[Dixonary] OT (not really): I think this game should not be sounfriendly to new and prospective players

[Paul Keating]

I joined this game as a passer-by in the Tapcis forum in Round 186,
because someone, I think Neil Rubenking (or maybe it was Fernando
Gelbard), wrote a def that made me laugh so much I had to join the
game and vote for it.

That sort of thing can't happen anymore.

Some of us still give the major points of the rules in our new word
postings and say that new players are welcome. But this is just a
formula repeated unthinkingly from previous posts. New players are not
welcome at all. In fact, they're not just unwelcome, they're locked
out. We're not in the Google groups directory. New players can't find
this game even if they know it's here. Even if they know the URL, they
can't even _read_ group messages before they're let in.

Unsurprisingly, we haven't had one new player join since we moved the
game to Google. Marijke van Gans doesn't count; she was with us on
CompuServe.

I believe our New Year's resolution should be that we do something
about this.

[Guerri Stevens]

I agree. We are not getting any younger. Sometimes we get busy.
Sometimes (always?) we get the deal when it's inconvenient.

The question is how do we attract new people? We can mention the game to
friends and family, and probably have already. And how many people have
said "ooohhh, that sounds like fun, how can I participate?"

And who would join if the group were listed in the Google directory? How
many players do we want? Would we want to limit the group to a certain
number of people, perhaps with a waiting list if more sign up?

I joined the game when the demise of the TAPCIS forum was imminent and I
wanted to grab every last bit of it that I could before the axe fell. I
was not expecting to be hooked!

Guerri

Paul Keating wrote:
> I joined this game as a passer-by in the Tapcis forum in Round 186,
> because someone, I think Neil Rubenking (or maybe it was Fernando
> Gelbard), wrote a def that made me laugh so much I had to join the
> game and vote for it.
> ...
>
> I believe our New Year's resolution should be that we do something
> about this.

[Dave Cunningham]

Agreed.

On Jan 4, 5:12*pm, Paul Keating <pjakeat... (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:
> I joined this game as a passer-by in the Tapcis forum in Round 186,
> because someone, I think Neil Rubenking (or maybe it was Fernando
> Gelbard), wrote a def that made me laugh so much I had to join the
> game and vote for it.
>
> That sort of thing can't happen anymore.
>
> Some of us still give the major points of the rules in our new word
> postings and say that new players are welcome. But this is just a
> formula repeated unthinkingly from previous posts. New players are not
> welcome at all. In fact, they're not just unwelcome, they're locked
> out. We're not in the Google groups directory. New players can't find
> this game even if they know it's here. Even if they know the URL, they
> can't even _read_ group messages before they're let in.
>
> Unsurprisingly, we haven't had one new player join since we moved the
> game to Google. Marijke van Gans doesn't count; she was with us on
> CompuServe.
>
> I believe our New Year's resolution should be that we do something
> about this.

[France International]

Wow, I had no idea outsiders couldn't even read the posts. Yes, I definitely
think we should do something about it. However, I'm not familiar enough with
the setup to say what can and cannot be done. I don't think anyone wants to
make this an open forum where anyone can post - you know it would be heavily
spammed. Can we make it at least "read only" to outsiders with an invitation
to join (email to a current member - email could be in the format we use
"someone AT somewhere DOT something - so automated web crawlers couldn't
harvest the address)?

Oh, and by the way, round 186 was dealt by Russ Heimerson and the word was
chassepot. Unfortunately I don't have a list of definitions from that round
so I can't say who wrote the one that made you laugh - Fernando did not play
that round but Neil did.

--Mike

----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Keating" <pjakeating (AT) gmail (DOT) com>
To: "Dixonary" <Dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com>
Sent: Friday, January 04, 2008 5:12 PM
Subject: [Dixonary] OT (not really): I think this game should not be so
unfriendly to new and prospective players


>
> I joined this game as a passer-by in the Tapcis forum in Round 186,
> because someone, I think Neil Rubenking (or maybe it was Fernando
> Gelbard), wrote a def that made me laugh so much I had to join the
> game and vote for it.
>
> That sort of thing can't happen anymore.
>
> Some of us still give the major points of the rules in our new word
> postings and say that new players are welcome. But this is just a
> formula repeated unthinkingly from previous posts. New players are not
> welcome at all. In fact, they're not just unwelcome, they're locked
> out. We're not in the Google groups directory. New players can't find
> this game even if they know it's here. Even if they know the URL, they
> can't even _read_ group messages before they're let in.
>
> Unsurprisingly, we haven't had one new player join since we moved the
> game to Google. Marijke van Gans doesn't count; she was with us on
> CompuServe.
>
> I believe our New Year's resolution should be that we do something
> about this.
>

[Nancy Shepherdson]

I stopped really putting the instructions into posts when I realized
that it was impossible for anyone to join us here. In fact, I didn't
have the url handy a moment ago and went in through google groups
which informed me that dixonary was not a group.

Nancy

[Lindsey]

>> New players can't find this game even if they know it's here. Even if they
>> know the URL, they can't even _read_ group messages before they're let in.

For what it's worth, the messages *can* be read by tapcis.com visitors. You have to join in order to *post* messages, but you can read them without having to do anything (which also means that Google's search engine can find them).

--Lindsey

[Hugo Kornelis]

Hi all,

I'm replying to Mike, becuase I never received Pauls message in my email. I
just checked on googles website, and I now see that I've been missing
Nancy's messages as well. I'll have to find some time to look into this....

Anyway, here are my 2 cents.

* Lindsey is right, messages are all visible on the tapcis.com forum. In
fact, when I just now tried to find the google groups site by typing "google
groups dixonary" in Google, the first two hits were messages from this group
on tapcis.com (the first even from this very thread!)

* I believe that messages should be visible on the google groups site as
well. That won't allow non-members to post and it won't allow people to
become a member without approval byy a moderator, so it won't result in spam
being posted to the group. Dan mentions the concern that spammers will use
this to harvest email addresses, but that really should not be a concern.
More on that below.

* I am in doubt as to the visibility of the group on google groups. The
danger of spam posted to the group, as mentioned by Paul, is exaggerated.
Posts by non-members are moderated, so this would never be noticed by
regular members - only the owner (Dan) and moderators (Chris, Johnny, Paul,
and me) would suffer because they would get a notice of all such messages
and have to decide each time if it's spam or a legimate post. I also don't
think we have to be concerned about the number of members. Sure, getting 200
definitions would make the game unplayable - but I really don't expect that
many people to sign up even if the group is public. After all, the group
already *is* public now (on tapcis.com), and it was public on the Compuserve
TAPCIS Forum, and we never had more players than could be handled. So I
guess I'm leaning towards making the group findable in the google groups
catalog.


I promised some stuff on spam harvesting. I just checked how mail addresses
appear on the google groups site of Dixonary (at
http://groups.google.com/group/Dixonary, in case anyone wants to check for
him- or herself). I looked at two messages, the call for defs for round 1872
(galder), by Nancy, who tried to hide her address by replacing the special
symbools with the words "at" and "dot", and the call for defs for round 1870
(hoppestere), by Paul, who made no attempt to hide his email address.

Nancy's address appears as she typed it. Paul's address was partially masked
by the Google groups software - even though he included the full address,
the displayed message replaces part of the stuff before the @ symbol with
ellipsis. The domain (everything that follows the @ symbol) was visible, so
this might cause some spam to random names followed by the domain, but not
to Pauls actual, real mail address. If any of these two gets more spam
because of the visibility of the messages, it would be Nancy, not Paul.
Replacing "at" and "dot" with the resppecitve symbols is easy enough that
automated spam harvesting programs should be able to do it (though I
personally don't think that they actually do so)

The ellipsis is clickable used to hide the email address. When I clicked it,
I had to enter a captcha and only then was I able to see the full address.
So even though I am a member and a moderator, I still had to enter the
captcha! I think (but can't check - maybe someone else is willing to do
tis?) that regular members have the same possibility. I also think that
non-members do not have this possibility. I could of course not check this
in the dixonary group (if I log out of google groups to check what a
non-member sees, I see no messages at all as a result of the current
settings). I did check in a randomly chosen other google groups group, and I
was unable to reveal any email address there.

I also checked how these two messages appear on the tapcis.com forum.
Nancy's address looks, as expected, exactly as she typed it. Pauls address
was slightly changed, apparently by some automated email protection scheme -
the at and dot symbols were replaced by "(AT)" and "(DOT)". Personally, I'd
say that the protection used on Google groups is superior to that on
tapcis.com. Of course, I fully understand that google has much more capacity
in terms of money and manpower to set up such a scheme, so please do not
mistake this fir critisicm - I am merely trying to point out that making
message accessible through the google groups website will not increase the
danger of email harvesting as compared to the current situation.

Oh boy. For someone who hardly has enough time to play anymore, I spent way
too much time voicing my opinion and checking the facts - but I think that
especially the latter is important, so that the discussion can be based on
actualities, not on imagined but unchecked fears.

Best, Hugo

[Paul Keating]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Guerri Stevens" <guerri (AT) tapcis (DOT) com>

> The question is how do we attract new people?

This is one way:

----- Original
message ----------------------------------------
From: "Toni Savage" <tonicsavage (AT) yahoo (DOT) com>

<< Sheesh! I've never had THIS happen before... I googled
<< hoppestere after boting, and got this thread second in
the list!

I reckon people who like playing with words will find us by accident. I
think I originally wandered into The Parlor by mistake: I think I was
looking for The TAProom at the time.

--
Paul Keating
The Hague

[Guerri Stevens]

The fact that the old TAPCIS forum on Compuserve and the current
tapcis.com were public and still didn't attract many players may be
irrelevant. These were not "advertised" as game arenas, hence would not
be noticed as such by people especially interested in games.

I admit that I have not really looked around at Google groups in
general, so don't know how they appear. If they are organized by
categories, and our group is listed among the games, we might attract a
lot of people. Then again, maybe there aren't huge numbers of people
interested in this type of game.

I do agree that we should seek more players. I don't know how many would
be workable - if there were 50 submitting definitions, would that be too
many? I am just wondering whether we should have a limit on the number
of group members in order to avoid too many definitions. But limiting
the number of members means work for someone, although I suppose the
limit could be handled by making the group private again.

Guerri

Hugo Kornelis wrote:
>
>... * I am in doubt as to the visibility of the group on google groups. The
> danger of spam posted to the group, as mentioned by Paul, is
> exaggerated. Posts by non-members are moderated, so this would never be
> noticed by regular members - only the owner (Dan) and moderators (Chris,
> Johnny, Paul, and me) would suffer because they would get a notice of
> all such messages and have to decide each time if it's spam or a
> legimate post. I also don't think we have to be concerned about the
> number of members. Sure, getting 200 definitions would make the game
> unplayable - but I really don't expect that many people to sign up even
> if the group is public. After all, the group already *is* public now (on
> tapcis.com), and it was public on the Compuserve TAPCIS Forum, and we
> never had more players than could be handled. So I guess I'm leaning
> towards making the group findable in the google groups catalog.

[Guerri Stevens]

Yes, people who like playing with words may well find us by accident.
But -- they obviously aren't, or we would be getting at least *some* new
players, at least via tapcis.com.

Guerri

Paul Keating wrote:
>
> I reckon people who like playing with words will find us by accident. I
> think I originally wandered into The Parlor by mistake: I think I was
> looking for The TAProom at the time.
>

[Toni Savage]

Odd you should mention this... just last week, I Googled one of our words, and the posting was at the TOP of the Google list!

And the same thing happened this past week again.

Try it. (I'm going to try it from a friend's computer that isn't a member of the group and see if I get the same thing.)

-- Toni Savage


--- On Fri, 1/4/08, Paul Keating <pjakeating (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

> From: Paul Keating <pjakeating (AT) gmail (DOT) com>
> Subject: [Dixonary] OT (not really): I think this game should not be so unfriendly to new and prospective players
> To: "Dixonary" <Dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com>
> Date: Friday, January 4, 2008, 5:12 PM
> I joined this game as a passer-by in the Tapcis forum in
> Round 186,
> because someone, I think Neil Rubenking (or maybe it was
> Fernando
> Gelbard), wrote a def that made me laugh so much I had to
> join the
> game and vote for it.
>
> That sort of thing can't happen anymore.
>
> Some of us still give the major points of the rules in our
> new word
> postings and say that new players are welcome. But this is
> just a
> formula repeated unthinkingly from previous posts. New
> players are not
> welcome at all. In fact, they're not just unwelcome,
> they're locked
> out. We're not in the Google groups directory. New
> players can't find
> this game even if they know it's here. Even if they
> know the URL, they
> can't even _read_ group messages before they're let
> in.
>
> Unsurprisingly, we haven't had one new player join
> since we moved the
> game to Google. Marijke van Gans doesn't count; she was
> with us on
> CompuServe.
>
> I believe our New Year's resolution should be that we
> do something
> about this.

[France International]

I deinitely think 50 would be too many to handle for the dealer and the poor
overworked scorekeeper! I would think a limit of 30 would be OK.

Mike

----- Original Message -----
From: "Guerri Stevens" <guerri (AT) tapcis (DOT) com>
To: <Dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com>
Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2008 6:03 AM
Subject: [Dixonary] Re: OT (not really): I think this game should not be so
unfriendly to new and prospective players


>
> The fact that the old TAPCIS forum on Compuserve and the current
> tapcis.com were public and still didn't attract many players may be
> irrelevant. These were not "advertised" as game arenas, hence would not
> be noticed as such by people especially interested in games.
>
> I admit that I have not really looked around at Google groups in
> general, so don't know how they appear. If they are organized by
> categories, and our group is listed among the games, we might attract a
> lot of people. Then again, maybe there aren't huge numbers of people
> interested in this type of game.
>
> I do agree that we should seek more players. I don't know how many would
> be workable - if there were 50 submitting definitions, would that be too
> many? I am just wondering whether we should have a limit on the number
> of group members in order to avoid too many definitions. But limiting
> the number of members means work for someone, although I suppose the
> limit could be handled by making the group private again.
>
> Guerri
>
> Hugo Kornelis wrote:
> >
> >... * I am in doubt as to the visibility of the group on google groups.
The
> > danger of spam posted to the group, as mentioned by Paul, is
> > exaggerated. Posts by non-members are moderated, so this would never be
> > noticed by regular members - only the owner (Dan) and moderators (Chris,
> > Johnny, Paul, and me) would suffer because they would get a notice of
> > all such messages and have to decide each time if it's spam or a
> > legimate post. I also don't think we have to be concerned about the
> > number of members. Sure, getting 200 definitions would make the game
> > unplayable - but I really don't expect that many people to sign up even
> > if the group is public. After all, the group already *is* public now (on
> > tapcis.com), and it was public on the Compuserve TAPCIS Forum, and we
> > never had more players than could be handled. So I guess I'm leaning
> > towards making the group findable in the google groups catalog.
>
>