After Laughter (Comes Tears)
posted by max on June 12, 2007 at 06:45:13 PM
I've always felt that YTMND should focus more on the content being produced than the users that produce the content itself.
Back in 2004 a lot of the content on the front page included links to a user's profile and at some point in time this stopped.
While the site's identity continues to grow, there isn't much of an outlet for users to gain an identity beyond their sites.
With suggestions and help from others I've created a beta version of a new scoring system that will privately rank users based on a number of criteria. This can then be used to give users who create great content more exposure, as well as being used as a method of highlighting content that will most likely be generally well received. Obviously the algorithm will be tweaked over the next few weeks but I hope to make it a useful part of the site. I don't want to turn this into a popularity contest, so for the time being I have no plans of publishing a list of users with associated scores.
Another upcoming change is the Hall-of-Fame, which will see a total re-haul. The Hall-of-Fame has not reflected the true spirit of YTMND and has been used as a repository of sorts. A lot of the items that don't belong will be removed and a lot that do belong will be added.
With suggestions and help from others I've created a beta version of a new scoring system that will privately rank users based on a number of criteria. This can then be used to give users who create great content more exposure, as well as being used as a method of highlighting content that will most likely be generally well received. Obviously the algorithm will be tweaked over the next few weeks but I hope to make it a useful part of the site. I don't want to turn this into a popularity contest, so for the time being I have no plans of publishing a list of users with associated scores.
Another upcoming change is the Hall-of-Fame, which will see a total re-haul. The Hall-of-Fame has not reflected the true spirit of YTMND and has been used as a repository of sorts. A lot of the items that don't belong will be removed and a lot that do belong will be added.
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I completely disagree with promoting certain users over others. The whole point of ytmnd was that anyone could make a site and the "market" decides its rating. Promoting certain users over others isn't the right direction, in my opinion. The fact that users need their ego fed by e-popularity is the entire point of letting the ytmnds speak for themselves.
"Back in 2004 a lot of the content on the front page included links to a user's profile and at some point in time this stopped." Then bring back linking to a user's profile! I think you're treading on some big ethical problems, not just having a seperate, private ranking system, but trying to decide who counts as a user who deserves more attention than others. No matter how you slice it, it's going to be a popularity contest, especially against ytmnd regulars and outside sites that just use ytmnd.
I downvote stupid pink sites. That's not to say there aren't funny pink sites, but you jackasses let this go to your head and now it seems like a lot of FeatUsers are exploiting their notoriety to perpetuate this idiocy. I hope they can come to there senses and realize they're featured because they've done some decent work and the past and learn not to squander their efforts on retarded sh*t like schisming because of max's silly color issue.
Max, lemme just say: Good idea; significant flaw:
As opposed to having two tiers of users, the elite, and the people like me, who are ruining this site, why don't we introduce some subtle shading to the dichotomy. If you have people on a continuim from 1 (total rock) to 0 (total suck) wouldn't it be possible to shade the featured user page so that the closer you are to 1 the more likely you are to be featured? This ensures an incentive to improve as well as some exposure for all, still based on ability.
Speaking completely selfishly, I like it how it's set up now, because now I'm at least assured a decent number of views whether my site makes Up and Coming or not. I've never cared all that much about rating, but I do care about views. Besides, considering how well the "random" Worthwhile section functions, it probably wouldn't work anyway.
i hear ya necro. in a way it is kind of a reward for those who've consistenly made good sites, to have your latest sites be so more out there for everyone to see. it just seems like a problem to me where Fourest can make a YTMND of a straight scan of a Garfield strip with big LOL text and some "lol, internet" music in the background and command all the attention of the world because he's already up there. i do like the self-policing ways of YTMND.
max, I'm already noticing that this "featured users" thing isn't all that great. there are obviously so many "featured" users that it's just like they all share a separate "recently created" page, which means their front-page exposure is still very limited.
a good alternative to this would be to just feature some good sites by those users and leave them up for about a day? like every day, ten sites by featured users would be featured on the front page in that box.
this way, instead of getting some extra limited exposure for their new sites (which will probably already be reaping the rewards of Up & Coming and Recently Created), every now and then they'll see an old site they remember loving on the front page once more. This would work especially well if the focus was on sites of theirs that have low views/votes to begin with.
oh, and I've always thought it might be really neat to just feature a user every day, as "today's featured user" or some such thing, and have a box on the front page with a bunch of random sites they've made. so say one day you could feature dctownes and show a bunch of his sites. that would really make him feel super extra special!