tweak/join_a_game

So, the join page has been on everyone's mind for a while.

The main use I get out of it is when I see someone refer to a specific game and I want to check it, I head to that site and search it. But that rarely works because it doesn't list all games. For example, I think closed games don't show up there.

To increase its usefulness to me personally, I would have all games show up there (maybe with a toggle like for full games that can filter out closed games). I would also have all filters turned off by default so that when you enter the page, it shows all games, which you can then reduce by system, by open/closed and fullness status.
I would also rename it from "Join a Game" to something like "Recent Games", to deemphasize it as a way to join games and have it more as a searchable list of all games.

Now, I don't know how anyone else would feel about it, but that's how I would personally prefer it.

If I'm on the "Join a game" page, it's because I clicked the wrong link.

How about we call it "All Games"?

Would we show retired games too?

So we can let people choose between the link called "All Games" and the one called "All Games" 😄
Maybe we should rename what is currently called "All Games" to "My Games"
Maybe another toggle? Which, I realize now, there should also be a toggle/filter to only show public games

Huh. All Games is already My Games when you click on it.

Do we even want the toggle for open games? It's still a liar, and I'm now resigned to the fact that it always will be.

No strong opinions. I like open/closed games in theory but yes, in practice, they're troublesome

There should be a toggle for them just like everything else weather it's a good way to join games or not, we aren't making public games not a toggle just because you can't necessarily join public games.

The problem is that open games are often not open. If people want to see open games then what the system shows will be a lie.

I kinda want to make it so that if somebody toggles "open games" then it just redirects them to the tavern.

I assume Admins can look at private games? There would be little value for the rest of us to see them and showing private games could be considered a privacy violation.

(But we had this discussion when private games started showing up on the player profiles and it was deemed 'not-a-real-problem' (which, as I mentioned violates several child-protection policies preventing me from using this site in schools, but that is a me problem and a big one to try fix).)

If someone wants to join a game, there is little point them looking at Closed games.

Some might want to see closed games so they read them, if they are public.

Maybe people will start using it properly if more people use it?

No, we can't look into them. I think Keleth can.
How is just seeing that a private game exists and accessing its Games Details page a privacy violation?

So your idea is to turn the "Join a Game" page not into an "All Games" but into a "Public Games"? Might not be the worst idea, though I still prefer the toggle.

There is all sorts of leaked information available, via network analysis of who plays with whom and who their friends are, for instance. If two games are 'private' no one should be able to tell that two people are playing together in them, for instance. All this is part of osint (open source intelligence gathering), and part of a big field and not really something we can easily fix (and certify) without it being a significant focus of the site, but we are heading in the opposite direction and opening up even more personal information.

I couldn't have expressed it better myself. This is exactly how I imagine the Games List page could be.

I think filtering by public/private would be good too, unless its decided private games should be completely invisible, which might be a good idea (or at least who's in the game is invisible to anyone not in the game).

I still like the Open/Close game functionality, labels, tags, etc. Even if some people don't use them as intended, they are still useful for those who do. Maybe open games should be automatically closed after a month with a notification to the GM, so they can turn them back on if they want to keep them open. It might be annoying to click that once a month, but I feel like it might be less annoying than having a ton of non-open Open games populating the Open games list.

If we do this (which seems like a good idea), maybe we could have a special flag for games that are 'permanently open'? The GM can set it to never auto-close, but that would be a manual and deliberate process, and could be hidden away so people don't click it by mistake.

Having the flag for permanently open (never auto-close) games is a good idea. I have test games that I use for various things that I would want to keep open.

Maybe you could hide it in the advanced settings, alongside the dice code.

I'd be annoyed if I had to manually reopen my tutorial every other week, but if I can keep somethinig like that perma-open, I'd be fine with having most games close automatically after a while

Yes, a special permanently open option would definitely be better than having to constantly reopen. Hiding it in advanced settings is a great idea.
You want other players applying to your test games? I thought the open/closed feature just turns off applications. The game functions normally otherwise. Or am I mistaken?

It depends but mostly no.

It's a screen with a number of use cases, but the main idea is to browse games for... reasons....

...and those reasons will depend on the user. Maybe they want to know if there's a PbtA scene; who runs TftL games; are there any LMoP games?

I don't like the idea of lots of toggles. A js search which checks the game/system/GM/tags and then some visual indicators about status seems to work. It's also consistent with the characters and gamers list pages. A text search lets us search those custom type games too.

Seems like we're finally getting somewhere. I like where this is going.

Yeah? Bit of rework on My games too?