Hi! I’m Lemon, a Computer Science student officially, but a de facto web developer. Let’s talk about the design of the NSFL Forums. Throughout this article I’ll highlight what I like, what I dislike, and topics I dislike will include what I would change if I had artistic direction. I’ll bring up a lot of comparisons to the website I wrote, operate and maintain for a separate sim league, MLR, quite a bit. If you haven’t previously seen it, I recommend keeping a tab open on https://redditball.com to browse these comparisons live.
In my previous installment, I dissected the Getting Started section of the forum. You can read it here if interested, although it isn’t necessary to dive into this article’s focus: the Community section. Strap in, because it’s a doozy. I also had a bit of extra room, so I have a small section on Game Pass, and skipped down to Player Development.
This article is going to jump right into what I dislike, since I covered everything I liked in the first issue. It wasn’t very long. Here we go!
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]Announcements[/div]
Gripes: The Announcements section sees a lot of important threads, as you may expect. However, it shows up as just another forum section. I find it very easy to gloss over and not pay attention to, since it doesn’t have any stand-out visuals. Additionally, back to a gripe I had with the rulebook section, formatting within a forum is typically quite limited.
Alternatives: Again, same as rulebooks, I’d like to see these moved to Google Docs, or a PDF. You can get much prettier, easy to read documents from a typesetter, as opposed to a forum. I also think there’s a much simpler change to be made right on the forums though: the Announcements section should be the very first section of the entire forum. Then it stands out as the first section my eyes will read, before they begin their typical gloss of monotonous forum section headers.
Custom: Any custom website worth its salt can implement these announcements as banner messages, whether that includes the full message body, or a link to it. This way, every player is sure to see the most important messages, and no one is left in the message-missing ignorance dust.
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]NSFL Discussion[/div]
Gripes: Admittedly my gripes here are small. Any sort of discussion based section suits itself well to the forum style. However, the topic I would move is the suggestion box. I feel it is too buried for its importance, as ideas spark innovation, and motivate change.
Alternatives: I’d like to see the suggestion box moved to being a top-level forum section. It deserves it, in my opinion. The suggestion box could also be moved to Discord/Google Docs where simple ideas could be made in a channel, and large-scale fully fleshed ideas could be plopped into that channel as a Google Doc. Google Docs have fantastic features for commenting and notating documents, excellent for tweaking and reviewing documents.
Custom: For custom options, there are websites devoted to this sort of discussion. Some examples include Trello, GitLab Issues and GitHub Issues. Although the latter two are typically based around code, the discussion platforms frequently enable high-level meta-discussion around the projects they discuss.
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]NSFL Media[/div]
I mentioned this as one of the sections I really liked in the original article. No gripes.
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]Podcasts[/div]
Gripes: I mean, it’s podcasts. Although I understand the desire for similarity to the graphics and media sections, I don’t feel that it competes whatsoever. Most threads I see within this section have at most 3 replies, and almost nothing crosses 10. Simply by not having text to quote, and by taking longer to listen to than one can read, it becomes much more difficult for people to sit down and critique content like this.
Alternatives: One option that could remedy the above is to require an inclusion of a script, for review. However, this requires that all podcasts have scripts, which I’m sure they do not. To be completely honest, I’m not sure what the best way to approach this would be. Since most of these podcasts air on YouTube, the best way to handle it may be to run them live. That way, interested listeners can provide live responses, and comments, as the production is aired.
Custom: Not applicable. I don’t know anyone that would enjoy making a whole new audio streaming service for something like this.
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]Graphics[/div]
Similar to NSFL Media, I covered this one primarily under things I did like, in the previous article.
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]Twitter[/div]
Gripes: Considering each thread within this subforum is exactly the same, it feels extremely redundant. Each player posts their twitter handle, every week, in the same format, and then it is tracked and money is awarded. How incredibly discussion driven.
Alternatives: Since the biggest portion of the tweeting mechanism is the tweeting itself, I think the master list of player twitter accounts should be enough. Each week, a grader could click down the list of twitter accounts, in a much more condensed form than the current large lists, and grade them accordingly. Then, the entire twitter account section could be collapsed to a single thread where players would post their accounts once.
Custom: Really, this entire thing could be automated. Twitter provides an API for pulling information about a Twitter account, which could be used to check for tweet activity, and each player’s tweets for that week could be displayed on a single page, for near-instant grading. Combine that with an automatic banking system, and we start talking about some real fast awards, and way less manual labour spent each week reading tweets.
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]Off Topic[/div]
Gripes: Very minimal. Every forum needs a good off topic section, and this is a normal, run-of-the-mill place to do that. I suppose that most, but not all, players are on Discord by now, which likely eliminates most of the traffic going into this subforum.
Alternatives: Just kinda, use Discord. Not much to say here, although as mentioned above, I recognize that some people still may not be a part of the community Discord.
Custom: Not applicable. Do I look like I wanna reinvent the wheel?
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]Game Pass[/div]
Not really a section at all, but I’m not quite feeling tired of writing yet. I like this, although I can’t say I’ve ever used a link here. Although nice to have, I have to wonder who’s actually using the links to Twitch and YouTube. Finally, why isn’t the TPE Tracker listed here? I figure it would be a pretty well-used link, probably above Past Indices in popularity.
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]Activity Checks[/div]
Gripes: Yeah, this is exactly the sort of stuff that doesn’t fit on a forum and could be done a lot better. Let’s skip right down to alternatives and custom:
Alternatives: The forum already tracks your most recent activity. Each week, a list could be pulled of all the users that signed in that week, and 2 TPE awarded to those users within a claim thread. This eliminates the need to post every week on a specific thread, and eliminates the possibility of forgetting such a mundane task.
Custom: Each week, a player simply could hit a button on the same webpage as their update thread, automatically applying a 2 TPE bonus to that week’s update page. This keeps everything tracked in one place, and makes it seamless for players to make sure they get their free 2 TPE every single week.
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]Training Camps[/div]
Gripes: Similar to the Activity Checks, this section consists of single, repetitive threads that don’t promote discussion.
Alternatives: Also similar to Activity Checks, this could just be granted to players at the start of each season. I recognize that this detracts from the typical engagement style, but I don’t really see it as doing much better as is.
Custom: Also similar to Activity Checks, a player simply could hit a button on the same webpage as their update thread, when applicable, and get their TPE. I think this would save hassle on both the updaters, and the players, and again ensure that no one missed this free, easy TPE.
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]Point Tasks[/div]
Gripes: I really hate Point Tasks. Like, I seriously can’t stand doing them because I am so unbelievably bad at graphics editing on Linux, and I suck at writing anything fictional. Personal gripes aside, Point Tasks is a pretty good system on the forum for PTs themselves. Predictions and Trivia and the likes are not so much.
Alternatives: Trivia could instead be done on a Google Form, since they can provide automatic grading. Similarly, collection of predictions can be auto-graded if collected through a Google Form.
Custom: Players could submit their Point Tasks in a way that attaches it more closely to their account on a player update system, and the TPE could be granted as soon as marking batches are done, without the need for a claim thread. Graders could quickly click through submissions, with automatic word counts, and not be required to track each user’s name as they go.
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]Conclusion[/div]
Overall, I really think a custom system would benefit this league so much more than might be immediately obvious. I look forward to continuing this series, and showing just how many things, while functional, could be done in a way that benefits all parties so much more. Lay your feedback on me! I enjoyed reading it last time, and I’ll try to respond where applicable.
Word Count: 1577 according to Google Docs
In my previous installment, I dissected the Getting Started section of the forum. You can read it here if interested, although it isn’t necessary to dive into this article’s focus: the Community section. Strap in, because it’s a doozy. I also had a bit of extra room, so I have a small section on Game Pass, and skipped down to Player Development.
This article is going to jump right into what I dislike, since I covered everything I liked in the first issue. It wasn’t very long. Here we go!
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]Announcements[/div]
Gripes: The Announcements section sees a lot of important threads, as you may expect. However, it shows up as just another forum section. I find it very easy to gloss over and not pay attention to, since it doesn’t have any stand-out visuals. Additionally, back to a gripe I had with the rulebook section, formatting within a forum is typically quite limited.
Alternatives: Again, same as rulebooks, I’d like to see these moved to Google Docs, or a PDF. You can get much prettier, easy to read documents from a typesetter, as opposed to a forum. I also think there’s a much simpler change to be made right on the forums though: the Announcements section should be the very first section of the entire forum. Then it stands out as the first section my eyes will read, before they begin their typical gloss of monotonous forum section headers.
Custom: Any custom website worth its salt can implement these announcements as banner messages, whether that includes the full message body, or a link to it. This way, every player is sure to see the most important messages, and no one is left in the message-missing ignorance dust.
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]NSFL Discussion[/div]
Gripes: Admittedly my gripes here are small. Any sort of discussion based section suits itself well to the forum style. However, the topic I would move is the suggestion box. I feel it is too buried for its importance, as ideas spark innovation, and motivate change.
Alternatives: I’d like to see the suggestion box moved to being a top-level forum section. It deserves it, in my opinion. The suggestion box could also be moved to Discord/Google Docs where simple ideas could be made in a channel, and large-scale fully fleshed ideas could be plopped into that channel as a Google Doc. Google Docs have fantastic features for commenting and notating documents, excellent for tweaking and reviewing documents.
Custom: For custom options, there are websites devoted to this sort of discussion. Some examples include Trello, GitLab Issues and GitHub Issues. Although the latter two are typically based around code, the discussion platforms frequently enable high-level meta-discussion around the projects they discuss.
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]NSFL Media[/div]
I mentioned this as one of the sections I really liked in the original article. No gripes.
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]Podcasts[/div]
Gripes: I mean, it’s podcasts. Although I understand the desire for similarity to the graphics and media sections, I don’t feel that it competes whatsoever. Most threads I see within this section have at most 3 replies, and almost nothing crosses 10. Simply by not having text to quote, and by taking longer to listen to than one can read, it becomes much more difficult for people to sit down and critique content like this.
Alternatives: One option that could remedy the above is to require an inclusion of a script, for review. However, this requires that all podcasts have scripts, which I’m sure they do not. To be completely honest, I’m not sure what the best way to approach this would be. Since most of these podcasts air on YouTube, the best way to handle it may be to run them live. That way, interested listeners can provide live responses, and comments, as the production is aired.
Custom: Not applicable. I don’t know anyone that would enjoy making a whole new audio streaming service for something like this.
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]Graphics[/div]
Similar to NSFL Media, I covered this one primarily under things I did like, in the previous article.
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]Twitter[/div]
Gripes: Considering each thread within this subforum is exactly the same, it feels extremely redundant. Each player posts their twitter handle, every week, in the same format, and then it is tracked and money is awarded. How incredibly discussion driven.
Alternatives: Since the biggest portion of the tweeting mechanism is the tweeting itself, I think the master list of player twitter accounts should be enough. Each week, a grader could click down the list of twitter accounts, in a much more condensed form than the current large lists, and grade them accordingly. Then, the entire twitter account section could be collapsed to a single thread where players would post their accounts once.
Custom: Really, this entire thing could be automated. Twitter provides an API for pulling information about a Twitter account, which could be used to check for tweet activity, and each player’s tweets for that week could be displayed on a single page, for near-instant grading. Combine that with an automatic banking system, and we start talking about some real fast awards, and way less manual labour spent each week reading tweets.
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]Off Topic[/div]
Gripes: Very minimal. Every forum needs a good off topic section, and this is a normal, run-of-the-mill place to do that. I suppose that most, but not all, players are on Discord by now, which likely eliminates most of the traffic going into this subforum.
Alternatives: Just kinda, use Discord. Not much to say here, although as mentioned above, I recognize that some people still may not be a part of the community Discord.
Custom: Not applicable. Do I look like I wanna reinvent the wheel?
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]Game Pass[/div]
Not really a section at all, but I’m not quite feeling tired of writing yet. I like this, although I can’t say I’ve ever used a link here. Although nice to have, I have to wonder who’s actually using the links to Twitch and YouTube. Finally, why isn’t the TPE Tracker listed here? I figure it would be a pretty well-used link, probably above Past Indices in popularity.
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]Activity Checks[/div]
Gripes: Yeah, this is exactly the sort of stuff that doesn’t fit on a forum and could be done a lot better. Let’s skip right down to alternatives and custom:
Alternatives: The forum already tracks your most recent activity. Each week, a list could be pulled of all the users that signed in that week, and 2 TPE awarded to those users within a claim thread. This eliminates the need to post every week on a specific thread, and eliminates the possibility of forgetting such a mundane task.
Custom: Each week, a player simply could hit a button on the same webpage as their update thread, automatically applying a 2 TPE bonus to that week’s update page. This keeps everything tracked in one place, and makes it seamless for players to make sure they get their free 2 TPE every single week.
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]Training Camps[/div]
Gripes: Similar to the Activity Checks, this section consists of single, repetitive threads that don’t promote discussion.
Alternatives: Also similar to Activity Checks, this could just be granted to players at the start of each season. I recognize that this detracts from the typical engagement style, but I don’t really see it as doing much better as is.
Custom: Also similar to Activity Checks, a player simply could hit a button on the same webpage as their update thread, when applicable, and get their TPE. I think this would save hassle on both the updaters, and the players, and again ensure that no one missed this free, easy TPE.
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]Point Tasks[/div]
Gripes: I really hate Point Tasks. Like, I seriously can’t stand doing them because I am so unbelievably bad at graphics editing on Linux, and I suck at writing anything fictional. Personal gripes aside, Point Tasks is a pretty good system on the forum for PTs themselves. Predictions and Trivia and the likes are not so much.
Alternatives: Trivia could instead be done on a Google Form, since they can provide automatic grading. Similarly, collection of predictions can be auto-graded if collected through a Google Form.
Custom: Players could submit their Point Tasks in a way that attaches it more closely to their account on a player update system, and the TPE could be granted as soon as marking batches are done, without the need for a claim thread. Graders could quickly click through submissions, with automatic word counts, and not be required to track each user’s name as they go.
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]Conclusion[/div]
Overall, I really think a custom system would benefit this league so much more than might be immediately obvious. I look forward to continuing this series, and showing just how many things, while functional, could be done in a way that benefits all parties so much more. Lay your feedback on me! I enjoyed reading it last time, and I’ll try to respond where applicable.
Word Count: 1577 according to Google Docs