Keenspace.com Giving Season wishlist 2004

Sketch286 · Post by **Sketch286** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 12:44 pm

im great with everything that's given right now but im still having a hard time of figuring out how to use it. I'd rather the explainations and such on the help pages be easier for people liek me who aren't as well........webbed?

YarpsDat · Post by **YarpsDat** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 1:15 pm

Some support for sites that don't want the comic on the index page.
(basically an option to change the page the ***next_day*** from the second to last comic sends you to)

OR, adding/editing authors, that would be cool too. (I'd keep it simple: one person as site admin, has an option to create/delete other authors, and each one has a separate password)

SilverDistortioN · Post by **SilverDistortioN** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 1:58 pm

i got a simple one...

i want http://keenspace.com/ to point to something... anything!
it's just been buggin' me.

McDuffies · Post by **McDuffies** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 3:07 pm

Trying to get the kinks out of the ad-banners so they load faster would be nice

Yes, please?

A main page similar to keenspot with the top 10 comics of the most populair categories.
I think it would be an improvement.

Earlier (I think in thread Merc just linked) I had a suggestion that I'll repeat because I'm found of it and because I feel like typing:

I think we need direct comic links on main page of the guide, and those links rotating somehow.
(I suppose rotating on every next click can put a pressure to server, but rotating every ten or fifteen minutes is, I guess, not that bad.)
There were a lot of suggestions on choice of linked comics, mine was:
In first place of the list, guide top 10 comics would be rotating.
Second one: next 50.
Third one: next 100
Fourth one: next 200
etc.
I think this way, more popular comics would be on main page more often, which is IMO fair, but less popular ones wouldn't be left out either.
This could be based on, say, stats from the last month, before the monthly reset of guide.

Sippan · Post by **Sippan** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 4:04 pm

@keenspace.com e-mail addresses, w00t!

Not that I need or would use that function, but still ^.^

Mordennight · Post by **Mordennight** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 4:59 pm

I think the templates idea is superb. I certainly had a bit of trouble when I first started up my account, and I'm quite familiar with a lot of internet and computer terms.

For someone who know's less than me.... I could see this being HUGELY helpful.

RPin · Post by **RPin** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 5:38 pm

Gallery automation support would be killer.

Steverules · Post by **Steverules** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 6:06 pm

I agree with the template idea. It's frustrating not knowing how to put together a nice looking page (yes, there are great tutorials but when you have the attention span of a fruit fly it's hard to get through them). Other than that Keenspace gives me everything I want.

Post by **Kisai** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 11:27 pm

Okay let me first reply to the list so people don't become lazy and start repeating things:

Starting with Joels:

1. A feature whereby the last comic you read is stored in a cookie and when you come back to the site, you pick up from the very next comic - even if it's two weeks ago and buried in the archives. (This was something Gav told me he wanted)

2. A calendar class so that you can define their look through style sheets.

3. Next and previous chapter buttons.

4. Support for rollover buttons.

5. Story based archive. Like this only with a date column as well.

6. Tag to display the current story title.

7. Random comic button (Not something I'm a fan of but some sites do it)

8. Ability, if wanted, ot click on the comic image to progress to the next (again, not something I like but I pointed him towards the Gear for ideas)

9. Tags that will provide the URL of the previous comic, next comic and so on. This allows for image map navigation and rollovers. It can replace the rollover option above if required.

10. Support for the first comic and index page to be different.

11. And I think he implemented the ability to have multiple daily templates and be able to pick one for each comic.

1. Possible, however would either modifying existing pages with javascript, or abusing apache a little to check for the cookie and then rewrite the URL.

2. There is a CSS version of the regular calander already. Please provide more info

3. See 5.

4. Rollover buttons are done via javascript, so this can't be implemented in autokeen directly, however id tags can be attached to the img's used which would allow javascript rollovers.

5. I actually had an idea before the DB was implemented to have the ability to store metadata for comics in the DB so this could be done. Chapter buttons or other metadata that requires non-logical order.

6. see 5

7. see 5

8. This requires per-comic configuration, it can be done, but might be a nusiance if it were force on by default. Javascript option maybe.

9. This can be done with javascript if the ID/NAME attribute is provided. Know thy javascript

10. This has ALWAYS been available. See "override first comic" in edit_comicinfo. You can also override the index page last time I checked. People kept screwing up their sites by changing these settings, so if they are disabled, that's why. More work for me means lest customization for you. However having it work in autokeen was never implemented. So yes you can define it, but it has no bearing on autokeen right now, only guide.

11. Multiple templates... um possible, but see 5.

NEXT

Ranking by popularity, Please see the PL guide lists http://guide.keenspace.com/KeenspaceNumPL_1.html , It's ranked by Pages loaded, which is a fair measure of popularity and prevents reload cheating.

NEXT

Top 10 on keenspace.com front page. Um, due to matters beyond the amount of time I can spend working on keenspace. Keenspace.com front page is STATIC. This would require updating it periodicly and monitoring for cheating, adult content, and stuff that makes it tedious. Like newsbox, only comics that are G/Pg rated can be "okay" on the front page, and all others have to check ratings. No NC17 comics can be on the front page without removing the advertising. The reason there is pretty much nothing on the front page is because it's a gateway page. Guide on the other hand is a "index" . This along with guide needs some serious alterations to the advertisement code to work. IE, it has to be setup so no external ads are shown if R/NC17 comics are cycled through the front page.

which leads me to...

AD BANNER speed. If you haven't noticed, I moved the ads on the forums and keenspace.com to an iframe because if case you didn't notice the ad networks are getting slower and slower, and it's not just the gavzadz. The actual ad hosts are becoming slower, visit ANY site with ads on it. They've been iframed so that in the even the server the ad is on, or gavzads dies, the page still loads without taking 45 seconds.

More up-to-date website monthly stats? Mine haven't updated since May.

Maybe a monthly newsletter, similar to the one onlinecomics.net runs, that people can submit comic news to?

If you stats haven't updated since may, then you are looking at the wrong site. Please see http://members.keenspace.com/yoursitename

Monthly newsletter? Um... we will see.

I think it would be interesting to somehow include a reader-based ranking system and maybe let them give short reviews of the comics. The problems with this is that it's prone to cheating, it's something the top 100 sites do already and it's still prone to popularity.

More interesting but probably less possible would be a google-like ranking system that showed comics based on the number of other comics that linked to it, modified by the quality (number of comics linking to said comic) of the comics linking to the site. It would be interesting to see just how many little niche groups there are and push highly connected, unpopular comics to the surface.

Any kind of ranking system not based on stats is going to take a fair amount of work. It might be fun to do the the latter, but because there is no gaurantee a site visited is a comic, it may be no more effective than google.

Something that would would not add a load on autokeen: site templates. If a user is totally clueless about HTML or doesn't want to mess with it, don't give them an online editor. Just give them a wizard that lets them choose from a couple default styles, lets them mess with colors, add a logo and upload comics. The resulting site could be XHTML and CSS compliant without the user touching the code. You could even allow the wizard to add tagboard or counter code that the user copied from another site. Best of all, this wouldn't require autokeen to be modified.

The forums actually have the same functionality, The problem is getting a css "wizard" for people to play with. A lot can be done with xhtml and a DOM level 2 browser to make a site. However I don't see this as viable in the short term. Maybe a default template+css and have a css value editor like livejournal.

Some official documentation explaining "appropriate" material and why certain "inappropriate" materials were cause for takedown. For example, Ghastly's Jesus sex comic and the evil Bert pics that the owners of Sesame Street called for a takedown of a while back.

appropriate is in the eye of the beholder. I have nothing against most things, but what I consider tasteful someone else might consider tasteless. It's like the kiddie porn argument, it's not kiddie porn if it's drawn art, yet it's kiddie porn because the art implies that it is. The basic rule is that if you wouldn't show it to your children, then you should not make it easily accessable. I can't babysit the entire internet, and it's not my responsiblity to make sure your children don't see adult artwork. Respect for copyrights is one thing, respect for a culture is different. I may not be offended, but I'm sure someone was and they got the sponsors to threaten us.

If you do not want to have to "pay" an adult verification service to see the MA/NC17/XXX strips, then the best alternative is that comics self-rate themselves honestly so they can be filtered by the prudes.

Some official notice of how big a comic needs to be, how big an avatar needs to be, how big sig banners need to be. Where the ad banner needs to be and where to include a link back to keenspace. Why hotlinking has been disabled and how Norton Security/Firewall interacts with this. People are a little sceptical when they don't get this info from an official source. Include what types of files and content are appropriate (not mp3s, avis, etc.). If this information is officially stated then people can't complain. Otherwise you get "well, I didn't see that in the FAQ so I'm not going to do it" They think it's optional when they can actually lose their site over it.

Comics should not exceed the size of the frame holding in dimensions(ie, you should only have to scroll in one direction unless designed specificly not to(infinite canvas)) and should be under 75KB to be fair to dial-up users or under 300KB to be fair to broadband. This includes all the html and accessory content that is viewed in one page. Check the system pageload average, if your site is 2X the average, then trim some fat.

Hotlinking was disabled because peoples pageloads were excessive, like in the MB's it wasn't just one or two, it was hundreds. People used their sites as dump sites, and just an hour ago I deleted someones site for uploading a WINXP iso.

Use common sense, keenspace is for comics. If your site is generating a 2MB pageload because you only have one comic, and yet link to pictures of your fish that you stored in fishimages, therefor bypassing the security model in place (ooh, DMCA violation, you reverse engineered my copy protection, teehee). The pageload would never have cropped up on my radar if you had linked to a framing page with the ad and the picture. Which is why the sanctioned method of linking to pictures is to use a framing page WITH THE AD.

Norton interacts with keenspace in a bad way because of the referrer is mangled or removed. This is a feature/bug of the "privacy enhancements" and is really just breaking web standads much like me checking for the referrer to be correct is. I-win scenario since I have the keys on the content. However it also impairs people from using the site. There is no way around this short of using bandwidth management tactics that angelfire/tripod/geocities use which cause the site to go "bandwidth limit exceeded" when the pageload is unprofitable.

I only remove sites for forbidden content(ISO's, warez, mp3's) or "hotlinking/dumpsite" where no changes to the comic have been done. Don't want to lose the site? Then UPDATE EVERY 30 DAYS OR BETTER.

i'd like to see new work done with the newsbox/newshack. I love what it does for pageviews but I also have seen it slanted with people who don't have newsboxes and also certain sites get more hits than others and I think it would be great to possibly even it out somehow.

If people are not putting the newsbox/newshack on their site, then I will make it start checking. It's easy to do, if exithits =0, then obviously there is no box, or nobody visits the site.

also I'd like to see more rewards for sites that update regularly. I know newshack takes away sites that don't update as often but I'd like to see more promotion for us poor saps who update every other day.

Newshack hides sites that do not update once per week as a performance improvement mainly. However I put this in from the start because the old newsbox never expired (and is in fact still running)

How about optional ***back_10_days*** and ***forward_10_days*** Autokeen-buttons.

There will probably not be any specific number to go back, as again it would require people to change their sites. See the chapter comment above, that is a better way. Javascript option as well.

I think it would be nice to have things like counters and tagboards available from Keenspace, rather than signing up for other free services and adding pop ups to our sites.

Well counters are useless unfortunately, if you want to post information from your webstats, you are free to do it. External counters can be cheated and people who disable ads/javascript don't actually hit them.

Tagboards though. We have normal forums, tagboards is slightly redundant, but if people want it, I have no issue with getting code to do so. Might actually put this on the forum server.

In the same light. @keenspace.com email addresses will NOT be happening anytime soon. This is a major pain to setup as I was looking into it. I might make the exception if you buy your own domain, as that makes things easier to setup. However having your username @keenspace.com is not going to happen. I have setup it's use for myself only so I can start reading/checking email without having to download it. Right now my ISP email account is "filtering" all the spam from help@ keenspace.com So there is no way I'm going to impair the performace of keenspace by filtering the spam with anti-spam software. I'll setup username@ whatever domain you have because I can change the MX to point to your own server, or forward *@yourdomain to a real email address, but filtering and storage of email on keenspace is not going to happen. Please use the PM feature of the forums for this.

I'd like to see the ***big_calendar*** tag improved to (a) allow CSS styling of it and (b) remove the broken "W" links. Other than that, I have no complaints about leaving the service just the way it is.

I think, but I don't remember if I made a big_css_calendar . W is related to keenspot premium and is supposed to disappear if you do not have a weeklytemplate.html (Though yes, I know, it's not doing it.)

Some support for sites that don't want the comic on the index page.
(basically an option to change the page the ***next_day*** from the second to last comic sends you to)

OR, adding/editing authors, that would be cool too. (I'd keep it simple: one person as site admin, has an option to create/delete other authors, and each one has a separate password)

If you don't want the comic on the index page, don't put todays_comics on it. Changing the reference for last comic will always be index.html since otherwise it would point to the last /d file which would have a next that goes to itself. I can look into this maybe

adding/editing can be done... manually. I'm working on a new system admin that uses the authors isntead of comic usernames because the problem with the usernames (and the login) is that people lock themselves out if they change the e-mail to something that doesn't work.

i want http://keenspace.com/ to point to something... anything!

Um, I actually never knew it was broken. I'll fix it once I figure out what/how/why it doesn't work.

Gallery automation support would be killer.

There is a cheap hack for this that's always been around but because it messes up things, I never implemented it. Basically it would be autokeen on a second directory. I might look into that.

So so far of what is suggested, and what is doable:
1. Templates: a css template might work in the short term, If you have a livejournal, basically it's like having the pre S2 style system, you pick a template and change the colors pretty much.
2. Chapter buttons : Requires DB changes, can be done, but might be significant time to develop. hell, might require rewriting autokeen.
3. tagboard/forums/email: Forums are the most organized way, however a tagboard that uses the forums user DB might be a better way hmm... Email though will not be happening unless you have your own mail server or want me to forward *@yourdomain.com to a real email. Right now, email sent to kisai, help, root, etc is all sent to my ISP email box.

With the new forum server, a tagboard is not out of the question anyways. The reason it's NOT available right now is because I wanted to limit the amount of php/perl running on the main server.

Joel Fagin · Post by **Joel Fagin** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:05 am

Kisai wrote:2. There is a CSS version of the regular calander already. Please provide more info

No need. When I wrote that, I didn't know about the CSS calendar (and was copying from old emails about Autokeen Light to boot). I suspect it's fine how it is.

9. This can be done with javascript if the ID/NAME attribute is provided. Know thy javascript

Tags would be more straightforward but that makes it far less of a problem. Thank you. *makes note*

4. Rollover buttons are done via javascript, so this can't be implemented in autokeen directly, however id tags can be attached to the img's used which would allow javascript rollovers.

That's not so important anyway. If you can gleam the URL for the next and previous comics, then you can make them yourself.

11. Multiple templates... um possible, but see 5.

I should point out that multiple templates is also possible for the HTML savvy under certain restrictions. I got it working on Blue Skunk for Christwriter and I'm putting together a tutorial... Well, now, actually. I just stopped for the day.

I'm also pretty sure next and previous chapter buttons are Javascriptable. I've done that but it's not made to work on KS-format files (YYYYMMDD). To do that, I'd need a KS account to test it on. (I'm happy to wait until I get my own, though - probably early next year.)

Still, it would be neater and less messy if it could all be wrapped up in the nice black box called Autokeen.

- Joel Fagin

Rhellik · Post by **Rhellik** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:28 am

9. Tags that will provide the URL of the previous comic, next comic and so on. This allows for image map navigation and rollovers. It can replace the rollover option above if required.

9. This can be done with javascript if the ID/NAME attribute is provided. Know thy javascript

I don't know Javascript that well but I'd like to have that. Can anybody just tell me how? Or is it like REALLY complicated? :/

YarpsDat · Post by **YarpsDat** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:34 am

Kisai wrote:
Some support for sites that don't want the comic on the index page.
(basically an option to change the page the ***next_day*** from the second to last comic sends you to)
If you don't want the comic on the index page, don't put todays_comics on it. Changing the reference for last comic will always be index.html since otherwise it would point to the last /d file which would have a next that goes to itself. I can look into this maybe

Yes, you can simply remove the comic from the index page, but that doesn't solve the problem: you need to create a separate page to hold the latest comic, and then you link to it, the buttons on the page will work, so it's all fine...
If you want to read the comic backwards.
But if you want to read it forward, you will reach the second to last comic, and then the link will send you to the index, that has no comic!
And then you need to figure out you need one more click to see the latest comic.

It's not the single click that bothers me, it's the counter-intuitiveness of it.

That's what happens at Twelve Dragons and it annoys me.

"Changing the reference for last comic will always be index.html since otherwise it would point to the last /d file which would have a next that goes to itself."
Actually, simply removing the code that changes the last link would be an almost perfect sollution.
I checked a couple of sites, and the "next" button doesn't even appear in the last /d file. It should be easy to change it to use the "next_day_ghosted".
But even at the current state, simply removing the code that makes "next" point to index would work, and there'd be no threat of endless loops.

On the other hand, setting it as default may be confusing, as going [back] [forward] doesn't take you back to index then... and most people have index pages with extra features as compared with the archives.

So it would need another checkbox in the siteadmin, and all the stuff. >_>

Joel Fagin · Post by **Joel Fagin** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 3:46 am

Just a thought: If we want to get something which will get a lot of use from lots of people - which is a quite reasonable way of spending the efforts of the admins - then tagboards are probably the way to go. Everyone seems to have them lately.

I still prefer the chapter buttons, mind.

- Joel Fagin

MHnAkari · Post by **MHnAkari** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 7:42 pm

Hmm... maybe some templates. *shrugs*

And some navi buttons.

Ghastly · Post by **Ghastly** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 10:40 pm

faub wrote: Some official documentation explaining "appropriate" material and why certain "inappropriate" materials were cause for takedown. For example, Ghastly's Jesus sex comic and the evil Bert pics that the owners of Sesame Street called for a takedown of a while back.

It should be noted however that my Jesus sex strip was not taken down. Instead the Burst ads were taken off my page (which worked out for the best anyways).

Spools · Post by **Spools** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 11:12 pm

I'm thinking some sort of cast page stencil....

Annnd....counters...lots and lots of counters.....

ZiRta · Post by **ZiRta** » Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:47 am

there's another bug... i think... on the dropdown txt. When i call it as ***story_archive*** , it indeed displays the list but it has double http... check it out: http://fate.keenspace.com/archive.html

i'm in for the gallery folders =D or better, the permission to make different comic folders. i think it was allowed before, at siteadmin... now it's a no no

maybe access to the cgi-bin, so we could run other scripts besides autokeen? (yes, i had to ask it

)

TheLoserHero · Post by **TheLoserHero** » Wed Nov 03, 2004 1:07 pm

...wow, Kisai... are you going to do all this yourself? I'm in a state of shock and awe, at the moment.

I like the chapter buttons and the auto-gallery idea, though.

MERBman · Post by **MERBman** » Wed Nov 03, 2004 6:50 pm

Yeah, I'm not sure if this counts as already being covered in the big #5 above, since I'm slow. But here goes anyway:
My comic is made up of 12 different mini-comics. The comic of any given day is one of the 12. So you'd have maybe comic a one day, comic b the next, then comic c, then comic a again, then comic f, and so on in a manner that is effectively random.
Could there be a button to browse only between specially tagged strips? To go from a specific comic A to what, chronologically, would be the next installment of comic A, even if it were a week later?
That is, for one of the comics ("Neon Lives"), the buttons on the end, then, would read "tomorrow's comic" and "next Neon Lives"?

This would make browsing a lot easier. Thanks a lot.

Luprand · Post by **Luprand** » Wed Nov 03, 2004 6:54 pm

Here's a helpful bit for you: check out what Chaos Cricket and Noise Monkey did at Dim Bulb Comics. Ask Phalanx or one of them for help on getting that set up.

--Sij