more tags?

[NemZ]

Just a random idea, but would it be possible (and worthwhile?) to add additional smalltext info under avarars on issues that come up all the dang time around here, such as concurrency, shipping arguments, rebuild sucks, etc. in the same place where age/gender/location is now, or perhaps in the email/facebook/whatever bar? Sort of an EGF-specific 'geek code' kinda deal.

Yes I know it can just go in sigs easy enough, but this feels like it might benefit from a more 'official' treatment.

[Sailor Star Dust]

That'd be a cool idea, I like it. Here's hoping Ornette would have the skills and time to make that happen!

[Mr. Tines]

Adding a new field is essentilly trivial. Figuring out an evageek code to go in it has to be a community effort.

[NemZ]

Radio-style buttons on a form and auto-generated text? Along with simply not displaying anything if a field is left blank, of course.

Things that spring to mind as possibly code-worthy:

Preferred answer to concurrency issues
Shipping
Sub vs. Dub
Rebuild sequel theory
Self-assessed eva fandom level
Watch for the charecters, story, or action
Misato was (not) coming on to Shinji
Yui is (not) a bitch

[Mr. Tines]

I'd been thinking more of a manual construction kit, but knocking up a simple web page with a few radio buttons on that fills it in for you is easy.

A manual assessment would really go along these sort of lines (where I've chosen the letters as best I can to be unambiguous):

Shipping (difficult to avoid this one being free-form)
AS-- RS- AKw++

Sub vs. Dub
S++

Rebuild sequel theory
Q--

Self-assessed eva fandom level
F+

Watch for the charecters, story, or action
C++ S+ M- (mecha)

Misato was (not) coming on to Shinji
I- (Irony)

Yui is (not) a bitch
B+

[NemZ]

Might be a good idea to add auto-generating tooltips as well to make it easier for people to tell what the hell all that nonsense means. Either that or simple icons that illustrate what each means. Something like this:

SS RS D N D C S Y Y

...though of course not actually with smilies. Non-animated simple shapes in a darker shade of the forum's existing cornflower blue color scheme would work probably best to not be obnoxiously obtrusive (and yes, I'm volunteering to make these).

Also in the interest of conserving space (I'd like this to all fit in a single line under the avatar), I'd suggest indicating various 'strengths' of position as a single letter in either lower or upper case (or just "-" for null).

[Mr. Tines]

The canonical codes are rather verbose -- for example, he following is an example of the original:

[code:1]GED/J d-- s:++>: a-- C++(++++) ULU++ P+ L++ E---- W+(-) N+++ o+ K+++ w--- O- M+ V-- PS++>$ PE++>$ Y++ PGP++ t- 5+++ X++ R+++>$ tv+ b+ DI+++ D+++ G++++ e++ h r-- y++** [/code:1]

[NemZ]

Yeah I know, but I don't see any reason to not make it more user friendly.

[Bagheera]

Shipping (difficult to avoid this one being free-form)
AS-- RS- AKw++

What's the "w"? Also, for this to be useful for me I'd need some way to indicate conditionals; I ship LAS, but only under certain (very limited) circumstances. There are also AUs to consider; I wouldn't object to AK in the right setting for example.

[EvangelionFan]

Either that or simple icons that illustrate what each means. Something like this:

SS RS D N D C S Y Y

I'd rather not have any obligatory images I have to load every time I open a thread on EGF, as even little images like these can slow a load time if they're quoted once or more. Oh, and it would be distrasting.

[NemZ]

Also, for this to be useful for me I'd need some way to indicate conditionals

That would be something to put in your sig if you felt it so important, not in the limited space of the form.

I'd rather not have any obligatory images I have to load every time I open a thread on EGF, as even little images like these can slow a load time if they're quoted once or more. Oh, and it would be distrasting.

It would be the same for every instance, so that's only 1 tiny image to load per item that ends up in the final form (probably less then 10 max) per visit, and probably wouldn't need to be loaded at all after the first time until you next clear your browser's cache memory.

They would be outside the message area, smaller than typical smilies to match the smaller type size used in the side column, and colored so as to be noticeable but not obnoxious. Trust me, this is what I do.

[Bagheera]

That would be something to put in your sig if you felt it so important, not in the limited space of the form.

It's just a matter of adding a letter, though. An example would be ASf, where the "f" is "in the future, after a ton of therapy and assuming the world recovers". So instead of "AS++" I'd put "ASf".

[NemZ]

So, kind of a rough draft just to show what I'm thinking.

Icons are just solid color 12x12, could probably go to 15x15 and a little shading. Some of these I actually like, some concepts I totally punted for the time being.

[Tankred]

I like your concept, NemZ, interesting way of using that space there.

[ran1]

It looks terrible. It fucks with the nice, clean design of the bars. I'm not against the concept, just the placement.

This forum's just one step away from a perfect design. It just needs helvetica. Everywhere.

[Hyper Shinchan]

Maybe there should be less icons per row but it doesn't look that bad to me. The idea itself still sounds a little weird to me but we won't be forced to provide those infos, just like gender, age and so on are currently optional, so we can just let them do it.

[NemZ]

It looks terrible. It fucks with the nice, clean design of the bars. I'm not against the concept, just the placement.

Okay, where would you suggest it be placed?

[Bagheera]

Okay, where would you suggest it be placed?

This strikes me as more of a geek code block than anything. Shouldn't we just come up with a convention and sig it as desired?

[Mr. Tines]

What's the "w"?

Not Kensuke.

[Bagheera]

Not Kensuke.

Ah, right. We do have two Ks, don't we?