Carcassonne Central

Carc Central Community => General => Topic started by: gantry on February 08, 2013, 07:47:13 PM

Title: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: gantry on February 08, 2013, 07:47:13 PM
Title says it all. It's almost 8pm my time, I was thinking about opening the new forums up to everyone tomorrow morning sometime. Let me know if there's anything else critical that needs to be done first.

No new posts allowed by regular members on old forums, if someone needs a new post, any moderator or staff can create one for them. We'll leave the old ones open to posting for another week or so.

Now am going to go have dinner and a beer or three
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Scott on February 08, 2013, 07:57:54 PM
I think we're ready to go. I've got the essential add-ons installed.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: gantry on February 09, 2013, 10:37:25 AM
Okay, I set it to open registration
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Scott on February 09, 2013, 12:01:11 PM
Ok, I'll post on Facebook (and BGG if Kettlefish hasn't already beaten me to it), and the stampede will commence.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: kettlefish on February 09, 2013, 12:07:59 PM
Sorry, Scott, I did that at BGG also at the Carcassonne-Forum.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Scott on February 09, 2013, 12:15:41 PM
No worries. I suspected you probably did. ;)
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: kettlefish on February 10, 2013, 05:23:21 AM
I also posted at the HiG-Chat, that the new CarcassonneCentral forum is online.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: kettlefish on February 10, 2013, 06:47:42 AM
Scott posted also the information about our new CarcassonneCentral forum
at the HiG facebook page.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: kettlefish on February 10, 2013, 07:10:24 AM
Scott posted also the information about our new CarcassonneCentral forum
at the Z-Man Games facebook page.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Scott on February 10, 2013, 07:20:46 AM
I also sent an e-mail to Kalinda Patton letting her know about our relaunch yesterday.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Purity on February 10, 2013, 10:10:32 AM
is there a possibility to send a pm or mail to all registered users of the 'old' carcassonne central forum, informing them that they 'may' register on the new forum (if they want to)?
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Purity on February 10, 2013, 10:12:50 AM
perhaps we could also post the message flow of 'old' interesting threads (also of other users, not only our own) in the new forum (instead of a link to that thread). this way we may be able to delete and get rid of the old and messed up forum anytime in the future. maybe its to much work and a useless idea...
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: kettlefish on February 10, 2013, 10:14:44 AM
Hi Purity,

I can't any longer write a PM at the old forum.
That part of the forum is closed.

I wrote PM's to all the authors and to the founding members.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: kettlefish on February 10, 2013, 10:36:41 AM
I posted again at the old forum that the people can register here in the new forum.

Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Scott on February 10, 2013, 01:44:44 PM
Gantry should be able to send an email to everyone on the old forum. That would also reach people that don't go there anymore.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Purity on February 10, 2013, 03:07:16 PM
...thats what i mean!
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Carcking on February 10, 2013, 04:12:37 PM
Okay, I set it to open registration

I'm tickled to share a birthday with the new CarcassonneCentral forum!  ;D
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: kettlefish on February 10, 2013, 04:16:09 PM
I hope you had a nice day yesterday at your birthday...
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Scott on February 10, 2013, 04:33:13 PM
I'm tickled to share a birthday with the new CarcassonneCentral forum!  ;D

I was going to wish you a happy birthday but you hadn't registered yet, so belated happy birthday to you, sir!
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Carcking on February 10, 2013, 05:46:34 PM
I'm tickled to share a birthday with the new CarcassonneCentral forum!  ;D

I was going to wish you a happy birthday but you hadn't registered yet, so belated happy birthday to you, sir!

Many thanks! I spent the whole weekend at the NASCAR Hall of Fame induction and Museum. What a great trip!
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Scott on February 10, 2013, 05:58:46 PM
Got FTP access and quickly added two tiny features.

You should see on your browser tab that the light tile back image now shows up as the logo:

(http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/3025/browsertabi.png)

I also added an Apple touch icon, in case anybody decides to bookmark our site on their iPhone or iPad home screen:

(http://img541.imageshack.us/img541/5194/img0482.png)

Although I have to say, the forum is much easier to read using the Tapatalk app which I didn't know existed until yesterday:

(http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/743/img0483q.png)

Based on the user reviews, I bought the classic version of Tapatalk, which was a few dollars cheaper than the newer version and the classic version also works on iPad, though I think the screen is big enough on iPad to just use Safari.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: AlbinoAsian on February 10, 2013, 06:39:40 PM
Scott great work on the favicon, also glad to see you enjoy tapatalk.

I'm on android, and definitely vouch for it being worth the few dollars.
- Here is the normal Tapatalk app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.quoord.tapatalkpro.activity&hl=en)
- There is also a
HD version (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.quoord.tapatalkHD) for tablet usage, but I doubt I'd use it even if I had a tab

Thanks again
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Scott on February 11, 2013, 04:51:59 PM
I just added a block to the home page listing 10 active eBay items related to Carcassonne, and now I feel like maybe it's causing a delay when loading that page. Thoughts?
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: kettlefish on February 11, 2013, 04:59:11 PM
It's slowly.

I don't need the ebay things...
-------------------

More important are some advices from HiG.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Scott on February 11, 2013, 05:24:05 PM
I think it was moreso the Facebook block that was slowing things down. I've turned that off but left the eBay one for now. See if anybody thinks it is still too slow.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: kettlefish on February 11, 2013, 05:26:41 PM
It is faster for me now.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: AlbinoAsian on February 11, 2013, 09:22:06 PM
Though i do like the landing page with the Facebook feed. Its kind of redundant for people like myself who get it in our Facebook page/app already. So leaving it off is best if its quicker I think.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: kettlefish on February 12, 2013, 09:29:07 AM
The people don't check that they have to come here in the new forum.

I can't write there any PM to all the members. That is closed.

Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Bixby on February 12, 2013, 09:49:02 AM
I like the front landing page. Nice work. A couple more suggestions for the Forums...

(1) There is a setting to turn on notifications in a thread when you post in the thread. I found that is very helpful. You may want to consider that as a default global setting. (Members can change it if they like).

(2) The post counts and Merit changed for a few folks and not everyone makes some of the stats and reporting a bit of a misrepresentation. I would vote for no past history on member profiles or all. A blended approach does skew the results.

(3) The RSS Feed from BoardGameGeek is a nice touch.

(4) Interested in building / creating a more robust Smiley Set?

(5) Once the site has got its sea legs and you have recovered from the migration, I have a few ideas for engagement strategy to get more member participation in the forums and discussion. Feel free to contact me if you are interested and when you have some time.

All in all. Well done!!!
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Carcassebs on February 12, 2013, 10:03:25 AM
(3) The RSS Feed from BoardGameGeek is a nice touch.

It is in the footer, although not sure if you can get it per forum. On BBG, you can have it at any level.

(4) Interested in building / creating a more robust Smiley Set?

Agreed, one will all possible meeples?

(5) ...I have a few ideas for engagement strategy to get more member participation in the forums and discussion.

An idea that would be nice if you can get some commitment from HiG would be a section in the forum where fan can ask questions and interact with HiG. Perhaps they could come once a week or so, or every month? They can just assign a guy to do this?
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Scott on February 12, 2013, 10:16:52 AM
1) I prefer to leave that off by default.

2) Gantry intended to copy these for everyone.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Scott on February 12, 2013, 10:18:48 AM
4) Yes, I suspect people want Carc-specific smilies.

5) I am interested to hear more about that. Send me a pm or email.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: gantry on February 12, 2013, 11:20:33 AM
I like the front landing page. Nice work. A couple more suggestions for the Forums...

(1) There is a setting to turn on notifications in a thread when you post in the thread. I found that is very helpful. You may want to consider that as a default global setting. (Members can change it if they like).

Anyone can set this for themselves. Go to Profile, Modify Profile, Notifications. Check off the first checkbox. As Scott stated, we prefer to leave this off globally, but individuals can set this.

Quote from: Bixby
(2) The post counts and Merit changed for a few folks and not everyone makes some of the stats and reporting a bit of a misrepresentation. I would vote for no past history on member profiles or all. A blended approach does skew the results.

I am going to do this, but it is a manual process thus incredibly slow. I will probably do a couple of hours a week to migrate the bulk of members over in the coming weeks.

Quote from: Bixby
(4) Interested in building / creating a more robust Smiley Set?

I had custom smileys on the old site, they are easily enough transferred over if Scott wants? Plus I agree we should have Carc-related smileys for sure, perhaps put up a post asking if members want to contribute?

Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Bixby on February 12, 2013, 11:29:30 AM
RE: NOTIFICATIONS
Anyone can set this for themselves. Go to Profile, Modify Profile, Notifications. Check off the first checkbox. As Scott stated, we prefer to leave this off globally, but individuals can set this.
Thanks. I have changed mine. I was not sure if the setting was by choice or not. Perhaps after things settle out a bit, a brief FAQ for members about some settings they can control would assist members in tailoring the site to their specific needs.

RE: POST COUNTS & MERIT
I am going to do this, but it is a manual process thus incredibly slow. I will probably do a couple of hours a week to migrate the bulk of members over in the coming weeks.
Thanks for the reply. Sounds like a lot of work. Appreciate your efforts.

RE: SMILEYS
I had custom smileys on the old site, they are easily enough transferred over if Scott wants? Plus I agree we should have Carc-related smileys for sure, perhaps put up a post asking if members want to contribute?
I can certainly make any or all of the smileys I have on my two sites available. Scott is a member of SaskGames so he can have a peak at the smileys in use there. Let me know if I can be of further assistance.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Scott on February 12, 2013, 12:43:24 PM
I'll take care of the smilies over the next day or two.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Purity on February 12, 2013, 01:50:06 PM
The people don't check that they have to come here in the new forum.

I can't write there any PM to all the members. That is closed.



as said, a pm by one of the admins to all old members might make sense...
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Scott on February 12, 2013, 09:25:04 PM
I managed to log in to the old forums and I'm in the process of sending e-mails to all registered users. Apologies to those who are already here.

I also disabled the ability to post on the old forum, and I posted a message at the top of every page that we've moved to the new forums. Hopefully people get the hint now.

I looked at the smilies on the old forum, and at the smilies on SaskGames and BGG. I don't see the need for most of them. I added the meeple smile from BGG, and I found a bunch of hidden smilies which are now visible.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Bixby on February 12, 2013, 10:06:28 PM
Thanks Scott!
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: gantry on February 12, 2013, 10:16:48 PM
nice!
 :meeple:  >:D
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Ratz65 on February 12, 2013, 11:28:56 PM
It would also be good if you are sending a message to all at the old forum. Then get some members an e-mail that do not look maybe the forum, because it no longer worked.  ;)
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Carcking on February 13, 2013, 03:11:54 AM
I managed to log in to the old forums and I'm in the process of sending e-mails to all registered users. Apologies to those who are already here.


Scott, I got the email but the link is not working.  :'(
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Scott on February 13, 2013, 06:12:50 AM
Scott, I got the email but the link is not working.  :'(

Hmm... I see. People will have to copy-paste it then. The link was just for convenience. The main thing is that people know we are back in business.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: AlbinoAsian on February 13, 2013, 09:41:12 AM
For some reason the "show most recent posts" link doesn't show all the most recent posts, well at least for me. If I look at recently updated posts through tapatalk there are several posts and threads that aren't showing up on the forums recent posts feature. Any ideas why?
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: kettlefish on February 13, 2013, 09:44:44 AM
I see only the five posts. But I don't know if they are the newest posts.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: kettlefish on February 13, 2013, 09:55:04 AM
We have two new Global Moderators here in the forum.

Congratulations to you both:

Carcking
Bixby
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Bixby on February 13, 2013, 10:06:24 AM
We have two new Global Moderators here in the forum.

Congratulations to you both:

Carcking
Bixby

I need to learn to keep my mouth shut. Apparently having opinions gets you conscripted.  ;D
Thanks for the welcome.

(I am more of an SMF support person for Scott if he needs it than anything else).
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Scott on February 13, 2013, 10:15:51 AM
Yeah, I put Bixby in the global mods group to facilitate discussion about our marketing strategy. Carcking is the only one of the two expected to do moderating.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: gantry on February 13, 2013, 12:34:08 PM
congrats all! :)
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: kettlefish on February 13, 2013, 01:28:00 PM

(5) ...I have a few ideas for engagement strategy to get more member participation in the forums and discussion.

An idea that would be nice if you can get some commitment from HiG would be a section in the forum where fan can ask questions and interact with HiG. Perhaps they could come once a week or so, or every month? They can just assign a guy to do this?

What I am doing - for the HiG-Chat or for the CarcassonneCentral forum or for the German Carcassonne-Forum?

If there are some questions about the rules and the rules are sometimes not clear enough - I ask HiG direct.
The normal case is, to write HiG an email but I prefer to ring them up. My contact there for the rules is Georg Wild.

Last year at the Spiel 2012 in Essen (Thursday 18.10.12) I had an interview with HiG - Georg Wild and Christof Tisch.
Thank you both, for answering all my questions about the rules of Carcassonne.

The questions gave me Obervet03 from CarcassonneCentral.
I posted the result of that interview at the HiG-Chat first in German. And then Obervet03 helped me with the translation and correction reading from German to English.
Thanks Obervet03 for your help.

I'll post the result of the interview at the rules section

Here at the CarcassonneCentral forum we have the CAR - "Carcassonne - The Complete Annotated Rules".
In the past Matt Harper was working on this. Obervet03 started in Summer 2012  with the CAR 6.0. I'm helping Obervet03 with the correction reading of the rules for the CAR and what I already did for the current CAR 6.1. and S-CAR 6.2 and W-CAR 1.0.

Last week and also yesterday I called with the people at HiG.
The normal way is that I have my monthly telephone call with HiG.
But sometimes it is neccessary to call more.
The next official call about questions of rules is in late Spring this year.

Greetings
kettlefish

Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Carcking on February 13, 2013, 01:56:23 PM
There is no doubt I nominate kettlefish to be the official CarcassonneCentral liason to HiG. The work she has done has been immense and fantastic. Kudos to kettlefish!  :meeple:
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Bixby on February 13, 2013, 01:59:45 PM
There is no doubt I nominate kettlefish to be the official CarcassonneCentral liason to HiG. The work she has done has been immense and fantastic. Kudos to kettlefish!  :meeple:

Agreed. It goes without saying.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Scott on February 13, 2013, 02:23:27 PM
As far as I'm concerned, she already was our official representative since she started doing this.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: kettlefish on February 13, 2013, 02:26:33 PM
Yes Scott,
but many people here didn't know that.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Carcassebs on February 13, 2013, 04:55:19 PM
If there are some questions about the rules and the rules are sometimes not clear enough - I ask HiG direct.
The normal case is, to write HiG an email but I prefer to ring them up. My contact there for the rules is Georg Wild.

That's very cool, I was just reading the post (http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=57.0) about this and I think it is nice to know that we can get answers from the makers of the game!

Thanks for doing this.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Carcassebs on February 19, 2013, 12:48:54 PM
I just added a block to the home page listing 10 active eBay items related to Carcassonne...

I noticed that you have the BBG latest 10, which is a great idea, but it is the latest 10 posts rather than topics and when you get a popular topic like the current one, you get 10 post/items of the same:

Quote from: Home Page

 Reply: Carcassonne:: General:: Re: Only one expansion, but which one? - 19 February
 Reply: Carcassonne:: General:: Re: Only one expansion, but which one? - 19 February
 Reply: Carcassonne:: General:: Re: Only one expansion, but which one? - 19 February
 Reply: Carcassonne:: General:: Re: Only one expansion, but which one? - 19 February
 Reply: Carcassonne:: General:: Re: Only one expansion, but which one? - 19 February
 Reply: Carcassonne:: General:: Re: Only one expansion, but which one? - 19 February
 Reply: Carcassonne:: General:: Re: Only one expansion, but which one? - 19 February
 Reply: Carcassonne:: General:: Re: Only one expansion, but which one? - 19 February
 Reply: Carcassonne:: General:: Re: Only one expansion, but which one? - 19 February
 Reply: Carcassonne:: General:: Re: Only one expansion, but which one? - 19 February

Not sure if your widget lets you amalgamate more than one feed per block? If it does, I think that it would be best to include the feed of the latest topics and not posts. You get this by clicking on the RSS icon besides each forum section.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: AlbinoAsian on February 19, 2013, 03:00:01 PM
Yes i do prefer 10 most recently updated threads etc. If it can't be done no big deal though :)
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Scott on February 19, 2013, 04:08:00 PM
I prefer topics too, but that was the only feed I could find which covered all forums. I think I will have to investigate doing my own aggregation; then I can also aggregate from the expansion forums.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: kettlefish on February 20, 2013, 11:51:40 AM
Scott,

is it possible to put the part of the forum "News and Events" at the "Recent topics" at the first page, too?

There are only 5 "Recent topics" but not the "News and Events".
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Scott on February 20, 2013, 12:20:47 PM
Yes, I can do that. I turned it off when we launched because the forum was empty.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: kettlefish on February 22, 2013, 06:30:26 AM
The registration is stagnating by the members from the old forum to the new forum.

What can we do?

 
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Bixby on February 22, 2013, 10:13:05 AM
The registration is stagnating by the members from the old forum to the new forum.

What can we do?

There is currently 168 members on this site. I think that is pretty amazing for less than 1 month of being operational. Signups are likely to be much lower now and will steadily pickup when the following occur:

(1) New product is released and people are looking for information or rule clarifications.
(2) People learn about the site at other sites and blogs such as BGG, FortressAT, BoardGameInfo, etc.

I am surprised with the number of sign ups and think it is a very good sign that this site has re-achieved inertia to go forward. It will likely just be a slower pace now with a few blips or increases once in awhile.

Just my thoughts.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Scott on February 22, 2013, 12:21:48 PM
Yeah, a lot of the members were inactive, or only signed up to download the CAR. You'll never get all of them back.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: gantry on February 22, 2013, 01:06:10 PM
or only signed up to download the CAR.

^ this. We could probably generate more signups if we made Rules and Workshop accessible by members only.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: kettlefish on February 22, 2013, 02:37:41 PM
What I did was, to call with HiG yesterday.

Now we have the 2nd link to our CarcassonneCentral forum at the HiG Homepage .

http://www.hans-im-glueck.de/carcassonne/carcassonne-grundspiel/

the box: "Foren"
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Scott on February 22, 2013, 10:46:47 PM
Took me all evening, but I finally got an aggregated list of the latest threads from BoardGameGeek showing on the forum home page. It took three attempts before I was successful, and it doesn't help that there are 336 different feeds pertaining to Carcassonne including expansions and spin-offs. I'm quite happy with the end result because it's very configurable and easy to expand when more expansions and spin-offs are released.

The 10 most recent threads are listed, with the most recent at the top.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: kettlefish on February 23, 2013, 05:32:59 AM
Took me all evening, but I finally got an aggregated list of the latest threads from BoardGameGeek showing on the forum home page. It took three attempts before I was successful, and it doesn't help that there are 336 different feeds pertaining to Carcassonne including expansions and spin-offs. I'm quite happy with the end result because it's very configurable and easy to expand when more expansions and spin-offs are released.

The 10 most recent threads are listed, with the most recent at the top.

Thanks Scott,
that list looks good with the latest threads from BGG. Now it makes sense.
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Carcking on February 23, 2013, 08:11:12 AM
What I did was, to call with HiG yesterday.

Now we have the 2nd link to our CarcassonneCentral forum at the HiG Homepage .

http://www.hans-im-glueck.de/carcassonne/carcassonne-grundspiel/

the box: "Foren"

Well done kettlefish!
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: kettlefish on February 26, 2013, 12:34:09 PM
The profile here at the CarcassonneCentral forum:
Only a thought:
-------------------------------------
We have in the Carcassonne-Forum in the profile follows:

BGG: yes/no
BGG name: kettlefish

CarcCentral: yes/no
CarcCentral name: kettlefish
---------------------------------------
What do you think about?
Title: Re: Any last things need doing before opening doors to all members?
Post by: Scott on February 26, 2013, 12:49:42 PM
I can add some fields for that, but I think two us enough. Don't need yes/no fields.