2012-02-07 17:18:59

this is about the recent Site and forum faq, which I wrote up yesterday.

For those who haven't read it, it can be found here

Sinse I would like this to be a complete and total list of frequently asked questions about the site, the db, and the forum, I'd appreciate people's in put.

are there any questions you think should be on there and aren't?

Are the answers given to questions clear enough?

Opinions on this matter would be very much appreciated, sinse I think we have become a big enough community to now need! such a document as a faq, and obviously I'd like it to be a good one that actually does serve it's purpose of answering comon questions so that they do not need to be asked on the forum.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2012-02-07 18:17:07

Hey dark. Honestly i can't think of any way you could improve on that faq. It was well written and answers all of the right questions.

2012-02-07 18:50:42

Yeah, I think it is well written. I cannot think a question right now, but maybe I can find one sooner or later.

I post sounds I record to freesound. Click here to visit my freesound page
I usually post game recordings to anyaudio. Click here to visit my anyaudio page

2012-02-07 19:10:44

I was quite impressed with it myself and can think of nothing else that needs to be said.  Well posted, sir.

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2012-02-07 19:42:28

hi,
it was good enough to frighten the spambots from daring their mouth ever! on the forum, lol.

He picked up the wrench and broke the guy’s wrist with it, one, and then the other wrist, two, and turned back and did the same to the guy who had held the hammer, three, four. The two men were somebody’s weapons, consciously deployed, and no soldier left an enemy’s abandoned ordnance on the field in working order.

2012-02-07 20:43:51

Thanks people, i'm glad you likeit, sinse I will admit it took a bit of writing.

Actually I rememberd another question myself we get asked a lot "is there a new version of game X?" so I've added that to the faq as well.

Along with an explanation of Karma.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2012-02-08 19:22:00 (edited by bcs993 2012-02-08 19:23:17)

Hi.
Firstly, thanks a lot for this FAQ. I think everything is covered, though I'm still a little confused with the new releases room, and what exactly belongs there, and not.
I have, how ever, one suggestion:
If at all possible, I suggest just putting a spell checker through the FAQ.
I have 2 reasons for this suggestion:
Firstly, since we use screen readers, in most cases, some of the words are pronounced strangely. I also think that it may make it especially easier for non-english speakers, especially if they have to put this through google translate to fully understand it.
Also, and this is more of a question: Since, I think, this FAQ will also be seen by people from outside the forum, and outside the comunity, likely, would they take us seriously if there's many spelling mistakes?
I'm not sure about this one though, since I don't know how important most people view spelling anymore.
This is just a suggestion though.
And, once again, thanks for putting the FAQ up!

Brendan
-----
There is one rule above all others for being a man.  Whatever comes, face it on your feet.
@bcs993 on twitter, feel free to follow!

2012-02-08 20:34:53

Hi Brendon,
A game like bop-it Ultimate, I think, is considered highly unlikely to receive any further atention from its developers, and, as is, can be played without any further updates.  In short, it's stable.

that having been said, if it did see an update, the topic would be suited to the new releases room because the version itself is a new release.  The same could be said of Shades of Doom, Judgement Day, Terraformers, etc.

I sincerely hope this helps.

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2012-02-08 20:40:10

To clarify further, any new version of an old game is considered a new release. Also brand new games are also considered a new release naturally. Its pretty cut and dry.

2012-02-09 10:22:22

Yep, though for stuff like newly found web games or accessible muds, that would probably be a new release too. Basically a good rule is that if the topic has a link in the first post where you can go to find a game, it's a new release.

As to spell checking, I'll have a look. i wrote it in wordpad which unfortunately doesn't have a spell check function, but I can always copy it into word and do that.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2012-02-17 19:05:26

Hello Dark,
On the subject of mainstream games, I end up asking for help, I come to check a reply only to find it's someone asking something to the effect of "where can i get this game, is it playable", and I don't mean to be rude... but I keep answering the same question: this is for pc on steam, this is for xbox360 or some other such console, and I give general tips on the game (see my topic for shank 2 pc players as a prime example). I'm wondering if there could be some sort of question, in the FAQ, just informing members that this is what these games are, and it's why people keep asking for help on them, for instance, shank 2, soulcalibur 5 unlocking things, etc.
The only trouble is, how to word it correctly. I don't want to put anyone off discussing them by simply saying "if you haven't played this game stay away" because that is just downright rude!
But things that could be mentioned could include difficult segments ala shank 2 whereby I am currently stuck on a miniboss summoning lods of minions with a machine that I'm trying to knock them in to, or soulcalibur with unlocking things or learning combos, or whatever else.

Thanks in advance,
Aaron

2012-02-17 23:42:57

bcs993 wrote:

I have, how ever, one suggestion:
If at all possible, I suggest just putting a spell checker through the FAQ. ...Would they take us seriously if there's many spelling mistakes?

Personally, to see a native English speaker misspell common words is one of my pet peeves. I know we have a lot of non-native speakers on the forum, and I understand. It's especially bothersome to me if it's a word the screen reader sounds funny saying it, so yes, spelling is important to me, hahaha.

On that note, would it be possible for the forum to have a spellchecker, even if it's just a basic one?

Thanks,
Michael

thanks,
Michael

2012-02-18 01:24:14

@michael, I've already spellchecked the faq. Remember, there may be several reasons why spelling is wonky in english.

First off, American and British English spell some words differently, and if you've got a synth using one or other dialect that will affect the way you here things.

Eg, through and thru, or armour and armor (one tht always comes up in discussion rpgs).

then, there are pure and simple typos, which I must admit I make myself on occasion just because I'm typing fast, this is especially true if you have slow connections or the like.

Finally, there might be words that people just indeed do get wrong sometimes, sometimes by no fault of their own.

For instance, I recently had to go through the db and correct all the entries that mention the glulks If format, to glulx with an x instead of a ks, which of course sound the same, but apparently the x is the correct spelling. In these cases though, really I don't see too much need in worrying provided what is actually meant is clear enough.

As to a spellcheck, from what I saw there is no such thing available on punbb, indeed I've only seen one forum type that did have one, but sinse it had a very horrible interface with search boxes all over the place and a quick reply system that was no quicker than a regular reply (indeed slower), I think we're best sticking with Punbb.

@Aaron this is a problem, but I'm not really sure how to address it in the faq, sinse it's not really possible to list every single mainstream game that might be vaguely playable to someone with enough time and effort, even if not directly accessible. Indeed, I did once meet someone who claimed all! the final fantasy games were accessible because he could play them with sighted assistance.

Of course people will not know what an unfamiliar game is and want to know where to get it, that's just the nature of things, indeed I'd not heard of shank myself before it was mentioned here.

I've got a question relating to "where do i get this game" in the faq, which basically tells people to first go look in the db or on pcs games before asking, but I'm not sure how to deal with mainstream ones, sinse we can't really tell people to "go and look up" shank, soul calibur 5 or whatever, sinse there's no where to! look them up.

The only possible solution I can think of is creating a "playable mainstream games room" just for those sorts of discusssions, however I'm loathed to do that because firstly people are already getting confused about the uses of the new releases room, secondly it's in danger of sectioning off certain players and insuring that others who might genuinely want to know probably wont' here about them, and thirdly the hole boundary thing is far less well defigned in that case, ---- sinse the point a game like sound voyager, smugglers 3 or nethack (to pick some boarderline cases), starts! being accessible rather than merely playable with effort is a little hazy, and that's why the db is under the control of trust worthy mods who's judgement is reasonable on such matters.

this is another reason why putting such discussions in an area where they are unlikely to be seen by only some players would be a bad idea.

So failing creating a separate forum, which I'm obviously not in favour of, ---- I'm afraid I just can't think of a way of indicating to people that so and so is a mainstream game on a console that needs memorization, faqs and the like to work.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2012-02-18 09:16:27

hi dark,
yeah its true, even the pronunciation matters, a word in british english may be spoken differently by american people, and mostly that's where the spelling misconceptions arises from.

He picked up the wrench and broke the guy’s wrist with it, one, and then the other wrist, two, and turned back and did the same to the guy who had held the hammer, three, four. The two men were somebody’s weapons, consciously deployed, and no soldier left an enemy’s abandoned ordnance on the field in working order.

2012-02-18 15:15:14

Hi,
I agree, I don't think there's much that can be done about this. It'll just be best for us to just keep answering the questions, as it's only an answer, nothing too worrying. I think trying to resolve it could be tricky.

2012-02-18 15:32:02

Well if you have any thoughts let me know, but as I said, other than a separate forum for mainstream games, which I don't think is a good idea I can't see a way around this one.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2012-02-19 01:40:40

Hrm....maybe include in the FAQ that anyone posting about a mainstream game that's playable should indicate it's a mainstream game in the first post to avoid confusion.  I'm out of ideas.  Hehe.

    I know what you mean about the spelling thing Dark.  My girlfriend was raised in the UK and she's used to spelling words in British English....now when she sends over a chapter of a book she's writing for me to comment and maybe hunt down errors....when it comes to spell checking, it keeps bringing up the words that were spelled in British English.  I tend to shift them back to American English since even the school system will have her head for spelling words in the wrong sense of the language, haha.

   Getting back to topic, only way to add new questions is too wait to see what else is commonly asked.

2012-02-19 08:10:08

As far as questions go, I've done that actually, and have added several new ones about new games, versions and the poll and karma functions sinse writing the thing.

Perhaps adding some advice to the "can we talk about mainstream games?" question to the effect that people should try to indicate in their first post when discussing a playable mainstream game, particularly when it's a console game would help, though again this would really be advice at most sinse it's not exactly an issue with a hard and fast line.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2012-02-20 15:14:31

It is my fault really, I should have said that in the first post of the topic!
Honestly, that would probably make everyone happy, so from now on, I am going to take this advice.
I'd recommend just adding something to this effect to the faq just to let everyone know.

2012-02-20 15:58:50

Okay, that advice is added, see queostion 22 of the faq.

hopefully that will help remind people in future to be a little more specific when discussing playable mainstream games.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)