Posted by Kim on February 27, 2021, 11:20am
Missed this month's office hours? Here's a summary of the questions and answers that happened! I broke it into categories:Epic Week and Other Events
Feature requests
Pets
General questions and comments
Epic Week & Other Events
How excited for epic week 2021 are you?
SO VERY MUCH. I'VE BEEN SNEAKING AWAY FROM WORK FOR WEEKS TO PUT IN MORE TIME GETTING READY. I am yet again trying some ambitious new game formats out, while also bringing back the stuff people said they missed last time, like puzzles and riddles.
I hope there's like a doodle game for epic week again. Like last epic week we drew server! The doodle one, and the having to find things and take photos with them quickly were my favorite of the quick ones!
OH THE QUESTS?? Yes, I know (almost) for sure that there will be quests again this year. They're definitely planned. We're bringing back puzzles and riddles to open portals (or... whatever the puzzles and riddles represent
), and the quests will influence a different mechanic. But they'll be there.Which contests we'll run this year haven't been finalized yet, so there's still time for preferences to influence which ones turn up
Last epic week was the best one for me. The years before I struggled because most of the interactive stuff was stuff I had no knowledge about
I think you will like this one too. I went pretty big with it
In 2022 I half expect to be answering questions like, "Yes, we'll definitely be paring back from last year, I included way too many different things and everyone was overwhelmed" But, y'know... GONNA GIVE IT A TRY 'cause it could be awesome 
I wish I could give more details! I'm dying to show people! Just 56 more days to wait! Not that I'm counting or anything.
Any plans for future art exchanges?
Actually, yes! I want to make an attempt to bring back the art exchange this year -- probably the first one will happen soon after Epic Week.
I don't think we'll have two categories any longer, and I will try to make even more clear than before that the emphasis on the art exchange is on giving, not on receiving something you personally deem to be of equal value to your own art if you're a professional.
Took the words out of my mouth. Dabbler and Devotee were... Well-intentioned?
"Well intentioned" is exactly what they were, but it turned out to just exacerbate the problem of people feeling they were supposed to get back an exact value rather than a nice gift someone tried their best at. Past art exchanges completely burned out whoever was running them, and we eventually ran out of admins/mods willing to run it anymore. Thus the gap for a few years. I personally feel recovered enough to give it another go, but with a renewed emphasis on gift giving rather than receiving.
Matches are random; if you aren't comfortable with random, it will not be the exchange for you. And if it's not for you, for whatever reason, that's okay! Members can always host their own art exchanges with their own rules if they like
I do have an inquiry, in one art thing (on another site) I was paired with someone who we had each other blocked and it was uncomfortable. If paired with someone I can't communicate with can I ask for a different match?
Ah, I should amend that: They are not randomized to the extent that blocks are not taken into account. Server now makes picks in a block-aware way. It was done by hand for a long, long time, but then I realized... why would we do that? We have the technology to prevent situations like this, why not take advantage of it?
Feature requests
I was wondering about the potential of adding a font button in the text box tools with a few different common fonts
It's pretty unlikely I'll be adding this any time soon, tbh.
oh since it's on my mind at this exact moment, what about quoting while in chat too?
Now that one is much more likely; either quoting or some other form of "reply" feature, so it's easier to tell what you're talking about in a fast moving chat where a lot of people are talking.
My questions have to do with the Journal. It works WAY better than 1.0, but for one thing I think I asked this in the suggestion forum. Can it be made to return to the entry edit page? Currently you can enter a journal entry and have the choice of ‘post and view’ and ‘post’. You have to go out of editing mode and come back in to get to the entry edit screen.
Oh right! I'd seen that but forgot to respond, I guess. I definitely think that's doable.
Any update on the guestbook editing and/or safety prompt for the entry name?
I currently have *counts* 9 post-it notes just above my computer with features I want to get to soon. Allowing people to edit and delete guestbook comments that they left themselves is one of those post-its!
Oh! I also have a bit of a question/suggestion! Could we get a way to filter through our pm conversations? I have an ongoing pm chat with my boyfriend and sometimes I want to go back to find a specific bit of information on, like, a character or something that I forgot to put down, and it take me forever to have to go back in the pages to find it.
How would this be different from the existing PM search? Would it just search a single conversation rather than all your conversations?
Ah, what I mean was, when you're in a certain pm conversation, could there be a feature that would make it easier to wade through old messages in the pm conversation, especially ones with a ton of messages? Like, making it easier to get to a specific page, say, in the middle of the conversation?
OH, the thing about switching to a specific numbered page quickly? YES I loved that suggestion. It'll definitely happen.
The PM question sort of dovetails into (hopefully) one of your post it notes... saving complete PM conversations as a file?
That is, in fact, one of the post-it notes about features I want to get to soon
oh, I think this was brought up during the phoenix stage. What about add on check boxes for the sexual content tag that are, explicit and fade to black?
I don't currently have any plans for that, no. There are so many possible permutations for things people could want, some of them just feel best suited to being written out in a post.
could there be a way to view your past status updates? just you view them, no one else.
I think that is possible! I'll jot it down; don't know when I'll get to it, though.
Oh on the topic of status updates, does any BBCode work in them?
BBCode does work in them. I don't *recall* disabling any specific kind of BBCode from them. Lemme double check. ... Yeah, I don't see any specifically disabled BBCode tags in user statuses (right now)
The user statuses have turned out to be unexpectedly delightful to me. I somehow had imagined people would use them to be like... "Not currently available for RP" or the opposite. And that does happen, sure, but people get so creative and sweet with them.
Is there any way to turn off the blinking
(for the status)It should go away when actually used? Otherwise it does 3 pulses on page load.
Could we get an add in box for gender on our profiles where we can put pronouns instead of a specific gender?
I have been considering this! 11 years ago I didn't really know about introductions using pronouns; I may have just put in pronoun selections rather than a gender selection right when the site started if I had. I think it's probable we will get pronoun selection dropdowns at some point. I'm not sure if it will replace or just join the gender dropdown. Very open to hearing opinions about that, especially from the folk it'll make the most difference to.
that's good to know. Cause in my head me putting 'non-binary' doesn't really explain what I'm trying to put across, which is my pronouns. cause not everyone with the same gender even uses the same pronouns.
Yeah! I don't think I even knew that either when we expanded the gender options to have so many.
(There was some discussion here in chat about whether it should be a free box to write whatever in, or a dropdown selection of pre-determined choices, and if pre-determined, should combos such as she/they be included)
Server still makes a lot of use of pronouns and I'd need him to understand what had been selected.
For me, ones of the reasons I even asked the gender question in the first place was because I wanted to have accolades and epic week flavor text and various other stuff use pronouns for people.
So, if the point is just having pronouns for other humans to use, it makes the most sense to just write on a profile. I don't know that I would include combinations of pronouns in any such dropdown that got implemented because it's much harder to have Server know how to refer to you that way.
Right now, Server uses "she/her" for people who select Female/feminine gender identities, "he/his" for masculine ones, and "they/them" for everything else. This was an upgrade at the time, but it's now clear isn't really inclusive enough. A person can have a feminine leaning identity and still prefer they/them pronouns, for example. Which makes the dropdown specifically for pronouns super useful to teach the code how to talk about you in a way that makes you comfortable.
(This discussion came up again on the second day of office hours)
I am certain this would get used. I was thinking about it last night and I'm going to make an attempt to get it in before Epic Week. I think I can go forward with it pretty promptly. I also don't think I want to remove the big ol' gender dropdown, in that the feedback I've gotten about it still tends toward "I have never seen a website make such an effort to make me feel seen and included like this," and I think that's super valuable even if it's no longer the thing Server uses to guess best pronouns.
I'd like a way to either move a notification up in the list or somehow flag it like a 'TODO' item. Basically for those slower-paced RPs that really do intend to reply to, just... not today and maybe not even tomorrow, but don't want to completely forget about them
So... I'd like to have a better method of tracking currently active RPs a person is involved in. I probably won't do pinned notifications as a substitute while we wait for that because notifications are already so processor-heavy, arbitrary re-ordering and special rules for one or two of them makes me a wee bit nervous. I think it's a good suggestion though!
I was giving some more thought to the 'a-topic-that-requires-my-attention-at-some-point-but-has-fallen-off-my-front-page' issue (issue sounds harsh, I'm just not sure what else to call it ). I don't have any fantastic ideas, but one thought was something like 'remind me in a week'? Which would create a fresh notification? I dunno, don't love that, but just failed to think of anything better... yet
The thing I've been imagining has been a place where you could pin your active RPs, regardless of whether they are in the forums, a group or your inbox, and it would automatically mark them as "replied" when you were the last respondent and otherwise mark them if they needed reply
You could mark them by hand, of course, or retire one that's no longer active.
That's not a bad idea either. The use case for me is when I'm GMing. (Which, admitted, I've kinda fallen off that wagon recently). But when it's a group game... I want to give everyone a fair chance to reply. But IF THEY DON'T.... GM Juls needs to jump back in and keep things moving.
Oh, that's an interesting use case. I'm adding that to my notes. *scribbles* Reminders for GMs is a very useful and healthy thing
Oh! One other thing I'd still very much like is a "dice" feature with a custom number of sides.
It'd also certainly make rolling for raffle winners easier! I'd like this too, it will probably happen, I'm just not sure what priority level it has right now.
Pets
Has your clever dog learned any new tricks
Not as many as she'd like
I confess to being a bit slow on coming up with new trick ideas after this long in quarantine.. There is one, though. I've been teaching her to jump over legs, so I can lay on my back, stick my hips in the air, and do (not that great) splits and have her leap through the middle. The jumping over legs bit she does easily, but she's so cautious about accidentally landing on my face that she won't just... do the command, she always walks around me, inspects carefully where my body/head is, and THEN does the trick, which kind of kills the momentum. Not that I don't appreciate the caution with my face. Did you get a new guinea pig? (New compared to the last time I asked years ago...)
I have two atm! Mr. Truffle is about to turn eight years old in a couple of months, and Mr. Ghirardelli is the baby (although he's now 4). They are currently waiting for me to wrap up this chat so I can go clean their cage and do their laundry.
General questions and remarks
What's it like being an admin? because I imagine it being overwhelming.
It varies a LOT from day to day. Some days it's exhausting and overwhelming, other days it's just pure joy. Many days it's sort of programmatic puzzle solving.
I don't have any questions or concerns or suggestions. I just wanted to say that I really admire and appreciate all you do here for us Kim. Thank you so much for your hard work and your good heart and the fun in your soul which really translates into the site itself.
Thank you so much!
That makes me feel really good 
Comments
Nng, I still need to start cleaning up the Armory (info-wise) to get it ready for EW... Lotta broken links, plus everything currently there was pretty haphazardly thrown together to begin with. 
And the broken links also mean I have to just settle on the official recap stuff for past years! I'd been trying to keep links to some more detailed pages, but I think a lot of that got cleared out (or just plain moved) with Operation Audacious Phoenix.
And the broken links also mean I have to just settle on the official recap stuff for past years! I'd been trying to keep links to some more detailed pages, but I think a lot of that got cleared out (or just plain moved) with Operation Audacious Phoenix.
!!!!!!!!! I'm so over the moon about the idea of having art exchanges again, I've missed those so much!!! Those were always my favorite events on the site (granted, I'm very biased as an artist and all xD); Can't wait to see how those come back (if they do ) <333 aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa so excited
) <333 aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa so excited
Can we possibly get a new account feature
?
?
Shinyrainbowlithogra
March 5, 2021
9:04pm
Hey Zelphyr, I'll message you about the EA thing. If you want any details for the uhh...
Past Events, thing- I didn't exactly blog about it, but I did take notes while I was playing last year!!