General > General Discussion
Pixelation 2.0
Cure:
Excited for this. No real feedback, this isn't a topic I've given much thought to, but I like your goals and the direction it's taking. Seems much more accessible, and the pixel-wiki is increasingly necessary for newbie engagement as pixel jargon accumulates (and because the jargon has always been a criticism). The portfolio also seems like a necessary step, a good way of having a personal, curated gallery without the competitive edge that the PJ common-gallery entails. Onward and upward.
Jeremy:
I really like the middle view here :)
Your prototype synthesises forums and contemporary discussion platforms really well – I've never liked the way e.g. Reddit handles threading, and Twitter's ever-evolving algorithm for ordering replies is a nightmare. To me, a real advantage of forums is how 'dumb' they are – they don't try to guess what I want to see first, and things are in the obvious place the next time I look for them.
Couple of other thoughts:
* I'm not sure how I feel about karma systems. The system Pixelation has now (and the profile karma score you have in the mockup) works well to show "this is a person who makes good posts", but I feel like visible scores on individual posts can have perverse outcomes (i.e. people crafting their posts to maximise their karma, rather than make the most valuable contribution). IDK???
* I know of mobile forum apps that automatically upload pictures to imgur when you select them from your image library – could something like this work here?
* One advantage Pixelation has had over PJ is avatar size – it'd be a shame to lose that extra real estate ;)
Indigo:
@eishiya
--- Quote ---The demo looks nice, but there's one bit I don't like: the Twitter-esque side bar. It makes the page feel cramped. I also dislike the numbers focus is creates, those things should not be at the forefront.
--- End quote ---
I can see the argument for removing the stats, though I personally don't see those particular stats as problematic as something like followers or whatever. Will think more on this.
as for the sidebar in general, I think that has to stay. It needs to support an arbitrary amount of boards, and vertical lists are perfect for that. Horizontal lists are problematic for responsive design and force you into situations where you need to hide important information behind dropdowns. I've been thinking about removing the sidebar once you dive into a thread though - which might be a good compromise.
--- Quote ---How are the images representing each thread going to be chosen? Is it the latest image, or the first? Does the user get to choose? Are 3rd party embeds going to be used, or will the feature be limited to attachments?
--- End quote ---
How to handle images is the most complicated thing to solve. There are several options and each has different tradeoffs:
- first-class images attached to the bottom (or maybe top depending on the design) to the forum post
This is the cleanest from a design standpoint. The data is separate from the post's content and can easily be extracted for use elsewhere in the forum. How those images are presented on various screen resolutions or platforms is easily controlled. Settings can easily be made for boards to require images, no images, or optional images. On the down-side, you can't inline the images into your response.
- arbitrary inline images uploaded and embedded into the post content
This gives the user the most flexibility on how to present their images, it also makes it a very cumbersome process, tech-wise, to give them the first-class treatment for the rest of the forum. Not impossible, but difficult. It also makes it more opaque to the user - informing the user about image requirements for different boards would be a difficult problem, and it isn't clear about which images become the thumbnail or feature banners. Assuming a thumbnail is automatically chosen (from let's say the first image for example), users would then have to reformat their response such that the correct thumbnail gets used even if that wasn't the optimal order to show them in the response. We can write something up to explain all this, but it will never be as clear as having an image upload box.
- Half and half; first class image attachments and inline uploaded images
We can treat them as two separate upload systems. Inline images can never become thumbs. This solves some of the design complexities, allowing us to easily extract the images, and easily set image requirements, but it also potentially creates more confusion about when it's appropriate to use each kind of upload. I'd imagine a lot of people uploading inline and then getting frustrated it's not showing up in the galleries and things like that
- Half and half; first class image attachments, and allow for inline external links if needed
This is my current thinking. Only one upload system, images attached to the post, but allow for external linking via BBCode or something similar. What I like about this is it encourages using the embedded system which provides the best user experience overall. You don't have two systems competing with each other. Yes, it remains a pain to do inline images (as much as it is currently), but honestly, I'm not 100% convinced inline is as necessary as it seems for critique. It should be fairly easy to refer to an image by labeling it or whatever and it works just as well. I think it just takes adapting to. But regardless the inline option will still be there. It might also be possible to rehost externally linked images automatically for preservation.
if you have examples where sites have solved this problem well, please link me.
--- Quote ---Will there be any incentive to use the karma system
--- End quote ---
No, besides being a good member. The idea is that Karma will serve as an efficient way to sort threads to find the best content. Each thread gets its own karma score based on how much Karma was given to people throughout the thread. It'd also be a great way of quickly Identifying people who are great contributors and give great feedback on the forums. Giving a karma point is like saying "thank you." It might end up being called something different to help reflect that.
--- Quote ---It would be nice for threads in the thread list (at least in the critique sections) to include the date of the latest reply by the OP right up front. I'd say that's more important than when the thread started, even
--- End quote ---
that's interesting. I don't think I've seen any forum do this - the most common thing is to show the date of the last reply, which I was also planning to support. Will think about your idea more.
--- Quote ---Discourse has a feature where it'll automatically copy embedded offsite images to the server, so that old threads don't get broken if the offsite images are deleted. I'd love to have that for Pixelation. So many of the old threads have broken images
--- End quote ---
Yup, probably a good thing to support.
--- Quote ---A less Javascript-heavy basic UI than the demo. JS is necessary for things like the magic embeds I requested here, but I'd like to see JS used only where it's necessary, like the current version. Navigating the site, making posts, etc should not require JS to be enabled.
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The tech stack I've chosen requires javascript. Can't get around it. This is the way the modern web is moving and it's less likely these days for people to disable JS. that said, I am looking into server-side rendering, where a static page is served up first before it gets saturated with JS - instead of building the site entirely on the client with JS. This would help for the few that choose to not enable JS.
--- Quote ---Not really a feature request, but an idea of sorts: How about implementing ActivityPub?
--- End quote ---
Neat Idea, I'll look into it.
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@0xDB
--- Quote ---Suggestion to support sign in with twitter (and/or google+/etc.)
--- End quote ---
social signup is a good idea. Will probably do that (in addition to email)
--- Quote ---Tweet buttons next to images would be nice for that but they should not just tweet the image but rather link to the post they're in
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Good idea, but will probably put a share button in a dropdown of the forum post rather than the image itself
--- Quote ---For the lowpoly 3D section it would also be nice to have an embedded model viewer so that users don't need to upload huge GIF files. That is of course only if lowpoly is still wanted on the new platform and not getting axed in favor of focusing only on 2D pixel art
--- End quote ---
going to focus on images first, though other viewers are a great stretch goal. We are going to get rid of the low poly section, and instead allow people to post it straight in general, probably with a "low-spec" tag or something similar
--- Quote ---For that purpose please don't forget to add zoom in and out buttons next to images which scale by nearest-neighbor filtering
--- End quote ---
For sure!
--- Quote ---Mediawiki style markup would be cool
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Great ideas. Not quite sure how we're handling the wiki yet; whether it's external or built in.
--- Quote ---A feature to create a PDF from a thread (with all images embedded) would be nice to have as well to save local backups of threads for offline reading
--- End quote ---
Interesting idea. Is offline reading something you do a lot?
--- Quote ---A quick one-click(ok maybe two-click to prevent accidental reporting) report feature would be good as well with the ability to choose common report reasons (e.g. spam) from a list.
--- End quote ---
sure thing
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@Cure
Thanks a ton for the support :)
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@Jeremy
--- Quote ---I'm not sure how I feel about karma systems. The system Pixelation has now (and the profile karma score you have in the mockup) works well to show "this is a person who makes good posts", but I feel like visible scores on individual posts can have perverse outcomes (i.e. people crafting their posts to maximise their karma, rather than make the most valuable contribution). IDK???
--- End quote ---
Yeah it's a good point and we should think more on it, but a counter point is I don't think it's been a problem in the past so far. Not to mention if it encourages people to behave in ways that rewards karma - assuming that karma as rewarded in the intended fashion - isn't that a win?
--- Quote ---One advantage Pixelation has had over PJ is avatar size
--- End quote ---
I played heavily with different avatar sizes and arrived at the size I did because it was the largest I can make it without needing to be rescaled for different contexts (usually). Any larger, then there are many view where you'd need it smaller. Basically I was optimizing for pixel perfect resolution retention rather than scale.
Rydin:
Less is more. There should be restrictions just like there is in our art.
4 board restriction.
Too many sub-boards are convoluted and it divides focused attention.
Same if there's too many features.
"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." -Bruce Lee
If we focus on doing one thing really well, we avoid being superfluous and people will love and respect it.
Something like this:
Indigo:
Definitely agree that less boards is more! Which is exactly why we are reducing our boards from 12 to 5 (General, Activities, Critique, Projects, and Job Offers), and removing all child boards. Archives and feature chests are no longer needed with the built in featured and tagging systems
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