Site Wide Problem List [07.06.06]

What do you want the admins to fix most?

1. Marketplace Search Engine	25.1%	[ 46 ]
2. Add more moderators	10.4%	[ 19 ]
3. Gaia World Map teleporter	7.7%	[ 14 ]
4. Gaia Homes	4.4%	[ 8 ]
5. Gaia Towns	13.7%	[ 25 ]
6. Update TOS and R&G	5.5%	[ 10 ]
7. Better admin - user communication	8.7%	[ 16 ]
8. Add better report buttons	6.0%	[ 11 ]
9. Housing plots for everyone	18.6%	[ 34 ]
Total Votes:			[ 183 ]

[SofiaDragon]

A second problem with the marketplace, compleatly seperate from the search issue: The Watch List does not work. You can add items to your watch list 'till you are blue in the face, and it won't matter. Nothing shows up.

[RHM-kun]

Kiyomizu, actually it's not just the 3-letter keywords that don't work anymore. The wildcards don't work as well. I made a guide about the old MP Search. You can check it here. With the setup of the MP right now, you can't use the wild cards anymore. In my opinion, the MP now sucks. Big time. confused

[CCMinerva]

You guys really believe that they don't know about these problems? I agree though that listing them and explaining which ones we feel are most important is sort of a good idea, but they do know about this stuff. They're the ones making the changes to this site in the first place, and ever since I realized long ago that Jakobo is an admin and he updates that sticky in the Q&A forum that means that all the admins know.

The only problem then is that some issues (meaning not mentioned in that sticky) do get ignored. Why? I really wish I knew.

Regarding Lady Threnody's list, I'd like to add my comments to it.

1. PG-13 rules are very clear to me. Like a guy said on this subject once before, what is *not* tasteful art is obvious. Anything that is therefore questionable is left to the moderators to decide. We just PM them and ask.
About what is spam, the rules will always be changing. People never posted annoying things in every single post before (yours I don't mind however). So as people find new ways to be irritating new rules will have to be made. And the Terms of Service or even the Rules and Guidelines can't cover them all.

I'm usually the first to stand up and say "more clear rules!" but in the case of forums the mods should be able to handle it and only make new rules as needed. If posts like that were spam people would get warned and a rule would be made. But because they keep doing it I can use some common sense and know that it's acceptable on Gaia. (Hence why I liked that suggestion to leave banned posts in place s a warning to people. Examples help people understand the rules better than trying to write them all down. And yet Gaia does not lead by example, it removes all traces of bad behavior and lets much of it continue on giving n00bs bad ideas. *sigh*)

The ToS could be reworded a bit to make it easier to read, but which rules need clarifying?

2. After seeing Dri's reply about the market... sad I have to agree. That's another politician's response. "We know there is a problem. Here's how you can use this new broken feature. We won't say a word about if or when we'll change it." Duh we know you're aware of it. Duh we know how to use it. Sorry for sounding mean but I don't like politicians who ignore the issues at hand and that's how it seemed.

3. Gaia has grown immensely fast. I agree that they need to keep scouting for more mods until things are running smoothly again. By now I had assumed the GD mods would have asked other mods to check in for them sometimes at night. Relying solely on reports is what makes "attacks" possible. The mods still need to have time to actually be in the forums watching. If they're swamped or not enough online they can't do this.

5. The old memberlist, I hope they bring back that feature too. All searches need to have an option for partial matches.

6. I think they've decided that they need to keep working on new items so it doesn't leave enough time to patch up older ones. If they release new items fast enough it helps keep the gold supply in check.

10. Hacked items. If I get a gifted item that is suspicious I just leave it there. Or if I buy a hacked item and one day I find I'm banned for having it I PM a mod and get it removed and dealt with. Not much else I can do. I too hope we can turn the gift feature off someday.

12. Forgive the lack of knowledge in this area but I thought flash was relatively the same on all computers like basically a system seperate from the broswer itself. I didn't think it would end up causing so many problems. Flash is so widely used nowadays I figured it was safe to use on most computers.

13. Adding scrollbars to the flash games is a piece of cake. When Towns first came out it had them. Then when they removed them it took me like 5 second to write it back into the window opening script "scrollbars=yes." Not very hard I must say sweatdrop The flash games need scrollbars and resizing.

14. I hope the layout and scripts are simplified someday for other browsers. It's sad to hear Netscape doesn't let some people shop.


The marketplace search: This one has me baffled. There are so many search engines now on websites, why is Gaia's so complicated? There should be options for any, all, exact phrase, partial matches and all the usual stuff. I mean, look at the TekTek site, that guy's plenty smart so I'm sure Gaia has paid programmers who can do just as well. How can one person do all these things and yet a site with this much money has troubles with their programmers? Need I remind you of the avatar arena? It seems sloppy to me to hear that paid programmers are having this much difficulty.

I know Gaia is a huge, complicated project, (much larger than TekTek of course) so are they maybe making it too hard on themselves? Back when I was into making webpages hover menus and searches were becoming common. Why is Gaia having trouble with theirs now after all these years?

I really don't want to sound like a know-it-all or someone who doesn't appreciate how huge Gaia is sweatdrop but I expect problems from personal sites, not ones with such large sources of income. Creating a battle system, yes, tough, but searching a database and hover menus? I wish I understood what the problem was but they aren't really telling us.

[Lady_Threnody]

Hey CC... If anything, I never said the admins didn't know about these problems. I mean its common sense that they do know so don't automatically assume such a thing lol.

I put up a list of my own because those are things I find to be on some level of importance. Whether they are minor or major problems people have complained and asked for these things to be fixed for a while.

As for your comments...

1. PG-13 rules aren't clear to everyone. I mean for some, a photo showing someone wearing a thong with a bra that covers the nipples is PG-13 but to others they say its not... as far as what the admins think on that is unknown. You see why I say that they're not clear on what the admins say is and isn't under those rules? Thats why they have to be a bit more clear on things like that.

2. I don't recall mentioning anything regarding the MP but if anything, they should just change it back to the way it was. We didn't have many problems then. However, I doubt they'll change it (considering that PM from Dri which was screenshoted).

3. Gaia will now be continuously growing fast. More mods is a must and a circulation for all time zones would be a great idea. We all have lives but the more mods, the less time they have to spend on Gaia to take care of reports (depending on the qeues).

4. Was skipped. o_O

5. The old memberlist is missed greatly. heart xd

6. At Fanime, they did say they're going to add a more diversity of items so its all good. As long as its not just on a few genres of items then I'm all for it. 3nodding

7. to 9. Were also skipped o_O

10. Not much ANYONE can do. I mean s**t happens right? However, if they can find a way to prevent that from happening then great. If not then we'll just deal with it and move on like usual. 3nodding

11. Again... skipped... o_O

12. Flash is from Macromedia (same company that makes Dreamweaver MX etc). Some PCs can't handle certain versions of Flash while others can do great with various versions and upgrades. Flash also lagges people like a sum-ma-ma-b***h! Depending on their PCs of course. I am on broadband and can run Towns and Games without any problems but if I visit someone's profiles that has a flash game it might take a while to load. It happens, again we deal with it. A great solution there is to make it so that we can turn off medias in other people's profiles when we view them. Now, mix Flash with Javascripting and people who's PCs ******** up with the two mixed together on high definitions (for lack of better wording there) are doomed into lagging oblivion. x_X

13. Yes, scrollbars to the Games and Towns is very easy to do. Why they haven't added this... no idea but they should. Its simple, it would be effective, and damn there simple to implement.

14. I think Jakobo or Lanzer said that the new site design will be easy to use on all types of resolutions and browsers. At least that is what I read in Skyko's thread in GCD. Hmm, not sure but he did say something about the browsers and 800x600 resolutions.

We are getting a topics search again and hopefully its not as bad as before. Perhaps the search in the MP is connected to that some how? Either way, they should just switch back to the old MP search for the meantime.

I remember those days too. However, you have to take into consideration that they're working with heavy customized PHP and Java coding (among others). When you ******** with coding, things are bound to glitch as you put the codes in place. Its trial and error, thus implementing them on a live site to see exactly what they have to fix, redo, upgrade, change, and so on and so forth. Annoying as hell, irritating, and damn there frustrating but worth it in the long-run. x_X

"Seduce my mind and you can have my body. Find my soul and I'm yours forever." ~Anonymous
[ No, you can't use my tribal images. ]

[Kiyomizu]

Lady's list has grown even larger. O_o;

[Cynnau]

Kiyomizu

This problem concerns only those that have a moderator/ban issue.

This is not a feature or a problem that affects every user on Gaia, only to those that consider themselves unfairly banned.

Granted, 1% of all bans might have been unjust or uncalled for, that's why there is a system in place to address your grievances. PMing several mods about your problem and having it looked into. If you still cannot accept the verdict from them, then PMing the admins or emailing them with your problem is another recourse you have.

Just as an FYI that is what has been done, both by phone and email, not to mention PMs for some time now and the issue is still not resolved. In addition the email was never sent in regards to the ban.

We speak to the mods, they say speak to the admins. The admins are ignoring the questions, in addition the head of customer service is ignoring the emails and phone calls as well.

I think the communication is lacking in many areas.

[xiridian]

One thing I really want fixed is the stuff which is just... It just shouldn't be broken in the first place.
For instance, the way that in the stores, the preview window is at the very bottom of the page, yet the dialogue box of the item you're trying on is waaaay up the top. Wtf. Redirection from the report forms would be nice, too, since last I checked it didn't work.
I'd also like to see more green mods out and about. And tealies. Surely we have a couple of Ded!Mods who have been in the job long enough to get a promotion. The backlog is pathetically long.

Most of all, I'd like a pair of scissors to use against the red tape this place has, and get some proper communication.

edit: the teleportation list in the map doesn't work either. and incidentally, I could have sworn that a link to the Reader's Digest takes you to a lousy, dead version. Said version then tells you to bugger off to the newer version. What the crap. Link to the new version straight off, eh?

[Kiyomizu]

@CCMinerva: Jakob doesn't update the Q&A sticky, mods just edit the first post whenever it needs to be updated.

The admins are aware of the problems affecting the site but many users don't know about them. They search for a place around for people who have similar problems and sometimes it's not mentioned anywhere.

This is a way for everyone to express what problems need to be adressed, with people posting, we can learn details of each and every problem affecting the site.

I have to emphasize that in no way am I criticizing the admins/devs in any way. I know they work hard to bring us new features every month but sometimes things break, they need to be repaired and organizing one topic so they can read what kind of problems people have with the site, they can learn more too.

I am a person who likes change, I always welcome change. Many things on Gaia are changed but sometimes some things should remain the same unless they absolutely need to in order for the site to function more smoothly and faster.

@Xiridian: The teleporter on the world map, I'd like that fixed too. That problem affects everyone using the site.

*hands you a pair of scissors, cut only the red tape.*

[Kiyomizu]

Legal Bump

[Kiyomizu]

I don't want to sound like a vintage broken record but the admins need to address the various problems affecting the site. It's confusing many and creating unnecessary stress.

[Mr.spiderlance]

Yes, they need to stop adding features for a while and address the issues which are more important.

[Zelgadis_rules]

The marketplace is the only problem that affects me, and it's big time for me, because I'm an exchanger on a Devil Tail quest. gonk I really wish they'd get that fixed. I know the "" thing was on purpose, but that three letter thing... Damn. I've got work arounds, but they're difficult.

[Zelgadis_rules]

Mr.spiderlance

Yes, they need to stop adding features for a while and address the issues which are more important.

Read the FMIs. >.>; Differen't people work on new features than the people who work on glitches. Stopping one thing wouldn't improve the other, just cut us off from one while the other was worked on at the same rate. gonk

[Kiyomizu]

Legal Bump o.o

[Kiyomizu]

The admins have heard us, [NPC] Meredith posted an announcement explaining that they have changed the marketplace search, how it functions, and an explanation for the 3 word search problem.

That should ease users minds and stop the confusion in the marketplace although they need a solution ASAP.