This is something that I've been thinking about. At the moment we sort of have a "medium" privacy level in regards to content that guests can view. What I've been thinking about doing is making more things viewable by the public. More Public + Better indexing by search engines + Essentially better search results, which could mean more members Of course, this isn't without drawbacks. Ramath-lehi and plagiarism have had a long, unhappy history together (though I've been dealing with every instance as soon as it comes up). That was one of the reasons why I made is so that only registered members can view character profiles. Character theft is an uncool thing. Next to characters, the second most popular thing that people like to steal are actually our rules (I guess that means they're good or something? :P). On the other end of the spectrum, we can push for more exclusivity and privacy on the site. Meaning that if you aren't registered, you can't see a thing except for perhaps a few teasers. With the next version of the site, the registration quiz is going to get the kick (it's being reincarnated elsewhere), so people will be able to register easily enough. Thoughts? Any preference over more public sites vs. private ones? Any other drawbacks and benefits you can think of?
although it's unfortunate to know that RaL deals with a lot of plagarism, i think that it should become more public. i think the idea of being able to view profiles is a good idea. i would've loved to have had a greater understanding of what the characters are like on RaL and what was expected of newcomers. is there any way to prevent character theft, like... put up an anti-right click javascript on all the pages? i mean, it's not perfect but at least it is a deterent. i think if we had more imagery on RaL, we could encourage more newcomers while simutaneously prevent theft of information. if the RaL map was readily accessible, like had a evident link somewhere, then it would give a really brief idea of what our RP world is like. additionally, if we had more images of the different playable species, i think we'd gather more public interest. if you're wary of allowing all profiles becoming public and viewable, then why not place a few examples underneath each species description? P.S. jods you wrote public twice in the last paragraph. hehe, preference? (;
I have a one track mind... lol. *fixes* I could put JavaScript protection on, but I think it'd be more a hindrance than anything else. Specially since lots of people copy and paste pieces of threads. Perhaps if it was just enabled on just the character profiles themselves..? It's easy to circumvent (just turn JavaScript off), but it might be enough of a deterrent for some people. I shall meditate on it. :P I also whole-heartedly agree on the image front. ^^
Are we really concerned about people stealing the rules? I mean, rules generally say the same thing across most forums. That just goes to show that ours really work. Because if not, people will be having to guess and check to see what works and that usually causes unforeseen problems. As far as guarding character profiles and such, that sounds like a good idea. People can't see other characters until they have made their first, although we COULD have sample character profiles for new members to model their own after. (And if it's plagiarized, it'll be easier to tell because we know what are in the sample applications.)
No, lol. I'm not concerned about the rules being stolen. :P More so just the characters. I guess we could have sample profiles... we'll see. I think that I might try to make things all public at first, then if we have any incidents, we can figure out what to do from there. I already know for certain that a few pages (downloads, oekaki, parts of member profiles, etc.) are going to be completely member's only. Just to prevent evil spider bots from getting at things they shouldn't.
Oh shi— No we don't. Certainly not one we've been hiding anyway, and definitely not one that's fully integrated, lol. Ms. Leaf, I should really just make you staff so that you can play with all my toys. Hehehe.
I think that instead of being able to view all character profiles, maybe a few select ones or one from each person? The members get to choose which character they want non-members to be able to see, to show off their best work? In regards to the okekai, do you mean the one that... *Sees laser points on head* ... I know nothing ^^;;
Seeing as how Googlebot has some staffer privileges, I'm a bit concerned it'll spider 'secret' material. If anyone was curious enough, could they - at the moment - find information on anything we talk about? I'm not sure unregistered players should be allowed to view character applications.
Nah, Googlebot doesn't actually have access to that account. I just created in on a whim one day because... Google is awesome. :P
Anyone who attempts to Google a Character Application on this website in an attempt to plagiarize must be extremely bored.
wow, suddenly i seem to have forgotten everything we just talked about. i best just leave... ;P i'm not sure how easy it'll be to code for having one select character profile available for access but yeah, that doesn't sound like a poor idea so that we don't feel a competition arises from having to choose a few 'sample profiles'. i checked out other things while logged in as a guest, and liked the way the forums were arranged so that individual threads were inaccessible. the sample threads in the 'new player guide' are sufficient, i'd say. edit: and the anti-right click javascript - yeah, i was meaning to say it would only be intended for character profiles. we could always implement a few teasers. allow only a few of the playables species to be viewable for newcomers, or if not the species (because those are so cool, should we keep them a secret!?) then maybe some other things?
*giggles* It'd be easy enough to code something like that so that people can pick which characters of theirs they want to be public. If some more people would like that option, I can do it. :] I could also make it just so that a few select profiles are viewable to the public, even if it's just my own. I'll think about teasers some more too. Hiding the species might be neat, but some guests might want to know just what all you can play before joining. *think-thinks*
To add a bit onto my last post ^^ Firefox froze up :o! I'm not sure unregistered players should be allowed to view character profiles that belong to our members. I think it'd be better if they could view sample profiles we put together to show them what to do, and what not to do. I read through Phylus' reasoning behind sample profiles, and I agree. Picking current profiles to use as examples could potentially bring a competitive air - though I know it's unlikely. I dunno if I missed something, but can you script to disable right clicking for guests then re-enable it when they're logged in? That's the crux of what I'm saying, really. How to stop strangers from being party-poopers. Personally I'd be content if that was doable.
ohooo, i like dumu's idea a lot of having just sample profiles made for the sake of showing them. though, again, i'm not sure who would have the responsibility of doing that. i mean, always you can say it's the staff's, but i wouldn't mind helping out. *wag-wag* hmn, we could make teasers out of the compendium? i just it's neat when you register you suddenly have access to all this great knowledge.
on the note of no right click java, as long as you can highlight you can just do a ctrl c and ctrl v all i can say is make it a picture and water mark it =)
Mm, digesting words. Okay, so... would people be cool if they were given the option to make their character profile public? By default, all profiles would be private, meaning that no unregistered people could access them. Then by clicking a little toggle button, you could make individual character profiles completely public — so both guests, and spidering robots could access them. It seems pretty fair to me. I really don't want to go the route of littering every little thing with JavaScript, specially as I said, it is pretty easy to circumvent. I will keep it on profiles for guests though. Hm, making teasers out of the compendium is also an option. Maybe all of the pages regarding culture and society, as well as the various short stories could be member's only.
