: I expect you'll have to keep a list of all these, plus wrangling all the errors (they'll still forget to ping us, guaranteed), plus answering all the other questions, but I do hope this will help cut down on the work.

You could also keep a list of who needs achievements. Like "Ping #virusbites and up to nine? four?* of these eager volunteers: ..." Er. I'm thinking now more like 1st Post: "Ping #virusbites"; 2nd Post: "... or a few of these eager achievement seekers:" which would be just like your list last year, but like three people per strain instead of fifty.

In other words, ping everyone or a few select volunteers, not double-ping everyone. I am possibly biased, though, because I like pings (while I do sometimes lose specific pings in the press, it's still easier than scrolling back through five pages of posts looking for someone who still has a "bite" button, in case they didn't pick my name to ping).

• I can't remember how many pings you can put in one post... (the word "ping" is in this post ten times, though!)

[edit]I dig the vials suggestion, editing that now. Also, dying of anticipation for these drawings: is it going to be The Avel sporting each infection, or a different characters for each?

@/krae How useful they end up being depends on the number or people who end up joining the groups. If membership is generally low, then people will be more dependent on the lists anyway if people aren't responding the group pings fast enough. We'll probably have more questions concerning the ping groups too, but if people get bit faster, it'll probably be worth it.

At least I have help. :P

This is also assuming that I have the time off and I'm the one who makes the thread in the first place. I plan on asking for a week off around the time, since I doubt I'll find a job in my field by the time Survival rolls around.

[edit]

Probably different characters just based of the strain. I feel like my HA becomes less mascot like when I (ironically) have a skin on.

Maybe there should be a 'formula' for the ping groups? Like # bite-classic # bite-furious-torn etc. Easy for newer users to find the right strain, and also not encroach on existing ping groups?

As for activity/people using the groups, I think there would be enough people, assuming you allow the 'general public' to join (aka anyone who has that skin available and could bite for it) Last year I remember a lot of people set up lists in their signatures for which strains they have and can bite for, and I think a series of easy to use/remember ping groups would allow them to not have to put all that text in their sigs.

...omg #lovesuckme

• actually, this would give us both { - }, and { - } which is probably not a good idea.

- true, that's part of why I would suggest using the names that appear on the infection page rather than the user-appointed strain names as they appear on the plushies etc. That way we could make ping groups for new strains as well, before the official names get settled on. Some of them get long too, but we could say bite +first word of infection page adjective, which IMO would be pretty simple. Not sure what the character limit is on ping groups, but I'm sure we could find a way to work within it.

biteclassi ; bitefuriou ; bitepale ; biteromant biteeyecat ; bitegrowth ; bitejoy biteheartw ; bitelight; bitemythic ; bitesoft ; bitethough bitenatura ; biteplayfu ; bitereveal ; bitesaccha ; bitestatue ; bitesweet bitecoasta ; bitefulfil ; bitelumine ; bitepowerf ; bitetropic ; biteshocki biteenamou ; biteexuber ; biteclaspi ; biteglowin bitehealin ; bitedissol ; bitesporou ; biteencomp bitedry ; bitelongev ; bitefortit ; bitesong (by year) (bold for no reason what so ever)

I think we prefer to use the names of the skins, though I might have just assumed. Easiest to request what you want, easiest for volunteer to fulfill. If they're picking what they want off that list, they've generally paid for it and have come to us by mistake (though a few do come in hopes of speeding the first stage infection)...

Personally, if I had it my way, the descriptors would be gone. I always found it easier to remember the user appointed ones, especially since those names are the ones that appear in the wardrobe.

I do like some consistency though, and we don't want there to be any confusion with currently existing groups.

It makes me wonder if we should have kind of poll up for the general public to vote on, since they would be the ones using those pings.

: I don't mind there being a bit of variety, especially for ease of recognition. It's not like we're not going to post the big honking list of them for everyone anyway, right?

We could def. go post something out in General Discussion but nothing is going to stop us herding lost sheep next year. A lot of the people who turn up bewildered in the clinic with a list of Those Same Questions (and even some of our volunteers) barely use the forums except during Survival. I never did either until y'alls sucked me in.

You're welcome!

Now that I think about it more though I think might have the right idea. Starting with bite hopefully makes it obvious that it's part of our group and we can take it from there.

there are several vial viruses so, I don't know, but I think they should have their own ping too. I have some of these viruses but not all so I won't know which one is wanted?

Hardly anybody asked for them last year, since just using a vial was cheaper than the guarantee infection and you got an achievement out of it. I remember only Lotus going up to 5mill for some reason. I'm not sure there's enough demand to warrant each of them having their own group.

The person would just have to specific about it, I suppose.

maybe when it's time, to insert in the description of these viruses to be specific in the ones they want? I don't know...

If we're going to go the formula route, we'd better just include all of them. Let's not go with standardized tags and then have different rules for one year of the VIP.

waffle-edit: I'm still not sure about using those damned VIP code-words, though. Nobody can figure those out, least of all me. I'd have to look up which skin I was putting on every time someone pinged me.

oh man i am envisioning being swamped with notifications after being offline for a few hours, even worse than before, if i sign up for all my groups and keep notifs on and if some people are pinging individuals as well as groups >< but i can see the simplicity of using the group ping instead of pinging a few people randomly and hoping they're online, so i guess i'll just see how it goes.

and pleeeease do buttbruise hahaha XD it's perfect, but then again, not that consistent with the virus names ;n;

what about ?

I updated the list with an attempt at standardization. Some of them are still awful, though... suggestions still welcome. https://subeta.net/forums.php/gotopost/62542891

You've done a damned good job there!

Even so, I prefer it your previous way. Reserving 4 of the 10 letters for NVLB makes the strain names so abbreviated that I had to stop and think for most of them. It does seem sensible to have a system like NVLBname, but do we really need that over clarity of strain?

Also, the tragedy of no buttbruise!

I'd change these two: nvlbb-rot -- brnrot nvlbhtburn -- hrtbrn

I still want to keep the list of individuals. We can't let people think they have to join a group (or several) to participate in biting - that's a big deterrent. I know I would just make my own thread if I thought that was the case. I'm afraid that without the individual lists, we would lose the community feel that we had last year.

People in the groups don't have to be on the individual lists, although I don't want people getting missed because somebody didn't ping the group, or if people pinged the group and not the individuals. I'm not sure how I would organize it. e.e

If we're still keeping a full list of biters, there wouldn't be much benefit to ping groups.

And respectfully, I disagree that ping groups would be a deterrent to participation. You can sign up and quit by yourself, instead of asking to be put on a list. You don't have to decide whether it's worth it to bother the admin on the slim chance you get picked off a 50+ volunteer strain list. You can turn pings on and off when you want, instead of asking someone to put you on and off the list (or just deleting millions of pings when you get back) and just quit the ping group if you're done volunteering.

Clicking on a link to join a ping group (even several, even a bunch) doesn't seem harder than making a post asking to be put on a list..?

The only thing the community would lose would be posts about joining/quitting The List... and even then, we'd still have a Small List for achievers.

tl;dr ¡¿Porque los dos?!

Maybe that's just the introvert in me speaking.

I suppose you have a point. I'm just worried about trying to get people on board in both regards (getting people to use the ping groups and getting people to join) when getting people to sign up for a strain is hard sometimes.

I don't want to be in a situation where we end up with not people on lists and not even people in the groups at the same time because people are confused or unwilling.

At least in the first year, we should probably have both anyway while transitioning from one system to another and to populate the groups. No matter how much we explain, it will be a little rocky. Like I said, people in the groups don't have to be on the list, so having less people to ping might encourage others to just use the group ping.