Here's your chance to affect the future of Hard Drop!

[Parkzer]

Hi humans,

<br/><br/>Your neighborhood Parkzer here, and I need a bit of your help.

<br/><br/>I’m working with myndzi on a little gift for the community. In order to make this as awesome as possible, I need to do a little bit of research.

<br/><br/>I’ve come up with a list of questions that will help us gather information about Hard Drop that we can’t otherwise find just by looking at statistical data. If you would like to contribute, feel free to answer any or all of the following questions.

<br/><br/><ol>
<li>What are your opinions about the home page? Does anything need to be added or removed? Does anything need more or less emphasis in terms of size or placement?

<li>If off-topic boards (such as “League of Legends,” “Starcraft II,” “Guild Wars,” etc.) were created, would you be interested and/or willing to participate?

<li>Would you be more motivated to participate in tournaments and events hosted by Hard Drop if participants received special forum badges under their avatar to appear in all their posts (i.e. “Tetris Tournament Online II: Participant,” “Tetris Tournament Online II: Quarterfinalist,” “Tetris Tournament Online II: World Champion,” etc.)?

<li>Would you be more motivated to donate to Hard Drop if donators received special forum badges under their avatar (i.e. “Supporter”)?

<li>What are some features that you would like Hard Drop to implement?

<li>How often do you use the wiki? Do you have any motivation to contribute to the wiki? How would you feel if the wiki was removed?

<li>How often do you use the “Records” feature? How would you feel if the feature was removed, and was replaced by profile fields where you could fill in your stats (for 40 lines sprint, 40 lines dig race, etc.)?

<li>Do you have any opinions about anything related to Hard Drop not covered by the previous questions?<br/><font color='red'>Edit: If you have any opinions regarding moderation or the administration, feel free to post them here under this question, because it is very relevant to the changes on which we're working. I understand that people have historically gotten some sort of suspension or ban if they talk about moderation in general discussion. However, as long as your response is honest, reasonable, and justified, and does not include any personal attacks, I will ensure you receive no punishment for sharing your opinions (this applies to responses in this thread only).</font>
</ol>

<br/><img src='https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-BrftUH57i4Y/UM_1hMsDzEI/AAAAAAAAF8g/hPn--7rBVoc/s356/badgeexample.png'/>

<br/><br/>Although I will not be responding to each response individually, I will be reading and thinking about every single one. So, don’t feel like your opinions will be overlooked, because they definitely will not.

<br/><br/>Regardless of how many questions you answered, I appreciate your contribution.

<br/><br/>Thanks,

[Confugal]

1. It's fine.

2. Nope.

3. Don't think my opinion counts for this, unless the option to play tournaments with ARS is opened up.

4. I think it would be a good incentive for some, but personally that badge would deter me from donating. A donation is a donation, there should be no special reward.

6. Back when I still played multiplayer forms of Tetris, the wiki was an immense help since I was obsessed with learning as many T-Spin setups as possible. The information there is sufficient; any information a person doesn't understand, the person probably shouldn't be using.

However, there is a void in terms of information related to TGM, although there are links outside of HD which suffice. I myself couldn't contribute anything to it (TGM-wise) since I use an unorthodox playing style and suck at all modes of Texmaster other than Sudden Ti.

For Arena-type Tetris, I really don't think there's much which can really be added to the wiki. If it were to be removed, it would definitely be missed.

7. Never use the archaic records page and I think any change made to it would be an improvement.

8. NEEDS MORE ARS

[salami_pastrami]

1. No
2. sure why not
3&4. No. I think badges would be a good idea for mods and maybe boasting rights but that's about it. If you are going to have them they better be for special things that tell others the person is special. (aka don't spam up the place with pointless crap!)
5. The men of hardrop calendar lol
6.I don't personally use the wiki often but I don't want it to go. I know people who come to harddrop that aren't members just to read the wiki.
7. I never use records.
8. We need more things going on.

[ManOfMiracles]

1. Looks fine as it is.

2.I would participate in a subforum related to my interests but this forum already gets so little users in the first place.

3. I would me more inclined to join said tourneys, even though I would join either way.

4. Yes, I would be more inclined to donate.

5. I would like customizable forum name colors

6.I used the wiki when I was a nub but I have no use for it now and I would not contribute to it but I would feel empty if it was removed.

7. I don't use the records page but I think whatever you submit to it should go under your badges(if that was implemented).

8. Nothing atm.

[Kitaru]

How often do you use the wiki?

Very often.

Do you have any motivation to contribute to the wiki?

There are at least three forks of what is mostly the same darn wiki: Tetris Concept's, Hard Drop's, and *shudder* Wikia's. Constantly merging work between just the two important wikis (TC/HD) is kind of a pain. As a result of this reduplication of effort, my desire to put things on the wiki is greatly reduced.

I know Edo and some other users I have talked to feel the same way. We've actually lost potential articles as a result; there has been material prepared for upload that didn't end up getting submitted to either public wiki, but the aforementioned documents have since been rendered inaccessible and would have to be reproduced.

How would you feel if the wiki was removed?

Personally, I think if it were possible to merge with TC's so we have one great resource that is easily accessible from either site. So, we should keep the wiki tab and, one way or another, make one big awesome wiki from what we have on both sites.

[pizzapizza]

• What are your opinions about the home page? Does anything need to be added or removed? Does anything need more or less emphasis in terms of size or placement?
  
• If off-topic boards (such as “League of Legends,” “Starcraft II,” “Guild Wars,” etc.) were created, would you be interested and/or willing to participate?
  
• Would you be more motivated to participate in tournaments and events hosted by Hard Drop if participants received special forum badges under their avatar to appear in all their posts (i.e. “Tetris Tournament Online II: Participant,” “Tetris Tournament Online II: Quarterfinalist,” “Tetris Tournament Online II: World Champion,” etc.)?
  
• Would you be more motivated to donate to Hard Drop if donators received special forum badges under their avatar (i.e. “Supporter”)?
  
• What are some features that you would like Hard Drop to implement?
  
• How often do you use the wiki? Do you have any motivation to contribute to the wiki? How would you feel if the wiki was removed?
  
• How often do you use the “Records” feature? How would you feel if the feature was removed, and was replaced by profile fields where you could fill in your stats (for 40 lines sprint, 40 lines dig race, etc.)?
  
• Do you have any opinions about anything related to Hard Drop not covered by the previous questions?

4. Its up to the mods to decide that
5. no
6.not really
7. not really
8. yes about what color my username should be for each person's username

[myndzi]

For the public record, I'm all for a combined community wiki, and willing to pay hosting for it to happen.

A problem with tournament victory badges is that there will be a pretty small set of users who will wind up with them. Also, the more banners you add, the sooner it'll get out of hand. I like the idea of public recognition for achievements and contributions however, so some mix is my ideal. For example, personal achievements rather than competitive achievements (record milestones and the like.) This also fits in well with a more user-focused approach to records and the like, which I am also for.

(pizza: I converted your quote to bbcode for legibility)

[arf]

For the public record, I'm all for a combined community wiki, and willing to pay hosting for it to happen.

A problem with tournament victory badges is that there will be a pretty small set of users who will wind up with them. Also, the more banners you add, the sooner it'll get out of hand. I like the idea of public recognition for achievements and contributions however, so some mix is my ideal. For example, personal achievements rather than competitive achievements (record milestones and the like.) This also fits in well with a more user-focused approach to records and the like, which I am also for.

(pizza: I converted your quote to bbcode for legibility)

I personally like the idea of badges as I feel like it would give the members here more "color". New and non-active members may also be motivated to become more active to get such badges, and those with more impressive badges can appear more reputable to newer members that may not be familiar with all the users. Although I do understand why you say that only a few members will earn the tournament victory badges and it could get out of hand, I do think there's a possible solution for this.

I've been playing a lot of xbox live lately, specifically halo. Anyways, throughout each game you play, you earn a certain number of medals and they can pile up really quickly. You get a medal for each kill, headshot, double-kill, multi-kill, assist, etc. However, after the game ends, it only shows like four of your most impressive medals earned.

I just think it'd be fun to have a lot of different kinds of badges and maybe all the badges can be shown off on a personal profile page and maybe perhaps limit the number of badges shown under avatars on forum posts to their four most impressive badges. And instead of just giving badges for tournaments, badges could also be based on level of contribution, support as parkzer mentioned, and even team badges. (wishful thinking, go STARS!)

I'll probably add more opinions later regarding the other things mentioned, I just wanted to say this for now.

[myndzi]

I like that suggestion. People will be included and at the same time have goals to reach for.

[riisssaaa]

1. I like the homepage. there nothing wrong with it. It's not stretched out or overly clutteredeverything is accessible from homepage. It serves its purpose well enough

2. Probably not. Additional forum sections would seem rather pointless. It'd just be kind of disjointed? D:

3. Having little forum badges would be nice. Its a good motivator since... We all like bragging to be honest. And the more modest the bragging form seems the better! Like Myndzi said it can become clutter so they could go on a users profile whilst a few selected ones can be shown of in forums. There is space underneath the avatars after all.

4. Before we talk about donating... Where did that donate button go to? There wont be donations unless there's an accessible roadsign to the donation centre.

5. To be honest I'm the type who likes to learn things for herself so I don't use the wiki often. That being said It wouldn't be a good thing to remove the wiki. Wikis are good for reference and I'm sure people do go to the wikis to double check things. That aside you may not lose the wiki articles (probably go into storage and become accessible yes?) but these articles have been written by someone who spent lots of their spare time and effort on it. It wouldn't be nice to throw a sheet over it.

6. The records feature can be kept as is surely? Profile fields to show off achievements are good but thy serve a different purpose: to show-off. The records feature is there so that one can keep track of their progress and compare it to other people. If we have to surf from profile to compare our progresss it would be rather inefficient.

7. Harddop needs more colour.  (And PIZZAAZZ)

[myndzi]

A point of clarification: you guys don't have to worry about things being destroyed, the questions as I see it are more about the site structure and how people use it. There are many other ways these things can be implemented, and this feedback will help determine which ones are worth exploring. The wiki data isn't going to disappear though, and user scoring and ranking will play some role or other for sure.

[XaeL]

<li>What are your opinions about the home page? Does anything need to be added or removed? Does anything need more or less emphasis in terms of size or placement?

no

<li>If off-topic boards (such as “League of Legends,” “Starcraft II,” “Guild Wars,” etc.) were created, would you be interested and/or willing to participate?

yes but no one else will.


<li>Would you be more motivated to participate in tournaments and events hosted by Hard Drop if participants received special forum badges under their avatar to appear in all their posts (i.e. “Tetris Tournament Online II: Participant,” “Tetris Tournament Online II: Quarterfinalist,” “Tetris Tournament Online II: World Champion,” etc.)?

no

<li>Would you be more motivated to donate to Hard Drop if donators received special forum badges under their avatar (i.e. “Supporter”)?
no

<li>What are some features that you would like Hard Drop to implement?
Probably needs a browser-based tetris game on the homepage for nubs to go to.


<li>How often do you use the wiki? Do you have any motivation to contribute to the wiki? How would you feel if the wiki was removed?
People use it when they start. i Added a lot of crap so that it looks like i'm a main contrib but i'm not lols


<li>How often do you use the “Records” feature? How would you feel if the feature was removed, and was replaced by profile fields where you could fill in your stats (for 40 lines sprint, 40 lines dig race, etc.)?
Only for 40L

<li>Do you have any opinions about anything related to Hard Drop not covered by the previous questions?
</ol>
in b4 myndzi complaints

[Rosti_LFC]

What are your opinions about the home page? Does anything need to be added or removed? Does anything need more or less emphasis in terms of size or placement?

Already said everything I think about the front page in this post. Literally nothing I commented on there has been changed since I made those comments, so I'll just stick to them.

If off-topic boards (such as “League of Legends,” “Starcraft II,” “Guild Wars,” etc.) were created, would you be interested and/or willing to participate?

Would participate, but I think it's a shit idea. We can't even sustain decent single topics on subjects like that, so I have no idea how we'd manage to keep subforums active. Unless we're going to completely strip away Tetris specialisation and go with just being a general gaming forum I don't see how we're big enough to branch out into subforums about individual non-Tetris topics.

Would you be more motivated to participate in tournaments and events hosted by Hard Drop if participants received special forum badges under their avatar to appear in all their posts (i.e. “Tetris Tournament Online II: Participant,” “Tetris Tournament Online II: Quarterfinalist,” “Tetris Tournament Online II: World Champion,” etc.)?

Would you be more motivated to donate to Hard Drop if donators received special forum badges under their avatar (i.e. “Supporter”)?

Doubt either would have much impact on me, but I could see it appealing to other people a little more.

How often do you use the wiki? Do you have any motivation to contribute to the wiki? How would you feel if the wiki was removed?

I don't use it at all - everything I need is on the TC wiki, and I'm more certain of the accuracy for the stuff I'm usually looking up on TC.

How often do you use the “Records” feature? How would you feel if the feature was removed, and was replaced by profile fields where you could fill in your stats (for 40 lines sprint, 40 lines dig race, etc.)?

Again, see previous post, where I go into reasonable detail on why I think the Records setup here is shit and why I don't think anyone uses it. It gives no feedback - you have no way of knowing if someone has improved or beaten your score unless you check them yourself on a regular basis. I think TC's thread-based system is way better and promotes more competition (though it needs manpower to keep it updated).

I see the Records page, along with the Wiki to a lesser extent, as being something that was put into the site from the start but basically hasn't really been maintained or looked at since by the staff.

Do you have any opinions about anything related to Hard Drop not covered by the previous questions?

Less retarded forum software than IPB would be nice (though I bitch to myndzi about that on a regular basis anyway  - bitch of the right now is that quoting/editing non-standard characters often fucks them up, such as in this post), and ditto for having a shoutbox that's a proper chat (and links with IRC again) rather than a poorly coded (and easily hax'd) embedded thing.

[PetitPrince]

One unique, unified, and awesome wiki*.


*and one rip off, but we can't shutdown wikia stuff, don't we ?

[ohitsstef]

I agree with most of what Rosti posted.. which I'll quote down below
[spoiler][!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]As an opening note, I acknowledge that most of this post is opinion. I'm just not going to write it as such because opening every clause with "I think..." is a pain in the a**. Also I'm writing this out on Notepad first, which doesn't have a spell check, so there's probably going to be grammar errors and typos and accidentally a word everywhere.

In terms of the greater scene and Tetris games, I agree massively with everything exchliore said. I'm not even going to bother touching that, because he's already put the general feeling I have in his post, and I've elaborated on it already elsewhere.

Also this still starts fairly b****y. It gets better in the second half, I promise.

In terms of just HardDrop, and the website, I'll do things systematically. Starting with the front page:


The Front Page

News & Tweets
The news stuff is good. Same for the tweets for the majority of the time. Keep that stuff there - it should be on the front page. My only real critique would be that articles can be a bit thin on the ground sometimes, but frankly that's an issue with the greater scene and I'd rather see decent articles only every two weeks than an article some day about some non-issue that nobody really cares about.

Stream & Videos
Again, good stuff. My main complaint with the stream would be that the stream chat isn't visible from the front page, meaning you get a split between people talking in the stream chat and people talking in the shoutbox. You can't expect everyone to watch the HD stream from the HD front page, especially if the stream ever gets more popular, and I think it's bad that the chat gets split and is basically hidden to anyone who watches on HD. Honestly though, I don't know how to resolve this without some smart web coding because having the stream chat on the front page when the stream isn't live would be equally stupid.

Shoutbox
This shouldn't be on the front page. It's currently one of the main things this site actually offers to members and it's probably the most aspect part of HD, and it should be on its own page. This has two benefits. Firstly, it stops people who are on the front page from having to see the shoutbox there, which should hugely reduce the load on the server because only people who want to see the shoutbox have to. Secondly, putting it as it's own "chat" page legitimises it a bit more, and gives it the sort of role within the site that it basically already has unofficially. It'd probably see more and better activity if it had its own page and tab on the top of the site, and wasn't just a widget embedded into the front page.

Other Comments
Unuder the news, the social links are fine (FB, Twitter, Twitch etc), but I think the TF stats lookup and fumen are mis-placed. They're useful tools, and they're in a place where they can be completely overlooked and it's not obvious at all what they are to new members. Plus they don't really fit with the links that they're currently surrounded by. They're decent features of the site (and not external links), and they should be displayed a bit more prominently.

It'd also be cool if the Player of the Month widget title actually linked to the thread, because it's currently not obvious how PotM works unless you hunt around the forum for it.


The World Page

For one, I think "World" is a retarded title for the tab that leads to this page. "Community" or something would be far better.

The whole teams system either could do with an overhaul. It could have a far greater place on the site, teams could get their own sub-forums or at least a way to organise themselves and post more personal details to other team members in private. There could be a whole team ladder system and various other things that would actually make teams a bit more viable and less dysfunctional. Currently any team that wants to take itself seriously essentially has to make its own website. Without an overhaul like this, it might as well be removed for the time being. Currently it serves no useful purpose whatsoever.

I feel the photo gallery is a bit of a waste of space too.

The blogs thing is fine - I don't know if people really read them but people do write posts and the layout of it on that page is sensible.

The world map is implemented poorly IMO. There are a lot of points on the map and in principle it could serve as a decent "find Tetris players near you" kind of thing, but it's impossible to filter active members from inactive members on it, and aside from the search feature it really doesn't do much IMO.


The Forum

The main forum page is fine. Pretty much the only suggestion I'd have for the board structure right now is combining the Introductions board into one single introductions thread, just because every new member making a new thread to tell people about them just seems a bit unnecessary and silly. Not really fussed though and I don't think it would make too much difference.

For two long-term b****** about the forum software itself:

Censoring
It's a dumb feature - words are offensive due to context and intent, not due to the precise letters. If I call a black person a "stupid fu**ing n*****" then I really don't think the fact I've used asterisks is going to make him feel any less offended by it. Censoring does nothing except for maybe the two or three kids that exist in the world who might manage to find HD but somehow wouldn't have already heard/seen the words F***, a**, sh**, etc.

At the very least let people turn it off (as is practice on any forum I've ever been on that has post censoring) and fix the censor patterns so that it actually matches case and you don't get random as F*** capital letters in the middle of posts.

The Forum Software
IPBoard is really fu**ing bad. It just sucks. Compared to Simple Machines or even phpBB it creates a forum that's extremely clunky and awkward to use. It's really bare for features and stats - SMF has way way more stuff in that regards. If the admin control panel is remoately as awkward to use as the profiles feature compared to the likes of SMF then I really don't envy the forum moderators. Even a basic feature like clicking on someone's profile and then seeing all posts by them (all posts, not all topics) isn't something you can do (or at least I've not figured out how). To get someone's gender/age/nationality you have to mouse-over their avatar on their profile, which is totally unintuitive.

There are some good aspects to profiles - contact info, username/wifi codes and then aspects that integrate with the rest of the site like videos and teams, etc, but a lot of it feels like it's just trying to be a crappy myspace/facebook page knock-off. I don't want fu**ing music playing automatically when I view someone's profile. I shouldn't have to rely on them formatting their game usernames and IM information in a way that doesn't look sh** - the forum interface should do that for them. That and a huge number of members don't actually bother to fill out their profile anyway.

The comments system seems totally obsolete when you already have a PM system too.

It'd probably be a bit of a pain to import everything across, but I think there's a lot to potentially gain from switching to better free software like SMF over what is currently in place. Both members and site staff would gain useful features, even if we might lose a few that we currently have on IPB but which are barely used anyway.


I feel the forum boards itself would benefit from more proper discussion on non-Tetris things, but there's a huge chicken and the egg factor there with those sorts of threads. Fact is, right now, if I want to chat about the Olympics and the new series of Castle and such then I'll just go elsewhere and do so. There's not much to be done to break out of that cycle really. If people can't be bothered making the threads, and people are too herp derp and spammy in the way they reply when those threads do exist, then it's unlikely to change easily. It's a problem loads of forums I've been on have, and it's not something I've ever seen fixed except with a complete moderation overhaul and quite a few warnings/bans on more unruly members.


Wiki and Videos
Not much to comment on here. They're about as good as they're most likely to get. Other than making them a slightly greater focus for the site itself there's not much they'll really do to change HD or the community.

Records
This could be a really decent focus for the site and a way of encouraging solid competition in between tournaments, but it's really neglected and poorly implemented at the moment I feel.

The problem is that it's far too isolated. It's not very well integrated with the rest of the community stuff (player records don't automatically feature on forum profiles, for example). There's no sense of achievement when posting a new record. There are also way too many modes on there that people clearly don't play or care about, yet they take up the same space on the list of games and clog it up. Pick a random game from the list and see how often you get more than ten scores on the leaderboard for that game - it's pretty rare.

The fact that it's automated is good, but I think it would benefit more from the sort of system that TC has, where the records are contained within threads. Without some clever coding it means people have to update leaderboards manually, but it also means that you get far more satisfaction posting scores, and people can actually see you've posted a new score without having to keep careful tabs on the records page or be explicitly told by people they've improved. Forum threads also means that the less popular modes sink out of view slightly and the more popular ones are easier to find.

Might be worth noting that for a forum with less activity in general, the four main TC Records threads each have twice as many thread views from the last three years as the most viewed single thread on HardDrop.


The Site in General

Really, one of the biggest changes that has to happen if HD is really going to take off and expand past the sort of user base it has had and vaguely maintained for the last three years, is that the people running the site actually have to think about what they're doing and put effort in.

This place needs a team of people who are working to create new content, to improve the site, and to actually make this place worth visiting and not just a forum with a few tacked-on features where users occasionally bother to host tournaments.

For example, I think the easiest way for HD to attract and keep members are regular tournaments. It's something you can necessarily get from other gaming forums, we can dictate the terms that the tournaments work on, and they've been a very successful and straightforward way of gaining activity in the past.

The problem at the moment is that official HD tournaments are really rare, and this place is relying on members to organise them of their own volition. It shouldn't work like that. It should be part of the responsibilities and duties of the HD staff to organise and run touraments, either together or through taking turns.

Gonna bold this bit, because I feel it's really important as a general point:

Whatever methods are decided for getting and keeping activity here, it should be the staff that take the lead. Being part of the staff here shouldn't mean just occasionally chiding people on the forum (unless the staff member's role is explicitly forum moderation only). They shouldn't be people who are just there to step in when things go wrong. They should be people who are constantly driving to lead HD and make HD a better website.

The staff here currently don't seem to do a huge amount to actually make HD a better place, and to produce content and to actually lead the website forward. I'm talking collectively and over a long-ish timeframe here - I know some people do work on things, and I know from experience that being a community administrator can take a lot of time and effort that rarely gets recognised, but I still feel that the staff here are far too anonymous and don't justify their own positions.

The staff here shouldn't be appointed based on friendships, on how long they've been in the community, on how good they are at the game, on even how qualified they are to do the job. Sure, they can all be factors, but really people should be added and removed from the staff on the basis of how much time they actually spend to improve the site. If someone is constantly doing good things for the stream, or running good tournaments, or producing insightful content for the wiki, then consider giving them a recognised position for it and adding them to the staff. If nothing else it's an extremely good way to encourage and partition people who do actually try and run things and improve the place from those who are just happy being regular members.

The staff should go beyond merely forum moderation, and not everyone on the staff necessarily needs to be there to moderate the forum. HD should be about more than that.


Frankly, I don't think a huge amount of HD is particularly awful as a website, but it's too reliant on its current members and always has been. Other, successful websites, are reliant on an organised team of people to create solid content or a really good site feature (which HD doesn't have). Currently the only thing HD has over something that someone else could easily knock up in a week or so from assorted website software packages is people. And it's not making decent use of those people when it really could.

In terms of the sort of content that can be provided, I feel it's basically more of the same. More tournaments. More streaming. More news and attempts to publicise to Facebook and other social media. They'll all raise the site profile and raise activity.

The issue is just one of organisation. Organise a team (the staff) to do these things, and they'll get done. We have a very small number of people who will take the initiative and just decide they're going to do something good. We almost certainly have far more who would do something good if they were just asked to do it, rather than the community waiting for them to get around to doing it by themselves. Set up people who will run weekly/biweekly/monthy/etc tournaments, organise a rota, people to do streams. If people stop wanting to do it and can't be bothered, then drop them from the staff and see if someone else is willing to fill the role. If people work and work together in an organised fashion to produce content and improve the site functionality and member experience then it's not difficult to make HD a proper purring website rather than just a hodge-podge of website software and features loosely holding a Tetris community.


There's plenty that needs to happen outside of HD to make the Tetris community really strong and to enable competitive Tetris to be successful, but almost all of that is completely beyond the control of the people here, and frankly I don't think there's much point debating it unless you're either going to decide to give up entirely, or assemble a crack squad of programmers to make the best competitive Tetris game imaginable. On the other hand, there's plenty that can be done on HD and which is in our control. Worst case scenario HD becomes a better site. Best case scenario this place gains a bit of respect and legitimacy and actually does become a community with a proper voice and connection to TTC, and one that can affect the wider Tetris world in a way that will improve it.[/quote][/spoiler]

--
If off-topic boards (such as “League of Legends,” “Starcraft II,” “Guild Wars,” etc.) were created, would you be interested and/or willing to participate?
Off topic boards seem redundant since we have BWH and General... BWH topics, btw, don't show up in the active posts anymore.. which I don't like. I don't see much discussion about LOL or SC2 or GW as it is at the moment.. besides "What's your username?" =_= Doesn't seem like there's much need for it.

Would you be more motivated to participate in tournaments and events hosted by Hard Drop if participants received special forum badges under their avatar to appear in all their posts (i.e. “Tetris Tournament Online II: Participant,” “Tetris Tournament Online II: Quarterfinalist,” “Tetris Tournament Online II: World Champion,” etc.)?
I don't care for badges, but if others want them.. that's cool. Currently with the little icons next to some usernames indicating PCG, mod and admin already look extremely tacky... I don't want HD looking even more like a kids' website. Personally, I don't join HD tournaments because too many people join them, and they take too long to finish. (hoho)

If we were to donate and get supporter badges what type of control would we have over the site? Would the people donating $ to the site have more say with how things are running? I guess the supporter badge would be cool, as long as it doesn't say "supporter badge".. I mean just going onto the site itself and replying to threads that help other people out is supporting the site right? Also another thing - if people are to donate, I think it's fair to show how much money has been donated and then show where the money is going to. Before we had a lot of members donate money to HD, but we didn't know exactly where the money was going to and when. (Besides the tournaments)

What are some features that you would like Hard Drop to implement?
I think the admin white hats, sheriff badges, and PCG smiley faces look really tacky and want them removed. There should be another way to indicate that someone is a mod, admin and PCG. I personally liked Blink's old simple "moderator" label underneath the username. Simple and not tacky. Also fix the quoting thing, so the characters don't look ridiculous.
Is it possible to do a little hover thing - where you hover over someone's profile picture and see the badges? I think that'd be cool. Badges or high scores.. or a greeting. That'd be cute.

How often do you use the wiki? Do you have any motivation to contribute to the wiki? How would you feel if the wiki was removed?
I used to use wiki when I was trying to learn some tspin stuff.. but now that I'm a "pro" I don't use it. Plus it lags a lot with the pics and fumens. But even though I don't use it.. I'm sure newer players use it to get strategies and tactics... like we all did when we were noobs. (right? or am i the only one?)

How often do you use the “Records” feature? How would you feel if the feature was removed, and was replaced by profile fields where you could fill in your stats (for 40 lines sprint, 40 lines dig race, etc.)?
Haven't used it in awhile, since it hasn't been updated? Or at least I don't think it has. Records page used to be broken.. i don't know if it still is. It was nice, when I started out on HD. But now I don't care for high scores. I'm indifferent on this. I don't like the idea of having more profile fields on my profile page. Makes it even more cluttered.

Do you have any opinions about anything related to Hard Drop not covered by the previous questions?
We need more mods. I want to know who the mods are. I want the BWH threads to be seen in the active threads section again, otherwise BWH serves no purpose, and I'll start posting my shits and giggles in General.