Hang Out and Post

[antiaircraft]

Actually, three times: Random Invisible Guy → Random Terran Guy → Theodore → "AA". :P In my defence, it just took me a while to settle on a decent name - I pretty much never change my display name otherwise.

[jumpingbeans]

You changed it to Theodore too? How can you, since you can only change your name twice every month.

[antiaircraft]

I'm fortunate enough to be allowed three name changes per month as a staff member. :yes:

[jumpingbeans]

No fair! That hurts my feelings!

Just 299 more posts until I'm an FM.

So, have you got the 'Welcome JB' board ready yet? :P

[-Ryan]

LOL AA. xD Nice set. :P

 

And wait, staffers get 3? :O

Lucky. xD

[jumpingbeans]

See? It's so unfair.

Or maybe if you could get an IM, if they made them, you'd be allowed three per month.

[antiaircraft]

In my defence once again... we are running the site for you guys. And writing new content for you. And keeping old content up to date for you. And refreshing madly, trawling through the Neoboards, and racking our brains until they overheat in order to have usable plot coverage out as soon as possible for you. And scraping as much statistical (and other) data from every single source we can get our hands on to write accurate Altador Cup analysis and reports for you. And battling spam bots on a daily basis to keep the forums clean for you. And programming and tweaking scanners to deliver the latest news for you. And keeping tabs on every single announcement TNT makes so that you don't miss out on anything. And I could go on...

 

So, have you got the 'Welcome JB' board ready yet? :P

Of course not! That's preposterous! :shiftyeyes_anim:

[jumpingbeans]

I guess, when you put it that way, but....

We're the ones who provide feedback. We give you guys motivation. Without us, you'd be doing a lot of useless work. You'd be lonely. And you wouldn't know me, the best person ever.

But why don't you talk to Ian about an IM?

[antiaircraft]

Well, let me put it this way: some staffers (not telling who) are idiots who have to change their display name three times a day before they settle on one they like. (:

 

And a new member rank has been on the agenda for some time. It just needs to wait until the next staff meeting to be formalised.

[jumpingbeans]

Good. Why don't they make it a JB Member, and that's when you have exactly the same amount of posts as me?

Or, as most of you would probably want, and IM, with either 5k or 10k posts.

[antiaircraft]

Plenty of values have been suggested for the new ranks, but the final ones should be decided in the meeting.

 

I must say, I like that JB member idea. :P I'm not sure if it would be possible to implement though.

[jumpingbeans]

It would be pretty easy. All you'd have to do is.....

(Three hours later)

So, that's how you'd do it. Got any questions?

[antiaircraft]

Hmm... interesting methodology, but not quite the way I'd do it. ;) It would probably be simpler to attach a hook to the function that handles new posts, checking the member ID against yours.

 

If the member ID is yours, it'll have to scan through the member database, comparing your new post count with the post counts of all the members in the database. If they're a match, the members will be added to the JB Member group. If not, they'll be left as is, or removed from the group if they're in it.

 

If the member ID isn't yours, it'll have to check the updated post count against your post count. If they match, the user will be added to the JB Member group. If not, they'll be left as is, or removed from the group if they're in it.

 

As you can see, this would incur a significant performance hit, especially when you post and it has to query (and possibly update) the entire members table.

[jumpingbeans]

Or, we could simplify it, and say anyone with or above me is in the JB members. (That would include me)

But I like the other idea too.

[antiaircraft]

While that would likely simplify the comparison, the performance hit would be largely unchanged - comparing thousands of post counts is a fairly quick activity compared to querying the entire database, which it would still have to do when you posted.

[jumpingbeans]

I guess it would

Though a JB member would be cool, I don't think it would be possible. Then again, why don't you implement the second of JB member ideas at a staff meeting (The one where it's equal or greater than me)

[antiaircraft]

Whether or not it's formalised at a staff meeting, the performance issues will still remain. :P

[jumpingbeans]

What do you mean? The perhaps overload of the system? That's nothing compared to being a JB member!

[antiaircraft]

Well, considering the performance optimisations we have present, the issue might not manifest itself as an overload - everything would probably run as normal, except that JB wouldn't be able to post because the system would time out the request every time he tried. xD

[jumpingbeans]

I don't like that idea at all!

How about we make a Ryan member then? :P

[-Ryan]

My vote goes to the CAV rank! ;)

 

 

[jumpingbeans]

How about an everybody but me rank? Then I'd be able to double, triple, centennial post!

But I might get bored...........

No, let's not do any member member.

[antiaircraft]

Well we could do a "more pwnsome than Ian" rank. That wouldn't require any processing at all - we wouldn't be able to put any members in it. :P

[-Ryan]

Lol, why not have someone make an account they won't use, have the staffers set it's post count to like 5k, and make it the "Beat-that-innactive-dude" rank. :P

[antiaircraft]

Actually, considering the number of inactive FMs we have scattered around the forums, we probably wouldn't actually have to create a dummy member. Which is actually kinda sad... :(