Hello there! First time posting here! I have been watching the lists for a bit more than a month now, and as I have been trying to keep up with the updates and understand all the concepts of Agora, I feel like I am in a pretty good spot to share some thoughts.
I also have a general interest in understanding Agora's history, preserving it, and making it easier to access; I would definitely love to help the Webmastor in general! On Sunday 14 June 2020 03:27, nch via agora-discussion wrote: > Some questions to help me plan some improvements to the web content. > > * What should be on the main page? [it's pretty outdated now, and I feel > like it could use a facelift and some new copy] Falsifian's weekly reports have been very helpful to keep up on the general state of the game (thank you so much!) and sometimes bring interpretations of the discussions that I had not understood while binge-reading through all the emails. The site could turn into a blog and show those reports (maybe along other 'articles' like theses or anything Agorans want to publish?), making the homepage get updated regularly and allowing new visitors to see that the game is still quite active and the type of play to expect. The few paragraphs currently on the homepage could be updated and moved to an About page, and the homepage just has a short paragraph on the homepage to describe it, along with a link to that page to learn more. > * What kinds of tips should go on a New Player page? I haven't been sending anything on the lists for a while because I do not feel confident at all! There is a lot to learn and a lot of history to uncover, and archives, sites, repos are quite scattered. I also felt like everyone was rather strict or unforgiving, until Aris expressed similar feelings and things warmed up. It is possible that starting to watch during some difficult times encouraged that feeling. This just leads me to suggest to have reminders in this page that it is okay to start small, to ask questions, that the expectations are lower than they seem to be, or that everyone is always friendly and welcoming (even during hard times); those are what I have been trying to tell myself to convince myself to reply, but reading them from someone else would definitely help. The page could also include a reference to a netiquette, or common practices for posting such as the DIS/BUS/OFF prefixes, referencing links with annotations like [0]. I had to explain what bottom-posting means to someone yesterday, on an unrelated project. > * What online resources do you use the most? Since it is linked on the homepage, I had used the public archives at mail-archive.com quite a lot to get an overview of the game before subscribing to the lists. I no longer use this as I just get the emails, but I regularly use Gaelan's ruleset page [0]. It shows HTTP 502 errors half of the time, and right now it has HTTP 500, possibly due to recent changes in the FLR, but I still like it since it makes browsing the rules easier with hyperlinks on key concepts. That is a very welcome thing when you want to learn the rules! > * What resources do you wish were online? A non-exhaustive list from reflecting on this for half an hour: - Undocumented traditions, such as those recently mentioned in the fora about not renewing PM mandates - How-tos, tips about writing proposals, contracts, judgements, theses, etc. For example, common pitfalls (allow joining/leaving/amending contracts!), reminding players to check the FLR for annotations on the rules they use to avoid making some mistakes, encouraging to use protos, … - Cantus Cygnei - A glossary of acronyms; I am still unsure about what CotC means, and it took me a while to understand NttPF and TTttPF - The Webmastor's reports, to get both a list of existing archives and a list of current issues (and maybe how to help). I admit I haven't been looking that deep for existing resources and there might just be a missing visible link somewhere! > * How do you access Agora? [your email's web client, a desktop client, > phone client] I am currently replying using Protonmail's webmail, because I am having issues with my normal desktop client, Evolution. > * Any tips or tricks that you use on the devices/software that you > access Agora through that you find indispensable? Configuring mail filters right after subscribing to have all Agora mails separated from my normal email keeps me sane, especially when I get 200 mails to catch up on just a day or two. Marking as read and instead using labels or various other indicators via those filters also prevents receiving tons of notifications on the phone! > * Anything else that you think would help improve the web content? Some more generic thoughts: the website could probably become more attractive by having more graphics. ASCII art is cool, and I generally find the various reports to be interesting, but a benefit of the web is it's not just plaintext. This might require some effort, but a graph of the current economy showing the volume of currency exchanges, or one with the volumes of mails exchanged on each list over time would look nice. Or a hall of fame showing all the winners on golden plates. Or a very corporate-looking "sub-site" for the Dragon Corporation. The Startup Generator [1] could be an inspiration. But for now, the simplest way to make the site more interesting at least for existing players would be to simply get it updated more often and invite everyone on the list to admire the changes and praise the Honourable Webmastor. That would keep the existence of the site in mind for everyone and allow for further suggestions! [0]: https://agora-ruleset.gaelan.me/ [1]: http://tiffzhang.com/startup/ -- ~lucidiot
