what's been up and what's going down
posted by max on May 02, 2006 at 05:32:36 PM
I know it's been too long since my last update, I've been pretty busy with some new stuff.
First off, I've been working night and day on the new lists engine, and the back end is nearly complete. The first feature that will launch using this engine is real user favorites. Hopefully this should be done in the next couple days.
To smooth out the launching of this feature I've changed the url structure for linking to users. It is now /users/username instead of /users/profile/username. More news inside.
The next few weeks or so will be spent entirely on "users" features. Users will be able to add some real info into their profile and possibly even a picture, generic profile stuff. There will be an interface to allow you to see the following information about a user:
These features will most likely all happen within the next week. After that some features I am debating are private messaging and user groups, to try and move more of the community aspect off the forums and onto the main site.
After the users, the front page is getting a full redesign and the top 15 will have a lot less pull than it used to, it's a pretty major change and I'll have more information on it soon.
About the donation stuff, I've sent out requests for quotes on two new servers, a new DB server to become a slave DB now that the live DB is doing roughly 500 queries per second and up to 1600 per second at peak time. The forums machine is too problematic and is going to be replaced as well by a much more powerful machine which should hold up a lot better and which can also be used to offload some of the heavier data processing and possibly mail. Once these quotes come in I'll update the sponsorship goal.
First off, I've been working night and day on the new lists engine, and the back end is nearly complete. The first feature that will launch using this engine is real user favorites. Hopefully this should be done in the next couple days.
To smooth out the launching of this feature I've changed the url structure for linking to users. It is now /users/username instead of /users/profile/username. More news inside.
The next few weeks or so will be spent entirely on "users" features. Users will be able to add some real info into their profile and possibly even a picture, generic profile stuff. There will be an interface to allow you to see the following information about a user:
- A basic profile
- A list of the users sites similar to the current setup.
- /users/max/votes would be my last 30 or so votes, and a graph of my vote spread.
- Comments: the last 15 comments this user has made.
- Favorites: the user's favorite sites with possible notes on each.
- Lists: lists the user has created or is a maintainer of.
These features will most likely all happen within the next week. After that some features I am debating are private messaging and user groups, to try and move more of the community aspect off the forums and onto the main site.
After the users, the front page is getting a full redesign and the top 15 will have a lot less pull than it used to, it's a pretty major change and I'll have more information on it soon.
About the donation stuff, I've sent out requests for quotes on two new servers, a new DB server to become a slave DB now that the live DB is doing roughly 500 queries per second and up to 1600 per second at peak time. The forums machine is too problematic and is going to be replaced as well by a much more powerful machine which should hold up a lot better and which can also be used to offload some of the heavier data processing and possibly mail. Once these quotes come in I'll update the sponsorship goal.
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Dare Max Goldbergh, its has ben brouthg to my attention that i cannat axess your forams by typing the address (http://www.forums.ytmnd.com) into the address abr and clicking go but i have to go to the main mpage and click "foryms". I dont now why this is happening to me and I was wondering if you could help thanks?
Sincerely Walter Klahodl
max, please implement an option to make our own sites NSFW. I wanted to make it on the ytmnsfw front page and be a ytmnsfw front-page-f*g. Now I'm known as the ytmnD-front-page-f*g/NSFW-evader-guy/son-of-satan-and-bill-gates just for updating a title and some keywords on my only site that should be NSFW. Or something. I hate not knowing site quirks everyone else does.
"Hey max. I had an idea for voting but not sure how well it'd work. After enough voting, a users
vote has more weight to it. So a new user will barely do anything, but someone with over X
amount has so much power and someone else with XX amounts has more. What do you think?" Agreed, but I also think that the number of sites you have and the average rating on those sites should play a factor.
And it's with this news update I withdraw my hypocrite comment. With new servers in the works, it once again means donations aren't going to line Max's pockets but further the site. So he still makes nothing. So he (sadly) still has the right to bash Bauman and let users make sites doing same. Sorry for being an ass.
User favorites? You mean every YTMND ever made? Face it, 99% of YTMNDers are too afraid to vote anything but 5. Oh, and about the profile...I'm not sure that's such a good idea. Way too much abuse potential and a HUGE bandwidth eater. Good thing about the top 15 being weakened though, I hate that god damn list
sounds good, although, without trying to play captain obvious, if you add a PM system on-site, I suggest it not allow images linked, in fact I would even suggest it have a link killing script so malicious links cant be sent to unwary newbies, otherwise I like the ideas, and a community environment would be good, the froums have gone to crap, no fun, just plain old hostility.
i'm actually FOR the creation of profiles, albiet a skeleton one. The thing that makes this whole place different from myspace is content. This isn't a 'social-growth' community, it is a content popularity community. As long as these profiles ENHANCE and DEFINE the persons content as opposed to disregard it, i think it will be a step in the right direction. Many times i find myself wondering about the state-of-mind of a particular user, where they come up with their content, but since a user is nothing but the sum of their sites, i can only draw upon what they create, and not always what they find inspiration from. I guess im just saying i want to "meet the artist to better understand their art". If that makes sense...its 4 am.
its like how its easy to fire1,000's of people if your the head of the corporation, you never see their sad faces so you dont care.The level of communication right now is just perfect, too much communication will attract emo's that wanna talk about feelings and sh*t(myspace) this is a place for laughter
LSDguy and ScndPistonHonda need to calm down and consider. The actual possibility of YTMND attracting bloggers is very unlikely. Having YTMND profiles wouldnt be much different from having profiles on a forum. Anyways, the forums are YTMND's vent for everything else, I dont think theres much to fear on the frontpage.
Hey Max, on a serious note. I noticed this a while ago, but I thought I would put my thoughts on it now. The top sites have around 7,000+ votes. Yet there are over 100,000 users. Do you have a program that purges users who have not logged in for, say 6 or more months?
I don't know, I think it would be a good idea. Just to get an idea on how many users are actually active on YTMND. Keep up the good work on the profile idea. I like it.
-mrgrim
Personally, I vote Yes, YES! on short, small profiles WITHOUT pictures, cuz pictures = ghey ;/, I vote yes on MrGrim's comment, and I also propose that if you need something else to do, make the user pages of users who have like 1000 ytmnds load faster or something... one would think that links wouldn't take so long but its in a giant table and it can take like 10-20 sec and that destroys my interweb experience
All these people who say I don't want YTMND to be "films" are not letting the site evolve. Learn some damn animation skills, and join the party! No offense to people who suck at animation. Although, when you suck at both animation and humor you really have nothing to offer to this site. You are actually a downvoter most likely if that is the case. If you have great Ideas for a YTMND though, let me know. I will make you an animation free of charge if I think it is worthy enough, and let you create the site as your own, as long as you credit me. Just some random thoughts. So, don't be an asshat and let YTMND evolve!
Ps. I am tired of the preloader debate, I think it works really well with firefox and use it because I like it. Thanks syncan. -mrgrim
Why do we need YTMND to "evolve"? The basic principle of this site is that anyone with a funny idea can make a site, and it takes very little skill. Look at all the Dew Army sites, they're funny, and they didn't take massive gif editing skills. Capturing 5 minutes last night's Family Guy and making a YTMND out of it is not the point of this site.
I am not at all for "video files" as these take no skill. I am for animations that people put hard work into. I have been on YTMND since it started and yes, it has "evolved" in a sense. All of you have seen it. Now it is really hard for just a still pic sound text YTMND to get in the top 5. Most of it is animations, or something very funny and or creative. As for people just converting a video file into a gif and adding the same sound from the video with no alteration. I am not so much for it. -mrgrim
Animations, and re-edited gifs are a beast of their own. They can be glorious, or way to large of a file and annoying in the end. The still image, text, sound files are sometimes genius!, and some animations can be amazing if done to maximise the mb's suggested. YTMND shouldn't all be animations, and it shouldn't all be still images. Both have their equal share of the stage.