gathering opinions

2009-02-12 12:21:24 am

also posted this at sda.

recently i had an idea - i should be able to modify the forum in such a way that you could enter a topic and see people talking in there live without having to refresh the page. so new posts would pop up the moment they're posted instead you having to reload the page. just sit back and watch. you could also join in on the conversation just as you would using irc or another form of live chat (seeing your posts get posted without any delay or having to reload the page once).

this would not replace irc but augment it.

what do you think?

Thread title:

JaggerG

2009-02-12 04:56:03 am

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

It seems there's going to be a lot more complaining about pagebreaks, but that's not too bad. Actually, I thought I noticed an option to see latest posts on top, but that's probably just in personal messages or something. Can it be applied to threads, too?

It's probably not gonna be quite the same as IRC still, of course. But is it gonna take more memory or anything, forcing users to actually close the tab if not in use? I'm sincerely hoping it remains a forum atmosphere, just for the sake of quality posts as opposed to things like "*count" and such.

Quietus

2009-02-12 05:23:18 am

Super Secret Area - Dead Ahead!

I wouldn't imagine there'd be a problem with it, to be honest. And I think the whole 'page break' thing is a bit of a joke gone too far. It takes all of a second to flick back to read it, and if you're replying, the 'Topic Summary' below details the posts from the last page too, so there's not really an issue with it, in my opinion.

Phazar

2009-02-12 07:43:54 am

...

This sounds like a pretty cool idea. The only time it would cause problems, though, is in the Festivus thread at the year's end.

KennyMan666

2009-02-12 07:55:28 am

Viking

Precursor

Worst idea ever. Opinon based on the project name chosen for the new forum software.

BioSpark

2009-02-12 08:14:45 am

Pretty sure nate could make it so that a certain number of the most recent posts appear on the page so that you don't encounter page breaks.

JaggerG

2009-02-12 08:29:21 am

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

Kenny, you could just deny the name and call it Project Dolphin or something. :^P

Also, for Quietus and Phazar, it's not so much that page breaks are an issue in this forum set-up, but if it updates live and there's a page break that you don't see, surely that's gonna cause reasonable issues to occur. One solution may be something like bumping the first post on each page to the previous page, or having the last page in a four-page topic as being a different, auto-uploading page displaying the 10 or 20 most recent posts rather than simply the fourth page.

Quietus

2009-02-12 08:53:37 am

Super Secret Area - Dead Ahead!

Would you not be able to have it update to the latest page, rather than the current page, regardless of what page you were originally on?

uNsane

2009-02-12 03:59:26 pm

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

There was something I saw in this that made me think "bad," but i don't remember what it was.

Toozin

2009-02-12 04:18:26 pm

Not impossible

just highly unlikely

I don't think this forum is active enough to warrant this. It's kinda busy, but not so busy that we get enough posts that it could be like a real-time chat. Maybe at certain times in certain posts, but not enough to justify the trouble of implementing this, imo. Might be cool for sda though, if they're busier.

Zhs2

2009-02-12 04:31:34 pm

Yo.

I actually think this would be pretty cool, although it doesn't sound much more than convenient when it comes to this forum.

The worst case scenario I can think of here would be easier trolling and spamming (in which people might feel they're actually accomplishing something when they see 5000 of their posts go up in a row.) The forum management is pretty active, though...

JaggerG

2009-02-14 09:27:32 am

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

I guess he figured since he's doing it for SDA, it could be implemented here at the same time just to have some kind of consistency I guess. I suppose problems can be solved as they appear, though.

Gamma_Metroid

2009-02-23 09:58:04 pm

Hmm. It's definitely going to make my browser run more slowly, whatever it does. And it's running pretty slowly right now (as is everything else on my computer).

example:

Quote from Quietus:

It takes all of a second to flick back to read it

Two or three minutes for me.

Of course, we should be able to turn this function off, shouldn't we?

arkarian

2009-02-23 11:56:10 pm

red chamber dream

Quote from Gamma_Metroid:

Hmm. It's definitely going to make my browser run more slowly, whatever it does.

why do you say that?

Gamma_Metroid

2009-02-24 10:26:34 am

It just will. I suppose you could look at it and say "Well, you don't have to keep refreshing to see new posts, which takes more time," but it'll make going to the next page in a topic slower. It'll also probably make fast-moving topics crash my browser.

arkarian

2009-02-24 10:59:40 am

red chamber dream

what if it were designed in such a way that it wouldn't be slow or crash your browser?

Gamma_Metroid

2009-02-24 02:57:08 pm

That would be great.

Zhs2

2009-02-24 03:25:23 pm

Yo.

I'm assuming this isn't written with that HORRIBLE abomination called Flash, right? >_>

I'm no expert on the various workings of the internet (Hell if I know anything about php and Java,) but the ways I can think of that they might have gone about implementing this, I'd say it'd be no faster or slower than it already is for you, Gamma.

Lucied Unlimited

2009-02-24 05:52:04 pm

All aboard the soul train

It sounds nice, I like it. But it might murder slower internet connections...

DominicanZero

2009-03-11 12:46:23 pm

直死の魔眼使い

More than the end users, I'm more worried about the server setup. Even though the amount of activity here doesn't reach the critical mass levels I've seen elsewhere, the server's gonna have extra strain put on it to refresh every single time someone makes a post; and if several people decide to start a live "conversation" on a thread, it's gonna mean much more weight placed on the server's processing end, which may end up causing it to snap.

Tyjet66

2009-04-01 05:04:19 am

What'd you say?

Sounds like an awesome idea, but I agree with toozin; there's not really enough people online to keep a live conversation. Other than that I'd love to see this in action.