Topic: Deckbox Communities

Hi all,

I'm a MtG event organizer in my home town, Cluj, and I've been looking for a software tool that would help me with my events. As opposed to the DCI Reporter, I was looking for a more complex integration between events, users and decks. This tool would have to be able to offer me event management (planning, standings, invitations, decks), the possibility to easily access other people's decks and changes and to be able to talk with them on an integrated forum.

Well, I didn't find that tool so on a beer with Sebi, we decided that I would make one here, on Deckbox big_smile.

Yes, Deckbox communities are here. They are not complete yet, they are more of a social tool for now, allowing multiple Deckbox users to share activities, browse events and see trading opportunities in their area.

Future developments include event standings, decks from events with the possibility to comment/vote on them, statistics per community. I am, of course, open to suggestions, so the TODO list can be expanded on your demand wink.

Re: Deckbox Communities

Here's a rundown of how this feature works, exemplified by the real-life case of our little MtG community in Cluj-Napoca.

Laura and Sergiu are responsible for planning and setting up our bi-weekly Magic the Gathering events. They create a new community here on deckbox, and fill in the name, a short description, and location information: GameFlux. There! Ready to invite some users!

Then, on the event page they create the upcoming events. Members can now - upon visiting an event's page - confirm their presence and see who else is coming. The upcoming events are also shown on the profile page of all community members, as well as on the profiles of users from the same city as the community.

Finally, as our community did not have a forum before, only a mailing list, we can set up a subforum here, where the members can discuss whatever Magic communities discuss smile

We hope that really soon the community admins will be able - upon an event's completion - to specify the top 8 standings and the winning decks, so people can see the winners and their decklists. Those decks will be rate-able, and commentable.


For now, a big, big THANK YOU to Laura for this great feature! And let's post some feedback and feature requests for these communities, so she has her share of bugs and enhancements tongue

Re: Deckbox Communities

And I'll be the first one to issue a request (It's nice being a user for a change, on the easy side of feature requests tongue)

We will probably need to specify various details for events and communities (like what DCI foil we get, prize structure and so on), so the 'Description' field will need to be rich content - to support markup features, bold, titles, italic, lists etc.


(The good news is that I promised to make something like this for user's profiles too, as well as for deck descriptions. So we'll kill all these rabbits with one stone tongue)

Re: Deckbox Communities

Well, beside fixing the crash ( pay the testers with beer, it enhances their skills tenfold tongue  ) I would like to suggest that maybe not every user gets TO status (or community admin or whatever its called) and the ability to create communities, so that the community list isn't flooded with useless communities. Maybe allow users to build communities based on something like "community votes" or something (gather a certain number of votes from users, and you can build your community)?

Edit: bug fixed, that was fast tongue

Also, congrats on an amazing feature, very very inspired (event location on google maps, awesome). Thumbs up and keep up the good work.

PS: My name doesn't show in the list after I confirm my participation to an event (only the green check image) tongue.

Last edited by Trickster (2010-04-07 12:42:51)

Re: Deckbox Communities

Yep, fixed and fixed. Thanks for the heads-up. There were a couple of hiccups, but it should be mostly ok now smile Stand by for a couple more mini features to come today / tomorrow (like a notification icon somewhere that tells you if you have unread messages in your community's forum).

@ too many bogus communities issue... we're aware of the issue and we're thinking about it... maybe we'll come up with something before it actually becomes a problem tongue


P.S. I do pay my tester with beer. Actually, also my sysadmin, my DBA, SEO expert, webmaster, marketing boss, community outreach coordinator and manager (as they're all the same person) If you ever want to buy the dude a beer, I hear he likes a nice weissbier tongue We can ask Laura about her tester's beer preferences also tongue

Mmmmm....


http://www.buttalapasta.it/wp-galleryo/weizen-bier-birra-tedesca/paulaner-hefe-weizen_bg.jpg

Re: Deckbox Communities

PPS: The days headers in the calendar for the events are off (Friday should be Thursday, Thursday should be Wednesday, etc.) tongue

Where is my beer? tongue

Last edited by Trickster (2010-04-07 12:43:58)

Re: Deckbox Communities

Trickster wrote:

PPS: The days headers in the calendar for the events are off (Friday should be Thursday, Thursday should be Wednesday, etc.) tongue

Where is my beer? tongue

Hehe, true that! More testers, more beer! We can have a tester party on thurday's FNM smile. Small party though, as it appears only the 2 of us will attend: http://deckbox.org/communities/gameflux/events/1 tongue. Hopefully I'll convince the communities lead developer to join us smile

Re: Deckbox Communities

Only if Dan borrows me his Baneslayer Angel tongue.

Anyways, i fixed the calendar issue too. Thanks for all the help, Trickster!

Re: Deckbox Communities

Dudes and dudettes, this website is looking hotter and hotter by the minute. Keep up the good job!

Re: Deckbox Communities

Litle tiny bug (I think?)... I could confirm my participation for an event by a community that I don't belong to. Is that the way it should be, or does the community administrator have the option to allow or deny people from outside the community the right to announce participation?

Last edited by Trickster (2010-05-07 11:39:44)

Re: Deckbox Communities

Trickster wrote:

Litle tiny bug (I think?)... I could confirm my participation for an event by a community that I don't belong to. Is that the way it should be, or does the community administrator have the option to allow or deny people from outside the community the right to announce participation?

Why wouldn't you be allowed to participate in other communities' events? I mean if you go to Timisoara and attend the Deckmaster Convention, you being a member of the Gameflux community... that would mean you confirm your participation for an event of the Deckmaster community.

Indeed, I could add the possibility for the admin to kick out a participant. I will think about that, thanks for the feedback smile

Re: Deckbox Communities

I don't know, it just felt weird that I could add myself as a participant to an event from the us without the organizer having the opportunity to remove me from the list. But yes, what you're saying does make sense.

Last edited by Trickster (2010-05-07 14:50:00)