I was thinking it would be cool if there was a little online-or-offline status under people's names in a thread itself, and not just on the user pages. I'm no html wiz, but I figured it couldn't be too tough since it's already tracked anyways.

8/13/2004 9:06:20 AM

i like it

8/13/2004 2:14:36 PM

of course you do
it's the best idea any of you have ever heard
ever

8/13/2004 2:17:18 PM

Either that or you could have the names be a certain color if they are on. And be black when they are off.

8/13/2004 2:33:58 PM

ingenious

8/13/2004 3:10:10 PM

Great idea.

It's way too hard to hit "Home" at the top of the page, see if someone is online, and then press the back button to get back to the page you were on.

8/13/2004 3:33:07 PM

I would change the user name to a link to the profile, and replace the "user info" link with an Online/Offline flag. The info block would look something like that:

Mattakamoose
Chupa-thingie
8000 Posts
Online
edit post

8/13/2004 3:34:18 PM

^ yea, that's exactly what i was thinking of

8/13/2004 3:41:55 PM

or we could do little smiley or sleepy faces!

oh wait, Yahoo already did that

8/13/2004 3:42:03 PM

u guys are the bomb diggidy

8/13/2004 9:18:59 PM

Quote :

"ever"

8/14/2004 8:55:09 AM

BEST IDEA EVER
ASIDE FROM ANYTHING RELATING
TO FREE SPARKEMSANE

8/14/2004 3:37:16 PM

I KNOW!

8/16/2004 2:13:16 PM

you people complain about tww being slow - more db hits makes it even slower...

8/16/2004 5:28:11 PM

so we want more features but we don't want it to be slow. what's the problem

8/16/2004 6:46:02 PM

make it premie only!

screw the freeloaders

8/16/2004 6:47:12 PM

Quote :

"you people complain about tww being slow - more db hits makes it even slower..."

OK then, *gasp* don't show postcount. Same number of hits, less clutter in the status box, and it'll actually take an extra click to insult/extol someone's postcount.

8/19/2004 12:42:34 AM

yea

my postcount is my badge of shame

8/19/2004 10:18:43 AM

The way matt had it laid out, it wouldn't take more would it?

8/19/2004 5:04:27 PM

I approve this.

8/19/2004 5:35:10 PM

^^it depends on how they have the table structure of the database set up.

8/20/2004 2:47:55 PM

In the original, there's a database hit to pull status and postcount, assuming they're keying on the username.

My layout has 3 database hits, one each for status, postcount, and online status.

Since people paid for the perk of changing status, they won't want to give that up. Postcount can go as far as I'm concerned.

8/20/2004 5:32:50 PM

what kind of speed hit are we talking about here? preferably in laymans terms for all the non-ECE/CPE/CSC in the thread

8/20/2004 5:37:39 PM

Well, regardless, you shouldn't be making 3 hits to the database for post count, status, and online status.

The overhead is mainly dependent on how the online/offline status is detected. Generally, the methods to do so are pretty shitty though, but who knows.

[Edited on August 21, 2004 at 12:16 AM. Reason : .]

8/21/2004 12:16:39 AM

To my mind, there's no goddamn reason the user's name shouldn't link to the profile. Cut that "user info" shit.

8/21/2004 1:29:56 AM

yeah i was thinking about how this would affect db hits

then i realized it basically already caches the online list for who's online and it would be trivially expensive to query against that in the thread compared to post count and status description

[Edited on August 21, 2004 at 2:26 AM. Reason : even if it doesnt actually cache it mssql and mysql would cache it after a few iterations prolly]

[Edited on August 21, 2004 at 2:26 AM. Reason : *if it doesnt explicitly cache it]

8/21/2004 2:25:24 AM

great idea

8/23/2004 2:03:56 AM

come to think of it it probably caches all online users info
and im pretty sure ive noticed artifacts of it caching user info in threads even under certain circumstances
(post count updating in thread only after you post again in the thread)
so probably the performance hit would be trivial

one thing that would be neat and inexpensive to add would be a who's viewing thing for the thread/listing
people wouldn't lurk as much because it wouldn't be entirely anonymous?

8/23/2004 10:23:22 AM

^ Disagree on the "who's viewing" idea. I've always found that completely useless and bordering on annoying.

8/23/2004 4:16:41 PM

bttt this good idea

8/29/2004 1:35:47 PM

perhErpes

8/29/2004 1:38:53 PM

I concur.

8/31/2004 5:20:44 AM

THIS IS A GREAT IDEA, SIR!

10/6/2004 6:32:10 PM