Rank System brain dump

[Kaden]

I'm tempted to retort on the fact that it already is an image based graph type thing simply because I feel like I'm somehow being slighted in some small way, but instead I'm just going to say that yeah it might be different. I don't think it's very plausible that it could be THAT difficult, but whatever I didn't code the site.

I think I'm mostly just irritated at the nit picking nature of the original comment. I'm still in the process of getting over my irrational rage.

You mean my comment? It wasn't intended to be nit-picking, if that is what you meant.

I know that a lot of customization had to be done to the forum's code in order to get everything working the way it is. It is really, seriously, genuinely deceptive how much work went into getting things to work the way they do. That's also one of the reasons the look of the site has remained the way it is; a lot of things were custom built into this specific forum style. Changing the look isn't as simple as just adding a new skin to drop-down bar.

The Activity Meter, according to Waff, was a very rare case of something that he could just drop in. That's why it was added. It was a neat little thing that just fell into place. Adding something like an automated rating system requires communication between the XP system (which wasn't written for that) and an activity-tracking system that isn't actually written (some of the code used for the Activity Meter could be used, Waff said, but it would be easier to just write it from scratch than force in some useable bits) and then fetch graphics to display in postbits. In addition, the forums would be fetching queries for information over months-long periods of time for every activated account on the forum; that could have a significant impact on the site's performance.

To quote Waff "we're talking about thousands of lines of code, not something that can just be dropped in [overnight]."

If my comments made you feel slighted, I apologize. If I had know enough to make this post immediately after yours, I would. I simply didn't have this information then. These forums have been significantly modified and I totally understand how we don't really see that on our end.

EDIT: This doesn't mean a Rank system can't happen. It does mean, though, that any system will almost certainly not be automated.

EDIT 2: I know this is going to sound preachy, but if you start raging, just step away from the conversation. People getting emotional in threads like this always cause the discussion to die. I don't fault you at all for being passionate about this kind of stuff, I definitely do the same thing, but keeping things constructive should definitely be our number one goal.