sing, sing, sing
posted by max on June 29, 2007 at 07:19:43 AM
howdy folks,
Just a quick update to let you know I'm still alive. Some quick tidbits: Batch site deletion will be in effect soon, I've added an undelete function and an easy way to tell when a site has been deleted. I've reset the delete dates to three days in the future to give you time to undelete sites you don't want deleted anymore.
read more for some small updates.
I've been working on the new punishment system in the moderation setup, and have a gigantic list of people to punish, which should be fun. Once I'm satisfied with it, I'm going to open it up to super mods to start dealing with problematic users.
In other news I've spent a significant amount of time working on converting sound assets to flash. My goal is to:
a) remove the need for quicktime/alternatives
b) make it so you can look at ytmnd from almost anywhere with little to no setup.
c) normalize sound volume d) reduce bandwidth usage significantly by converting wav to mp3 before flash conversion.
e) return the ability to have truly gap-less looping.
There are some surprisingly difficult technical hurdles to overcome, but I'm optimistic about it.
I spent a day or two on a new feature that will only be used by the two or three of you that know how to program; the YTMND Developer API.
Everyone is making an API so people can integrate their data into their own applications these days, and I figure it may add $10 or so dollars to the value of YTMND. I'm hoping some neat stuff will come out of it.
It will allow developers to grab a lot of data we don't currently show on the site. The hardest part of the API is writing the documentation on it, so if any of you have some technical writing experience and are up for it, let me know. I hope to have it up soon, and I'll write a few simple applications you dummies can put in your myspace profile or something.
Just a quick update to let you know I'm still alive. Some quick tidbits: Batch site deletion will be in effect soon, I've added an undelete function and an easy way to tell when a site has been deleted. I've reset the delete dates to three days in the future to give you time to undelete sites you don't want deleted anymore.
read more for some small updates.
I've been working on the new punishment system in the moderation setup, and have a gigantic list of people to punish, which should be fun. Once I'm satisfied with it, I'm going to open it up to super mods to start dealing with problematic users.
In other news I've spent a significant amount of time working on converting sound assets to flash. My goal is to:
a) remove the need for quicktime/alternatives
b) make it so you can look at ytmnd from almost anywhere with little to no setup.
c) normalize sound volume d) reduce bandwidth usage significantly by converting wav to mp3 before flash conversion.
e) return the ability to have truly gap-less looping.
There are some surprisingly difficult technical hurdles to overcome, but I'm optimistic about it.
I spent a day or two on a new feature that will only be used by the two or three of you that know how to program; the YTMND Developer API.
Everyone is making an API so people can integrate their data into their own applications these days, and I figure it may add $10 or so dollars to the value of YTMND. I'm hoping some neat stuff will come out of it.
It will allow developers to grab a lot of data we don't currently show on the site. The hardest part of the API is writing the documentation on it, so if any of you have some technical writing experience and are up for it, let me know. I hope to have it up soon, and I'll write a few simple applications you dummies can put in your myspace profile or something.
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If it's at all possible PLEASE try to make a "featured user" list that comes with a default set of featured users, but which each user can program with their own list of favorite users if they want to change it. I'm sure that's much more difficult than I would imagine it to be, having no programming knowledge past a little C and MATLAB, but it would be awesome.
I disagree.
I've only made one site (explaining a weird vote system I made earlier, bleh) and truth be told i'm not very good at making humorous or looping sites, so...
I'm only capable of votes (and I try to be fair with my votes, too) and if this was applied i'd be banned, just because I can't *MAKE* good content. :(
Max please bring both Most Voted This Week and Top Rated back to the front page. As it stands now, you get half a day on Up and Coming, and a day on Top Viewed, and that's it. If you're lucky. Good sites need to be rewarded more than that. If you reward quality, people will strive for quality. If you make it impossible to stick on the front page, if you make every site disposable regardless of its quality, you get noise sites. Also volume normalization.
That's exactly the point, it caters to the regulars at the expense of the casual viewer. Do you really want ytmnd to become even more insular than it already is? The casual viewer should be able to check the site once a week and see the best sites from the past week. If the regulars have to stare at the same sites the whole time, that's a small price to pay for putting our best foot forward.
Necro, your last site got a 4.64 so of course it was only on U&C for half a day. Sites with that high of a rating tend to get votes a lot faster. I agree with you that most voted and top rated need to come back, but I'm just politely pointing out that sites with mediocre scores have been in U&C for the past four days. Also, Umfold, sites only get 15k views a day if they're at the top of Top Viewed and get extremely lucky or linked. Usually sites at the top only get about 11k or 12k views a day,
...and that's only at the very top. At the bottom of top viewed sites get as little as 5k views a day. Back in the days of the old layout, sites would get about 20k views and 700 votes because Top Viewed dominated the main page. It would be impossible to browse ytmnd without even accidentally clicking a link on top viewed. Now, it's just scrunched up down in a corner and thus sites receive less views.
But that's exactly what I'm talking about. I have no problem with the way Up and Coming works right now, and I'm fine with only being on Up and Coming for half a day, as long as a site has somewhere to go afterwards. It used to be a tiered system: A certain level of quality would get you on Up and Coming, the best sites on Up and Coming got to To Viewed, the best Sites on Top Viewed made it to Most Voted and/or Top Rated. Now the best sites just disappear with everything else, and that shouldn't happen.
I'm not going to deny that this complaint was brought about my my most recent site. But the fact is, Arnold's got Hoes got 150,000 views when I made it last month, while my Superman site has the exact same rating and it literally won't even get 1/10 of the views. Honestly, what motivation do I have to make my sites as good as they possibly can, when I can just as easily half-ass it and get the same number of views?
Top Viewed was essential to the YTMND front page. The only thing that spoiled it was sites that were linked from elsewhere. Yes I admit it wasn't fair for Arnold Shares his Deepest Feelings to be on there for weeks straight, even though it was spreading through Myspace like wildfire. A site should only be able to achieve Top Viewed status for several days in a row, and then it should be automatically removed.
I know it'll sound a little ironic if I defend him, but he's right. Good sites really aren't receiving enough exposure. There are several good sites that have disappeared before on U&C because they weren't submitted at midnight for top viewed. The change to a 500 vote limit is a step in the right direction, but the removal of Most Voted completely nullifies it.
The point to be made is that I honestly believe that eliminating Top Voted and Top Rated hurts the actual quality of the sites that are made. I don't think it's a coincidence that the site has sucked ever since the front page was changed. Having that goal as a carrot for people to aspire to is going to elevate everyone's game. It's not just that good sites will go unseen, it's that in the long run eventually they won't be made at all.
Quoth the http://www.ytmnd.com/TODO (not sure if max's goals have changed): @-- Inability to vote/private message/site comment/news comment.
@-- Temporary or Permanent Banning from the site.
@--
@-- [Warning] Points will be given out for actions such as:
@-- Comment spam/inappropriate comments (ie: racial slurs, etc)
@-- Innapropriate content