Reviews From Trotting Krips -- The Official Unofficial Relaunch

[Flack]

I set up two custom fields on the account application on my forum. One asks people what the zip code of a specific town is, and the other asks people where they heard about the forum. The first question stopped bots from applying because you have to go Google the answer. And if people left the second one blank, I just deleted them. It's all a moot point now as ever since I upgraded php, something broke on my forum and I get an error when trying to validate new users. It's on the "to do" list.

With no validation, I don't understand how the Caltrops forums aren't getting filled with spam 24x7. I just checked my blog and my spam filter has deleted 665k spam comments to date. Over the past month spammers have been signing up for email updates which... I don't even see how that benefits them. Spammers are the absolute scum of the internet, only above eBay scammers.

[The Happiness Engine]

Caltrops gets low spam because it's a one-off. No actual person looks at it and decides "huh, I could spam trackbacks all over this!" and when they do they usually get blocked pretty easily. It's just not worth the effort to script.

[Flack]

Yeah -- in retrospect, most WordPress sites get spammed because bots search for "WordPress," and most phpBB forums gets spammed because they're looking for "phpBB" in search engines. With no target hanging on its back, I suppose it could mostly fly under the radar.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

The Happiness Engine is correct - we've had a few people try over the years, but they are making a lot of effort for themselves. And for what? For WHAT?

But it's also the most dead it's ever been. I realize that people have been saying that it's been dead for 2007, but I think it really is over now. We got a lift because of Trump, but Trump is so obviously going to get impeached that I don't think there's anything left to argue about.

[Jizaboz]

Trump is so obviously going to get impeached that I don't think there's anything left to argue about.

Hopefully he doesn't go bombing aspirin factories right after he does!

[Roody_Yogurt]

First off, happy to see that RFTK is back; while I can't remember that far back enough to say for certain, I'm pretty sure it's one of the things that brought me to joltcountry.com in the first place! All these years, I've also taken a certain amount of pleasure that we reviewed Ben Croshaw's IF before he got all internet-famous. Who knows? Maybe we drove him out of IF and into the arms of success?

A page or two ago, people were discussing the usefulness (or lack thereof) of negativity in reviews. I'm sure I've regretted negative things I have written more than positive ones. Hopefully the fact that we also go to the effort of mentioning the things we liked or made us want to like something counts for something. Not that I write reviews anymore, I think I'm happiest when I stray from a "review everything" mentality and reserve that effort for games (especially unsung ones) that I think people should play. So, like pyrokinesis, people should only use negativity when it is very, very important. Or really, really entertaining.

[Tdarcos]

We got a lift because of Trump, but Trump is so obviously going to get impeached that I don't think there's anything left to argue about.

Nope. Ain't. Gonna. Happen. The House of Representatives has 2 vacancies, 197 Rep., 234 Dem. + Bernie who is a Democrat in everything except name. Impeachment requires a 2/3 supermajority, so of the 431, to get an impeachment filing requires 237. Even if every single Democrat supports it, you still need 2 Republicans to agree and I think only one has. It's actually worse according to this articloe in the New York Times the current count is only 228.

Let's not forget there is an election coming up for all of them so they will be busy with that. There might not be enough time to both run for their own office and have to worry about an impeachment fight which the Republicans might very well engage in. Filibusters, quorum calls, motions to adjourn, and other endless parliamentary tricks can be used to tie everything in knots.

Even if the filing succeeds, he still has to be tried by the senate, and in both cases of impeachment the president was acquitted.

[bryanb]

Well, I think we can officially say I've utterly BOTCHED RFTK's coverage of the 2019 IF competition now. It's October 27th and I've written a grand total of one comp game review so far. Flack is the only thing keeping us afloat at this point. The pity is I had the start of a pretty good plan in my head. Flack can attest to the fact that I had intended to post a list of all the parser games either on the forum or on the website. If I'd done that, played each game for a couple of minutes, and then posted snap descriptions of the games, everyone would know something about all the parser games entered into this year's event and I'd have had a better idea of which games were the most promising and most deserving of my time. As it turns out, no list was posted and I've only played about ten games so far. Several I do want to review at some point and are very much worth playing, but I have the nagging suspicion that I've probably missed a few of the best titles. I'll do my best to make up for lost time and play catch up, but I suspect the 2020 competition coverage will be much better. I'll definitely do my list then and I'm hoping Ben will play all the games in a hurry and tell us which one is going to win like he did with Winter Wonderland. I'm hereby dubbing 2020 the Year of Good Things! May it come soon.

In other site news, my review of Saturn's Child has become an absolute spam hub. I don't think anyone will be too surprised by that, but I find it interesting that I seem to be attracting some of the most polite spammers in history. One bot had been browsing the Internet for three hours before it came across my review. It was the best damn thing it had read in all that time apparently. I'm guessing bots can read pretty fast, too. SCORE! Another spam bot wanted to how much it would cost to have a website that looked like RFTK. Alas, I emptied the spam queue before I could tell it that my web designs, much like my love, don't cost a thing.

[Tdarcos]

Flack is the only thing keeping us afloat at this point.

So Flack is a flotation device, a life preserver as it were? I would have said he's a lifesaver only he lacks the minty goodness of Wint-o-Green or fruity goodness of cherry Life Savers.

The pity is I had the start of a pretty good plan in my head.

"Something tells me I'm into something good."
- Hermann's Hermits

If I'd done that, played each game for a couple of minutes,

"It only takes a minute, yeah..." -Tavares

I find it interesting that I seem to be attracting some of the most polite spammers in history.

That's kind of like saying, "He has the most charming personality for a child molester." Spammers are worse than serial killers, at least the serial killer leaves you alone after slaughtering and dismembering you, he doesn't sell your contact information to another serial killer so he can kill and dismember you again.

[pinback]

Paul? Can I have a quick word with you in the other room?

[Flack]

I posted a review for another comp game: The Secret of Vegibal Island
http://trottingkrips.caltrops.com/2019/ ... cher-2019/

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I posted a review for another comp game: The Secret of Vegibal Island
http://trottingkrips.caltrops.com/2019/ ... cher-2019/

I'll tweet this out today if you haven't already. I was using the #trottingkrips hashtag and my Cryptozookeeper account. I don't think it was within the rules for me to promote public reviews of comp games while the comp was going on, which is why I didn't do it for the Enceladus and MRS reviews. But I can this!

[Flack]

Is the comp over? That went fast.

[Jizaboz]

Is the comp over? That went fast.

Judging isn't over until November 15th

[Flack]

I got confused somewhere. The game I reviewed is part of the competition.

[bryanb]

I'm working on a new review so expect to see it either over the weekend or sometime next week. One reason I got sidetracked is the game I had intended to review first has multiple endings and I've had a surprisingly tough time actually getting anything other than the boring, generic ending. I've also changed my rating for this game like three times at this point in my head and I haven't entirely decided whether I like it or not. So I'm putting that one on the back burner for now and going back to a game I played through early last month.

I'm also going to start tagging my reviews and maybe write a few review comments this weekend. By the way, we got our first ever non-spam comment recently! Flack's review of The Secret of Vegibal Island is our lucky winner in the comment race, but I have to point out my review of Saturn's Child has attracted at least ten spam comments so far. I mean I wasn't exactly counting them, but ten sounds about right. If spam comments are worth 1/10 as much as a real comment, Flack and I are totally tied right now.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

The Wordpress spam is another thing that amazes me they haven't completely solved, but I don't want to sidetrack the thread. I'd kind of be OK blocking the site from the entirety of Russia and China if it meant no spam comments.

[Tdarcos]

But it's also the most dead it's ever been.

So you're saying it's... um... Paul McCartney?

[bryanb]

I'm trying to establish a house style for tagging on RFTK. So far, we seem to be agreed that a game's year of release, development system or language used, and competition entered in are all tag-worthy. I'm also trying to add tags that refer to relevant aspects of a particular game. I have Pass The Banana in my head as the ultimate tagging example. You'd of course want to tag it monkey, robot, flaming head, and banana to start off with. It's an Inform game that came out in 1999 and was entered into the 1999 IF Comp so we'd also tag it Inform, 1999, and IFComp 1999. If the tags are in any way humorous, that's a huge bonus. Also, it seems obligatory to tag any animals that might appear in a game, be they bear or pig or something else.

Is there any reason why we're NOT tagging author names? It would make sense to me to do it, but I know Robb and Rob (sorry, I always wanted to say that) are veteran taggers and probably have deep and considered reasons for all that they tag.

As is the case with all RFTK house styles, I expect any tagging rules we establish will be tweaked by Robb and completely ignored by Ben. It's good to be back!

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I am not sure what time zone it uses ... but new Trotting Krips review is up. From me, regarding my play through of The Pawn.

http://trottingkrips.caltrops.com/2019/ ... olls-1985/

I'll tweet it out in the morning.