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Harrierfalcon
The Raptor of Calcs
Super Elite (Last Title)
Joined: 25 Oct 2006
Posts: 2535
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 Posted: 07 Dec 2007 04:50:25 pm Post subject: |
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Back on topic!
I would guess, from the recent updates, that ticalc.org has seen DJ's rant on it, and taken measures to prevent themselves from going under. |
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DarkerLine
ceci n'est pas une |
Super Elite (Last Title)
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 8328
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| Posted: 07 Dec 2007 04:53:12 pm Post subject: |
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Fryedsoft wrote: Speaking of ticalc, They just updated their archive.
[post="116971"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]
Not all of it... in fact, if my own program is any indication, they haven't even gotten through the first week of files since their last update. Assuming they're working chronologically.
Last edited by Guest on 07 Dec 2007 04:53:39 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Michael
Newbie
Joined: 21 Dec 2007
Posts: 39
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| Posted: 21 Dec 2007 08:29:25 pm Post subject: |
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Hello,
This is Michael Vincent from ticalc.org. I just found this thread and decided to register and clarify a few things, in no particular order. I really like visiting United TI moreso than any other site and from time to time take a look here :)
First, regarding the two archivers we hired: Your information about what happened to them is flat out wrong. I will not talk much with regards to Grant, except to state that I wasn't rude (I only pointed out all his beginning mistakes, which were expected to occur, were made by myself when I started, and are a necessary part of becoming a good archiver). He also was fired for other reasons than what he states. The other archiver vanished off the face of the earth  He interviewed, was hired, and then right after that literally vanished, not replying to any form of communication. We still haven't seen him.
About the lack of news, it used to be years ago that we would get tons of news submissions to news@ticalc.org, including regarding upcoming projects. For the last few years, this has all but dried up and I either receive nothing at all or in rare cases, someone organizes a group of 10 people to all e-mail about the same program, but no one provides any detail in the e-mail. As much as I would like to be, I'm not psychic, and while I try to look through the new files, it is much easier to post news when someone sends a well-crafted news article that explains the program, why the program deserves a feature, and a summary of features that will assist me in making a decision. The same goes for upcoming projects. No one e-mails about upcoming projects before, and while we have shied away from them in the past 5 years or so, I would be happy to post articles on upcoming projects that have a high certainty of completion. As a personal example, having worked on the msd8x USB driver, I am highly anticipating Real Sound 2.0 and would love nothing more than to receive some sort of preview and/or enough information about it that I could post on ticalc.org. But what can I say right now? I could write a short paragraph but I have no estimated time of completion, video, nor a clue as to what it really will do with enough specifics to write news about.
With regards to BASIC, I have to admit that I probably do have an anti-BASIC bias (not in hating the programs but in not noticing them) to a certain extent, but I try hard not to. I do believe that a featured BASIC program should be a level above regular BASIC programs. Since I tend not to notice BASIC programs as much, the best way to get one featured is to send a *coherent* e-mail that starts with a brief introduction and then a slightly more detailed summary. Links in the form of a full ticalc.org file URL also help. As another e-mail hint, I read all my e-mail (due to personal preference) in text-only Pine via SSH. Nothing makes an e-mail more quickly discarded then something that contains information in a .doc attachment 
It is no secret that we are currently understaffed. Reviews should be fine now because Duncan Smith is doing an excellent job processing them in addition to posting surveys. Our main problem is screenshots and files, plus filearchive e-mails. Joey Gannon and the other former archivers as well as myself have been taking turns working on this. You'll notice over the past week or so I cleared out the entire backlog of pending files.
About archive structure, if you take a look at 83+ BASIC games and math, you'll note that there are subfolders. I have undertaken this massive organization project entirely by myself, and am currently working through the math section trying to organize everything by subject. The highlight is the 83plus/basic/math/quadratic folder featuring 106 quadratic solvers :biggrin: It takes a very long time to review each file and manually move it to the appropriate folder. I have organized thousands of files so far. Please be patient. In conjunction with this, I hope to introduce a change to the file upload form in the future that will have a calculator model dropdown that will screen the directories in javascript, thus shortening the insanely long list of directory choices for a program. I hope it will also reduce the instances of people uploading 83+ programs into the 83 directory, which I think occurs when they scroll down and stop at "TI-83" without looking further.
Ratings were our solution to finding quality programs in the archives. I'm not sure what to say, other than go rate and review every program you've ever downloaded! If enough people rate, it will work (you can sort a directory by rating). Otherwise, I'm not sure what we could do differently. Are there any suggestions? If people don't rate now, it seems that any other community input method would be equally ineffective.
We've wanted community forums on ticalc.org for a long time. I think it would be tremendously beneficial and successful. The problem is that due to the politics of the site's history and security concerns, we have to write it ourselves and no one has yet stepped forward. (There is also the technical consideration that we are on a dual Pentium Pro box and anything other than a custom forum written for our system would likely overwhelm us.)
At some point in the near to medium future, we will be hiring again for archivers and possibly other positions. Please apply! I would love nothing more than to work with other people dedicated to keeping ticalc.org alive.
If you have other ideas about ticalc.org, please e-mail me or find me on #tcpa on EFNet.
Michael |
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Michael
Newbie
Joined: 21 Dec 2007
Posts: 39
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| Posted: 21 Dec 2007 08:35:06 pm Post subject: |
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DarkerLine wrote: Fryedsoft wrote: Speaking of ticalc, They just updated their archive.
[post="116971"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]
Not all of it... in fact, if my own program is any indication, they haven't even gotten through the first week of files since their last update. Assuming they're working chronologically.
[post="116974"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]
Our archving process works typically in the following manner (we can process however we like, however the usual method is as follows): We see a list of files sorted in descended order by age, but updates are listed separately (but sorted the same way) at the top. So the typical order of processing is:
1. Updates to existing programs (with the oldest pending update being first).
2. New programs (sorted with the oldest new program first).
When I worked through the queue in chunks, this meant that updates were done first, followed by new programs. It is thus possible for a one-week old update to be processed before a one month old new program. Generally of course, the files appeared on the front page oldest first.
Updates are processed first because they require less examination and we then don't have to have them wait forever stuck in the middle of the queue. Updates are typically very quick to process and thus this preference doesn't really lengthen the time for a new program to be added at all (making it win-win).
Last edited by Guest on 21 Dec 2007 08:35:49 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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AaroneusTheGreat
Advanced Member
Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 290
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| Posted: 25 Dec 2007 10:34:28 pm Post subject: |
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I think you guys are doing a great job despite what difficulties you may have. Thank you.  |
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Recursive Acronym
Advanced Member
Joined: 11 Dec 2006
Posts: 499
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| Posted: 26 Dec 2007 12:31:06 pm Post subject: |
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Michael:
We don't need another forum (in my opinion), and it would be nice if the default way for sorting files were by rating and not by alphabet .
Last edited by Guest on 26 Dec 2007 12:31:29 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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brandonw
Advanced Member
Joined: 12 Jan 2007
Posts: 455
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| Posted: 26 Dec 2007 09:03:41 pm Post subject: |
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Recursive Acronym wrote: Michael:
We don't need another forum (in my opinion), and it would be nice if the default way for sorting files were by rating and not by alphabet .
[post="117742"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]
The default should be what makes the most logical sense, not what other people think is the best program. |
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Weregoose
Authentic INTJ
Super Elite (Last Title)
Joined: 25 Nov 2004
Posts: 3976
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| Posted: 26 Dec 2007 09:36:53 pm Post subject: |
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If you consider the sort-by-rating at bash.org, the highest-rated are the most seen, and therefore they are rated the most. Other great quotes that deserve the top 100 may never see it only because they arrived much later.
Last edited by Guest on 26 Dec 2007 09:37:11 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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tifreak8x
Elite
Joined: 27 Aug 2005
Posts: 956
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| Posted: 26 Dec 2007 10:57:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Well, the only thing I think would be a logical addition to ticalc would be to seperate the archives in to pages, say, show a list of 100 programs at a time on the page? That way, dialup users such as myself won't be so overly bogged down. Or maybe seperated by page, by the first letter of the zip file? |
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Zaphod Beeblebrox
Member
Joined: 02 Jul 2007
Posts: 119
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| Posted: 26 Dec 2007 11:11:37 pm Post subject: |
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| I agree, that would be very nice. I don't have dialup, but it would make it so much easier to browse with that feature. |
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Recursive Acronym
Advanced Member
Joined: 11 Dec 2006
Posts: 499
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| Posted: 28 Dec 2007 02:51:32 pm Post subject: |
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Weregoose wrote: If you consider the sort-by-rating at bash.org, the highest-rated are the most seen, and therefore they are rated the most. Other great quotes that deserve the top 100 may never see it only because they arrived much later.
[post="117754"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]
OK, then the default sorting should be by date of submission, with most recent first. By alphabet makes little sense. |
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tifreak8x
Elite
Joined: 27 Aug 2005
Posts: 956
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| Posted: 28 Dec 2007 06:10:16 pm Post subject: |
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| That wouldn't make any sense... how would you expect to find a title of a game on gamefaqs if they did it that way? alphabetical would make the most sense in this case, or, just page by page. by most recent, all of the good games will be at the far end of the list, while all the not so good ones being submitted by the n00bs and nubs alike will see all the front bit of glory. |
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Michael
Newbie
Joined: 21 Dec 2007
Posts: 39
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| Posted: 28 Dec 2007 07:26:46 pm Post subject: |
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I think alphabetical also is the only sensible option. Yes, the default could be by rating or by time, but to me time seems arbitrary and confusing. Ratings would be nice except it would then provide more incentive for people to conspire and rate their files higher. We are talking about the default sort, so it's not like anyone is precluded from viewing the directories how they want. Alphabetical is consistent and expected, and for someone looking for a specific program or kind of program, alphabetical is usually best.
tifreak8x's suggestion of multiple pages (as we do for news articles) is a good one. Ideally our archives would be organized so that multiple pages aren't needed, but that's not going to happen for all folders. What is a good size for a page? 100 files? 250 files? 500 files? I tend to like them all on one page except it often overwhelms my browser (not to mention the poor people on dial-up). |
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Fryedsoft
Newbie
Joined: 03 Dec 2007
Posts: 13
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| Posted: 28 Dec 2007 09:38:05 pm Post subject: |
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Multiple page wise. I'm not really for that simply because personally I hate clicking page after page after page, ETC. Although separating files by genre (such as RPG, ACTION, Guess the number, ETC), would not only help out with organization, but also with files per page and ultimately the load times.
Ticalc.org forums: well, something has to replace the mailing lists since no one seems to be using them anymore. I'd be happy if they would just bring the mailing-list archives back. there was good information there.
If you want to increase exposure to good games vs bad, there needs to be more reviews and ratings. for example in the 89 basic archive, there is only 4/803 files with a rating, And the best I could find was the 83/84 ion archive with about 110-120/310 which is still only 1/3 of the archive. At this point, who cares if someone is manipulating the vote if no one is even paying attention to them. Maybe some encouragement like what eBay does would work here. Make it so logged in users are told on the front page in a window on the left that they need to leave a comment for a game that they downloaded, then all they need to do is leave a + - or Neutral and a brief description (100 chars or less) why they voted this way. Then you can allow people to browse though them and use the percentage of favorable votes/votes as the rating.
Last edited by Guest on 28 Dec 2007 09:41:37 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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elfprince13
Retired
Super Elite (Last Title)
Joined: 11 Apr 2005
Posts: 3500
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| Posted: 29 Dec 2007 01:19:36 am Post subject: |
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Michael: what happened to those of us who applied for the position, and were more than willing to contribute our time to help the community, but never heard so much as a "We have received your application" in response?
Michael wrote: I think alphabetical also is the only sensible option. Yes, the default could be by rating or by time, but to me time seems arbitrary and confusing. Ratings would be nice except it would then provide more incentive for people to conspire and rate their files higher. We are talking about the default sort, so it's not like anyone is precluded from viewing the directories how they want. Alphabetical is consistent and expected, and for someone looking for a specific program or kind of program, alphabetical is usually best.
I proposed various improvements to the ratings system, oh probably a year and a half ago (I can pull up the details if you'd like). Jon Katz seemed very excited about them at the time, and we corresponded for a while, but nothing ever came of it. Shortly after that, I, along with various community members set up a system where we could request that files of ours be rated + reviewed, with a strict stipulation, that it was at reviewers discretion as to the content of the rating + review. Unfortunately we received a reprimand from Duncan Smith that even this was against the terms of use, and were warned not to do it again, bringing an end to our method of providing incentives to improve ticalc.org
Michael wrote: tifreak8x's suggestion of multiple pages (as we do for news articles) is a good one. Ideally our archives would be organized so that multiple pages aren't needed, but that's not going to happen for all folders. What is a good size for a page? 100 files? 250 files? 500 files? I tend to like them all on one page except it often overwhelms my browser (not to mention the poor people on dial-up).
floating limit, say100 items, but require a certain threshold before starting a new page. So you wouldn't begin a new page until you had reached 125 on one page, at which point you'd wrap all 25 onto the next page at the same time |
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tifreak8x
Elite
Joined: 27 Aug 2005
Posts: 956
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| Posted: 29 Dec 2007 07:44:35 am Post subject: |
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Michael wrote: I think alphabetical also is the only sensible option. Yes, the default could be by rating or by time, but to me time seems arbitrary and confusing. Ratings would be nice except it would then provide more incentive for people to conspire and rate their files higher. We are talking about the default sort, so it's not like anyone is precluded from viewing the directories how they want. Alphabetical is consistent and expected, and for someone looking for a specific program or kind of program, alphabetical is usually best.
tifreak8x's suggestion of multiple pages (as we do for news articles) is a good one. Ideally our archives would be organized so that multiple pages aren't needed, but that's not going to happen for all folders. What is a good size for a page? 100 files? 250 files? 500 files? I tend to like them all on one page except it often overwhelms my browser (not to mention the poor people on dial-up).
[post="117835"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]
Well... If you were to do the alphabetical, that would make it so page by page were not really neccessary. If you were to go page by page... Would it be possible to have a drop down box so people can select how many per page they want to see? Make the default, say 150, and then options for up to the amount of files in that section?
And you are right. Looking at the archives of ticalc on dialup sucks. Badly. XD Hopefully comcast will be nice enough to run their cable line that last half mile to my house soon... <.< |
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Michael
Newbie
Joined: 21 Dec 2007
Posts: 39
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| Posted: 29 Dec 2007 03:49:41 pm Post subject: |
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elfprince13 wrote: Michael: what happened to those of us who applied for the position, and were more than willing to contribute our time to help the community, but never heard so much as a "We have received your application" in response?
While I can't go into details, the application process is very fair. This time though, it didn't work so well. Clearly we had some great applications and candidates whose writings didn't reflect reality. As I said, one of our archivers made it to the top, interviewed, and everything sounded fine. Then he vanished and we couldn't even tell him he was hired (except by e-mails which were never replied to). It's still unbeliveable. Hopefully this was a one time problem and next time everything will go as it normally does.
tifreak8x wrote: Would it be possible to have a drop down box so people can select how many per page they want to see?
Absolutely. Any changes we make to the archives like this will be after I'm done some more files and we work on some other things (like a javascript calculator model filter for the upload form). Of course, my goal still is to organize enough that this is not necessary. Some sections like the TI-86 and TI-92 are likely to remain unorganized though. The amount of interest versus the massive time required to organize is not worth it. |
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Jim e
Advanced Member
Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Posts: 360
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| Posted: 08 Jan 2008 07:57:11 am Post subject: |
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Quote: As a personal example, having worked on the msd8x USB driver, I am highly anticipating Real Sound 2.0 and would love nothing more than to receive some sort of preview and/or enough information about it that I could post on ticalc.org. But what can I say right now? I could write a short paragraph but I have no estimated time of completion, video, nor a clue as to what it really will do with enough specifics to write news about. Despite RS2 working completely and even supporting video, I consider it a mammoth failure. I was getting complaints about the volume in the first RS, if I released the second I would hear no end to the volume issue. I don't know, it was one thing to have people get an audio adapter, but to require a flash drive, usb adapter, head phone adapter, and powered speakers is a bit much for me.
Personally I'd still like to see Ticalc have its own message board, It's hard to get full exposure everywhere, you end up having to clone posts like crazy. And stranglers who know little of the community go blissfully unaware of software updates. |
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elfprince13
Retired
Super Elite (Last Title)
Joined: 11 Apr 2005
Posts: 3500
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| Posted: 08 Jan 2008 08:53:09 am Post subject: |
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Jim e wrote: Quote: As a personal example, having worked on the msd8x USB driver, I am highly anticipating Real Sound 2.0 and would love nothing more than to receive some sort of preview and/or enough information about it that I could post on ticalc.org. But what can I say right now? I could write a short paragraph but I have no estimated time of completion, video, nor a clue as to what it really will do with enough specifics to write news about. Despite RS2 working completely and even supporting video, I consider it a mammoth failure. I was getting complaints about the volume in the first RS, if I released the second I would hear no end to the volume issue. I don't know, it was one thing to have people get an audio adapter, but to require a flash drive, usb adapter, head phone adapter, and powered speakers is a bit much for me.
would you be so kind as to release it for those of us who have such things? |
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brandonw
Advanced Member
Joined: 12 Jan 2007
Posts: 455
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| Posted: 08 Jan 2008 11:46:53 am Post subject: |
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| Will you at least give permission to let others attempt this project on their own? I don't think it's right to sit on it when so many people have wanted it for so long. I know I've avoided it because it's your project and I don't want to take anything away from anybody, and I suspect others are the same way. |
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Community News & Discuss Nspire => Technology & Calculator Open Topic
