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 just want to thank you for taking one step closer to turning this site into even more of an unfunny circle jerk. There is no need for highlighting peoples names. All this is going to accomplish is preventing new users coming to your site with fresh material. While the regs and people that devote their lives to this site have fun regurgitating inside jokes and sites made up about other users. Just scratch this whole featured users thing. It would be better in the long run.
Question: will this mean that the set of users who are not, for example, smoothmedia, fearcondom, BtB, etc. get even less exposure? If I think about it one way, I find that the exposure is the same, because some random site being picked off the "Recently Created" list and hoisted to a better list is independent of the user; but if I think about it the other way, visitors will wholly ignore some of the lists that DON'T involve these more well-established users. But I haven't thought about it as long as you.
max, I guess my base worry is twofold: 1. while I certainly agree that those users are the ones responsible for making the most interesting, creative stuff on the site, we still wouldn't want it to be like "who are you worshipping today?" 2. the list would become sort of like a "good stuff you've seen before" list, somewhat like the Hall-of-Fame. I think your comment sort of responded to both of those.
Pedigree? Wtf. Anyone who is pink did it through their own hard work. All you have to do is make good sites and you'll be pink too. Not too complicated is it? And as far as users already getting a lot of exposure, I would disagree with this. Only a handful of the ytmnd elite can sh*t something out and get it upvoted into U&C, no matter what. It seems that the turnover rate is pretty high on ytmnd, so that if you're not constantly making sites, it's hard to become a recognizable name, except among regs
Actually I was looking through the Top Viewed of all time, I forget which one I was viewing, then I went back and there were max oranges and everyone on their as pink, so I thought wtf is going on, so I came to home page and saw a new post. Anyways max, how do you choose the title of your posts anyways? Most of them seem to be metaphorical, or some kind of theme represented to come within the post.