Some suggestions.

[SeanW]

Hi everyone,

I've been a long time EBTer, though I didn't do very well at it until recently. While I remain impressed with the amount of note data that is collected, and more so with the amount of ways people can view it, I notice that EBTing is something of a nerds activity and it doesn't seem to have very broad appeal, especially here in Ireland.

I think it might have more appeal (and thus get more ACTIVE users, notes and hits) if it had more of a social and/or gaming context. And to that end I have 2 suggestions: all of them relating to the website (i.e. not forum) side of EBT.

"My Page" message boards, on the website side. If any of you review websites for MyWOT (http://www.mywot.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) you will notice that each user has their own info page, similar to EBT, but on that there is a message board for contacting/conversing with that user. I suggest something like this for EBT to help make it more personal.

Facilities for Clans. One feature that people like about Multiplayer FPS games is that if sufficiently skilled they can join gaming clans. I suggest that EBT build specific clan functionality into the system. I have in mind:
1)Allow any user to create a "Clan," which when populated with members would include an aggregate view of statistics for all members. Listed separately from users, clan information pages would broadly resemble profile views of Cities etc. The creator should be able specify certain settings for the clan, such as the flag it uses in its profile (including an EU flag for international clans). Also the clan tag, and whether it is applied to the beginning or end of member names.
2)An application mechanism to allow any user apply to join any clan and have their application judged by then clan creator.
3)A new name category for all users, the simple "User" name would be complemented by a "Clan name" option, to be changed either by the user of the administrator of any clan they join. For example my primary name would remain SeanW, whereas, I would use my gaming name, Whiplash, in any clan I might join. Or I could set up my own clan, say [Dax] (from Star Trek) and set my clan name as Curzon, while my default name would remain SeanW if I didn't get into a clan or chose to leave one.
4) Clan wars: Simple, one clan admin challenges another to a competition - e.g. enter the most notes in one week. Results to be judged automatically by the system and listed in a clan wars list

[Nerzhul]

Hi,

Thanks for your suggestions! These ideas have been on the todo list for ages now, but I haven't gotten around to implement them.

I already have some cool ideas for additional personal games and stats which I'll take care of in 2011. More on that later

[De-Ker]

Hi everyone,

I've been a long time EBTer, though I didn't do very well at it until recently. While I remain impressed with the amount of note data that is collected, and more so with the amount of ways people can view it, I notice that EBTing is something of a nerds activity and it doesn't seem to have very broad appeal, especially here in Ireland.

I think it might have more appeal (and thus get more ACTIVE users, notes and hits) if it had more of a social and/or gaming context. And to that end I have 2 suggestions: all of them relating to the website (i.e. not forum) side of EBT.

"My Page" message boards, on the website side. If any of you review websites for MyWOT (http://www.mywot.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) you will notice that each user has their own info page, similar to EBT, but on that there is a message board for contacting/conversing with that user. I suggest something like this for EBT to help make it more personal.

Facilities for Clans. One feature that people like about Multiplayer FPS games is that if sufficiently skilled they can join gaming clans. I suggest that EBT build specific clan functionality into the system. I have in mind:
1)Allow any user to create a "Clan," which when populated with members would include an aggregate view of statistics for all members. Listed separately from users, clan information pages would broadly resemble profile views of Cities etc. The creator should be able specify certain settings for the clan, such as the flag it uses in its profile (including an EU flag for international clans). Also the clan tag, and whether it is applied to the beginning or end of member names.
2)An application mechanism to allow any user apply to join any clan and have their application judged by then clan creator.
3)A new name category for all users, the simple "User" name would be complemented by a "Clan name" option, to be changed either by the user of the administrator of any clan they join. For example my primary name would remain SeanW, whereas, I would use my gaming name, Whiplash, in any clan I might join. Or I could set up my own clan, say [Dax] (from Star Trek) and set my clan name as Curzon, while my default name would remain SeanW if I didn't get into a clan or chose to leave one.
4) Clan wars: Simple, one clan admin challenges another to a competition - e.g. enter the most notes in one week. Results to be judged automatically by the system and listed in a clan wars list

First idea is great, but already suggested sometime before.

second idea,
good for new and small users to keep interest if they are part of a larger clan and see more details about hits, and those hits actually feel a little bit like theirs...

Wars will be hard to organize since me and my clan could virtually collect piles of serials and then invite another clan for a 'war' with a massive head start.

periodic wars initiated by admins, would be better I think.

[bren_nmgn]

Hi everyone,

I've been a long time EBTer, though I didn't do very well at it until recently. While I remain impressed with the amount of note data that is collected, and more so with the amount of ways people can view it, I notice that EBTing is something of a nerds activity and it doesn't seem to have very broad appeal, especially here in Ireland.

I think it might have more appeal (and thus get more ACTIVE users, notes and hits) if it had more of a social and/or gaming context. And to that end I have 2 suggestions: all of them relating to the website (i.e. not forum) side of EBT.

"My Page" message boards, on the website side. If any of you review websites for MyWOT (http://www.mywot.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) you will notice that each user has their own info page, similar to EBT, but on that there is a message board for contacting/conversing with that user. I suggest something like this for EBT to help make it more personal.

Facilities for Clans. One feature that people like about Multiplayer FPS games is that if sufficiently skilled they can join gaming clans. I suggest that EBT build specific clan functionality into the system. I have in mind:
1)Allow any user to create a "Clan," which when populated with members would include an aggregate view of statistics for all members. Listed separately from users, clan information pages would broadly resemble profile views of Cities etc. The creator should be able specify certain settings for the clan, such as the flag it uses in its profile (including an EU flag for international clans). Also the clan tag, and whether it is applied to the beginning or end of member names.
2)An application mechanism to allow any user apply to join any clan and have their application judged by then clan creator.
3)A new name category for all users, the simple "User" name would be complemented by a "Clan name" option, to be changed either by the user of the administrator of any clan they join. For example my primary name would remain SeanW, whereas, I would use my gaming name, Whiplash, in any clan I might join. Or I could set up my own clan, say [Dax] (from Star Trek) and set my clan name as Curzon, while my default name would remain SeanW if I didn't get into a clan or chose to leave one.
4) Clan wars: Simple, one clan admin challenges another to a competition - e.g. enter the most notes in one week. Results to be judged automatically by the system and listed in a clan wars list

i think you've got some great ideas there, sean!
especially the first one's really got my blessing!

[Phaseolus]

I do also support this (first) proposal, especially so many people speak about an EBT-Community and gathers then on the Forum or on FB...

[Jes]

It may be interesting, true. (I like the idea too) But maybe it is a lot of work for Nerzhul.

[SeanW]

I've come up with a few ideas that I think the EBT team could implement immediately, i.e. without a whole load of extra work.

1) Grant all users, regardless of notes entered, access to all forms. Change the policy from a "hard" i.e. you only have access to X forms, to a "soft" i.e. you get X form by default but can select another.
Basically what I'm suggesting is that new users continue to be shown the simple form by default, but they can go the Advanced or Expert forms if they want to. Likewise, once the user gets to 25 notes, they are shown the Advanced form, but can choose to see the Simple or Expert forms.

The reason I suggest this change is that a lot of users just enter a small number of notes, e.g. 1 note, and go away. I don't see the logic in "holding out" on those users.

2) Make the "My Hits" picture hotlink to the prototype Google Hitmaps, the way you have done with the dotmaps. The work on the hitmaps is already done, but it isn't well known, at least I didn't find out about it until today, and then only by reading these boards.

3) Create a Facebook page. Self explanatory. Reason: more publicity

I would still like to see clan functionality and website side messaging boards, but if Nerzhul is the only one doing development work, obviously these things are firmly relegated to the "nice to have, but ..." category. The suggestions I've outlined above shouldn't be too much, I hope.

[R/J]

1) Grant all users, regardless of notes entered, access to all forms. Change the policy from a "hard" i.e. you only have access to X forms, to a "soft" i.e. you get X form by default but can select another.
Basically what I'm suggesting is that new users continue to be shown the simple form by default, but they can go the Advanced or Expert forms if they want to. Likewise, once the user gets to 25 notes, they are shown the Advanced form, but can choose to see the Simple or Expert forms.

The reason I suggest this change is that a lot of users just enter a small number of notes, e.g. 1 note, and go away. I don't see the logic in "holding out" on those users.

The idea here is that you first have to prove you are a serious user by entering a number of notes. In this way, it's not possible (read: a little bit more trouble) to enter a lot of fake notes in the database.

My problem with this is that the other entering forms is that they're quite hidden, you should get a message like "You've now entered X notes, you can now use the Y entering form".

[Jes]

3) Create a Facebook page. Self explanatory. Reason: more publicity

Check facebook. It already exists (or I didn't understand you)

[SeanW]

Yes, there is A Facebook page, but it's just regurgitated material from Wikipedia.
Edit: it's here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/EuroBillT ... 9952136268" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'm talking about a proper 'user' page maintained by EBT volunteers, with a wall to write on, news, interesting stats about the latest hits, etc, basically something more substantial to get the EBT name "out there" more, on Facebook.

[eddydevries]

Yes, there is A Facebook page, but it's just regurgitated material from Wikipedia.
Edit: it's here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/EuroBillT ... 9952136268" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'm talking about a proper 'user' page maintained by EBT volunteers, with a wall to write on, news, interesting stats about the latest hits, etc, basically something more substantial to get the EBT name "out there" more, on Facebook.

Do you mean something like the EuroBillTrackers-Group?

[SeanW]

I've been giving some thought to the idea of clans, and I now suggest that they be implemented in a way that uses the least possible amount of developers time. I have some limited grounding in software development, though nothing recent or extensive enough to help Nerzhul actually implement anything (for now anyway)

I assume that the EBT team comprises of Nerzhul, who is the sole developer, and perhaps a number of lower-grade adminstrators, who are DBAs (Database Administrators). I suggest therefore, borrowing code and concepts from existing data types, User and City, to create a clan structure as quickly as possible.

My suggested methods, however, may make more maintenance work for the DBAs.

A user, for example, declares themselves to live in a city - i.e. there is one field in their user control panel for city. I suggest that clans work off the same principle - i.e. they get a field in their control panels and when they declare themselves to be a member of a clan not yet existing, it is created, in the same way that a city is created when a user enters a new note from a city not yet listed.
A user could join any clan by simply declaring it in their page - there would not initially be any controls available to clan leaders including the acceptance/rejection system I suggested above - this would all be long fingered and any control work needing to be done would be handled by support requests to the DBAs.
The second thing to do would be to have aggregate statistics, again, the clan would borrow code and concepts from the city. A city has users (x active) registered there, and it also has a hits and hitpartner cities statistics pages. These all would be borrowed by the clans.

Also important would be clans note list, which would be the entire EBT note list (http://en.eurobilltracker.com/notes/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) filtered down to those entered by the clan, much as can already be done by country and even by denomination, printed and country printed for (http://en.eurobilltracker.com/notes/?command=8;tab=4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

Also important would be teams map - their team dotmap and hitmap.


Would this be any more feasible than the more fully featured clan setup I suggested in Post 1?