Release Nov 29th 2021

New features

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Fixes and tweaks

Better description for custom games on the systems page
Spelling mistake: gamess
Reduced roll dropping

Very helpful changes as always. Thanks Adam and Keleth and everyone else that had a hand in it.

Any chance we could get a minimize button for the LFG on the front page? It takes up a fair amount of real estate on desktop (particularly with some of the longer descriptions) and isn't particularly useful if you're not thinking about starting a game.

Also, uh, nice job plastering a bunch of people across the front page with a link to PM them without any advance warning.

Woohoo! All stuff from my wishlist.

It doesn't take more than the announcement block, however, the announcement block is collapsible. Which is redundant now. Both of the blocks need to be collapsible or both of them should have set dimensions (proportions?).I am pretty sure there is a toggle and my guess is that it is off by default. You won't see me on there as I am not looking for games, however, if I were I would need to toggle it on in my account settings. Also, I think I saw it being mentioned in the pre-release notes, at least I've seen it before somewhere.

Yes. MagnificentFly is right. It’s "opt in" from settings.

I would hope it would be off by default, but it appeared that when the feature went live, people were already getting displayed, so did it draw on some previous setting that didn't used to mean "get displayed on the front page" or was there some other criteria?

@Kaigan I happened to be on the site when the release notes were posted. I immediately went to my user settings and turned it on. I’m assuming the others who are displayed did the same

It was off by default for me

@aquafina The feature was live for roughly two hours before the release notes were posted, and there were people displayed in that time.

by the number of people LFG I believe each of them chose this setting.

When it first went live, nobody was displayed. I added myself to the list just so it showed something.

There was briefly a problem where you couldn't opt-out again.

When the feature went live, there was a brief moment where it could not be turned off. That bug was fixed very quickly. During that brief time, people may have shown up without having turned the feature on, I can't say for sure.
But honestly, I do not think that is a problem. No private information is being displayed there, only an optional text field that was always accessible to anyone, alongside avatar and username. Sure, there was a PM button but anyone is always able to PM anyone on the site. I get random PMs from users I have never interacted with before occasionally. I honestly doubt anyone got showered with (easily ignorable) PMs in response to randomly showing up on the front page until the next refresh.

The feature is off by default. It may not have been for a brief moment, I don't know, but even if, that is not a problem as no harm could have been done by this.
Some people are putting in a ton of work to knit this community closer together through features like this and the public games now finally actually being public again.

And during the time when you couldn't opt-out, at least one person found themself displayed on the front page (likely because they turned it on not knowing what it would do) and then couldn't take themself down, which we know because they brought it up on the Discord.

And it doesn't surprise me to see mods pretending nothing bad ever happens on this site, but we have had problems with people getting harassed through PMs in the past, and "easily ignorable" is pretty relative when the site doesn't give you any ability to stop someone from PMing you.

The point I'm trying to make (which I thought I made when the public games feed first came up on the Discord) is that the developers should exercise some caution and provide advance notice before making a change to the site that affects user visibility. Some of us have had bad experiences with other users on this site and don't want to have ourselves be paraded in front of them, or vice versa.

Lol! "The developers". It's okay, you can say "Adam". I don't mind.

Yes. This release was somewhat rushed because we wanted to close a security hole. We're looking at ways of isolating features in future.

Saying the mods pretend nothing bad ever happens is both uncharitable and false. Maybe we could use a blacklist or block feature for people who are getting harassed or can't behave like adults, but making a big deal out of a single example that was the result either of a bug or the user's own mistake is not helping anyone.

An optional feature has been launched. There has been a brief but that was immediately fixed upon being noticed. Is it ideal? No, it's not. But it is an unavoidable part of development.

Users are not kept in the dark about upcoming changes. There is a whole process for discussing and approving features that all users can follow. Just the other day, a notice was posted on site and discord asking people to get more involved because most do not care to involve themselves in it.

A reminder that where people can find the public forum where changes are discussed.

My bad, I assumed Keleth was still a developer on this site.Yes, and all you have to do is root through the public games to find it, and all you can do is read. Very intuitive.
Look, clearly I've already pulled this thread off topic, and no one wants to hear this, but there's a pattern of behavior with the moderators on this site. Whenever criticism is raised, they get defensive, they minimize the incident, they excuse and insist they are doing the absolute best they can at all times and so it is unfair to expect anything different, and nothing changes. That's assuming they acknowledge the criticism at all. But this isn't the place to have that conversation, so I'll shut up.

The "Looking for a game" panel always displays a "New member" badge, even with older accounts. Probably not intentionally so I just wanted to note it.

@Kaigen, if you didn't add the feature in your profile, you weren't displayed. It's pretty easy to avoid, and one would hope that someone who's worried about their user visibility considers this before signing up to a list that is quite literally in place to make users easier to find.

He is. But it was me who 'fessed up to the changes that you have a problem with. If there was a "lack of caution" then it's me.
You could do that. I'd have pointed you at this:


But you do whatever you find intuitive.

Thanks buddy. That's a good ol' fashioned bug. It's telling you that you're a new user. Neat huh?

todo

So where that leaves your average user is that if they want to stay up to date on proposed changes to the site they either have to:

1) Watch "Latest in Public Games" like a hawk for "Council of Elrond" posts, or
2) Specifically check that game forum regularly.

And then if they want to comment on proposed changes (and they're not part of your council), they have to go somewhere else. Whether that's intuitive or not, it could be easier, is what I'm saying.

I have repeatedly apologized to you specifically recently when you disagreed with a decision or with the way I handled a situation. We don't just get defensive and dismiss out of hand your complaints. But it does happen that we disagree with your suggestions and then we state our disagreement. Not out of defensiveness but because we have decided that we disagree. Which, of course, sucks. I know. But there is no way to run a site that every user will agree with, unfortunately.

Yes, a lot of feature discussion happens on the discord, as did recruiting for the "Council". Would I have organized it differently? Yes. But also keep in mind that those features are primarily being developed by Adam who has no affiliation with the admins or Keleth beyond being a member of the site. He can develop any feature he wants and submit it for approval, just like any other member. The fact that he puts in this much effort to meet the wants of the community when he could just exclusively focus on what would be ideal for himself is a great credit to him.

If you are so concerned about the development of the site, then why are you not involving yourself in it? As mentioned, just the other day, there was a big call for additional eyes on potential development. Something which has been pointed out and ignored by you in this very thread at least twice so far.

I personally, and, unlike what I stated before, that does not necessarily reflect the position of the other admins, do not believe your criticisms and accusations are made in good faith.

I've been asked to delete posts from public forums for far less than this. To see this kind of thing from a moderator is disappointing to say the least.

Let's be honest: Adam has the keys to the code. (EDIT: Effectively, that makes him much more than just a member.) Many of his features have made GP far more useable and are long overdue upgrades. But I don't see where pointing out that upcoming changes and discussions of those changes could happen in a much more easily accessible (especially to new members), much more public forum, especially when they involve user privacy is arguing in bad faith.

Cheers buddy.
Do you have any suggestions on how we can improve this process?

Originally new features were decided by "whoever spoke last on discord" and that sucked.

We don't want a cacophony of voices, nor do we want me just coding whatever-I-feel-like. That's why we've tried to create a group that's representative of the userbase (i.e. not just admins, but OSR people, 5e people, new users, power users, etc.) This process was discussed on the site development forum. I don't know how we could make it more open, but I'm open to ideas.

Usually the release notes are published a little ahead of time. But we wanted to plug a security hole.

The "privacy issue" here was that some users who opted into displaying the 'games they were into' on the homepage couldn't opt-out again for a couple of hours. This information was already publicly visible on their profiles. Bear in mind that this release was rushed out to plug a hole that could potentially leak everyone's email addresses and DoBs.

The process at the moment isn't perfect either. That's why Len's trying to make the process better.

I think the new features have added a lot of new useful tools to this already great site. It is a lot of volunteer hours spent making those.
The process of deciding on changes have been very open and easy to follow both on GP and discord. Following the process (and reading every release note), I think Adam have been very open and listening to ideas and feedback.
I don't think I know any other site that includes it's users to such a degree in the development process. That is wonderful.

Cheers buddy. Appreciated.