posted by max on February 03, 2008 at 04:10:00 PM

ahoy mateys,

Just a quick post to let you know of a few happenings at the moment. A YTMND user is running for a seat in the house of representatives. One of my childhood idols is trying to sue me. I'm adding a new content box to the front page template and a bunch of new development info.

Read more for the hotness.


First off, YTMND user FreAkweNtcY is running for a seat in the house of representatives in Florida. So if you're crazy enough that you both live in Florida and think that the Diebold machines will count your vote properly, vote for him, maybe we can spice up CSPAN. Really though, it would be pretty amazing to get someone who is young enough that they are still in touch with the future of the country into any sort of political office.


Second up, Gary Larson, creator of The Far Side has contacted the YTMND Legal Team with multiple complaints about YTMNDs that feature cartoons of his. Here is one copy of the complaint, of importance is the "personal note" from Gary Larson himself.

I know it's been a while since I've posted a copyright complaint, but it's mainly due to the fact that at this point I receive so many that I just ignore them. The company that represents the Far Side has been persistent though, so I felt they deserved a response. Some of the (many) sites they mention as breaking copyright law:

• http://gmodfarside.ytmnd.com/
• http://farsidedinosaur.ytmnd.com/
• http://farsidesoh.ytmnd.com/
• http://garylarson2.ytmnd.com/
• http://catfud.ytmnd.com/
• http://duckwatch.ytmnd.com/
• http://garylarson.ytmnd.com/
• http://bears.ytmnd.com/
• http://laboratory-pressure.ytmnd.com/
• http://closetostolen.ytmnd.com/
• http://garylarsonisgay.ytmnd.com/

So after you read the complaint check out the beauty of a response that was (for the most part) drafted by our crack legal counsel (who just happened to have made new ytmnd today).


Regarding the last news post, Cobalt sent in a document listing punishable behaviors and applicable punishments. BTape then made a wiki version using Cobalt's version as a base. Feel free to make your own versions on the wiki and discuss it on the talk pages. This is important stuff, so don't keep your opinions quiet.



I am going to be adding a "PoliticTMND" content box to the front page template for the upcoming primaries and elections, I haven't completed the list of applicable keywords yet, but any input on what you guys think should be included would be helpful, feel free to send me a comprehensive list in a PM. This content box will replace "Featured Users" for the time being.

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Now, on to development updates. I've branched SVN into a new completely refactored design and started working on it full steam. I finally got around to setting up a (mostly) functioning copy of the site which is entirely separate from the live site, which is a fairly large accomplishment in itself.

One of the hardest parts about refactoring is that it basically involves rewriting huge amounts of code which in the end, if done correctly, function exactly the same as the code you originally had. This can be wholly unsatisfying and can cause you to easily lose focus.

There are so many things I want to do where I keep running into conflicting areas of the code and I have to make cascading code changes to change one small thing, it can be frustrating to say the least.

That being said, I've started to come up with a list of features I want to launch with the new version and I am streamlining a huge portion of the site. I've already completely rewritten a big chunk of the base functionality which will is a great upgrade to scalability and performance.

So once I finalize the list of features for "2.0", I will be posting it up here for everyone to get an idea of just how much the site will be changing. I hope to address a major chunk of the community's concerns and requests, as well as just cleaning up the hundreds of lazy bugs and pieces of the site that are hard to use (or were never implemented).

On a side note, I've deleted nearly 700 users over the past few months and plan on "clearing the queue" soon so site scores should normalize a bit. One of the big hurdles of the new system is the ability to allow moderators to delete users instantly but have the ability to restore them if anything goes wrong, so in the future, this should be less of an issue.

I know user moderation is one of the largest complaints here, and rightly so. The focus has always been to moderate sites, because (as I've said in the past) this was never intended to be a community site. I wish it were as easy as "delete anyone who causes trouble" but it isn't, and that's the fault of my original design for YTMND. There is a lot going on in the back end, so letting moderators delete users at will is currently an extremely risky proposition, because once someone is deleted, it is entirely permanent.

I know the way the system is designed promotes alts, down-voting and general trolling, but such is necessary in a system that promotes anyone to participate and enable free speech. That being said, the new system is going to have an extremely comprehensive set of checks to avoid the "alt problem" all together. I know talking about this in the future-tense will just make Afrotech mock and complain even further, but I'm going to implement some interim solutions to tide the surge of alt creation. Most importantly, I've limited account creation by IP to once every 24 hours. While this won't stop alts, it makes creating them a lot more of a chore. I will be further outlining what the new system will do to disable this behavior in the next news post.


I want to thank everyone for the overwhelming amount of feedback, and I want you to know I'm reading as much of it as I can, and I am really working to make YTMND a place we all want to visit on a regular basis again.

-Max