As to these proposed 'ticalc.org needs an overhaul' discussions.. let's actually discuss them!

I was talking with a user on #ti about changing the layout of the projects section. Basically, instead of having their posting set up, it would just be a listing of projects being worked on, seperated by calc type.

I came up with a mock-up of sorts, but.. it obviously needs the help of the community to make it so we all can agree on things and how it looks.

http://tifreakware.net/tifreak8x/misc/ticalcmockup.htm

Yes, I used my own project for this. :p

I was told as long as we could come up with a satisfactory mock-up of what was wanted, then it could possibly be coded in.

Keep in mind. I am not asking them to host a forum for us to discuss projects. The point of this is to get the projects on one central site, linking back to someplace else for the actual discussion of said projects. Having them either link to screenshots, or hosting up to maybe 4 of them, I dunno. I think I would rather they just link to the screenies and save space on their servers.

What else do you think should be added? Anything you think should be taken out?

no no!! That is where you are wrong. This would actually INCREASE traffic to sites.

See, there would be no form of forums or anything for these projects ON ticalc, that is why one would link to THEIR site, or a place where they discuss their projects.

Basically I would like to have ticalc be a feature point, similar to that of TI-NEWS without the hassle of needing to moderate comments and such, just projects themselves.

Might be a good thing for my site and bring back SOME traffic to my forums, as it is almost all but dead now. 1-3 posts per weeks sucks =/

yeah, some moderation is a given to that extent, but the staff won't have to worry about moderating a subforum.

And yes, the people that are tied to the project will have to be able to edit said project listing.


Would be nice, as well, if there were at least 2 ways to list projects: Alphabetically and by most recently updated.

Should there be an option for asm and basic?

We want to make sure we don't over complicate this either. Right now there is no real guarantee this happens, but it is a really good chance of it happening the more we plan and plot this out.

I would say that the projects if they are inactive for over a year they're gone or put on a section for held projects. I say once a project is finished then ya its going to go into their archives as a file and then it's page is removed. I think there should be an option for asm and basic projects. Every author could have their own project section in their profile.

I would say that the projects if they are inactive for over a year they're gone or put on a section for held projects. I say once a project is finished then ya its going to go into their archives as a file and then it's page is removed. I think there should be an option for asm and basic projects. Every author could have their own project section in their profile.

I like this idea. I'd also like to mention that their archives layout could use an overhaul. All results under a heading don't need to be displayed on one page, and it would be nice to have a small screen shot beside the program before you open up it's individual page.

As discussed on #TI, there might be a bunch of problems that would arise with this:

-People would flood the project section with useless shit (guessing games)
-If a rating system is added, the same problem as the file archives would arise: people rating good programs 1 star for the lulz, or even votebotting them.
-To fix problem 1: someone neutral would need to be made ticalc staff to filter content by quality. Basically someone who is not biased against either BASIC or ASM. Filtering content by quality would be hard if the author provides no animated screenshots other than the title screen and good description.

What I think is that projects would need to have a tag system or be divided by calculator models, type (games/utilities/math/animation/etc) and genre (in game case: RPG, shooter, action, number guessing game, Rock-paper-scissors, casino. In math case: physics, quadratic formula, etc)

At this point, a moderator would just need to fix what's uploaded in the wrong categories and it would make it much easier to search, while still being easy to moderate. While filtering quality might be good, it would become a major chore/hassle to moderate all the quadratic solvers that would arrive.

Submitting a work in progress should be approved similar to the way files are approved to the archives.  That way, the ticalc.org staff can filter out the files that need filtering before they actually appear on the website.  Ratings and reviews are probably a bad idea, I think that should be the purpose of providing a link to the project.