Toribash
Original Post
Free Forum Usability Improvements
Hey all,


My suggestion is to implement a free search in some capacity. I understand server load is probably a concern, so the search could be limited in history, forum, times per day, limit it by age of account/qi of account/posts on account or other ways to make the load negligible but still allow a more functional forum for free users.


A couple of examples:
The new Toribash Next thread, i have no idea what the most recent information in the thread is because i can't look up hampa's posts or search for hampa within the thread.
This suggestion forum, rule number 4 says i should check if my feature has already been suggested. The only way for me to do that is look through all the posts.



I think that if we looked at forum usage rate we would see that there is a large number of people who just don't bother with the forum. I know i left my clan when they implemented a forum use rule, which isn't here or there, but if it was more functional without paying money i may have been using it on my own before the clan required it.
This feature is available for VIP users, and honestly, if you're using forums on the regular then 5$ for 6 months is an absolute bargain to enjoy the search feature.

Toribash is a free to play game with fairly small playerbase so current server is probably good for whatever load is used to at the moment. Adding free search tool would mean they would have to get a better server or it would have high risk of crashing, so search being vip-exclusive feature makes the most sense.
1) You're assuming everyone who wants to use the forums regularly has the equivalent 5 USD to spend (i do, cause i'm in the US, but that doesn't go for everyone)

2) A free search tool could absolutely be rate limited in a way where it wouldn't cause instability
Unfortunately the robots.txt prevents google from indexing threads. For instance when i google "toribash hampa toribash next" or "site:toribash.com hampa toribash next" it doesn't find specific posts, but can find general threads. The issue is there are so many posts in the thread, i can't find the information i'm looking for.

In the case of looking for lua globals, adding such general terms to a google search really screws up the results.


edit: I'd like to point out that the people who are commenting here are already using the forum, and therefore probably think that it's functional in its current state. If there was a way to check what users didn't use the forum but are on discord or something and poll them, that might be useful.
The servers for Toribash can't support this, and it is only 5 dollars for 6 months like snag said. At the end if the day toribash isn't that big of a community and therefore things like search engines for the site should be a paid thing. There would be more risks of shut downs and crashing. We're not asking everyone has 5 dollars, but if you have a computer and internet I'm sure getting 5 dollars isn't that hard that is, in 6 months. Considering I'm sure they spend way more than that on the internet alone, or data plan in phone.
Here's a tip: Press f3, type in "Hampa" and go through every page of that thread until you find what you need, it will take less than 3 minutes.

Originally Posted by ennben View Post
1) You're assuming everyone who wants to use the forums regularly has the equivalent 5 USD to spend (i do, cause i'm in the US, but that doesn't go for everyone)

2) A free search tool could absolutely be rate limited in a way where it wouldn't cause instability

1) Not assuming anything, I'm saying that if you're that concerned about finding a specific post, chances are you have enough funds for something like forum VIP.
2) If it was limited to where it wouldn't cause instability it probably wouldn't help you.

Originally Posted by ennben View Post
I'd like to point out that the people who are commenting here are already using the forum, and therefore probably think that it's functional in its current state. If there was a way to check what users didn't use the forum but are on discord or something and poll them, that might be useful.

Why would you value someone's opinion about forum when they don't use it? Quite a pointless way to go if you're looking for valid opinions.
Re: fiscal aspects. Laptops/data are usually in local currencies. Sure, reaching here, and not applicable to me, but still a small instance of gatekeeping that contributes to my point.


Re: server instability, i would appreciate some sort of reference regarding this. Specifically, limited additional sql (or whatever db) queries shouldn't make or break a website that already operates like this.

Re: people's opinions that don't use the forum, the subsection i was referring to is people who don't use the forum due to lack of user friendliness, perhaps there are people who would like to use it who find it difficult.


Re: using f3 to find hampa's threads, this doesn't solve that there may be hundreds of pages of posts in that thread like the one in the example i gave, about toribash next.


I don't know if it's just me, but it seems like the majority of responses here are "we don't need this" or "it might break the server". Technology has improved a lot in the past few years even, why is it impossible that we could upgrade the forum without breaking the bank?
I see a lot of people use search as a main feature of vip, but honestly the main sell points of those are the forum customisation and the shit post board.
search funtion would be hella nice for a significant portion of the forum and i don't really see why it's gated behind a pay wall, other than server stuff.
Only a handful of people can answer those kinds of questions though.
*enter suo*

I do have an answer about the upgrading the forum thing though, there's a metric fuck tonne of data on that server because it includes things like textures. It's not been upgraded because migrating it is a ball ache no one is willing to put up with. (as I understand it, at least)

EDIT: thanks for a decent suggestion thread instead of the usual verbal diarrhea stuff we see in this board
She/They

Yeah, I only don't like erthtkv2 because of the mod's name. Make it "tkv2," and the mod will instantly become more popular. This is a valid reason as the name of the mod is still an important feature that no one seems to have yet discussed.
Thanks for the info Erth, i'm curious about the data that would need to be migrated and where it would migrate to. Who would i talk to about helping out? I've done a fair amount of database work when programming, and would be happy to explore some options. I even have some personal rented servers i could run tests or something on if necessary.