Been helping moderate some many huge communities here on kbin such as m/AskKbin, m/Redditmigration and so on, trying to contribute in ways I can.

And over the course of my time here at Kbin, here are some of the features I really, really wish comes to Kbin one day.

  • Banners for magazines: Right now we moderators are only able to make new logos and use that for our communities, but unlike Reddit or Lemmy, Kbin has been lacking the ability to make a banner apart from the Logo, the banner would help a lot more with not only the customization of the magazine but the overall appeal to it. This of-course should be optional as not every community would be going for this kind of look based on it’s topic, but for the majority, this can really add more to the experience.

  • More optional applicable permissions to moderators when owners add them: Right now, when I add a moderator, they can only delete, ban and moderate posts in general, but accessing the mod panel is impossible unless you are an admin, so this means, moderators can’t help owners with community rules, description, or even attach a new logo. There should atleast be some kind of supermod option or role that I could enable for the mods, so that this remains an optional but needed feature for some (and I am one of them).

  • Community Engagement: This is just, to put it lightly, lacking. For example, if someone make a really good post, everyone else is immediately ready to upvote/downvote and jump on the comments, but taking that first step of posting a good thread is just really, lacking. One of the reasons I believe for that is also because the platform feels very stale or dead in plain sight. To solve this, we could implement online status (OPTIONAL, I know not everyone will be into this), but we seriously need to figure out a way to make the site look more live and active, online status like Discord or Reddit (oh yes, reddit has this too, but this is optional and can be disabled) can really help add a more live and active feel to the community, this can in-directly encourage more engagement and the users will feel more inclined to particpate when they see others online.

Reddit also has some other features like showing “X number of people are viewing this thread”, again adding that more of a live engaging feeling to the platform.

  • Wiki: I seriously hope we can get a dedicated area to put our wiki stuff similar to on Reddit, right now I have so far done this by making a thread and pinning it, but a wiki built into the sidepanel would a lot more seamless and integrated, plus people wouldn’t have to look for in multiple places and will be good to have rules, description and everything in the sidepanel.

If yall have more, add them in the comments, this is what I remember so far.

Thank you for reading!

  • TheArstaInventor@kbin.socialOP
    1·
    11 months ago

    Update: unfortunately the banner CSS given did not work, here is the imgur link I was trying to add to m/cars for reference: https://imgur.com/a/SDy0s5O. The issue is that even after I followed your instructions and posted it on the CSS box from mod panel, I tried refreshing, banner just does not pop up.

    Maybe if you could help me out here, i’d really appreciate that, thank you again!

    • Pamasich@kbin.social
      1·
      11 months ago

      Okay, so I’ve created a magazine and tested some stuff out.

      In the first code I posted, I used the child selector (>) to select <header> elements directly inside <main> elements. For some reason, custom CSS doesn’t seem to support the child selector. No matter where I try to use it, the style isn’t applied.

      The following code worked for me on my magazine:

      main header:has(h1[hidden]) {
    height: 300px;
    background-image: url(https://i.imgur.com/wbZa4eI.png);
    background-size: 100% auto;
    background-position-y: -150px;
}

      I removed the child selector and instead used :has(hi1[hidden]) to make sure I only get the target element. Without it, it would also replace the background of the individual thread titles.

      The image you’re trying to use is a bit large, so I’ve included an example usage of background-size and background-position to change the size of the image and what part of it actually gets displayed.
      With background-size, the first value is how wide the image should be, while the latter value is how high. Percentage values are relative to the element’s size. So the width and height properties. You can also set absolute values, like I did with height in pixels in this example.

      The big issue with this one though is that it’ll only apply to the Threads and All Content views. Other views, including Microblog and individual threads, don’t have the <header> element I’m looking for here.

      I modified it to apply to more views:

      h1[hidden] {
    height: 300px;
    background-image: url(https://i.imgur.com/wbZa4eI.png);
    background-size: 100% auto;
    background-position-y: -150px;
    display: block;
    color: transparent;
    user-select: none;
}

      The last two lines are there because this actually displays the name of the magazine on the banner. Since that’s kind of redundant, since it’s already in the bar at the top, I’m hiding the text and making it not selectable.

      This one does work in all the views I tested except for when looking at a thread and its comments.

      Though, something worth considering in case you intend to just use this code as-is: I just used pixels for simplicity. But the result might look entirely different on other screen resolutions than mine. Here’s a list of better units to use if you want it to look the same on all screens. You can use percentages, pixels, and these other units interchangeably anywhere.

      About the second code I posted, for some reason :before, much like the child selector, doesn’t seem to work. I can very much target the #middle and #header elements from custom magazine CSS, but :before doesn’t do anything.

      I’m not sure why this is. I see no security reason to block them, so I assume it’s not intentional. It’s a bit hard to debug :before specifically because I don’t know any way to get its styles without making it visible. So I have no idea if something is overwriting the style or if the selector just doesn’t work, like is the case with the child selector. I’ll have to look into this a bit more over the weekend.

      • TheArstaInventor@kbin.socialOP
        1·
        11 months ago

        I tried both the ones you mentioned, unfortunately it still does not work, is it because the image is Jpg instead of png? I also copied the image’s address and pasted it.

        • Pamasich@kbin.social
          1·
          11 months ago

          Say, do you see any custom CSS anywhere? I mean, I’m not even sure which magazines use it anyway, do you see something on /m/pamasich? Besides the test banner, I also made the magazine name in the sidebar red.

          If you don’t see anything changed there, do you maybe have custom CSS turned off? In your settings, there’s an option Ignore magazines custom CSS under a text field that lets you enter personal custom css. Make sure that’s not checked.

          • Pamasich@kbin.social
            1·
            11 months ago

            I can see it. Maybe it’s the point I mentioned here:

            Though, something worth considering in case you intend to just use this code as-is: I just used pixels for simplicity. But the result might look entirely different on other screen resolutions than mine. Here’s a list of better units to use if you want it to look the same on all screens. You can use percentages, pixels, and these other units interchangeably anywhere.

            Maybe the values I gave are too small for you to see on your screen?

            edit: wait, why does the image not work, I literally just uploaded it

            edit 2: not sure if you can view this since it’s blocked in some countries, but here’s a catbox upload.

            edit 3: right, I just noticed that, because I’m mixing percentages and absolute units here, the image actually moves around as I change the screen size. I’ll refine the example with more reliability later today.

            • TheArstaInventor@kbin.socialOP
              1·
              11 months ago

              Can’t appreciate you enough, thank you again.

              I can see it

              The linked imgur says 404 and doesn’t work.

              Here’s a list of better units to use if you want it to look the same on all screens.

              Honestly, I pretty much suck at CSS and I honestly don’t understand how i’d use it, but what I can tell you is that I am using a 2017 iMac, so you should be able to tell the screen size based on that. I am also using Firefox on MacOS.

              not sure if you can view this since it’s blocked in some countries, but here’s a catbox upload.

              OMG Wow, it looks so damn good! I wish it worked for me!

              right, I just noticed that, because I’m mixing percentages and absolute units here, the image actually moves around as I change the screen size. I’ll refine the example with more reliability later today.

              No worries or hurries, take your time on this and let me know :)

          • Pamasich@kbin.social
            1·
            11 months ago

            I’m currently using this code on /m/pamasich:

            h1[hidden] {
    height: 12vh;
    background-image: url(https://i.imgur.com/wbZa4eI.png);
    background-size: cover;
    background-position: center;
    display: block;
    color: transparent;
    user-select: none;
}

            To me, this works both on pc and mobile.

            Though, the one on /m/cars right now works for me too.

    • Pamasich@kbin.social
      1·
      11 months ago

      That’s weird. I was testing it out with a userstyle, which worked, so I assumed it would work with custom css too. But I guess there might be some restrictions in place? Seems very restrictive though if that’s the case here. Not even the first one I gave works. I’ll see if I can find anything out.