go about it.

Idonotbelonghere, the banner design contest is likely to return in the future; however, we'll wait until we have a new website redesign finished, which is very much in the works right now.
 
Seagull said:
I would love the warning system back too. :D
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As I said earlier, it's on the way. Munro can't escape this time, the current vBulletin beta has a built in warning system. We'll use it as soon as it leaves beta and goes to release candidate.
 
I just typed this up and then hit the bloody backspace key! ARGH! So I’ll make it quick.

Firstly, even though I think it is what the Mod Team is aiming to do, we should use the tools we have at the moment rather than growing new limbs.

The calendar for example could be used to annotate ‘Game Days’ or upcoming release dates for both Mod and Valve content, as opposed to the current ‘Birthdays and Public Holidays’ which doesn’t really effect many people due to the forum’s global spread.

I always read the main page, both the Mod and Valve news is one of the site’s great assets, but to a new member {and myself} it has many holes. Many things that could have worked have faded into the distance. The Mailbag is a sweet idea, but where can I go and read Edcrab, Tinyxipe’s Epic Fan Fics without crawling through months worth of Fan Fiction Forum junk.

One of the best things this community has going for itself, is the community itself. But on another note, it is kinda hard for new members to punch through into this higher community. Although newbies may have to ‘earn’ a position in this sprawling community – some may be ‘shy’ to do so {to some extent I know I was for a while :p }.

A way to introduce these newbies into the community, is in my mind more community events. I know many attempts have been made to make such work on many occasions, but this would be double tier development. On one hand it can get newbies feeling like they are a part of this site, maybe reducing the spam and 'orly' owls – but also keeping older members entertained and happy.

Good luck with the changes, if I think I can lend a hand – I’ll give you a shout somehow…
 
Get new "Content Writers". The quality of the news has drop since the new guys came aboard.

"This mod is showing us some new screenshots, take a look. More information on their mod site"

Not very interesting...
 
DEMOCRACY FOREVER!

*gets shot in the face*
 
Majestic XII said:
Get new "Content Writers". The quality of the news has drop since the new guys came aboard.

"This mod is showing us some new screenshots, take a look. More information on their mod site"

Not very interesting...
Click to expand...
They're in training.
 
Indeed we hope for improvements soon. Sui and Sulk are experts in the field making it interesting and we hope to see a leaf taken from their book :)

/me points threats at 15357
 
Ennui said:
Idonotbelonghere, the banner design contest is likely to return in the future; however, we'll wait until we have a new website redesign finished, which is very much in the works right now.
Click to expand...

I guess it would make more sense to come up with the new look of the site first and then hold the contest for people to design their banner to fit into that mold instead of the other way around.
 
The Monkey said:
The icon changed to a lambda symbol :O
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The first change we've made! tiny, I know, but I like it a lot :)

Thanks to Penfold_ for making the favicon. He gave us an extensive selection of fantastic favicons to choose from.
 
ComradeBadger said:
Disabling posting for problem members = temp bannings, and yes, we do use these :p

Images in sigs + Avatar size increases I'm afraid really aren't going to happen, sorry. Image sigs look garish, and are open to abuse.. we think it looks neat and tidy this way ;)
Click to expand...

It's cool that you guys are at least listening to the community. I don't fully agree with the images in sigs deal, but like I said prior, to each his own. :)
 
I would quite like the ability to change the colour of our names. If that is at all possible.
 
Danimal said:
...Why?
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Makes it easier to identify posters ect.
I remember people, especially newbies by their avatars, not their posts, allowing more individulaity makes it easier.
 
Solaris said:
I would quite like the ability to change the colour of our names. If that is at all possible.
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Going to shoot that one down right now. Sorry. Use avatars to associate people with posts.
 
I guess.

So many people are going to have FABULOUS! names if that happened though.
 
What about the ability to change the title under your name. I know some forums have it.
 
Darth Sidious said:
What about the ability to change the title under your name. I know some forums have it.
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Again, no. Custom user titles have no place here. We want our forum to remain neat and clean - avatars, usernames, and signatures should be enough to distinguish you!
 
Muzzle Samon, I think he can sometimes appear a little scary to the new-uns :p

More Community events are a must, but they should strive to be as inclusive as possible, or at least to organise seperate events for the corners of the world. Play Half-Life series mods and such, just generally having fun.

Perhaps working more closely with mod-teams would pay off? Like hosting their sites and intergrating a sub-forum for their mod into the hl2.net forum. That way, people from elsewhere in the community are forced to sign-up for this community to talk more directly to the creators, and when they have the login, they find they may as well talk in the rest of the forum? I guess that's quite a hostile idea really :p

I like the idea of a kind of naughty-boy corner where bad-behaved posters can be sent to learn their lesson. It could prevent valued members going down in flames for a night's idiotic posting binge.

Consider copying classic website formulas like having a "mod of the week/month" or "picture of the day" etc. Also consider community servers. And finally, consider that everything I said above will probably cost a great deal of time and effort that may not be a pay off, so feel free to ignore me :p

Except muzzling Samon. That'll just get you a couple of nasty bite-marks.
 
We are not allowed (Valve's terms when they offered to host us) to host mod websites, but we do have a planned extensive modifications section in the works.
 
More Ideas:

Thread/Topic starters should have the option to edit the first post of their thread without a time limit.

This is useful for topics where information needs to be updated daily (like the winners/losers for the upcoming chess matchups in General Off-Topic Chat).

Another example is when the community was involved in those Challenges that Valve created for us (I miss those). New information was constantly being found, but you had to go through a long search through the entire thread to find the updates/discoveries that happened while you were away.

The ability to update the first post without moderator assistance could be useful in these situations.
 
Download mirrors for mods and HL stuff for hl2.net members. :)
 
There isn't much I would change about the site. I really like the way that vBulletin works, it's the nicest forum I use.

Someone mentioned the idea of having a calendar, which I think is important for a site with a community this big. Go to www.euro-racing.net to see how our calendar works (I'm a mod there). It's on the right side of the homepage. It's very easy to use, has an extremely nice interface, and obviously can only be used by mods/admins etc. We use ours to show when our online races are, so everyone knows exactly where to look for upcoming events. If you ever decide to use it, let me know and I can give you links etc.

Like Ennui has already said, definitely do not ever ever allow image sigs - this would totally ruin the forums. Luckily for me I can block people's sigs etc with my AdBlock extension for Firefox :).

I think that perhaps there could be more competitions for making artwork, coming up with captions for screenshots, making the funniest screenshot etc- you know, fun stuff that people can join in with :imu:

For the size of the community, I think that you mods do a damn good job of keeping everything up-to-date, controlling the forums :)

Make sure the news items are up-to-date, the forums are alive (don't even mention the DOD:S forum ;( ), and everybody will be happy.

If you guys ever need any bits of artwork/design done, I'm here to help. If I think of anything else, I'll be sure to post it here.
 
Penfold_ said:
I think that perhaps there could be more competitions for making artwork, coming up with captions for screenshots, making the funniest screenshot etc- you know, fun stuff that people can join in with :imu:
Click to expand...
That's fine, but DON'T put all that on the front page. You know why I like halflife2.net's front page so much? Because it's clean, no gigantic OMFG LOL PIC OF THE DAY ROFL or LAWL DIS MOD IS AWESOMES (include gigantic thumbnails here) pictures anywhere. Just clean URLs. Please, keep it that way.
 
I like your calender design over there, pretty useful, we could upgrade our current calender, but we have few things in the future to document. Most things are large events which everyone knows about. Right now the calender shows birthdays, which is something heh.

The front page will be changing beerdude, i'm sorry. It will be more basic and minimalist, with few links which will branch into more specific items you'll want, it'll be good i promise! But no POTD? :( Might be fun you never know!
 
Beerdude26 said:
That's fine, but DON'T put all that on the front page. You know why I like halflife2.net's front page so much? Because it's clean, no gigantic OMFG LOL PIC OF THE DAY ROFL or LAWL DIS MOD IS AWESOMES (include gigantic thumbnails here) pictures anywhere. Just clean URLs. Please, keep it that way.
Click to expand...

Lol Beerdude, I didn't mean it quite like that. I know exactly what you mean, and I would definitely not want that.

I like it the way the news works at the moment, was just thinking of the community and things like the banner competition that would be rewarding for the members. These could be implemented in the forums perhaps, maybe a new forum for 'community projects'. I'm too tired to think too hard about it a the moment :sleep:
 
I'm toiling with the idea of a calender, i'll try and type them up in the next few hours...
 
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