Kevan's dashboard

Kevan replied on December 09, 2009 22:41 to the problem "web site not working?" in Chore Wars:

Okay, the server's back up.

Kevan replied on December 09, 2009 18:43 to the problem "web site not working?" in Chore Wars:

It's a serious server problem affecting a number of sites, we're looking into it.

Kevan reported a problem in Huffduffer on December 08, 2009 12:00:

Ampersands truncate descriptions

It looks like putting an ampersand in a description means that the description gets truncated at that point. It's okay when I edit a full page view, but if I include an ampersand when I edit items in the sidebar, or on my user page, then they get truncated.

Kevan replied on November 24, 2009 16:13 to the problem "Can't huffduff a particular speechification mp3" in Huffduffer:

I'm getting the "must be an audio file" error on http://jb_speechification.s3.amazonaw... today, having right-clicked the MP3 link to Huffduff it.

Kevan started following the idea "I'd like Huffduffer to talk to my last.fm account" in Huffduffer.

Kevan replied on November 18, 2009 10:37 to the question "Do you need a Flickr pro account?" in Noticings:

New Flickr users can't play Noticings until "a few days" after they've uploaded at least five photos? That should probably go in the FAQ - I invited a load of non-Flickr friends to sign up to Flickr and start playing Noticings, the other week, and this is maybe why none of them made it.

Can you somehow detect if a Flickr user hasn't yet met the criteria, and put an explanatory warning on their Noticings page?

Kevan marked one of britta's replies in Noticings as useful. britta replied to the idea "Appreciate another player's noticings".

Kevan replied on November 15, 2009 23:11 to the idea "Comments on used items and spent gold" in Chore Wars:

This is planned, it's just currently prevented by a quirk of the database structure.

Kevan replied on November 15, 2009 21:46 to the question "Stemming the potential flood of dirge" in Noticings:

For what it's worth, I think the "just contacts" view has entirely fixed the dirge problem for me (which was beginning to drain my enthusiasm for the game). It's frustrating when strangers can easily outscore you simply by having a lower quality threshold, but if it's a friend then you can call them out on it in a casual Flickr comment, or just decide to skim past them on the high scores. Nice addition.

Kevan Davis replied on November 13, 2009 10:35 to the idea "RSS feed" in Noticings:

Would the existing Flickr feed for the "noticings" tag be enough for you here?

Kevan Davis replied on November 07, 2009 09:25 to the problem "RSS feed broken (Chrome)" in Chore Wars:

In what way doesn't it work, and which party are you with?

A comment on the idea "Scale Gold with XP" in Chore Wars:

Reducing or increasing the probability proportionally? That makes sense. And I suppose it would have to increase to the point of multiple item drops, if you're claiming double XP for something that already has a 100% of producing treasure. – Kevan Davis, on November 07, 2009 09:24

A comment on the question "Do crowds = people?" in Noticings:

For what it's worth, I think that's my definition as well - I like the idea that the pictures can inspire other people to search around and find the same thing, if they look hard enough. Didn't the website used to say that noticings were non-transient? – Kevan Davis, on November 04, 2009 16:10

Kevan Davis shared an idea in Noticings on November 01, 2009 20:09:

Nearby noticings - ignore the older ones for scoring?

Following on from the blog entry (and good to see Nomic getting a name-check) - how about only counting the nearness bonus for the most recent (five?) noticings in a place? A slow suburb might not even have five, but in a busy area, the bonus areas will move around as people notice different things. Maybe "active" is a good adjective to describe them, given that they could persist for a long time in a quiet area; "Example photo scored 15 for being noticed, and being noticed near an active noticing."

You could also mark them with different pins on the map, so that if I'm exploring new territory and wondering where to hunt for bonuses, I'm given five particular pinpoints to consider investigating, rather than a sweeping "eh, try anywhere in Soho and you'll probably hit something".

Kevan Davis started following the idea "Some kind of gentle way to say "that doesn't look like a noticing"" in Noticings.

Kevan Davis replied on October 28, 2009 01:32 to the idea "Improve Combat by allowing character participation." in Chore Wars:

We're definitely planning on implementing this in one form or another, when we redesign the combat page.

Kevan Davis replied on October 28, 2009 01:31 to the question "Join" in Chore Wars:

What do you mean?

Kevan Davis replied on October 23, 2009 17:21 to the idea "Tweet update" in Chore Wars:

Nice idea. We've been considering Twitter integration, but this seems like a useful first step to see what sort of takeup it gets.

Kevan Davis replied on October 19, 2009 10:05 to the idea "Scale Gold with XP" in Chore Wars:

Absolutely - this is something we've realised can be a problem, and it's due to be implemented soon.

Kevan Davis asked a question in Noticings on October 18, 2009 16:12:

Noticing other players' noticings.

Out of curiosity, I took a photo of this, as I recognised it from another player's noticing last week. But it didn't do anything beyond get me the ten points for "noticed near another player's noticing".

Is there a bonus that wasn't detected? Should there be one? (Perhaps there would have to be a new machine tag which the player could add to stake a claim?) Taking repeat photos does seem a little dull, but hunting them out - and optionally finding a new angle on them - seems like a nice challenge. But maybe the guaranteed 10-point "nearby" is enough of a reward.