Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I enjoy FB style status's, especially those on websites like Dakka Dakka. Is it possible to do something like that but have it just visible with our friends to eliminate the possibility of spam?

Hmm... I'm normally very against this sort of thing but it's actually a very tight idea with multiple bonuses.

a. It would boost usage and functionality of the 'friend' function.
b. It allows users to appeal directly to those who's opinions they value most. This could be in respect to asking for blog feedback or searching for bits to buy/trade.
c. It adds the possibility of live feed functionality where your friends can find out in advance what you are painting/playing.
d. Later, when a Dakka app becomes available, it could live stream your friends statuses and alert you to changes.
e. You could even add the option to make the status private or public. Private removes the quote function and only allows friends to view it and public opens the status to a community stream with the quote function.

There are some problems however.
1. Lego might be a nerdy superhero but there is only so much coding one man can do, and even less that he wants to!
2. How do you moderate such a thing and stop it being abused? The server would have to store the statuses even once removed and that takes us back to number 1. Apart from that the solution would be to add a moderator or two. *cough*me*cough*
3. If public statuses are available then a search function needs to be coded too to show trends and that takes us right back to... You guessed it!


I'm interested to here what Lego has to say anyway, although I pretty much said it already.

I dunno, I have most of the people whose statuses I would read from dakka on facebook anyway.

I guess it could be useful, though I see it as more trouble than it is worth. If you really must you can become a DCM and use the title as that feature.

That's what your signature is for, good man.

I agree, those are three good points. I still see the benefits but the negatives may outweigh the positives with this one.

It was just a thought. Glad it was discussed. Thanks!

Facebook style stuff is something I've explored in the past, including twitter style updates per user, notifications about all actions that have occurred relating to you, building a spinoff, nerdy social network out of the massive userbase here, etc.

While a lot of the stuff would be very cool to do, and a fair number of people would both enjoy it and utilise it heavily, I've decided against it as the direction it would take dakka is too far from a hobby community and towards more irrelevant and potentially narcissistic junk. Moderation is a minor concern - the underlying change in culture from something that is so positive at the moment is the big turn off.

The notifcations stuff would be very cool to have, but requires quite a different datastore to what we have at the moment. I've investigated it a fair bit, but adding it would dramatically increase the complexity of operating dakka, and I'm eager to avoid things that create significant amounts of extra work for myself. As noSQL matures further it will likely become more viable and I am keeping an eye on it for the future.