On this one day I was thinking of searching for some help for an AGS project, but found browsing through the Offer Your Services thread somewhat hard to do. So I came up with this little helper script and I got a little carried away with it.
This is not any finished product and is not directly linked to the AGS forum. It uses local data that is "politely" read from the forum. List of users offering help includes everyone who posted on the Offer Your Services thread and has properly set up the little Offer Your Services icons. List of projects is just test data and most of it is not real. So please don't get offended if your data happens to be in there and it is not accurate.
Maybe something like this could be incorporated on the new AGS website/forums and so it could use real data from the same database as the forums? What do you people think? Would something like this be useful? Discuss!
Here the link: AGS JobBoard (http://bantza.raah.fi/bigbluecup/)
(Remember that project data is not real)
Similar things have been discussed before. For example on these two threads:
Special page for offering/recruiting help and assistance? (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=26971.0)
SUGGESTION: Searching through members for skills (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=17614.0)
Ya need to host it, ya puddin'
'localhost' is not very helpful :P
But I tested the link and it worked ;)
Fixed now.
Zabnat, beg for someone to sticky this! Or replace it, because honestly it looks perfect! It's easy for us to keep our offer services up-to-date!! And it's also way too darn easy for someone to find someone.
EDIT: Also where the f^&^ am I?
EDIT: Ah it's not properly updated...nevermind. Looks cool!!
Quote from: Dualnames on Sun 14/02/2010 17:41:27
Zabnat, beg for someone to sticky this! Or replace it, because honestly it looks perfect! It's easy for us to keep our offer services up-to-date!! And it's also way too darn easy for someone to find someone.
EDIT: Also where the f^&^ am I?
EDIT: Ah it's not properly updated...nevermind. Looks cool!!
I totally quote Dual's post (including profanities?)
Wow, this is excellent work! That should really be part of the main AGS website when the new design launches - also adds a dimension to the community side than just the forum.
Yeap, cool beans! Hopefully it'll be put into the new site, Im also happy to replace the offer your services thread. The only thing however is that it appears to pick people regardless of whether they might want to be picked or not. None the less, great stuff!
Quote from: Mods on Sun 14/02/2010 19:22:50
The only thing however is that it appears to pick people regardless of whether they might want to be picked or not.
Care to elaborate? There could be a bug in it.
As I said it only picks people who have posted in the Offer Your Services thread (doesn't matter what kind of post) AND has set up the icons on their profile. The "sales pitch" and the skills they offer come from the Offer Your Services icons. Also data is not real-time. It is just a snapshot, and updated whenever I feel like running the update script.
I like the idea, but further breaking down the list by forum activity would probably be more useful to the average person since a lot of the people who have offered to help aren't even active.
I'm not sure what to make of this. I don't really fancy my profile being there especially when there are two posts associated with it that haven't even been posted by me... Apparently your script picked the posts of two people who posted after me and who aren't registered users so it slapped the posts in with my profile. And the one post I have there is really old and for some reason there's a big portion of text missing from it and it's all screwed up. (Not your scripts fault, I blame the forum software.)
I guess it could be useful when developed further. Right now with all the outdated help offers it's more confusing than helpful. Still, technically it's impressive.
Dude, with a bit of extra scripting and access to the forum database, this search engine could become a dating site for game developers ;)
...with a male:female ratio of 1000:1 ;)
... of which 70% of the females are unavailable :P
Seriously though, this is a brilliant idea. I would also add a "Last active" category as well, because even though you've set it up so that you can click on the coloured bar to see number of posts and last active etc, I think the casual user would probably miss it and try to contact people who've long left the boards. Of course, this might have the side effect of possibly luring said people back here...
I wouldn't link it to everyone who's ever posted in the Offer Your Services thread though. Some people probably posted there offering their services for a limited period of time, like during the school holidays or winter break or something. So if you do automatically add people to the database, it would be nice to include an opt-out option, where people can remove themselves from the database, or possibly update their status when they've had their hands full (e.g. "Currently unavailable for new jobs").
Quote from: Pablo on Sun 14/02/2010 23:17:38
I'm not sure what to make of this. I don't really fancy my profile being there especially when there are two posts associated with it that haven't even been posted by me... Apparently your script picked the posts of two people who posted after me and who aren't registered users so it slapped the posts in with my profile. And the one post I have there is really old and for some reason there's a big portion of text missing from it and it's all screwed up. (Not your scripts fault, I blame the forum software.)
You're right, I didn't remember that posting as a guest is/has been possible.
Last active is shown with colors in the activity column. Color goes from green (today) to red (180 days) to black (360 days). Maybe this could be scaled down to say 3 months and exclude everybody who has not been active in last 3 months.
Help offers shouldn't be outdated, because they are picked from those profile icons and everybody always updates those to reflect their current situation right? Note that those apparently can be also ticked off from your forum profile without losing the text description, so the opt-out option is kinda there.
The posts are there, because I was thinking that there might be additional information information about the skills, work samples etc. And since forums search function isn't that powerful (you can't search from a thread) I though it would be helpful to gather those posts there.
And if someone is wondering why I included gender and age in the search results, that's because I think it is useful information when searching for voice actors.
edit: I changed the timespan for the colors and exluded members who had more than 3 months of inactivity. Also fixed the Guest posts issue.
Oh, I didn't realise that about the colours. That's fine then. I was wondering what the colours was about.
Yes, I didn't think about the possibility of unchecking in the profile. Looks like you've got all bases covered then. :) Good work!
Looks and sounds good!
QuoteAnd if someone is wondering why I included gender and age in the search results, that's because I think it is useful information when searching for voice actors.
There should be a gray icon for undisclosed sex.
Anyway, you don't plan on making it this difficult if it were to ever be used, right? Like having it search a thread to gather information, to me is like working backwards.
The whole system should be the actual forum, where you post offers/asking for help. But the criteria you require/seek should all be inputted by form, with drop down boxes and radio buttons, plus a description to explain more about your offer or help required. Then whenever you don't need help anymore, you delete your post. You can sort all the posts with all your fancy options, rather than just viewing by date.
But yes, tying it into the forums (with the server searching the tables, instead of a third party scan, obviously) is the better idea. But I wouldn't have the offer my services rely only on the icons in our profile. There would be a list of thousands, and the person seeking help would pretty much go for the people they know.
Just because I have background art and programming in my profile doesn't mean I'm going to help anyone who asks. It depends on who, and when, and what game it is. You'd have to pm a lot of forum members before finding someone willing to help. Which is why a simple post asking for help is better than just looking through hundreds of posts of people willing to help.
I've been directed to this thread by bicilotti. On different thread I suggested something like this, but also more additional stuff. If you're interested, my opinion is here:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=37297.msg535720#msg535720
Quote
What I do propose, since you are making new website, is a sort of database, which will allow people to add their info - either describe a project they are trying to start, or inform about their talents in art/music etc. These entries should be editable to make possible keeping information updated. Those with service offers should be able to flag a "currently unavailable" checkbox if they are busy atm or don't want to participate in anything, and their entries will be, say, greyed in the list, or marked elsewise.
It should be also possible to add examples of their work to the entry, thus giving people a chance to look what the member is able to do. By examples I mean separate piece of viewable/listenable work, not the games, because it is not always possible to download and play a game simply to know member's abilities.
Hmmm, have you considered the time sensitive nature of "Offer your services" posts? It seems to me that such offers are only good until the posters find something to occupy their time. For example if I was between projects and feeling bored I may offer to help someone else by posting to OYS. However, I would be annoyed if people kept responding to my ad months and years after it was posted. As a practical matter, I would think that any offers not listed on the last or last two pages are no longer valid.
I think the same could be said for the RAT thread although that thread's posters may not be annoyed at getting offers to help. I believe the mods currently clean out those thread periodically. It would be nice if they worked more like classified ads so that they would automatically expire after some period of time, and so that the original poster could remove the ad.
Well, it could work this way: if you don't want to be bored, you just set "invisible mode" for your entry in that database, lke you do in MSN, ICQ etc.
Same for help requests. It may allow to display "wanted" positions and strike them out when they become occupied. BTW in my opinion that's more convenient than seeking your old post on forums and edit it.