Addendum II to my Feedback on
Chat (posts
, [url=https://www.gog.com/forum/general/a_new_my_account_d5f25/post812]#812, and
#850)
I’d like to revisit the issue of consecutively sent messages being auto-merged. Shortly after I gave my feedback on this, I had a short exchange with
[url=https://www.gog.com/forum/general/a_new_my_account_d5f25/post822]user who said [emphasis added]:
[...] there is already a slight increase in space over the newline, but I think it could use to be increased a little more.
[...]
It's very subtle, though. A bit too subtle right now. It can be subtle but it should be plain, not like it is right now which makes people double take and guess and have to really look at it.
Well, look at the attached screenshot. On the top is a single message of three paragraphs made using Shift+Enter, and at the bottom are four (4) separate messages that were sent in a short time. Unless my eye-sight is terribly bad, I can clearly see that the line-breaks inside a single message are more distinct than the ones between auto-merged messages. It might be a personal weirdness, but I think it should be the other way around, if this auto-merging business is here to stay; in its current implementation, it demonstrates poor designing and even poorer execution. I still think it should be scrapped.
A couple more things to point out after the old PMs were (kind of
*) imported.
The migration of the old PMs into the chat system has populated one’s contacts list with a number of users. Users that now have a choice to set their chat setting to “nobody”, “friends only” or “anyone”. The reasons for users being in one’s contacts list vary:
1. Some are fellow GOGgers one communicates with frequently or more than with others; these would fall under “friends”.
2. Some were either gifters or giftees (GAs, or ninja-gifting).
3. Some were (potential) traders.
4. Some were a one-time communication on a specific topic.
If one wants to continue to communicate privately with any of their contacts of case #1 that have set their chat setting to “friends only” they need to befriend them, something quite understandable.
I was glad to see during a little experiment I conducted that this setting works as should, unlike the “Start Conversation” option (in the pop-up menu when hovering over a user's avatar in the forum) that acts like "Add to contacts" even without the exchange of messages (not sure if this was fixed since it was first mentioned, and I don’t intend to test it).
Contacts of cases #2, #3, and #4 that have done the same are now inaccessible unless one befriends them, gifts/ trades/interacts with them, and then what? Un-friends them until the next time? Sounds like quite the hassle, but I guess that it’s not GOG’s concern, and it’s quite likely they prefer we all have a long list of friends. But I digress.
Now, it’s quite likely that a number of contacts that fall under points #2, #3, and #4 are users one won’t interact with again, so neither party would really be interested in sealing a friendship. Which is fine and one’s prerogative. The same applies to those who have chosen the “nobody’ setting.
The question is – why on earth do these people have to jump to the top of one’s contacts list whenever their status changes to “online”? Every single person going “online’ pushes down and out of view one’s “friends” if they're offline, even when one or more of one’s friends have sent one or more messages that await a reply. This is not a theoretical scenario, this happens quite easily multiple times a day given how limited the viewable part of one’s contacts list is.
In the PM system, people that fell under "one-time exchanges" or those one hadn't communicated for a longer time were nicely placed at the bottom of the contacts list, while the friends stayed at the top, hence easy to access.
Two notes to make here:
(I) The “online” tag is used to designate a user that is actually online, i.e. logged in on the site, but also anyone – I repeat, anyone – whose Galaxy client is running in the background (I think the default is for the client to start at windows start-up, if this is not the case, please correct me). This simply means that one’s “online” status is misleading, and even fails at promoting the intended “live” character and purpose of the chat system in its current form.
So, I ask – why would one that is logged in and uses their chat system on the site, care if someone has Galaxy running? Why should these users, and those on the site that are not one’s regular contacts push down all the ones one is actually interested in communicating with? It just doesn’t make sense for the site-side of things.
(II) Anyone “offline” is listed in a completely random order – if there is any logic to it, I fail to see it, so please, enlighten me. I have contacts I've talked to a few days ago at the very bottom of the list, while people I haven't talked to for over a year are placed almost at the very top of the offline bunch. Makes.Absolutely.No.Freaking.Sense.
It’s been pointed out many times by now by a number of users, but it bears repeating: the randomness makes finding users that have sent messages while one was also offline pretty cumbersome – and no, the search box at the top is not helpful in such cases.
A chat system may be the norm and have its uses for/ on gaming clients, but:
- making it mandatory on the site,
- scrapping the PM system, and
- importing all contacts and PM history to it
was a terrible decision that was extremely poorly executed, and completely disregards those users that also used the PM system to have longer discussions. Just yesterday, I had the
pleasure of seeing messages coming in one after the other as the person I was communicating with was replying to parts of an earlier message of mine (hitting Enter after every sentence) while I was typing my reply to one of theirs; I literally had to ask them to stop sending me messages until I had finished and sent my own message. It’s not hard to imagine how these exchanges went, and what a confusing mess it became within a few minutes.
It really feels like GOG did not think of all the implications of this change.
I hope that GOG has heard of a very wise saying, but I’ll repeat it here just in case – one size simply does not fit all; private communication on the site does not necessarily serve the same purpose as being on a game client.
* I said that old PMs were kind of imported to the new chat system. The process started on May 15, 2015, and I have no idea if GOG considers it completed, as my inquiry was not addressed. But as I feared from the very start, it went rather haywire. A closer look at my chat contacts and messages shows that:
1. At least thirty three (33) of my previous contacts are missing (yes, noticed another one missing since I first posted about it), with another five (5) possibly also missing.
2. Three (3) of my imported contacts are missing our old PM exchanges.
3. The old PMs of one (1), possibly of more (have not checked this thoroughly) are completely unreadable as the new system seems to not support Unicode and other special characters that were supported in the PM system.
This is from what I could cross-check, as the old PM system was scrapped before I could complete my backup.
And I have yet to check if the PMs/ contact that have been imported are all there.
And judging from comments in various threads, this one included, I’m not the only one.
I’ve submitted a support ticket with all the gory details on May 18, 2015 but have not heard back after the automated email.
I sincerely hope my old exchanges are not lost for ever.
EDIT: found more missing contacts, tow of them ironically are GOG staffers.
