web6.0

March 13, 2006 9:46 PM

What features would you like to see in a community/links/news site like metafilter?

I'm thinking of starting my own community/links/news/whatever type site, or maybe even a few separate sites based on the same code base, which would be written from the ground up. I have some ideas on features you'd like to see in a site like metafilter. Don't worry about practicality.

The reason I'm asking is two-fold 1) I'd like some ideas on what would make a cool site and 2) I want to come up with lots of "use cases" for my site, besides the obvious ones. Coming up with use cases, even for things I won't use will help me make sure the framework I envision doesn't have any glaring flaws that would make such features difficult. So, feel free to let your mind wander. While I want a lot of practical ideas, ones you think are impractical are ones that will help most with figuring out how flexible and 'stretchy' my framework actually is.

posted by delmoi to computers & internet (16 comments total)

digg is another example of a site I'd like to emulate.
posted by delmoi at 9:46 PM on March 13, 2006

Collaborative filtering. Like slashdot's moderation system, except not sucky.
posted by gemini at 10:30 PM on March 13, 2006

RSS derived from any page, automatically. Arbitrary paging of results.

Sites expose interfaces via HTML/HTTP but they're poorly designed, not like what a programmer would. Some consider this as obfuscation to stop people reusing their content. I'd like someone to expose a lot more of their internal APIs via URL interfaces so others can reuse their content. This probably means URL interfaces, an XML-based REST architecture. Anyone vaguely interested in reusing a site (eg, Slashdot) has been able to (eg, Alterslash) so I'd like a site that tried to be the repo for comments and stories.

And automatic blogcasting to the podosphere would be radical.
posted by holloway at 10:42 PM on March 13, 2006

I'd like to see a little picture of each user - faceless interaction is soooo 90s ;-)
posted by The_Partridge_Family at 10:51 PM on March 13, 2006

Slashdot's comment filtering is way too much for me. It has many layers of complexity (or so it seems to me) combining threading with voting. The complexity isn't the problem, because it has a good way of making the best comments bubble up to the top. The problem is the way it SHOWS you how complex it is. Goddamn that shit is ugly. And it's taken me years to figure out what it's doing enough to just ignore it and read the comments it shows me. Incredible. Clearly it's true that "ENGINEERS THINK DIFFERENTLY THAN OTHER PEOPLE" as they're often proud of pointing out.

I think MetaFilter's best feature ever was a closed membership for 2 years. I'm not being snooty. Just pointing out that an online community benefits from a period of letting a core group set the tone before opening it up wide. No one could reproduce MetaFilter today.

Also, I think the #1 killer feature in an online community is having some PURPOSE or reason for being. See Epinions, for example. Every interaction on that site serves some end, and there's something to show for it when all is said and done. Focus has a remarkable way of focusing.
posted by scarabic at 10:54 PM on March 13, 2006

- programatic api/web service for querying stats, possibly for posting/updating, but not as necessary.
- open copyright to allow republishing in other formats (could be as simple as the Webmaster owning the copyright so the site could be printed as a book/on a tshirt/whatever)
- user definable style-sheets
- integration with map sites (for users, posts, etc)
- voting on post entries (thumbs up, thumbs down ala TiVO)
- integrated online store for swag
- a flagging system with workflow and follow-up status displayed for every entry
- ability for users to unsubscribe (hide) certain tags or topics
- an expandable field (DHTML) at the end of each post listing the URL for each link, with a description
- delayed posting (eg: publish this post/comment at 12:00pm on the 14th of June)
- user definable template for how many posts/comments to display at once (1,7,30 days or 100,200,300,etc comments)
- spelling-check
- suggestion box for new features
posted by blue_beetle at 11:00 PM on March 13, 2006

Not really a feature, but if you expect a community to build up, the site should have one or at most two topic areas so that everyone is in the same boat and sees the same stuff.
posted by cillit bang at 11:12 PM on March 13, 2006

I'd like to see positive/negative flagging of posts and comments reflected in display. like maximally negative posts would not display at all (unless toggled on by user), further up the scale would be very small font size and small degree of contrast with background color, all the way up to highly positively rated comments/posts having largish or possibly bold font with text colored to have high contrast with background color.

I'm not saying exactly that this is something I think is necessarily a good or practical idea, but I'd like to see it.
posted by juv3nal at 11:16 PM on March 13, 2006

Slashdot's comment filtering is way too much for me. It has many layers of complexity (or so it seems to me) combining threading with voting. The complexity isn't the problem, because it has a good way of making the best comments bubble up to the top.

Slashdot's comment filtering is just stupid. It's a product of lazy admins, mostly. That site was, for a time, the biggest collection of smart people on the net, and the admins just squandered it, never took any suggestions at all, never recruited anyone to work on the site, etc.

Ah well. There were many other much better mod systems out there, notably kuro5hin and digg. K5 got strange though.
posted by delmoi at 11:42 PM on March 13, 2006

I'd like to see positive/negative flagging of posts and comments reflected in display. like maximally negative posts would not display at all (unless toggled on by user), further up the scale would be very small font size and small degree of contrast with background color, all the way up to highly positively rated comments/posts having largish or possibly bold font with text colored to have high contrast with background color.

Actually, that's something I've always wanted to do (well, small fonts, not the contrast thing. Some posts would also just show the title, and then you'd click to see it) Lower scored posts would move more quickly off the front page, as well.
posted by delmoi at 11:44 PM on March 13, 2006

Don't worry about practicality.

onhover popups that tie in with wikipedia and/or other definitive sites to provide context for news and opinion pieces.

automagic concept mapping that provides a graphical overview of various aspects of a topic

monitor user clicks to build an interest profile and customize/prioritize stories to each user.

statistical clustering of said profiles to match common users and put them into their own subcommunities/chatrooms (for whatever purpose...)

I've always wanted to see something enabling more structured conversations. Like if you have a mefi thread about abortion --- a structure that would encourage/enforce separation into topics, pro/con sections, etc... (does that make sense?)

Don't worry about practicality

3d interface. neural implants. 'nuff said.
posted by gemini at 12:21 AM on March 14, 2006

The scoop engine's new AJAX interface is very nice. Check it out over at Daily Kos.

For me, the number one thing for a community site is threaded comments. MeFi may get away without them, but it would be better with them.
posted by sien at 2:24 AM on March 14, 2006

On the contrary, not having threaded comments is one of the greatest thing MetaFilter and the rest of these sites have going for them. I don't think MetaFilter is "getting away" with anything.

Threading is great for many applications, but these tend to be task-based, not community-building in nature. When the goal is to build a community of people that persists over time, flat comments are clearly preferable. I think threading leads to way too much fragmentation and allows people to conduct essentially side-discussions outside of the main thrust of a post. The fact that a reply can be directed only to another reply, rather than contribute to the overall discussion on a subject. There's a reason that the large old-school online communities like the Well use flat and not hierarchical systems.
posted by mikel at 3:43 AM on March 14, 2006

Aside from technical improvements, leave MeFI and AskMeFi alone IMHO.

1)Forget the pictures. This isn't myspace and I'm not trolling for a date. And a lot of women aren't going to post their pic as a stalker resource -- if they've got any sense. MeFi's simplicity keeps the focus on substance, not style. If you don't have anything interesting to contribute, pictures and dancing lights won't help.

2)Let new people join. I wouldn't like elitist crap here. It's the revenge of the nerds. It reminds me of a joke. What do you call an environmentalist/no growth person in Vermont? Answer -- somebody who built their condo last year. People shouldn't have to genuflect to the "in crowd." Please don't turn this into a frat or sorority. Jeezus.

3)The last thing that we should want to emulate is digg. That website and the comments are downright idiotic. Let's not have a "race for the bottom."
posted by bim at 5:58 AM on March 14, 2006

Does anyone here visit Fatwallet.com? It is a bargain hunting site with some interesting features. When logged in, you can rate posts and comments by clicking on green (good) or red (bad). Each user can set their preferences to determine what threads they see, ie,. "Show only threads rated very good or better." You also get to see how people have rated a thread with little red or green flags by each post, the length of the flag indicating how many +/- votes it received. Fatwallet also allows private messaging. It is tightly moderated, flames and spam are deleted and members banned at the drop of a hat. Double posts are locked to new comments and a lock icon appears next to them, but you can still read them and their comments.

All in all it works very well, and is an example of a simple rating system.
posted by LarryC at 6:40 AM on March 14, 2006

It deserves to be said that, feature-wise, Metafilter has always been lacking. The strength is community. Any technology you want to develop should, first and foremost, be tested against the question "does this help create a strong community?"
posted by Hildago at 7:44 AM on March 14, 2006