Terenas Lurkers Website and Guildads

[Alram]

Guildads
Guildads has been useful for people to advertise their needs for various items to the guild. I was impressed at how many huge venom sacs I received after asking for them in Guildads. Thanks guys for all the venom sacs.

However, it has not been helpful as far as I can tell for scheduling instance runs.
1. The Lost Souls haven't used it. Its usefulness as an interguild tool has therefore been nil to date. Olan did say to me that she was looking at it, but that is as far as it has gone. so far.
2. After an event is over, it appears that the only way of removing it is for everyone who signed up to go back in and remove their name which is a bit of a pain. Of course the slider can be used so you don't see old events, but still it is not optimum.
3. Maybe it helps others to have a ready view of who is going, but it hasn't been useful to me.

So let me know what you think.
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Our website
Lostlurkers on guildportal

This site could be useful to us for coordinating raids with the Lost Souls. guildportal.com makes it possible for member guilds to form alliances and share forums and event calendars. (The quotes below are from a guildportal admin guide.)

Other uses that I see include but are not limited to:
1. Tracking points if we ever implement them.

In GuildPortal, Raid Points are tied to the Calendar and Bank content types, as well as the Site Members section of your Control Panel. When you create an event, you can specify how many Raid Points will be awarded to members who attend. Later, when the even has finished and you're doing follow-up, you can blanket award the specified raid points to all who
attended, or even modify how many raid points are awarded to individual members.
Drops of items or other game-related “loot” is also tracked in event follow-up,
and as part of the follow-up process, you can specify what dropped (either entering
all of the pertinent data manually or selecting from a list of drops you've previously
entered), who got it, and how many raid points it cost them...

It's a good time to mention that in order for any raid points to be awarded, it is necessary for your members to actually sign up for the events. Using the Calendar content type, members will see a link under each event that will allow them to sign up. This creates a record between the member and the event, indicating that they intend to attend, and it also lets them specify which character they will be bringing.

2. Facilitating a guild bank if we ever implement one.

The Guild Bank content type lists items your guild has, broken down by item type to
make browsing easier. The drop-down list that shows when you navigate to a page with a Guild Bank content type on it lists the categories, followed by a count of items belonging to that category that your guild has...
Items can be entered manually or imported from other items that people playing your game have entered. Members can view and request items from the bank, and items can be assigned a point value that is deducted from a member's total Raid Points when their item request is approved by a Bank admin.

3. We can put important info in an organized format on the home page where it is easily visible and not buried in a thread.
4. Facilitate communications and raid signup with LS, and any other guilds with whom we might ally in the future.
5. Allows setting access levels so that access to features such as the bank are only available to those with clearance.

Please visit the page. Sign up. After you sign up you After you join the site, I will need to grant you member status. Once you are a member please add the toons you will be raiding with to the Roster. Include information on their class and level, etc. Also, visit the events section where you can sign up for the raid.

I have set up a banner contest for our home page in the forum.

I originally conceived this as a joint site with LS, but then learned of the guild alliance feature. At this point Mystique is asking LS folks to sign up on our site too. Their site is Lost Souls at guild portal
I told him about the alliance feature allowing shared forums and calendar. We'll see how that works out. At this point Mystique is an Associate on Lostlurkers.

I named the guild Lostlurkers because I originally conceived it as a joint site with LS. I can change the name to whatever we want though. Since we don't recruit, and to distinguish it from the lounge, it might be useful to leave the name as is; on the other hand if it is not to be a joint site, then The Lurkers might be better--or the Dead Parrot Killers. Whatever you like.

Please visit, sign up and give me your feedback here or at the site.

[swirly]

Just some GuildAd comments.

The Ask part of it seems useful. Its a way to let people know that you need something without having to ask repeatedly in chat or anything. So I like that part of it.

The Have part I'm a little less sure about. Its good to know what items people have and I've gotten a few recipes and such from people through that. My worry though is how do you know if somebody still has something or not? After a while alot of items get vendered or AHed if nobody shows interest, but do they get taken down or do they get left up there? I'd say that its something that is good to have if people keep it up to date and remove their old items, but that it could get bloated if people just leave things up there forever. Of course there is the slider that can show only newer items. I'm not a big fan of this option though. Some items like various trade goods and such people may hold on to for extended periods of time and so the slider will make those disappear. The slider would work if only the new items mattered, but I don't believe that to be the case. There is also that the slider probably doesn't limit the amount of info the program sends out. It probably still has to send out the whole list to people and then just not display some. So using the slider would also tend to encourage unnecessary information being sent. Thus I think that people will have to try to remove things that they get rid of. To me this seems like common sense. If I no longer have an item then I should remove it from the have list. It would be great if GuildAds would know when you get rid of an item and remove it for you, but sadly it doesn't do that. I'm not sure what people are currently doing in this regard. Overall though I'm just not sure if this part of it is worth it or not. Once and a while its useful, but on average it seems not to be.

The Event tab to me suffers from the fact that people just don't normally plan things in too much detail. We have the events that we plan on friday, but otherwise people don't go "I want to do scholo on tuesday at 10pm". Instead they know they want to do scholo sometime in the future and so they just ask when people happen to be on at the same time as them. I just don't see people scheduling things that often. As to the removal problems. I don't really mind having to remove myself from an event after it has past, but then for me its much like the item stuff. It just seems like common sense to me that if there is something up there that is no longer valid then I am going to remove myself from it. Its not really that hard to remove yourself from things and so in my mind its not too much of a hassle. It could be something a person shouldn't have to do, but having to do it isn't a big deal in my mind. Others may disagree though. Its not like a person has to remove themselves from it the moment something is past. Just that whenever they are on sometime and are looking at guildads they can click over and make sure they are removed from old things. Since people don't really plan events though and the friday stuff is planned out on forums that everyone checks, I'm not sure how much of a point there is to this tab. I could see it being good for general stuff like if somebody listed "Timbermaw farming" there just as a general event. Then people who need/want to farm that could sign up and you would know who would be interested in joining you. I guess I almost see it as being more useful for general interest than for actual planning. So in the end it might not be all that great of a feature.

So where does that leave things? 1 good feature and two that probably won't get taken advantage of all that much. I suppose its also good that it provides a unified chat method, but the LostLurkers chat channel provides that anyway so thats not much of a plus. I'd say that I like having the Ask/Have/Event features, but I just don't see them being put to their full use.

[vor_lord]

I'll try and clean up my Have stuff. The reason the Ask works so well is that it modifies the tooltip. I rarely bring up GuildAds itself and this is the reason I don't tend to remember where I put up a have (plus I don't remember which character, etc.)

The way things are organized I also don't find intuitive, where my own haves/asks are not displayed.

But I think you're right, things will quickly get cluttered if we don't discipline ourselves to remove items and events when they are done.

[Treesh]

I like the tooltip modification it has for the "ask" (otherwise I probably never would have known about Rogoll wanting huge venom sacs). I wish it wouldn't do it for the haves because, despite the names having different colors, I can't remember what color means ask and what means have. ;) The other good thing about the unified chat channel (and GEM does this too) is that you can actually link things in the GA/GEM channel unlike in the lostlurkers channel. I haven't made an event myself in guildads, but does it have an "invite all" button like GEM does?

[swirly]

The way things are organized I also don't find intuitive, where my own haves/asks are not displayed.
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Your own aren't displayed? I see my ask/haves listed when I'm on my characters. I'm confused why yours wouldn't show for you.

I also find it interesting how I open GuildAds alot and you (and others I imagine) almost never do. Not that it means anything, just interesting I think. : )

Small comment to treesh's post. I recall people having problems linking things in GA about a week ago (or more?). Somebody linked something and it wasn't clickable. Course then somebody else said you could get it to be clickable, but I'm not sure it was ever really figured out or not. This was more an observed convo by others than one I was involved in too so I don't know all that much about it.

[VoiceMan]

Small comment to treesh's post.  I recall people having problems linking things in GA about a week ago (or more?).  Somebody linked something and it wasn't clickable.  Course then somebody else said you could get it to be clickable, but I'm not sure it was ever really figured out or not.  This was more an observed convo by others than one I was involved in too so I don't know all that much about it.
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I believe the lack of being able to link items in Guildads chat was the way in which you join the channel. If you do a /ga to join the channel, it should link. For some time I had joined the channel by typing /join 2 which was the number of the guildads channel. I haven't done anything with that lately...but that's what comes to my mind...you can link in guildads chat....but you have to join the channel a certain way to get it to work.
As for me...I don't really use GA that much. I think it's been nice for all of us to communicate with Yuri in game with the chat channel, but the only advantage of it is if we all use that channel, use it exclusively all the time and not use the regular guild chat anymore. These days, I seem to use the Lostlurkers channel the most, so I'm not getting much use out of Guildads, personally, but I'm also in daily contact with Durambar and Necrali, so I don't really need to use it as a way to keep updated on events. I think the main reason we were going to try GA anyway, was to make it easier to communicate with people like Yuri, and the Lost Souls folks...but the lostlurkers channel seems to be filling that need the most, at least at this early stage.

[VoiceMan]

I have been having lockup problems the last couple of weeks, and one of the things I tried to alleviate that was disabling Guildads. It seems to have helped, as I haven't locked up since I did that. So, I am currently not running Guildads anymore. I'm not sure if an update will fix that, but I really didn't use it anyway, and haven't felt like I was missing anything. I seem to keep in contact with Yuri and the Lost Souls folks through the Lostlurkers channel all right, as of now. Any thoughts on the lockup issues?

[bonemage]

Any thoughts on the lockup issues?
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I removed GuildAds for the same reason, and haven't had a lockup since. I can't stand lockups at all, and don't feel I'm missing much.

[Klaus]

I removed GuildAds for the same reason, and haven't had a lockup since.  I can't stand lockups at all, and don't feel I'm missing much.
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Same here. If I purge the guildads database from the WTF directory, the problems go away again - for a while. Then they come back.

I'm sad to have it disabled, because I found the "ask" section to be useful. I knew if I should hold onto something (because someone wants it) or not, and I had put a couple of my own "asks" up for things I'm looking for but have no way to get by myself.

So, I'm hoping for an update that will fix the problem, or at least some better information on what causes the problem.

[Treesh]

With this many folks having issues with GuildAds, we'll have to re-evaluate things. It is handy for the ask feature, and handy to have Yuri in on conversations easier, but the conversations can be handled in /lostlurkers (with the exception of linking items). I'd rather not have the "asks" showing than have folks locking up while playing.

[vor_lord]

With this many folks having issues with GuildAds, we'll have to re-evaluate things.  It is handy for the ask feature, and handy to have Yuri in on conversations easier, but the conversations can be handled in /lostlurkers (with the exception of linking items).  I'd rather not have the "asks" showing than have folks locking up while playing.
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Does GEM have an ask capability? If so we could try that again -- the people who couldn't get it to work were me and Shadowe, but that leaves just me now. I'm willing to try it again.

If it doesn't have an ask feature, it's probably not worth it. We aren't going to be able to get many LS folks to install a mod to communicate with us, and probably will be using the portal site for event scheduling primarily (or are we?).

[Treesh]

Does GEM have an ask capability?  If so we could try that again -- the people who couldn't get it to work were me and Shadowe, but that leaves just me now.  I'm willing to try it again.

If it doesn't have an ask feature, it's probably not worth it.  We aren't going to be able to get many LS folks to install a mod to communicate with us, and probably will be using the portal site for event scheduling primarily (or are we?).
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GEM doesn't have that handy little feature. And the portal site is where most of the event scheduling between Lost Souls and Lurkers will be taking place, kinda in the testing phase at the moment. Its success really depends on how many Lost Souls and Lurkers will actually use the boards.

[vor_lord]

One other thought:

Before Treesh exerts too much work into the current Lostlurkers GuildPortal, bonemage pointed out to me that maybe we should change it to Lurkers. I know originally we didn't know about the allied guild feature so the original intent was to have a joint LS/Lurkers site. Since LS have their own GuildPortal site and we can ally and sign up for raids, I think he's probably right.

Especially if we start using those forums for guild specific planning (I believe Terenas despite its size dominates the Meeting Stone here) it might be nice to have the name be accurate.

Just an idea -- of course I will follow whatever The Usurper desires :lol:

[Alram]

One other thought:

Before Treesh exerts too much work into the current Lostlurkers GuildPortal, bonemage pointed out to me that maybe we should change it to Lurkers.  I know originally we didn't know about the allied guild feature so the original intent was to have a joint LS/Lurkers site.  Since LS have their own GuildPortal site and we can ally and sign up for raids, I think he's probably right.

Especially if we start using those forums for guild specific planning (I believe Terenas despite its size dominates the Meeting Stone here) it might be nice to have the name be accurate.

Just an idea -- of course I will follow whatever The Usurper desires  :lol:
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I did receive 1 PM suggesting a change to Lurkers; I forwarded it on to The One Who Would Call Herself Usurper AKA The Pretender to the Throne and My Successor, The Great and Mighty Treeshiya

Several LS have joned our GuildPortal site already probably because Mist recommends they do that. I have told him several times that it isn't necessary, but it appears to be a done deal. What's in a name? The One Who Would Call Herself Usurper AKA The Pretender to the Throne and My Successor, The Great and Mighty Treeshiya will decide.

[Alram]

Here is some info I had received from Olan that might be helpful now--especially since she has retired for a bit. It lists the LS officers and their alts. Remember that Vilus is now the GL.

Olan - Boss Lady  :)
alts - Sheila, Shekicks, Vegetauren

Finalscore - LS MT
alts - Finalstand, Warmedover

Mistique - Currently 3 lvl 60's  :)  and co raid leader for LS
alts - Nightsdesire, Doomstar, Walksinwoods, Allbeefpatie

Vilus -
alts - Vacatoro, Sulix

Deadpriest - Unable to instance on Fridays :(  (alternate raid leader)
alts - Deadwrong, Deadright, Deadhunter, Beastcrusher

Rainz - Co raid leader for LS
alts - Slog

Vasska - loves PVP  :)
no alts yet

Syonn -
alts - Raju

Ranaros - almost ready to go raiding with us :)

Feero -
no alts yet

Foamfollower -

Hope this helps for a while.  All but 3 of the above listed have at least one lvl 60 char.

Thanks much :)

Sheila  aka Olan

[Treesh]

I did receive 1 PM suggesting a change to Lurkers; I forwarded it on to The One Who Would Call Herself Usurper AKA The Pretender to the Throne and My Successor, The Great and Mighty Treeshiya

Several LS have joned our GuildPortal site already probably because Mist recommends they do that.  I have told him several times that it isn't necessary, but it appears to be a done deal. What's in a name? The One Who Would Call Herself Usurper AKA The Pretender to the Throne and My Successor, The Great and Mighty Treeshiya will decide.
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I received the forwarded PM. If it bugs folks, I'll change it. If it doesn't really matter to folks, we'll keep it the same. Pipe up on whatcha want folks. :)

[Treesh]

I received the forwarded PM.  If it bugs folks, I'll change it.  If it doesn't really matter to folks, we'll keep it the same.  Pipe up on whatcha want folks. :)
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After poking around, I discovered that it's quite easy to change the guild name so I did. Didn't seem to break anything. :) All the current links still work, the rosters, bank, etc. are still there. Piece of cake.