Dev Tracker

[Etaew]

Hey guys, I find these forums quite daunting with the numerous sections and threads. So I haven't really used them apart from searching when things go wrong.

I really wanted to stay in touch with what developers were saying, and couldn't find a dev tracker. So I wrote one.

It was tricky because not only does the forum require you to be logged in to access forum posts, but it also has a new account system tied into the forums. But finally my test cases started producing results today so I can release this for you guys.

Hope you find it as useful as I am.

You can find it at: http://etaew.net/pdx.

I am looking for:
- general feedback
- suggestions for improvements
- other developer accounts to watch
- making sure developer accounts have accurate descriptions

 

[Etaew]

Just an update on who I'm tracking and the information I have for them viewable from: http://www.etaew.net/pdx/authors.php

Also I'm not that much of a stalker, I met many of you folks during the Miami trip. However it would be really useful to get the position and groups sorted for each user, as well as add any that are missing.

User: A_Spec
Position: Livestreams
Group:

User: Balor
Position: Studio Manager / Design
Group: pds | hoi4 |

User: Besuchov
Position: EUIV
Group: eu4 |

User: Birken
Position: Runemaster
Group: rm |

User: BjornB
Position: Community Manager
Group: |

User: Captain Gars
Position: Mods
Group: |

User: Darkrenown
Position: script/research/design
Group: hoi4 |

User: Death6
Position: East vs West
Group: evw |

User: Doomdark
Position: Crusader Kings
Group: ck2 |

User: Escher
Position: Magicka: Wizard Wars
Group: mww |

User: Fatshark_Marten
Position: Designer
Group: |

User: ForzaA
Position: QA
Group: |

User: Goosecreature
Position: Dev
Group: |

User: grekulf
Position: UI
Group: hoi4 |

User: Groogy
Position: Dev
Group: |

User: Guraan
Position: Programmer
Group: hoi4 |

User: Johan
Position: Studio Manager
Group: pds |

User: Kallocain
Position: Producer
Group: |

User: MalinS
Position: PR
Group: pdi |

User: MrNibbles
Position: QA
Group: |

User: Mrop
Position: Dev
Group: |

User: Pallidum
Position: DLC Manager
Group: |

User: Petra_Pdx
Position:
Group: pdi |

User: podcat
Position: Hearts of Iron 4 Lead / Design / Programming
Group: hoi4 |

User: Regina
Position: PR Manager
Group: pdi |

User: Rufo
Position: QA
Group: |

User: Shams
Position: Corporate
Group: pdi |

User: Sideburnout
Position: 2D Art
Group: hoi4 |

User: SolSara
Position: Dev
Group: |

User: Susana
Position: Marketing
Group: pdi |

User: Tegus
Position: Dev
Group: |

User: The Witch-King
Position: Dev
Group: |

User: TheLetterZ
Position: QA
Group: |

User: Wiz
Position: AI
Group: hoi4 |

 

[Jasonkp]

This is great, thanks!

 

[AndrewT]

I think it would be useful to see portraits next to each author - most or all of those people should have images available in the forums here.

 

[Etaew]

I think it would be useful to see portraits next to each author - most or all of those people should have images available in the forums here.

Thanks for the suggestion, yeah I could go through manually and add them to save me some programming work.

Edit: Had to come back and say, the posts page and authors pages look awesome now with those avatars

 

[AndrewT]

I meant their actual photos, not forum avatars.

 

[Etaew]

I meant their actual photos, not forum avatars.

Oh well that is something different entirely, that would mean I would have to add their real names, and the addition of photos I just think that is a little too personal. It depends if that is something the team is okay with.

 

[Etaew]

Added the following devs, still looking for more, as well as their titles and associated projects.

aesk
Producer
Groups: wl2

Jazzhole
Music
Groups:

JorgenB
Senior Producer
Groups:

StevenW
Trailer Producer
Groups:

TotalyMoo
Community Developer
Groups:

 

[Etaew]

Received a list of almost 200 users to monitor from PDX, so added them, won't list them. Now I just need to filter them by company / game, figure out titles and inactive ones.

 

[Sarius1997]

Wow. Epic. I was really waiting for something like this.

 

[jakt]

Looks good.

Suggestion: if there is any quoted material that a developer included in their post, include the quote.

That will also mean changing the layout. I think that the entirety of the post should be included.

you could also go about it another way; show all posts, and have them tagged with things it could be included with.

This isn't to say I don't like it, I do. really. I was surprised they didn't have one.

 

[Etaew]

Suggestion: if there is any quoted material that a developer included in their post, include the quote.

I want to do this, but the page where I gather the information only displays the bit that I show. If I read further into each of the links when it updates it will take longer for the update process, which has to run pretty frequently as it fills up with all the dev accounts on the forum.

 

[jakt]

I want to do this, but the page where I gather the information only displays the bit that I show. If I read further into each of the links when it updates it will take longer for the update process, which has to run pretty frequently as it fills up with all the dev accounts on the forum.

are you running a search on each user, or are you finding posts with the "threadbit.dot.pdx.new" class? searching for users's posts seems like a lot to do, because it's you going to get the data. paradox already pushes out information on whether a thread contains, somewhere in it, a response from a developer, capturing and using that i think could make it cheaper

actually now that i think of it, the thread gets updated as "new" even if pdx never posts in it again anyway, so you'd be searching through that information and wouldn't be cheaper at all...

 

[Etaew]

are you running a search on each user

Yup, this is why it does it in 15 minute intervals, it could do it every 60s (forum restriction) but that would be a disruptive browsing experience. At the moment it's processing a complete queue of about 115 devs, from a list of 200 that I've narrowed it down by removing users that haven't posted in a year. I'll be refining that more as it fills up the post history and once the amount of requests decrease I can then add more requests for the extra information.

 

[Raph]

Great initiative, I often find myself wading through droves of irrelevant posts to find out what devs are actually posting on the matter.

 

[Etaew]

Great initiative, I often find myself wading through droves of irrelevant posts to find out what devs are actually posting on the matter.

Thanks, although it's dominated by the EU4 multiplayer thread recently, they are mostly all in on that too. So there is still an element of irrelevant posting for some of the teams, but at least it's all directly from them.

 

[AgisTournas]

Very nice initiative. THANX!

 

[Etaew]

Thanks. I am adding the forum information for the future post updates, so after the collection is complete enough I will switch it over so that the specific game trackers will only track posts in their subforum, clearing things up a bit.

 

[Etaew]

Fixed an issue where in some circumstances the dev tracker couldn't figure out what forum a thread was in, this was due to requiring being logged in to view certain information.

I've now updated the script with a method to get this. 1124 threads in the backlog for update.

 

[Raph]

Fixed an issue where in some circumstances the dev tracker couldn't figure out what forum a thread was in, this was due to requiring being logged in to view certain information.

I've now updated the script with a method to get this. 1124 threads in the backlog for update.

There have been some reassignments among the devs that you might want to add.