Player controlled "retirement/snooze"

I'm starting a new thread to discuss the idea of player controlled "retirement/snooze" that came up in the dead "snooze_your_games" thread. It was difficult to discuss there because everyone was confused which version of snooze/retirement everyone else was talking about.

My idea is that it would be useful for a player to control whether games show up in the "My Games" section of the main page, the "Game Forums" section of the forum page, and the "Latest Game Posts" list, without losing access to them completely, which is what happens if you "Leave Game" on its "game details" page, especially if it's a private game (if it's a public game you can keep access by saving the url somewhere, but that's sort of a pain).

I suggest we implement this by adding buttons or toggles to the "my games" page. I just grabbed a couple symbols from the website to represent the three sections, but we can pick or design different ones for clarity if people prefer. They could also have mouse-over text to explain for clarity as well (like the buttons next to the characters in the "my characters" page, i.e. "Edit Label/Type," "Edit Character", "Add to Library", "Delete Character")



By default, they can all be ON, but users can turn them OFF at their own discretion.

For example in my games, I might turned OFF all buttons for "The Haunting" because that is a completed game that is no longer active. Typically this sort of game would be retired by the GM, but in this case, the GM is no longer active on the site. For "Shinobigami," I might turn OFF "main" and "forum" page buttons because we finished the first mission and are on indefinite hiatus, so I don't need quick access to that game for now, but we might do another mission in the future, so I want to make sure I don't miss an announcement by keeping on "Latest Game Posts" button. For "Gamers' Plane Development," I might turn OFF "Latest Game Posts" because it's an active community forum that can flood my "Latest Games Posts" list, but I want to keep quick access to it so I can check in when I have time. For active games like Microscope, I would keep them fully ON.

Personally, I can't think of a reason I would differentiate between "main" and "forum" page buttons, so we might only need two buttons instead of three, but they are two different places on the website, so maybe other people have reasons to turn one OFF and keep the other ON.

Cheers! That's a really clear statement of requirement.

A clear statement indeed. I'd vote for all three buttons, as they can be quite useful. On mobile, I tend to use the homepage exclusively 90% of the time - if not more. (it became so much more useful along with mobile layout, cheers Adam.)

Still not a fan of it for the same reasons as on the other thread. But I'll go with the majority

I am also not sure about needing to differentiate between main and forum, but think this could be useful.

Being able exclude games from the Latest lists (and maybe have them behave like Public games and be listed there?) separately from excluding them from the Your Games on the homepage and the Games menu on the topbar is ideal. I can see cases where we might want them in one of those places but not in the other.

If people have long enough lists they may want to shelve games into a drawer like the Retired Games list to clean up the list.

You still think this will kill games, eh ... shoot, I thought having the control tucked away from the main page would make the chance of accidentally turning it off much less. Even if it does happen, I would think it would be rare and a quick @ mention or message would still be able to get the person's attention, so if it does happen it's not permanent and could be fixed pretty quickly, so I thought it probably wouldn't kill a game. But I could be wrong.
I like that idea.
Yeah, maybe if you turn OFF all buttons, the game is moved into a spoiler section like retired games, until you turn them back ON.

I do have a long list (20+/-) and I like this idea.

I also like Chalrytharendir's representation of what could be on the My Games page.

Bumping this again after a conversation on discord.

My problem. This is my "Your Games" section.



...also I'd like quick access to a couple of public games that I follow.

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The "Your Games" section of the homepage was always a bit of a hack. It's just the bottom of the Forums page that's been dumped on the homepage.

The idea that has been proposed is that we have the idea of "following" games.

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Proposal for discussion:

Following would only change the homepage (which Bowlofspinach doesn't use, so soz Bowl). The Your Games section would become Followed Games.

By default, you'd follow all your existing games, but you could turn off following a game (somehow).

You could choose to follow any game.

Maybe up here for public games.


Dunno. But maybe worth a discussion.

If we unfollow one of our own games, will there be an easy way to find it again later? I am not sure where else they are listed.

Like with the Retired Games +Section, could we add unfollowed games to there, or something like it?

But for me the whole point of following a game would be to see its posts in my feed like I do with games that I'm playing in.

I guess it's a difference in how you and I use the site. I just don't see a point in introducing a "follow" feature if it doesn't do that

I like the idea a lot but have the same concern as vagueGM.

Dunno. Maybe that heart thing is a toggle on all games to make it very turn on/offable. If it's even a heart icon. I'm not sure what icon we should use. Pinned is gone. Star for bookmark? Heart for favourite?

Maybe I'd be able to integrate that with latest [game] posts too. I don't know. This is just idle chatter at the moment.

That is mainly where I would want it.

Wile you are poking around in there, maybe this 'not showing in the latest' logic can be applied to 'Community Posts' and other 'Latest' blocks so players can exclude certain subforums ('Site Discussions', maybe for those who have not interest in this stuff?) from their feeds?

Me too and this above.

I think my solution above solves the first problem (My Games clutter on Front Page) and is nice because it gives people control regardless of how they use the site. If you want games removed from the front page, but stay in the forum page, you can make that choice. If you want them removed from Latest Games Posts, but stay at the bottom of the Front Page, you can choose that, etc ... I think the idea had pretty good support except for Bowl, but the great thing about my solution is that anyone can just leave all toggles on and the site remains the same for them if they don't like it.

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I like the idea of following. I think the Heart icon works, binoculars is probably too creepy ;)

If you put the heart toggle on the Games Details Page on public games then anyone interested can toggle it. I suggest it adds it to the My Games page and then you can toggle it further to select where you want the game viewed using the 3 buttons that I suggested before

So we'd have:
Games I'm Playing
Games I'm Following
Games I'm Running

If all toggles are OFF, then the game moves into a spoiler archive, so you can still find it again later (like retired games). For Followed games, if you toggle the Heart OFF, it removes it completely. For Played Games, if you Leave the game, it removes it completely.

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For ignoring certain community forums: Maybe there's a different toggle (or we could reuse the heart) that's automatically ON on each community forum but you can choose to toggle it OFF? When it's OFF, it removes that forum from the Latest Posts and Community Posts sections, but keeps access via the Forums page, so you can turn it back on in the future if you want.

That looks real good.

Agreed!

I still don't like this but it seems I'm overruled on that

Can you remind me of the reason? Maybe there's a tweak to my idea that will address your concern?

I can see the point of snoozing games on the front page and as long as they would pop up when there's a new post in there as Adam originally suggested, I'll even support that one. But making games entirely invisible there, hiding them on your latest post feeds and just shielding yourself from any way to see the activity in them will definitely lead to games dying. At least some people will mute a game on accident and never notice until it's stalled.

Organizing your front page is one thing but if you're in a game, you should get post updates for it through the means that you use.

Being able to follow games and maybe setting up groups that aren't games and have different settings would be better options that don't carry that risk.

As for hiding community forums from your feed, that's what the latest game posts feed is for. It was a stated design goal for GP from Keleth to lead people to the public threads to strengthen the community.
I get why its appealing to just shut all of that off and only look at your games and I'm sure plenty of people would like that. But it goes directly against the goal of the site

Turning off all toggles is for dead games, so there's not really a risk of it leading to a game dying. It's an alternative to clicking "Leave Game," which kills a game much faster than this would. This is a way to save access to games that are no longer active, to keep for reference/nostalgia, but avoid it cluttering your page. Another use case is if your story in the game finishes, but the rests of the players continue playing another story arc, you might not want the notifications and clutter for that game but still want to keep access. Otherwise, I don't see why anyone would turn off ALL toggles in an active game except by accident. I think it's an easy accident to fix because of @ mentions and Messages, but maybe we should also include a warning message, if all toggles are turned OFF a pop-up explains you'll lose access to the game from everywhere on the site except this "My Games" page. That might help avoid that accident from happening.
I agree with this. I think GP has a strong community and it could be because of design choices like this.

I don't see the point of this if they just come back when there is a new post. If there is no new post then they will vanish from the 'Latest Posts' anyway. But coming back should be a user choice.
When the only other option is to remove oneself from the game to get it off the list, this seems like the lesser of two evils and less likely to lead to game-death.
That does already mean they were not interested in that game, else they would notice there was no activity and see that they had muted it.
Some people don't use emails for updates, some people might not want to get updates on the Front Page. It should be up to them.
What if someone has absolutely no interest in Boardgames, but keep getting posts about them in their front page? Or if they don't care for the AMAs, or the developement?

Denying them the ability to say what appears on the front page means they will just stop looking at it.
That sounds like a problem to me. If 'plenty of people would like a thing', maybe we should reasses these conflicting 'goals of the site'.

The place I want to hide the games is the 'My Games' page. I actually don't see a need to hide game on the Front Page, but that is just me.

If a game is inactive, you don't need to turn off notifications. You won't get any.
This seems like an edge case but I understand this use.
Exactly my point.
I'd appreciate at least a warning message or ask for confirmation. That should seriously mitigate the risk of accident. So good idea.
This was about the front page, not the latest posts site.
Except that if you accidentally removed yourself from the game, people can see that and react. If you accidentally muted the game, people will only see that you don't post anymore and will have no idea whether you lost interest or what. Also, I've never seen anyone accidentally leave a game but I have seen people accidentally mess up permissions and settings.
If you're in a lot of games, one not updating in a while might slip your notice. It has happened to me if I accidentally marked a thread as read (much less likely to happen now that I can mark them as unread after opening) or if a post somehow scrolled to page two of notifications without me noticing.
I feel like there's a big difference between your email feed which you use for plenty of things being spammed by fifty emails a day and a symbol being marked in red on the page you use just for gaming anyway.
But I'm not worried about someone who never checks their front page for updates turning off notifications there. I'm worried about someone who exclusively checks their frontpage accidentally doing that and not noticing.
I see that point and if those threads were more active than they are, I might consider it an issue. But boardgames receives a post maybe once every two months or so, for example.
And I would argue not everything should be able to be turned off. AMAs? Lots of people say the strength of GP is its community. Even if you don't want to participate, I think it's good to see that community activity happen. (Might be nice to have a mark as read option that doesn't require you to go into the thread for this, though)
Development? We already get plenty of complaints about updates happening without proper warning. Better not make it even easier to not see development happen.
If plenty of people wanted GP to be an anime fansite, should we restructure the site to turn it into that? As I mentioned before, the focus of GP is that it's a community-driven site. That's the identity that people advertise it with and like it for. Just because an undefined "plenty of people" would like a feature, doesn't mean it needs to be implemented (even if it would be good on its own) if that implementation could hurt the site as a whole by shifting its focus.

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Anyway, I've laid all of my concerns out plenty of times before but most people in this thread at least seem to like these suggestions. I don't. But if they happen, they happen and that's fine. I don't think they'll ruin the site. I just don't think they're necessarily improvements.

This is a good point. Forcing content on people could actually damage community engagement.

Maybe instead of ignoring community forums from the Community Posts Section, we should add a "Favourites" community section, which is an opt-in section?
Really? Interesting. I assumed that page was really only used as a list of games page, not really an access point, but fair enough. For my suggestion to work we need somewhere that lists all your games that you can choose the setting for each. I had thought the My Games page was good for that, but maybe we need a My Games Settings page and a fourth button for whether it's visible on the My Games page?

Just to clarify, you have active games that you want to hide on the My Games page? Otherwise, the ALL toggles OFF move into spoiler idea would work for you.

I'm in or run 26 games and I never use the Mygames section at all or even glance at it. My dream is to have a bigger latest games field/column/space. I know, I know, it's just dream, don't shoot me. 🙂

I only really want to hide inactive games on the My Games page. There are some where the GM has vanished, and it is stuck there, my only other choice it to leave the game and loose access to the posts.

The subject line of this thread is 'play controlled retirement...'. I want to be able to 'retire' games that I am not the GM of.

[quote="Windyridge"]... My dream is to have a bigger latest games field/column/space ...quote]

Mine too.
Three times bigger at least! :)

Or... user controlled length?

Even better!

At least for now you can click on the Latest Games Link to navigate to HERE which is a bigger list.
Yeah, so I think if all toggles OFF moves the game into a spoiler, like retired games, it would be the equivalent of player controlled retirement. But maybe we need a separate button/toggle to do that?

Right, but when I'm posting in all those games sequentially, for just one game that is off the entry page I have to click on it, post in it, refresh, go to latest games on the entry page, click on latest games posts and then click on the game.

One solution of course is to play/run less games. 😒

Never! 😆

User chosen length would be a good option.

Another idea is a section to show "least recent unread game post." That way it shows the threads that have been waiting the longest first and once you deal with it, it vanishes from the list and the next least recent unread game post will pop to the top so you can respond to that one next.

Rather than that, I would still prefer a feed that only shows all your unread threads and nothing else

I don't think we need a separate button for this. But I don't care too much what we have to click, to get there. We can iron out the exact user interface details based on what works and user feedback.

It should be obvious, though, that toggling off the final one moves it to the 'spoiler'. We don't want to surprise users. So a button may make that clear.

Yes, please.

But this is a different topic and deserves it own thread so it does not get lost.

This is ideal.

O-kay. There's nothing like a clear consensus, and this is nothing like a clear consensus.

Moving this thread to nope.

Really? I thought we had pretty good consensus that player-controlled retirement is a good idea! We're just discussing how best to implement it. I thought the discussion was very useful to understand which aspects of my idea are not clear or not useful based on how others use the site.

The discussion got off-topic at the end for a moment, but that was called out pretty quickly, so a new thread could be started.

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I'll give one last pitch based on the feedback so far, otherwise I'll drop it:

Pros:
Player controlled retirement for inactive games would be a good thing

Cons:
Too complicated
Too much risk of accidental muting, etc
Removing from "Latest" feeds on front page could be detrimental in some cases


New Pitch - keeping it simple:
A "retire game" button on the "Game Details" page that is available for Players.
It moves the game into a retired games spoiler under the "Games I'm Playing" on the "My Games" page.
It removes the game from the "Games Forum" section of the "Forums" Page.
It removes the game from the "Your Games" section of the Front Page.
But new posts in the game still show up in the "Latest" feeds.
Retirement of a player is indicated on the "Game Details" page (maybe a label "Retired" next to the player's name?) and sends a notification to the GM, so they know the player has retired. If they need to get the players attention they now know they will need to @ mention or Message the player in the future. This will help avoid retirement by accident.
Retirement is reversible, so you can "un-retire" later if you need to, or if you did it by accident.

I think this is much more simple for users, avoids the things people didn't like, and catches 90% of why people want player controlled retirement. Please correct me if I'm wrong on that.

I think the one case this misses is if you retire from an active game (e.g. your character's story finished but others continue a new story arc, the game moved in a direction you aren't interested in, etc.). In this case, you'll still have new posts popping up in your "Latest" feeds which might not be ideal for some people, but this would still be the case if we don't implement retirement at all, so I don't see this as a reason not to implement the parts of retirement that we all agree on.

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User-controlled customization of which games go in the "Latest" feeds should be a different topic. I had initially thought it could be part of a suite of settings that included retirement, but now I think it is better to keep it as a completely separate topic since that has much less consensus.

I am behind this 100%.

Seems okay, I think. We'd just need to come up with a different name than retire for it.

Agreed.

A few suggestions:

Archive
Hiatus, Declare Hiatus
Idle, Become Idle, Mark as Idle
Dormant, ...
Quiescent, ...

Or we could stick with retire and differentiate using "Retire Game" vs "Retire as Player"

Nice summary of a good way to do it. Should avoid most problems.
The current Retirement of games should be reversible. I have seen many games come out of retirement a year later.