You want to talk about custom usernames feel free. I just finished going on about it not too long ago.

http://www.gamingforce.org/forums/sh...850#post442850

The reason custom flags would be off by default is the same reason custom usernames would be off by default. To let those who like these features to actually have them without bothering people who don't.

Acer, don't get me wrong, I don't want to spoil anybody's fun. I'm just completely mystified why everyone wants custom flags when in contrary to more or less useless features like custom titles or avatars or signatures, flags actually indicate something, notably the origin.

I think Shin hit on a good idea but didn't go far enough with it. There should be a seperate user cp entirely, 'Funster CP', where people fill out all the same fields as usual but put comedy responses for everything. Then at those parts of the board that are set aside for all fun goings on, the wacky version of each member kicks in: custom name, custom flag, joke profile, everything. It would be a fun time.

After they've got that out of their system they can take their ties off their heads and join the rest of us in our endless conversations about projection figures and spreadsheets.

Yes, that's why if you wanted to see or use custom flags you'd have to turn the feature on. You could possibly have it so that those who hover their mouse above custom flags it will show like perhaps for mine "Tootswag" or whatever I name my custom flag as and below that "Also: United States" or whatever I have my regular flag set as. That way you could still have the origin information. I think that's a good thing to keep in mind. Thanks, Mush.

Well, I'm alright with Acer's idea. Or even an idea where you have no control at all over your flag and it just automatically detects what country you're posting from. That possible? Yeah, maybe flags aren't necessary but as the situation currently stands they're sort of irritating.

Don't forget custom signatures! That'd be rad ...

While that would be awesome there are some odd countries that use proxies that would make pin-pointing them down a bitch or it would display the wrong country. Plus some people might put their nationality or homeland as their flag. Using the ip thing would take that away from them. You could possibly add that to your profile though that would be off by default - a "Display flags by IP location" check box. But like I said I have no idea if it would be accurate for all countries because of some proxy crap. It's a very interesting idea though, OO. =)

They don't call me OO for nothin'. =o;;;

Well, for uncertain countries maybe there can just be a blank spot there for those people. If they don't like it they can ask staff to put their actual country and that's that. For people that are in the States but are from, say, Guatemala, they can ask staff to fix that too. Just a little cooperation on all sides and it'd work out swell.

I think that the more turn-on-and-off-able custom features we add, the more likely you are to create a new clique here. I know that at the moment, regular chat goers hate the phrase "Chat brigade" and feel that those of us who go there rarely are unfairly tagging you up as fitting certain stereotypes that aren't necessarily true. Based on who's currently being most vocal in their support for various customisable features, the chat brigade would be either joined or surplanted by a "Zany custom features" brigade.

In the same way that many members have little time for chat memes and so on, there'd be people who disliked custom name jokes only now, instead of it all happening in a chatroom it'd be happening here on the boards.

I'm not saying that there'll be some kind of GFF gang war or anything, so much as I'm hoping that if you get all the custom features you want, you don't all mind being tarred with the "Oh those wacky custom feature funsters" brush everytime some idiot makes a twat of himself and happens to be a part of your new clique.

Oh nuh uh! Do you want to start a gang war, Shin? :mad:

When you're a Jet you're a Jet all the way from your first cigarette to your last dying day.

You're too gangsta for me to keep up, Shin. :(
Who will be my tag-team partner?

Listen I can't follow all this discussion about orientation of dots but I will give a $50 donation if you let me have my Luxitopian flag.

The Jolly Roger is worth another $25 on top of that.

THESE DEMANDS ARE UNREASONABLE

Is that a Bunderburg camel on that flag, it's so hard to figure out

YOU WILL FOLLOW THE DOTS AND/OR THE GHOSTS WILL GET YOU! :mad:

I really think you're looking too far into this, Shin. A group of people with custom flags would never earn that sort of reputation, not even close to being on par with chat anyway. I think these fancy gold border members would get closer to that sort of image.

Speaking of which, there are some folks that don't want to donate because they don't want gold borders. They enjoy the silver borders or want a different color entirely if they were to have a color change.

I say it might not be so bad an idea to create a couple other border choices that donators can choose from.

I just think that adding a load of custom features adds an extra distraction from posting and will encourage crappy posting, much the same as an out of hand Testing forum.

I'd love for you to explain that logic.

The more custom features we enable, the more certain members are going to derive their fun from changing their name and putting dumb gifs in their flag slot. The need to actually craft a decent post becomes secondary and you end up with a bunch of Testing-esque pointless threads.

I know it's a slightly extreme example but I generally think that moves of this kind would contribute to a dumbing down of GFF, hence why it should be restricted to Laughs & Games and Testing.

While I don't think that would happen with the flag option, I can see it happening if we had too many extra little features like this down the line. I mean, if we had enough at some point for people to derive fun from them by just playing around with that and not really worry about posting quality. Then it'd be a problem.

Wow, because people creating new avatars, sigs, and custom titles all the time and enjoying those things has been detrimental to them creating good posts. Great logic there, Shin. Bravo.

It's not like we're giving them options of putting the post bit on the right side or changing the entire color scheme or letting them have a space below their postbit to automatically play their favorite song at the moment in a HUEG flash mp3 player along with a preview of some of the latest pics they took at yesterday's party. A fucking custom flag and a custom username THAT BY THE WAY you have to TURN ON the ability to view IS NOT the equivalent of GFF turning into Myspace. Good god.

But it's a slippery slope and a line has to be drawn somewhere. Next time it could be pictures instead of usernames, a custom top bar, embedded sound files in your postbit and before you know it, we've unbanned Eleo, turned Html back on in posts and Elixir and Tails are admins. I appreciate this is a silly little thing right now but where will it stop?

You forgot where WE SUCCESSFULLY CLONE HITLER AND WE HELP HIM RISE BACK TO POWER.

Christ, that post was the biggest load of bullshit I've ever seen.

Well I'm sure Hitler only planned on killing a few jews at first coz you know, that'd be a bit of a laugh and it's not like anyone would notice a few of them going missing and then before you know it they're rounding up six million of them for a sing-a-long in the showers.

If you're so desperate to declare your loyalty to the People's Republic of Suckcockia or your position as Rear Admiral in the Bellend Airforce, why can't you just use the ample space provided in your av and sig?