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Kohta

Dragon BBCode Refresh

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Dragon BBCode Refresh

 

So as a new user I've been using signatures and hatcheries on multiple websites, and overall I haven't had any problems I can't handle when it comes to sickness, but I couldn't help but notice that I can add most of my friend's scrolls on hatcheries without their input (Yes I know its against the rules, but that doesn't stop someone from doing it if they want to). So I started thinking that in situations where people are "helping" you without your permission, or you've left your dragons in a forum post/signature/hatchery that you can't remember, and you're trying to stop them from getting views, it would be helpful to have a way to instead of tracking down all the places they are, to instead have a way to void the old display BBCode for the dragon. Yes I realize that I can just hide my dragons, but thats only temporarily solves the problem, it's not a sure fire fix, as soon as your dragon gets better and you unhide them, those unwanted views will be right back.

 

I figured this could be implemented by adding a Refresh button to the dragon BBCode page (this) that allows you to generate a new BBCode to display your dragon, and to prevent over use of the button include a cooldown or limited use of it. For example have a one week cooldown per dragon for the button, or have only 2 uses per dragon in one month.

 

Any further input would be appreciated on how this idea can be improved, or why it can't be used.

 

Corteo's Version of my idea.

Alternative suggestion based off of the original:

 

Add a second code to check for tampering, much like how the AP does it.  This is the way the URL looks currently:

 

[url=https://dc.net/view/1qbsS][img=https://dc.net/image/1qbsS.gif][/url]

 

My suggestion would change it to

 

[url=https://dc.net/view/1qbsS][img=https://dc.net/image/XaR25/1qbsS.gif][/url]

 

Notice the added: XaR25 before 1qbsS.gif in the img part of the BBcode.  My idea would follow the OPs idea where the user could reset the secondary code (XaR25) if they suspected floodbombing.  The site would check this value in the URL when the image is called and if the value is wrong it wouldn't count towards a view.  You could also do the same thing with clicks.

 

The main advantage to this is that the code itself doesn't change which means:

1) Users can't mine for novelty codes

2) There doesn't have to be a cooldown

3) No other dragons would be influenced

4) No changing of a dragons code so fansites etc don't break

 

One other advantage is that a viewbomber doesn't know what the extra value is and doesn't know if it changes where as they can see if a code changes simply by visiting a scroll.

 

Theoretically this change should be easier to implement too.

Edited by Kohta

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I thought that the hatcheries use the core Dragon Code, so you'd have to give the dragon a completely new code to "reset" it, plus also at least the two I use just need the username of the scroll to look at and add dragons as I see fit.

 

I'm just not sure I get it, sorry ^-^

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the two I use just need the username of the scroll to look at and add dragons as I see fit.

thats what I'm talking about, I can go add your scroll to as many hatcheries as I want, I just have to put in your scroll name, I don't need to validate that I'm you or anything, and you won't be able to remove yourself from those hatcheries, because you won't know all of the ones I put you on.

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I'm not particularly against this idea in theory. I think it's a very creative solution to an ongoing problem. However, I do have some concerns:

 

1) The BB Code is based on the dragon's code, so I'm not sure something like this is even possible. ? At the very least, it doesn't seem easy.

 

2) This could help protect from forums, but not from fansites. This would be a minor concern, though, since it's likely forums and refreshers are the main source of viewbombing.

 

3) There'd have to be protection against recycled codes being used again too soon, or you could refresh the code and save your dragon only to doom someone else's dragon when they refresh and end up with your code. It sounds like this could get a little messy.

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I'm not sure I understand the suggestion? This would only work for places where you have to use BBCode, so... Only on forums? While I guess something like this could work in theory, it sounds like a *lot* of work and coding, and as Sock said you'd have to be extra careful about recycling codes. And this won't work for fansites, which will still be a big problem....

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I'm not particularly against this idea in theory. I think it's a very creative solution to an ongoing problem. However, I do have some concerns:

 

1) The BB Code is based on the dragon's code, so I'm not sure something like this is even possible. ? At the very least, it doesn't seem easy.

 

2) This could help protect from forums, but not from fansites. This would be a minor concern, though, since it's likely forums and refreshers are the main source of viewbombing.

 

3) There'd have to be protection against recycled codes being used again too soon, or you could refresh the code and save your dragon only to doom someone else's dragon when they refresh and end up with your code. It sounds like this could get a little messy.

 

Your concerns match mine, but there is a lot I don't know about when it comes to the flexibility of BBCodes, figured I'd post it anyways to see what kind of feedback I could get in order to broaden my own understanding.

 

1) The BB Code is based on the dragon's code, so I'm not sure something like this is even possible. ? At the very least, it doesn't seem easy.

3) There'd have to be protection against recycled codes being used again too soon, or you could refresh the code and save your dragon only to doom someone else's dragon when they refresh and end up with your code. It sounds like this could get a little messy.

I was thinking about this one for a little bit, and I realized that there is some value to the codes, so just changing them would most likely upset DC members, so what I was wondering (because I don't know if its possible) would be if its possible to temporarily add a character to a code. So it would go something like this.

>My dragon is getting more veiws than usual, and I want to refresh his BBCode display link.

>I hit the display button.

>An extra character is added to my code, now making it look like this. (8Gtvv-A).

>A few weeks later I refresh again, now it looks like this. (8Gtvv-cool.gif

Then if at a later point you wish to return your code to normal, you would have a second button thats says "Revert", that would allow you to change your code back to normal, but only after a certain amount of time, as to prevent spam.

 

Now if things were done the above way, you would have to limit each dragon to having only 2 or so refreshes, and two reverts to match it, or the spam of it would be too much. Now I'm not sure how hard this system would be to implement, but I figured that a user changing a dragon's code would be similar to how on some websites a user can manually change their own username. So if it actually worked similar to that, then I don't see this as being impossible to implement.

 

2) This could help protect from forums, but not from fansites. This would be a minor concern, though, since it's likely forums and refreshers are the main source of viewbombing.

I'm not 100% sure about that, it could actually affect some fansites. One of the fansite hatcheries I'm using works off of imputing the code of your dragon. I'm not sure if changing the code would remove a dragon from the site, but its a possibility, though I do understand that most fansites just read the scroll, and not the code, so I'm not really sure how much it would affect them.

Edited by Kohta

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BBCode wouldn't be the problem, I would think; that's just a kind of script that people use to embed images or links onto a site. It sounds like you're suggesting having the dragon's actual ID be changed, and admittedly it's a really creative idea - haven't heard that one before - but it does pose some problems. Bear with me here, I'm just guessing how the site works... TJ could come in and turn all of my speculation on its head. xd.png He does that sometimes.

 

So, if the site works the way I assume it does, then the ID for a dragon is randomly generated once that egg entity "exists"; if it stops existing, the ID is deleted so it can be used by another entity that is generated later. IDs are unique like names, and I imagine they're tracked by the site, so if the ID changes the site would think it's a whole other entity, which could complicate things like raising the egg/hatchling. Say if TJ could pull it off though (it's certainly not impossible), my biggest concern is echoed by Sock: if someone refreshes his code, and ends up with your old code, does his egg then end up being the displaced one which is just passing the problem on? A cooldown of the ID itself might work, but I don't think the site keeps track of IDs that closely, since everything the site does takes up RAM on a server somewhere which raises the chances of lag; having the site keep track of a bunch of IDs on cooldown timers before deletion seems like a bad idea, in that respect.

 

Another thing to note is that this might not do what you want it to do... Fansites work by taking IDs of dragons and embedding them into a rotator or scroller of sorts, then adding links to the images, so that they can gain views and clicks. If you change your dragon's ID though you would have to re-add them to every site you wanted, which can be a pain. It may only be a couple of clicks but people can be really, really lazy. xd.png When we have hoops to jump through we eliminate as many as we can so we don't have to deal with them. A minor thing, but something to mention.

 

The idea itself though sounds really good, so I think you're on to something here! I know I sound really skeptical and doubtful, but I do think you should continue ironing this out; it might turn out as a solution to the ongoing viewbombing problem, which is great, even if it only helps a little!

Edited by skwerl56767

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Alternative suggestion based off of the original:

 

Add a second code to check for tampering, much like how the AP does it. This is the way the URL looks currently:

 

[url=https://dc.net/view/1qbsS][img=https://dc.net/image/1qbsS.gif][/url]

 

My suggestion would change it to

 

[url=https://dc.net/view/1qbsS][img=https://dc.net/image/XaR25/1qbsS.gif][/url]

 

Notice the added: XaR25 before 1qbsS.gif in the img part of the BBcode. My idea would follow the OPs idea where the user could reset the secondary code (XaR25) if they suspected viewbombing. The site would check this value in the URL when the image is called and if the value is wrong it wouldn't count towards a view. You could also do the same thing with clicks.

 

The main advantage to this is that the code itself doesn't change which means:

1) Users can't mine for novelty codes

2) There doesn't have to be a cooldown

3) No other dragons would be influenced

4) No changing of a dragons code so fansites etc don't break

 

One other advantage is that a viewbomber doesn't know what the extra value is and doesn't know if it changes where as they can see if a code changes simply by visiting a scroll.

 

Theoretically this change should be easier to implement too.

Edited by Corteo

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Alternative suggestion based off of the original:

 

Add a second code to check for tampering, much like how the AP does it. This is the way the URL looks currently:

 

[url=https://dc.net/view/1qbsS][img=https://dc.net/image/1qbsS.gif][/url]

 

My suggestion would change it to

 

[url=https://dc.net/view/1qbsS][img=https://dc.net/image/XaR25/1qbsS.gif][/url]

 

Notice the added: XaR25 before 1qbsS.gif in the img part of the BBcode. My idea would follow the OPs idea where the user could reset the secondary code (XaR25) if they suspected floodbombing. The site would check this value in the URL when the image is called and if the value is wrong it wouldn't count towards a view. You could also do the same thing with clicks.

 

The main advantage to this is that the code itself doesn't change which means:

1) Users can't mine for novelty codes

2) There doesn't have to be a cooldown

3) No other dragons would be influenced

4) No changing of a dragons code so fansites etc don't break

 

One other advantage is that a viewbomber doesn't know what the extra value is and doesn't know if it changes where as they can see if a code changes simply by visiting a scroll.

 

Theoretically this change should be easier to implement too.

Thats more along the lines of what I was actually thinking, I just don't really have the knowledge of how the site and BBCodes work exactly in order to put it into words. Thanks for giving me a better idea of how it can be implemented. I'm going to quote your take on the idea in the original post, as to make sure people read it when they come in, I hope you don't mind.

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Yeah I don't mind. And I should say that I don't know for sure how the site is set up, this is just based on an educated guess.

Edited by Corteo

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