Liberal Arts Major
The solution I came up with is to let random users submit their own polls using a Shrines shop item (I told you they'd be less useless!) and the poll queue. A poll submitted in this way is put into a list of polls and every ~three days, starting this Friday, the next poll up - defined as having the lowest rank in the queue - is taken out of the queue and put up on the front page.
Editors (admins and Kenri) can still make polls, but I haven't really plotted out that interaction since I haven't written the cron file yet. Also, since this system is based on the pseudo-cron I cooked up, the actual update intervals will be fairly irregular, as they are based on my visiting the site.
And that's not all!
A Very Special Update
Curse made a pair of suggestions recently that I figured wouldn't be too hard to implement:
1. Giving access to more HTML by default. The full list of tags you now have available: b, i, strong, em, u, tt, php, s, spoiler, and link. (You already had u available.) You can still buy the corresponding shrines shop item for one of these tags (like the hilarious u), but they're now completely useless. I made link available by default because most users probably have some form of linkification extension on their browsers, anyway, so why not? Images were not made accessible by default because I agree with Kenri: it's better if not everyone has immediate access to image spam. Not that any of this really matters for any of you loyal
2. Adding an HTML editor. Following the "style guide" of this site, this is an extremely basic WYSIWYG editor that merely inserts tags of the appropriate variety into a message textbox. I chose what I figured would be the most frequently-used tags: i, b, u, s, link, spoiler, though perhaps I should have added em and strong over i and b. Note that this uses Javascript and as such might not work in a browser other than FF or Chrome. (Although it might not work in those, either.) Also, I noticed a little tick: hitting one of the editor buttons will scroll the message box to the top (at least in FF). Maybe I should fix this. And maybe I should add a way to hide the thing for those of us who aren't as lazy as Curse.
I also tested and fixed spoiler tag resolution when editing messages. The other constructed tags (link, php, other stuff) should work too, but I didn't test them.
Lastly, in following the spirit of Curse's critique, I made it so you can buy a personal board for free if you have an author page (that is, if you have an accepted article or project) and it's your first personal board. Curse pointed out that new users should have access to the features of TFN that make it "slightly better than total crap" and since the contribution system is pretty integral to TFN (despite how neglected it is), I figured this issue would fall under that category.
Viva la revolution.
Liberal Arts Major
I - or rather, Lead Moderators, but I am currently the only one - can make polls too.
Well, I think so, I haven't exactly tested it because there's been no need to, but I used to be able to create polls, so unless it was specifically restricted to just Admins and Editors recently, I don't see why I couldn't still do so now. Alternatively, if it was your intent to make creating polls restricted to just those two user levels (Admin and Editor,) as of right now, I don't believe it is, so you'd have to change that.
---
xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Liberal Arts Major
Also, since I don't know why you're not an admin... you're now an admin!
___
~ Ogordemir ~
"The sciences have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." ~ H.P Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
Liberal Arts Major
Lead Mod was always a weird position in terms of "what it could actually do." Granted, it made sense in context of the whole, "Moderator with some administrative duties" description that it would function that way. I think on a practical basis (ignoring user levels) it was pretty much "below Editors and Admins, but well above everything else."
Creating Polls was probably the most "significant" (for lack of a better term) thing it could do that distinguished it from the other moderator levels. I think.
you're now an admin!
^_^
---
xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?
Liberal Arts Major
___
~ Ogordemir ~
"The sciences have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." ~ H.P Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
Liberal Arts Major
....I did? The fuck?
Also, I used to update the "rank this hot bitch" poll every 4 days back in the day but all the homosexuals here (all....) complained and shit so I stopped doing it. I doubt the additional 3-4 ppl that this new thing gave poll access too will contribute much.
---
Alestra77: you seem to have glossed over the fact that you treat all women like prostitutes
Alestra77: "k, so, I bought you coffee... when do I get my handjob?"
Goddammit, I hate you so much. ~ Kenri to me (3 times)
Alestra77: who the fuck is porky
Advanced
I liked that poll, it was great you should do another 1 tiger.
---
I like my women like I like my chicken with just a little bit of fat on the end. Not to much and not to little just enough to make me grin,make me grin,make me grin, SING YOU BASTARDS!!!!!!!!!-Rodney Carrington's chicken song
Liberal Arts Major
Which is why I haven't bothered to make the cron file yet. >_>
___
~ Ogordemir ~
"The sciences have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." ~ H.P Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
Liberal Arts Major
Once a poll is removed from the queue, it behaves as any poll would, which means if a mod makes another one directly, it'll immediately close the current poll. Also, polls made by mods will be closed by the queue cycle as normal: so if I were to make a poll in two days, it would only be up for a day before it got replaced by the next poll in the queue. An alternative to this would be to have mod-created polls added at the top of the queue, but I want to see if the current manifestation of this business works first.
___
~ Ogordemir ~
"The sciences have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." ~ H.P Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu