Last seen?

Is it possible / worthwhile to add a "last seen" to a player's profile? I know you put 'zzz' if they're inactive for awhile, but in some cases, it might be know if someone is at least checking in from time to time, but perhaps not posting because they don't have time or something.

For a bit, I wondered if adding that to the user profile would be beneficial or would end up causing more problems (people harassing players for not posting even though they're checking in). I guess we should have that discussion. If it's worth it, I'll add it to the user profile.

As a GM I'd love to see a "last active" type of field in profiles so I can have some sort of idea as to how to proceed if the game is being held up.

I second that! Especially since szemely's prolly mad at me for disappearing. No, he's not. But I haev a couple of players who've vanished without a word. It'd be nice to find out if a player has moved on, and it'd be nice to have a way as a GM to say something like:
If you are inactive for x time without warning, this happens
If you are inactive for y time without warning, this happens
etc etc

I think it does open itself up for some abuse -- in my own mind, if I saw someone not posting to my game over the course of days but I saw they were active, I'd send a PM asking if they saw what was happening in the game. Further lack of participation would probably result in a PM asking if they'd like me to segue out their character. On the flip side if someone isn't active in my game AND isn't active on the site, I know RL hit them -- and I can give 'em a longer time before deciding to sideline the character.

So -- I am hopeful I wouldn't abuse it -- but I could see a less sensitive GM saying "You were just online 30 minutes ago and didn't post in my game! WAAAAH!" which would be silly.

Someone abusing that function is probably going to be abusive in some other way (is my guess).

This was a consideration as well; by in large a lot of my decisions about features came in early into the site development, when people weren't yet really here, so most of it was erring on the side of caution.

How I see it, if implemented, you can see when a personal was last active via timestamp, which means a GM or player who sees a lack of action can prod a player to post via PM. The big concerns I see for this are actually with planned features/fixes: when I get the PM emails working again, if a GM sends 5 PMs in 20 seconds, the user will be a bunch of email. But I guess I could also limit how many PMs someone can send per time period (which means more dev time for me). We've also discussed a ping system, something typing @Keleth to get my attention in a different search field. My current plans for that feature do not involve emailing the person on every ping, but rather having a different forum search notifying them of an unread thread with ping in it. But this could mean that if abused, the ping system would need a lot more work and thought.

Mind you, ANY new feature/change involves work, so that shouldn't be a consideration, rather how much work for how much we get out of it.

I don't DM (yet) but I think it's a worthwhile feature. Just my two cents.

I'd put in my vote to make it happen. I can see it being of more use than it being a chance for abuse.

You're right. Mad doesn't even begin to describe my level of fury! :-)

I can see combination of both systems working in this fashion: GM checks a player's "last active" status and sees they have not logged in for 7 days. GM sends a ping to that player, which generates a note/email.

The player must acknowledge the ping somehow, maybe by logging in and clicking a button in GP. Until they acknowledge, the GM is prevented from sending another ping.

The way I see it, if a player doesn't acknowledge the ping, it means they're really unable to log into the game and contribute, perhaps due to RL circumstances, or they've decided to drop GP for whatever reason. If the GM tries to ping the player again, GP tells them "You already pinged this player X days ago." The GM can then decide on what to do, while the player doesn't get spammed by repeated pings.

However, if the player does acknowledge the ping, this at least tells the GM that said player is still active. If they continue to ignore the game, the GM is able to send another ping asking what's up and if that player wants to continue. Or, the player acknowledges the ping and replies to the GM explaining their situation. The "last active" status is already updated after the player has logged in.

Admittedly, it doesn't exactly resolve the situation of when a player is active, but willfully ignores a game (maybe they acknowledge the ping but still don't post). However, I figure if it's at that point, the GM and group would probably already have an indication of things going badly and can react accordingly, and it ought to be resolved in other means of communication.

Yup, what he said.

What Cancerman Said. That.