March 29th, 2011 at 12:39 PM ^
I miss the ability to increase someone's point total for posting a timely, witty photo/caption of a cat with a surprised look on his face.
no /s
Timely !!
Not 55 minutes !! Jeez, these useless posbangs just don't provide the same incentive !!
March 29th, 2011 at 12:40 PM ^
There are still a number of things Brian hasn't rebuilt from the BURN ALL of 2011.
March 29th, 2011 at 12:47 PM ^
I'm sure he's had a ton of stuff to do too, but I'm starting to wonder a bit about the points. He's back to posting as regularly as before (when you take into account no football) and the site has been mostly running smoothly for the past sixty days or so, at least from a viewers perspective.
I wonder if he lost the program he used in the first place and has to redo it...that would explain the delay and the new +/- format.
I just think that if he could have had it done by now, he would have. The amount of snarky comments about an "imaginary" +1 or people "wishing I could send you to Bolivian" is (are?) huge these days; the readership obviously wants points back. At least using anecdotal evidence, that is.
March 29th, 2011 at 12:53 PM ^
The new +/- format is an upgrade to the plugin he used for points. My guess is that the plugin is only for individual comments and he had to write the SQL on the backend to accumulate the point totals for users. Last time he made an upgrade, it was a lot of things at once, so I'm guessing he is fixing the style and the functionality at the same time. Then, when everything is ready, he will make the upgrade.
March 29th, 2011 at 12:56 PM ^
Computer Science'd
Without knowing the actual database layout the point accumulation (or lack thereof) would just be something as simple as doing an update to T_Users (or whatever it's called) passing in the user ID and the amount of points added or subtracted.
My best guess is, like you implied, that everything will come in one nice happy MGoPatch as opposed to pushing little things here and there. It's easier that way and you can test the whole system in the development environment for errors all at once as opposed to releasing buggy stuff and trying to error trap each individual thing on the fly.
That's right microsoft, I'm looking at YOU.
MGoBlog is built on Drupal which is an opensource software program that configures the database while you use a GUI (graphical user interface) to construct your website. Drupal has thousands of modules (think extensions or apps) that offer new functionality - because of this I doubt there is much custom code within this site (other than theming.)
To me, it looks like Brian uses two modules to User Points and Vote Up/Down for MGoBlog's point system. If MGoBlog really uses Vote Up/Down this issue might explain why voting doesn't affect user points - when Brian upgraded to the newest version, it broke.
If I am right, someone with PHP and Drupal knowledge could port that patch to the 6.2 version of Vote Up/Down. I can help on the Drupal end but not the PHP end - it looks like garbage to me.
Took the words right outta my mouth.
I was almost warm for my explanation I guess; the points program is broken. I have no idea how tough it is to write programs like this; is this something that can be done in an evening, a weekend, a few weeks? Just more curious than anything, I think joeyb is probably right about waiting for everything to be back before we get goodies like pos/neg and the "new" flag.
which is a leap of faith because I have less than 150 points and we all know the size of your IQ is determined by your MGoPoint total - a decent programmer could probably fix it in a few hours. Both modules (programs) work as they should but the bridge between them has been blown to shit.
Thanks though, makes a lot of sense when you think about the way things have been working too (as it should).
Agreed. I really like seeing the number of up and down votes as opposed to an abstract total.
HTTV '11. That's what he's doing right now.
And, what is HTTV?
A most fantastic preview magazine that you must buy.
March 29th, 2011 at 12:41 PM ^
I think you all care about your MGoPoints a little too much.
You can have mine.
March 29th, 2011 at 12:43 PM ^
It's about more than point totals. This needs the recognition it deserves.
March 29th, 2011 at 12:50 PM ^
It's about applauding those that make well thought out points (or, more likely, post hilarious, well timed pictures)
It's also about punshing the trolls, and an incentive to justify why you negged.
It's the old management aphorism: What gets rewarded gets repeated; what gets punished gets avoided. Via the current point system, the only thing tangibly rewarded is new posts. Quality of content is effectively neutral.
There is something to be said for the "shame" of being shotgunned with shadow negs; over time there is a de facto ostracism of those whose contributions are dung--which serves a similar purpose as banishment into exile. However, those whose participation is intermittent don't get the immediate pre-judgment of those whom the MGoCommunity has relegated to perdition because of their persistent slouch toward Bolivia.
It's now little more than about posting pictures of cats and saying things like "Boren is a Douchehead" to make gratuitous grabs for points.
Then what happens is you can create content, and all you do is start the 3000th thread asking when spring practice starts.
March 29th, 2011 at 12:53 PM ^
No one wants sloppy MgoPoint seconds.
March 29th, 2011 at 12:42 PM ^
On a positive note, avatar uploads are back!
<glamor poses>
March 29th, 2011 at 12:50 PM ^
IT'S ALL THE SAME POSE !!
I FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS !!
March 29th, 2011 at 12:52 PM ^
That Hansel is so HOT right now.
March 29th, 2011 at 12:55 PM ^
H- "So I'm rappelling down Mount Vesuvius when suddenly I slip, and I start to fall. Just falling, ahh ahh, I'll never forget the terror. When suddenly I realize "Holy shit, Hansel, haven't you been smoking Peyote for six straight days, and couldn't some of this maybe be in your head?"
DZ- "And...?"
H- "And it was. I was totally fine. I've never even been to Mount Vesuvius."
I totally agree with you...but how do you feel about male models?
How about a "Good afternoon Derek and Hansel. Thanks for the freak fest last night"?
Zoolander.
I didn't. Why, did someone post apropos quotes from it?
March 29th, 2011 at 12:46 PM ^
The biggest reason they should be brought back is to keep trolls under control. That, and to allow quality newcomers to rapidly get up to 100 points so they can start threads. Beyond that, I think they should just cap the total at 1,000 or whatever. There's no point in having the totals infinitely increase.
March 29th, 2011 at 12:52 PM ^
By that I mean getting negged for negging.
PS... Negged for having over 1,000 points.
March 29th, 2011 at 12:55 PM ^
But how is one to take over the world without infinite amount of MGoPoints?
March 29th, 2011 at 12:57 PM ^
I had forgotten about negging costing the negger points. That was a pretty good idea.
I'd like to see a requirement that a neg couldn't be done without a reply post.
I still see negging as having a chilling effect upon saying what you really think, which in my mind is very different from saying something stupid. I am thinking about what went down with the CC.
Negged for sucking.
If you replied, the point gained for the reply would counter the point lost for negging. That seemed to work fine. Threads would be a disaster if a comment truly deserved 100 negs and each neg required a response simply to call the poster a trolling jacktard.
But a good portion of the time, the big negbangs happen with the trolls.
We shouldn't be forced to comment on why something like "hoo curs aboutttt gurls sportz they should be in kitchen" is a stupid, trollish comment. I agree in principle that most of the time people should justify their negs, but stupid or trollish comments make up a majority of the negs, IMO. And the people who neg for no reason other than disagreement on an opinion are just assholes anyway.
about negging strictly on account of disagreement. Sometimes, I get the unsubstantiated feeling that having a different view accounts for the majority of downvotes, and that such downvotes are the most likely to go unexplained.
Yea I hate that. Unless someone says something of an epically stupid nature, or is just trolling, I usually don't neg. So far today I've negged one post and yesterday it was either one or two; I don't really understand the serial neggers.
Or the people who neg every single thing you say because they disagreed with you once.
My favorite is when you go into a new thread with about 5 responses all disagreeing with the OP and each one of them got negged exactly once. It's like "I see what you did there..."
My least favorite is the amount of dumb shit that's gone on since people lost all fear of losing points. In the last week we've had a thread started calling a poster names, insults to "Walmart Wolverines" and people saying that RR defending Tressel like Hoke did proves he wasn't a "good fit" for the job here. At least when I could neg I felt like I was helping get rid of these people or at least the dumb comments.
Or, conversly, look at people like FlyRy(7? I think...). He shouldv'e been posbanged without consent for his Mattison quotes, but we haven't been able to do that either.
Negged for the hell of it.
Which reminds me, I do miss a good neg-bang thread.
Negged for missing neg-bang threads.
Negged for owning up to it.
And this is how they begin, but it just doesn't have the hilarious appeal when the negs don't mean anything.
Negged for feeling the need to explain.
But yea, it's just not nearly as fun.