Feature: Comments on RP posts (OOC Flip-Pane)

My proposal had two parts. First, I really want it to be discrete and easy to ignore if people are not interested. Second I really only want this as an extension of the existing OOC banter/discussions, I mainly want a way to see that such OOC has been done about this post.

We might need three lines of opt-in:

• The player could choose not to ever see these links, on any page.
• A thread can be marked (on the creation screen) as relevant for showing links to it.
• A thread can be marked (on the creation screen) as not being relevant for having its links processed and tracked.

But, most of all, if it is a small icon in the bottom corner, it should not bother anyone who does not care. I never use the 'Mark as unread' link, but it does not bother me that it is there, and that is not small. If this were something small we can expand if we are interested, that might be fine.

If all this is is a way to see that someone has asked an OOC question (which we should already know at the time, because we are reading the 'OOC thread' (but it might be a benefit later)), then it should not change the way people use the 'OOC banter'.

Adding features does change the way people use a tool, though, and, just like having Discord available has split the community between those the use it and those that don't, adding a tracking tool like this might 'encourage' people to change the way they chat... I don't know, people are weird.

Even if not on the thread and posts, there is benefit in having some way to know if people have referenced this post. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:What_links_here

Would it be worth having a mechanism to track whether a user has read a comment (opened the "spoiler"), showing it in bold or something if it's unread? If we're concerned about the SQL join then we could store an array of userids in json or something on the post record.

But these are different things. Whether you've read the thread or not is something no one but you sees, but references will be something that everyone sees. Even if I ignore it, I will still know that it's here, and other users will see it regardless of my wishes.
(Yes, it theoretically should not bother me. It does though. I didn't say it was reasonable. :V)
I hope it won't, but yeah; people are weird indeed. It will be disappointing if I'll need not only to watch out for Discord requirements but also for these comments. :( I might be in the minority (or an exception, I don't know), but still.
I agree partially. I don't think it's particularly useful if, say, I post something like "Hey, this tree was first mentioned in this post a month ago" and the post gets a reference for my post. Like, the description of the tree is already here, anyone reading the post will know it, so what's the use of seeing my reference on the main post?
Neither is it harmful though, so I don't know. I guess I'm mostly neutral about how useful it is. :D

Sure, when the posts have no value tracking their links has no value. On the other hand, when the players have an OOC discussion about what they want their characters to do in a situation [example], later being able to see why the following RP post suddenly went in a particular direction (based on that discussion) has value.

That was the part I do agree with. :D I'd still find it inconvenient having to refrain from linking stuff in "no value" (I disagree that reminding someone of where the info came from has no value) posts just so it wouldn't clog up the references.

Yes, making people not link things would be a step backwards. We need a solution for that.

But I don't think it really matters if these 'no value' links are there, everything has value.

In my example above I make two links to the reference page for the rules about the Moves we are discussing, those reference pages don't really need to 'know' how many times they have been referenced... but then again, it might be interesting to see how many time the Persuade rule has been talked about and in what context?

If this whole thing is discrete enough that we can ignore it, then there is no need to not make links, we can just ignore them.
Hey! I was 'quoting' you! If they have value then there is value in being able to find them later, so this is a non-issue?
Not making references just so as not to clog up the list of references seems ... sorry, I don't understand the problem here? :)

To be clear @FlyingSucculent, I share your concern about messing up the community discourse, I am hoping this just streamlines things and helps those who would benefit from it.

The title is misleading, it stemmed from the most recent discussion about a similar useful feature and probably should not be called 'Comments'.

FS, I understand your concern about changing something which works for you. I was dead set against Discord integration as I didn't want to split the OOC banter. I was wrong. It's my favourite GP feature.

I suspect you'd just end up coalescing around the functionality that your table would find most useful, and deciding to agree to ignore functionality you never use.

The GM and game group should set the parameters of the game and how these things are handled, some games want all the OOC discussion in [ ooc] tags right here in the roleplay threads, some want them in a separate thread, some people won't play in games without discord, some people won't play in games that require discord, some won't play in games have allow any discord at all because they have been burned by people talking there and not being included...

Set the terms and the group will play that way, this no different to "no phones at the table" rules, and such.

Maybe it can be some sort of an extended url tag? Make the site only check for these. Something like [ref] which would work as [url] in all but being detected by the reference list.
I didn't mean that the post had no value! I meant that the refence didn't. :P Although I do kind of agree that it might be interesting to see how often things are talked about.

(On that note, how would references be assigned names? It will be hard to navigate with just Ref1, Ref2; and if it takes the post name, then most of the time it'll just be "OOC Thread". Maybe something to consider for a custom tag too?)
The problem is, say I want to post something like the tree example above. I don't think that the reference to this OOC post inside the main post has value, but I do want to reference the main post in the OOC. But if I add a link, it'll go in the reference list on the main post and I'll clog it up and I'll feel bad about it. So I'll have to reference the post without using the link, which will be a bit inconvenient since I'll need to either link the thread page or make a quote.

(A custom tag would solve it, actually. But it is a bit of a moot point, as I am already unlikely to use references. XD)
Oh yeah, I'm not against the feature! If people want it and it's QoL thing for someone, all the better. I just would prefer for it to be optional so I can avoid people adding references into my posts since it doesn't do much for my experience.

(It's kinda in the similar vein for me with GMs editing player sheets. I often ask GMs to not do this, but it's always this little fear in the back of my mind. :'D)
Hey, I still dislike Discord integration, it doesn't always change. :P

It's all fine when the technology is something I can not use and not be affected by. But in this case, it is something that I will be affected by even if I don't use it as long as someone in the group does - and worse, it is something I won't be able to do anything about short of deleting my post or complaining to the one who did the reference or the GM. And I'll feel bad about complaining.

It's just, if it becomes the default, it'll be a new thing on my list of "request before game", and I already feel like a prick when I request to keep me in the loop if something happens on Discord and for GMs to not edit my sheets. :'D

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Anyway, this is all a personal thing! Just thought I'd cast my vote for opt-in, but it's not like I can do anything if the majority prefers it to be the default. I vaguely tolerate sheet editing, I can probably tolerate references.

We would need some way to identify them.

I would like for them to be able to show the text surrounding the link, the con-text, as it were. It could be beneficial to be able to read the whole post from right there where we are looking, maybe in a [ spoiler] (or [ abilities] #) type openeable draw.

First off, we need the ability to track the links, the formatting can change as people opine about what they like/need. How they end up looking might affect what levels of opt-in/out people want.
I don't think there is a technical solution for that. I would advise ... not feeling bad? Some people may like to have the link to where you referenced the tree, those who don't care done care.
That sounds like a step backwards. If this is what this will lead to, then it is a bad feature. Let's not go that route, I hope this will encourage more links, there are many OOC posts that I read and don't have the context anymore because it is months later and we are looking for where something was discussed (PbP is slow).
Would you want to not see references, or not allow reference to 'your posts'? Other people read your posts as well, they might want to see the references. As you say, you are creating links to the posts, so there are references, there is just no way to find them.
If a GM edited my sheet after I asked them not to (or if they did it more than 'once by mistake') I would not play with them. Respect is an important part of the game. If they said that they would be editing players' sheets in this game (and I did not want that), I would not play in that game. Other games are available, we are not 'stuck playing with the kids on our street'.
We should try not to feel bad about asking for the things we need. This was a large part of what motivated the Safety Tools movement —which < swearword > people then attacked people for using. Normalising asking for what we need is a good thing, but I get that it is hard.

Having a discussion on discord when not everyone is on discord is just plain rude. Asking for a summary back in the game is a base minimum, and not really good enough, in my opinion, everyone should have been part of the discussion; and summaries, by their very nature, leave out details.
As a player option to or not to see them? Or on a per thread basis? [ref]

Just briefly back to this...
Bill had a Patreon for TK and I paid him $10/month for *years* -- worth every penny. Quite a few others did too, at various tiers. TK had a complex development history, but it was a vibrant and busy place for games in the 20-teens -- before you came on the scene, Didz. You hooked up with TK in the twilight of its existence, when Bill had stepped back and was barely managing things in break-fix mode. Many players (hundreds) just focused on playing their own games over there.

In 2021 I could see the writing on the wall and moved over to GP. It was amazing that Bill paid that AWS bill as long as he did, frankly. We did have some fund-raisers in the late teens / 2020 time frame, but... well, when something is free, people won't always pay for it when you ask them to.

Not trying to be a jerk, because I actually do dislike that TK had to shut down, leading to people losing games, community, a place they felt they belonged, but I really have to question that cost. In total, GP spends about $50 a month in server costs, and we're not on a cheap host. If I make a few optimizations, we could have a lot more users than we do now and still maintain that cost (a number of queries on GP are poorly written and slow the site down). In fact, we're looking at a new email host, which would cost about $24 a year for 2 email addresses. If the costs were $300 a month, I'd really wanna know what was going on so I could help reduce that cost. I also don't like the idea of asking for donations; too much in our lives is based on money, specially entertainment, and I don't want GP to be another one of those costs. And even jobless right now, I can easily afford $50 a month, a price I'm happy to pay so others can have a good time.

A custom tag different from [url] would've been a technical solution. Just saying. :P
Trust me, I wish I could not feel bad. (Also, you're missing the people who *won't* like the references to some OOC post which doesn't matter for the main post.)
It's just a personal thing, even if it leads there for me, I'm quite certain 80% of users won't care. I'm just being selfish by trying to preserve my comfort. >:D
The second one. I get that the other people might want to see references, which would just mean that we aren't compatible as players - so I just won't join these groups. But if this option is a default, I'll need to ask each time each player, and that sounds too much. :( If it were opt-in, then I'll just react if the GM propose to enable it, that'll be easier. (I doubt this feature will ever become something people will state in recruitment threads like Discord.)
Of course. I never said this was a rational fear either.
I meant it as opt-in for the ability to use references on a specific game's forum. If the GM has a toggle "allow references", I would prefer it to be off by default. (Or I guess in case of per forum basis, for all forums to be off by default?)

I know I'm probably in the minority, but I can exercise futility. :P I cannot stress enough that it's a personal thing and I'm not against the feature existing. I'm not even *that much* against it being the default, it'll just make my search of games harder, it's not something big.

I'm honestly baffled a small project like a PbP site would choose AWS. Heck, with even half that price, using AWS's Lightsail would get you

32 GB Memory
8 vCPUs
640 GB SSD Disk
7 TB Transfer*

That's HUGE. This is 100% a case where had I know, I would have offered my help to move services and get to a more reasonably priced environment.

This does turn it into a different thing than the ability to know that comments have been made about a post. What I was proposing does not change how people would use these OOC comments and discussions, needing different tag to make them work breaks all the previous discussions.
I would like to hear from them about what they dislike, then we can work to make something that works. Not dismissing your viewpoint, but asking for more.
If 20% did care, then we have a problem we need to deal with.
Which is important. So we need to get to the root of what you are comfortable with.

Maybe we should shelve this aspect till we have a better idea of how it would work, then we can work out how we choose to opt-in. None of the opt-in options should be very tricky to implement, it is more about how people would want to use them.
That is also an option.

Wasn't TK touted in another thread as a bastion of "encouraging communication"?

So is what I'm hearing then that in reality this Comment feature doesn't actually build a sense of meaningful communication in and of itself? It doesn't build or create a sense of community by the advocates own words.

Which would mean, in fact that requires a bigger thing than a nuanced feature difference.

And in fact GP already has it (at least community, if that can somehow be present with "encouraging communication" absent)?
I don't think it adds any actual value.

I think it could encourage more superficial communication, "relieving" ppl of more meaningful contribution, and doesn't bring actual value.

I don't want to ever obligate the ppl who make this site function day to day to do absolutely anything at all. But I dislike that a random pet peeve has somehow suddenly taken precedence over other features that, imo, add more value.
Maybe I've missed it but I feel like I've heard from really just one person who actually cares about this, and literally everyone else could take it or leave it. I don't see anything close to 20% of users claiming there's a problem. Not even 10%. Maybe not even 1%?

Indeed, the site going on 10+ years without it makes me think there is no problem at all, regarding people's ability to comment on others posts, or with ooc communication.

That seems very confusing to me.

You say you don't want other players to make comments about you posts and yet freely adfmit that you post a lot of OOC comments about theirs. As for the objection to having a comment tied to a post, it actually seems to me that if the comment is not tied to a post then it is essentially pointless and not even an OOC comment at all. Surely the whole point of an OOC comment is to distinguish it from an in-character comment. But if you are posting in another thread why would this even be a probability?

After all, this isn't an OOC post because it's obviously not in a roleplay thread. Likewise, if one of my players posts a comment in 'The Tavern, ' I don't need them to tell me they are not posting in-character. Likewise, general 'chit chat' about the game outside of the Session Log does not need to be identified as OOC because it clearly isn't.

Personally, I don't think it's necessary.

If a player has no interest in reading the comments made on their post, then that's entirely their prerogative, and I entirely respect FlyingSucculent's right to ignore the feedback from the rest of his player group. However, the player should be entitled to see if there are any comments on their post and be given the option to read them should they wish.

This was how it worked on TK, the Comment Button in the bottom right was merely highlighted if any comments had been posted. It was then up to the player to click on it if they wished to read them. But had every right to ignore them if they wished. Also no notifications were sent out for comments, so it was assumed the player would check for comments when they next checked the Session Log particularly if they were waiting for a response from the GM.

Well said.

This is about options, not dictates. If the option is there, then the GM can decide whether their game will use it as part of its posting structure. or any of the other features on offer, such as Discord