Locking Polls

[Secura]

It's quite recently come to my attention that when a topic is locked it the little envelope image next to the name of said thread appears with a little red lock over the top of it and the envelope's original blue or red colour becomes slightly faded.

 

 

 

The GIF image that shows that a thread has been locked.

 

Now, though when a poll is locked the same rules for some reason or another don't apply, though I can see why such a minor detail may have been overlooked when I see something that looks particularly interesting or breaks the rules it'd be nice to know whether the poll was locked or not to save myself some time.

 

 

 

The current GIF image of a locked poll, there's literally no difference between it and its open counterpart.

 

So I took it upon myself to do a quick bit of work in Photoshop and I believe that I've designed an image that would fit rather wonderfully with the already existing thread images:

 

 

 

My version of what the "new" locked poll image should look like

 

I was wondering if perhaps this small change would be implemented, if only to make our lives a little easier, talk about first world problems eh?

[Shoumaker]

I believe this is one of the smaller issues that this board has really. It's one of of those ideas that look good on paper really, but it may confuse people on the board that the entire poll topic has been locked instead of just the poll since people are just so used to the lock image which symbolizes that a topic is no longer up for discussion regardless the colour of the image. And people can simply go into the topic and see if the poll is active or not no? So I think things are fine as it is since I can't believe it would waste so much time. Also if such a thing were to be implemented I believe we would only see it when the board updates to the newer version. There is to ETA but uNi has hinted that we might see it 'Soon'.

Edited May 7, 2013 by shoumic

[Master of San Andreas]

I believe this is one of the smaller issues that this board has really. It's one of of those ideas that look good on paper really, but it may confuse people on the board that the entire poll topic has been locked instead of just the poll since people are just so used to the lock image which symbolizes that a topic is no longer up for discussion. And people can simply go into the topic and see if the poll is active or not no? So I think things are fine as it is since I can't believe it would waste so much time. Also if such a thing were to be implemented I believe we would only see it when the board updates to the newer version. There is to ETA but uNi has hinted that we might see it 'Soon'.

Yeah and I don't think that this will make a huge difference nor really help members tbh.

 

Also Girish has hinted that we will see many changes by the next annual awards here so the ETA for a new version (V 1.5) is early 2014.

[Shoumaker]

 

Also Girish has hinted that we will see many changes by the next annual awards here so the ETA for a new version (V 1.5) is early 2014.

It doesn't necessarily mean the forum will update at early 2014, it could be a lot sooner MoSA. Girish just said the forum will be a lot different by that time.

 

Here are a couple of quote's regarding V1.5:

 

 

If I had to guess an ETA for V1.5, I'd say Spring 2013, but don't hold me to that.

 

Soon.

And uNi said this only yesterday.

[Ryan]

When a poll is locked, the locked sign is displayed. The only time it is not is when a user creates a poll and doesn't allow replies, in which case the green envelope will be displayed, but the locked button will appear in the topic. It's how IPB works and not a bug as shoumic has indicated.

[Master of San Andreas]

 

When a poll is locked, the locked sign is displayed. The only time it is not is when a user creates a poll and doesn't allow replies, in which case the green envelope will be displayed, but the locked button will appear in the topic. It's how IPB works and not a bug as shoumic has indicated.

No offence but how do you know about Forum IPB and Software when you are not even an Admin, You are not even a mod. You are just a Forum Leader.

 

Also this is not the first time I've seen you act like an Admin.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Master of San Andreas

[nealmac]

 

When a poll is locked, the locked sign is displayed. The only time it is not is when a user creates a poll and doesn't allow replies, in which case the green envelope will be displayed, but the locked button will appear in the topic. It's how IPB works and not a bug as shoumic has indicated.

No offence but how do you know about Forum IPB and Software when you are not even an Admin, You are not even a mod. You are just a Forum Leader.

 

Also this is not the first time I've seen you act like an Admin.

I'm only a regular member, and I know IBP forums work. He's quite correct in what he says. It's a standard feature of IBP boards.

 

The bigger question should be, is it not about time that these boards were updated to a more modern format? There are loads of software add-ins out there with some really cool features. As it stands, I've been on here since 2006, and we've never had a proper overhaul. We're still using the bog standard IBP format, with a few minor additions.

[Shoumaker]

 

No offence but how do you know about Forum IPB and Software when you are not even an Admin, You are not even a mod. You are just a Forum Leader.

That was a little uncalled for. You don't need to be an administrator or a global moderator of this website to know about Invision Power Software by any means, the two things aren't correlated in any way. Ryan's been here for over 7 years now so I'm not surprised he knows these things by now. You'll see yourself gain knowledge about certain things the longer you're around here.

 

@nealmac

 

To avoid derailing this thread even more you should look in here.

[Ryan]

When a poll is locked, the locked sign is displayed. The only time it is not is when a user creates a poll and doesn't allow replies, in which case the green envelope will be displayed, but the locked button will appear in the topic. It's how IPB works and not a bug as shoumic has indicated.

No offence but how do you know about Forum IPB and Software when you are not even an Admin, You are not even a mod. You are just a Forum Leader.

 

Also this is not the first time I've seen you act like an Admin.

I've been here seven years now. I've seen how the little things like that work and I'm sure there are many other members here who have figured it out as well. I was certainly not trying to act like an admin.

[Vin.]

Edit: Wrong thread.

[Master of San Andreas]

 

When a poll is locked, the locked sign is displayed. The only time it is not is when a user creates a poll and doesn't allow replies, in which case the green envelope will be displayed, but the locked button will appear in the topic. It's how IPB works and not a bug as shoumic has indicated.

No offence but how do you know about Forum IPB and Software when you are not even an Admin, You are not even a mod. You are just a Forum Leader.

 

Also this is not the first time I've seen you act like an Admin.

I've been here seven years now. I've seen how the little things like that work and I'm sure there are many other members here who have figured it out as well. I was certainly not trying to act like an admin.

Sorry about that Ryan. Thanks.

[nealmac]

No offence but how do you know about Forum IPB and Software when you are not even an Admin, You are not even a mod. You are just a Forum Leader.

That was a little uncalled for. You don't need to be an administrator or a global moderator of this website to know about Invision Power Software by any means, the two things aren't correlated in any way. Ryan's been here for over 7 years now so I'm not surprised he knows these things by now. You'll see yourself gain knowledge about certain things the longer you're around here.

 

@nealmac

 

To avoid derailing this thread even more you should look in here.

I wasn't trying to derail the thread. What I said, would have an impact on the actual subject of the thread.

 

As for your link, it looks interesting, but it doesn't really say anything about how it will affect the forums, does it?

[Shoumaker]

 

As for your link, it looks interesting, but it doesn't really say anything about how it will affect the forums, does it?

Nope it doesn't. But I'm sure there will be a variety of improvements when the board is updated. Since the current Admin CP is held by duct tape I believe the updated version will allow customization's to the board again (You even said, there hasn't been an overhaul for a long time) such as the adding of new themes, ability to change usernames and a whole lot of other things. This is something a staff member would have more knowledge about to be honest.

[nealmac]

As for your link, it looks interesting, but it doesn't really say anything about how it will affect the forums, does it?

Nope it doesn't. But I'm sure there will be a variety of improvements when the board is updated. Since the current Admin CP is held by duct tape I believe the updated version will allow customization's to the board again (You even said, there hasn't been an overhaul for a long time) such as the adding of new themes, ability to change usernames and a whole lot of other things. This is something a staff member would have more knowledge about to be honest.

Compared with other forums, this place is really outdated. For such a popular and extremely busy site, I'm surprised it's still running on the bog standard IBP engine. These days, forums allow a whole host of features such as, direct copy/paste of images, liking posts, previewing first post of a thread and a million other things.

[Spider-Vice]

It is only outdated because of the sheer amount of mods GTAF has, plus the fact that all those mods and hacks have basically broken the AdminCP. This is basically not even IPB anymore, it's highly customised.

[nealmac]

It is only outdated because of the sheer amount of mods GTAF has, plus the fact that all those mods and hacks have basically broken the AdminCP. This is basically not even IPB anymore, it's highly customised.

From a regular member point of view, it's pretty much a standard IBP board. There's nothing different about compared with a bog standard one.

[Girish]

It is only outdated because of the sheer amount of mods GTAF has, plus the fact that all those mods and hacks have basically broken the AdminCP. This is basically not even IPB anymore, it's highly customised.

From a regular member point of view, it's pretty much a standard IBP board. There's nothing different about compared with a bog standard one.

For all the talk about the forum's age and simplicity, I think it's actually one of the best things about it. It's easy to navigate, easy to look at and does the job of a discussion board to perfection. Complexity and having tons of features isn't what always makes a board successful. As outdated as it may be, we have managed to retain a certain amount of appeal which is why we have so many members registering on a daily basis and still sticking around (for GTA news or not).

 

To be honest, if it wasn't for the broken admin cp, I'd have preferred to keep the forum as it is. But change is upon us and we have to shift to a newer forum in the hope to provide a better experience to the users than right now. Hopefully, if there are no hiccups, the new forums should be live before GTA V releases. Or at least, that's what the plan is. Given how talented our admins are, I'm sure you won't be disappointed with it.

[nealmac]

It is only outdated because of the sheer amount of mods GTAF has, plus the fact that all those mods and hacks have basically broken the AdminCP. This is basically not even IPB anymore, it's highly customised.

From a regular member point of view, it's pretty much a standard IBP board. There's nothing different about compared with a bog standard one.

For all the talk about the forum's age and simplicity, I think it's actually one of the best things about it. It's easy to navigate, easy to look at and does the job of a discussion board to perfection. Complexity and having tons of features isn't what always makes a board successful. As outdated as it may be, we have managed to retain a certain amount of appeal which is why we have so many members registering on a daily basis and still sticking around (for GTA news or not).

 

To be honest, if it wasn't for the broken admin cp, I'd have preferred to keep the forum as it is. But change is upon us and we have to shift to a newer forum in the hope to provide a better experience to the users than right now. Hopefully, if there are no hiccups, the new forums should be live before GTA V releases. Or at least, that's what the plan is. Given how talented our admins are, I'm sure you won't be disappointed with it.

Cheers for that.

 

I totally get your point. If it's not broke don't fix it etc (although the admin CP is a different story). I'm all for simplicity too. Don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about over complicating it or anything. Just adding some new features that don't take away from the simplicity. People don't like change. I understand that. But there are so many tools for IBP based boards that make user's lives so much easier and gives us a more fun experience. And until you experience them, you don't realise how useful they are.