Mar 04, 09 12:13 am — Hi All,
It's been a busy couple of weeks for us working behind the scenes. Here are the changes we've made for this release:
Let us know your thoughts and enjoy.
Ben and Peter
Submissions: Is it really necessary to have the 'Concise Description' field?
^what he said^
And why are there items on the popular front page that say they are a few hours old when I saw them yesterday evening?
Seriously. If I can't find new links, what's the point of coming here? Not to mention the upcoming links section is crusted over with lots of links that have been there for an extended period too.
I don't know what your algorithms are for bumping something to popular, but it still sucks.
The front page shows the date it went popular, not the date it was submitted. They aren't necessarily "new" but they are now worthy of being on the front page. Older links will never be on the front page but we've been experimenting with what "older" means.
The upcoming section is a free for all that shows all links that have been submitted to the site. If there are lots of links that you've already seen then others have submitted any additional content to the site.
The more people use the features of the site (liking links, commenting, reporting, etc.), the better the popular algorithm will work.
Hate to tell you, But I'm seeing gramps' and steamsed's links in upcoming for days on end. At some point, something isn't going to become popular and you just have to push it down because it is old.
Your algorithm won't get better if it just discourages people from looking at things at all.
The UI is no longer frustrating, but now I have to agree with others that there is less and less point to coming here. Mostly due to how the links are processed and presented.
I DON'T want to see crap I've been seeing the last N visits. The old way, I I just simply looked at the top of the page. The new way, there is no definitive answer.
If I go to FARK, DIGG, heck pretty much anywhere, and I can find new content without it being a mystery if I've missed something.
But then again, it's your site. Do what you want. But like most users, I only have so much tolerance for seeing the same crap on the front page two days in a row.
case in point. MacThulu posted a link about global warming and sand dunes DAYS ago that I replied to. yes, the most recent replies are from today, but there's now a 3 day old link on the front page where you go for NEW content.
I'm involved in the stupid conversation and it annoys even ME to see it on the fornt page, much less every other person besides me and macthulu who seem to not give a crap about the conversation.
Heck, I didn't even participate further in the conversation due to it being perkolated up, but form receiving an email notification.
Seriously. People come to ALL the link aggregation sites because they want to see something they HAVEN'T seen already. Add the social part AROUND that, don't undermine that to present a social interface.
Well, popular links are not technically "new" links. They are links that have been well received by the community and have "gone popular" which is the way other user-driven sites work such as Digg, etc.
If you click on Upcoming, you will see all submitted links to the site ordered by newest first. We're still in the process of making tweaks to the site to have everything as organized as possible.
If you choose to read the site similar to the old site, just keep an eye on the popular tab (updates right now every 40 minutes) and it'll be new to you. Or, you can keep an eye on upcoming only and that way you'll see stuff that will go popular and stuff that won't.
I guess you could think of it this way.. with the old Madville, you only saw what mods approved. Now, it's like seeing what's going on behind the scenes that you wouldn't see unless you were a moderator.
I think I might see the source of the problem. It appears links that go popular are removed from the upcoming page. At least if what you say about upcoming being in chronological order is true.
However, a new popular link can get buried by an older popular link if the older link sees more recent activity.
So effectively you are taking a recent newly popular submission and perhaps vanishing it off the first page of BOTH popular and upcoming. Thus allowing the content on both to become more stale than they really are based on submissions.
Perhaps having the popular links appear both places, and keep upcoming in chronological order of submission might keep at least one of the interfaces form going stale, and also give a chance that an older link is findable again if you failed to save it when you first saw it.
We actually had it this way but everyone complained that links were showing in both.
I personally agree with you that it should appear in both, otherwise you will miss links if you choose to only view the upcoming.
We've made the changes requested. Upcoming is now named recent links and shows all links submitted, including those that have gone popular. Let us know if this helps.
Could I/we please have the ability to post text in our comments how I/we see fit?
I really don't understand what removing symbols such as "and" / "plus" or accent symbols does to benefit the site. All I know is that when I hit Post and my comments appears altered it really erks me.
^not quite a stern letter but you're pushing me man... you're pushing me.
Oh and the submission thing I've mentioned several times without it being acknowledged, could ya maybe just explain that to me so I can stop asking.
kthxbye
Removing some special characters is a security thing. They don't want people getting root because they were able to escape out to a shell.
It's work to segregate input from things, and that hasn't been done. You shouldn't HAVE to be affected by it, but there is a reason why you appreciate even if you don't realize it.
Unless you would prefer to have the fornt page replaced by dancing hampsters and goatse guys ass.
What's your question about the submit page? I'll answer it. :)
EDIT: Also, yeah that's why some of the stuff is stripped out. Security, abuse, etc. Although, you should be able to do the basic things you need to do. What specific characters are you having trouble with? + & % $ # @ !
Oh yeah sure I threaten a stern letter and now you jump.
I don't get the "Concise Description" field, it's a repeat of the title more often than not and just really a bother when submitting a link.
I understand the security thing and assumed as much but even the 'plus' 'and'
ahahahahaha
your comment got cut
Edit: OFF
See they were removed as well as any text that followed. In that last comment I used both following the quoted text and well clearly you can see what happened.
/shrugs
Could you send me a screenshot of what you're seeing for the concise description field. It might be a bug related to CSS/AJAX.
I think they're just trying to stifle the man.*
/shakes fist vigorously
*Canadians 
This is what I'm responding to your comment.
Every time I've used or
No Jesus, No Peas.
edit: fight the power!
Yeah so people are looking at me funny right now.
^5 
Admit it, people always look at you funny. 
Sorry Ben I read this wrong when I sent you the message, although the message I sent you being fixed would be cool to.
That's what I'm talking about for submissions. If it doesn't automatically draw information from the site (which I tend to delete/change regardless) and is blank I'm unable to submit the link as it's a required field.
...and I'm guessing this isn't going to change either?
as well as the symbols I've had problems with.
...and I'm guessing this isn't going to change either?
as well as the symbols I've had problems with.
*raises hand* - Favorites, how do I remove 'em if they're no longer my favorite?
Activity Log - When I click on an action in the log it brings me to the link but not the action (comment made) taken? Is that the way it's set up or a glitch?
Glitch... fixed.
Mr. Headroom here is actually a .gif but he's not .gif-ing. Are the animated avatars gone? 
For now, yes. Effect that occurs when we resize them. Let me see if I can get around that though.
What if we were allowed to host them ourselves again?
There were too many broken ones as hosts go down, over bandwidth, etc.
How come our UK Madvillians don't have their Union Jack flying?
Fixed UK flags.
Nice!
What about the .gif avatars?
You can upload them but when we resize, they lose their animation. Let me see if I can help with this.
Reset avatar and signature are needed STAT! *cut eye
The search feature should be able to take you to a users profile, at the moment it doesn't. Clicking through page after page of users until I find the right one isn't appealing.
For users who may not understand the 'Follow User' option~
The follow and stop following user option is the equivalent of the 'add friend' option that we used to have for premium members except now everyone can use it. You click 'follow user' if you want to add them to your buddy list and 'stop following user' if you want to remove them from it.
Thanks Big T!
I'm linking videos that I enjoy and submit to share, rather then embedding them. The little video links underneath them are an eyesore and beyond ANNOYING.
WTF?
Even if we don't submit a video as 'video' the site automatically embeds them?
That's BS. 
YouRememberThat - his screen name over-lapping into comments needs to be fixed.
Edit: have we gotten any closer to losing the popular / up coming tabs and simply having one page to look at? just curious.
Heywood_Jablome does as well.
Replying to comments isn't working. Again. 
I liked how witch doctor thread said 2 comments but they werent there...heh.. but the number(2)was on the tab inside the comments section.
Replies are working for us. Are you still having issues?
If you reply in a link that you've already commented on, the comment disappears instead of posting.
Working for me now as well.
HEY YEAH! Where is my comment? It was a damned good one too.
SoR is right, there's some tomfoolery going on here 
Tell me if any better.
If by better you mean 'has my comment returned' than no. 
Check the link below, shows 2 comments; myself and SoR had made but they're not there nor does it appear on my comments page in profiles.
That was fixed. I accidentally deleted the link and restored it. My bad.
You went to edit it and baleeted it, didn't you?
ZemRrushe
Lowercase Links - We thought it was annoying when a link about the RIAA was written as Riaa, too. This has been changed. Link titles will no longer automatically lowercase all of the words. This still requires a bit of tweaking but it's better than it was.
Doesn't seem to be working in the activity bar.
BUG!