How can we make this community more welcoming to new scripters?

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Here are some more links to forum posts related to scripting:

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@hugecat where is there a link to the requirements for levels in the community? Thank you

this link does not seem to work for me, sorry and thank you

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Wel Sentinel,

I finaly managed to install it.

My biggest hickup was that i couldnt get it started. I was like how do i get it started!
The checklist was checked, all the requirements where met.
If you could add the instruction that a .rar file should be unpacked. :flushed:

I also tried blender… :expressionless:
Because the option of motion tracking.

Greetings

Bob

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I found talking to ‘pro’ scripters has been very helpful, got me away from the painful blender add-on and a small discussion pointed me in the right direction to fix a broken script that took me ages to make, I haven’t been here that long so I haven’t seen any toxicity, everyone I’ve communicated with has been nice \ informative. It may be off putting being new and talking to someone with lots of experience, sentinal linked me a starting guide which helped me get past the “oh shit how do I get it to work” stage so more in tutorials and some in video format may help people feel less offput, a better template for uploads keeping in mind that amateur scripters like me can’t read code so a simple but informative template would be good, I’m fearful that I’ll make a free script that someone has made as a paid script, my job is an essential service so I don’t need the money, I don’t want my little hobbie to cut into someone’s livelihood so an easy way to search paid scripts would be cool.

My experiences as a amateur scripter have been as followed
Finding this place - stumbled upon RTS on reddit which then led me here.
Starting scripting - absolute bitch finding info and software, community members here help with that a lot.
Posting scripts - confusing, I take screen shots and use ms paint to get the heat map, I’m not sure how to add my data to the template so I delete all and post from scratch with data I think is revelant.
Community vibe - people seem to be happy to take the time and answer questions, seems like a nice place.

Finding RTS and eroscripts and getting software working was the hardest thing for me, I would of been making scripts 3 years ago if I could get anything to work

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As someone who found this site on Handy subreddit here are my thoughts on how to make this community more welcoming to new scripters/ members:

  1. Make the site open - it’s really confusing when you expect to see site about scripting but instead what you are looking at is create account page. Not a deal breaker, but I don’t see a reason why I couldn’t see what I can expect from the site before making an account.

  2. Stop with “perfectly matching script” phrase in paid scripts category. There is no such thing as perfectly matching script. Different people are using different methods for their scripts even among paid scripters. People who are starting with scripting might feel overwhelmed with the pressure that their script will be worse or not enjoyable because they don’t have support of SLR or Realsync. I tried some of the paid scripts from SLR and free scripts from here and I didn’t notice difference. Maybe they do feel better because you are actually paying money for it - I dunno, that wasn’t my case.

  3. Unpin advertisements from the site and stop favorizing paid content. I’m talking specifically about these topics:

The reason why I think they shouldn’t be pinned is because every time a new paid script is posted here all of those informations except WiP list are posted anyway. It’s also really affecting mobile version of the site because pinned advertisments take a lot of screen space:

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Either make it one topic that collects all of the above informations or add a banner on the site like it’s normally done for advertisements.

Good example of well pinned posts is #software category.

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Definitely some good points here.

  1. It shouldn’t be too long until the site will become public. There was ongoing discussion about it in this post. It kind of stopped a few days, so not sure when exactly there will be decisions, but it’s something that’s coming soon I guess.

  2. I agree and disagree. Yes, there is no such thing as perfect script - I learned scripting from scripts of others, some paid ones too and there are definitely differences between people who scripted. I can see how people, especially one who are starting with scripting can feel worse than commercial scripters, but on the other side it’s still about marketing their products so I would leave it for their decision.

  3. I agree, the pinned posts are the first thing that new members of the community see and they are always visible on top of their categories. It definitely feels odd seeing most of the pinned topics being about buying scripts / becoming commercial scripters, especially that it gets repeated in the most of paid script posts. We should aim to make the site as clear and friendly to new scripters as possible, not make it a guide to become commercial scripter. When you are making good progress at scripting @Realcumber will contact you anyway, multiple times if you are not decided.

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I’ll address these points later if I have time, but I need to point out some things that aren’t true or fair to say at all:

In hindsight, I do regret discussing with you options to join SLR/RS, but past is the past and to date and ever since ES began, all users have been positively reaching out to me in regards to commercial scripting, not vice versa.

@Husky - Would have been great to have you a part of SLR/RS, especially with your feelings about community not being supportive enough of your work and hence deleting your account, but
you did say you were undecided and I was merely trying to follow up.
I wish you gave me a clear no at first, but again, past is the past - all good - just making things clear I wont reach out to any users not interested in commercial scripting and doesnt make sense too because there are those sticky posts that are there if you choose to decide to do so yourself to help with that

If any @moderators disagree with any stickies or these comments, please feel to chime in - this is the first comments I’m hearing about any of them being offensive, as that was never the intent, and I’ve only heard many positives about having them to date

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I’m pretty sure I wrote that if I will ever change my mind about becoming paid scripter I will contact you. In the end I was asked about it by you about 4-5 times in total. This is my point of view, I’m pretty sure you converted this way a lot of scripters and I don’t judge - it’s impossible to verify it anyway. Just sharing my opinion about points made by @Astramax. I don’t find it offensive in any way as this topic was made for discussion in the first place.

However I find that the amount of sticky posts regarding paid scripts is a little ridiculous, but maybe I’m being paranoid. I think we should stick to only “about the X category” sticky posts to not favorize one side of the scripting over another.

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My opinion is to reduce pinned posts in general, not specifically targeted at pinned posts about paid content.

Discourse’s default pinned behavior is such that once a user looks at a pinned post, it becomes unpinned for them. That way you keep fresh content at the top once someone’s already seen your ‘important’ posts.

We had a mod discussion to move away from this behavior, which is fine, but it makes me dislike pinned posts even more.

I think maybe part of the problem is that we may not be putting posts related to paid stuff in the right place. So it may seem like they’re out of place or that there’s a conflict of interest.

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I think we had bit different unique communication @Husky, but I just wanted to mention and clarify it is not the norm to reach out, that was all. All good, didnt mean to infer anything otherwise as well, but yes you’re right, this is just topic is here for discussion in the first place.

Thanks for joining the community and welcome on your first post @Astramax -
Although I do think it would be more beneficial to figure ways to focus on supporting free scripted content rather than worrying about paid content posts, Ill address your issues:

When you’ve been scripting as long as I have, and have seen every method and know what works better and what doesnt, and whats best in a script for any particular toy - then yes, you will be able to see that there is such thing as a ‘perfectly matching script,’ which I’ve helped many fellow users also to try to attain.
There’s a reason why I have live recordings of my scripts in action (am I the only one?) - for me and many customers that prefer max immersion, its worth the extra time and effort to get it there and I’m sure most guys definitely notice - but ultimately noone is or should be expecting that level especially from free or new scripters

I do think it is still important to highlight quality and is to be expected if paying for scripts to give proper value for the customer though

I also do think blaming paid script word phrasing is bit scape-goating the fact that lurkers could maybe show some more vocal support for their favorite free content to encourage more ongoing creation of it instead?

Not sure about the comment about scripts not getting support of SLR or Realsync - I’m a bit confused at that statement and Im not sure what that means

We have many fellow paid scripters that regularly comment and give props to new and existing nonpaid work, so not sure what further support you are expecting or hoping for?

If less users positively comment or give feedback or support on free users posts, are we really to blame paid script posts for that?

There was a reason why certain topics have been pinned - They are the most commonly asked questions and pinning them have prevented ongoing threads about the same questions, and rather than constant new threads being brought up, about the same questions, its easy to find info - if you dont want to read or see it, you dont have to click on it - but I think there can be improvement on where pinned posts can go for sorting and organization sake - maybe we can consider going back to that ‘unpinned after clicking’ behaviour?

I agree with @husky - I think its fair to avoid prioritizing any category, including free over paid posts, and vice versa
Overall, it doesn’t matter to me what you guys prefer - I’d rather avoid unnecessary drama, so please do what you guys feel is best

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It’s not working for me then. I cannot see more than one script at a time because of pinned topics, but every time I visit the site I can see sticky sexlikereal advertisements.

It’s hard to ignore it on mobile because I can every time I visit the site I can see how to become paid scripter even if I am not interested. If these are frequently asked questions then just make one post that covers all of it. Maybe I am the only one reading the posts here but here is the description of howto category:

Collection of tutorials, frequently asked questions, and other knowledge. Topics in this category may only be created by trust level 2 and up.

So I don’t really see a reason why pinned posts with FAQ have to be spread across every part of this site, especially that they contian affiliate links, which of course you don’t mention. Good money, huh?

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Why not creating only one pinned topic on each section that then contains links to all the important topics. So you can add/remove them inside this topic from everyone who has rights to edit other posts. You can even create sections in this topic like in an index and add some more info.

Look at the script portfolios of some of the members as an example how it could be done.
https://discuss.eroscripts.com/t/sentinel-script-index-and-work-in-progress/3822?u=lucifie
https://discuss.eroscripts.com/t/lucifie-script-index/9420?u=lucifie

Some examples for a single pinned topic in a few sections
Help: FAQ (including a link to the connect 147 toys topic)
HowTo: Getting started (how to setup toys, create scripts, use apps)
Paid Scripts: Overview (WIP, Advertisement, How to become a paid scripter, …)

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I just tested myself on my account and on a test account and pins go away after clicking on my mod account, but not the test account.
In that case I can see that getting bothersome for sure and particularly on mobile.

Did you know you can actually unpin (or pin) any posts yourself as a regular user though? It’s right at the bottom of any pinned topic

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Hopefully that works on your end?

The Howto category was created after the Help section fyi - Its not a big deal, I’ll just unpin the topic in help but past experience has shown that its been hugely helpful to newcomers and people troubleshooting their most common questions and issues.
Its a really weird feeling though getting backlash for making topics and guides that were meant to actually try and help people

Affiliate links dont have any affect unless a user clicks on it and they actually like what they see and buy.
If I am linking to a commercial site/studio (which would need to be done anyways) and if users who like what they see make a purchase, would you rather that company take 100% of that rather than a tiny fraction of that to a community member’s way who took the time to give assistance and helped you find that value?
Either way you feel, I don’t think there is a need to make inflammatory remarks like that

Thats a good idea, maybe something we can look into consolidating, but then those pins will still stay up constantly, so maybe ensuring pins are automatically unpinned after reading (or informing users how to unpin topics themselves) is the better approach?

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Yes, that worked, I can finally see actual posts in some categories, thank you. Although I would rather see it as something that get automatically unpinned after reading or some FAQ about how to that, because it’s really not that obvious.

Considering that only your tutorials contains affiliate links AFAIK I think you should at least make it clear. You never know what numbers at the end of the disguised link means - it can be just affiliate link, it can be malware, it can start downloading something you don’t want to download.

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I prefer to not loose those pins just because I read them once. If it is a collection of large topics you will probably return. A single pinned topic in each section should be not a problem if it uses a short title.

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I think that search and bookmarking could fill that role though.

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Thats great to hear - thanks for confirming it helped. I’ve moved and unpin some pins to clear things up a bit more, will look into organizing things better in the near future
Sorry again for not checking how things look on mobile, but makes alot of sense how you explain it and should hopefully alleviate things a bit better now

That makes sense too - I never thought about people worrying that those links could be misdirected malware links - never crossed my mind tbh but that happens out there on the internet you’re right -
Will point that out, I appreciate the helpful suggestion

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Can this thread be renamed “solutions looking for problems”?

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Yesterday I’ve read here a post by @Weavols. Of course it got hidden and then deleted, because he had his own opinion on the topic of “perfectly matching scripts”. Maybe he should’t quote parts of DMs, but I don’t think it should be a reason to censor his post.

I will share my point of view based on what I read. I will make it as anonymous as it can get. If you want to hide this reply, go ahead, whatever.

So in the recent post @Weavols shared that he was corresponding about how to improve his scripts with one of the vendors on SLR. In the messages he got suggested to change part of his script, but the suggestion was ambiguous. It was more of a loose guideline where to improve his script, but he could do it in multiple ways, which would result in different feelings of the script. Of course it’s hard to tell which version would be “perfect” based on this suggestion.

Now to add something from me - yes the maximum theoretical speed of most interactive sex toys is 400mm/s, but the stroke lenght across those devices can vary. This means that every stroke that exceeds 400mm/s will feel the same on all those devices, but if the speed doesn’t exceed this limit the strokes will feel different.

Launch has stroke lenght of about 3 inches and Handy has stroke lenght of about 4.5 inches. On the Launch the stroke that has 300mm/s in JFS will indeed have this speed, but on the Handy the speed will reach the maximum of 400mm/s. This proves that unless you provide multiple version of the scripts for all avaliable devices the script will feel different on them. Of course you can say that you can use buttons on the Handy to reduce the strokes to 3 inches, but then is the script “perfect” afterwards? My view on the scripting was always to create the version that you don’t have to adjust after initial setup.

If you are a scripter who feels insecure about your script because it won’t be “perfect”, don’t be. As long as you enjoyed it the script is perfect for you and that what is important. If others don’t feel that way, their loss.

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@Husky - the post was flagged and deleted for several reasons - none of which are to do with opinions on script techniques whatsoever

Its pretty condescending of you to say = “Of course it got hidden and then deleted, because he had his own opinion on the topic of “perfectly matching scripts” and " If you want to hide this reply, go ahead, whatever."

Posting private conversations is not cool, and Im glad you at least recognize that.
Unsurprisingly he failed to share any other posts for context so you are chiming in on a conversation in which you have no full context - but you still had to say something like you know the whole story?

The main reason his post removed was because he continued to accuse, and aggressively attack me and basically continue his abusive behaviour from another thread.

Enough is enough

Do you really think all the words in his post were fair to say about me?

@Husky - You of all people should know, unlike Realsync, there is no current vendor distinction on SLR - you admitted yourself quality control is important, so now its not??

Should we throw out consistency out the window - Let any brand new scripter’s first time scripts uploaded without any improvements onto SLR, so you can cross your fingers it will be good for your money?
How will that look on me, and how will that benefit customers?

My ‘loose guideline’ recommendation was me trying to be nice and hearing him out, and giving him flexibility, like a good manager does.
If you read it proper, the ’ multiple ways’ was only a matter of differences in depth, and any other methods can only be done depending on the next stroke sequencw and where the action began in the first place - and I clarified all that (so no, it wasnt an ‘ambiguous’ recommendation)
Being an advanced scripter you should know that - Do you really expect first time scripters to know that or everything you’ve learned to date scripting?

Regardless, this was still a private commercial discussion outside of ES

Why are you even focusing on this in the first place?

If you disagreed with a moderator action, why din’t you reach out to @hugecat or any other @moderators first to get the truth or at least complain there?

How can you not see how hypocritical and how toxic this individual and his posts have been?

This was a scripter who wanted to join commercial scripting, didnt want to ultimately join, and should now remain a community free scripter - Is that not good for the community?
No one forced him to try to join. Why wasn’t that the end of it?

How is it good for the forum to allow him to keep talking disrepectfully like he has? What would make this place any different than RTS?

I gave him my time to try to help him out. I dont know about you but I greatly value my time, and none of us are going to live forever, so every hour counts, at least to me it does

Seriously replying to these posts are way too much a drain of my life

Some of us honestly live too much of our lives on the internet, and at the end of the day, for what?
We all need to really get outside more or look at whats really important in life, at least thats what I’m going to try to do

As of today, I am definitely stepping down as moderator - its not worth the waste of my life replying to trivial actions and needing to deal with defending myself

I expect this forum to continue to uphold all ethical and legal guidelines without me helping to moderate it - thanks for taking care of this forum @moderators