(we tried this once before, but it kind of got trampled and lost...bear in mind that the new systems - ChatBlog for off-topic, and any personal attacks etc. being moved to the Rant blog, access to which can be requested by emailing me, addie top right - are still in force.)
okay. as far as i have noticed, pet care is running decently (* - well, sort of - see Comments below) and most basic functions are at or near normal ops. so far, so good. there are still questions and issues arising from the Gifting Glitch, but we are trying to deal with those backstage for the time being - meanwhile, let's look at the site as a whole, and what it needs.
every day it seems to be more and more obvious that FooPets does not run well as a one-size-fits-all (i.e. the same features regardless of age group) site. at the very least, the Forums would benefit from being segmented by age, with people registering for and subscribing to the one that best fits their needs as a member. i would even be willing to deal with a (minimal) fee for private age-restricted Forums, to defray the cost of setting them up and facilitate their creation. i still believe that retrofitting an adult site does NOT make it suitable for under-13's, and that there should be a separate "Foo Junior" to meet their specialized requirements. (see "Where Do We Go From Here?" at this link for recommendations on this and other issues)
member-to-member sales, with a secure double-consent trading system - not that hard to code and implement - need to be reinstituted, for a variety of reasons. among other things, this would allow gifting via the trading system, removing the need for a separate Gifting function and the potential for abusing it. (see this thread for a discussion of this topic)
the outside link ban could stand to be addressed as well - perhaps desired links to useful and/or innocent things like off-site pets that need clicks and sites like KibbleCat/Dog could be submitted for approval and a tag supplied to indicate that they have been vetted over by the site.
some kind of discounted system for ClubFoo - either a low-cost option without extra "perks", simply account access, or a package deal for multiple accounts from the same IP, preferably both - would go a long way toward boosting both site income and the flagging membership roster. a "legal", site-facilitated program for gifting CF memberships would also be a very welcome addition.
something that just occurred to me the other day...this is the only site i know where "private" messages are displayed for the world to see. as much fun as i have had "eavesdropping", a LOT of problems could be solved by making personal messages visible ONLY to the member and the person with whom they are communicating. most PM systems are set up like mini-Forums, with each conversation running on its own thread. like trading, this is commonly in use and i am sure the coding is either easily available or could be obtained at little or no cost from another site.
what are YOUR thoughts and suggestions?
About Me
- GOLD RUSH
- Tabby Road, New Furrsey, Foo S. A.
- i am a seven-year-old virtual Cream Persian FooCat (born on Little Christmas, 1/5/10), the mascot and spokesfurson for FooBA4U, the FooPets members' cooperative service site.
hmmm...apparently Support is handled out-of-house (via something called Zendesk) and went down for a while yesterday...and is still having a bit of a ripple effect. anyone else see bonding bars dropping after less than 24 hours? (like this?)
ReplyDeleteYes. I noticed on one of the accounts I am babysitting. So I am not losing my mind? Good to know. So now we have to go through the triple check to make sure all are cared for and we still may lose bars? Great, just great.
ReplyDeleteit was supposed to clear up shortly - i went poking around in the Forums when i first noticed it (Announcements), and the "news" i found at the time of the above post was that Support had blipped 45 hours previous and came back 15 hours later, but with afteraffects. will see what happens later today.
DeleteI don't have anything to add to your post above. I think you hit on many of the topics that we've been kicking around here and you did so in a wonderfully clear and understandable way. Bravo!!
ReplyDeleteOne thing a smidgen off topic that I am curious about... Zendesk is an outside company handling support now?? Hmmmm... So Traci is not in charge of that any more? I wonder if Zendesk handles the server issues? The business issues? The personal problems? The honesty issues (I'm specifically thinking about the people who got thrown out with the bath water in the recent cheating scandal?)? If they are, perhaps it might be worthwhile to approach them on behalf of the folks who were wrongly ousted in that mess? Maybe? What do you guys think? And what all do we know about them? How approachable are they? What issues do they manage??
as far as i'm aware, "Zendesk" was inherited from Rivet and maintained as a venue by Ron and company. best of my knowledge it is site-staffed (Rivet's was), and simply serves as an off-site location for Support - which makes sense, if the site is down, Support is still available...will look into it, though, like your ideas.
DeleteIt is in fact, site staffed. I know the two people who are in Support, and both are Foopets related.
DeleteStill think the people gone should not be put on the back burner, though I think after so much has happened, many have given up. But they may be tempted to come back at the very least if they could have their old accounts back. I think punishment should fit the crime, and many only committed the crime of selling high and sometimes then buying high after. Which is still going on. LPH's are going for like 12-20k. And sometimes people even want more. There has to be a way to fix the economy. My only suggestion to add besides still trying to get the members back would be to set a price cap which could be instituted if there was a different trading system.
Of course, all of this is back burner right now until they can fix all the glitches they got stuck with. Such a shame that the larger team of Rivet couldn't at least fix Instacare all before handing over the reigns to a new and such a smaller team.
backSTAGE - that is, through nonpublic channels - NOT in any way backburnered...we are still pursuing the issue as a whole and trying to act as advocate for those who have presented their cases to us.
DeleteWell things are back to the way they were a while back. The Instacare can not be trusted. So forget about being in a hurry. It never stops rolling and then you have to check in the play list to find that only have been fed. One player told me that they just got their pets out of boarding and they were fed every hour. That is a bit much I think. Anyway I better get back to triple checking foos. I just found out that even though I fed several accounts 12 hours ago their bonding has gone down one bar. And I have not seen any messages from anyone at Foo. I guess they just do not give a crap anymore. How unusual.
ReplyDeleteI think it's implied by now that Instacare is still having problems. I think the big announcement will come when it is truly fixed. The other thing is...and this is big for me, they may not realize it's gone back to being so glitchy. I have gotten used to checking my pets on the Play page after feeding, and the past few days it went back to picking and choosing which pets got fed. Then on my second try this morning, it went through completely, even giving me the message. I still checked though. But I've gotten so used to it flipping back and forth that I didn't even tell Support when the Instacare started running badly again. I think this is a mistake on my part. I think they need to know in case they screw up Instacare while working on that or something else and are not aware of it. From now on, I'm going to take the time to let Support know. But I think most people are tired of seeing messages about "We are working on Instacare...we know it still has problems"...so it might, instead of making people happy to see an update, just push them to again lash out as so many have been doing recently. Not excusing it, I feel like they need to hire a coder ASAP. But at the same time, I am not in their financial situation nor do I know what it is.
Deleteyes, they need to be kept posted - via Twitter if nothing else, that seems to be where the response is fastest. the problem of overlaid and interlocking coding remains every time they touch something, one or more other things are affected. think of trying to repair not only an engine while it is running, but attempting to synchronise an entire highway full of 'em.
Deleteas far as coders go...i'd bet my last cracker that we have at least half a dozun onsite (or at least, we did...) who'd be happy to lend a hand debugging if asked.
Yeah there's probably a decent amount of people on Foo (if they're still around) that would be happy to lend a hand if not for free, then slide em a few FDs for comp. At this point though, if it would get the game running, and I knew how to do it, I'd offer for free. Just to get rid of all of the hassles.
DeleteAnd that was a good analogy, I always wonder how difficult it must be to mess with that stuff. But then you would think they would focus on one thing instead of scattering their attention. Get Instacare All running first, make absolutely sure it is running perfectly. THEN do idk, the Boarding Feature, again until it runs perfectly, etc. Instead they are trying to do it all at once and it's probably not doing much besides making a Gordian Knot that will take forever to unravel if they're not careful.
i'm not sure it's so much that as once they DO have something straightened out (like InstaCare) and go on to the next priority, the interlocked coding messes up what's already done. (remember how just about ANYTHING they did at one point affected Ledgers?)
Deletewhat they may have to do is run the code sets offsite to debug them... and i have NO idea what's involved in that, lol.