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We wanted to give you a heads up about a feature that we're working on - Facebook Connect. In a few weeks, Gaians who also use Facebook will have the option to link their Gaia account with their Facebook account and share feeds of select Gaia activities easily with their friends on Facebook. Examples of these feeds are: updating avatars/profiles, starting a topic/poll, submitting an entry to arenas.The goal of the feature is to allow Gaians who wish to do so to share their artwork and discussions with their friends easily and automatically, even those who are not part of our site.

How this works (check out an overview of the flow here.)
1) You'll see an announcement and a "What's Hot" module on the logged-in homepage that links to a Facebook Connect landing page that tells the user about the feature.
2) By clicking on "Connect", you will initiate a process (that is run by Facebook) that asks you for permission on 3 things: a) connecting your account; b) providing constant authorization; c) publishing feeds to your activity stream on Facebook. You can select yes or no at each point.
3) You're done when you complete the flow. Feeds will now show up on Facebook if you chose to do so in accordance with your Gaia activities.
4) We'll be rewarding those who use the feature with Gold incentives - for the one-time sign-up process as well as ongoing Gold for each feed that's shared on Facebook.

For more details and information, hop on over to the FAQ.

We would love to hear your thoughts. Would you use this feature? Would you recommend it to your friends? What do you like or not like about it?

Thank you in advance for your feedback.

-Gracewar

Hi everyone,

With the upcoming launch of Facebook Connect, we wanted to give you all a heads up and provide some answers to anticipated common questions that you might have about the feature.

Here we go...

Why did you launch Facebook Connect?
A lot of Gaians also use Facebook, so we're giving them a way to showcase their Gaia activities on Facebook if they want. You can share as much or as little as you want of your art, your profiles, your discussions and other activities on Gaia easily, even with those who don't already use our site.

What if I want nothing to do with Facebook? How do I opt out?
This feature is purely optional as we know not everyone uses Facebook or will want to use link accounts and share feeds. The feature will only work if you take the action to link accounts. If you don't do anything, your accounts will not be connected and no feeds will be shown on Facebook.

What happens when I link accounts?
The sign up process for Facebook Connect consists of 3 steps where you'll be asked for permissions. Remember that you have the choice to say yes or no at each point.

1) The first step asks you to connect with your Facebook account. If you choose to do this, your Gaia account will be linked to your Facebook account and select Gaia activities will be shared as feeds on Facebook. If you choose this step only, these feeds will show on your Wall and not on your news/activity feed on Facebook.

2) The second step asks for permission for constant authorization. If you choose to do this, your Gaia and Facebook accounts will stay linked even when you are not logged into both sites at the same time. This means that your Gaia activities can be shared as feeds on Facebook even when you're not logged into Facebook. This doesn’t mean you have to stay logged in to each site – you can log in and out as normal. It just means info will be sent to Facebook even when you’re not logged into your Facebook account.

3) The third step asks for permission to publish feeds to your news/activity stream on Facebook. If you choose to do this, your Gaia activities can be shared as feeds on your news/activity stream and that of your friends on Facebook.

For maximum sharing (and gold earning opportunities), you'll want to select "yes" on all 3 steps.

How do I earn gold?
Here's how the gold granting works for Facebook Connect.
1) You'll get 1000 Gold the first time you link accounts on Facebook Connect. ("Yes" on Step 1)
2) You'll get another 1000 Gold the first time you authorize feeds on Facebook Connect. ("Yes" on both Steps 2 and 3.)
3) You'll get more Gold each time a Gaia activity is published on your news/activity stream on Facebook. Think of this as a gift that keeps on giving. This works on a Gold granting curve similar to other activities on Gaia such as posting in forums and browsing the site– you’ll get some every time you share a feed, but the gold amount could change each time based on your amount of activity.

I've linked my accounts, but now wish to delink them. How do I do that?
You'll want to head over to Account Settings to de-link your accounts. Select the "Delinked" option and hit "Save All Changes" at the bottom left of the page. Your accounts will be delinked and your Gaia activities will no longer appear on Facebook.

How do I adjust my feed settings?
Head over to Account Settings to adjust your feed settings. Simply check or uncheck the feeds you wish to enable or disable and remember to hit "Save All Changes" when you are done.

Are you going to have this for MySpace or other sites?
We are considering this possibly for later in the future.

Any other plans for this feature you can share?
Stay tuned. We'll have more features coming soon, including the ability to invite your friends on Facebook to join you on Gaia. Your friends will also be able to register on Gaia using Facebook Connect.

Hi everyone,

We wanted to give you a heads up that we will be making changes to the site navigation menu and provide some answers to the common questions you might have about the update.

Here we go...

Why did you launch a redesign of the site navigation?
The main goal of the redesign was to give Gaians some of the old color and flavor that infused Gaia in the early days. We wanted the site navigation menu to speak in livelier, Gaian tones and bring more focus to Gaia being a community site. In addition, we wanted to make it easier for users to find stuff - for that reason, we simplified the menu and did away with the sub-menus.

Why did you remove links from the menu? How do I get to the pages that were previously linked from the old menu?
In order to make the new and simpler design work, we've had to trim away some of the old links. You can get to most of the old links from the landing pages associated with each tab on the menu, although we realize it will take an additional click on your part. For example, all the My Gaia links can be accessed along the horizontal tabs on the My Gaia landing page and all the Games can be accessed from the Games landing page.
We asked the community for feedback on the links that were removed and you told us that Trade, My Posts and My Latest Topics are really important. To make these popular links just one click away instead of two, we've added them to the Shortcuts menu in the header.

Known issues: For a period of time, the following pages will be more difficult to get to, since they are not linked from the menu or a major landing page. We've added them here in case you wish to bookmark them as a temporary workaround.
Clans - will be added to Guilds page shortly. In the interim, you can access "Find Clans" through the zOMG! microsite which is linked to the menu as "Learn about zOMG!".
Evolving Item Museum - you can access this by clicking on the Cash Shop page within the Shops directory and looking under Forums and more. We'll be making additional changes to make this page more accessible.
Conventions - We will be making additional changes to make this page more accessible. In the meantime, you can look this up under Forums - Gaia Online - Gaia Convention Tour.

To help with the transition, we have published a list of all links that were available through the old site navigation menu here. Feel free to bookmark to your heart's content!

Is this going to cause performance issues or lagging?
We heard concerns during a preview that the new menu would cause lagging and performance issues. Because this was mostly done in CSS, there should not be any perceivable differences in performance for most browsers. The only exception is if you use Internet Explorer 6 as a browser. Due to the limitations of IE6, we have had to use more Javascript which will be slower. IE6 users, we strongly recommend that you upgrade to IE7 to make the most of your Gaia experience. (IE7 or Firefox are faster and safer browsers, anyway.)

Will I get an option to revert to the old menu?
We considered this option, but truth be told, it's actually pretty complex from a coding perspective, not to mention expensive, to maintain both versions of the site navigation menus. Every time we make a change in the future, we would need to update both versions of the menus. This is not ideal, and you'll probably want us working on something else of more value anyway.

Will I be able to customize the menu in the future?
For the same reasons as above, it will be difficult for us to make an entirely customizable menu. We are, however, considering a customizable shortcuts feature that will help power users get to the features they use the most. Stay tuned for more news on that.

Thanks for all the feedback. Let me respond to what I've heard so far:

1) Overall, I've heard that people are pleased with the look and feel. That's really great to hear. razz

2) People are concerned about missing links. The ones I've heard most often are Trade, My Posts, My Latest Topics and My Thread Subscriptions. We're looking into ways to address this right now, either by working it into the design or by providing a workaround.

3) Customizability is a request that has come up multiple times. While we'd love to provide a site navigation drop down menu that's entirely customizable, it's actually really hard to maintain over the long term because of future changes e.g., when we roll out a new feature that needs a spot in the menu, or when we re-organize certain parts of the site, we'd have to think about all the different versions out there that exist. Having said that, we are looking into ways we can provide some kind of partial customization, for example, customizable shortcuts.

4) Some of you are concerned that there are too many Gaia Cash related links under the Shop menu. We are looking to consolidate these pages so we will have fewer over time, so please hang in there for now.

5) "Featured MMO" - many people pointed out that this is inaccurate because Gaia only has one MMO. Thanks for the catch - we're now calling this "Gaia's MMO" and we like it a whole lot better. whee

6) Popular Forums - many pointed out that these forums may end up with tons of spam. We've considered this feedback and will be featuring more sub-directories instead of specific forums in this space so it will help people navigate rather than pop them into a particular forum.

On to specific feedback:



I've double checked with the development team and there should not be a significant performance decrease for most of you as the menus are in CSS. We are concerned, however, about IE6 users - while this will work on IE6, it will probably be in Javascript and be an acceptable but not great experience. This applies to other features on our site as well, so if you haven't already, we'd strongly recommend that IE6 users on Gaia upgrade to IE7.



Yes, you will be able to move your mouse diagonally.



And we've put it back. 4laugh

Hope this helps! Stay tuned for more information.

Thanks! I just realized this should be in Site Feedback so I'm posting there instead.

UDPATE BELOW
Hello there,

I realize this is coming pretty quickly after my post on the header/footer redesign, but here's something else I would love your feedback on. We have taken a first cut at redesigning the site navigation menu. The main objective for the work is to allow our rather utilitarian looking menu to speak in more Gaian tones and to bring more focus to Gaia being a community. You'll see in the mocks below that we've brought back more color to the menu and more graphics. Most of the changes are cosmetic; however, you will notice that in order to make the visuals work, we've had to decrease the number of links on the menu.

Check these out and let me know what you think. Also, apologies in advance, these are fairly low-resolution screenshots, but they are the best we can do for now - if you could, please picture them being crisper, for that's how they will be when implemented.

Site nav redesign - My Gaia
Site nav redesign - Shops
Site nav redesign - Community
Site nav redesign - World
Site nav redesign - Games

Other points to note:
- The "More" link at the bottom right of each menu will link to the current landing pages for each section.
- The text description you see under each feature is still being worked on.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts! Please chime in with any questions or concerns, what you like and what you don't. I will be checking in and responding tomorrow.
-Gracewar

7/10 UPDATE
Thanks for all the feedback. Let me respond to what I've heard so far:

1) Overall, I've heard that people are pleased with the look and feel. That's really great to hear. razz

2) People are concerned about missing links. The ones I've heard most often are Trade, My Posts, My Latest Topics and My Thread Subscriptions. We're looking into ways to address this right now, either by working it into the design or by providing a workaround.

3) Customizability is a request that has come up multiple times. While we'd love to provide a site navigation drop down menu that's entirely customizable, it's actually really hard to maintain over the long term because of future changes e.g., when we roll out a new feature that needs a spot in the menu, or when we re-organize certain parts of the site, we'd have to think about all the different versions out there that exist. Having said that, we are looking into ways we can provide some kind of partial customization, for example, customizable shortcuts.

4) Some of you are concerned that there are too many Gaia Cash related links under the Shop menu. We are looking to consolidate these pages so we will have fewer over time, so please hang in there for now.

5) "Featured MMO" - many people pointed out that this is inaccurate because Gaia only has one MMO. Thanks for the catch - we're now calling this "Gaia's MMO" and we like it a whole lot better. whee

6) Popular Forums - many pointed out that these forums may end up with tons of spam. We've considered this feedback and will be featuring more sub-directories instead of specific forums in this space so it will help people navigate rather than pop them into a particular forum.

On to specific feedback:



I've double checked with the development team and there should not be a significant performance decrease for most of you as the menus are in CSS. We are concerned, however, about IE6 users - while this will work on IE6, it will probably be in Javascript and be an acceptable but not great experience. This applies to other features on our site as well, so if you haven't already, we'd strongly recommend that IE6 users on Gaia upgrade to IE7.



Yes, you will be able to move your mouse diagonally.



And we've put it back. 4laugh

Hope this helps! Stay tuned for more information.