A Modern +Finger?

surreality

You object to someone knowing you are reading their information?

Knowing? Not really.

Thinking this entitles them to attention -- or anything at all -- beyond that? Vehemently.

(God, I really am apparently sharing a brain with @Rince!)

Three-Eyed Crow

I write +finger information expecting it to be read. It's basic public info. I expect other players to write theirs assuming the same. So everyone should, by definition, know the public information they are writing to be read is being read at various times.

I object to them behaving like juvenile asshats and making me give up using this very basic command because it's easier than dealing with them.

Misadventure

How about &afinger updates a list of who has ever read their +finger, for the paranoid, and there is no timing specific notice, for the paranoid user of +finger?

It provides metrics, feeds everyones insecurities, and takes up space.

Sunny

@surreality said:

@Misadventure said:

You object to someone knowing you are reading their information?

Knowing? Not really.

Thinking this entitles them to attention -- or anything at all -- beyond that? Vehemently.

(God, I really am apparently sharing a brain with @Rince!)

This, this, this. I don't mind people seeing my info without me knowing, but people being 'clever' (omg someone I really like did this the other day and I wanted to kill her) ruin &afinger for everybody. There's just...not a compelling reason to have it.

How does it help?
What harm does it do?

surreality

@Misadventure said:

How about &afinger updates a list of who has ever read their +finger, for the paranoid, and there is no timing specific notice, for the paranoid user of +finger?

It provides metrics, feeds everyones insecurities, and takes up space.

If someone doesn't want people finding out any information about them, how about not volunteering that information in +finger in the first place? I mean, it isn't like they aren't listing this information themselves, entirely of their own volition, and choosing what they do or do not make public (aside from the most broad strokes: name, alias, connected/not, etc.)

+finger is the public profile on a game. You can leave it pretty blank if you want, but it's still public. We have the same thing here, and I don't see anyone claiming there is a downside to not having the ability to see who clicked on their name to read that profile -- or any suggestion that ability is some kind of right, the lack of it is deprivation, etc. here, so why is M* somehow the exception to what many typically expect regarding the same sort of data?

And another one! &afinger depresses me. I can't count the number of times I see it go off, then get a page from someone who clearly did not read a word of what was written there, when I know dang well it all scrolled up in their face. That gives me a serious case of the murderface.

Coin

@surreality
Anything that presents me with the reality of people ignoring information that they purposely accessed makes me want to murder someone.

DamnitJim

So what's the difference between the information on a wikipage and the information in a +finger?

Is there a good reason, besides technological constraints, why we want:

+finger to notify people they're being looked at, but only if it is synchronous
But...
My wikipage doesn't keep track of who has looked at it.

Thenomain

Real-time reporting fulfills a very different requirement than after-the-fact reporting.

Ganymede

@Luna

I use +finger to figure out if my alts have any unread mail, or if my potential PCs have any. It has been useful recently, as I've been waiting for Ripley to get approved after re-spec for almost two weeks. I connect as Clarice, +finger Ripley to see if the +job system has sent her a @mail saying that she's approved.

Why? Because when I log on as Ripley, I get asked if I've been re-approved yet, and I have to say no. That, and I get excited to play, and then realize my re-spec has been going since mid-February. It's a little demoralizing, and I'm doing my best to be positive.

So, I wait, and use +finger to determine if I should hop on as the Ripster.

Luna

@HelloRaptor Ok. I won't. I don't right now so you're safe.

But really, if you're not @mailing me, what does it matter to you how many unread mails I have?

And for altchecking, I get it. Its cool. I can just put a thing in my connect to wipe them out. It would be a million times better if jobs and such didn't auto mail as a default.

Cobalt

@Ganymede said:

@Luna

I use +finger to figure out if my alts have any unread mail, or if my potential PCs have any.

That, frankly, is what a not retarded +alts code is for. +alts should show you basic information about your alts, not just be a way for staff to spy on people. You should be able to register your alts for list that only you (and staff) see, that tells you things like xp, mail, how long they've been disconnected, etc. (If they have any events they are signed up for, but for the love of fucking god how to do that my code is awful and I am a bad person runs away in shame.)

DamnitJim

I'll add another vote to the horde who are annoyed at &afinger.

Compared to the wiki, +finger has the advantage that it can pull real time data from the Mush code itself. So it can pull things like

alias
current connection status,
last connection,
unread mail,
location

These, plus some very basic demographic information (sex, fullname, shortdesc) seem like good candidates for including in +finger.

Pretty much everything else? Your favorite quote, theme song, full desc, RP prefs, typical online times? These don't need to be updated in real time, thus should be on the wiki rather than +finger.

Cobalt

-----------------------| Cobalt's +Finger Information |-----------------------
Status: Online      Alias: Cobbles      Location: Cobalt's Hidey Hole
  ------------------------- Pertinent Information --------------------------
Fullname:       Cobalt J. Simpson
Rank:           Lt. Commander
Department:     Sciences
Position:       Head Cobalt In Charge
Wikipage:       http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=414
  --------------------------- Custom Information ---------------------------
Alts:           Valla, Amber
Concept:        I am a pretty pretty goth faerie princess.
Quote:          From afar, Maxine looks at the comments on her job approvals, "I feel like you are
  either trying to be very dirty, or using some code to try and get a message across." ;)
Song:           Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap - AC/DC
  --------------------------- Staff Information ----------------------------
IP:             Stuff.
Alts:           Stuff.
Email:          Stuff.
ConTime:        Stuff.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A preview of what it will look like. The default colors for it are grey and white. I'm trying to decide where to put approval status. Whether it should be public or private.

Glitch

I'd make the header, divider, footer and line display all call individual functions on the object that can be set by someone else with your setup as a default (or, to make @Chime happy, something that can be overridden on a child object). Maybe even pass the "area" as a param to the line display so they can get more granular and make all their staff lines BRIGHT YELLOW because they mostly hate themselves and others.

Coin

Tangent: what font does this forum's code display use?

Glitch

One of these: Monaco, Menlo, Consolas, "Courier New", monospace.

ETA: Monaco/Menlo if you're on Mac, Consolas on Windows.

Quibbler

What if people could set how much +finger info they wanted to see by default? Like I would probably want to cut out the custom information entirely if I was looking someone up. The only thing I'd find useful there would be alts.

Coin

@Glitch said:

One of these: Monaco, Menlo, Consolas, "Courier New", monospace.

ETA: Monaco/Menlo if you're on Mac, Consolas on Windows.

Thanks.

@Quibbler said:

What if people could set how much +finger info they wanted to see by default? Like I would probably want to cut out the custom information entirely if I was looking someone up. The only thing I'd find useful there would be alts.

This would be awesome.

Cobalt

@Glitch said:

I'd make the header, divider, footer and line display all call individual functions on the object that can be set by someone else with your setup as a default (or, to make @Chime happy, something that can be overridden on a child object). Maybe even pass the "area" as a param to the line display so they can get more granular and make all their staff lines BRIGHT YELLOW because they mostly hate themselves and others.

I feel like someone stole my brain this morning and I am not quite following what you mean. Do you mean that the header in the code should be something like u(mfc/header, things here)? And if they want they can change the 'header' attribute? If so, yes that is what I've done. Not entirely sure about the reference to overriding with a child object (but I also haven't played around much with parent and child objects).

@Quibbler said:

What if people could set how much +finger info they wanted to see by default? Like I would probably want to cut out the custom information entirely if I was looking someone up. The only thing I'd find useful there would be alts.

Yes, I'll work on that.

Quibbler

On a related note, I always wanted a quick way to see if my alts had any new @mail and/or check on the last time they were connected. I wound up making a custom command to +finger all my alts but it was still spammier than I liked.