Important! Arkadia Forum Upgrade

Discussion in 'About Arkadia Forums' started by Dylan | Arkadia, Oct 14, 2014.

  1. Snape

    Snape Master of the BanHammer Staff Member PAF Administrator

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    True enough Lizzy.

    As for the Blogs, I will retrieve them as soon as Dylan is able to focus on setting up the old forum on a private server for me to pick through. Atm, the poor lad has his hands full so I don't want to overburden him.
     
    • Informative Informative x 1
  2. May

    May Active Member

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    Yeah, a blanket sweep seems a bit harsh. Especially since that wasn't mentioned at the start. ;)
    Unlike Trophies, the Forum Credits can (eventually) be used as a 'currency': I've seen someone selling in-game items for credits. To have all credits then wiped clean, would be a bit like throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

    Besides; stat-lovers are quite fond of their numbers. :stats:
     
  3. sinkillerj

    sinkillerj Active Member

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    Yea, I've been thinking about offering services for credits as well, and the knowledge of a wipe discourages that.
     
  4. Snape

    Snape Master of the BanHammer Staff Member PAF Administrator

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    Yeah, ok guys, point taken. A clean sweep does seem a bit heavy. Bear in mind though, that to go through each and every profile and workout who's been exploiting the system and deal with them separately is going to take time....time that I have to find among all the other things I currently have on my plate. So if things seem to go a little slow for your liking, a little patience is all I ask. :D
     
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  5. Bemo

    Bemo Deactivated User

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    Ty for the hard work Snape ;)
     
  6. KikkiJikki

    KikkiJikki Well-Known Member Pro Users

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    Hi Snape. Because I just know you have endless time to spare...
    I actually think the configuration of credit awards needs to be tweaked. It seems a little easy to accumulate credits. I have nearly 200 and I'm not sure what I did to deserve that.
     
  7. Snape

    Snape Master of the BanHammer Staff Member PAF Administrator

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    Yep, I'm already looking at this. Some of it seems to be the system catching up as people login, some of it as people adjust their profiles etc.

    Some of the discoveries I've made have been quite bizarre..... For instance, someone joining the forum today needs to post 15 times in order to gain the trophy points for the system to move them automatically from the new members group into the full members group. However, someone that was a member of the old forum who had made a couple of posts, STILL has to make the 15 required by the new system as it doesn't seem to recognise the number of posts people already have.....at least that has been my observation so far :confused:
     
  8. sinkillerj

    sinkillerj Active Member

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    New users also seam to get a 10 credit bonus that old users didint.
     
  9. Snape

    Snape Master of the BanHammer Staff Member PAF Administrator

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    Yes this is a new registration bonus, which I've now cut to 5. A few people have benefited from this already but I'm not going to spend more time going back and checking join dates and so forth...it's just not worth my time, and besides, regular forum users will surpass that in very little time anyway so its not much of an advantage anyhow.

    Ok, so during a quiet 5 mins today I have looked at the credit system. A few thing to note:
    1. A number of members have their birth year set to 1900. This is the main cause of certain members all of a sudden jumping up to big credit totals as the credit multiplier you get is the birthday number (now set to 1 instead of 10) x your age.....Whilst I know we have one of the most mature communities going, I do find it hard to believe that we have so many centurions here among us....Either that or I should be calling Guinness about a World Record claim!!! :D
    2. I have deleted everyones birthday transactions I could find at this point in time (65 of you in fact, including one of the A-Team officials!!!) that had their date of birth year set to 1900. If you suddenly find yourself short a few credits check your year of birth....
    3. If you contact me with your correct Date of Birth, not only will you get the correct amount of credits next time around, but I will also reimburse you the correct amount for this time as well.
    4. Anyone whose birthday fell more than 18 days ago, may have still been given extra birthday credits at this point, though I am confident that I got most of them. The transaction record was only set to 18 days after which point it dropped off the record...I have now made it 365 days instead so I can at least see back a year in the future.
    5. As above, any people I have missed, who are honest and come forward, will be reimbursed the correct amount of credits.
    6. Lastly, I set the interest rate to 0. I felt that at least doing this lessened the impact of people with already substantial credit amounts and gave the rest a chance to catch up.
    The only alternative I have at this stage is that I set the birthday credit bonus to 0. This means that from this point onward, no one would get a birthday bonus thus stopping the exploiters dead in their tracks but also unnecessarily punishing everyone else......
     
    Last edited: Nov 17, 2014
  10. KikkiJikki

    KikkiJikki Well-Known Member Pro Users

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  11. wournos

    wournos Active Member

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    Does it make a difference to set a birth date or not? I haven't and don't plan on it.
    Also, like some others have already expressed I'd prefer to keep my credits. I don't have a lot compared to others but they are legitimately collected ("reading" almost every thread marked with 'New', posting relevant posts (that some seem to like :woot: ) etc).

    But if they have to go then they have to go. Just make sure to mark every thread New again so we can "read" them all over to get credits. :D
     
  12. Dan59

    Dan59 Active Member

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    I dont think ppl set year of birth on 1900 intentionaly.
    As is not requred you can leave it blank so maybe system provided a year.
    After reading here i checked my data and i had it still just blank as have always been.
    Now i filled it with right year.

    Maybe this shud be turned as required to force ppl to fill in ?
     
  13. Snape

    Snape Master of the BanHammer Staff Member PAF Administrator

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    Yes it does make a difference as people who have it set at 1900 will get an unfair amount of forum credits due to the forum on your birthday giving you 5x your age in bonus forum credits. As for the forum credits being taken away, don't worry, I've now decided not to do this as it will cause me more of a headache than the thought of fairness to all is worth.
    I agree that the majority of people didn't intentionally set it to 1900. I do however KNOW that a few have as I can see it in the transaction logs of the 65 I found on my first look yesterday.

    On the new forum, a proper date of birth IS REQUIRED as we have an age stipulation of 13+ for registration.....however! this has not affected people that were members pre forum change as it was not a requirement on the old forum. I can now see that where people that had left it blank previously, the system seems to have filled it in when the forum change occurred. Every new user I have authorised since the change has a "proper" date of birth filled in.

    EDIT: I've just done some more digging, and by sheer luck, I found the setting for the year/age multiplier that I've been digging for since this issue popped up. This has now been turned OFF and the birthday bonus reset to 20.
     
  14. KikkiJikki

    KikkiJikki Well-Known Member Pro Users

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    I just want to suggest that we don't stress too much over a system that is not even currently in use (in terms of being able to use credit for in forum benefits). None of us have paid for these credits and if it's not entirely even handed right now well perhaps we should get it in perspective. Everything we get with these credits is effectively a gift from the site owner.

    I think if the admins are going to put effort in then the focus should be on:
    1. reviewing the current settings (eg the birthday setting) and adjusting so it acts according to the site owners intentions
    2. Review the credit amounts of the top credit holders for reasonableness as time permits. Start at the top and work down.
    3. Don't be too concerned about making a tough call. That's part of the role of forum admin.

    When you eventually start introducing ways to consume credits, start small and conservative to hopefully use up some of the current balance of stockpiled credits. EG don't start with an auction for goods of significant value as that will probably lead to complaints about credits "unfairly obtained".
     
    • Agree Agree x 3
  15. Lizzy

    Lizzy Deactivated User

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    Heh, these birthday settings make me smile, some smart people we got here. I didn't even knew about the birthday bonus. Reminds me to check my own b-day setting and see if it is set right.
     
  16. May

    May Active Member

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    Ha ha, I was wondering what vast amount of reading people were doing, to get 500 credits in 1 day: mystery solved!
    Great work to pinpoint and fix that so fast. [​IMG]
    (If a multiplier should ever be returned; maybe it is possible to set it to a default of 20xx, instead of the 19xx it used to be?
    Then it would give no (accidental) advantage bonus-wise, for those who didn't fill it in.)

    I didn't know there is now a requirement for new members to provide their real DOB.
    I guess I'm lucky to have signed up under the 'old' rules. [​IMG]
    Since I fall in the category of people who prefer not to disclose RL info.
    Even though it has become quite 'normal' to just give away all your personal data everywhere, often for no reason whatsoever.
    (E.g. looking up a cookie recipe, should not require my DOB... [​IMG] )

    ps.
    Out of curiosity: how come some people have negative credits?
    You can spend/give more than you have?
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  17. Snape

    Snape Master of the BanHammer Staff Member PAF Administrator

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    No, the Multiplier was age and I didn't see any option to change it to anything else. Besides, I think a "birthday present" of X amount of credits is gift enough without multipliers being added.

    Yeah its part of the 13+ security measure. However, I believe that I could remove peoples DOB if they request it with no detrimental effects to their account. The fact that a number of DOB vacant accounts operate successfully enough leads me to believe this. So if anyone wants their DOB or any RL details removed, just let me know and we'll figure it out.

    TBH I haven't looked into it, but will let you know as soon as I do.
     
  18. May

    May Active Member

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    Thank you for responding.
    That's a very sympathetic offer; luckily I personally wont be needing to take you up on it.
    But it's great that the option is open for whomever feels the same way. [​IMG]
    I like the human approach, instead of by default go with a "them's the rules".

    Like I always say when people ask me why I prefer (to live on) Ark:
    Caly is bigger, Ark is friendlier. [​IMG]
     
  19. Kaz

    Kaz Active Member

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    Alerts
    1. [​IMG]
      You get Ω1.00 for Thread get Sticky.
      7 minutes ago
    2. [​IMG]
      You lost Ω9.00 for Thread get Unsticky.
      8 minutes ago
    So 1. I bought a shop and made a new thread for it today and got 1 credit for it when it became a "sticky"
    then 2. I moved my stuff from my apartment to the shop I bought and so closed the thread that pertained to my apartment, therefore losing 9 credits when that thread got "unstickied"

    my response: o_OWHAT? :eek:WHAT? :wideyed: WHAT! yes I really said that out loud lol. Although I'm not going to go on some forum rage quit or anything, I'm really feeling that I just got penalized for upgrading from an apartment to a shop :banghead:

    Really, I would have just kept a few clothes in my apartment and kept the thread going if I knew that was going to happen
     
    Last edited: Nov 30, 2014
  20. sinkillerj

    sinkillerj Active Member

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    I think the best solution to that would be to remove the unsticky penalty altogether. If a thread is unstickied its generally just because its old and has become irrelevant. Right now its being treated like a report which doesn't make much sense. I'm sure Snape will look into it though, probably one of those things like the bday issue that was unknown to everyone.