A language learners’ forum

Serpent wrote:One way I see to implement it would be "you've read X books, at your current pace you'll have Y by the end of the challenge".
Perhaps even calculating both average and current pace (for example over the past month or two).

This sounds great, perhaps even better. Something I wouldn't bother counting myself, but reading such numbers counted by the bot, that could be very motivating!

Serpent wrote:Well, officially there was only a full, double or half challenge, no 25%.
It shouldn't really be too difficult but it kinda goes against the general trend of simplifying how the bot works.

One way I see to implement it would be "you've read X books, at your current pace you'll have Y by the end of the challenge".
Perhaps even calculating both average and current pace (for example over the past month or two).

Actually, although on the list you can register for 1/2 or double challenges, the bot doesn't understand anything other than a full challenge. It will of course record whatever you tell it you've done, and it gives stars at the 25% mark, but it sees all registered users as having registered for a full challenge, 100 books & 100 films.

So the registration system on the bot would have to be modified for it to recognise anything other than a full challenge.

I meant officially as "endorsed by Cristina".
I know the surrealix bot did display stars for completing 50/100/200 of both (bronze, silver, gold... and Emme appears to have a platinum star for 400?). I assume this hasn't been changed?

I like the idea of having language families as an option.

I make my own spreadsheet towards the end of the challenge telling me how many pages / hours I need each week to finish the challenge. It's super useful, and I agree with Cavessa that it would be nice to see it on the bot.

The hierarchy of stars was nice.

There were a couple columns on the last bot that I don't think we need. One was # of consecutive weeks, and I already forgot the other. I like a simple design, and the less clutter the better!

kanewai wrote:I like the idea of having language families as an option.

I make my own spreadsheet towards the end of the challenge telling me how many pages / hours I need each week to finish the challenge. It's super useful, and I agree with Cavessa that it would be nice to see it on the bot.

The hierarchy of stars was nice.

There were a couple columns on the last bot that I don't think we need. One was # of consecutive weeks, and I already forgot the other. I like a simple design, and the less clutter the better!

I loved that consecutive week star, it keot me motivated to do something every week in order nit to lose it.

Yes, I liked the consecutive weeks feature too. The only streak I have ever been able to hold for a bit. I dislike the daily ones.

The stars were awesome.

Would Serpent's idea of "You are likely to reach X books and Y movies by the end of the challenge at this pace." be implementable, rdearman? I like it more and more. For me, it might work even better than my original idea and the bot wouldn't need to know the individual goals.

Cavesa wrote:Yes, I liked the consecutive weeks feature too. The only streak I have ever been able to hold for a bit. I dislike the daily ones.

The stars were awesome.

Would Serpent's idea of "You are likely to reach X books and Y movies by the end of the challenge at this pace." be implementable, rdearman? I like it more and more. For me, it might work even better than my original idea and the bot wouldn't need to know the individual goals.

That would seem to be a better way of doing it, since the bot knows what you've done, but not what you're going to do. I'll investigate it, but I'm really hoping one of the super smart programmer types steps forward. I'm just a hacker, and the last time I was employed to write code was back in the 1990's.

kanewai wrote:There were a couple columns on the last bot that I don't think we need. One was # of consecutive weeks, and I already forgot the other. I like a simple design, and the less clutter the better!

The other one was for balance. You got a badge for a specific number of books AND movies over the past two weeks. 1 for bronze, 2 for silver, 5 for gold (I only achieved this once and with one of my best languages, Portuguese). I did find it motivating so I'd prefer if it was optional rather than removed completely. In the meanwhile you can use adblock to hide the images (I used it for the awkward blank stars myself).

OK, I've made one change to the Bot which you'll not be able to see yet, because you aren't recording any books or films. However below is a screen grab from my test system.



Basically this modification calculates your daily reading/watching average, and applies it to how long until the challenge ends. It was a fairly simple hack of the code and it isn't pretty, but it works. I'll upload the modifications to the live server this week sometime. BUT DO NOT RECORD ANY FILMS OR BOOKS UNTIL 1ST OF MAY. Or you will lose your work. You have been warned.

rdearman wrote:

kanewai wrote:I like the idea of having language families as an option.

I make my own spreadsheet towards the end of the challenge telling me how many pages / hours I need each week to finish the challenge. It's super useful, and I agree with Cavessa that it would be nice to see it on the bot.

The hierarchy of stars was nice.

There were a couple columns on the last bot that I don't think we need. One was # of consecutive weeks, and I already forgot the other. I like a simple design, and the less clutter the better!

I loved that consecutive week star, it keot me motivated to do something every week in order nit to lose it.

I agree! I LOVED that consecutive week counter. It also kept me motivated, and I doubt I would have completed the challenge without it! I made it a point to accomplish something weekly, even during some very rough personal/family issues, to keep the counter going! Please keep it!