META: Live chat system
The thread about open threads got me motivated. I would like to build a custom live chat system for this community to use in place of the open thread for various live events.
Features I would like to include:
- Moderated (ban spammers/trolls)
- Inline images/gifs/video
- Eventaully tie chat username with mgoblog accounts (requires mgoblog support)
- Emotes
- Mobile Support
As this will be a custom built, stand-alone app, I will add features as requested by the community.
I am able and willing to build this out, and host it for free, however, I would like to know that this is something that the community would like to see and use.
I know that we used to use a live blog system in the past, but that seemed buggy and weird.
What do you all think? Do you have any feature requests?
I would like to have a minimum viable product ready for the Oregon St. game.
September 2nd, 2015 at 9:31 AM ^
That would be awesome!
Also, I know a lot of people on here don't like reddit, but wouldn't it be easy to also just make an MGoBlog subreddit and have game threads through that?
September 2nd, 2015 at 9:45 AM ^
September 2nd, 2015 at 9:50 AM ^
I would be worried that if there was a mgoblog subreddit, it would move too much traffic off mgoblog and away from their ad revenue, thus requiring us to all hit that donate button more frequently :)
I do love me some reddit though.
September 2nd, 2015 at 10:03 AM ^
September 2nd, 2015 at 10:59 AM ^
Yeah and then you could use https://reddit-stream.com/ for live game threads, however I have to agree with the point about unintentionally taking away traffic from the blog.
September 2nd, 2015 at 9:33 AM ^
I believe the previous liveblogs were sponsored in some way, but this sounds like an awesome idea! If you haven't already, try emailing Brian to open the communication lines.
September 2nd, 2015 at 9:36 AM ^
but, what about mgopoints?
/s
September 2nd, 2015 at 9:37 AM ^
Honestly, I would love the site to have a 24/7 live chat.
September 2nd, 2015 at 10:10 AM ^
September 3rd, 2015 at 1:40 AM ^
Yes. I agree the account verfiication would be necessary. We need to have designated chat mods in every time zone!
September 2nd, 2015 at 9:38 AM ^
I like the idea, but also wonder if we upgraded the system as a whole if the new system would have this built in. Thus killing 2 birds with one stone.
September 2nd, 2015 at 9:38 AM ^
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September 2nd, 2015 at 9:40 AM ^
September 2nd, 2015 at 10:23 AM ^
September 2nd, 2015 at 9:41 AM ^
Existing interfaces have become insanely expensive, so this would fill a really large need.
September 2nd, 2015 at 10:07 AM ^
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September 2nd, 2015 at 9:43 AM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
September 2nd, 2015 at 9:48 AM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
September 2nd, 2015 at 9:53 AM ^
I love slack, and I use it everyday, but slack charges per user :(
But slack will play a big role as a plan out the app. /giphy ftw
September 2nd, 2015 at 9:56 AM ^
Slack has a free tier with unlimited users. It just doesn't keep history forever
September 2nd, 2015 at 10:06 AM ^
I think that would be a good thing, assuming comments are eventually deleted - not users.
September 2nd, 2015 at 10:26 AM ^
Slack is probably a good place to start. The free tier keeps a history of 10,000 messages which should be plenty to get through a game. It also allow unlimited users and can be moderated
September 2nd, 2015 at 10:36 AM ^
September 2nd, 2015 at 10:50 AM ^
Slack does have an application you can install on your desktop, phone or tablet, but it can also just be accessed through your normal browser without any installatoin required.
September 2nd, 2015 at 10:58 AM ^
Never tried Slack, but I've heard a lot about it. Is this something we could just try?
September 2nd, 2015 at 11:29 AM ^
We use Slack as a supplement to conferencing at work when it done between groups at different locations and over some other presentation sharing tool like Bridgit. Slack has all the background chatter in the meeting basically, but it is pretty effective for throwing ideas back and forth and collaborative work. It could definitely be easily used as an experimental "live chat" for the board, at least for the first game. All someone who have to do is create the group - I think they recently merged with ScreenHero too, so voice and video options exist (though I am not sure if they exist in the free tier).
September 2nd, 2015 at 11:35 AM ^
I looked into slack as an option before I thought of making my own. One of the reasons I decided it probably wouldn't be a good fit, is the requirement that users have to be invited via email to join the channel. This would be a barrier of entry and could prevent people from hopping on at the last minute.
September 2nd, 2015 at 9:50 AM ^
I just moved out of state. Teh twitters are fine for short bursts of interaction during games or otherwise, but not great for carrying on conversations from my living room to other like-minded M fans.
Yes. Do it.
September 2nd, 2015 at 9:51 AM ^
September 2nd, 2015 at 9:55 AM ^
Probably a Go/rethingDB backend and javascript front end. Using websockets of course as well.
September 2nd, 2015 at 12:33 PM ^
September 2nd, 2015 at 4:43 PM ^
I'm assuming you would be making this open source? If so would you mind posting a link to the repo when (if?) you start working on it? I'd be very interested to see the code/I'd be willing to help out the development effort if my skills fit what you're doing
September 2nd, 2015 at 9:51 AM ^
September 2nd, 2015 at 9:55 AM ^
Upvote * 10^8.
Also, upvote * 10^8 for the idea of an entire site upgrade. Current site is way closer to Phil Steele's site than it is to anything modern.
September 2nd, 2015 at 9:59 AM ^
itself.
September 2nd, 2015 at 10:38 AM ^
Yes, I'm all for this as long as it's user friendly. Thanks for thinking of us.
September 2nd, 2015 at 10:02 AM ^
I would almost like a paysite too.....Keeps the Douche Bag trolls out. Well maybe...
September 2nd, 2015 at 11:05 AM ^
Yeah, even a nominal $2-5 paypal barrier would curb most of the driveby trolls.
September 3rd, 2015 at 1:42 AM ^
Great idea!
I would be willing to pay a nominal fee. No trolls are going to pay even a cent.
September 2nd, 2015 at 10:05 AM ^
September 2nd, 2015 at 10:06 AM ^
ya dude do it
September 2nd, 2015 at 10:07 AM ^
I think Brian has mentioned that running the live blogs were a significant cost for the site, I remember being pretty shocked at the amount actually. I bet if you made something with similar features, he would be willing to pay for it. I would get in touch with him or someone who works for mgoblog and discuss their requirements since some of them would not have been immediately obvious to me before he mentioned them last time.
September 2nd, 2015 at 10:07 AM ^
I missed the live chats last season. Hopefully we have some "unofficial" ones like we did last year. I remain willing to do PBP until the game is painfully out of hand and I'm drunk.
September 2nd, 2015 at 10:23 AM ^
Would I be allowed to solicit patrons for my pyramid scheme?
September 2nd, 2015 at 10:23 AM ^
Yes, please. I am willing to help if you need / want it -- I have UX / UI design experience if that helps at all.
September 2nd, 2015 at 10:53 AM ^
September 2nd, 2015 at 11:06 AM ^
If you needed any help I'm sure there's lots of CS students/grads here that would be happy to contribute if you put it on github.
September 2nd, 2015 at 11:07 AM ^
Go for it. We could also just open up an IRC channel and go full-80s dev ops!
September 2nd, 2015 at 11:50 AM ^
I was moving and trying to beef up my resume for the job hunt, and I actually talked with Brian a bit and started in on one of these. The UI is pretty good, it handles automatic YouTube and Image embeds, and sanitizes any other possibly harmful input. Unfortunately the server side is just a giant mess, I got it working as a proof of concept but never went back and put any architectural thought into it. Once I finished the move and got a job, I kind of forgot the whole thing. It's on GitHub, and it's functional as-is if you want to check it out: https://github.com/bendemeyer/moderated-chat, and I've got a longer post on my website explaining how its supposed to work: http://www.bendemeyer.com/2013/06/04/self-hosted-moderated-chat-room-an…
It's in PHP server-side, everything client-side is done through jQuery. I think the data architecture of the project is great, but the server side needs to be completely rewritten as a proper API. Also the frontend of a project like this should almost certainly be written in React (which didn't exist when I first built it, so I have that excuse). All in all, there might be enough wrong with it that you may be better off writing yours from scratch, but maybe this will provide you a useful starting point.
Also I'd be happy to contribute to development. I don't have tons of free time, but it's an interesting problem I'd like to revisit now that I'm considerably better at programming than I was a few years ago when I first attempted this.