Here is the original suggestion:

I checked every thread I could find on the subject of Witness Statements before I decided to post this one.

I don't assume to know how every family formats or sends their WS's, but I think my suggestion may be win win for all.

There is nothing more annoying than getting a WS when you are in the middle of something else. You rush to copy the 60 second list so that you can descramble the name as soon as you have a spare minute. The shooter though, may not be that important right away unless of course the victim (which is not scrambled so extra info should not be a problem) is -48, or sponsored etc.

Would it be possible to add simply the status (IA, MIA, or RIA), and the Sponsor/Family in case they have one? Since some witness statements would of course be more crucial to unscramble the hitter right away if the victim was -48, or sponsored, this small bit of extra info could save precious seconds in game, without giving anyone an unfair advantage.

If this was already suggested, it must have been underneath something other than "Witness Statements". Thank you in advance for your time.

This suggestion was essentially to provide more information in the original message you receive in your personals about the victim of the attack. This could be something like (RIA) (MIA) (-48) after the name or something similar.

This was then modified to suggest a link to the profile of the victim, in the same way that the profile of someone you have wacked is clickable from the personals message.

This seemed to me to be a simple add on that would save time, particularly for mobile users. I don't think this invalidates the hard work of anyone, as mostly you are concerned with the shooter rather than the victim. The victim is currently only one page away in the obits. Playing at your computer, this is straightforward...not so much from your mobile.

I believe this would be a worthwhile development. Thoughts?

I would be happy to see the victim's name being a hyperlink to their profile. It sounds like an easy change that wouldn't make much of a difference for computer users, but would make it equally easy for mobile users to check who the victim is.

I think it would be a better option than adding any additional information (like MIA, NPC, etc) to the WS itself.


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Below I commented out what might be out of scope of this thread:
{PC-Flash-Fire wrote in the original thread: "Personally I think any any personal that contains a players unscrambled name should be a hyperlink.".
I feel the same way about it. I believe it's not a big change in terms of gameplay yet it makes the interface a bit more mobile-user-friendly. It expands on the hyperlink idea so perhaps this could be considered and discussed by the PC here rather than being put in a new suggestion thread.}

{I also agree with regards to the hyperlink for any personal. I don't see the harm in providing it to non-essential data.}

I can agree that Witness Statements can make it easier to figure out the victim. Figuring out the victim can be easy enough as it is already. So a hyperlink for the victim shouldn't be too much to ask for and wouldn't take to long to code in. As long as the hyperlink only given for the victim you witnessed attacked I have no problems with this.

{I don't see any harm as long as the name is not scrambled up. Just to make sure we are on the same page you are talking about wack, pickpocket, mug, financial receipts, credit transfers should have this hyperlink correct?}

{That's correct. Any name that appears unscrambled in your personals. Add watched threads notifications and OC invites/results to the list.}

I'm against the original idea of adding things into the WS, however I'm totally favorable onto adding hyperlink onto the victim.

I'm also favorable on adding the hyperlink to the names in personals relating all areas, as long as it's not the scrambled names.

{ Those that haven't given their opinions, please make sure to get them in, we need to get things going}

This subject will be open up for votes in 24 hours. Vote proccess will be open for 48 hours.

As I said in the original suggestion thread I believe all unscrambled names in personal's should be a hyperlink to their profile.

I am definitely for unscrambled names being hyperlinked. I am even in agreement for them if they are not WS related. Hopefully this will encourage more people acting on WS.

I like the turn the discussion made towards linking all unscrambled names. To me, the line between "adding that would be making things too easy for click monkeys" and "this is getting rid of a pointless speed bump that slows users down and adds frustration for no real purpose" is basically whether any thought is required in the step being eliminated.

There's no thought required in copy/pasting a name you already have into a search box and pressing enter. It's just an added hassle and couple of page loads to not have a handy link to get there right away.

On the other hand, there is thought required in determining whether the profile page you are looking at is a victim that, for lack of a better word, "matters." Even an MIA being shot could "matter" or not depending on what minute it was shot, who shot it, etc. So anything that makes a shorthand/bypass for actually looking at the profile page itself crosses the line I draw between good and bad streamlining.

That's just my opinion on where the line should be drawn between "good" and "bad" changes when they're being made for ease of use. Thoughts?

That was my thought initially as well, Sayyid. As I've mentioned in the actual suggestion thread in part it does help those who are lazy. However, when I thought a little more about it, I realized that those players that can't go the extra mile to check the targets and see if there is any issue, will also not click on the links and check either way.

It's why if the idea stayed at adding information into the WS, I would be completelly against it, but since we have already moved on from the original idea, I don't really see this one as a crossline though.

I just want to get things clear, the original suggestion has been changed from having the personal have (MIA) or such in the personal to a hyperlink to the profile also not just for witness statements but for any unscrambled name.

I don't think hyperlinking the "victim" is going to cause any serious disadvantage to anyone. I think it'll save time and help people playing on mobile phones.

{Where are we at with this? Ready for voting?}

{i would think we are in a position to vote on hyperlinking the victims name, anything else is making life a little too easy}

{I thought it would be better for all unscrambled names to be hyperlinked, especially pick pocket as pick pocket payback is time sensitive.}

{El_Nino by anything else you refer to additional info about the victim or hyperlinking any name that appears unscrambled in personals?}

I believe this suggestion has now been extended to adding a hyperlink to any name that appears unscrambled in personals.

I personally don't see a problem with this. Anyone who wasn't prepared to go through the extreme difficulty of clicking the obits or search page, is only slightly more likely to click the hyperlink.

For those who think this is making things too easy, is there any difficulty whatsoever in bringing up the victim's profile page?

While this would be a mobile-friendly addition, I'm not quite on board with what seems to be aiding laziness; From a purely RP respective, the counterargument that you receive a hyperlink from the victims you wack can be explained with the idea that you've studied your opponent long enough to realize who they are, where to find them, and obviously that they've merited enough of your scrutiny and attention for you to want to kill them.

On the other end of the coin, the receiving end of a witness statement is an unexpected event that would catch anyone off guard - (and, if I'm being honest, I would be in favour of also having the victim's name put through an anagram as well, because in reality there are very few people3 who'd be able to immediately identify all 500+ accounts on the site at a moment's notice.) and, for being in the 20's and 30's, unless you happened to steal their wallet moments after their death in hopes of getting an identification, you'd have to check the obituaries for your city (or, in the game's case, a search) to figure out just who they were.

Outside of the obvious puzzle that the anagram provides, witness statements have always been a process of deduction, information and fact finding - albeit slightly cumbersome, considering most of the WS's produced are from IA's, MIA's or RIA's. While introducing a hyperlink would be a convenience for mobile players, I'm really not on board with making anything about the witness-statement collecting process easier than it already has become.