Making GCLF less intimidating to newcomers
Posted by: bwill11
Date: 2019-08-14 14:42:04
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I've tested this Pokémon's Pokédex data numerous times, and for some reason, I cant find consistency in location… I can't tell what is changing it. Wether it'd be party Pokémon, items, or even just the location and screen data. James-the-Charizard (talk) 11:30, 8 August 2019 (-06)
According to the research, this glitch Pokémon takes its dex entry from AA00. AA00 is in the SRAM/save data region, but it's not actually clear from that which bank (as it seems a different SRAM bank means AA00 could represent another memory address depending on what bank the game was on last if forced for the dex entry?) (for illustration I recommend reading https://github.com/pret/pokered/blob/master/sram.asm ). Viewing glitch Pokémon sprites will also partially corrupt the save data (but not destroying it, e.g. MissingNo. saves corrupts Hall of Fame if you have one so maybe a glitch Pokémon could corrupt AA00 on the relevant bank?) Adding to the complication, SRAM is not always available and may be locked. That could explain the many 9999s (mirroring a locked SRAM pointer and returning (0xFF bytes). I'll look into this tomorrow if you like. :) Torchickens (talk) 14:43, 8 August 2019 (-06)
If you could, please do. Unfortunately I may not be able to contribute a lot to the wiki side of this and Im just a bit too shy to reply into forums… >~<' (Even Though I like making friends and/or socializing, I just feel too awkward because I feel like Id be barging in.) James-the-Charizard (talk) 16:13, 9 August 2019 (-06)
This is me barging in with absolutely nothing to add for the sake of the example. I'm wondering if the huge amount of activity from staff, Metarkrai, RETIRE, et al. as compared to new members has given off too imposing of an impression. You're welcome to speak up about whatever you want, as you have on this page. Sherkel (talk) 23:52, 13 August 2019 (-06)
I would definitely agree that the large presence of admins, staff and distinguished members does make the forums look a lot more intimidating. I was pretty intimidated at first too (actually I didn't do anything at GCLF at first, I didn't have anything to contribute and I essentially had a phantom account for about a year until watching old Shenanigans speedruns and MissingnoXpert randomly showing up in my recommended reignited my interest in glitches). With me, Parzival, metalmario32, Matt1990, Yuzihax and Bert being the only very active regular members (Matt, Yuzihax and Bert are Member+ but the phrase "Member+" doesn't invoke the same level of importance as Administrator or Distinguished Member), the forums are a bit intimidating. The fact that the general complexity of Pokemon glitches is already a bit daunting doesn't help, but I do think having less staff, not because they're doing a bad job but because there's a lot of them for a site like GCLF that's relatively small, would definitely help GCLF seem a lot more open. Bwill11 (talk)
Shoot, I'm glad I said something now. I really appreciate the input and I'll take this up with the rest of them to see what they think. Ironically, when the forum was closer to 500 members, there were at least 15 admins at some point, with Member+ and Local Moderator positions being given out much more freely. Staff and other members should all be seen as equal here, and it might be possible that having such a large overlap made that sense of separation smaller. On the other hand, there used to be a lot more regulars…but on the other other hand, maybe I'm underestimating how many we have now…thanks for saying something, anyhow. (Shenanagans is basically the reason I'm still here too, by the way.) Sherkel (talk) 10:02, 14 August 2019 (-06)
I think we should make a topic specifically for brainstorming ways to make GCLF less daunting for new people, since I think others probably have good ideas too and this is a bizarre page to discuss this on. Bwill11 (talk)
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I don't think James-the-Charizard is alone in being nervous about posting here. I've noticed that there is almost always at least 10 times more guests at GCLF than members, and usually the ratio is a lot larger. This definitely makes sense on the wiki, since many people probably just go there once for a specific answer or set of instructions and not return, but it doesn't make sense to me on the forums. My theory is that a lot of these guests are the same ones, and have an interest in glitches, but don't make an account because they don't want to say anything for the same reasons that James said. If anybody has a counterpoint or wants to run diagnostics to confirm or deny this, that would probably be helpful. Also any reoccurring guests that come here frequently but don't make an account for whatever reason, feedback would also be helpful.
Edit: As an idea, I think the member group topic is large, in an inconspicuous place (in the forum discussion, instead of on the front page like it should be, since it outlines how the website works), and filled with outdated information and is filled a bunch of things that don't exist anymore, like the Decamark research groups, and I have never seen the Crash and Burn tag so I assume it doesn't exist anymore. A similar thing with the 50 post boards, the member group topic says that there are some boards that open up upon reaching 50 posts, and I'm currently at around 70 posts and have not seen anything new open up, so I assume the boards that used to have a 50 post board requirement either a) no longer have the requirement or b) don't exist anymore. I also think Oldbie and Veteran Contributor groups are weird because all they signify is that (person) has been here a long time and if it is Veteran Contributor, they have also contributed a lot in that time. I don't think these people should be undervalued though, since they helped make the site what it is today, so I think that Oldbie and Veteran Contributor should be subgroups, so that their tag looks something like this
(whatever their group is, at least member+ so they still have the abilities they always had) - Oldbie/Veteran contributor
this way, it signifies that they are an Oldbie or a Veteran Contributor but it also simplifies the member groups, which will simplify the website for newcomers. These groups aren't all that confusing, but definitely make the list of different member groups longer than it really needs to be.