TekTek & BetterGaia: Why can't Gaia follow their lead?

Do you use an altering program on Gaia?

Tektek tool bar	12.5%	[ 55 ]
BetterGaia	27.0%	[ 119 ]
Greasemonkey	1.8%	[ 8 ]
Tektek Tool and BG	8.4%	[ 37 ]
Tektek tool and grease monkey	1.1%	[ 5 ]
BG and Grease Monkey	3.0%	[ 13 ]
All three	6.1%	[ 27 ]
None	24.1%	[ 106 ]
-fondles your ears-	15.9%	[ 70 ]
Total Votes:			[ 440 ]

[Ridley Starsmore]

Knight Yoshi

I like how everyone refers to "Gaia" as a person. Gaia a.k.a. GaiaOnline is a site. You should be using better terminology, such as the owners, administrators, & developers. Gaia doesn't make decisions. The owners and employees do. Gaia is just the product of their decisions.
xd

Everyone here is using the term Gaia as a collective whole, something taught in freshman high school English, to give implied meaning to the groups working together as a team. But I figured most of us had taken that course.

You got anything worthwhile to add, or just come to nitpick, laddie, 'cause I'd rather you didn't waste my or anyone else's time. stare

[Belethiel]

What is this BetterGaia and Greasemonkey of wich you speak?

I have no idea why Gaia is not interested in useing the things mentioned to thier advantage. I would... Tektek could be made even better with faster updates directly through the site itself.

I can't say much about the other stuff, as I said before, I don't know what they are...

[Ridley Starsmore]

Electric Emeralds

What is this BetterGaia and Greasemonkey of wich you speak?

I have no idea why Gaia is not interested in useing the things mentioned to thier advantage. I would... Tektek could be made even better with faster updates directly through the site itself.

I can't say much about the other stuff, as I said before, I don't know what they are...

Bettergaia is a site script, that allows you to do some quite nifty things. Greasemonkey scripts allow you to have better toold for several things on the site independently.

[Belethiel]

Ridley Starsmore

Electric Emeralds

What is this BetterGaia and Greasemonkey of wich you speak?

I have no idea why Gaia is not interested in useing the things mentioned to thier advantage. I would... Tektek could be made even better with faster updates directly through the site itself.

I can't say much about the other stuff, as I said before, I don't know what they are...

Bettergaia is a site script, that allows you to do some quite nifty things. Greasemonkey scripts allow you to have better toold for several things on the site independently.

Hm... how can I get it? Can I change it back if I don't like it?

[Sheshira]

Knight Yoshi

I like how everyone refers to "Gaia" as a person. Gaia a.k.a. GaiaOnline is a site. You should be using better terminology, such as the owners, administrators, & developers. Gaia doesn't make decisions. The owners and employees do. Gaia is just the product of their decisions.
xd

Actually in some legal sense corporations are a legal person xp

I suppose you're trying to be witty yes? Or a play on semantics. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt in not assuming you're trying to diminish others' opinions on the basis of "wit" and "semantics." When people refer to Gaia, they are not referring it to as a "legal person" of course but of as the collective group of owners that take part in business and directions that the company takes.

[Penn Almasy]

Electric Emeralds

Ridley Starsmore

Electric Emeralds

What is this BetterGaia and Greasemonkey of wich you speak?

I have no idea why Gaia is not interested in useing the things mentioned to thier advantage. I would... Tektek could be made even better with faster updates directly through the site itself.

I can't say much about the other stuff, as I said before, I don't know what they are...

Bettergaia is a site script, that allows you to do some quite nifty things. Greasemonkey scripts allow you to have better toold for several things on the site independently.

Hm... how can I get it? Can I change it back if I don't like it?

If you don't like the add-ons you can always uninstall them in the Add-ons window... if you use Firefox.

BetterGaia can be found here, and the sidebar on the MyGaia page will always tell you when it's time to update.
Greasemonkey has scripts for things even outside of Gaia; Stylish is a cousin of Greasemonkey that mainly changes appearances of things (such as my Equip page's colored tabs).

To really customize your BetterGaia experience, it takes some fiddling but more or less it's easy to do.

[Belethiel]

Penn Almasy

Electric Emeralds

Ridley Starsmore

Electric Emeralds

What is this BetterGaia and Greasemonkey of wich you speak?

I have no idea why Gaia is not interested in useing the things mentioned to thier advantage. I would... Tektek could be made even better with faster updates directly through the site itself.

I can't say much about the other stuff, as I said before, I don't know what they are...

Bettergaia is a site script, that allows you to do some quite nifty things. Greasemonkey scripts allow you to have better toold for several things on the site independently.

Hm... how can I get it? Can I change it back if I don't like it?

If you don't like the add-ons you can always uninstall them in the Add-ons window... if you use Firefox.

BetterGaia can be found here, and the sidebar on the MyGaia page will always tell you when it's time to update.
Greasemonkey has scripts for things even outside of Gaia; Stylish is a cousin of Greasemonkey that mainly changes appearances of things (such as my Equip page's colored tabs).

To really customize your BetterGaia experience, it takes some fiddling but more or less it's easy to do.

Oh... it looks interesting, but I don't use Firefox or Chrome... sweatdrop

[Caerthakatha]

I use GaiArch, but that's as far as I'm willing to go into modifying how the site looks. I just want to
format my posts. I've found that BetterGaia makes my computer lag too much for me to enjoy the
site, and Tektek's toolbar has too many features I'd never use. It would be nice if Gaia made its
own post formatting feature, but I'm happy enough using a Firefox add-on.

[Penn Almasy]

Electric Emeralds

Penn Almasy

Electric Emeralds

Ridley Starsmore

Electric Emeralds

What is this BetterGaia and Greasemonkey of wich you speak?

I have no idea why Gaia is not interested in useing the things mentioned to thier advantage. I would... Tektek could be made even better with faster updates directly through the site itself.

I can't say much about the other stuff, as I said before, I don't know what they are...

Bettergaia is a site script, that allows you to do some quite nifty things. Greasemonkey scripts allow you to have better toold for several things on the site independently.

Hm... how can I get it? Can I change it back if I don't like it?

If you don't like the add-ons you can always uninstall them in the Add-ons window... if you use Firefox.

BetterGaia can be found here, and the sidebar on the MyGaia page will always tell you when it's time to update.
Greasemonkey has scripts for things even outside of Gaia; Stylish is a cousin of Greasemonkey that mainly changes appearances of things (such as my Equip page's colored tabs).

To really customize your BetterGaia experience, it takes some fiddling but more or less it's easy to do.

Oh... it looks interesting, but I don't use Firefox or Chrome... sweatdrop

If you're using Internet Explorer... oh dear god.

All I can suggest would be to download and install Firefox and never, ever, EVER use Internet Explorer again.

[Belethiel]

Penn Almasy

Electric Emeralds

Penn Almasy

Electric Emeralds

Ridley Starsmore

Electric Emeralds

What is this BetterGaia and Greasemonkey of wich you speak?

I have no idea why Gaia is not interested in useing the things mentioned to thier advantage. I would... Tektek could be made even better with faster updates directly through the site itself.

I can't say much about the other stuff, as I said before, I don't know what they are...

Bettergaia is a site script, that allows you to do some quite nifty things. Greasemonkey scripts allow you to have better toold for several things on the site independently.

Hm... how can I get it? Can I change it back if I don't like it?

If you don't like the add-ons you can always uninstall them in the Add-ons window... if you use Firefox.

BetterGaia can be found here, and the sidebar on the MyGaia page will always tell you when it's time to update.
Greasemonkey has scripts for things even outside of Gaia; Stylish is a cousin of Greasemonkey that mainly changes appearances of things (such as my Equip page's colored tabs).

To really customize your BetterGaia experience, it takes some fiddling but more or less it's easy to do.

Oh... it looks interesting, but I don't use Firefox or Chrome... sweatdrop

If you're using Internet Explorer... oh dear god.

All I can suggest would be to download and install Firefox and never, ever, EVER use Internet Explorer again.

xD Yeah, I am useing Internet Explorer. It's what I'm used to...

I think my other laptop might have Firefox... I don't know. >.>

[IMANOOT]

Sheshira

Knight Yoshi

I like how everyone refers to "Gaia" as a person. Gaia a.k.a. GaiaOnline is a site. You should be using better terminology, such as the owners, administrators, & developers. Gaia doesn't make decisions. The owners and employees do. Gaia is just the product of their decisions.
xd

Actually in some legal sense corporations are a legal person xp

I suppose you're trying to be witty yes? Or a play on semantics. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt in not assuming you're trying to diminish others' opinions on the basis of "wit" and "semantics." When people refer to Gaia, they are not referring it to as a "legal person" of course but of as the collective group of owners that take part in business and directions that the company takes.

Nah, not trying to put anyone down. Hmm... Wow. I still don't know certain legal aspects, this I know. But a corperation to be referred as a person is definitely a new one for me.

[Mindset]

As someone who makes Greasemonkey scripts, let me explain a few things.

When I write my code, I try to do my best to make it easy on the user's browser. If it's slow, I rewrite to make it faster. If I'm making calls to Gaia's server via AJAX, I try to do it as little as possible (it'd set off bot alarms if a script hit the server too often).

But what I'm not doing is optimizing my code to deal with 50,000 users hitting the server at the same time. I honestly don't know how, that sort of optimization for a massive userbase isn't something I've ever had to deal with. (I code for a living, but my userbase is maybe 50 people at once, tops.) But it's something that Gaia's devs have to deal with every day. (Since the beginning of Gaia, they've had to make major adjustments to default scripts and server/database administration, since otherwise the site would up and die. As it did frequently do, in the beginning.)

Gaia's devs are certainly aware of the addons out there. (In fact, when Gaia removed the forum quick switcher, and I wondered why, a dev said because it was little used and caused too much server load for its use, and also said that a "bright Gaian" who could do Greasemonkey could make a replacement. I was ridiculously pleased by that. redface ) And the addons like Tektek's toolbar and BetterGaia and Greasemonkey scripts are useful, very useful. But as they're entirely personal and browser-based, they're not optimized for mass implementation; and converting them to all-Gaia code or even Labs might be impossible or highly unworkable.

That said, some GM scripts have been duplicated by Gaia. One of my first scripts was one that added a back view to the gold shops and Salon, and I was incredibly pleased to see that implemented by Gaia, and didn't mind at all. I only made it because the code was there, Gaia just wasn't using it. Plus I've since made another script to fix the things that hadn't been implemented in the new previews, like kneeling and background removal, but if those get added by Gaia too, I wouldn't mind that either. It's a GM scripter's dream to become obsolete because the site doesn't have to be fixed anymore. xd

And note, there was a recent Lab (Aquarium glowing notifications) that had many of the GM/other coders really pleased to see. If it had stuck around, I would have disabled my Aquarium script (as it would be no longer necessary) and I know others said if it added certain features (like showing how many players), they would have turned theirs off too. Pity the Lab didn't stick, due to bad feedback (by stupid paranoids IMO), but I hope it will come back eventually.


Also, FYI, Gaia doesn't just up and hire people with job offers out of the blue. You have to apply, you know. wink And, well, some of us may have current jobs we don't want to leave, or don't want to move to California, or honestly aren't entirely qualified for the open positions, and so on...

[Ridley Starsmore]

Mindset

le snipped, but still awesome post

Finally, a coders input. it's good to get a little insight to that side of it, because, we...I'm not a coder by any stretch. And it's good to know the reasons why for and why not!

It was just baffling to see options, that would be easy to implement/ easy to ignore if unwanted, and just generally cool to see done.(I cite the changeable headers from BG as an example for this)

I just wonder, if Gaia as a whole offered you a "One job" contract, would that work better for you than full employment?

[Mindset]

Ridley Starsmore

Mindset

le snipped, but still awesome post

Finally, a coders input. it's good to get a little insight to that side of it, because, we...I'm not a coder by any stretch. And it's good to know the reasons why for and why not!

It was just baffling to see options, that would be easy to implement/ easy to ignore if unwanted, and just generally cool to see done.(I cite the changeable headers from BG as an example for this)

I just wonder, if Gaia as a whole offered you a "One job" contract, would that work better for you than full employment?

I can see the changeable headers being added as a Lab, much like the menu color or centered site Labs. But I can also give a few possible reasons why it hasn't been yet:

1. the additional CSS or JS could add to "lag"
   
2. hosting all those images might be too hard to maintain
   
3. the marketing department / higher-ups won't allow it; "those headers are for promotional use only, plus we want users to see the new promotional headers when they come out, and not override them"
   
4. indecision or slow implementation; that is, it's in the plans, but figuring out exactly how to do it has just been taking a long time to debate between departments, and/or it's just taken a long damn time to roll out since they have so much else to work on. (For example, the time between the revised trade page being suggested in Spring Cleaning, and it actually being rolled out, was something like 10 months. Dumpster Dive also took almost a year between idea and release.)

Plus, well, the problem with add-ons is that there's less pressure on the devs to do optional things like this. If someone really wants the headers to change, they can get BG or install Stylish... and if they don't really want to do that, then they can afford to wait. (The use of Adblock to deal with annoying things also applies here.)

BTW, that #3 reason is a good explanation for why a lot of things don't exist. Sure, the BG "draw all daily chance" option is awesome. (I've written my own version in GM since I don't really care for the rest of BG's features.) But one of the reasons DC exists is to get users to visit every Gaia landing page every day, and see the features/ads on those landing pages. A "draw all" option would mean those users wouldn't do that anymore, there'd be less page hits / ad views, and the marketing/metrics people would be unhappy. And if they're unhappy, the Board is unhappy, and when the Board is unhappy, people die and nobody wants them to be unhappy. (If you ever wonder why does it take multiple steps to get somewhere via the menus or notificiations, the answer is probably that there's ads on each of those steps.)


Regarding Gaia jobs... yeah, a remote part-time or freelance contracting thing would be awesome. smile But I don't have a big enough ego to think I'm essential, there's little I can code that someone else with better qualifications can't code. What the add-on making people truly supply is ideas... but unfortunately Gaia's coding/implementation process is such that just having a good idea isn't good enough. I remember when a dev quit in 2008 because of the bureaucracy, and I can only imagine what it's like 3 years later. (Although it's also possible it may have improved since then, I notice Pan seems a lot freer to work on things like BG than he used to be. And there's also the Lab thing, and things like "social Daily Chance" or the timestamp change actually being reversed because of user feedback, so y'know.)