Suggestions

[einstein95]

Yeah, I guess so. Thanks for the reply though!

[Garamonde]

Also, sites like Pic Upload use true direct hotlinks for images, making it incredibly convenient for us to upload as opposed to sites like Photobucket that direct you to a website and not the image itself.

[Kirby98]

Yeah I know what to suggest! How about putting up a section about discussions regarding rom hacking since you guys spend most of your shit ripping unused sprites, unused textures, unused models, you did that with Super Mario 64 and Yoshi's Island but what about the obscure crap? don't expect me to do the rom hacking garbage for you guys!

Just before you think about giving me another bad reputation I still have to suggest "hacking" should get it's own section or category in the forums if you still accept it! and I mean literally!

[Dazz]

Really? You PM me to complain about someone not taking your request, now you're suggesting we do the "garbage" for you? What the hell is wrong with you? If you don't want to do something because you hate it, why the fuck would we do it for you? I'm warning you. You're getting on my nerves.

[Gors]

ok, now this really confirms you are a whiny prick. I got a very insulting PM from you for JUST moving your thread, and now you demand things no one is forced to.


sigh.

[Garamonde]

Yeah I know what to suggest! How about putting up a section about discussions regarding rom hacking since you guys spend most of your shit ripping unused sprites, unused textures, unused models, you did that with Super Mario 64 and Yoshi's Island but what about the obscure crap? don't expect me to do the rom hacking garbage for you guys!

Just before you think about giving me another bad reputation I still have to suggest "hacking" should get it's own section or category in the forums if you still accept it! and I mean literally!

Seriously? Please grow the hell up.

[Ton]

What a joy this dude is.

[Kirby98]

Go ahead ban me I don't care, besides I hate this place because last time I post my work here to show my sprites but the mods removed my thread and criticized my work as "shit".

[Dazz]

Ok.

(Edit: I've gone ahead and banned your IP too, just to remove any temptation to come back to a place you hate.)

[Jermungandr]

Looking at your sheet uploader brings some suggestions to mind.

The first is to possibly implement a keyword system to assist search results. You know, like tags on a tumblr post. For example, if I were to upload a spritesheet of Kirby's beam ability under the title "Beam Ability", it currently would not show up if someone were to do a search for "Kirby". But if keywords were implemented I could include "Kirby" as a tag to help it pop up.

Secondly, in the upload results page, it would be convenient to be provided the code for posting the sheet w/ icon on the forum. It would certainly speed things up when you are uploading a lot of sheets at once. (As opposed to having to obtain the URL for both the icon and the file and plugging them into the post code one at a time).

Also convenient would be a link on the results page that says "Upload More For This Game", so one does not have to go through the process of picking the console and then the letter and then the game title every time if they are uploading a large number of sheets for a single game.

Finally, there doesn't appear to be any way to alter a pending sheet? Like, what if someone accidentally uploaded the wrong image file, or made an alteration to the sheet within the time period between when they uploaded it and before it was approved.

On a related subject, what is someone supposed to do in the case that they are uploading a sheet that is supposed to be an update to an existing sheet? If there's nothing already in place, maybe we could use a comment field in order to leave suggestions/instructions for the people doing the approvals?

Getting off the subject of subject of the uploader, there does not seem to be an easy way to access your statistics page. You know, this thing. As it stands it seems the only way for me to get to it is to first look up a sheet that I submitted and then click on my name from there. It would be nice to be able to access this from the profile box on the right side of the screen.

(jeez I came here with two suggestions and it just kind of snowballed)

[Petie]

Looking at your sheet uploader brings some suggestions to mind.

1. The first is to possibly implement a keyword system to assist search results. You know, like tags on a tumblr post. For example, if I were to upload a spritesheet of Kirby's beam ability under the title "Beam Ability", it currently would not show up if someone were to do a search for "Kirby". But if keywords were implemented I could include "Kirby" as a tag to help it pop up.

2. Secondly, in the upload results page, it would be convenient to be provided the code for posting the sheet w/ icon on the forum. It would certainly speed things up when you are uploading a lot of sheets at once. (As opposed to having to obtain the URL for both the icon and the file and plugging them into the post code one at a time).

3. Also convenient would be a link on the results page that says "Upload More For This Game", so one does not have to go through the process of picking the console and then the letter and then the game title every time if they are uploading a large number of sheets for a single game.

4. Finally, there doesn't appear to be any way to alter a pending sheet? Like, what if someone accidentally uploaded the wrong image file, or made an alteration to the sheet within the time period between when they uploaded it and before it was approved.

5. On a related subject, what is someone supposed to do in the case that they are uploading a sheet that is supposed to be an update to an existing sheet? If there's nothing already in place, maybe we could use a comment field in order to leave suggestions/instructions for the people doing the approvals?

6. Getting off the subject of subject of the uploader, there does not seem to be an easy way to access your statistics page. You know, this thing. As it stands it seems the only way for me to get to it is to first look up a sheet that I submitted and then click on my name from there. It would be nice to be able to access this from the profile box on the right side of the screen.

(jeez I came here with two suggestions and it just kind of snowballed)

I'll go through point by point as I want to address everything properly. I've added numbers to the quote to make things easier to follow. You definitely have some good suggestions.

1. We're planning on doing this actually. We wanted to get at least the core features up and running before tackling a project that large though. When the time comes, we'll build it, announce it, and then ask for community assistance in tagging everything. It will be a massive project with just under 54,000 sheets on this site alone but one which we agree is worth the effort.

2. As in the direct path URLs to your now pending sheet? While I could easily provide a pre-formatted link (i.e. a link to the full sheet wrapped around the image for the icon, formatted for the forum), I'm not sure I see much need to. Those locations are temporary and the uploaded sheets are moved once they're accepted so they'd break as soon as they're processed. If I'm not understanding something here though, please let me know.

3. That's actually exactly what the "Add Another" button is for. If you click that, instead of "Submit", when adding a sheet, it will bring you right back to the add sheet page for that game with a convenient little box displaying the sheet you just uploaded above the form. Give it a try.

4. We've discussed this and agree that there are not likely to be enough cases to justify this system. Currently, staff can edit pending sheets so if you really need to make a change, you can always PM one of us to do it. In most cases though, I don't think this is going to be an issue and opening up submission editing to the public could wind up making site management a bit chaotic for the staff.

5. We have a revision system that we're working on. It's mostly written but requires a bit of modification before it's ready for the public. When it's up though, you'll see a "Submit Revision" link under every sheet (unless that sheet already has a pending revision) which will take you to a modified edit form. Filling that out and submitting it will queue the revision for approval by staff. And yes, your comment field suggestion is actually already incorporated into that form.

6. I know on VGFacts, I automatically add this link to every forum profile but that only works because submissions are tied to forum usernames over there. Here, you can set a custom submitter name so I don't really have that automatic link. You can, however, add your submitter name(s) to your own profile using this page which will add a link to the appropriate site directly to your own forum profile page: http://www.vg-resource.com/usercp.php?ac...ocialsites

I hope this addresses everything but please feel free to reply if I've missed anything or you need further clarification. You've definitely brought up some good points and I absolutely appreciate the feedback.

[Jermungandr]

2. So if someone wants to post something they submitted on the forum, they have to either wait until the file is approved or upload it in two different places?

3. Ah, I didn't see that, but that does that still create a preview of the last sheet you uploaded so you can check if you made any errors?

4. I'm not talking about making the pending files open for public editing, just the ability to fix your own mistakes. Having to bother a mod every time I accidentally upload the wrong file seems both embarrassing and a hassle to the both of us. At the very least if you're not going to include a way to edit it, maybe instead just include a way to delete your own pending submission so you can simply try uploading it again?

Actually, combining 3 & 4 here ... if I were the one coding this, I would instead of instantly uploading the files and returning the user to the submission control panel, have the submit button take you to a page which shows you the temp files for the icon and sheet which you uploaded and asks you to approve it, with buttons at the bottom of the page reading "Approve", "Approve and Add Another", or "Decline".

[Goemar]

I don't know if this is possible (or even remotely important) but how about making it so you can thank posts on locked threads?

[Petie]

2. So if someone wants to post something they submitted on the forum, they have to either wait until the file is approved or upload it in two different places?

3. Ah, I didn't see that, but that does that still create a preview of the last sheet you uploaded so you can check if you made any errors?

4. I'm not talking about making the pending files open for public editing, just the ability to fix your own mistakes. Having to bother a mod every time I accidentally upload the wrong file seems both embarrassing and a hassle to the both of us. At the very least if you're not going to include a way to edit it, maybe instead just include a way to delete your own pending submission so you can simply try uploading it again?

Actually, combining 3 & 4 here ... if I were the one coding this, I would instead of instantly uploading the files and returning the user to the submission control panel, have the submit button take you to a page which shows you the temp files for the icon and sheet which you uploaded and asks you to approve it, with buttons at the bottom of the page reading "Approve", "Approve and Add Another", or "Decline".

2. Pretty much, yeah. And I'm not sure I really see any way around this short of updating your own links once you get the notification that your sheet has been accepted. The only other possibility is to copy the files over instead of move them but that leaves us with a mess and double the amount of files on the server.

3. It does. For instance, if you clicked "Add Another" on the Moai sheet from Gradius II (conveniently stolen from the home page for this example), you'd see this: http://www.spriters-resource.com/cp/arca...sii/56586/

4. I know you didn't mean entirely open to the public but it could still be problematic if what the staff sees isn't actually static information. Not knowing whether or not you (the general you, that is) are going to fix something we see as a mistake makes our job difficult. Do we reject it, PM you, or wait to see if you'll fix it, assuming you even know you've made a mistake so I don't really see users editing their pending submissions as likely to ever happen. That being said, I'm not entirely against giving users the ability to delete their own pending submissions so this is a possibility.

3 & 4. A preview confirming that you did, in fact, set up everything the way you wanted to isn't a bad idea but is it going to have enough utility to justify creating it? I feel like most people will get into the habit of simply clicking approve as soon as it comes up, rendering it pointless. And for those who would actually use it, I'd like to imagine that, in general, they won't need it. It also presents one slight technical hurdle since, before the submission is pushed through, I have nowhere to store the files. When they're uploaded, the server stores a temporary copy of the uploaded files only until the script finishes executing unless they are copied or moved. Since a submission would now require two different scripts to run in order, we'd lose the temporary files in between. This is easy enough to deal with by simply moving them to my own temporary location but it does make this a tiny bit more complicated. I'm not against this idea though and if it garners enough support, I'll add it to the list.

Edit:

I don't know if this is possible (or even remotely important) but how about making it so you can thank posts on locked threads?

I just checked. There doesn't seem to be an option relating to locked threads anywhere in the plugin so it seems like this is going to be impossible.

[Dazz]

Ignore this if you're just a normal user, but Pete:

Maybe we should implement a code for posting on the forum like Jer suggested, but only display it to people with instant approval enabled? It doesn't solve the issue for everybody, but those that tend to upload 40-50 and want to post them, it does save a lot of time, and those that are consistently great at uploading. For example, I'll enable Jer's account for instant approval, and thus remove this hurdle for him.