I got a new idea that will hopefully bring in tons of members. I presented it to the staff and we didn't decide on anything, so here it is:

Right now, probably the biggest thing this site has going for it is HATPC, but if a visitor doesn't care about HATPC, I guess the next big thing would be the level database. Right now we're trying to make one big level database for all the games on the site. This generality is partly what's hurting us; no specific game has many levels in it or any other content. If you were a big fan of N, why would you ever want to waste your time in our level database, when you could just go to nmaps.net or something? Or if you love Free Rider 2, why don't you just go to fr2db.fr? It's clear that we need something that will draw people into our site.

So my idea to potentially fix this problem is this: that we create a "User Level Database
Add a New Game and Directory". It'll be like one big archive of all (most) of the levels that have been uploaded to various websites. I guess it'll be like a google search for levels from any game you want. And the directory levels will be intertwined with the directly-uploaded levels of the site.

Here's how it'll work:
I could create a bot that will semi-automatically add levels from other sites, to the database. Technically, we're only recording a few pieces of information per level; you will still have to go to the original site if you want the level code, but that's the whole point of a directory. So don't think that we're "stealing" levels b/c we're just linking you to other sites for more levels. And I said it was "semi-automatic" because I want to be able to approve or reject levels that look like spam or don't look like anyone will want to play them.

The level "database and directory" will certainly grow huge in size, so we're gonna have to take extra steps to make sure that it doesn't ruin itself. Levels that were added by the bot will only generate new topics when someone posts on them. That way we can still keep track of directly-uploaded levels the way we've always had, with the yellow unread posts thing. There would also have to be searching options so that you can look for levels from a specific site (like the Interguild, for example).

Every level will still have the ability to be rated and stuff. That way we can create our own rankings of the best levels and stuff.

Here's why it'll work:
This could help the Interguild make a name for itself. This is truly something original that hasn't been done before. Until now we've been doing everything a regular, one-game site could do, but on a smaller scale. Not only can you browse through several of the levels on the internet at once, but you could also order them by our quality and difficulty ratings. And you can even upload your own levels directly to the site.

This is also taking advantage of the more advanced resources of other sites. For example, you can't upload your own knytt story levels here, but you can upload them to knyttlevels.com, and this give both sites more popularity.

Also people love to search through giant lists of levels for whatever game they like. This is partly why our database hasn't been doing so good: most of the game databases are empty, or really small. So if we can't make enough levels to compete with other sites, or even come close to competing with them, let's at least tell people what levels they can find on those other sites.

Reasons Against This Idea and Potential Problems:
1) That our levels will be lost in the massive income of levels.
-Like I said, this is preventable. The fact that automatically-added levels don't initially create forum topics, unless when needed, will practically keep everything the same. I think most people still keep track of new levels with the unread posts, and you could always check that games forum board for site levels. And there will also be options to limit your searches and browsing strictly to Interguild levels.

2) This is stealing! We have to make a partnership or something with those sites.
-I don't see why this would be stealing, actually. We're not even uploading any of the levels to our site, we're just making some records of the levels on other sites. Rather than telling our members that "there are more levels in that site. Go visit it if you want more levels" (and then they never come back to ours...), instead we'd be saying "these are the levels that are on that site. Click here to go directly to that level [on that site]." It's no different from what google does, really.

3) What if people treat this like a google search? Like they only come here to look something up and then leave? How will this help us get more members?
-First of all, that's not necessarily a bad thing, since it still gives us more traffic. And if you're just browsing through levels, you'll initially finish one and then come back to look at other results. Not only that but you may get caught up in all of our community stuff: like how there will probably be comments and ratings on the most popular levels, not to mention all of the discussion going on in the chat box and all that other member stuff at the top of each page. And they may get interested in the other parts of the site, like the comps and awards they may see in some levels, or the guides, once I revamp the guides system.
I'm not sure if the video archive has much hope, though (we'll never automize that) probably because the huge majority of videos are on Youtube and you could just search through that alone... But I guess the video archive is useful for linking them to levels (a feature I have yet to add) and submitting vids to comps... [/tangent]


I can't seem to remember anymore counter arguments, so I shall end my post....

I have to say that I'm not all that sure on whether or not this idea will work. (in regards to whether it'll give us more members) I've thought a lot about it and I honestly don't know if it'll do more harm than good (I'm actually not sure how it would do more harm than good; maybe if all it does is end up making the site slow somehow and no one comes to the interguild?). But yeah, I've thought about all of this a lot and I guess I'm worried b/c it would really change our site but I'm not sure if it would ultimately be for better or worse. I'm leaning towards trying this idea, mainly because it would definitely be exciting to try out and it would just plainly be really cool to be able to browse through such a database.

I think that it's a great idea!
But will interguild-added levels automaticly create a topic?  Or this is JUST a new feature.

"But will interguild-added levels automaticly create a topic?"
Yes, just like how it is now for interguild-added levels.

"Or this is JUST a new feature."
It's more like an extension to the current level database.

OK.  I am in favor 100%

APPROVE: 2 Votes (You want it, right, Livio?)

yeah I APPROVE too

I don't think I've commented on this yet, but I reject this. I see what you're trying to say, but I think the Interguild could benefit from being polished up before we start pursuing ideas like this. Also, I don't think it would really help us get more traffic at all; we'd still remain a very obscure site.

The inherent problem with this is that there's no reason anybody would have to choose us over regular Google; typing in "Knytt Levels" in Google is far easier than finding some site called the Interguild and finding the level database and selecting Knytt from there.

I don't think it's worth the effort just for us to make a more impressive archive. I think that an archive of levels created by the Interguild is much better for us, anyway, as a level-creation community. If people want to share their levels, they'd have an incentive to join. They'd have less of one if their level is already there.

actually google doesn't show you many results from the same site, so you can't really search through levels across multiple sites with google. but the main reason why it would be cool to have would be because you can do random searches only through levels, and you can find things based on their popularity, and you can have one set of favorites for all those levels.

but that's if nothing else changes. I think this would help us get found in google searches more, but we also need to advertise and stuff. It's one thing for people to come across the site, but this could potentially catch their interest and keep them on the site or at least remember it for having such a crazy database.

yeah, but the fact that we're a small community is also an incentive for them not to join. Why would people bother with uploading their levels here if only a few people will see them? But having a large database may encourage them and even let them stick around here.

If they have their levels on another site and they were already added, then yeah, they wouldn't have much of an incentive to join if all they wanted to do was upload their levels here. But what if they wanted to join for other purposes? Maybe because they wanted to enter a comp (since their levels are already here), or maybe all of the discussions on the site caught their interest?

You haven't changed my mind, but if you are going to do this, I'd say to just keep the other levels completely separate from our main level database/archive. We can have the Interguild archive as well as your archive of outside levels. But I think it'd be better to keep the Interguild's archive the Interguild's.

I also reject this, why add hundreds of levels that are all hosted on another site and will probably not get much attention on this site other than clogging up the levels system.

Also I feel the interguild is as much for improving levels and helping users to make better levels, if the users of the levels don't look at this site there is no point in helping with what is wrong and we may as well accept that there levels are/aren't very good and that is how they are likely to stay.

Dando also makes the point that people wont find the interguild in order to look for these things and that the only people to use the interguild for this is people who already know about it ie. us and the other people who haven't made accounts.

The truth is that the levels we will find are mostly going to be levels that won't be very good as few levels can be good compared to the others because the standard goes up as they are made. What would make more sense is putting in the best levels/most enjoyable to boost the archives with levels that people should play and see how you can make a good level/ original level rather than how not to like most of the amateur levels in our gallery.

I already suggested being able to make it only display Interguild levels as a browsing option, but you mean like have an entire separate part of the site as a sort of level directory? I dunno, that doesn't sound very practical. Would you still be able to search through Interguild levels and the directory levels at the same time?

oh, this is the argument that I felt like I had forgotten about.... Well, that idea of improving levels is a cool thing about this database, or any database out there. But that's not all important. I mean we can still rate levels for the sake of rating levels and categorizing them, or as a means to recommend a great level to others.

And you might not pay much attention to some of the levels that may get added, but newcomers will. Basically, the reason people like to find large databases of levels is so that they can play new levels when they feel like it. They can simply browse through all the levels and just pull up a random level and try it out. The fact that it's a large database will impress them and maybe keep them coming back, depending on how much they like the games and the levels that they found and the idea that they could never run out of new levels to try. And having multiple games and tons of levels for each increases the odds that a larger variety of people will enjoy using our level database and directory.

well, technically you could say my idea is doing that. the reason I wanted to make a semi-automatic bot was so that we wouldn't fill the database with dumb levels that nobody likes. This will make our levels more generally enjoyable too, if people are less likely to come across a dumb level when browsing randomly.

And also, I don't think this alone will bring in hordes of new people. Only good advertisement and telling people about the Interguild can do that. But when people do come across this site, we need to keep them here. A regular tiny level database that has empty categories everywhere isn't going to help.

Hmm.. I guess you really wanted to get your point across.

Are you gonna post that again?

lol sorry, I didn't even notice that double post. I wonder how it happened....

btw, I don't think I really understand these arguments. it's like saying that this will fail because no one knows about the Interguild? Maybe I sounded like I was saying that this would immediately make our site popular or help us get found on Google or something. My real point is that when people come across our site, would they be more impressed with a little community that just happens to have its own little database for itself, or with an actual service that they would enjoy using and browsing through?

so current approve-reject score is 2-2

Except it is. To be shown on Google, you will first need to allow it to search your domain. I don't remember exactly how it goes, but I do know that Google won't display your site as a result unless you fill in some forms or something.

You are also missing the positive points of such a partnership. If you add the feature to the site as it is now, it won't do a thing to popularity, as people don't know about the site. It is like adding a resort in the middle of the desert without any advertisement. A complete waste of effort.
But if you get these sites to get a partnership with you, they will also link back to the Interguild. We scratch their backs, they scratch ours.

I am staying neutral for now, but I am leaning towards reject.

IIRC this is wrong - Google uses a crawler (or something like that, I am probably wrong) that searches for new websites constantly, however this isn't very effective and it usually takes weeks for it to find new, fresh sites. However, you can, as you said, fill in a form to let Google add your site manually to speed up the process.

add me to the reject count. I've already told my opinion.

From what I understand, Google will only crawl pages if you add your site their directory or if another site they are crawling links to your site. If you make a site that no other sites link to and don't submit your site to Google, you won't ever appear in the search results.

Reject. I still say that we get out of here every once in a while and chat up these 'other sites', wherever they are. Networking FTW.

Livio, I think I'll have to change my vote to reject, too.  They pose a good argument.

that was my point exactly!! I don't expect this to instantaneously make us popular and well-known throughout the Internet. I've said that the real key is catching people's attention once they find this site through our efforts to advertise the site and stuff. Unless you are implying that we can't do this and advertise the site at the same time?

I've never heard of that, I always thought the same thing Isa said:or maybe that's only for certain countries' sites?

and I'm not rejecting the idea of partnership, which would actually be a great idea. But I just don't see why it's necessary for this case. If we rely on making partnerships with every site, that could slow down progress, which sounds more unpleasant especially since I don't think it's necessary.

But what I also don't understand is how adding something could do more harm than good. This almost feels like the same argument that was against the Custom Tiles idea in Aeon, that adding it would ruin everything else somehow. And I really can't see why that would be. Yeah, it'll change the "mood" or the "idea" behind the whole thing, but pragmatically nothing's changed, other than an extra new feature. Either I'm completely blind to the perspective that everyone's seeing everything in or you're not explaining things well.

and bmw, I hope you're not just going with the crowd. Or maybe I'm just suspecting that b/c I don't really understand these counterarguments.

maybe you're looking at from the point of view of members in a community. You're just trying to help the community grow, while I'm actually thinking of this from the point of view of a website owner and I don't see a difference between a regular user who doesn't make an account and a user who did make an account.

I'm not using this idea to uproot or discourage the current system we have of uploading levels and interacting with the community for feedback. I'm just saying that pragmatically, average people don't look at sites to see whether their communities are cool or not. They go looking for specific services, and from this point of view, the "selling point" of our current level database is: a place where you could share levels for any game with people and find a database for levels of any game that has sprouted a community here.

But there is a major weakness in this selling point. We'd have to somehow develop a community for each game here. Otherwise, what's the point of coming here to share your levels if no one's here to see it? They'd much rather go to a site that specializes on that game and has a real community. So if there's no hope in this community idea, let's go for the next best focus: instead of focusing on people coming here to share their levels, what if we focused on people coming to play other levels? We could do this by making this a place where you could find tons of levels for most games-- or in other words: a directory of all of the levels that were uploaded to major websites, all in one big collection.

Meanwhile, we could still continue to pursue that aspect a level-making community where you could get feedback and share levels with people and all that stuff. The difference is that it's no longer our main focus. But still, what's the big deal if it's no longer the main focus? it's still there, isn't it? At least with this we'll be broadening our target audience and, if it catches on, people will at least enjoy using the site for their own interests: whether they just want to play tons of levels, or if they want to actually join and upload their own levels. But at least there will be more kinds of people visiting us. And we have a much better chance of competing with other sites with this than with our current system.

That's kinda like the cavelist, isn't it? I keep thinking that this could work if it were like, an expansion of the cavelist.

The problem is that the cavelist is a list of usernames, not levels, so they're not entirely compatible...

yeah, I used that argument in the staff forum. It technically is like the cavelist, and it works just like it too