ideas for GT evolution MK3

This is the third incarnation of the Ideas for GT' Evolution thread.

Please read these guidelines in detail before posting in the topic; MANY things have changed since the release of the redesign over a year ago, and many suggested ideas under speculation in this thread's predecessor have been covered by that (including some that had previously been rejected.)

Posts that do not follow the below guidelines will probably be deleted:

1) Only post here if you have a unique idea for GT's improvement. In an attempt to keep the thread concise, discussion of ideas is NOT encouraged.

2) DO NOT SPAM OR WHINE. This is not the place for you to complain about things you don't like about GT, just for constructive advice and ideas for the future.

3) READ the posts in the thread, to make sure that you are not simply rehashing a previous suggestion.

4) Take the time to consider whether your idea is practical and useful, or frivolous and inefficient:

--- a. What level of user demand for this idea would there be?

--- b. Does it serve a purpose?

--- c. Is there something else GT does that already takes care of this?

--- d. Include your reasoning in your post.

5) Keep in mind that this is neither a list of demands, nor a slate of what WILL be put into place. This is merely a thread to allow the users to express and refine their ideas for what they would like to see done with GT. The final decision ultimately rests with staff.

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Suggested ideas previously rejected:

BBS edit button.

Smilies in BBS posts.

Polls for BBS.

More experience for BBS posts.

Favorite threads in Profile.

Selling GT scripts.

Self banning from the site/BBS/wherever.

Ability to delete your own account.

Ability to change your account username

Big thanks to SC, RT, and whoever else contributed original ideas in the previous thread. I'd go through and list the clutch of people who contributed useful suggestions personally, but reading through just under 1,900 pages to get that list is far too time consuming!

hey thanks for making this thread Reauk, now I don't have to make it

A few recent suggestions that have popped up, I'm sure I mentioned them elsewhere, but I'll list them here too for the sake of it:

1) It would be cool to have some sort of spoiler feature, where you can hide bits of your post so that they are only revealed when people click a link to reveal them. This could come in handy when a user wants to be able to discuss a movie or video game that was recently released without ruining it for everyone else. Right now, we encourage putting spoiler in the title, but its not always effective or followed.

2) An update blurb for topics. I often find that the users complaining about the lack of an edit button, want to actually add on to the original topic with some sort of update. Giving them use of a small space that would appear in a form similar to a response to a review, but could only be used once, might be an interesting alternative. I feel no need to have this feature myself, but it could be interesting, and I think it would be used.

3) The ability to post pictures in the middle of a post. Maybe still require that text comes before the picture, but there have been times when I've wanted to refer directly to a graph or some other graphic, and I've had to put it at the bottom where it feels unrelated or might be after a very long post.

The only suggestion I have is that you get an indicator of when someone has responded to one of your news posts. I picture something similar to how you're notified that you have a PM, but perhaps it could be a different color or look different to distinguish itself as a news post comment and when you clicked on it, you would be taken directly to the news post that was commented on. That would come in handy for those who make multiple news posts around the same time so the author would see comments that they might have missed otherwise.

Display whistle and badge points. I mean, why not?

Develop a "User Quality" stat. It would be based on the number of and ratios of useful reviews to useless/abusive reviews, and could also factor in batting average, post count, and anything else considered beneficial to the GT community. Users could moderate this stat. Beneath every post/review/submission there should be an option of "Quality Point", and every user has the option to give one point per day, sort of like the way we have limited EXP gains. This encourages users (especially the statwhores) to occasionally write a review of surpassing quality, or make an extremely useful point or topic in the forums. Right now, there is no stat indicator of how useful a user really is.

Make the users able to sort reviews by date of author response. It's always a bit unsatisfying if I notice that the number of my responses increased but I can't find the response because the author responded to a very old review.

Also, the reviews should be sortable by rating, just how it was before the redisign.

I think the Search engine should be improved as of now, it is very redundant, I mean it is case-sensitive and one word off generates "No results could be found", exceptional annoying for perhaps visitors.
I will go out and say its the worst search engine I've ever seen/used.

PM System:

Sent Folder
It would be awesome if there was a folder where a copy of sent pms are saved. Been times I couldn't remember what was sent to a couple of mods or users and think it could be handy in cutting down miscommunications/threads.

Audio Player for user page
Been mentioned a few times, but I think it would be pretty cool if people can use the audio entries to listen on the userpage without having to go to submission page to listen.

Apart from the whole search bar being a pile of shit, I'd like to see "Which of my [PM contacts] (or buddies or whatever) have new blogs?", "Which of my blog comments have been responded to?", and being able to put images mid-way through blogs. I can do it with youtube vids, why not with stills?

I don't see why User Search and Spelll checker were denied.

However, I have the suggestion of 'Topics By User' as it is a small thing wanted by many users in the past.

And another thing would be to be able to minimize the footer with a little button like on dA.

Also, Strikethrough ability on blogs would be useful when updating and something closes down or gets deleted.

User page header upload system needs fixing.

Currently, it doesn't display the uploading animation like the other uploaders on the site do (so it is hard to know when the image has been uploaded) and there is also no way to remove a header. If the system could be changed to the same as the other uploaders, that would be cool.

Some time a go I made a suggestion on the forums and in my news posts. I'll just copy and paste that post to remember.

Instead the "vomit" friends system, SC should implant a flash presentation with 1/2 MB of limit and 200x200/300x300 pixels in the profile.

Tom also could put this system on a button tab or simply replace the user image by a flash.
What do you think?

SC responds:

"We've avoided letting users put Flash directly on their page because we don't want people to be afraid of "surprises" when they click a link to a user page. Having a button that opens a presentation could be kinda cool, though, so maybe some day. :)"

"Some day" is NEVER said by one of the Admins, but maybe the only admin that never talked about cocks could do something (lol?)

PM System:

Having a sent folder and being able to send swf files to other users.

Jack_The_Ripper wrote:

PM System:

Having a sent folder and being able to send swf files to other users.

k, done.

Reauk wrote:

Jack_The_Ripper wrote:

PM System:

Having a sent folder and being able to send swf files to other users.

k, done.

Yay, I helped GT

Embedding videos in the forum.

Tentousama wrote:

Embedding videos in the forum.

we already do that -.-

(1) A way to go back and view your blog comments; this would be useful for people that comment on a lot of blogs. They need a way to go back and see if their blog comment has been replied to.

(2) PAGINATE BLOG COMMENTS PLEASE!!! Thanks.

Other than that, I wish I had the option to be able to star or add like a Golden GT ! sign on some of my messages to resemble there importance. Just like on google mail where you click a star right beside any of your emailed messages in order to find certain messages through out numerous messages.

Quote :

"We've avoided letting users put Flash directly on their page because we don't want people to be afraid of "surprises" when they click a link to a user page. Having a button that opens a presentation could be kinda cool, though, so maybe some day. :)"

"Some day" is NEVER said by one of the Admins, but maybe the only admin that never talked about cocks could do something (lol?)

Perhaps, only allow the user to embed flashes that are already on GT. That would seem to eliminate most of the potential abuse, since there are already rules banning malicious files

I have another one. This may be a little, strange, but I'd love to see some sort of new rank for submitting different things to collections. Like, say you recommend a game/movie to some sort of collection/series and it gets accepted, you get a point to your _______ rank (sorry, but I don't know what we would call it). But then if it gets rejected, you'll lose a point. Sort of like the whistle status. It'll make the site more organized, and it'll give something for people to work on besides B/Ping and flagging reviews. Just a thought.

Oh and make these game categories:::

Point n click
Room escape
Platform

Item number one: Forum Stuff

A Forum Games Forum
Move Video Games to TOP of listings (below general)
Religion Forum (?)
More Links in Signature (Limit too small)
More Emoticons (XP, :F, :U, etc.)

You should put in a whistle points counter system. That way, users know how many flashes or reviews they need to appropriately flag before they get an upgrade.

And Get rid of the entire "Play This Game" / popup system and just display flash Games in the actual pages.