tea for the tillerman
posted by max on April 15, 2007 at 05:15:39 PM
Lately I can't help but feel the content on YTMND is just lacking in general. I know that no matter how many nifty new features I add , this won't really improve.
As a lot of you know, the algorithms that define the front page content boxes are extremely simple and don't use most of the treasure trove that is the 180 million row YTMND database. I've been looking at white papers for “Item-based Collaborative Filtering Recommendation Algorithms”, and it's fairly obvious my complete lack of college-level math is beginning to catch up to me.
I'm looking for (as futile as it may be) some aspiring statisticians or economics majors that want to come up with some creative ways to highlight good content. Since the redesign of the front page, adding new content boxes is extremely easy and I've yet to really spend any time on coming up with new algorithms.
Anyone interested in the slightest, head on over to the wiki and add some comments or come up with your own ideas for new content box algorithms.
Another thing I've been thinking about lately is cleaning up the userbase. While the mod panel is still a ways off, I have been thinking about ways to make the site better by adding some exclusivity somehow.
Some variation of the following: making the site invite only, making it so only registered users can view ytmnd (huge reduction in hosting costs), plastering ads on YTMNDs for non-registered users, deleting all the sites and starting over, etc.
I'd say we should could have a conversation about this in the comments, but since most of the users never post anything in news comments except pure shit, I don't see the use.
*EDIT*: Also worth looking at: I finally got around to writing a Vote Weighting Algorithm
As a lot of you know, the algorithms that define the front page content boxes are extremely simple and don't use most of the treasure trove that is the 180 million row YTMND database. I've been looking at white papers for “Item-based Collaborative Filtering Recommendation Algorithms”, and it's fairly obvious my complete lack of college-level math is beginning to catch up to me.
I'm looking for (as futile as it may be) some aspiring statisticians or economics majors that want to come up with some creative ways to highlight good content. Since the redesign of the front page, adding new content boxes is extremely easy and I've yet to really spend any time on coming up with new algorithms.
Anyone interested in the slightest, head on over to the wiki and add some comments or come up with your own ideas for new content box algorithms.
Another thing I've been thinking about lately is cleaning up the userbase. While the mod panel is still a ways off, I have been thinking about ways to make the site better by adding some exclusivity somehow.
Some variation of the following: making the site invite only, making it so only registered users can view ytmnd (huge reduction in hosting costs), plastering ads on YTMNDs for non-registered users, deleting all the sites and starting over, etc.
I'd say we should could have a conversation about this in the comments, but since most of the users never post anything in news comments except pure shit, I don't see the use.
*EDIT*: Also worth looking at: I finally got around to writing a Vote Weighting Algorithm
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Well, let's not delete sites, even though 95% of it is pure sh*t. Because then a lot of neo YTMND retards would just post more, while the good ol' stuff would be gone. But, first off, you could redo the normal page. Yeah, I know, you can customize it in whatever way you want. But let's try with the "Top 10" being on there again. Put it in any order you like. But yeah. Also, for "Worthwhile YTMND's", make it so it not only has to be atleast 1 month old, but aswell, must have 10 or more votes on it.
I really have no faith in the YTMND community, seeing as all of the comments here are "can i have chicken nuggets" and "cocaine"... so I'm not expecting you to read this max. That said, I like the idea of having invite only... it'd help prevent WOW forums sending a lame ytmnd to the top, or bookmarking sites like digg or del.icio.us. The only negative effect I can see this having is a lot of people will be turned away from the site and not want to register. It'd stop a lot of the creativity...
^^ continued...
but seeing as most of the sites being created lately are old fads, it'd probably wouldn't be a horrible thing. Whoring ads to unregistered users would have the same effect I think. Whatever decision is made I agree that something should be done. Deleting every site with a score of 2 or lower might not be such a bad thing, but starting over? I'd miss a lot of sites that got me to this site in the first place 2 years ago.
I have an idea that might make people put more thought into a YTM before they publish it: Allot a certain number of YTMNDs a user can make per week (it would require an additional column on the members table, but that's not too bad). This would
Additionally, you could make this number relatively low, but it increases when the user makes a YTM that gets a good score (after a certain number of votes). This would be pretty easy to do with cron jobs.
Listen up. I may not have the best sites on Ytmnd, but the algorithm going now can only push so far, and far enough to where every little piece of funny is wiped and smeared out of existence. The lack of syncros on animated pictures is enough to pull hairs, not to mention the choice of which browser to use (IE or Firefox). As we all know IE is fading out and Firefox is becoming a standard for the intense animations that are currently being uploaded.
For those of you that enjoy my sites, Yes I do use macromedia software, It gives you the ability to syncro sound with animation via streaming. Oddly enough, the flash creation can be much smaller comparative to a standard upload (picture and sound) to Ytmnd. When I made my sites, I had the goal of keeping that minimum of 1.5mb upload, well my flash version is 300kb. It runs 1000x better. So here is my idea on the flash situation.
If you do go with a flash site. You could limit each site to 1mb. or less... This will clear out the users that create sites using a full song with one picture. And, If you don't go flash, well.. implement the repeating of a picture or a gif file. A gif can be repeated any number of times before it stops. For instance, an animation that plays one time. Personally, I think you should just leave the original site and implement a flash upload.
I agree with the dropping of the lower star'd sites, that is until after the downvoter hacks are blown up. I think there should be separate voting scales, one for commenting, which should implement the picture with the sequence of letters and numbers (when you are deleting a site) when you make a comment. The other votes would be just the non-commenting people that just click and go *pffff* 1 star. It is great to hear back or say what they want to see.
So the main page would have Sponsored, recently created, "didn't quite make it for votes", this is like a second chance for people that made a good site but it flopped because of their timing practices, "most commented" vote, this is narrow out downvoters, most viewed, up and coming, worthwhile, most voted.
There are a ton of good sites being swept aside and people that have a life can't view them because it was downvoted out of the way, plus it hasn't made it to the search database. Good luck Max..
I'm curious as to how this "Invite only" thing would work. Would you only have people who can make "good" ytmnds be members? And if so, where does that leave the rest of us poor smuts? I mean, sure, I haven't made any good ytmnds (or any "true" ones, for that matter), but I don't feel I should be left out of the community because of it, and I know some of the other users feel the same way.
Yeah, invite only and deleting all the sites would be a seriously bad idea. I agree that the really poorly rated sites should be deleted, and that weighted voting is a very very good idea. You should also make something to separate the "Classic" YTMNDs from the "Modern" YTMNDs, since I haven't seen any real reason for checking the "This site is a Classic YTMND" button. I've also noticed that the flash implement is being used by many sites that don't need syncing, especially sites with still backgrounds.
What I'd kind of like to see is an ability to flag YTMND's as under certain fads; like saying your new site is a parody of http://lol.ytmnd.com , or it's a response to another YTMND. Keywords and Search don't really cut their purpose- finding more things for entertainment- due to morons putting useless sh*t in their sites about their penis growth or whatever.
I think that a good way to clean the site up a bit and keep the sh*t sites down and out of sight would be to have all ytmnd's that don't get over a 3 average rating, might as well be deleted after 24 hours of their creation. They are hardly ever seen again and are infinitly lost in the raging sea of other terrible ytmnds. We have a hard time as it is getting 10 new ytmnds in the Up and Coming each day and maybe the deletion of bad sites will stop people from posting them knowing they'll be lost in a day.
My recommendation for improving the way YTMND's are displayed would be to add the option of Genres. Almost all YTMND's are going to be comedy, but if people could post images and sound for another purpose, it would open the door to a whole new world of creativity. Think if people could make Horror YTMNDs, or maybe just organize YTMND's based on content rather than popularity... that would help people find the YTMND they'd potentially like.
Also, maybe an amazon.com style "Recommended for you" ytmnd block
I like some of the ideas you brought up, but making people register before being able to view ytmnd's has a few downsides. alot of my friends have seen/experienced a ytmnd only when i send them a link to one. but, they aren't necessarily "ytmnd'ers" they just go to ytmnds when i send them a link. so if you were to make it to where they'd need to register first before seeing ytmnds, i doubt they would want to go through with it
Maybe we should focus on getting rid of the unwanted users we have before we try to catch us some new ones. I quit this site for a month because there were 5 meatspins on the recently created, and people were 5ing them. Actually now that I think of it I pretty much hate everyone here. People who don't piss me off turn out to have armies of alts. F*ck.
"Then you would see countless people reposting the old sites over and over again as their own. " - It would be a pain in the *ss for me to repost anything i felt worth bringing back, and yet a pain in the *ss to watch someone inevitibly reclaim something i spent time on as their own if i didnt. catch 22. deleting everything would only put my money in Richard Kyanka's bank account. if you want to go on a delete spree, setting it for anything under 2.5/50 votes seems more reasonable. 'starting fresh' is a pipe dream, because way too much work has been put into so many sites to just allow them to not be reposted, and then theres the 'curator' types who will want to restore YTMNDs past.
Purge old 1's periodically...
If you plan on popups for non reg'd users, maybe something saying "Register to reduce pops", just so newcomers don't get turned off.
I'm not sure about banning offsite links. Doesn't that encourage traffic and possible future members?
Invite only is a pain in the ass.
Also, your Hyperlinks to the wiki don't work. -1 !
I myself actually wouldn't mind a registration fee. And that would certainly help keep some of the sh*ttiest sites on YTMND from being made. 1) Grab friends picture from myspace 2) Grab gay fuel song 3) Title it _______ loves c*ck. I really can't see 12 year olds paying a fee just to insult their friends.
registration fees, while they sound helpful i think ultimately won't be. registered users who are active enough to even consider paying for registration, usually create enough revenue for the site via ads that it's unnecessary. to really solve the problem of the lack of income ytmnd has, we need to monetize the casual users, not the active users.
i still really hold some variation of the SA model in high regard. invite only with a paid fee if you cant get an invite always seemed like a good idea to me. You can only post if you pay, and those who dont get advertisements and can only see so many YTMNDs per day before they get the REGISTER NOW screen of death.
SA and YTMND aren't really comparable as they have their costs based in two separate areas. SA's cost come from single users browsing/participating on the forums which in turn uses bandwidth and server capacity and their profit comes from those same users paying a $10 fee to make up for that. YTMND's costs come from a user looking at a YTMND linked to them externally and then just closing the site and never coming back. Regular users view enough ads to make up for the server load/bandwidth usage.
i dont know man, charging YTMND users may be a bit of a burden to ourselves, but if the alternative ends up being the site not existing - The Nazi LOLacaust option of elimating unviewed/unvoted on sites, shutting down registration and paying to avoid advertisements is something i can live with. I dont know what other ideas to come up with - anything else would be radical changes that i havent thought the consequences of - you talked about Some reviews section before, like as if the ytmnd.com main page became a choice between going to the sites area or a more blog/different styled entertainment site/main page with a staff of contributors that could perhaps generate more revenue to the site without costing nearly as much in bandwidth.
i dont know why i didnt think of that. i associate wading through a minute of ads to get to a site synonmous with salon. for an unregistered casual viewer, whehter or not they sit through the ads could possibily determine whether they're one of those friends looking at a site from just some bozo following a google cache of the 'rapist search' image.
but seeing as most of the sites being created lately are old fads, it'd probably wouldn't be a horrible thing. Whoring ads to unregistered users would have the same effect I think. Whatever decision is made I agree that something should be done. Deleting every site with a score of 2 or lower might not be such a bad thing, but starting over? I'd miss a lot of sites that got me to this site in the first place 2 years ago.
You might be able to add various categories that users could categorize the site in the voting window, top votes for categories will place the YTMND. i.e. 5 clicks on "Fad", 3 clicks on "Classic" 1 click on "F*ggy short film", YTMND site classified as Fad. The would be able to change categories as diffent clicks come in. Category tabs on the front page could also help us sift through and view sites we would like to see (or ignore). That way users will be doing most of the sorting.
The tag idea is good, but I think tagging should be done by site creators. Then let us personally rate tags so that if I don't want to see, for example, all the retarded imus sites, I can one the tag and that will lower the effective rating of all sites with that tag, for the purposes of determining the top 10 etc that I personally see. Let people fit themselves into whatever YTMND subcommunities they want by how they rate tags.
"Lately I can't help but feel the content on YTMND is just lacking in general." I blame myself, I have YTMND block. I don't know about deleting all sites (even though I have most of my site files saved), but maybe if a site has lower than a 2.5 rating after 30 days set it up for auto deletion. I see new users register all the time, but not all of them activate their account. After 24 hours delete them.
To END the TOP VIEWED wars, all we need is a ratings cutoff. If a site doesn't have a 3.5 or higher, it just doesn't show up on the Top Viewed board. Also, the only way I can think of to improve YTMND quality is to provide some sort of small time rewards system for good content. Not cash, but YTMND privileges like mod status, cool colored comments, or what have you
I agree with this. Exclusivity would be bad, and even probably make the fads more and more prevalent. What should be done is just fixing the main page, so actual good sites show up where the most people can see them. This could be done many ways, but my favorite suggested so far is getting rid of the Top Viewed in favor of something merit-based. Perhaps if a stars-for-members deal was set up, there could be a box for the highest-rated site of the highest-rated members.
Perhaps add an advertisement page that you have to click past or w/e to get to the ytmnd for non-registered users. And I believe you already mentioned it in another update; but make it so new users have to make a site, and if it gets downvoted enough in the first 24hrs they get deleted. On the same note, if a users average rating for all sites is lower than say 2.0 they get get suspended and can ask a mod to unsuspend them, or deleted altogether. Or maybe just the sites with a rating less than 3.0