the sun is still
posted by max on January 09, 2008 at 11:46:11 AM
In an attempt to keep you all up-to-date with the inner workings of YTMND,
I'm going to try and update a little more often. Rather than trying to
convince you that I'm working, I'll just publish my results, regardless of
how boring they may be to you.
I want to thank everyone who provided feedback on the TODO. I really enjoy reading constructive criticisms and ideas, even if I'm not directly responding to all of it. I want to open a discussion on a couple of topics with this news post, so read more if you are inclined.
So first off:
I've migrated all of the database servers over to the latest version of MySQL, which seems to have not only gone pretty smoothly, but also removed a lot of the headaches. Hopefully they should have less hiccups, which means you should see "vote lag" issues less often. While I was at it, I did a good deal of database cleanup, but there are some more major structural changes that require large modifications to the site that I'm doing on a test setup first.
I've also spent the last week migrating the hundreds of files that compose YTMND into SVN (from 3 old CVS repositories). This was a lot of work, because it involved figuring out how I renamed and moved files around for the last 4 years. I found some gems from the past in there too!
Now that everything is in SVN I am beginning the large refactoring that I've wanted to do for a long time. This is a pretty lengthy list of things I need to do in order to get the site's structure and codebase the way I want it. One of the major benefits of this is it will make the site much easier to work on, meaning adding little features and fixes will happen much more often. It also means I can start thinking about opening up the code base to developers that want to add patches or really work on YTMND.
The refactoring is extensive and effects almost every page on the site, as such, I'm going to take the time to split out theme specific stuff to external templates where I haven't in the past. Since I'm doing this, I've sent out a request for new YTMND designs/layouts to a bunch of designers, I've given them 2 weeks at which point I'm going to post them here and let you guys decide which you like best. I haven't figured out how much work the templating will be, but it's possible that the refactoring will include choosable "themes", it might even be possible to get the old design in if someone is willing to do the grunt work. If any of you are serious designers and want to take a shot at it, send me a private message. It is (poorly) paid work.
It is likely while I'm in there I'll make a lot of little fixes and feature enhancements, as well as introducing a plethora of new bugs. Hopefully a few of you will step up and be willing to test everything when it needs it. Anyway, you know how much I like pretty graphs so here is one for you:
You'll notice that I very rarely committed code in the past (and there was a ton of code that wasn't even in the repository until now). With SVN, it means I can update much more frequently without messing up the site, so I am pleased to finally stop "shitting where I eat" as it were. That all being said, due to the significant back end changes required, the site is currently on a semi-lockdown for new features/fixes until I move the production servers over to be mirrors of the SVN repositories. So don't expect much to change in that department for a couple weeks.
As most of you know the hall of fame (even pre-neomatrix additions) was filled with a lot of undeserving sites and didn't really make much sense. I've been mulling over how to actually repopulate it with proper sites that really deserve attention, but I keep coming back to the community nature of this site. On one hand, most of the site is governed by "majority vote", top rated, top viewed, top etc etc. On the other hand, the site is more than just "mine", so picking the hall of fame entries should be a task for more than just myself.
I've thought about various schemes where you could get one Hall of Fame vote for each 3 month period you've been a member or something like that, but I wanted to hear from you guys how you think the Hall of Fame should be populated. I want it to be filled with not only the best sites, but the most significant, historical, and most importantly, the most creative sites out there. This is the page that most newcomers will look at, so it is really important that we show them not only the best and the brightest, but a summary of what YTMND is.
So how do you think we should do this? Should I just sit down for a few days and go through as much as I can and pick them and then write a little blurb about each? Should I let the super moderators pick as well? Featured users? Everybody? Possibly allow everyone to vote as a suggestion mechanism only, just so I don't miss anything? Your feedback would be greatly appreciated!
As I mentioned in the last news post, a moderation system is built on rules, and without clearly defined rules the moderation system is bound to fail. I know the whole TODO is a lot for most of you to process, and some of you focused on that bit, but this is necessary to discuss before I proceed. We, as a community, have to come up with a concise and clear list of rules that the community as a whole have to abide by. So:
This is something that must have community backing and support and it requires serious discussion. As I said before, I can't (and refuse) to do this alone, so I will keep posting it until I either get the feedback I'm looking for or get sick of the site and go get a real job.
I want to thank everyone who provided feedback on the TODO. I really enjoy reading constructive criticisms and ideas, even if I'm not directly responding to all of it. I want to open a discussion on a couple of topics with this news post, so read more if you are inclined.
So first off:
<technical junk/what I've been up to>
I've migrated all of the database servers over to the latest version of MySQL, which seems to have not only gone pretty smoothly, but also removed a lot of the headaches. Hopefully they should have less hiccups, which means you should see "vote lag" issues less often. While I was at it, I did a good deal of database cleanup, but there are some more major structural changes that require large modifications to the site that I'm doing on a test setup first.
I've also spent the last week migrating the hundreds of files that compose YTMND into SVN (from 3 old CVS repositories). This was a lot of work, because it involved figuring out how I renamed and moved files around for the last 4 years. I found some gems from the past in there too!
Now that everything is in SVN I am beginning the large refactoring that I've wanted to do for a long time. This is a pretty lengthy list of things I need to do in order to get the site's structure and codebase the way I want it. One of the major benefits of this is it will make the site much easier to work on, meaning adding little features and fixes will happen much more often. It also means I can start thinking about opening up the code base to developers that want to add patches or really work on YTMND.
The refactoring is extensive and effects almost every page on the site, as such, I'm going to take the time to split out theme specific stuff to external templates where I haven't in the past. Since I'm doing this, I've sent out a request for new YTMND designs/layouts to a bunch of designers, I've given them 2 weeks at which point I'm going to post them here and let you guys decide which you like best. I haven't figured out how much work the templating will be, but it's possible that the refactoring will include choosable "themes", it might even be possible to get the old design in if someone is willing to do the grunt work. If any of you are serious designers and want to take a shot at it, send me a private message. It is (poorly) paid work.
It is likely while I'm in there I'll make a lot of little fixes and feature enhancements, as well as introducing a plethora of new bugs. Hopefully a few of you will step up and be willing to test everything when it needs it. Anyway, you know how much I like pretty graphs so here is one for you:
You'll notice that I very rarely committed code in the past (and there was a ton of code that wasn't even in the repository until now). With SVN, it means I can update much more frequently without messing up the site, so I am pleased to finally stop "shitting where I eat" as it were. That all being said, due to the significant back end changes required, the site is currently on a semi-lockdown for new features/fixes until I move the production servers over to be mirrors of the SVN repositories. So don't expect much to change in that department for a couple weeks.
<end of technical junk/what I've been up to>
Stuff you should care about but won't: (i.e. feedback needed)
The hall of fame
As most of you know the hall of fame (even pre-neomatrix additions) was filled with a lot of undeserving sites and didn't really make much sense. I've been mulling over how to actually repopulate it with proper sites that really deserve attention, but I keep coming back to the community nature of this site. On one hand, most of the site is governed by "majority vote", top rated, top viewed, top etc etc. On the other hand, the site is more than just "mine", so picking the hall of fame entries should be a task for more than just myself.
I've thought about various schemes where you could get one Hall of Fame vote for each 3 month period you've been a member or something like that, but I wanted to hear from you guys how you think the Hall of Fame should be populated. I want it to be filled with not only the best sites, but the most significant, historical, and most importantly, the most creative sites out there. This is the page that most newcomers will look at, so it is really important that we show them not only the best and the brightest, but a summary of what YTMND is.
So how do you think we should do this? Should I just sit down for a few days and go through as much as I can and pick them and then write a little blurb about each? Should I let the super moderators pick as well? Featured users? Everybody? Possibly allow everyone to vote as a suggestion mechanism only, just so I don't miss anything? Your feedback would be greatly appreciated!
Rules and Moderation
As I mentioned in the last news post, a moderation system is built on rules, and without clearly defined rules the moderation system is bound to fail. I know the whole TODO is a lot for most of you to process, and some of you focused on that bit, but this is necessary to discuss before I proceed. We, as a community, have to come up with a concise and clear list of rules that the community as a whole have to abide by. So:
-
Reading material:
- Rules / Moderation Guidelines / Global Policy
- Global Permissions (a foundation for possible punishments)
- Add to the list of behaviors that should be considered as "bad"
- Discuss the "pros" and "cons" of certain behaviors and if they should be considered "bad"
- Discuss possible punishments for each behavior
- Discuss what the overall focus of user moderation should be, or which areas should be the most important
- Discuss what to do about repeat offenders/trolls, at what point do we delete people?
- Come up with a full list of behaviors and consequential punishments for each.
- Write a community guidelines document that can be shown to new users.
- Fucking participate for once
What you can do to help:
What you can do to help if you (are an over-achiever/love the site/are trying to brown-nose):
This is something that must have community backing and support and it requires serious discussion. As I said before, I can't (and refuse) to do this alone, so I will keep posting it until I either get the feedback I'm looking for or get sick of the site and go get a real job.
Add a comment
What if users could moderate other users, to give them a sort of "reputation" once the reputation gets too low on a user, they get put in a queue where they would be reviewed by moderators and assigned punishments such as unable to comment for x hours, unable to vote for x hours etc. would be horribly abused, but its something to tinker with.
Actually I was just thinking about this. Self moderation could actually be possible using a vBulletin style reputation. Where max would chose people to give positive and negative reputation to and then those users could trickle it down to other users. Then the idea is if enough users with a certain amount of positive reputation mark a site NSFW it would do it automatically. And could be applied to other things throughout the site.
Wed have to choose a group of people that would represent the population of ytmnd. What is the average person on a ytmnder? (Dont mean average person makes sh*tty sites unfortunately but I mean one step higher) Like someone that knows how ytmnd should run without it losing its originality of a website that has funny content in which no video is involved (Lets keep it that way)
Truly What makes ytmnd one of the best sites continuing, is originality. I am sick of going to youtube, and watching this incredibly epic movie of something that comes from another site. 10 million views whatever, but in the related videos category, I see 20 of the same thing I just watched. It has 1 mil views, 500,000 whatever. It amazes me to read their comments, no1 ever mentions how it already has been posted. I am shocked, and if you post saying "its been posted already" they wont care at all.
I like this idea. You could rate users like you can rate Xbox live users. You should also be able to file complaints, which would bring their rating down as well as bring certain issues to the attention of moderators. Also writing reviews about users or comments about users would be kind of cool. That way you could see what biases they may have and what kind of sites they prefer. Actually maybe that isn't really important but still would be kind of neat I guess. Not top priority of course.
I think the whole "downvoter" and "upvoter" thing is bullsh*t to moderate, simply because, I choose to mostly avoid sites I dislike, meaning I generally avoid users I dislike, which makes a lot of my votes tend towards the 5 or 4 area. If a site just really pisses me off, I'll 1 it. Should I be forced to use the full spectrum of the voting system if I don't feel the need to do so? I can understand your disdain towards gimmick upvoter or downvoter accounts, but what automated system can deal with those?
Yea not to mention there are still alot of sites on the recently created that are worth 1'ing it. One reason I avoid watching recently created ytmnds is because it creates a trend of 1s and then I wont realize there is some sort of program on ytmnd.com that reads me 1'ing all these sites and registering me as a downvoter. also I do agree with one post, MurdarMachene does rule at random stuff.
we used to have it. I remember one time someone posted a ytmnd called "I can say the word f*ck" or something like that and it showed the unicode for the letter u, everyone was trying it out on the comments and it really did work you can bypass it and see the whole word. Then max made a comment trying the same thing. =/
As for the hall of fame, the general template is for some group (either a select group or the population as a whole) to nominate sites for entry into the hall of fame and then, from that group of sites, have some group (either a select group or the population as a whole, and they do not have to be the same group both times) to vote on the narrowed group of sites as to which gain entry into the hall of fame. The qualifications for the original launch will likely differ from the latter groups...
as it will need to be larger to make up for the lengthy prehistory. After that, there can either be a definite amount of sites to be entered at each voting period or a certain vote standard that a site must reach (like baseball's hall of fame) wherein 0 sites may possibly be entered or some higher number (likely capped). That's a pretty general template for the typical Hall of Fame, and it really just depends on whose opinion you care about and at which point of the process.
The drawbacks of each choice are fairly simple: Large populations make mediocre choices, while small populations have the ability to make terrible and/or great choices along with mediocre ones. Selecting a definite amount of sites each period better characterizes the progression of ytmnd in terms of time but may allow unfit sites to squeeze in during a down period, while a voting standard may fail to capture the actual history of ytmnd (voting patterns fluctuate...
and certain periods of ytmnd's history may be completely unrepresented or overly represented. Furthermore, some sites may get in at one point that may not have gotten in at any other point in history merely because the voting pattern at that point in time is higher than at any other time even though it is still hierarchically in the same position relative to those other sites nominated along side it as in any other period). Those are the things to consider as I see it.
Personally, i feel that the general diversity of content can be lacking. Many sites just get created out of one popular fad. Sometimes these are done well but most of the time, they aren't. Once the moderators are in place, there should be a section (or a box on the front page) where there is a weekly competition (similar to what b3ta do) suggested by the mods. Different competitions could be stuff like use X movie in your ytmnd or remix X track into your ytmnd. This would, hopefully, create some sort
of healthy competition between users as well as inspiring more users to get involved more often. I for one rarely have good ideas on my own. There doesn't necessarily have to be a real prize at the end of each week, maybe a section under /browse where it has a list of all previous winners. Also, you could use the 'this is a competition entry' selector when you're creating the site. There could be a box on the front page which cycles random sites put into that weeks comp and then a link to a list of all the
A word on the TODO page: Will the "moderator monitoring" be available to all users? Because if it were, certain mods (cough BTape cough) would probably be picked on less. And if it is available to all users, it may be a good idea to make removal of that privelege a punishment in itself. That page is the greenest I've ever seen on YTMND. Also, a note on the new design/layout: Will Peeing Rainbow Horse or My Little Pony themes be an option?
Also, Max, are you aware that ytmnd.com/statistics, ytmnd.com/info/survey.html, and ytmnd.com/clipboard.php no loner work? I don't know if you meant for these to be lost, or if they were innocent casualties in that jump in that graph you just supplied us in November (which is when they disappeared). And I saw Total Recall for the first time the other day... now I know what Get Your *ss to Mars means.
Here's me participating. Anyone using alts to vote should be gone the first time they do it. This might already be happening, but I've seen countless people who have used alts either resurface later, or nothing is done at all (beyond deleting the alt accounts). I'm sure there's also been some exceptions for special cases as well, but from what I've seen way too many people get away with this and other violations of the TOS.
While I'm at it, since NSFW has more or less become an arbitrary designation rather than something helpful, I don't think users should be punished for incorrectly flagging their sites unless the content is either pornographic or excessively offensive. Obviously there's no manpower to flag every site that says f*ck, f*g or has loud noises, so there either needs to be real enforcement, or anything that the advertisers don't sh*t a brick about should be SFW.
Well there is little I can do to offer much help but say that I have always appreciated all the work you've done for us. And while I have only contributed 4 crappy sites and been following ytmnd since june 04, a part of me does still feel like a member of the community, even if its a minuscule one. Please keep doing the work you do and realize we do appreciate it. I do have ONE idea...
Perhaps, you can have it so that sites in the newly created site section on the front page MUST get 10 votes before they can move on. Any site below a 2 will be automatically deleted. This should allow bad sites to be thrown out before they can go on and good deserving sites to be recognized. People won't be able to submit new ones until people give them proper voting. So all you have to do is ban alt accounts and all the "narvs" and hopefully this system could work. JUST an idea, maybe make it 5? your call
I don't think sites that get low votes/views need to be deleted. The bandwidth is the stuff that costs money, not so much the storage space. The voting system is FINE the way it is. The problem as so many people have pointed out is the alt abusers. IP restrictions would be great, but would there be problems with dynamic IPs?
I don't imagine you can keep someone banned from a big site like this (Ex. JoshCube), you can't ban entire ISPs. What I'd like to see is when the people register again, they get deleted again. I know the mods try to do it, and for the most part they've done a good job. I've seen a few go right back to what they were doing, though, without a deletion for months.
Voting system is fine yes, but as long as the site has a rating above 2.9 i dont think it should be deleted even if it has very low votes as you said. But for the alts blommer, that should really be put on the mods responsibility to track down accounts that constantly vote 5 or 1 and figure out patterns (like always voting on a specific person's sites). I don;t think we cvan fully eliminate the alts, but if the mod system is even decent it should drastically make problem minor in comparision to others.
I think MAX wants to keep YTMND as a vehicle for free expression. If that means sites get sh*tty votes then so be it. Like I said, storage costs mean little compared to bandwidth. Remember TELEMARKETER? Remember THE SIZE OF OUR PLANET? Remember those DIGG'D SITES? I refer to the Gospel of Max: Post 69; Paid Membership; Verse 2 - "YTMND's main cost is from bandwidth."
To POS, I want sites 2.9 and below to be deleted just because I hate seeing search options come up with 6 good sites on a topic and 6 pages of crap. Yeah, I know its selfish but everyone was voicing thier opinions so yeah, I guess I retract that statement. To Blommer, whats your idea for solving the bandwidth costs?
...vote, and finally Max or maybe even a VERY highly respected member of the community is chosen as the final (executive) vote. Note, that people might think well if Max and the super mods like it, the majority is screwed, but the super mods are super mods for a reason becuase they know exactly what is good material and what is not. That's just the most fair and simple system in my opinion.
There is currently a glitch where a site flagged as NSFW by anyone will automatically become SFW if edited by the site creator in any way. This has been exploited numerous times to undo moderation decisions, although it should be easy to fix (all moderation is logged.) A question raised from this is how one can change a site from NSFW to SFW with the appropriate permissions, should they wish to repent (perhaps just telling them to recreate the site will suffice, but popular sites may be a different story.)
Thus, I would propose allowing NSFW sites that receive a pre-designated level of popularity (a number of views, a certain rating, etc…) to have a “review” option, where they may be forwarded to a moderator. Should they be deemed SFW after the creator makes his /her changes (yet still be NSFW from a previous flag), they could be changed by the moderator. Why do I propose this? Because there are a lot of good sites out there that are currently NSFW; this would give those sites a chance to fairly become SFW.
I don't know, I have seen few sites that change a site from NSFW into SFW becuase they dont like the flag. Don't honest users who make a NSFW site for a joke know its usually gonna be flagged? WHy would they change the joke if they knew from the beginning the joke's lack of "political correctness" so to speak.
Left my detailed list of points in the last news post. An additional point, I think the comment +/- system needs some work. The comment scores don't really mean anything, and the inflamatory comments only get highlighted more. It stopped the "wall of text spam" comments, but anyone who does that should just get all their comments deleted and their commenting ability locked per future moderation systems.
Theres no group 10 people or more that would be abusive like that...execpt for maybe featured users with too much power or alts and in theory if everything else worked out the alts would no longer be a problem. Give me an example of a group of 10 or more that could abuse the system like that and i'll rethink my idea.
All trolls do is pointless downvote comments. Most sites average a -2 on every comment because someone went down the line minus'ing everything. You cannot make something significant happen because of these pointless values to the right of the site. Voting low on sites doesn't make them disappear, but something with a low score will disappear from the applicable lists on its own soon enough. Inflammatory or worthless comments never go away. That should change. Maybe site creator could delete comments?
I'm still for the idea of letting site creators delete comments off their page. I think, though, that it should leave the comment box where the user had commented and leave a grayed-out message that says something like, "This comment was deleted by the site creator" That way it wouldn't mess up nested comments and point out to other users that, "hey, such-n-such deleted such-n-suchs comment"
I'm too lazy to read through all the comments, but I believe the HoF should be organized in a system similar to if it gets a certain amount of votes (say 5 million+), it will be queued for review by all moderators (or users, that's a possibility for the idea too), but with the exception that the administrator can over-rule the decision. LOL I said lazy...
I don't like the administrator being able to over rule everyone elses opinion (in all respect to Max) I just think that once we narrow it down to 2 choices by popular vote it would be a lot simpler for the 3 groups (av. people, mods, admin) to simply vote for the best one of the two and see from there who wins. Site A won the popular vote and was Max's choice, Site B won the moderators vote therefore Site A is the winner with 2 to 1.
BTW Max, maybe you should add another tab to /sites/manage/create that asks the simple question in a bold font "Are you sure you aren't just taking a picture you got off of google images and putting MP3 from Limewire over it?" I know the front tab that asks you to comply w/ the ToS, but this would really throw people off. Oh, & you should add some sort of anti-hotlinking measures, that would really cut down on some bandwidth...
So you are saying instead of trying have only the best one in the group move on by competition and elimination, every canidate should be looked at and judged accordingly? If thats what your saying, I don't like it, becuase then every "good" site will be put in, and the Hall of Fame should really be reserved for the best of the best that people still remember years after they have gone from the front page..What is love is a good example of how people still remember it and love it. I don't want a "good"...
...site to be in the HoF only for 6 months later a user will be going through the list and not remember the site. "Hmmm, I forgot what this one was..." That should never happen for a hall of FAME. Frankly, the only choice is for every month, 1 site is chosen as the best becuase then the HoF loses its meaning if it is not truely the best of the best, the ones that have reached epicness, etc...do you get my point?
Saturation would be an issue. How about a concept that YTMND hosts a competition monthly, bimonthly or trimonthly, where every site meeting a minimal view/vote count all get tallied up, they all get knocked down to a top 5 or 3 in the end, & after the final one is chosen, all the mods write a review for each site. I think that'd have a good balance of democracy, while still reducing inflation. LOL, inflation...
I like your idea very much but i'm tweaking it a bit, so maybe it could go something like this...We have the list of sites for every MONTH (must keep saturation down), by popular vote (view counts are dumb in my opinion) we take it down to a final 3 canidates to choose. Then we have moderators give reviews and put thier support in for 1 canidate (like famous people do for pres. canid.) Then the winner is by again popular vote. Is that good?
Oh, my mistake. I would actually do trimonthy if it was my decision but I think most people will think thats too long, but whatever. And yeah it is basically your idea with the execption of having the moderators actually supporting one of the three sites. I really want to make the election process as involved with all groups as possible. I see that respected members of the community are actually listened to in terms of a sites value. You know what I mean?
I'm quite tired of talking and reading about the mod systems. Most of it's the same thing repeated. All I know is this, you can't and shouldn't moderate how people vote. If someone only wants to downvote, then that's fine. If someone only wants to upvote, then fine. There is nothing wrong if people only like noise sites, poorly developed sites, or sites that are nothing but regurgitated fads. Trying to moderate the quality of content isn't possible either.
It isn't feasable for a mod to go down the recently created and say "bad site, deleted". For starters, that's subjective and what one person may hate, someone else may like. As far as downvoters like Punisher or iamthelaw, honestly, let them be. While everyone hates being downvoted by a troll, those few downvoters aren't targeting one person. They are attacking everyone equally. Anyway, if you're going to go after downvoters, then you need to go after upvoters.
Upvoters are just as abusive as downvoters. In the end it doesn't matter because one person's account isn't going to be as harmful as it used to be. There's plenty of time to get good views with how the U&C voting total and days has been extended. The main thing that needs to be controlled are the alts. The thing everyone keeps talking about. People who upvote their own site because they think their site should have a higher rating and deserves more views are more destructive to this site than someone
like FatherMcKenzie who only downvotes with one account. I used to think deleting is the best thing, but punishing them by taking away their voting rights is just as good. Plus if it turns out to be a sibling or roommate, then it's possible to reverse the punishment. Something you can't do by deleting the account. How many times did Wingerding get caught not only upvoting his own sites with 20 alts, but downvoting other sites in the U&C to keep his ratings inflated? Nothing happened to him so he kept
forcing himself into the U&C and the top view. If someone continually gets caught with abusing alts, then delete them. But something has to be done about them because many good users have left or quit making sites because of them. You should also be able to automatically delete all votes when people are busted with alts. After all the damage has already been when you've discovered the alts. Jizzmotron's 30 alts are still in the deletion query months after he destroyed many good site's rating.
Those ratings won't be adjusted until the accounts are deleted. That isn't fair to those people. But if you make it possible to delete those votes that day, or the next. Then the damage is minimal. The only type of site that should be deleted are shock sites, animal abuse, child porn, stuff in that nature. Marking them NSFW isn't good enough either. They need to be deleted. How many times did twistedbarney post the LemonParty picture. How many times has momthinksimcool posted the burning cat video.
Delete them and if they keep making more delete them too. If they keep it up, ban them, block them, whatever. Eventually they will tire and go away then if you let them be. The last thing is what ever rules you put in place, need to be enforce. The warning on the site creator is a joke because nothing will happen if I post hardcore anime kiddy porn with a dog ripped apart in the background. If you say, this will not be tolerated, then don't tolerate it.
I know you can't catch everything, but with a good 20-30 mods, you should be able to catch a lot. Sorry for going of on such a long rant. I'm trapped in a hotel in Idaho and depressed because I wrecked my truck today. These are all my thoughts about the mod system and I don't think I'm going to talk about them any more. I hope this makes sense, too and isn't too scatterbrained. I'm doing a stream of conscience writing instead of thinking out what I'm going to say.
Punisher has targeted me, besides, who cares who he targets? Is he contributing to the quality of the site? No, he makes it worse. The punishment should fit the crime... if someone starts blindly voting all 1's, take away voting privileges. If someone keeps posting lemonparty sites, take away the ability to post sites.
Yeah, Punisher has targeted you. He has targeted me. He has targeted Darthwang. He has targeted anyone who downvotes his sites. He has targeted anyone who upvotes his sites. He targets anyone on the u&C and targets anyone on the recently created. In other words, he targets everyone. He isn't huring anything by downvoting a year-old site that will only get viewed by those looking for it. You target him then you have to target Fourest who would five hundreds of sites a day with the random generator.
I agree with what you're saying to a great extent. I think everything except extreme cases should be tolerated (some exceptions). There needs to be permanent and swift punishment, and the harshest punishment should be deletion. Account deleted - all sites deleted - all votes deleted - all comments deleted. Sure they can make another account but their "street cred" is gone. For those priding themselves on "how long they've been here" that's everything. Only by real consequences can behavior be deterred
The problem is, any user who spends a few hours making a site will hope it reaches U&C. Of course, most sites won't, but that's besides the point. If that users keeps making good sites that gets downvoted right away by ppl like Punisher, he will eventually do one of three things: 1- Stop making sites. 2- Create an alt to counter-vote the downvotes 3- Repost the site. And I'm totally convinced that reposting a site is much worse than upvotting with an alt, although I've never seen anyone complain about that.
Also, I assure you that downvoters/downvoting alts have much more impact than upvoters/upvoting alts. You see, when a site is struggling to get above 3.50-4.60, sure extra any 5 that site can get will help, but even if someone has 10 alts to upvote himself, alright he's an idiot but you'll never even notice it in the final rating, after the site gets over 50 votes. On a small scale, it's the 1s that makes the whole difference in a site's rating.
LePape, what about honest downvotes? Most downvotes are from people who don't like the site. With how few active downvoters there are (like iamthelaw or N4rvst), there isn't enough to destroy a site for good unless they have 20-30 alts like Jizzomotron or Guchehair. I have a few sites that I slaved on, only to go no where. On the other hand, I've had sites that went no where, then two to four weeks later become extremely popular (back when we had the worthwhile section).
I know no one likes being downvoted. I've been targeted by many revenge downvoters, jizzmotron, and guchehair and his 20 alts. But this justification that it's okay to create a bunch of alts to compensate for them is not good. Where does it stop? Right now everyone has 4 to 5 days to get on the U&C. Right now that's even hard to do because there people aren't downvoting sites because they are afraid of retaliation or being labeled a downvoter.
"...but even if someone has 10 alts to upvote himself, alright he's an idiot but you'll never even notice it in the final rating, after the site gets over 50 votes" You want to see the impact, then delete those votes and see how much the ratings drop. People's sense of entitlement to make the U&C is what's damaging this place. It isn't up to the site creator what rating their site should have. Lcadwallader makes some of the funniest sites I've ever seen, but he rarely has a rating over 3.5 (cont)
because his humor isn't inline with the majority of users. Anyway to get back to the point. Downvoters here are a fact of life. It's a risk everyone has when releasing a new site. The simple fact is everyone has five days to make the U&C and a good site is not destined to obscurity if it only has a 3.8 rating 30 minutes after being made.
"It isn't up to the site creator what rating their site should have."--> All I'm saying is, it's not up to mr. "I have 10 alts to downvote", or mr. "you downvoted my site so I'll downvote yours" to decide either, when people abuse the system, others are just tempted to do the same to balance things out. Anyway, I guess the only possible solution for this would be weighted votes, hopefully that would kill this whole downvoting/upvoting debate once and for all.
And that's the whole thing I've been talking about dealing with. But you can't turn around and say someone using 10 alts to downvote a sites is bad, but using 10 alts to upvote my own site is good because it balances out in the end. That's destructive, self-serving logic. Do you have any idea how many users have caught people upvoting their own site with a bunch of alts as soon as it was made? That isn't countering downvoters. That's forcing a site into the U&C.
I don't know where I should put suggestions, but here it goes: For the hall of fame list, I think that your idea of X votes by user depending on how much times you've been here is good. But it would be greatly improved if you, or the community of mods, have a right on veto on the sites being added to the Hall of Fame, This way it would prevents anything that doesn't deserve at all to be in there to corrupt the wonderful place the Hall of Fame will be.
I don't like the idea of X votes by user just by how much you have been here. I like the 1 person 1 vote rule. And in addition to what me and atari2600a suggested above about mods writing reviews and supporting a specific site, I think that it is fair for them to veto a site that maybe is not up to standard with the others.
As someone mentioned some comments back, it might make sense to set it up like the baseball hall of fame. Every (insert some period of time here) either just you and you and some group of mods or something create a "ballot" of YTMNDs that were particularly highly rated, obviously took a lot of effort, spawned a huge fad, etc. Then the ballot goes up on the main page or somewhere else that makes sense and everyone gives a very simple "Yes" or "No" vote.
If the % of "Yes" votes are above a certain threshold, it gets in. If it gets above a slightly lower threshold it doesn't get in but gets to stay on the next ballot. If it does horrible, it goes away. I dunno how hard it would be to prevent repeated voting and other douchebaggery with something like that though.
HEY MAX I was running my bath and I had a great idea: How about a box on the front page that shows sites from only a single user, and that user changes every day. Mods or some bot could be put in place to ensure that it's not some stupid user that's made like two or zero sites. It would be like a Special User of the Day box. Or if that doesn't sit too well with you, how about a box that shows sites randomly chosen from four or five users. How about it? Huh?
Or here's another idea. Users could choose a single of their YTMNDs to be put on a list. A box on the front page shows 10 (or 5, whatever) of these sites, chosen randomly from this list. The box could update itself every day, or twice a day... you get my drift. Also, I'm waiting for you to appear on the Colbert Report. You've already had dealings with him with the Green Screen Challenge thing... YTMND would get a lot more publicity... think about it! Best wishes, kepledon
While I'm hardly an authority on... um... authority, I always imaged a moderation system being defined like this. MAJOR OFFENSES (account hijacking, serious harassment *think 'stalker'*, complete abuse *posting kiddy porn or other level 10 offensive sh*t*, alt usage). Major offenses get their sites erased, banned, or IP blocked. MINOR OFFENSES (harassment *going above and beyond the call of normal YTMND dickery*, spam commenting, gimmick up/downvoting, mislabeling NSFW *the obvious ones. Earrape, porn etc*
Minor offenses would get a warning, then either a temporary site ban, vote ban, site creation ban, and/or comment ban. If they keep it up, just make whichever ban perminant. As for the smaller stuff (dickery, making sh*t sites, being a general drain on YTMND), people can just grow a pair and live with it. This IS the internet. This is just my personal view on what I image the "rules" of YTMND to be. Feel free to rip my ideas to shreds =)
How about having mods approving sites before they appear on front page? It should help cut down on shock sites, inside jokes etc. A problem with this, though, would be the editing of a site after submission. Has anyone suggested this, and is it possible to always have a mod on hand to check new sites?
They survive on being so stupid it's funny or projecting themselves as the anti-hero. The sad thing is how militant the FPA can get. What started as a joke antithesis of the DEW ARMY has become so serious, especially to newer "members." Someone who identifies themselves as belonging to the FPA should "turn the other cheek" when criticized.
If your concern is great enough, try sending a private message to a moderator or two. Should the user whom you're reporting be abusive enough, their sites can be NSFW'd (if necessary) and reported to Max for review/deletion.
This is only for abuse (large quantities of spam, molesting a user, etc...) Mere disapproval of content is unlikely to get anything done, since it is a not a moderator's duty to judge sites solely by their content preferences.
How about some sort of decibel/volume meter (or adjustment?) in the create preview site, or somewhere around the site creation area. I've notice with my sites and others volume adjustments are usually necessary to prevent ear rape or not hearing anything at all... which sucks a little. I'm sure the usual ear rape site creators would ignore this but for the rest it would make a nice addition, and maybe save some hearing aid batteries.
If you're going to give users a general ability to vote for certain YTMNDs to enter the Hall of Fame, expect some overrated sites as well as deserving and creative ones to make it on there at some point. Still, it should be an improvement. Time-related prerequisites seem to be the best approach. I imagine rewarding users based on success rather than experience e.g. Pink/Featured would spark cries of elitism.
agreed. The larger our dysfunctional family, the more ad revenues, the longer this site can tread water. Giving bonuses to people who've just been around longer or managed to get featured makes it that much harder to get into site creation. I don't know of anyone who had their first site be a huge hit. We all work our way up
I don't know if this is off topic or not... but I really think that if you are going to vote you should at least leave a comment as to why you like it or why you don't. I don't know about the rest of you, but I make a site of some crap that a see and hear, put it together and post it because i think it is funny and I want to share. If you don't like it, say why, if you do... leave a comment.
At one point I got pissed off that I don't know why some site that isnt even funny gets 5'd and mine get a 2 and nobody tells me why my site is bad. When you think about it.... if you leave enough comments, good or bad about a site, it may help weed out the crap being put out on here. I dont know, possible, Max, creating a "AUTO COMMENT" that you can query for sites commented like "BEST SITE" or "NEEDS WORK" or "YOU NEED TO BE BANNED". Im oing to get flamed, but this is what frustrated me about YTMND
Victz's idea would not work for two reasons
1.) Groups of people could circumvent the whole system
2.) Some people (me as an example) do not post sites or many comments so using the star system is rather pointless in those cases
What I would recommend probably will not be liked but is the only way the site can be governed objectively. You have to get together a group of YTMND users that you trust and feel are impartial and have them run the moderation of the site.
(continued) User moderation is the equivalent of the inmates running the asylum. Whoever has the biggest group of friends can yield great power over the site. That is why everyone hates downvoters so much and now we plan to give them a chance to moderate themselves? Personally, as people prove themselves to be trustworthy (how that is done I honestly have no idea ) they should be allowed to have moderation options. Limiting posting options should be done by a certain percent of posts that (continue again)
User Moderation is a horrible idea with the rampant circlejerking that YTMND has succumbed to over the last 8 months. Part of the reason I hardly come to the site any more. I wish we could get it back to the way it used to be. The pink names just glorified the exact thing ytmnd did not need. Especially for users that do not live on the site.
I don't about all new users but I started going on YTMND almost right after it had changed into this orange thing (I can't remember exactly when that was) but even from then I have seen the decline of such a great site. I left YTMND around the end of October of 2007 becuase I was sick of it and I came back just this Christmas. I messaged keatonkeaton999 to fill me in on what I have missed since then, and all I got was a list of new feat. users, Ted Danson and NO OTHER GOOD FADS! How is this possible?!......
...When I first started enjoying YTMND, every other week there was a good fad, big or small. Now I see that some feat. users are making good bye sites, not making any new ones becuase of trolls and downvoters, it sickens me to realize how much its even gone farther down since I took my break. I don't like having the moderators having the last word on everything, becuase moderators are obviously gonna be corrupt, but I guess now thats what it takes to stop this endless downward spin that has been occuring...
...over the past year. User moderation is a horrible idea right now, but once we get rid of the problem users and the trolls, I still think we should then give the idea at least another look at it, because like someone said above, if a mod is pissed off at you because you say didn't agree with one of his earlier decisions, well your screwed. And wheres the justice in that?
How about every site a user makes that rates 3.5+ or 4.0+ is worth 1 or 2 HoF voting "points" respectively. A user may then spend these points towards a site of their choice. Any site requires a set amount of points spent toward it, something like 20 to 50, to be moved to the front page under a section named "Hall of Fame (or HoF) Hopefuls", where it can be voted by the community as to whether or not it's worthy of HoF status.
The community as a whole can vote on the site with a "Yae" or "Nay" option. The site will remain the on "HoF Hopeful(s)" section for a period of 2-3 days. If it has a certain ratio of positive to negative votes by that time period, it will either be voted into the HoF or cast aside. When this site has finished being voted on, the next site(s) in the list will move up to take its place, and the 2-3 day period will start again.
Anyways my new voat comment method. #1
Thank you for contributing to ytmnd's longevity. #2 Waste of Bandwidth.
#3 Thank you for contributing to hrmm I dunno ermmm HMM i Dunno HMM f*ck it
#4
Waste of Bandwidth. (seriously what the f*ck were you excpecting?)
#5 Obvious alt is obvious (but he isn't featured so who cares!!!)
The five levels of POS votes
About the Hall of Fame, you could have sites that meet certain criteria (age/rating/views/votes/etc.) have an option to be nominated for the HoF. Then, either sites with X number of votes with/or after X amount of time can be added, or sites that make it onto the list of HoF noms can be put on a poll or ballot for users to vote on.
Hey Max, I have an idea regarding donations. How about anyone who has donated a certain amount has more powers over the interactive elements of YTMND? Like, maybe not weighted site voting, but more comment upvoting/downvoting. The ability to DELETE COMMENTS for those who have donated a certain amount. And it would really be cool if your Sponsorships This Week page would show the top users that have donated money "of all time." I'm curious to see what that looks like.
Also, I can guarantee you that I would sponsor more sites if I wasn't so sure the "NSFW" tag would prevent them from getting any front page views. I know you have reasons related to the site's image/advertising that prevent you from displaying NSFW material indefinitely, but maybe you could change the default account setting to "display NSFW content?" Or prompt people when they create accounts? That way people who are logged in would be aware of NSFW content, but first-time visitors would not.
Making all NSFW sponsored sites visible on the main page even when the "hide all NSFW content" option is turned off is a great idea. It's been done with sites on the Most Voted This Week section, and I think sponsored sites must deserve it. As for granting powers to people who sponsor a lot, max is already considering this, I believe. I think he's going to give some benefits to people that have sponsored at least $15 or something.
To be honest, I think the disabling of NSFW content is contributing to the overall lameness of YTMND at present. One of the things YTMND used to have going for it was that you could find a lot of really unwholesome humour here. I mean, YTMND took better advantage of the Michael Richards thing, for example, than any other internet humour community, but there's no way we could have done it if things were the way they are now.
Since nobody likes seeing sites they hate on the front page while preferences from user to user vary, my idea for the front page would be for personal preference to trump site rating. If there's a site on Top Rated, U&C, or Top Viewed, and you vote one or two on it, it should be hidden on your front page as long as you're logged in, with it's spot on Top Rated, U&C, or Top Viewed being taken by whatever was bubbling under the front page. At the same time, someone who wants to see it for a week can do so.
Actually, this is a really good idea. It would work even better, in my opinion, if everything you voted on was hidden from the front page the moment you voted on it, in favour of what was "bubbling under" as you say. This would make YTMND's front page a lot less boring for people who've already seen everything on U&C.