Tool For Forming Age Creation Teams (Prototype)

[Grogyan]

Its quite funny really when I read next to my name, coder?
lol, i'm still learning python.

Great table Robert.

Any chance it could be in alphabetical order?

[Robert The Rebuilder]

Thanks for the feedback! I'll try to address everyone's concerns below.

I would like to suggest that you repeat the header (skills) about every 20 entries.
Also the list might be more readable if you only show the 'Y's.

Those are good suggestions, but unfortunately we are limited by the capabilities of the Wiki sortable table. If I repeat the headers, then it screws up the sorting. And if I remove the N's (leaving just blanks), then the table cells get concatenated into one big cell, screwing up the columns.

<sigh> It isn't perfect, but hopefully it is useful.

Can we get an "Easy" button installed?

Funny! Maybe for age creation, we should have a "Hard" button instead.

Robert, how about you try PM all those people on the list and if they don't respond in a month state them as "not available".

Good idea! In my message, I will also spurn them on to double-check their entries in the table, and to have them form their "home" pages listing their current work.

Something nice would be a "skill" thing for each different category but I think that'd be kind of insulting to some and liable to be wrong (because it's hard to rate people).

What I can do is recommend that, on their "home" pages, they assign their own skill rating to each skill. As you pointed out, it would be wrong for someone else to rate them. The most accurate rating must come from themselves. Let's hope people don't gush about themselves.

Any chance it could be in alphabetical order?

[/quote]

That's the great thing about these sortable tables: it is as easy as clicking the arrow next to the Name column header.

[teedyo]

Looks good!
Some of my thoughts...

Perhaps having the table span multiple pages? It's not an issue now but could be in the future.

Something that would be handy now is a means to pm a person directly from their personal page. Is this even possible? Perhaps via a link to the forums in pm mode? This would probably have to be added by each individual when they edit their page?

Would inserting a link like: "http://forum.guildofwriters.com/ucp.php?i=pm&mode=compose&u=USER#" possibly work?

[Jojon]

Can the values only be "Y" or "N"? Otherwise, maybe replacing those two with, say just a period for "No" and the full text of the column title for "Yes" could work? :7

[Robert The Rebuilder]

teedyo: Re PM link - That's a great idea! I'll request that people put that in their Wiki page. I've done it with mine.

jojon: I changed it to "Yes" and "No". Hopefully that makes it more readable.

I finally sent out all those PMs. My apologies for the form letter, everyone. But I wanted everyone to review the values on the sheet and attempt to make a wiki page. [Kato gets extra points for doing this even before I sent the PM!]

However, I found that there were a lot of names on the list that did not correspond to any similar user name here. That's probably because a large number were obtained during the first GoW meeting in MOUL last summer. If your name appears below, please post which user name you are now using:

Poseidon
Headless Monkey Boy
Manida
Yuko Hoon
terrelltur
Kzru
Cyd
Aura
April Ryan
MacNeacail
D'nn

I also took the liberty of renaming some entries on the list to match the actual user name. Please let me know whether I made a mistake (i.e. the two are not the same user):

Dr. Greer => linkerjpatrick
Kyven => Kyevan
espy => espay
James Leslie => James L
Zib => Zib_redlektab

On 1 October, I'll check my outbox. If there's any unread PMs, I'll mark that user as unavailable.

[Robert The Rebuilder]

As of 1 October, my outbox still has messages not yet read by the following people:

ZeroCool
dah'kree
Geckat
Anima_Caligo
Zalthor
Cross
Time
bluewyvern
linkerjpatrick
Dr Britcom Mom
James L
espay
r'Tayrtahn
Metaigahn
kyevan
JulyForToday
DaveRamos
Pryftan

So, I've marked these people as unavailable on the Registered Writers Wiki table.

Note to those of you who have just joined the Guild of Writers: if you want to be part of an age development team, please add your name to the table.

[AtionSong]

Not completely connected to the previous discussion, but I had a thought today, and I figure rather than clutter up the forums with a new thread, and since this has floated to the top already, I'll just post it here instead.

Perhaps it might assist in forming teams if, rather than simply contact others through PM, there was a "Recruitment" board. This would sort of be like a "community bulletin board". An analogy would be, for example, the boards in music stores with flyers such as "Drummer needed for band" or "Trumpet player needed for recording", or like boards at a community center looking for lifeguards, etc.

Here, writers could create a public posting of the people they are looking at for an age creation team. Examples would be topics with needs such as: "Looking for a builder & scripter to bring a designed age to life" or "Musician needed to write ambient music for age" or "Need writer to turn age concept into journal" etc.

Advantages over PM system: Users will post their needs on a board, hopefully with subject names similar to the examples above, clearly stating the type of person that they are looking for. The idea would be that skilled writers would then browse the same forum: layout designers, sound artists, etc. If these writers saw that somebody needed a skill that they could (and want to) provide, they can respond to it. This is an improvement over simply PMing sombody who looks like they have the skills needed, because it guarantees that the guild member responding is able, ready, and willing to complete the task that the poster is looking for.

I think that this would have the ability to connect guild members to each other based on who needs and who can provide what better than the PM system, and could greatly improve guild productivity, age quality, and the writer community.

Thoughts?

[katreeny]

I've got to admit I haven't filled in anything at this point because my availability for anything is too erratic. I might be fine and think I can commit and then whammo, my job goes feral and eats my life.

Katreeny

[Robert The Rebuilder]

AtionSong: You could give that a try. Maybe create a Wiki page for that kind of thing, like a Want Ads section. Note that people have been doing the same kind of thing on the forums here; they post an idea and ask for people to join in. Typically, it doesn't go over very well because people have to find these requests for help. If the Wiki becomes generally known as a place to look, it would work great. The fallback is the PMs, which seem to work very well.

katreeny: I know what you mean! Lately, all I've been able to afford to do is writing in forums and Wikis, not writing in ages. This darned fiscal year turnover madness!

[Whilyam]

This darned fiscal year turnover madness!

Mmm... fiscal year turnovers... not as tasty as apple turnovers, but still.