(Site) Volunteers wanted!

Any problems or suggestions regarding the forums or scripts, post them here.
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Joeno
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(Site) Volunteers wanted!

Post by Joeno »

Fellow Neocolourians*,

Neocolours needs your help.

If there's one thing that didn't go well on the old Neocolours, it's the poorer maintenance that occured after some time. Scripts stopped working, old poses were duplicated, detection didn't always happen properly, and in general too many things depended on one person to fix.

One of my goals while writing the scripts is to change that. There is a fairly large group of people that seems willing to help us, and even though the keys to the site aren't going to be handed to just anyone, there are a number of tasks that any responsible person can do.

Part of this sharing of power has already been done. At this moment, Jazzy, Kamil and I have theoretical access to pretty much anything that matters - databases, scripts and so on. We don't use what we don't need - I myself have no reason to poke around in anything forums-related - but one of us disappearing will still leave others able to access the scripts and resolve things in some way.

There is more, though. Just as there are moderators to take care of problems on the forums (as unlikely as they tend to be), I could use some help on the site as well.

First of all, most of the below things give access to an admin panel, which also gives some faster access to the Turmaculus alerts: no confirmation needed, and a couple of overrides. Of course, please don't abuse this - but then again, none of these things should be.

To the point.. In the end, what do I need help with?
  • Old poses uploads. I've added some old poses, but it takes me some time to find and upload them. Your duty, if you'd choose to accept it, would be to hunt down old poses (a number of them were posted elsewhere), find the day that they were uploaded, and upload them to the server with the appropriate date.
  • Force detection. It occasionally happens that the detection of poses fails. Click the button, and they'll be tested again.
  • Rainbow Pool checks. <strike>These currently have to be done manually, because haven't gotten around to figuring out what cookies I need to send. I'm too lazy to always do so, so occasionally there needs to be view source -> copy and paste, for recently updated pets, or just a full run or whatever. With enough people, it shouldn't need to be done that often.</strike> - Okay, I can do this manually now
There's also a number of things that don't require access to the admin panel (although it could be given with most of the options turned off) that I would welcome help with as well.
  • Layout stuff. See another topic for this, any designs (in XHTML/CSS), ideas, bits of code, and so on are welcome.
  • Coding. This has vaguely come up a few times, and it's something stuff needs to be decided on. More help is good. Even if it's just basic coding, it's basic (tedious) coding I don't have to do. On the other hand, giving just anyone access to the code will lead to disaster - malicious code can be inserted, scripts can be messed up, giving non-working or extremely bugged pages and (intentional or accidental) security holes can open up. Some sort of CVS server for private use could work to work together on this (the code is already stored in a local one), but needs some infrastructure to set it up, and some agreements on uploading stuff would have to be made. All or some of the scripts could be opened up as well to the public, but I'm not too keen on this - although it could be interesting to see, general Neopets behaviour makes me wonder whether we'd see a "Look! Our own colour finding and viewing system is running at ..." without any attribution.
  • I occasionally desire some information. At the moment, I do. <strike>Although I can, when given time, figure this out on my own, I'm secretly hoping that someone already has this information so that I can save myself some time and spend more on actual programming. For a number of Neopets pages, you need to be logged in. My scripts can do this by sending the appropriate cookies. However, a large number of them are set by Neopets, with some appearing to be related to the advertising instead, some being session cookies, and some actual permanent ones that'd keep me logged in. I haven't been able to find out yet which of these are which, and although I can experiment, if anyone has done some research into this, it'd be appreciated. I recall some people knowing more about this during the recent cookie grabber incident. If not, it'll just take me some more time getting this to work.</strike> - It was easier than I thought. No longer needed.
Last, bugs, ideas, comments, complaints. If something doesn't work at all, doesn't work like you thought it would, isn't available, should be added, works well, doesn't work well, could have been improved, or if there is anything else that you think could help or should be fixed in any way, say so. Do it in private if you don't think everyone should know, or use these forums. I can't promise I'll read everything on every forum, but I do try to keep up with Site Suggestions at the very least, as well as any other thread that I notice comments coming up. If I don't hear about it, I can't fix it, and I prefer to hear things more than once, rather than not at all. In fact, at times multiple reports will give me more information combined, so it'll only help me get more information on what to do.

* Random appropriate name inserted to give people a reason to go on a tangent to discuss them, distracting them from controversial issues.
Last edited by Joeno on 22 Apr 2006 11:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
thelonetiel
Posts: 1067
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Location: Nuevo Mexico, Estados Unidos

Post by thelonetiel »

Sorry I havent gotten around to posting here...


I have a design I can send you that will just clean up everything, wouldnt include a banner, but would just be a simple layout that makes the site look less bare. Which IMO would be nice until we have a completed version. ^^ It would be more, but I havent the hang of XHTML quite yet.

My graphic, coding, and minimal PHP skills are at your disposal, and I'm happy to do whatever grunt work you require. :)


*clings to the site tightly*
Joeno
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Joined: 08 Jan 2006 12:35 am
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Post by Joeno »

For the layout, just mail it to me, email adress can be found in several places, and I'll see what I can do. It can't really get worse ;)

As for PHP help.. I think I'll compile a short guide with functions and db definitions and whatever more soon to use for coding help, as well as stuff that I think I could use help with (that doesn't need a lot of existing integration and so on, that isn't too complicated, and isn't stuff that I desperately want to work on myself ;) ). I'll just have to see how that ends up...
Huggles
Feral Koala
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Post by Huggles »

Um. I'm not entirely stupid and have to ability to click buttons. Watch me go!

*click*

As long as it doesn't involve coding, or graphics, or layouts, I'd be willing to do stuff.
Illuen
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Location: Windurst Residential Area

Post by Illuen »

I have quite a few older poses, and I don't mind doing things as long as there is no coding involved, and I would love to help if you need me to, so here. *gives you my body with a candle and a piece of paper that says "be nice"*
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No spoony bard could spin a sweeter tale.
KasiTL
Posts: 446
Joined: 19 Jan 2006 08:23 pm
Location: Milliways

Post by KasiTL »

If someone makes a skinnable layout type of thing and sets it up so peoples' browsers remember which layout they're using (like Neopets sidebars), I can do some of the skins on my days off (provided I'm given information on how to do the skin). I'd offer to do it myself, but I don't know the coding that goes behind skinnable layouts.

Hell, if you guys are taking skins for the forums too, I'll learn how to make one (need to anyways for my own forums that nobody uses). I want a pretty rainbow forum skin, so I could make that. :oops:
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Jazzy
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Post by Jazzy »

It's quite likely that the forum is never going to be skinned, because I haven't the time to alter mods for different layouts. All mods are written for subSilver. (This is why Sam never modded the forum- Alexis and mods aren't the easiest to reconcile. My problem is the opposite- the mods came first.)
Joeno
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Post by Joeno »

As for site skins - I've got a (basic) system worked out, I just need to document it and put the appropriate dropdown boxes in the options page. I don't believe that it should be very difficult, but more on that later...

I do vaguely recall posting a bit more information on skins somewhere. Also see this thread.

You can also compare http://www.neocolours.me.uk/?layout=light , http://www.neocolours.me.uk/?layout=basic and http://www.neocolours.me.uk/?layout=basic2 to get an idea as to what is possible.
KasiTL
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Post by KasiTL »

Oh, anything I'd do would probably use the subSilver structure. I like it. Anything else is WRONG. I just don't care for the current colours.
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Jazzy
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Post by Jazzy »

It's not just that- the Quick Reply box calls a subSilver directory for its display, IIRC; I don't know enough about phpBB to turn that into a consistent if() statement dependent on the selected colour theme. Unless yours replaced subSilver as the default, but I think that wouldn't happen.
KasiTL
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Post by KasiTL »

Okay, that's comming across to me as some really lame/weird coding.
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Huggles
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Post by Huggles »

Since it's now October, and there haven't been any response since July, I'm going to assume that everyone's who actually wanted to volunteer already has. If that's not the case, then go ahead and post.
FaerieInGrey
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Post by FaerieInGrey »

I would volunteer if it's still needed. I assumed it wasn't.
Anza
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Post by Anza »

Same for me. Anything I can do I'd be willing to.
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