latest news and massive todo list.
posted by max on January 16, 2006 at 09:05:07 PM
Hello folks,
I heard back from the drive recovery place and they are hard at work recovering the forums. I am looking into some new options for the forums when they officially come back.
I've spent the weekend working on my "YTMND TODO list". I am posting it for you all to see, read more if you are interested and feel free to comment on it.
Before you freak out, realize none of this stuff is set in stone and it's all up for discussion!
So what do you think?
I heard back from the drive recovery place and they are hard at work recovering the forums. I am looking into some new options for the forums when they officially come back.
I've spent the weekend working on my "YTMND TODO list". I am posting it for you all to see, read more if you are interested and feel free to comment on it.
Before you freak out, realize none of this stuff is set in stone and it's all up for discussion!
[ Legend ]
*- Bug.
@- Possible feature or something I am bugged about constantly.
+- New Feature I want to add.
[ USER LEVELS ]
+- Implement and enforce user levels (somewhat in place).
Level 0: Users who aren't signed in.
Level 1: Users with an account that has not been confirmed.
Level 2: Users with a confirmed account.
Level 4: Paid users.
Level 8: Moderators.
Level 16: Administrators.
Level 255: Max.
[ COMMENTS ]
+- Update the maximum comment length from 256 characters to 512.
@- Nested comments to allow people to reply to comments (requires layout changes)
@-- Maybe use do a mechanism like Livejournal's nested comments.
+- Ability to delete comments on your sites. [ PAID ]
@- Comment paging for sites with a ton of comments, maybe AJAX.
[ SITE CREATION PROCESS ]
Step 1. User goes to create site page.
Step 2. User chooses sound, image, text, all the vitals. (if edit, information is populated)
Step 3. User gets to preview site. If user accepts go to step 4 else step 3.
Step 4. User has to choose between a publicly rated site and a private personal site.
Publicly rated sites:
Is rated in (views list, score list, up and coming, etc.)
Can be found in the search and keywords.
Get auto deleted after 30 days if:
It has less than (100 views or 10 votes) or the score is less than 2.5
Private personal sites:
Don't get rated in any lists.
Can not be found in the keywords or search.
Get auto deleted after 30 days no matter what.
[ PAID users have no auto-deletion. ]
Step 5. Site is locked. User is not allowed to edit the site any further.
In order to edit the site, the user can use the replace function which will
delete the site and hold the domain for the user for 24 hours.
Effectively allowing them to edit the site with a full stat reset. This is done
to keep people from vandalizing sites once they are on the front page.
[ PAID users are allowed to have unlimited edits without stat reset. ]
Step 6. Site goes into moderation queue. [ SEE MODERATION ]
Step 7. Site either goes live or gets killed depending on moderation.
Killed sites stick around for 3 days and an email is sent to the creator letting them know.
[ FILE SYSTEM ]
+- Link to sound and image file on profile page. [ PAID ]
+- "56k" option to prevent users from opening huge sites.
*- Figure out the bug randomly causing sites to be batch edited.
*-- I've already tried editing a site and uploading a previously used sound file.
*-- and editing a site and using a new file.
*-- Things to look into: the asset management system, site creation/editing code.
[ USER PROFILES ]
@- Real user profiles, same sort of information vBulletin has, with some other good info to create fun
@-- statistical information from.
+- Avatars [ PAID ] (would need to figure out where on the site they are shown).
@-- Possibly open up avatars for everyone but allow paid members to have slightly larger avatars.
@- Discuss the addition of user comments and user ratings.
@- Private messaging.
[ SESSIONS ]
+- Standardize sessions, use a wrapper session class.
@- Decide which session engine to use, or if you should just create your own.
*- Figure out why PHP doesn't get the login cookie for some people.
[ KEYWORDS ]
+- Put more keyword info in when users search.
+- Work more on keyword relevance, maybe use a separate Xapian.
+- Add more to keywords interface.
+- Allow users to report keyword abusers.
[ CONTENT BOXES / FRONT PAGE ]
+- Allow customization of content boxes (which to see, what order, etc). [ PAID ]
+- Add new content boxes:
@-- Who's online.
@-- Top Rated Today
@-- Top Rated This Month
@-- Most Views Today (External)
@- Possibly make the entire front page AJAX and live-auto-update.
[ HELP SECTION/FAQ/MEDIA SIGHTINGS/REAL ABOUT PAGE ]
+- A help section with common problems and solutions.
@- Allow people to ask and answer questions with moderation.
+- A CMS so I can stop editing everything with SQL.
[ SITE VIEWS ]
+- Insert a row on each site view with: (IP, site_id, referring url).
+- CRON job uniqify's views and stores a small amount of referring url data.
+- Maybe make Referrers [ PAID ] feature.
[ REPORT THIS SITE FEATURE ]
+- Build a better admin side.
+- Elaborate on information the user can provide, maybe pre-filled drop-downs.
+-- Marked as work safe when not work safe.
[ USER LOGINS ]
+- Clean up and rewrite the code so it uses straight sessions.
+- Redo the c+- Moderation consists of a "best out of five" vote from five regular YTMND users.
+- Users would click the MODERATE link on the top of the page, and be given a random site to moderate.
+- Alternatively site creators could send the link to other registered users or post on the forums
with a link to their site.
+-- When viewed by a non-logged in user, site would show "not moderated yet" message, logged in users would
get moderation interface.
+- Possibly allow a content box on the front page for the moderation queue.
[ RSS FEEDS ]
+- This is a PAID feature. Providing RSS feeds to the public would no doubt cause people to never
+-- visit www.ytmnd.com and only the sub-domains. This would cause a major loss of the revenue YTMND
+-- uses to pay for hosting.
+- RSS feeds for all the content boxes.
+- Search RSS feeds
@- Allow saving of searches as RSS that are updated once every 60 or so minutes? [ PAID ]
@- Or maybe just make a watch-list on searches.
[ YTMND STORE ]
+- Real shopping cart. multiple tables and most likely a separate db.
+- Site sponsorship done through store.
[ FORUMS ]
SEE ALSO: USER SIGNUP, ADMIN.YTMND.COM
+- Decide on vBulletin of SMF
+- Decide on various forums and the rules in each.
+- Integrate the account creation and user signup so there are no longer two accounts.
+- Integrate banning/deletion features so when a user is deleted his forum threads and posts
are deleted as well.
+- Give [ PAID ] users extra features on the forums as well.
+- Change the forum structure so that the "old-schoolers" have a sub forum of their own that
they can moderate and be
+-- in charge of.
[ EMAIL ]
+- Inject a unique message ID and then a qmail script to parse the information into a db.
+-- This way when all the idiots sign up and they require human white-list interaction it can tell them
+-- to fuck themselves when they send 1000 emails to support.
[ SUPPORT ISSUES ]
@- Decide whether or not to buy kayako, would be really useful but requires apache and zend optimizer.
[ ADMIN.YTMND.COM ]
+- Major clean up needed, move to new cvs.
+- More web stuff, less shell scripts.
+- Something other people can use besides me, like moderators and administrators.
[ CLEAN UP ERRORS AND WARNINGS ]
*- All pages that just consist of die messages or warnings should go through an error class of some sort
[ SITE TEMPLATE ]
+- Complete re-do of sound code. Needs to be a lot smarter and take into account user preferences.
+-- For instance, allowing the use of media player on firefox, which would solve a lot of sound woes.
*- Remove stretch code, it doesn't work in Firefox and looks awful in IE.
[ USER SIGNUP ]
+- Rewrite completely.
+- Get more meta data (like age, contact options etc)
+- Make people agree to the TOS
*- Completely redo the captcha without sessions/cookies, it's causing too many problems.
+- Dupe checking, if duplicate email is used offer reset password/resend confirm mail.
[ LISTS ]
+- Create a back end system to manage lists of sites.
+-- Users could create and publish lists of sites.
+-- Back end would allow support for "true" favorite sites.
@- Possibly the ability to have group lists, with managers.
@-- Maybe a global fads list and let people take over maintaining a fad list.
So what do you think?
Add a comment
I apolagize for being negative, however I do not intend to "Pay". I love this website, one of the reasons is because it's free. I don't want YTMND to sell out like everything else i've loved in the past. Seems the trend wont end. Also, I have a lot of YTMND's that are inner jokes with my friends. Obviously they've ranked really low, but my friends and I find them hilarious. It's too bad they'll delete because of downvoting...
What do you mean by "paid" account? Does this mean someone who has donated to the site? Or is that a separate thing? Also, if we (the users) have ideas for the site/products or complaints against other users/mods, how accessible and willing to help will the Mod/Admin staff be? Also, how much power will they have in general? What are the qualifications for the Mod/Admin staff? Aside from that I'm VERY glad you're addressing the Firefox issue. The other features you listed have definitely piqued my interest (especially PMs). BTW I don't expect a lengthy reply, mostly I'm just getting thoughts out.
Paid accounts can be good or bad. No way in hell I'm going to pay a monthly or annual fee, but a one-time payment; a trivial sum to keep paid users honest, would be a good idea. As for queueing YTMND sites that await moderation before being released, that's an idea that won't really fly, in all fairness. It'd be like somethingawful queueing every single forum post before it goes public.
Max, you've put a lot of effort in this post and some great ideas. 3 things I would like to see: 1. I need to login like every hour 2. Expand the Top Viewed list to about 20-25 3. Get rid of the new day's Top Viewed list that display with 1 view. I can't count how many awful ytmnds are in the top 15 at the end of the day simply because they had 1 view at the start.
Nothing objectionable, but steps 6 & 7 in the site creation process HAVE TO GO. It makes you a content moderator, not a 'common carrier' (for lack of a better term), and you are responsible for the content. Users will be pissed off because you allowed an offensive site to go live, while the community will be pissed because you're blocking potentially funny, but offensive sites.
Fair Play, Max!!!
For those anxious about fees, allow me to point out the following...
1)YTMND will be a better product.
2)Max has already given us much for free.
3)I think Max deserves a few quid, just for getting caught up between EB--m and the YTMND Army.
I believe I agree with the vast majority of users in saying, that as long as functionality remains at a good level for non-paying members, things will operate well.
http://yushchenko-morgan.ytmnd.com/
About moderation, I think you're onto something, but I do see problems arising. Often a site you worked hard on will get pushed off the "Last 5 Created" by poorly made sites and in-jokes to friends, and then your site is never heard from again. I like the "Up and Coming" list that relatively recently appeared, as this helps new YTMNDs in their early moments. Moderation of sorts might help ensure that only the good ones make it to the lists. On the other hand, what's to encourage people to moderate? Would sites just end up hanging in limbo for weeks? Perhaps a system rewarding users with points (similar to GameFAQs Karma) for doing it?
Max, I don't see a reason for personal sites. I mean who makes a YTMND for your own personal enjoyment. BTW if your implementing a system that sites will be deleted if they are rated too lowly I think it would be quite a fun time waster to go to a site death row and see sites that will be destroyed within 24 hours.
Just an idea max, but how about allowing advertisers to purchase bannerspace on YTMND?
I like most all of your ideas.
However, I'd suggest posting in SH/SC over at SomethingAwful some of the coding based ideas so you could get an idea of how feasible it would be to program some of the features you're talking about.
Hell, you might even get some goons to do work for you pro bono.
I read the whole thing and only the word "shopping" stuck in my mind. Seriously though, when I have the courage to upload things of my own, the paid user features do seem worthwhile to me, and some of the suggestions (DXSSI510's) are things I agree with. The automatic deletion feature seems liable for faults, and downvoting could cause alot of problems. What if there was a section that gave a list of the ytmnd's in que for deletion? That way people would be able to see what's on the endangered species list and act accordingly.
I agree that auto-deletion is a bad idea, but I do look forward to paid accounts and maybe one day when I am not having to chose between internet goodies and food I will buy one. Also having moderation is a bad idea IMO; YTMND will lose some of the "edgy" and "in your face" "raw" appeal. Also please for the love of god make persistant logins that last more than 10 minutes PLEASE :) I
Everything sounds really good to me except for the site deletion stuff. Alot of times i like to look through sites that have hardly ever been viewed, and ive found some REALLY good ones that way :D I think sites should only get deleted if they have ALOT of downvotes or something, Just because a site isnt popular doesnt mean its not good :)
Oh, the blamming and protecting thing would only be for public sites. Private sites should obviously stay alive for 30 days only and not require blams/protects. While I'm at it, how about each new site must get front page exposure for, say 1-5 minutes, and a blam/protect will take away or add 30 seconds?
Max, I've been coming to YTMND since they were individual sites with seperate domain names. I personally think the paid users idea is good, but for the love of God don't make it a recurring payment. It's the one thing that stops me from signing up for almost anything. I don't want the extra hassle. One thing you might consider, for paid users, is the ability to choose between the corner image and the ! # system that we all loved so much. (Globally, not just for their sites.) I'd also like to see a loader for those sites that always have "Refresh" in their titles. I have absolutely no idea how you would implement this as I don't know if there are any calls you can make from within the browser to get loading status data but it's a thought. Here's another one I just thought of: Make SURE that people are required to type in their image and sound origins before the site creation system will allow them to submit. That's about all for me.
Well..You have sure been busy Max. As far as paying for extra features, Im all game, Pending on how much you wanna charge and how you wanna charge it (Yearly, Monthly, Quarterly). I know its not set in stone, But some of the things up there qould do nothing but Add to this site. Some, like the Moderatior Ques, Would take away from it. If you worried about content of YTMND's, (Meaning you dont want a huge flasted penis showing up when someone clicks on a link to "The New Picard Song" or something), You might consider More Mods? Anything but Mod Ques. That would do nothing but cause frustraition and confusion. And we both know that if one of those things happen, these guys tend to Riot.
One more thing: The whole auto-deletion deal doesn't sound too appealing. You could get rid of a lot of sites if you just deleted ones with that criteria from people who haven't logged in for a certain amount of time. Also have the ability for sites to be "marked" for permanency after they've reached a certain amount of views, say 1000. A purging system is needed, but be careful with its design. A lot of people on here value their creations though they may get downvoted or neglected.
Auto-site deletion is a very bad idea, because it takes all of the fun out of the variety of sites. Who would make an original YTMND if they knew that there was a good chance it would be deleted in 30 days anyway?
Also, I think making recurring payments will attract very, very few people. It would be better just to attract more advertising and have one-time payments.
The top sponsored sites should be changed to the top sponsored sites in the past month or something. I wouldn't mind getting one of my sites in there, but I bet you can guess why I'm not paying $76 just to force "You can't handle the barrel roll!" on the front page. Not that any of this sh*t matters.
I'm new here to site creation but enjoyed this stuff for some time. Like y said there should be more of a trial period to see if the people like it... once it hits a certain amount of views or keeps a certain average after a number of votes it should stay. Keep site creation simple as is.
Maybe you could also add some links to programs to help make ytmnds, like audio editors? I'd like to know how the hell people can make 6 minutes long songs on some sites.
Don't mess with perfection, man. I understand YTMND needs money to keep it up and running, and I understand that. But the moderation queue is gonna kill the community. Trust me, i've seen it happen; admins getting pissed off at spam and such, then implimenting a queue, and each forum went straight to hell. Don't do it, max. And don't baleet sites under 2.5. All that would be left would be fads! Ick! I also understand that YTMND needs a limit to the number of them, so how about baleeting sites under 1? There's a lot of them, and people don't watch them. Don't kill the community, O King of the Intarweb!
a lot of these ideas are good, max. they really are. there's just a lot of flaws to them that users can exploit. for example, any group of terrorizing downvoters could easily get a site deleted by anchoring it below 2.5. with that feature in place, you're giving more power to the downvoters, at least over the "free users." i'm also not too crazy about the moderation idea. while it does sound like something useful to filter out the bad sites early on, it makes creating a new site a bit of a hassle, and the feature could also be badly abused by downvoters.
MAX, the way you've been running the site so far is good. Not only good, it is enough. YTMND is highly appreciated by its simplicity, and adding all those features will take that out. Paid users will not help eighter. I vote to keep YTMND as it is, and /maybe/ implement a few of the features you suggested. And I hope you read this.
I am not a lawyer, but I am also the webmaster of a website, and I have recently been threatened with a lawsuit over a comment one user made about another on my forums. According to the lawyers I have talked to, Communications Decency Act 230 will protect you, but only if you are a content provider and not a moderator. If you create the moderation queue as you propose you will become liable for the content that users create here. You do not want that, and YTMND users do not want that. It only takes one overzealous thin skinned knuckledragger to destroy this whole thing for everyone.
For "USER LEVELS" I think that you should allow for user rankings. In which case:
LEVEL 1 - You have made a site.
LEVEL 2 - Your site has made it to "Up and Coming"
LEVEL 3 - Your site has made it to "Moderator's Favorites"
LEVEL 4 - Your site has made it to "Top 15 Viewed"
LEVEL 5 - Your site has made it to "Top 5 Rated"
LEVEL 6 - Your site has made it to "Hall of Fame"
-Just a suggestion. It is a motivation for people to make better sites. Also, it will add a fun and exciting element to ytmnd. I hope you will consider.
-dr-nick
With these awesome features, we don't need the forums. YTMND becomes the forum/myspace/imageshack. If you absolutely must bring back the forums, though, please consider that even to just post in FYAD still costs $10bux. If the forum cost money, I actually might use it, and it might actually be a useful tool for making cool ytmnds.
I've got this idea to help out people who want to show off their YTMNDs but have no way to do so,
a "shout-out" box on the first page with 10 YTMNDs, if a user "shouts-out" their YTMND it'll be
bumped to the top of this list and will only dissappear when the list is filled again. Another
idea!: Instead of letting users upload any image as their profile image why not use something
like Gaia Online where all the Avatars are different yet alike (bennetton rly?), something like,
i dunno, a 9x6 ASCII (colored) text box that can be edited by users, like this:
by default:
888888888
888888888
888888888
888888888
888888888
888888888
it would cut a lot on image space not to mention make www.ytmnd.com and even more unique site.
(sh*t, they were ment to be on top of each other..) Now for advice! I don't agree with the deleted if under 2.5 feature. Private messaging (PM), better profile pages,
and Help & FAQ page are urgent features. A LOT of new boxes on the first page would be nice.
More fieds on users' YTMND list (e.g.: Date)
User's favorite sites should be, obviously, sites 5'd by the user AND the ones with the most visits.
Maybe a comment page (like a Guestbook) for each user, on a second thought, maybe not, because it would be subject to heavy spamming or chatting.
And perhaps the most importantly of all, a real-life picture of the mysterious "max".
Also, moderation is a slippery slope. Once you're capable of doing it on a large scale, you're responsible for EVERYTHING that gets put on here, exposing you to all sorts of legal shenanigans. The only option would be to moderate sites that are even just slightly offensive/infringing, which would kill YTMND. Don't do it, Max!
aaronak makes a good point. the minute you assert control over which ytmnds go up, you immediately become responsible for every byte of content that goes into it. copyright holders will be sending C&D's all over the place. Even if much of the stuff falls under parody, it won't stop them from trying.
All looks brilliant (even for those who won't pay) but the auto-deletion due to score seems a bit scary. Not only will some famously low-rated sites disappear, but it seems so unneeded with the more reasonable deletion criteria implemented. I'm very good about deleting the sites I have made that are flops, but I kind of want to see all the classic failures still in place. Wow, this website is going to look like (gasp) a normal website!
Sounds really thorough; A lot of those problems I've noticed, like the keyword abusers. A relevancy system would be nice but complicated, wouldn't it? I know Wiki has that, but then, most people ought to. I think that Max means by the paid thing is that people who get a paid account, a "Gold membership" if you will, get access to more features, just shiny stuff. You don't have to, but I'm sure donations will still be appreciated.
Okay, when half the sites I access are a black screen, and I'm forced to weed through Picard, Conan, WoW, and MATHPWND, you can go straight to hell as far as garnering $$$. "Show this to the old woman?" Sponsored? Are you f*cking high? I love this site more than any other, even though people bust my balls for it. But for chrissakes, this auto-delete bullsh*t is just dumb. I don't want this place reduced to Blue Balls and sites you think are cute that amount to having the humor of a test pattern. I understand that you have a rough task everyday running this site, and you do it out of love rather than it being lucrative, but if you want YTMND to self destruct, just come out and say so. Let's not overthink things...especially since this site began with something incredibly moronic and silly. It's hard to swallow the idea of you considering yourself the arbiter of fine intarwebbing in light of that.
Oh man okerf*ck chill out. with the black cscreens YOU HAVE TO WAIT ALITTLE BIT AND THE IMAGE WILL APPEAR.
And also as a respone to a above poster, i noticed that when I was running my zone alarms firewall, the sound will not work correctly in firefox. It will begin, then just skip out forever. Disable cookie blocking if you feel the need for sound
I like the preview idea and the personal sites alot. I make alot of in-joke YTMNDs that get rated down solely because no one else is going to get the joke. As far as editing however...not so much. It's an annoying ginmmick when people just change the site title to remain in the top 15, but when people give suggestions to improve a site, I'm sure the creator would appreciate the ability to make those changes.