Good post! All good suggestions. I love the Group SH's...that is the bomb! Also, not a bad idea to be able to vote on a question from a blocked user. Interesting. Downrave button..personally I like it....but others did not so that is still up in the air. Chat, good idea...personally I am on the fence with that.
We have some big changes coming up in the next couple weeks. We are revamping the news section and bringing on some pro writers to have more high quality original content with the SH spin. We are very excited about this. Also, if a user submits an article, we want their opinion on the article through a question or blog....not just an article link a la Digg. We are revamping Ask Question/Blog page and later in November we are redesigning the snapshot pages.
Community is our most important and valuable asset at SodaHead, so this is all part of an effort to provide users great content while also enhancing the social experience. Thanks for all your good input!!!
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Sodahead updates and additions ideas / requests
- October 15, 2009 00:04:38
- Read all 7 comments
- +8 raves
I've seen some requests for changes that people think should be made to Sodahead. And there are some good ideas, but since most of you aren't good at posting only good ideas, I've taken it upon myself to separate the good from the bad and post some of my own; because what I deem as good is of course truly good.
Moving the happenings to the bottom... I'm indifferent about that. I think most people are over it by now so it might as well stay there. These other suggestions, however, I would consider to be more important.
Also, the "view default profile" button was the best addition ever.
Changes are listed in order of importance
Big changes/additions:
1. Polls that allow a specified number of multiple options to be selected. (Select up to 3 or whatever number the poster decides.)
2. Additional poll statistics - For each poll, give the poster the option to display additional statistics from the poll. This information could be collected from the users' profiles so that you could see what percent of people who voted a certain way were male or female, gay or straight, conservative or liberal, young or old, etc.. Users' would also be able to choose to not submit this information in their privacy settings.
3. Group sodaheads - Each user could organize their Sodaheads into groups, similar to Top Sodaheads and be able to select which groups to send things to instead of just Top Sodaheads and all Sodaheads. For example, I could make a group of Christian Sodaheads or Gamer Sodaheads so I could send relevant questions only to the people they are relevant to.
Small or I don't know how big changes/additions:
1. Support for italicized and strike-through text. (is there underlined text support? I don't even know)
2. Down rave button - Before, the report abuse button was mistaken as a down rave button. Now it is more obviously a flag, but people still want a way to show their disagreement or dis-appreciation of poor quality posts without necessarily reporting abuse. So this down rave button should be in addition to the flag/report abuse button.
3. I liked having more topic categories! What's with removing those?! Where am I supposed to put science questions or things about relationships? IMO, more categories is better, even if you hide them as sub categories. I love organization.
Possible changes that I'm on the fence about:
1. "We should be able to vote on a poll even if the user has blocked us. Not commenting, fine. But not allowing us to vote on such polls does nothing but skew the results." - quoted from some random person. Seems like a good idea to me, but I haven't thought on it much.
2. Hotlinking is bad. For those not in the know, hotlinking is using the URL from an image on someone else's site (which you often get from google) and directly linking to that to display the image on your own site. This uses up the site's bandwidth (their limited amount that they can have users download from their site) and gives the site no credit (unless you check the image's properties) and no page views. Now. I'm on the fence about this because nowadays, websites can block hotlinking. So does that mean that any site that doesn't block it is encouraging it? I don't know. Maybe this isn't as big of a problem as I thought; I'm not /that/ into web design. And I have to admit, the way you can post pictures on Sodahead is smooth and convenient.
3. Chat. Whew boy. Lots of people requested this. Lots of people said HELL NO. But, actually, I wouldn't mind an internal instant messenger where I could talk to my sodaheads who are online. Users would be able make themselves invisible/away/offline on the chat or only be viewable for top sodaheads or sodaheads in particular groups (if that got added).
Anyway, if you agree with mine, give me a rave and pass it on. I wasn't planning on sending this to the staff for fear of seeming selfish and spammy, but if I get lots of agreement, maybe they'll catch wind. Maybe someone else could send it. I dunno. And I don't normally ask for raves, so forgive me this once.
If I'm forgetting anything, post your own and I'll add it in if I, in my wisdom, deem it worthy.
Moving the happenings to the bottom... I'm indifferent about that. I think most people are over it by now so it might as well stay there. These other suggestions, however, I would consider to be more important.
Also, the "view default profile" button was the best addition ever.
Changes are listed in order of importance
Big changes/additions:
1. Polls that allow a specified number of multiple options to be selected. (Select up to 3 or whatever number the poster decides.)
2. Additional poll statistics - For each poll, give the poster the option to display additional statistics from the poll. This information could be collected from the users' profiles so that you could see what percent of people who voted a certain way were male or female, gay or straight, conservative or liberal, young or old, etc.. Users' would also be able to choose to not submit this information in their privacy settings.
3. Group sodaheads - Each user could organize their Sodaheads into groups, similar to Top Sodaheads and be able to select which groups to send things to instead of just Top Sodaheads and all Sodaheads. For example, I could make a group of Christian Sodaheads or Gamer Sodaheads so I could send relevant questions only to the people they are relevant to.
Small or I don't know how big changes/additions:
1. Support for italicized and strike-through text. (is there underlined text support? I don't even know)
2. Down rave button - Before, the report abuse button was mistaken as a down rave button. Now it is more obviously a flag, but people still want a way to show their disagreement or dis-appreciation of poor quality posts without necessarily reporting abuse. So this down rave button should be in addition to the flag/report abuse button.
3. I liked having more topic categories! What's with removing those?! Where am I supposed to put science questions or things about relationships? IMO, more categories is better, even if you hide them as sub categories. I love organization.
Possible changes that I'm on the fence about:
1. "We should be able to vote on a poll even if the user has blocked us. Not commenting, fine. But not allowing us to vote on such polls does nothing but skew the results." - quoted from some random person. Seems like a good idea to me, but I haven't thought on it much.
2. Hotlinking is bad. For those not in the know, hotlinking is using the URL from an image on someone else's site (which you often get from google) and directly linking to that to display the image on your own site. This uses up the site's bandwidth (their limited amount that they can have users download from their site) and gives the site no credit (unless you check the image's properties) and no page views. Now. I'm on the fence about this because nowadays, websites can block hotlinking. So does that mean that any site that doesn't block it is encouraging it? I don't know. Maybe this isn't as big of a problem as I thought; I'm not /that/ into web design. And I have to admit, the way you can post pictures on Sodahead is smooth and convenient.
3. Chat. Whew boy. Lots of people requested this. Lots of people said HELL NO. But, actually, I wouldn't mind an internal instant messenger where I could talk to my sodaheads who are online. Users would be able make themselves invisible/away/offline on the chat or only be viewable for top sodaheads or sodaheads in particular groups (if that got added).
Anyway, if you agree with mine, give me a rave and pass it on. I wasn't planning on sending this to the staff for fear of seeming selfish and spammy, but if I get lots of agreement, maybe they'll catch wind. Maybe someone else could send it. I dunno. And I don't normally ask for raves, so forgive me this once.
If I'm forgetting anything, post your own and I'll add it in if I, in my wisdom, deem it worthy.
Top Comment
We have some big changes coming up in the next couple weeks. We are revamping the news section and bringing on some pro writers to have more high quality original content with the SH spin. We are very excited about this. Also, if a user submits an article, we want their opinion on the article through a question or blog....not just an article link a la Digg. We are revamping Ask Question/Blog page and later in November we are redesigning the snapshot pages.
Community is our most important and valuable asset at SodaHead, so this is all part of an effort to provide users great content while also enhancing the social experience. Thanks for all your good input!!!
Small changes: 1: Yes, yes and YES. Strikethrough, italics, etc...would be very welcome. :-D 2: Not so sure about this. I think the easiest way to show dissent is to not rave someone and make a comment. I think an actual DR button would open things up to a LOT of abuse. I think a better way to stop abuse of the flagging button is to give out warnings and possibly suspend the account (temporarily) of those who abuse the flag-system as a way to express dissent instead of what it was intended to be. 3: I'm ALL for more categories! That works great!
Possible changes:
1: Can't agree here. The blocking function, much as I hate it, is there for a reason. They don't want to see any response from those they blocked. This isn't a scientific polling site, this isn't PEW research - the results are fine if they're skewed. Ignorant, but okay. 2: Ehhh... many sites are okay with hotlinking, and are geared for it. Others, not so much. But paying a little bit more for some server space and encouraging...
Small changes: 1: Yes, yes and YES. Strikethrough, italics, etc...would be very welcome. :-D 2: Not so sure about this. I think the easiest way to show dissent is to not rave someone and make a comment. I think an actual DR button would open things up to a LOT of abuse. I think a better way to stop abuse of the flagging button is to give out warnings and possibly suspend the account (temporarily) of those who abuse the flag-system as a way to express dissent instead of what it was intended to be. 3: I'm ALL for more categories! That works great!
Possible changes:
1: Can't agree here. The blocking function, much as I hate it, is there for a reason. They don't want to see any response from those they blocked. This isn't a scientific polling site, this isn't PEW research - the results are fine if they're skewed. Ignorant, but okay. 2: Ehhh... many sites are okay with hotlinking, and are geared for it. Others, not so much. But paying a little bit more for some server space and encouraging users to link to pictures uploaded onto their own profiles instead of on the web might be a better solution. 3: So long as we have the ability to go 'invisible' - I'm a bit of an IM recluse, and would leave this site without the 'invisible' function of a chat feature.
Big Changes
1) I think it's alright with having up to 13 answer choices. At least is not anywhere above it. Some people have interesting questions to ask that must have more than 5 answers.
2) I agree with you, but it kinda ruins the whole point of SodaHead: Voicing out your opinions. But it's worth a shot, though.
3) I'm not so big into groups... Not many people are active. I hope that'll work.
Small changes
1) I don't even know HOW to make bold font on here =___=;;
2) I remember that! That was very annoying. I must agree with you there.
3) I don't focus on the categories. I love talking about games (You know me, Link-kun.), it's EXTREMELY rare to find people like us.
Possible Changes
1) The whole reason why the Block button is there is because you don't want anything to do with them. Why would you want to answer their questions?
2) Finally, I completely agree with you.