Several Improvements that might be useful

[Kevin Ar18]

I was just involved in the creating of a rather interesting work here: http://www.thebroth.com/art730.html

However, as a result of going through the process, I noticed a few problem areas.

1. People coming in and wanting to mess stuff up. If people aren't a member they can't mod them down, or if there simply is not enough people in the game, we can't mod them down. This was actually not an issue on this one project, but was an issue on the one just before it.

2. I would really, really like to get in touch with the individuals who contributed to the work. However, I don't know who all contributed what. In addition, I do know two of the contributors, but I have no way to contact them for a private session or a future session or whatnot.

3. Although not an issue in this project, there are people who do not know some of the hidden features like the shift key, ctrl key, etc....



Based on these issues, here are a few suggestions.

1) Someone suggested allowing you to drag a smily or sad face to the board when someone helps or hurts. Perhaps as an alternative to the chat system, you could implement a simple icon system, with things like a smily face, sad face, or question mark -- maybe even a little "hi" icon that says who's saying hi. Overall, I can't think of many icons that you would need other than maybe just a few. (However, try to avoid things like a mad face, so you don't cause issues.)

2) One of the issues with the public board is that people can come on and cause issues, but it is hard to get rid of them by modding them down, because some people are not members, don't know what they are doing, or whatever reason.
May I suggest offering just two "main" forums -- 1 for members and non members and one just for members?

3) Another issue to deal with is what if there are not enough people to mod someone down? For example, in a recent work, me and someone else were working hard on a picture, but someone came in and messed it up. Because there were not enough of us members to mod him 3 times, we couldn't get rid of him. What about a system that took into account the amount of moves the person has made (how long he's been there) and the number of people that are actually playing to determine if you can mod someone down? Hmm... might not be good for the server for everyone, but if you made a members only server, that might be useful.

4) If you added a members only server, I was thinking, another useful option might be the following: suppose three people agree to get rid of someone. If those three people stay in the room, perhaps prevent that other person from coming back until a certain number of them have left.

5) Some of my suggestions above are not really that good. However, they are most related to the issues of some people wanting to work on a project together, while others just want to mess it up (and in some cases you end up losing your work). Perhaps resorting to some kind of "multiplayer" system might help, where there is a listing of available rooms that can be joined (they could be setup for members or non-members). While in a game, you can send invites to players to join a different room (and take your current progress with you if you so choose). That way you can work on a project together and mod down people who come in and cause issues. Basically, the idea is to turn it into a multiplayer system where you can pick the room you want and/or invite others to come.

6) Lastly, supposing everything I said above is useless, one that that is deserpately needed is a way to contact people who you worked with on a project via some kind of private messaging (like the forum's private messaging), so that you can arrage to work together in a game in the future.

[Markus W]

Wow, lots of good suggestions, Kevin! This is pretty much bordering on creating "BrothBox Live"!

I am actually a member on Xbox Live myself (look up "cherryis"), mostly trying to improve my rather humble skills on G.R.A.W., but I must say, many of the features on Xbox Live, especially on the Xbox 360, are similarly relevant for TheBroth!

And here's a plug: We're actually the folks behind Xb360info.com, so why don't you say "hi" there. A special room for that site is here: http://www.thebroth.com/xbox360

We're definitely considering these suggestions - some of them may take a while to implement, while others we may be able to make real quicker. Right now we're a bit worried because there's ZERO donations so far and the advertising revenue doesn't even cover the server and bandwidth costs!

So if you have a $1 to spare, don't hesitate but please donate so we can keep TheBroth alive.