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

[hugecat]

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.

[Realcumber]

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:

@Astramax

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.

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?

@Astramax

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

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

[Astramax]

@hugecat

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.

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.

@Realcumber

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

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?

[Lucifie]

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, …)

[Realcumber]

@Astramax

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.

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

Hopefully that works on your end?

@Astramax

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:

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

@Astramax

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?

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

@Lucifie

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.

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?

[Astramax]

@Realcumber

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

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.

@Realcumber

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

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.

[Lucifie]

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.

[hugecat]

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

[Realcumber]

@Astramax

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.

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

@Astramax

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.

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

[anon39026496]

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

[Husky]

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.

[Realcumber]

@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

[Husky]

@Realcumber

@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??

Now you are taking my reply out of context. I focused on the part of the message about perfect scripts, because there are people here who feel insecure about sharing their scripts, because they don’t think their work is perfect enough.

I wrote that I don’t agree with sharing parts of your conversation, but I can see why he did that as this is something that I did when you hidden my script once. Don’t understand why you always play a victim card, because you were taking advantage of your position here to defend your point of view. And hiding and deleting the posts/replies here is not that apparent and you can easily miss it resulting in inability to defend your statements.

As you wrote there are always two sides of the story and as always everyone have their point of view.

Edit: I know he is really offensive towards you, but jealousy is very powrful thing and fighting it with fire can give much worse effects. I know he took lots of your precious time and gave you false signals about joining slr and I don’t approve it. Tbh a good tutorial is what’s needed for people who start scripting to show them the right way of doing it. This way you can just point at the parts of the tutorial and say: “hey, this part right here could be done like this part in the tutorial”. You don’t have to make it public, but maybe it would save you some time.

[Realcumber]

Thanks for the edit reply @Husky

Paid scripts should always be held to a higher standard than to free scripts - not the other way around

I’ve found one on one help is the most effective way to train - that said I still have things in place for the usual questions
This is the first time I’ve encountered this behaviour - most guys are appreciative and happy to learn what I can show them, and again I can only put up with so much.

Either way, me no longer being moderator should help avoid conflicts of interest and hopefully resolve issues like this going forward

[anon99698472]

Edible arrangements

[HandyM1]

A suggestion I haven’t found yet.

I found this site because I just ordered The Handy, and I want to find out what’s available. I might try scripting. I bought my first PC in 1976, and wrote a lot of business and scientific software in the days before windows.

But this is all very new to me.

Maybe an introduction to the page, with an overview of the kinds of resources available here for a beginner.

In any case, thanks for making this available.

[hugecat]

there’s this About EroScripts [NEW USERS START HERE]

let me know if this is what you’re looking for and if it just wasn’t easy to find

[HandyM1]

That looks helpful.

Maybe pin a thread with a topic like “Beginners START HERE” up top, or send the link to people right after they sign up.

Again, thanks for having this site.

[quiffed1]

Thought I would share my view as an occasional scripter. I know I was in a similar position last year on the RTS forum and guides for beginners were not easily found.

I find I always assume people have the same level of knowledge as me going in which can make me assume the answers to questions are obvious just because I now know them. A beginners thread would be helpful I think especially to help people get started with the basics of playing scripts.

[sobolsdaemon1]

I would also like to briefly write my opinion on this here.
I’ve been here regularly as a scripter for a few weeks now, and looking back, I’m a little annoyed that I only managed to find my way here so late.
But let’s start at the beginning: I bought “TheHandy” 1-2 months ago and came across eroscripts by chance. But since not much is really visible as an unregistered user, I closed the tab again and looked elsewhere. It wasn’t until weeks later that I found the site again and set up an account. I understand that there is a reason for that “Gate” and the need to have the User register a account. A small suggestion: could a kind of “best off” or better still “random script” be published in the public sector? Simply a post in which 3-5 randomly selected scripts that have been well received by the community are also shown to unregistered users. On other websites something like this is known as “featured content”. This way new Users would be drawn in and see “oh, this is user created? Screw it, I like that, lets create an account.”
The tutorials for creating scripts helped me a lot. nevertheless it was a pain to start scripting. After I published my first script here, not much happened. No criticism, nothing. Therefore I decided to write to some users who had given my script a like. I have not received an answer from most of them to this day. (That’s a big problem I have had with this community since then regularly. I write PM and get no answers). Fortunately, I didn’t let that get me down and carried on. Now, I see scripting almost as something relaxing, almost meditative.
The note in the template on how to get a download counter was only recently added and is VERY important to me. That way I get at least a little feedback on how my work is being used. Particularly exciting are videos in which I have created different scripts for the same video. It’s interesting to see, what script is downloaded more (it is almost always the first linked version. even if this is inferior in some way, (RAW version, only toy movements and no hand, …) ). But back to the question of how to make the community friendlier to new scripters: scripting takes a lot of time. I think almost all of us know that. It’s a shame that so many really only consume, but don’t even manage to press the Like button, let alone write a comment. Some kind of “reviewer” or “mentor” for new scripters might be useful. I know that is a lot of work, but I think it would have helped me a lot in the beginning if I had got a little “yup, very good. Here’s what you can do better: …” from someone who obviously knows what he is talking about. Unfortunately I don’t have a real approach on how to realise this, but I just wanted to throw my experience into the ether.