ErikH2000
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Mattcrampy wrote:
Of course, I'm looking for opinions on this, although I reckon it should possibly be a top ten, or maybe a top 5. I don't want to negate the existence of the Hints board altogether, and I can see it getting out of hand. See post on Hints board.

Yeah, that's a good point. It would be brutally efficient to have all the solutions in the FAQ. Tumbleweeds rolling through the hints forum. On the other hand, there is going to be an explosion of new holds to play, so the Hints board should always have some discussion on the latest architecture. There is a section on the web site for room solutions. My suggestion is to submit your solutions for any of the rooms in your list not already covered to the other Matt (Mafinot, Malarme, Maffy--his names are numerous) and link your top 5/10 list to solutions found on the site.

Sometimes the forum is too good. I worry about us forgetting the site. The strength of the site is that it organizes permanent information, whereas content on the forums tends to fall away and be forgotten, even if it deserves a lasting place.

I would ask Maffy about hosting the FAQ somewhere on the site. We can do something with the links in the top/righthand corner ("Home" "Register" "Help"...) to point to the FAQ. We can put a "Before Posting" sticky message at the top of each board that links to the FAQ and adds any board-specific comments.

-Erik

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Mattcrampy
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My aim, when writing it, is to try and reflect the sort of humour you get in the DROD storyline and in some random places in the site.

Actually, screw that, I'm just ripping off the SQ4 hint book.

I would add a blurb under registering...

Right, the security blurb is a good idea, and it's in. Some sort of password disclaimer is always good.

What do you mean Scroll Lock is useless? I use it every day! With "tail -f" it's indispensible.

Correction, on Windows machines it's useless. The 'tail -f' looks very much like bash to me, and I don't know my way around Unix systems enough to say yea or nay to whether scroll Lock is useless there.

Sometimes the forum is too good. I worry about us forgetting the site. The strength of the site is that it organizes permanent information, whereas content on the forums tends to fall away and be forgotten, even if it deserves a lasting place.

I would ask Maffy about hosting the FAQ somewhere on the site. We can do something with the links in the top/righthand corner ("Home" "Register" "Help"...) to point to the FAQ. We can put a "Before Posting" sticky message at the top of each board that links to the FAQ and adds any board-specific comments.

The problem with the forum is that there's no link to the site. I reckon you'd get a lot greater connection to the site if "DROD.Net" actually pointed to "DROD.Net", rather than back to the forum. The idea with the Frequently Asked Rooms section of the FAQ was that you just can't click to the site from here, and when you get there, the room FAQ are in two completely different sections (ROOM FAQ in the 'Tips' section, and a few tips hiding in the Webfoot Screenshots section). If there was something in the FAQ, we could point any newbies in the hints forum to click on one link and do a bit of scrolling to find their answer, rather than navigate the Level 13 of DROD.net.

The original idea was to beat Schik's FAQ. He never got started, so I win by default. I think the discussion earlier on this thread was that we would put the FAQ up in that little area, and point newbies there, and it summarise everything in this thread, but I got some ideas from other forum FAQs, such as cookies.

Right, the next version should be in HTML, which will be a damn sight easier to read. I've post in most of everyone's advice, but I still need at least two things:

* Cookie information for Linux and Mac (probably both MacOs X and 8/9)
* How you read the forum via e-mail, as I can't work out how to do it. I know you can get notification, though, and that's in.

Oh, one more thing: any ettiquette, 'things we all know and we reckon newbies should too' or even old, useful threads that 'we all' remember should also come directly my way. The FAQ is the perfect place to put it.

Matt

[Edited by Mattcrampy on 08-09-2003 at 08:49 AM GMT: I am passing out from too much cookie dough.]

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bdcribbs
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( edited cuz: the first time I tried to post this drod.net dissappeared... is drod.net really hosted in france? )

* Cookie information for Linux and Mac (probably both MacOs X and 8/9)

Cookies will be in different places even on Windows depending on which OSversion/browser you're using... listing them all for all platforms (and keeping it up to date) seems beyond the scope of this FAQ... just my opinion. People really gripe about drod.net cookies?

* How you read the forum via e-mail, as I can't work out how to do it. I know you can get notification, though, and that's in.

Not sure if this is what you are asking, but modify your profile, and there is a checkbox right under your email address.

[Edited by bdcribbs on 08-09-2003 at 10:11 AM]

Mattcrampy
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I'm starting to discover that cookies go everywhere - over the past three days, I've used three different browsers on the same computer.

Incidentally, Mozilla Firebird (not regular Mozilla, the Firebird browser-only release) seems to take all the things I liked about Mozilla and get rid of a lot of things I didn't like about it. For one thing, it can download stuff. It still fares poorly on fruity HTML, but I guess that's to be expected.

Someone mentioned reading the forum via e-mail. I'll put all the e-mail stuff in, although now I'm inclined to think the joker who told me you could get the activity of the forums condensed into .eml form was pulling my leg.

Matt

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trick
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bdcribbs wrote:
What do you mean Scroll Lock is useless? I use it every day! With "tail -f" it's indispensible.

Right! Scroll Lock Powah!

As for cookies in linux, it depends on the browser (like in windows, really). Mozilla Firebird (the "light-weight" Mozilla, ha!) has a cookie manager under Tools->Options->Privacy->Cookies, and Konqueror has one too (i can't tell you where as mine is norwegian). Opera doesn't seem to have one (at least not in v 6.12), but you can delete all cookies by File->Delete private data.

(edit: Eh, i replied to page one. Oops.)

- Gerry


[Edited by trick on 08-09-2003 at 12:43 PM GMT: Duh]

Oneiromancer
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Mattcrampy wrote:
Actually, screw that, I'm just ripping off the SQ4 hint book.

What, the in-game one or the real one? The in-game one was hilariously awesome.

Game on,

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Mattcrampy
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Oneiromancer wrote:

Mattcrampy wrote:
Actually, screw that, I'm just ripping off the SQ4 hint book.

What, the in-game one or the real one? The in-game one was hilariously awesome.

Game on,

The in-game one. I'm seriously thinking of inserting a question that says "Help! I've fallen down and I can't get up!", or maybe "What you doin'?"

The answer: "Watchin' the game, drinkin' a Bud. You?

Wazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzuuuuuuppppppppp!"

But that's just annoying.

Matt

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Oneiromancer
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Mattcrampy wrote:
But that's just annoying.

And pretty outdated by now, too.

Game on,

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ErikH2000
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Mattcrampy wrote:
The problem with the forum is that there's no link to the site. I reckon you'd get a lot greater connection to the site if "DROD.Net" actually pointed to "DROD.Net", rather than back to the forum.

I see your point. I'll bring it up in a separate post.

Oh, one more thing: any ettiquette, 'things we all know and we reckon newbies should too' or even old, useful threads that 'we all' remember should also come directly my way. The FAQ is the perfect place to put it.

I thought you covered it well enough in the last few points under "Rules".

-Erik

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Mattcrampy
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File: DRODFAQ.htm (21.5 KB)
Downloaded 94 times.
License: Other
From: Unspecified

And here it is, revised, updated, and in HTML.

The hints are now hidden using white text, as was my intention. They'll stay with the FAQ for the time being, to save me losing them somewhere on my 'puter. When it gets released, we'll have to separate them, although the current hints page is far more explicit. I've always been more of a 'gentle prod' man when not dealing with a specific question.

Matt

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krammer
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Cool. Just a coupla things though:

1. You still haven't mentioned that you can get all posts sent to your inbox by modifying your profile.

2. You may want to mention the DST and time zone things as well, to stop any clever people who complain the times are all wrong.

3. There are two ds in address.

Not trying to complain, but... who am I kidding, I love pointing out other people's mistakes.

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zex20913
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I like it. It may come across as a little overbearing/you're a bit dumb, but it's good, and it made me laugh a couple of times. One thing you need to mention is the PM system. It's not used that often, (for me at least, maybe I'm a loser), and a lot of people may know how to use it, but it should still be in there.

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Mattcrampy
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Right - I want to try and avoid the 'dumb newbie' humour (fine job I'm doing so far), so I may have to rewrite a couple of the main offenders. I was trying to be conscious of that, but I guess at some point I ran out of material.

I can't believe I forgot the PM system, and I was sure I mentioned getting your posts sent to the inbox. It seems a weird feature, but I'll mention it. I'll add the extra 'd' as well, smartaleck...

Matt

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NoahT
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For newbies: Changes made to forum are talked about or mentioned at these pages:

http://www.drod.net/forum/viewtopic.php?TopicID=648

http://www.drod.net/forum/viewtopic.php?TopicID=648&page=1

http://www.drod.net/forum/viewtopic.php?TopicID=765

-Noah

[Edited by NoahT on 08-24-2003 at 02:17 AM GMT: Removed extra/changed words]

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NoahT
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Bump

-Noah

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NoahT
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Another bump.

-Noah

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bdcribbs
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NoahT wrote:
Another bump.

Why?

Oneiromancer
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Oneiromancer wrote:

NoahT wrote:
Just bringing this thread to the top.

This is known as "bumping" a post. On some boards all a person will do is say "Bump..." and everyone knows what they mean. Now you do too.

Of course, sometimes this is considered rude, depending on how important other people think the topic is, so you do it at your own risk. It is not that egregious a faux pas, though.

Game on,

Ah, Noah, see, I warned you...only important topics are really worth bumping. Now you've got bd (they call him Mr. Cribbs!) annoyed...tsk, tsk, tsk...

Actually, I am sure he isn't really as mad as the angry face indicates, but really, Matt is writing a FAQ that should cover most of this, so there's no need to bump it so much.

Game on,

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bdcribbs
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That's only the second time in my 26 years of existance that anyone other than my mother called me "bd".

And no I wasn't really angry... Neil articulated my complaint better than my terse question did (I admit I was annoyed).

Mattcrampy
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Just in case anyone was interested, we (and by we, I mean Schik) are doing some fiddling around with the server, which will be properly announced when I can work out why I can't FTP to that server.

There are many, many things I still need to learn.

Matt

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mrimer
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Mattcrampy wrote:
Just in case anyone was interested, we (and by we, I mean Schik)...

That's interesting: Today, when I was talking to Schik and said we, I meant "not Schik"

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NoahT
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bdcribbs wrote:

NoahT wrote:
Another bump.

Why?

This thread was low and inactive, and I forgot about Matt's FAQ. I didn't realize I was overdoing it that time, and I thank both you and Neil for the instructive critisism, bd.

Now your "bd" count by someone who's not your mother is 3!

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