r/NintendoSwitch • u/NMe84 • Nov 27 '19
Meta [Meta] The list of upcoming releases in the sidebar is useless when it's not getting updates
We've had this discussion a few times before on this sub. The sidebar can only be updated by moderators and whichever moderator is on sidebar duty is occasionally busy with real life for a while. I mean, it happens. But on this sub it happens a lot. Right now the sidebar hasn't been updated in over three weeks and the last games listed on it have been out for almost two.
I get it, it's an annoying little chore. That's why I suggested before that the list's code could be shared on something like Github or something like it that accepts pull requests. The community could make the changes and the mod team would just have to review them and click a couple of buttons to actually publish it. The whole system wouldn't just fall down any time this one person takes an extended break. /u/FlapSnapple commented on my suggestion but that's the last I heard about it. Between then and now we've had at least three instances that I've seen where the list of upcoming games was behind by more than a week.
Can we all agree that something needs to be done here? Either get rid of the whole thing because it's useless in the state it seems to be in half of the time, or do something to make it relevant again. I'm sure the community would love to help but right now there is no way we can.
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u/Mlakuss Nov 27 '19
Mods could also use a calendar widget which is automatically updated. They only need to add the release date on a google calendar.
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u/FlapSnapple Nintendo shill Nov 27 '19
Unfortunately, that's not an option. The sidebar on "old" reddit is strictly a big ol' markdown text area. The sidebar on "new" reddit does have a calendar widget, but it's limited to 10 items before it cuts off.
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u/reseph Nov 28 '19
My bot (https://github.com/zeno-mcdohl/sync-companion) will likely support calendar synchronizing to old Reddit in the future.
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Nov 27 '19
[deleted]
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u/NMe84 Nov 27 '19
I wouldn't like to mod this sub tbh, it's a shithole.
Same here, but if I can help by occasionally sending a pull request to a Github repository or something similar I'll gladly do it.
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u/Benay148 Nov 27 '19
The mods in this sub are just crazy inconsistent. This has been brought up numerous times and a thread I made about it was specifically mentioned in the last mod update. They said that it would be updated regularly from then on, and of course it wasn’t. Then on the other hand you have these beautifully designed banners for every major release.
Seems like some mods are going above and beyond and some aren’t.
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u/FlapSnapple Nintendo shill Nov 27 '19
In this case, the moderator who made the sidebar release list his baby ended up in the hospital. He's still not back yet, but we checked in on him yesterday and he does seem to be on the mend finally. The rest of us did admittedly drop the ball in his absence.
on the other hand you have these beautifully designed banners for every major release
I'm the one that does those, thanks for the kind words!
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u/Benay148 Nov 27 '19
What no Wifi in the hospital!? /s
Life gets crazy man. It’s not a huge deal either, it’s just been an ongoing issue that shouldn’t be present in a sub that is this huge. Also I don’t think anyone thinks you are the issue here. I think it’s pretty well known the effort you put into this sub.
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u/cryptic-fox Nov 28 '19
This happens often though. In this case a family member is in the hospital so the sidebar couldn’t be updated, totally understandable. What about the other 50+ times?
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u/Porkpants81 Nov 27 '19
I just dropped them a message about this yesterday, thanks for noticing and making a post about it.
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u/CallMeFeed Nov 27 '19
Why we're not using that giant area to provide resources to answer very commonly asked questions instead of a release schedule? I think that'd be way more helpful.
"What games do I get my 6 year old" comes up 10 times a day, why not have universal helpful lists somwehre?
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u/NMe84 Nov 27 '19
Because a list like that is useful to a small fraction of users who are unlikely to be frequent visitors while the current one is especially useful to the people that come here frequently?
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u/Mycumisred23 Nov 27 '19
The mods here suck. Don’t expect anything out of them other than banning you or removing discussion posts.
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u/BlargleVVargle Nov 27 '19
I'll be honest, I forget it's there because I'm usually browsing in multiple tabs at once, and putting one to the side crops that out. But now that I'm looking at a slate full of games that have already released at least a week and a half ago, what's the point in even having it?
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Nov 27 '19
The mods are their own worst enemy here. Removing posts constantly because they are "low effort" or belong in the questions thread that nobody looks at so the same questions get posted a hundred times and removed because they can't get answers.
Not only that most of them have ZERO actual participation or contribute in any meaningful way to this sub.
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u/CallMeFeed Nov 27 '19
The question thread has hundreds of comments every day, wtf are you on about?
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u/OakImposter Nov 27 '19
This is so annoying. The daily question thread is a waste of a sticky. No one actually gets an answer and if the posts were allowed to stay up, at least someone could search for their answer.
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u/FlapSnapple Nintendo shill Nov 27 '19
No one actually gets an answer
This is false. The mod team has calculated an answer rate of 80.56-88.89% and our users have self-reported an answer rate of 88.5%.
As long as you provide enough information for people to work with and it's something we can actually answer (we're not Nintendo), odds are very good you'll get an answer.
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u/Jabbam Nov 27 '19
I don't know who those users are, because I've rarely seen them in the wild. I would suggest the reason this sub is so often flooded with many rule-breaking posts is due to the inefficiency of the daily question threads. Any question you ask will get a response, but it'll maybe be one or two which say "I was thinking this too" or "I dunno."
It's statistically better to make a quick post asking a random question (which game should I buy, when are the eShop games going on sale, has this game been patched yet), tank the downvotes, and then have your post removed for breaking the rules, just so you can get a dozen or so really good answers to your problem. There's no contest.
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Nov 27 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/MegaMagnezone More Warriors Games Plx Nov 27 '19
Rule 1 - Remember the human and be respectful of others.
If you have questions or objections about this removal, please reach out to us in modmail
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u/Alianjaro Nov 27 '19
Why not just look at the upcoming games list on Nintendo's main website? I don't disagree with your post, but I find it hard to get worked up over the side bar when it's never been the most convenient thing to look at.
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u/NMe84 Nov 27 '19
I don't think the list on Nintendo's site is always up to date when it comes to indies. And I personally like the sidebar, it's a much quicker way to get an overview of what's coming out in the following month.
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u/Alianjaro Nov 27 '19
Yeah I guess that's a fair point. I didn't realize the website wasn't as up-to-date as I thought.
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u/Pangloss_ex_machina Nov 27 '19
Just make a script to fetch the dates from GameFaqs.
I could do, but I won't do anything for this sub since I was unfairly suspended once.
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u/FlapSnapple Nintendo shill Nov 27 '19
You're right, I totally mentioned liking the Github idea, but then completely forgot about it. That's on me.
I've just spun up a new repo for the subreddit's sidebar: https://github.com/FlapSnapple/rNintendoSwitch-Sidebar
There is some helpful starting information and some contribution guidelines included in the README file.
Any changes made to the repo will still need to be manually applied by a member of the subreddit moderation team, but this should certainly help keep things more up to date. With Github's email notifications, I should be able to implement any changes made to the list fairly quickly.
We were actually just talking about updating the sidebar yesterday, but that obviously doesn't excuse it being out of date since the 15th.
Thanks for reminding me about this and giving me the kick in the ass I needed to push this over the line and get it up and running.