Thread to Report Issues with new xenForo version 2.2

[Synobun]

2. Conversations. This is a whopper of a change, and NOT a good one . You can no longer access your conversations from your profile. You can't access your older conversations from your "unread conversations." There are times when I want to continue an older conversation with someone, but now I can't get to them via my profile.

The only solution I found was to check one of my unread conversations, click on the link for the rest of the conversations (thankfully they didn't get zapped), and access them that way. I've bookmarked this link, but the point is that this is a really convoluted and non-user-friendly way to expect people to access older conversations. Some conversations are ongoing, not just one-offs with one or two responses.

Click on the envelope icon next to the bell. The bottom left link, Show All, leads you to where all your conversations are.

 

[The_J]

1. What is a "profile banner"? Apparently I have the option to have one. I don't know what that means. If I add one, will it add something nice to look at just in my profile? Can others see it if they check my profile?

Yes, this is exactly as you think.
@Birdjaguar has uploaded one for a test.

3. Trophy points. I wrote to the staff of TrekBBS to find out the full list of what points are given for (it's been so long since I last received new points that I'd forgotten), and was given a list. Some of it won't apply here, of course, since we don't use post count to determine Starfleet ranks (change in rank means more trophy points).

Some points, however, are given out for other things that serve to reward and encourage participation and good posting and are general enough for any forum. We could add whatever of these we don't already have, and since TrekBBS has a Starfleet theme for some reward points, there's no reason CFC couldn't have a Civ theme for points.

The trophy list is very simple, see here https://forums.civfanatics.com/help/trophies/
We considered expanding them, but there's essentially not many interesting options available.

 

[Birdjaguar]

@Valka D'Ur Once you add a picture to your profile banner (a Horizontal picture is best) you can easily move it around to get the part you like best showing. There is no need to crop a picture to fit. Let me know if you struggle with it.

 

[Takhisis]

I

I'd rather white, or really something warmer. Kind of like is already in this reply box!

Stark white on full-on black can be bad, too, so I prefer greens or yellows or blues as I tend to select for other forums.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Yes, this is exactly as you think.
@Birdjaguar has uploaded one for a test.

The trophy list is very simple, see here https://forums.civfanatics.com/help/trophies/
We considered expanding them, but there's essentially not many interesting options available.

Yes, our own list is extremely basic. But as evidenced by how TrekBBS expanded 113 points into 1560 points (would probably be more if there was a higher rank than Fleet Admiral, but only a handful of people have reached higher than that so it would only affect like 3 people; they said they wouldn't bother until more of us get there, and at my posting rate it'll take another 10 years).

Can I send you their list? Since there are so many more levels of points than we have, it must be customizable to some extent.

@Valka D'Ur Once you add a picture to your profile banner (a Horizontal picture is best) you can easily move it around to get the part you like best showing. There is no need to crop a picture to fit. Let me know if you struggle with it.

Is there a maximum size, or best size? I've got lots of pictures, but would prefer not to run into struggles and have to bother anyone about it.

Yours looks rather cool, btw. Since my current avatar has an Egyptian cat theme, I should have something compatible stashed away. If not, Pinterest will provide.

Stark white on full-on black can be bad, too, so I prefer greens or yellows or blues as I tend to select for other forums.

This is a sample of the theme I use on a forum called Pond Friends (it's a gaming forum for a more general selection of computer games; the particular group I hang around with there are mostly older women, though you don't have to be either grumpy, old, or female to post there). The color scheme is simple and elegant: black with two shades of gold font and white for the parts that aren't the actual post:

(I go by a slightly different name there since the one I use here is connected to Test of Time and few people there play Civ).

 

[Birdjaguar]

Is there a maximum size, or best size? I've got lots of pictures, but would prefer not to run into struggles and have to bother anyone about it.

Yours looks rather cool, btw. Since my current avatar has an Egyptian cat theme, I should have something compatible stashed away. If not, Pinterest will provide.

Currently the picture in my profile is 3.1 MB and is overly large. I positioned it so only the part I want to show shows. Soon I will crop so the excess is gone. Horizontal images work best. I will look around for something that you might like.

 

[The_J]

Yes, our own list is extremely basic. But as evidenced by how TrekBBS expanded 113 points into 1560 points (would probably be more if there was a higher rank than Fleet Admiral, but only a handful of people have reached higher than that so it would only affect like 3 people; they said they wouldn't bother until more of us get there, and at my posting rate it'll take another 10 years).

Can I send you their list? Since there are so many more levels of points than we have, it must be customizable to some extent.

What points they have might be dependent on what software they use, their customisations, etc., so it might not necessarily be transferable.
I can show you instead what options we have:

Spoiler :

There is a bunch more options, but they are not really sensible. e.g. you can give out trophies based on anything what you have ticked in your profile, e.g. we could give out trophies for every Civ version you tick in there. But you could just tick them all. So.... IMHO not so useful.

Note: The "questions answered" refers to a specific type of "question" thread, where the thread starter can designate a specific post as "correct answer" (similar to e.g. StackOverflow). We do have that feature, but not activated yet, and we're discussing this right now.

 

[The_J]

@Valka D'Ur I have added a dark style. Please let me know what colours you consider to be a problem, contrast-wise mostly (aesthetically only if it's a big problem right now).

 

[PPQ_Purple]

You can always add more achievements for good reviews on items uploaded. So far it caps out at 500 I think. And there are people here who have more upvotes than that.

 

[The_J]

Yes, certainly, but this doesn't get any more interesting either. We could add achievements for every 100 likes, but thinking about that already bores me :/.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Yes, certainly, but this doesn't get any more interesting either. We could add achievements for every 100 likes, but thinking about that already bores me :/.

Well to be perfectly honest I see this entire thing as pointless gamification that contributes nothing to the experience. Well at least nothing healthy. Indeed, I could and have made an argument that such gamification is actually unhealthy as it promotes addictive patterns of behavior by making people chase the achievement high. But if you have to add more stuff you might as well lean into that and just add more and more steps to the endless grind ladder of grinding for approval from internet strangers to make one self feel good.

 

[Quintillus]

I think PPQ_Purple was referring specifically to the Reviews in the Downloads Database, e.g. https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/the-third-world-war-1989.23477/reviews? That's one of the few areas where I could see the Trophy Points being useful. I agree that it's mostly pointless gamification, but it could also be a way for people to discover parts of the site they haven't used before. Leaving reviews for Downloads could be one of those, although I don't see it in The_J's list.

I do have some concerns that completionists may do things just because they're on the list, e.g. submitting resources or media galleries because there's a trophy point, not because they have something that they ordinarily would have used that feature for.

I'm finding that older posts with non-English characters (see here and the following post) have now been broken into a mess of what looks like HTML code for special characters (lots of &and a few alphanumeric characters).

In the general case, that was actually a problem that originated with the vBulletin to XenForo 1.x migration. I can't say for sure whether any additional issues occurred in that area with XenForo 2.x, but suspect most of them are from the prior migration. It couldn't handle French áccènts, for exâmple.

I do agree that it would be nice if they could be cleaned up in an automated fashion. They generally got replaced with their HTML code representations, e.g. ž used to be ž. I've also seen issues with the occasional ampersand or quotes (smart quotes pasted from Word?). The problem is safely fixing all of them since they're spread out all over the threads, and if you fix them incorrectly it might just make it all worse.

 

[Takhisis]

Hmmm. I'm seeing it happen on totalwar.org's vBulletin-based posts right now, so something's wrong over there as well.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

What points they have might be dependent on what software they use, their customisations, etc., so it might not necessarily be transferable.
I can show you instead what options we have:

Spoiler :

View attachment 634948

There is a bunch more options, but they are not really sensible. e.g. you can give out trophies based on anything what you have ticked in your profile, e.g. we could give out trophies for every Civ version you tick in there. But you could just tick them all. So.... IMHO not so useful.

Note: The "questions answered" refers to a specific type of "question" thread, where the thread starter can designate a specific post as "correct answer" (similar to e.g. StackOverflow). We do have that feature, but not activated yet, and we're discussing this right now.

Okay, here's the list from TrekBBS. Most have to do with forum ranks based on post count, which allows access to hidden "lounges" - subforums where people can drop in for games and chat of a more personal nature that often has nothing at all to do with Star Trek and often to do with personal RL stuff.

Spoiler trophy points used on TrekBBS :

10 points =

Spoiler trophy points used on TrekBBS :

Someone likes you. You've achieved 50 likes - that means you must be saying stuff that people like. Or you have 50 of your family members at the TrekBBS who love you...

The rest are rank-based:

50 = Red shirt away mission survivor. Grants full access to having a custom avatar and signature (only premium members get a custom usertitle). Not sure what the CFC equivalent would be in avatar/sig/PM privileges.

100 = Captain. You've been here a while and your performance has been exemplary. You are hereby promoted from red shirt to captain, with all the privileges that bestow.

200 = Meet the Fleet, Captain. (usually referred to as Flaptains) It's like a captain, but a better captain. You're now granted access to the next echelon of lounges, not mixing with the common captains of old.

300 = Commodores and camaraderie. You've posted a lot, you've been here a while. Captains and fleet captains are beneath you now as you take your place alongside those in the commodores' lounge.

400 = You're here and you're rear. You truly have shown your commitment to The Trek BBS and now you ascend to the Rear Admirals' lounge... you're just one step away from reaching the top here now.

500 = Admirable service, my Admiral. You've done it, you've reached the top. Hopefully meaningful discussion has led you to the top at The Trek BBS. Either way you're here now, so join the Admirals' lounge.

I have all of these categories of trophy points, which add up to 1560. There are a few people whose post counts are far beyond the highest rank within the admiralty (there are 4 of these), but until more people get there, the admins didn't consider it worth the bother of creating a new kind of rank and lounge. It's a bit pointless to create a subforum where only half a dozen people have the post count to see it, never mind post in it (not everyone bothers with their respective rank's lounges).

I see from the screenshot you provided that CFC already has more CFC-centric and general forum-centric options listed. I am not suggesting a new trophy for every 100 likes. Encouraging people with that just the one time is good enough. Tying trophy points to things like "resources" and albums means that most of us who don't live on one or more of the Civ forums will probably never achieve those (I do post in Civ II, but not as often as I did years ago and I've never uploaded screenshots of games or even the scenario I created years ago - in any case it's likely gone forever, even though I remember the basics).

Are there fields to customize criteria for trophies? If so, we could come up with stuff that's fun and definitely CFC-centric that could encourage participation in various parts of the site. Or at least there could be a more appealing little note that accompanies the new point addition.

@Valka D'Ur I have added a dark style. Please let me know what colours you consider to be a problem, contrast-wise mostly (aesthetically only if it's a big problem right now).

I've switched to it and so far it looks great. I like the contrast between the black background and white font, and love the green for the links. It's cheerful, and a good contrast that's attractive without being overwhelming. The black background makes my avatar stand out nicely, too.

There are a few of the smileys that have obvious problems with extra white pixels that need trimming, but that's a smiley problem, not a problem with the theme.

It's nice to be able to see the names of the different smiley categories. In the older version, these were greyed out and unreadable.

One aesthetic issue I would appreciate if it could be changed when you have time is the color of the Retired Moderators' badges. I've no objection to green, but this kind of pastel green looks so washed-out that it's actually hard to tell what color it is.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Currently the picture in my profile is 3.1 MB and is overly large. I positioned it so only the part I want to show shows. Soon I will crop so the excess is gone. Horizontal images work best. I will look around for something that you might like.

Okay, I found one to try. I couldn't reposition it, though.

 

[Enginseer]

Hmmm I don't know what happened but https://modiki.civfanatics.com seems to be unaccessible now since this change?

 

[The_J]

Okay, here's the list from TrekBBS. Most have to do with forum ranks based on post count, which allows access to hidden "lounges" - subforums where people can drop in for games and chat of a more personal nature that often has nothing at all to do with Star Trek and often to do with personal RL stuff.

Spoiler trophy points used on TrekBBS :

10 points =

Spoiler trophy points used on TrekBBS :

Someone likes you. You've achieved 50 likes - that means you must be saying stuff that people like. Or you have 50 of your family members at the TrekBBS who love you...

The rest are rank-based:

50 = Red shirt away mission survivor. Grants full access to having a custom avatar and signature (only premium members get a custom usertitle). Not sure what the CFC equivalent would be in avatar/sig/PM privileges.

100 = Captain. You've been here a while and your performance has been exemplary. You are hereby promoted from red shirt to captain, with all the privileges that bestow.

200 = Meet the Fleet, Captain. (usually referred to as Flaptains) It's like a captain, but a better captain. You're now granted access to the next echelon of lounges, not mixing with the common captains of old.

300 = Commodores and camaraderie. You've posted a lot, you've been here a while. Captains and fleet captains are beneath you now as you take your place alongside those in the commodores' lounge.

400 = You're here and you're rear. You truly have shown your commitment to The Trek BBS and now you ascend to the Rear Admirals' lounge... you're just one step away from reaching the top here now.

500 = Admirable service, my Admiral. You've done it, you've reached the top. Hopefully meaningful discussion has led you to the top at The Trek BBS. Either way you're here now, so join the Admirals' lounge.

I have all of these categories of trophy points, which add up to 1560. There are a few people whose post counts are far beyond the highest rank within the admiralty (there are 4 of these), but until more people get there, the admins didn't consider it worth the bother of creating a new kind of rank and lounge. It's a bit pointless to create a subforum where only half a dozen people have the post count to see it, never mind post in it (not everyone bothers with their respective rank's lounges).

I see from the screenshot you provided that CFC already has more CFC-centric and general forum-centric options listed. I am not suggesting a new trophy for every 100 likes. Encouraging people with that just the one time is good enough. Tying trophy points to things like "resources" and albums means that most of us who don't live on one or more of the Civ forums will probably never achieve those (I do post in Civ II, but not as often as I did years ago and I've never uploaded screenshots of games or even the scenario I created years ago - in any case it's likely gone forever, even though I remember the basics).

Are there fields to customize criteria for trophies? If so, we could come up with stuff that's fun and definitely CFC-centric that could encourage participation in various parts of the site. Or at least there could be a more appealing little note that accompanies the new point addition.

Besides the criteria listed, there's nothing really sensibe what we could use, I'm afraid :/.
it's all simply more of the number-based metrics (more posts, more likes, more liked, etc). I wished we could be more creative, but we cannot .

I've switched to it and so far it looks great. I like the contrast between the black background and white font, and love the green for the links. It's cheerful, and a good contrast that's attractive without being overwhelming. The black background makes my avatar stand out nicely, too.

There are a few of the smileys that have obvious problems with extra white pixels that need trimming, but that's a smiley problem, not a problem with the theme.

It's nice to be able to see the names of the different smiley categories. In the older version, these were greyed out and unreadable.

One aesthetic issue I would appreciate if it could be changed when you have time is the color of the Retired Moderators' badges. I've no objection to green, but this kind of pastel green looks so washed-out that it's actually hard to tell what color it is.

Okay, I'm glad to hear.
I might have a look at the badge colours.
Not sure if I can re-upload smilies, I don't think I have the permissions for that .

Hmmm I don't know what happened but https://modiki.civfanatics.com seems to be unaccessible now since this change?

Thunderfall has started the 2nd part of the migration process, the migration of everything else what is on the server (e.g. also the modiki) to a new server. With a few things this has worked, e.g. the polycast http://polycast.civfanatics.com/ , but there are issues with the mediawiki software, which right now breaks the modiki. He's working on it.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Besides the criteria listed, there's nothing really sensibe what we could use, I'm afraid :/.
it's all simply more of the number-based metrics (more posts, more likes, more liked, etc). I wished we could be more creative, but we cannot .

Okay, I'm glad to hear.
I might have a look at the badge colours.
Not sure if I can re-upload smilies, I don't think I have the permissions for that .

I don't mean use the TrekBBS wording exactly, as it obviously has nothing to do with Civ, or the exact criteria since CFC has never required specific post count for anything but getting past the early probationary time as a new member, to have custom avatars, sigs, and PM privileges.

But there's a raft of different things in the list you gave me that TrekBBS doesn't use - like albums (they're disabled over there; we had them with vBulletin), or resources (never heard of that, so it must also have never been enabled there. So this tells me that it's customizable to some extent.

Is there one for polls, for instance? As in the first time posting one?

 

[Synobun]

My take on points is to either keep having incremental gains based on what we already have, or to remove the system entirely. It is pointless gamification, yes, but the feature exists and has some thresholds already. There is no real difference between 100 likes and 1000 likes, except that one number is bigger, and that's the only reason points exist to begin with: to get bigger numbers. So if there's a trophy for 100 likes, or 1000 posts, or whatever, then it makes just as much sense to have one for something more as well.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

My take on points is to either keep having incremental gains based on what we already have, or to remove the system entirely. It is pointless gamification, yes, but the feature exists and has some thresholds already. There is no real difference between 100 likes and 1000 likes, except that one number is bigger, and that's the only reason points exist to begin with: to get bigger numbers. So if there's a trophy for 100 likes, or 1000 posts, or whatever, then it makes just as much sense to have one for something more as well.

Funny thing about likes and where/how you get them...

Spoiler comment about TrekBBS :

The admin of TrekBBS is a really snarky person who once informed me, "Nobody likes you."

Sorry, my "likes" total, my PMs, and the many cordial conversations and interactions there don't support that opinion. So it's nice to have evidence to throw in her face that just because she and her closest buddies (some really unpleasant people) consider me scum, that's not the general view.

I've got over 3100 likes at TrekBBS and over 60,000 on the CBC.ca comment section. That, plus whatever I have here with likes, friendly PMs and messages, and cordial interactions, tells me I'm doing something right in terms of what I say and how I say it. I know it doesn't mean undying friendship with whoever leaves these likes and upvotes, but it does indicate a generally positive reaction to at least some of what I have to say, and that kind of encouragement is helpful.

I've been on a forum where a similar thing (reputation score) was used to allow people access to hidden areas of the site. It was also weaponized at that forum when one of the admins went on a spree against a few people he didn't like and used his admin access to lower the reputation scores to the point that it would take YEARS to work back up to the point of gaining access to what we'd had just the day before. It was meant in a hostile way, to humiliate the people affected, and happily enough people complained that the scores were restored and the admin was kicked off staff for abusing his authority.

So at least "likes" never go in any direction but up.

As for upvoting answers to questions... can these answers also be downvoted if they're off-topic or if they're known to not work? This is something that has the potential to become a popularity contest and generate ill-will if it isn't managed carefully.