Note overhaul

[Doug R.]

-Make notes sortable by age and title
-Make text searchable within notes and notes in envelopes
-Make envelope titles editable
-Make envelopes deletable
-Allow mass deletion of editable notes using the "operations on multiple notes" features
-Allow "merging" of uneditable notes (if there is more than one copy in-hand, allow them to be merged).
-Allow mass emptying of all envelopes with one click.
-Give uneditable notes a special marking so they are visually identifiable, both on the notes page and the Operations on Multiple Notes page.
-Re-enable the use of HTML (or some kind of BBcode) in note titles.
-Allow custom ordering of notes (like a netflix que or something similar).

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Out-there idea: Allow a peer review system of uneditable note alteration. Characters mark uneditable notes in-game, and then those notes are submitted to a review database, where any player can vote yea or nay on changing the note to editable. Once a certain vote threshold is reached, the proposal is either accepted or rejected. If accepted, all copies of the note are changed to editable. If rejected, that note can't be submitted for review for a real-life year.

[Ronja Rotschopf]

Out-there idea: Allow a peer review system of uneditable note alteration. Characters mark uneditable notes in-game, and then those notes are submitted to a review database, where any player can vote yea or nay on changing the note to editable. Once a certain vote threshold is reached, the proposal is either accepted or rejected. If accepted, all copies of the note are changed to editable. If rejected, that note can't be submitted for review for a real-life year.

From me a strong "no" to a simple voting-system. The creator of a note usually has his/her own reasons to mark a note as uneditable and those reasons should be respected (much stronger than the wish of other players to change that)

[Doug R.]

Well, there's a lot of completely pointless uneditable notes out there. In my experience, early in the game, people didn't really understand the concept of making an uneditable note, and now have notes like "Please let me out!" that are uneditable and clogging up the notes database.

If not a player vote, then a staff vote based on a set of guidelines, but something should be done. The sheer number of notes has paralyzed some game systems, and most of these notes are garbage.

Also, keep in mind, this will only make a note editable. Most important uneditable notes have multiple copies, so a character that felt strongly about it could always re-make their copy uneditable. This would be a double failsafe. We could even report the number of copies along with the note in the review DB.

[Ronja Rotschopf]

In my opinion each note that includes at least a name and a date is part of the history of Cantr. I don't mind if notes that don't fulfill those two requirements and are quite old get deleted on request (since this is obviously the purpose of the suggestion).

When my characters create a note that is either supposed to be art (e.g. a poem) or something really useful (e.g. a map), they usually give away uneditable copies and keep for themselves an editable copy (for possible later improvement). That's the complete opposite of having spread many editable notes and keep one uneditable for themselves. The point here is some kind of copyright.

[Doug R.]

I understand, and completely agree that important/historical notes should not be tampered with. This is strictly for eliminating litter.

[SekoETC]

Could make uneditable notes deletable. It doesn't make sense that there is indestructible weightless material that can only be stuffed into a junk envelope.

One thing I'd like is the ability to load several notes on the same screen and just scroll through them. Of course there would have to be some limit to the length of the page. But for example some people put diary entries on separate notes and it would be easier to read if you could open them all at once. Maybe there would be an option to open all notes inside an envelope without taking them out of the envelope. This could be used to simulate books.

[madfish]

I would say with the implementation of locakable noticboards the main advantage of uneditable notes would be made redundant, i.e. the inability to mess around with informational notes which towns want to have on display.

Every other use that uneditable notes have is pointless. Notes will generally stay in circulation unmodified if it has useful information or something relevant to that individual. Mapmakers worried about someone coming along and putting their name on your work? So what, if your map is any good it has probably been well circulated anyway and people will know. Why not leave it editable so people can add their own notations to it?

I would just cut straight to the point when noticeboards become available and remove the 'not editable' feature and make all existing notes editable.

I'd like to see a library in Cantr which stores stuff worth reading, rather than just a storage room full of so much junk you can't care to look after two minutes of being there.

[SekoETC]

One thing though that supports uneditable notes is that they're saved in the database only once, so it saves an immense amount of space if it's something that gets copied a lot. That way maps Should be made uneditable, and the mapmaker should keep an editable copy to themselves if they still want to add more places to it.

[madfish]

Is that really that much of a problem though? If it is then surely this forum's OT section isn't doing much good.

The code could be made to only give new notes a unique ID once they have been edited. Meaning if you just copy a note and don't edit it it still pulls its info from the same line in the database as the note it was copied from.

[SekoETC]

I've thought of the same thing before.

[Doug R.]

Is that really that much of a problem though? If it is then surely this forum's OT section isn't doing much good.

This forum is on a different server than the game.

[madfish]

In that case I can see a purpose for uneditable notes but agree with Doug that many people aren't using them for this purpose and so back his idea for deletion.

[madfish]

I had a further thought on this. How about, rather than a peer review/voting system, all notes can be deleted by anyone and the job of preserving cantr's history would become an IC issue. Thus giving relevance to characters with historian/librarian roles and making libraries more than just a rubbish tip.

[Doug R.]

I don't think there's sufficient stability in the Cantr world to leave it entirely to the players.

[EchoMan]

What!?! Tat is what we do right now. If you want to keep an important note, you have a copy on your person. Everything else is pulled into the town dump. All we have to do is translate the word "dump" to all languages, then delete all notes in such locations... or?!