I looked high and low for a list of OGS users but must have overlooked it somewhere. The reason I was looking, other than to be a nuisance, is that I gave my userid to someone who might try the site. I wondered how would this person be able to send me a message?
I do not have any idea how I would be able to communicate with someone unless I actually see their userid someplace and can click on it. I looked in the menus, Groups, etc. I even looked under Puzzles just in case.
The lists of Group members are horrific, the order seems random. There’s no way to sort the member list.
Oh! Surprise! If I know the userid, do a Search for it! Okay, so what if I want to see all the users from the USA? Search USA does not yield the desired result. My country is listed as “United States” but the search field refuse to accept a space character (bug?) UnitedStates is no good. I’m getting userids and such. Oh, I found out how to enter a space! Type in your text without spaces and then back arrow and type a space. Well, United States is no good.
There is a France Group but that requires opt in. That’s no good. That’s two opt-ins: one to enter country in profile and another to join that group. Nah.
I thought users might like to search for others who are of a particular rating but that is a no-go too.
Well now I know this, maybe OGS should add a User List and some sort or search functionality.
IIRC it was decided early on that there would be no “user list” for privacy reasons.
But hey, it’s easy: just tell your friend your user name and they’ll be able to search for you:
Click here:
Text field:
Enter “Aten”:
Click “Aten”:
Click “Message”, there you are.
But apparently you already knew that … so, why ask questions if you already know the answer? <scratching my head>
The rest of your question is answered in my first sentence. I don’t know whether there are any plans to change that, but I wouldn’t hold my breath—I’d think there are too many other “horrific” things our devs would want to change
If you read my post you would have saved yourself a lot of work. I decided to continue looking for solutions as I wrote, so I did not know it when I started. It was an amusing exercise to explore the peculiarities of the site.
In fact I have written quite a bit of advice to my friend about how to find the way out of the dark at this site. I gave my userid. Knowing how intuitive the site is, I thought I’d better check to see if there was any way the userid can be used to find a user one does not already know how to find. The answer is that is not obvious. I had to write another message explaining where to look for search and the illogic of clicking a userid only to be confronted with another instance of the userid?
There seems to be an attitude at many places that all the stuff that is opaque is in fact clear and obvious…and it is to the site developers and those who already know the answer. It’s an unnecessarily defensive posture that invalidates a new users’s experience of a less than perfect computer program.
For what it worth, it’s still the Web, so you CAN give your friend a direct link to your profile. I agree on the obscurity of the design, though. At least in v4 the search box was easier to find.
I could also set up his account, log in, accept the challenge I made and play the game for him. That would save me the trouble of telling him and him the trouble of learning. It you hadn’t made that suggestion about the web, it wouldn’t have occurred to me what efficiencies this site really offers.
[quote=“Aten, post:3, topic:11146”]
If you read my post you would have saved yourself a lot of work.[/quote]<sigh> I did read your post completely.
And my answer was only partially written for you because this forum is public
I can’t tell when the irony of your post begins and when it ends…
Are you sure your friend wants to learn go? Because entering the user name in a search field seems pretty basic and would be required on all go sites I know
@trohde: Dismissing, condescending on, or otherwise taking a defensive position when someone makes a disgruntled observation (or even points out negative aspects of the server) is not only bad PR, but a hindrance to development. There are things that may prevent new users from staying or induce others to leave; but how are our devs to ever know about it, if dissenting voices are promptly, and passive-aggressively shut down?
Sadly, this is not the first time I’ve seen this happen (if it was, I’d probably just overlook it and move on). I can understand the annoyance when someone goes “let’s go back to version 4”—or worse “let’s go back to old OGS”—since that’s not just clearly impossible, but also undesirable. Those I would call lazy and infuriating complaints.
But right now, the only way I ever get to see an honest discussion about how some people truly feel about this server, is on reddit or L19. Why did I want an OGS subforum there? Very simple: intelligence gathering. I couldn’t care less about 1-upping long dead Kaya1.
So, please, before you insist that you were neither dismissive, nor condescending nor defensive, don’t <sigh>, <scratch your head> or say there are evils more “horrific” than mine. To my view, putting a smiley in the end doesn’t make it right.
1 I know that wasn’t your intention. But bear in mind, it’s very easy to be passive-aggressive, like I just did there. In fact I could even be conceited and deny it, but what good does it ever do?
No my friend does not “want to learn go”, he knows how to play go. Your comment is off the subject, patronizing and a little insulting. I don’t like it.
As far as the "sigh"s go, I think they are puerile.
Sorry, you reply was written to me. If you want to write “FAQ” entries for newbies I suggest you do it as a separate topic so it will be easier for them to find. (unless you prefer creating yet another puzzle for them to solve?) I consider the "sigh"s patronizing and condescending. Please use them on other people but not when addressing me. In fact, you might just stop doing it at all. Thank you.
No, you wouldn’t be correct. I’ve no idea where you got that from. In fact I find that misunderstanding rather contentious.
There’s an “at trohde” marking the whole message, that makes it entirely unambiguous. The only thing I implied about what you wrote at the beginning was that you were making a “disgruntled observation”, which I uphold, since you were using a bit of sarcasm, and seemed to be not very happy about a few things.
By the way, there are some hacky ways to squeeze the information you want about the server, but it isn’t user friendly. For example, here is the list of (self declared) French players with a non provisional account:
I got it from this "“But bear in mind, it’s very easy to be passive-aggressive”. If you are not implying that I am being “passive-aggressive” there is absolutely no reason to make the remark at all. I find your inability to see that obtuse.
You do not need to state that there are “hacky” ways to “squeeze” information out or that the UI is not “user friendly”; both are obvious. Many aspects of software are “coder friendly”, not “user friendly” and the user unfriendly things are often dismissed because they present no problem or inconvenience to experts who designed it or users who have learned all the tricks.
I find that offensive are you suggesting that Tom should be patronizing and condescending to other people ME included? Why should YOU be the special person that gets the special treatment and we (the others) should suffer from the hands of the abusive @trohde? You obviously suggest he be mean to other people. Are we something less than you?
And before you all lose it, yes I am (at least partially) joking But there is an allegory hidden in my post. I shall explain: It is easy to get offended on the internet if you want to. Missing the tone of voice gestures and overall mood of the other persone behind the monitor… People geez, this is the internet, dont get so touchy feely about it you people keep clutering the forums with needless emotional outbursts and the (usefull) content is harder to find Try to give others the benefit of doubt that most of us here are actually more or less nice people and stop looking for offence in every line. AND THIS IS NOT MEANT AT ANYONE DIRECTLY BUT RATHER AN OVERALL OBSERVATION AND SUGGESTION.
It is easy to offend people if you want. I can only assume that whoever persists in this sort or off topic criticism and lecturing is doing so intentionally regardless of what weasel words they throw in to make it appear thy aren’t. I was told in a separate topic that there was no need to have a ready reference to the code of conduct because the best thing to do was to just tell the person that you objected to their behavior and then report them to admin if it continued. Obviously that advice was useless. I’ve tried that course of action several times, been confronted and then been confronted again, this in public where it is obviously being condoned by admin.
It reminds me of men who reject that women have the right to be offended when men talk to them while staring at their chests. They do not accept that the many women who are offended have the right to be the arbiters of what they find offensive; they think that they should be the arbiters of what someone else finds offensive. Usually they are very conveniently excusing their own offensive behavior.
You may continue in your off-topic bear-baiting until you’r exhausted. I’m done with this topic.
I’m glad you put it so clearly, because Aten was starting to get on my nerve. I really don’t understand why he or she insists on fending off every single person on this thread. I can only say that’s an excellent method to turn people away from your side.
I’m afraid @trohde, to whom my criticism was directed, might have been scared away by such hostility though. That’s too bad because I really did want to hear what he had to say for himself, and I know he doesn’t take offense just like that.
Aten’s got a point though, this thread has drifted far away from the aforementioned user list. Is it pointless now?
Devs have vetoed it before, meaning they don’t have much interest in implementing it. Honestly, I think that to successfully revive that discussion, it would have to be in another thread (something based a bit more on the arguments for and against it).
@aten, come on, you have to be joking here. Leira’s entire post was very, very clearly directed towards Trohde, not you. It starts off with his name, and then clearly follows a singular train of thought directed at OGS devs/mods.
But there is an allegory hidden in my post. I shall explain: It is easy to get offended on the internet if you want to. Missing the tone of voice gestures and overall mood of the other persone behind the monitor… People geez, this is the internet, dont get so touchy feely about it 
you people keep clutering the forums with needless emotional outbursts and the (usefull) content is harder to find 
Try to give others the benefit of doubt that most of us here are actually more or less nice people and stop looking for offence in every line. AND THIS IS NOT MEANT AT ANYONE DIRECTLY BUT RATHER AN OVERALL OBSERVATION AND SUGGESTION.