Well, a couple of you have looked at jbug, but I didn't get any comments on that last message. There's a Fantasy (D&D3) submission in the request folder. Anybody want to handle this one for practice? http://help.phoenyx.net/cgi-bin/help.private Can everyone verify what category you're supposed to get... Lynn is Star Trek sub-category. Mike is Science Fiction main category. Bruce is Vampire... you want the Horror main category for now? (I don't know that we'll ever need a World of Darkness sub-category, so Vampire games would go in Horror for now.) Martin, you said you'd help out in either of the two "existing" categories... I'm not sure what those were at the time. (SF & Vampire?) We have games in most of the major categories now, especially Fantasy which we apparently don't have a volunteer for. I've been planning on managing that one myself for now, but a D&D sub-category editor will be necessary fairly soon. I'm trying to figure out how to give you guys a handle on this thing. A "home base" of sorts would be helpful, and that's coming with the category home pages with the new software. (Right, Karen?) Are you all feeling lost right now? Would it help to have category home pages to work from even if they get replaced when the new software hits (hopefully this month)? -- -------------------------------------------------------------- Listowner tools are found at http://www.phoenyx.net/listowners
On Fri, 2 Mar 2001, Carl D Cravens wrote: > Well, a couple of you have looked at jbug, but I didn't get any comments > on that last message. I didn't really think there was much to comment on. > There's a Fantasy (D&D3) submission in the request folder. Anybody want > to handle this one for practice? > > http://help.phoenyx.net/cgi-bin/help.private I'll check it when I get home this evening and, if it's still there, take it. > Can everyone verify what category you're supposed to get... > > Lynn is Star Trek sub-category. Mike is Science Fiction main category. > > Bruce is Vampire... you want the Horror main category for now? (I don't > know that we'll ever need a World of Darkness sub-category, so Vampire > games would go in Horror for now.) > > Martin, you said you'd help out in either of the two "existing" > categories... I'm not sure what those were at the time. (SF & Vampire?) > > We have games in most of the major categories now, especially Fantasy > which we apparently don't have a volunteer for. I've been planning on > managing that one myself for now, but a D&D sub-category editor will be > necessary fairly soon. > > I'm trying to figure out how to give you guys a handle on this thing. A > "home base" of sorts would be helpful, and that's coming with the category > home pages with the new software. (Right, Karen?) Are you all feeling > lost right now? Would it help to have category home pages to work from > even if they get replaced when the new software hits (hopefully this > month)? It it's going to change *really* soon, like within a week, I'd say there wasn't a point. It it's further out than that, an interim page would be helpful. -- -------------------------------------------------------------- Listowner tools are found at http://www.phoenyx.net/listowners
On 2 Mar 2001, at 8:21, Carl D Cravens wrote: > I'm trying to figure out how to give you guys a handle on this thing. A > "home base" of sorts would be helpful, and that's coming with the category > home pages with the new software. (Right, Karen?) Are you all feeling > lost right now? Would it help to have category home pages to work from > even if they get replaced when the new software hits (hopefully this > month)? Um... the category home pages are there. They'll be expanded as people give me ideas of what they want, and they'll run faster under mod_perl, but for all intents and purposes they're there. I've put Mike and Martin in as moderators for Space, Lynn as Trek, and Bruce as Horror (which doesn't have anything under it, so it doesn't appear on the main games page). http://www.phoenyx.net/profiles/groups/games http://www.phoenyx.net/profiles/groups/horror (to jump directly) The games on those pages don't quite synch to the list of active games, because I built the database awhile back and they're not actually linked. Owners of various categories can try creating the missing lists, and see what happens... -- -------------------------------------------------------------- Listowner tools are found at http://www.phoenyx.net/listowners
On Fri, 2 Mar 2001, Karen Cravens wrote: > Um... the category home pages are there. They'll be expanded as > people give me ideas of what they want, and they'll run faster under > mod_perl, but for all intents and purposes they're there. That's a start, but I was thinking of something more customizable and I don't think you have that part written yet. But it will gives us a place to start deciding what needs to go on the page. Like a "Your editors are ..." Make me the editor for Fantasy, at least for now so I can see how these things work. I'd like to see the categories changed from "Space Games, Trek Games, Fantasy Games, Horror Games" to "Science Fiction, Star Trek, Fantasy, Horror". The former seems really awkward to me. > The games on those pages don't quite synch to the list of active > games, because I built the database awhile back and they're not > actually linked. Owners of various categories can try creating the > missing lists, and see what happens... I take it editors see something I'm not regarding modifying the page? -- -------------------------------------------------------------- Listowner tools are found at http://www.phoenyx.net/listowners
On 2 Mar 2001, at 15:44, Carl D Cravens wrote: > That's a start, but I was thinking of something more customizable and I > don't think you have that part written yet. But it will gives us a place > to start deciding what needs to go on the page. > > Like a "Your editors are ..." Yeah, I figured we'd need that. > Make me the editor for Fantasy, at least for now so I can see how these > things work. Okay. You're an editor. > I'd like to see the categories changed from "Space Games, Trek Games, > Fantasy Games, Horror Games" to "Science Fiction, Star Trek, Fantasy, > Horror". The former seems really awkward to me. You can make the short description anything you want, but I was picking stuff that could be shortened to one word: space, trek, fantasy, horror. There's a lightly-enforced sixteen-character limit right now, although the Short Description (e.g. "Space Games") isn't limited that way. > I take it editors see something I'm not regarding modifying the page? Yep. If they're logged in (which, since I didn't mention it in the last message, is done by clicking My Phoenyx). -- -------------------------------------------------------------- Listowner tools are found at http://www.phoenyx.net/listowners
On Fri, 2 Mar 2001, Karen Cravens wrote: > On 2 Mar 2001, at 15:44, Carl D Cravens wrote: > > I'd like to see the categories changed from "Space Games, Trek Games, > > Fantasy Games, Horror Games" to "Science Fiction, Star Trek, Fantasy, > > Horror". The former seems really awkward to me. > > You can make the short description anything you want, but I was > picking stuff that could be shortened to one word: space, trek, > fantasy, horror. There's a lightly-enforced sixteen-character limit > right now, although the Short Description (e.g. "Space Games") > isn't limited that way. OK, I just changed Space Games to Science Fiction and re-did the description. (Oops, a couple of typos. Fixed.) Lynn, could you take a look at it and see if you want me to say anything different about the Star Trek games. Also, if you could change your subcatagory to Star Trek, I'd appreciate it. Thanks. -- -------------------------------------------------------------- Listowner tools are found at http://www.phoenyx.net/listowners
On Fri, 2 Mar 2001, Carl D Cravens wrote: > Well, a couple of you have looked at jbug, but I didn't get any comments > on that last message. > > There's a Fantasy (D&D3) submission in the request folder. Anybody want > to handle this one for practice? > > http://help.phoenyx.net/cgi-bin/help.private OK, I just stopped in and looked, it seems that no one dealt with it yesterday. (My wife and I ended up going to dinner with friends and got back a bit late, so I didn't look at it last night.) The short summary of the submission status is: I think it's got a decent premise and, as an existing game having trouble with it's current host, is likely to persist on the Pheonyx. However, it's still pending as I am not sure *exactly* what to do to move it along. See below for all of that. My take on is is now in the Notes, but I can't figure out how to move it along. Yes, I can see that I can click on "Compose Reply" I have the option of sticking in a number of FAQs, which are not really FAQs, but actually FGRs (Frequently Given Replies). However, aside from the DoBetter one, I don't recall what each does. Short summaries of what each FAQ/FGR is off to the side might be nice. After loading each, I'd say that "New List" is the one for accepted games, but I would probably be easier to call it "Accepted". Or create a new letter that is basically an "OK, you've been accepted, get back to me for the details." Also, I think that _savemail and newlist.tmp should not have the persistance that they appear to. I.e., they should go away once they have been sent. It might also be nice if the act of loading newlist caused the "LISTNAME" to be replaced with the ID they had requested. Additional thought on that, it might be nice if that ID got pre-checked against the existing IDs, so we knew if there was a conflict. I can think of some other obvious improvements here, including having drop-down addresses fro Carl, Karen and the other editors in the CC: and BCC: fields -- -------------------------------------------------------------- Listowner tools are found at http://www.phoenyx.net/listowners
Sorry I'm slow. My grandfather died on Tuesday and his funeral was today, so we've been a bit busy. On Sat, 3 Mar 2001, Michael Feldhusen wrote: > The short summary of the submission status is: I think it's got a > decent premise and, as an existing game having trouble with it's > current host, is likely to persist on the Pheonyx. However, it's > still pending as I am not sure *exactly* what to do to move it along. > See below for all of that. Normally I'd ask for more information about what they plan to *do* in the game... some GM's can have really great world backgrounds but not really have any idea what they plan to do when players get introduced into it. While some GM's can wing it based on the characters they get, our approval process needs data points it can use to determine if a GM knows what they're doing... having a plan for starting the story is one of them. In this case, since he has an established game, is specifically looking to be lurker-friendly, and is familiar with other Phoenyx games, I'll forego that and give it a thumbs-up at this point. So the next step is to set up the list and send the instructions to the GM. Since you can't set up the list, you'd probably send a "you're approved and your list will be set up shortly" kind of message and CC me. I'd set up the list and probably notify you so you could send out the instructions. (I'd prefer that the new listowner work with only the editor.) Once that's done, you move the ticket into the game2_followup list and watch for the user to 1) sign up on listowners 2) put the navbar on their web page if they have one, or put some info on the Phoenyx page (www.phoenyx.net/mylist/) if they don't 3) fill in the blurb on their list settings, since that's used to generate their entry on the Phoenyx pages Hum. That's something I'll have to work out... I just watch the listowners daily report to see if they've subscribed. I'll need to automate notifying the editor. The only way to see if they've gotten their blurb done is to log into their list settings editor with their password. (I look in their settings file.) These things will get easier with the new software where we'll build in tools for it. Once they've done these things, you announce their arrival on listowners and turn on their webshow variable (I have to do that for now, since it's a manual edit) so they show up on the Phoenyx pages. And at that point they're officially open for business. I've created the list and dumped a customized accepted letter into the accepted.lsaga "FAQ". The ball's back in your court... be sure to indicate that the list was created on 03/03 in the Notes. > My take on is is now in the Notes, but I can't figure out how to move > it along. Yes, I can see that I can click on "Compose Reply" I have > the option of sticking in a number of FAQs, which are not really FAQs, > but actually FGRs (Frequently Given Replies). However, aside from the > DoBetter one, I don't recall what each does. Short summaries of what > each FAQ/FGR is off to the side might be nice. I'm not wanting to hack the software itself, which is what's required to change the appearance of the pages. I *can* add things to the footer, and might put a Phoenyx-specific "help" page linked off of it. (I *have* hacked the software in a couple of places to add an extra "submit" button to one of the forms 'cause I was always wanting to submit from the top when the button was at the bottom. But since the author is going to *someday* come out with a new version I've not gotten too serious about it.) > After loading each, I'd say that "New List" is the one for accepted > games, but I would probably be easier to call it "Accepted". Or > create a new letter that is basically an "OK, you've been accepted, > get back to me for the details." I suppose it's called "newlist" because it's the instructions sent to new list-owners. I've renamed all of the FAQ's... you might see if these make more sense. accepted do_better our_mission reject_no_orgs reject_not_rp reject_poor_review sent_to_review > Also, I think that _savemail and newlist.tmp should not have the > persistance that they appear to. I.e., they should go away once they > have been sent. It might also be nice if the act of loading newlist > caused the "LISTNAME" to be replaced with the ID they had requested. > Additional thought on that, it might be nice if that ID got > pre-checked against the existing IDs, so we knew if there was a > conflict. Problem is, we're using jbug pretty much out of the box. And jbug lacks just a few things... like being able to *delete* FAQ's once you've created them. I have to do that from the command line. _savemail is actually destined to become the core of another informational letter (and I've hidden it for now). newlist.tmp doesn't need to hang around, but I just overwrite it every time I need to. I'm trying to figure out what to do with that one, 'cause newlist has search-and-replace variables in it. When I set up a list, I copy it to newlist.tmp and edit it from the Unix side, then load it through the jbug interface. (I used to do the replacement by hand in the web-based form, but got tired of that.) What I think I'll do is make the list creation script create the setup instructions file specific to that list and name it newlist.. I'd have to either manually delete those out of the directory or automate that somehow. I can write another external script in the footer to manipulate FAQ's if we need to, I suppose. I could put the newlist.tmp generation there as well. Right now, you can't create new lists. That'll come with the new software... since the current new list creation script will be totally obsolete when that happens, I'm not going to do anything with it. It won't be a big deal to send mail to me when you need a list... we don't create many. (Though I suppose our goal here is to create more than we have been.) I don't think this will be a real hindrance. > I can think of some other obvious improvements here, including having > drop-down addresses fro Carl, Karen and the other editors in the CC: > and BCC: fields I've given it some thought, but I'm going to have to say that I don't want to spend any serious time hacking jbug source. Jbug's over 11,000 lines of sparsely commented C code with all the HTML embedded in the logic. All the scripts in the footer are completely outside of jbug itself and just muck with the data files. We've been making-do with a tool that doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles, but does the basic job we want it to. I chose jbug because it could be basically run entirely from the web and because the data file structure is *extremely* easy to work with using scripts. It's not perfect and it's not customized to our task, but it's off-the-shelf software that does the job we need it to do. I *might* consider hacking jbug if it's really important to the editors to have a customized tool, but it would take a serious commitment on my part. I don't know that I have the time. Unlike the Phoenyx itself, we didn't write jbug and we really wanted a plug-n-play tool here that we didn't have to spend any significant time fiddling with. If you want a tool that would manipulate the files without having to change jbug itself (it might not be clear, but anything that changes something outside the footer changes jbug) I'm open to writing that, and will have a few more improvements in the future. Thanks for your patience in all of this... it'll take some time to get up to speed and understand the process, I'm sure. And we're not in the best position to be bringing on editors, since we're in transition. But I figure we need editors now *and* getting them on during the transition will help us figure out just what we need to accomplish. -- -------------------------------------------------------------- Listowner tools are found at http://www.phoenyx.net/listowners
On Sat, 3 Mar 2001, Carl D Cravens wrote: > Sorry I'm slow. My grandfather died on Tuesday and his funeral was today, > so we've been a bit busy. I'm sorry to hear that. My sympathies. > On Sat, 3 Mar 2001, Michael Feldhusen wrote: > > > The short summary of the submission status is: I think it's got a > > decent premise and, as an existing game having trouble with it's > > current host, is likely to persist on the Pheonyx. However, it's > > still pending as I am not sure *exactly* what to do to move it along. > > See below for all of that. > > Normally I'd ask for more information about what they plan to *do* in the > game... some GM's can have really great world backgrounds but not really > have any idea what they plan to do when players get introduced into it. > While some GM's can wing it based on the characters they get, our approval > process needs data points it can use to determine if a GM knows what > they're doing... having a plan for starting the story is one of them. > > In this case, since he has an established game, is specifically looking to > be lurker-friendly, and is familiar with other Phoenyx games, I'll forego > that and give it a thumbs-up at this point. > > So the next step is to set up the list and send the instructions to the > GM. Since you can't set up the list, you'd probably send a "you're > approved and your list will be set up shortly" kind of message and CC me. > I'd set up the list and probably notify you so you could send out the > instructions. (I'd prefer that the new listowner work with only the > editor.) > > Once that's done, you move the ticket into the game2_followup list and > watch for the user to > 1) sign up on listowners > 2) put the navbar on their web page if they have one, or put some info on > the Phoenyx page (www.phoenyx.net/mylist/) if they don't > 3) fill in the blurb on their list settings, since that's used to generate > their entry on the Phoenyx pages > > Hum. That's something I'll have to work out... I just watch the > listowners daily report to see if they've subscribed. I'll need to > automate notifying the editor. The only way to see if they've gotten > their blurb done is to log into their list settings editor with their > password. (I look in their settings file.) So at the moment, there's no way for one of us to actually do all the necessary stuff or see when they had complied? > These things will get easier with the new software where we'll build in > tools for it. > > Once they've done these things, you announce their arrival on listowners > and turn on their webshow variable (I have to do that for now, since it's > a manual edit) so they show up on the Phoenyx pages. And at that point > they're officially open for business. > > I've created the list and dumped a customized accepted letter into the > accepted.lsaga "FAQ". The ball's back in your court... be sure to > indicate that the list was created on 03/03 in the Notes. OK, will do. [Later] Done. BTW, you had noted that the list was created 03/03 already. I did tack a paragraph on the beginning of the email explaining who I was and why I was sending the message. > > My take on is is now in the Notes, but I can't figure out how to move > > it along. Yes, I can see that I can click on "Compose Reply" I have > > the option of sticking in a number of FAQs, which are not really FAQs, > > but actually FGRs (Frequently Given Replies). However, aside from the > > DoBetter one, I don't recall what each does. Short summaries of what > > each FAQ/FGR is off to the side might be nice. > > I'm not wanting to hack the software itself, which is what's required to > change the appearance of the pages. I *can* add things to the footer, and > might put a Phoenyx-specific "help" page linked off of it. (I *have* > hacked the software in a couple of places to add an extra "submit" button > to one of the forms 'cause I was always wanting to submit from the top > when the button was at the bottom. But since the author is going to > *someday* come out with a new version I've not gotten too serious about > it.) > > > After loading each, I'd say that "New List" is the one for accepted > > games, but I would probably be easier to call it "Accepted". Or > > create a new letter that is basically an "OK, you've been accepted, > > get back to me for the details." > > I suppose it's called "newlist" because it's the instructions sent to new > list-owners. I've renamed all of the FAQ's... you might see if these make > more sense. > > accepted > do_better > our_mission > reject_no_orgs > reject_not_rp > reject_poor_review > sent_to_review Yes, these make it much easier to figure out which to send. > > Also, I think that _savemail and newlist.tmp should not have the > > persistance that they appear to. I.e., they should go away once they > > have been sent. It might also be nice if the act of loading newlist > > caused the "LISTNAME" to be replaced with the ID they had requested. > > Additional thought on that, it might be nice if that ID got > > pre-checked against the existing IDs, so we knew if there was a > > conflict. > > Problem is, we're using jbug pretty much out of the box. And jbug lacks > just a few things... like being able to *delete* FAQ's once you've created > them. I have to do that from the command line. _savemail is actually > destined to become the core of another informational letter (and I've > hidden it for now). OK, but the ability to read through a previous discussion/rejection that was not really my business seems like a bit of privacy hole. > newlist.tmp doesn't need to hang around, but I just overwrite it every > time I need to. I'm trying to figure out what to do with that one, 'cause > newlist has search-and-replace variables in it. When I set up a list, I > copy it to newlist.tmp and edit it from the Unix side, then load it > through the jbug interface. (I used to do the replacement by hand in the > web-based form, but got tired of that.) What I think I'll do is make the > list creation script create the setup instructions file specific to that > list and name it newlist.. I'd have to either manually delete > those out of the directory or automate that somehow. Again, it looks like there was a step that we could do, but only painfully. > I can write another external script in the footer to manipulate FAQ's if > we need to, I suppose. I could put the newlist.tmp generation there as > well. > > Right now, you can't create new lists. That'll come with the new > software... since the current new list creation script will be totally > obsolete when that happens, I'm not going to do anything with it. It > won't be a big deal to send mail to me when you need a list... we don't > create many. (Though I suppose our goal here is to create more than we > have been.) I don't think this will be a real hindrance. You're the one doing the work. :-) > > I can think of some other obvious improvements here, including having > > drop-down addresses fro Carl, Karen and the other editors in the CC: > > and BCC: fields > > I've given it some thought, but I'm going to have to say that I don't want > to spend any serious time hacking jbug source. Jbug's over 11,000 lines > of sparsely commented C code with all the HTML embedded in the logic. Oh, lovely. Just the kind of stuff I have to deal with every day at work. (This is not me volunteering to help.) [snip some jbug explanations] > Thanks for your patience in all of this... it'll take some time to get up > to speed and understand the process, I'm sure. And we're not in the best > position to be bringing on editors, since we're in transition. But I > figure we need editors now *and* getting them on during the transition > will help us figure out just what we need to accomplish. All in all, I find it kind of interesting. -- -------------------------------------------------------------- Listowner tools are found at http://www.phoenyx.net/listowners
On Sun, 4 Mar 2001, Michael Feldhusen wrote: > So at the moment, there's no way for one of us to actually do all the > necessary stuff or see when they had complied? Unfortunately, no. We're working on everything necessary to the process and having actual editors helps figure out what needs done. > OK, but the ability to read through a previous discussion/rejection > that was not really my business seems like a bit of privacy hole. The _savemail "faq"? Not so much a privacy hole as my leaving a document around where others can read it. And by default everything in jbug is public... you can mark individual tickets as private once they're in the system though. > You're the one doing the work. :-) It's rather trivial... run a script and edit one file. (Which would be handled by the script if I weren't too lazy to script the insertion of the script name into a perl configuration file.) > Oh, lovely. Just the kind of stuff I have to deal with every day at > work. (This is not me volunteering to help.) I'd like to have something more tailored to our operation, but I don't think we can devote the time to it right now. I've been thinking about it, but there's a lot involved in writing something like jbug from scratch. -- -------------------------------------------------------------- Listowner tools are found at http://www.phoenyx.net/listowners
> I take it editors see something I'm not regarding modifying the page? I wasn't seeing anything myself. -- -------------------------------------------------------------- Listowner tools are found at http://www.phoenyx.net/listowners
On 2 Mar 2001, at 15:45, Martin Hanley wrote: > > I take it editors see something I'm not regarding modifying the page? > > I wasn't seeing anything myself. You have to log in. -- -------------------------------------------------------------- Listowner tools are found at http://www.phoenyx.net/listowners
