Vacation Mode for the Forum Account?

[MordredofFairy]

Would it be possible to implement a kind of "vacation-mode" to the forum-accounts?

Background:
I've recently joined a handful of pbp games on the messageboard.
I have an upcoming short family trip into the wildneress, where i'll be cut off from comunications for a few days.
Now, of course I can post in each of those games in the discussion thread, and just in case it's missed there, send the GM a mesage.
But I kind of expected to find a functionality in place to take care of these things.

Suggestion:
It would be really easy to just "set" a vacation mode in "my account" with the message board settings. You activate it and can write a short message, just like it works with emailclients.
Then, in all parts of the forum where your character gets "listed"(so not normal posts), there could be a slightly colored bar behind the name, indicating this account is in vacation-mode. Clicking on an alias/the account would then display the profile as normal, but additionally, below the name, next to post count and main alias, would display, with the same background color, the vacation message.

Going further:
The same mechanic could be applied to people who have not been online in, say, 30+ days, using a different color and replacing the message displayed with "Inactive for xx days, last visit on date/time".

Benefit:
If going away for a few days, or otherwise unable to post, there would be one centralized place to set a notification for all other people who may be affected. Naturally it's good form to tell them regardless, but like this, it would be visible at a glance, and very convenient as other players could also check when you return, without having to dig out the relevant post.

[Kobold Catgirl]

I dunno, I'd kinda expect a good player to post and let me know ahead of time. It seems like this would encourage laziness.

[MordredofFairy]

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

I dunno, I'd kinda expect a good player to post and let me know ahead of time. It seems like this would encourage laziness.

Lazyness exists now too. Those people too lazy to post just disappear, then show up a few days later "Sorry, couldn't post the last few days".

It also helps IF you miss one alias/campaign in your list.

Also, consider being ill. I know if I have quite a fever and don't even want to watch TV because of my throbbing headache, I don't want to go through all my active aliases posting that I'm ill and will be gone a few days. A centralized, quick way of handling this on the other hand, I could see myself using.

Last but not least: As said, even if the good player posts, thats just one post you need to remember/dig up again via alias and posting history, rather than just seeing it directly.

Plus: Someone not posting and NOT in vacation mode could also be an indication of someone going to drop/not interested any more(as in, if they are still active elsewhere they can't enter vacation mode....so if this happens you can take a look at other aliases, and if those are still active, try and talk to the player)
(Of course you can also check up on them, now, but more often than not, they will be gone for a weekend or something.)

[verdigris]

I have to agree with with Kobold Cleaver; These games are social games, regardless of the medium we use to play. It's not unreasonable to expect a message saying the player is going to be away. If you are sick, hopefully you have made at least one friendship in the playing well enough to say, "Dude, I feel like crap, can you let the others know?" This sort of thing weaves the social web stronger and encourages teamwork in game and out. An automated message feels... less.

That isn't to say that just because I don't like it, they shouldn't create it. It does say that I would discourage the use of it in games I am GMing, and feel less tied in to games where it was used with any sort of frequency.

[Chris Lambertz]

I don't think we'll be implementing this sort of feature. There are some privacy concerns with actively displaying this sort of information explicitly to all visitors to our forums. It's probably best to relay absences from games or conversations via our private messaging system to other community members directly. Changing the behaviors of this system to start emulating an email client can get really hairy, really fast.

[MordredofFairy]

Chris Lambertz wrote:

I don't think we'll be implementing this sort of feature. There are some privacy concerns with actively displaying this sort of information explicitly to all visitors to our forums. It's probably best to relay absences from games or conversations via our private messaging system to other community members directly. Changing the behaviors of this system to start emulating an email client can get really hairy, really fast.

fair enough. thanks for the consideration.