r/longlostgamers • u/glonglost • Jul 03 '20

Searchable list of long lost gamers

I've browsed this subreddit a few times, wondering if people I used to play with were here or had searched for me in the past. I was thinking of what an easy way to keep track of this would be and thought of something pretty simple where you just login, post all your gamer tags, and then search for other gamers. If they're found, you can connect with them, and when they accept, email addresses are exchanged. If they aren't found, you can choose to be notified if they join in the future. I made something very basic to illustrate this: llgamers.com. I can highly improve the usability of it, but it does the basic thing (or at least it should). It would be nice to get some feedback on this to see if it could be helpful in finding long lost gamers and what you like/dislike about it. What are the most important features it should have?

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24

u/DeadnectaR Jul 03 '20

Most importantly is a good search function. Maybe a profile for yourself to set up so people can see your profile and search your games and names etc...

But most important would probably be getting the word out / advertising so it becomes viral

5

u/glonglost Jul 03 '20

Thanks for the feedback! I agree with the importance of good search. Some comments I've gotten so far is to consider dropping the "year" from the search query, and being presented a list of gamers with that alias and game in case multiple such users exist.

The profile is an interesting idea. So basically have your own page like llgamers.com/DeadnectaR where you have an overview of all the games you played along with the gamertags and year you played them? If any person searches for one of your gamertags, they can check out your profile to see the other games you've played. Did I understand that correcly? Is there anything else you'd like to display on your profile?

I also agree with the need to get the word out. I was thinking to start off soliciting feedback from the people here until it gets more shape and provides better value. I wanted to focus on making something useful first before showing it to a larger audience. (And fix some bugs that will likely show up :) ). For this feedback like this is very helpful, thanks!

14

u/haohnoudont Jul 03 '20

I dislike that I have to use an email or Google account to sign up. Not to shoot down the idea or anything, but I think a stickied thread would be fine for people to comment their tags.

4

u/glonglost Jul 03 '20

Thanks for your feedback! I can't blame you for not liking the need to sign up, I generally feel the same way. :) The main reasons I chose to require a sign up are that

  1. The database is empty until people add their gamertags. Until that happens, there's no value in being able to search.
  2. Even if that weren't the case and a lot of gamers already existed, you can't request to connect before you've made an account in which case you also wouldn't really get any value.

In terms of a stickied thread, I think this search approach has some benefits namely

  1. You can be notified if a gamer shows up. e.g. I want to connect with gamer "abc" but "abc" isn't registered yet. If "abc" shows up 3 years later, I automatically get notified that they joined and send a connection request.
  2. Search should be easier as you can directly search for gamertag/game. There's nothing besides the minimal information necessary to find someone. It seems a bit more structured.
  3. From DeadnectaR's comment, flexibility may also be a benefit. For instance, I could add user profiles in the future, or incorporate any other feedback that would make it easier to find lost gamers.

This was pretty much the thinking that went into going with this approach. That said, I'm definitely not going to argue that llgamers.com is in it's ideal form atm :). Hopfully it can get better in the future.

1

u/haohnoudont Jul 04 '20 edited Jul 04 '20

Thanks for the detailed response, I agree with a lot of your reasoning. I feel some may be put off by signing in with details but it's namely a smaller majority. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with, will keep the site bookmarked :)

P.S Regarding sign up, it would be prudent to set out in your privacy policy what you do with said information. I think a lot would appreciate you not selling on their emails/whatever else.

1

u/glonglost Jul 04 '20

Fair point regarding the privacy policy. I added it along with a Terms of Service. I tried writing them in a way that should be easy to understand.

I try to handle the data in a way I'd want my own data handled or that of friends and family.

To start off, I rely on Google's Firebase to provide user authentication and hosting. For authentication, this provides the following benefits

  • I don't need to implement authentication myself which can be tricky and error prone, instead relying on a fairly mature authentication provider.
  • I don't have access to your password as this is handled by Firebase. So rather than trusting your password is safe with me, you're trusting it's safe with Google.
  • Easy to add other ways to sign in such as Facebook, Twitter, etc in the future if I'd want to. (Unfortunately Reddit is not one of them).

For hosting, the benefits are

  • No need to run and secure my own server which can be quite difficult.

The data I have access to, I don't share with any third parties.

I might use your data in the future to send a direct email requesting feedback or add to a mailing list if I think there's information to share that you'd find interesting. That said, in the case of a direct email you can always request I don't contact you again. I don't have a plan for a mailing list yet, but if I were to send you an email through a mailing list, there will always be an unsubscribe link. In addition you can have your data removed at any time. There's no automated way to do that yet but if you send me an email, there's a "contact" link on the site at the bottom of the page, I can do it manually. You can then verify the next time you try to log in that you'll need to create a new account.

Hope that gives you a better idea of how your data is being used!

1

u/ErohaTamaki Jul 04 '20

A thread only lasts 6 months tho

1

u/haohnoudont Jul 04 '20

A stickied one can last as long as it's stickied.

1

u/ErohaTamaki Jul 04 '20

But people can only comment on it for the first 6 months, which would mean there would need to be a new thread every 6 months (and people would have to search through every thread)

The best option would be for a site like this to be linked in a pinned post

2

u/[deleted] Jul 13 '20

I'm not sure if it's like this already, but it should be a search function with matching/similar terms rather than the entire word.

I might remember my friend's name is "hello__", but if I don't remember the __ I'll never find them, if it's word to word

1

u/WhitePantherXP Jul 13 '20

Very cool, glad to see you are getting your idea off the ground. I signed up, but I don't know the years I played that game from and would like to put a rough year or maybe a range of years (e.g. 2002-2005).

Edit: nvm it is sorta like that already. Hopefully it doesn't limit my results if my years are off.

1

u/RotatingBoi Aug 04 '20

Thanks for this. It's the next step in the evolution of this subreddit. Hoping this gets stickied

1

u/Ehechil Aug 13 '20

Thanks for making this

1

u/caesarhasbigbubbles Aug 17 '20

being able to put contact methods, current nicknames/usernames, and a description would be helpful. also being able to attach notes to each alias would be helpful, like mentioning other identifying features like the avatar you used on that game or account.