Friday, June 2, 2006

Please Test...
Thanks to Justin, the PM system and OB Connect feature *SHOULD* be working now. Please test and comment your findings here!
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Promotions Round Two
I created a new "Senior Otaku" and "Otaku Legend" usergroup for those who have been with us a long time, are frequent visitors, and have done good work, but who aren't artistically inclined.

There were about 100 such members total. The criteria I used was:

Senior Otaku

* You have to be a frequent visitor
* Registration 6 months min.
* 100 Comments OR 5 articles

Otaku Legend

* You have to be a frequent visitor
* Registration 18 months min.
* 200 Comments

Now, let me stress that no algorithm will be perfect, but I believe that the criteria I used was fair.
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Thursday, June 1, 2006

Side Kicks
Tonight was important. Justin and I worked side by side, him on the PM system, me on the title system. He's running an intricate script overnight...hopefully it'll resolve everything by tomorrow morning. And I ran a new promotion script to give our members their much needed status upgrades.

There are now 1,640 Senior Otaku and 142 Otaku Legends. I'm happy about the 10:1 ratio, it's just right.

To become an Otaku Legend, you have to be a Senior Otaku first, and on top of that you also have to have over 150 comments and have been a member for 18 months with frequent logins. It's tough work and I'm pleased to see so many of my favorite members make the cut algorithmically! Congrats.
Comments (15) | Permalink

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Fiddling With Titles
I've started fiddling with titles on the site. Here's what I've come up with:

Team Members:
. News Team (Gail, Sarah, Kei, and Sangome)
. Mod Team (All our great mods)
. Development Team (Maggie, Justin, James)

Members
. Otakuite (All new members)
. Senior Otaku
>>>> Requires either: 15 fan art, wallpapers, cosplay, 3 quizzes AND 25 comments, registration for 3 months. Senior Otaku can auto-submit a lot of content.
. Otaku Legend
>>>> Requires Senior Otaku status + 1 year registration + 100 comments. This is mainly just a titular distinction for now, but will probably get some perks later.

"Uh Oh"
. Otaku Neophyte - Can't submit fan works, but can still comment and browse around
. Frozen Member - Basically can't do anything but login
. Banned Member - Boo, hiss...

What do you think? It'll take some time to really implement everything, especially the system to promote people to new positions, but I started tonight on changing titles around.

Feedback is loved! Also, very funny about today's poll...everyone's voting for everything!

Also: I'm going to make fixing the PM system one of the highest priorities. I understand it's been broken for months and it sucks. I'll do my best to remedy it.
Comments (12) | Permalink

Monday, May 29, 2006

A Fresh Start
For the longest time, our category ranking system has been broken. Two reasons why:

(1) The literal reason: Somehow the code that calculates a hub's popularity disappeared. It might have been my fault, who knows. This is why some popular categories (like Bleach and Final Fantasy) are ranked at the bottom.

(2) The philosophical reason: It's almost impossible for a category to overtake DragonBall or Inuyasha, because of the historical number of hits each has received.

So today, a fresh start. I reset all the rankings for all categories and re-added the code to track hits.

It will be VERY interesting to see what anime takes top 10 in the coming days.

On a side note, I'm excited about the PS3. I heard it's getting a new Ridge Racer game. And a photo-realistic giant enemy crab simulator. Hm...
Comments (8) | Permalink

Friday, May 26, 2006

Welcome, Mag (Maggie)
Everyone give a warm welcome to Maggie, our new developer.

Maggie is a much better programmer than I am. She does web application development for her day job. I expect great things out of her, in the same way Sarah, Kei, and Gail eclipsed me in their editorial capacity.

I convinced Mag to open a myO site, so check it out and drop some love.

Also: Episode 2 of the podcast is forthcoming. You have been warned.
Comments (7) | Permalink

Thursday, May 25, 2006

My Stick-To Areas
I'm very excited. Our new developer, Maggie, starts her first day tomorrow. I'll try to get her to open up a blog here so you can all formally meet her.

Why is this important? It's all about time management. Right now I spend a lot of time doing a lot of different things. I'm kind of spread thin.

Ideally, I want to get to a point where I spend my time as follows:

50% Planning
50% Allocating resources/execution
Comments (6) | Permalink

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Important Survey Question
If we made a new site, would you want your myOtaku login and avatar to work for it or would you like to register a new account, with a different username/different avatar? Or would you like to keep the same name/password but only change the avatar?

So respond in comments with either:

1) I'd like to keep my username/password/avatar the same on all your sites. Easier to remember/saves me time.

2) I'd like to register a new username/password on each new site because on different types of sites I like to express different things about myself.

3) I'd like to keep the same username/password but I want to be able to toggle between avatars.
Comments (28) | Permalink

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Don't Want the Weekend To Stop
Added the podcast today. As always, I like to throw something out there, see how users respond, and then adjust accordingly. That's why if you have any feedback, please respond in the comments for that news item. One interesting comment was that one member felt the cast might have been a little too mean in a few areas. Did you think so?

There's an interesting service called GameTap. You basically download a client, pay a monthly fee, and can play any of the 500 games in their library. They have a lot of classic and quasi-recent titles. I'm trying it out and so far it's quite slick.

I'm playing Grandia II now only 10 minutes after downloading. I think if they can continue to add games of this calibre, it could be a force in the casual gaming market.
Comments (7) | Permalink

Friday, May 19, 2006

Fighting, Fighting, Fighting
A giant moth appeared out of nowhere in my apartment. It then attacked me. I scrambled; grabbed bug spray and proceeded to make my entire living space noxious.

The moth survived and clung to the ceiling. I opened the door, turned off all the lights, and charged it with an open umbrella, trying to shoo it outside. It didn't work, the giant moth is now hiding somewhere.

eBay is treating me like dirt. I've had four different customer reps email me vague 30-second responses about why my account was suspended. I really hate the company, especially the fact they're a monopoly. Ah well, it does motivate me a little to try and improve our own moderation setup. We're not perfect, but it's surprising that we're better than eBay, a multi-billion dollar company..
Comments (10) | Permalink