Fanfare Pony Request. Ability to hide/mute shows ?

March 25, 2019 9:23 AM

If the technical overhead is not too much, would it be possible to allow logged in users to mute/hide certain shows completely?

I know that it's already possible to hide summaries and this is great, but I use fanfare a lot and would really appreciate not having to constantly be reminded of certain shows/ media *at all*.

I appreciate this might seem like a very specific niche Pony, but am interested to know if this is something that is

a: Possible - from a technical standpoint
b: Achievable - as in something site maintainers would implement if they could - which I guess affects A: and
c: A feature users even want

Thanks

posted by Faintdreams to Feature Requests at 9:23 AM (21 comments total)

So, to be clear, you're looking for a My Mefi-style filter in which you can put specific shows and they won't show up in the feed? It's a specific show thing, not a topic/tag style thing?

(We're in the process of working out the FanFare revamp and I don't know if we can add too many features to it at the moment, so there's a good chance this wouldn't happen soon, but we are interested to hear if this is something people in general would use, or if there's a simpler way to go about it.)
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 9:25 AM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

If this is the FanFare revamp thread, I'd love the mobile view to have a search box the same way the main page does. It's the only way I can find anything and the only option currently is the sitewide search which works, but not well.

And I'd sort of like to be able to hide shows since sometimes there are ones that take over the main page, even though I don't have a super strong preference about that.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 9:43 AM on March 25, 2019 [5 favorites]

Especially with TV series, which come back again and again as episode threads are posted, this seems like more than just a niche pony. There are tons of things I am not ever going to care about, and my experience using FanFare's front page would be improved if I could click a button and have them disappear. If I later changed my mind about the thing, I could search out the specific show page and change the flag and bring them back, but otherwise they just wouldn't cross my view.

Potentially similar function could even be applied to entire categories of things. I just don't listen to Podcasts, even though I would probably like some of them, I've never gotten into it as a genre. So I am interested in threads about (some) movies, TV shows and books, but not threads about podcasts. Someone else might not be much of a TV watcher, but want to see the Books that get posted or whatever.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:00 AM on March 25, 2019 [8 favorites]

Mobile version has the search box (modern, dark) but it's way down at the bottom below all the posts. If the "skip to the bottom of the page" button works for you, it's easy to use that to get to the search. But I'd prefer it to be at the top on mobile anyway.
posted by LionIndex at 10:33 AM on March 25, 2019

If this is the general revamp thread - I've had weird issues with how the search box handles what I type; minorly inconvenient at worst, mind, but still something that maybe could stand a look. Here's what I mean -

Say I want to search for "Black Mirror". I go to the search box and start typing "black mirror". Of course a lot of other things with "black" in the title come up ("black books", "blackadder", etc.). If I stop right away and click on "black mirror" on the list, that's fine. But - if I complete typing "black mirror", the list actually disappears entirely. Also: if I type "black mirror" and hit "enter", nothing happens at all.

So:

1. The search box doesn't seem to like when you type in complete titles of things.
2. The search box doesn't respond when you hit "enter".

Again, this is really, really minor and I'm probably only getting affected because I type at like Donna Noble speed. But it has always felt a little counter-intuitive.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:39 AM on March 25, 2019 [5 favorites]

The main page of FanFare is often overrun by multiple, sequential posts for episodes of niche shows, often with few or no comments at all. I’m in favor of anything that improves usability, especially on mobile.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 11:05 AM on March 25, 2019 [6 favorites]

So it sounds like there's definitely a show-flooding issue - that should be way better with the redesign, to start with. But do folks have an opinion on needing to literally never see a given show?
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 11:08 AM on March 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

(“Niche” isn’t a pejorative, here. I just mean nobody’s commenting.)
posted by Barack Spinoza at 11:08 AM on March 25, 2019

Personally, I find the need to mute entire shows an overreaction, but that’s just my vote. Shutting up now so others can chime in.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 11:11 AM on March 25, 2019

I feel like maybe that can be sort of managed with MyFanfare, seeing only your shows? But I don't have a sense of how other people use it. I know i follow like four shows and basically start with the search box (sometimes I'm following shows that have passed and i just want to read the threads after Iv'e watched an episode for the nerd take). I think having settings that allowed you to pick from the four main genres might be helpful. (book, podcast, tv, movie)
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 11:13 AM on March 25, 2019

But do folks have an opinion on needing to literally never see a given show?

I don't need to literally never see a show -- I am fine if it comes up in search results, or lists of 'All Shows', or similar. I'd just like to be able to see a feed that doesn't have certain things in it, but also isn't strictly limited to things I have already previously selected on an opt-in basis.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:35 AM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

I've never felt the need to mute a specific show, but I wouldn't mind muting categories. For example, and this is just totally me, I love podcasts but have never felt moved to talk about podcasts on FanFare, so having a bunch of posts about podcasts in a row just clutters things up for me.

Also:

So it sounds like there's definitely a show-flooding issue - that should be way better with the redesign, to start with.

It sounds like it's underway, but can I just suggest that if you're still thinking about the implementation, I would love it if the front page of FanFare suppressed duplicates of a show and showed only the latest, with a small indication of whether there were other recent posts that leads to the overall page for that show.
posted by tocts at 12:02 PM on March 25, 2019 [3 favorites]

If this did exist, I would use it. I would want it to have the ability to mute by media type as well as title.
posted by heatvision at 12:42 PM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

But do folks have an opinion on needing to literally never see a given show?

I mean, that moment when I realized I could tell Netflix to stop pitching me Seth MacFarlane shows was pretty satisfying.
posted by box at 12:46 PM on March 25, 2019 [6 favorites]

I feel like maybe that can be sort of managed with MyFanfare, seeing only your shows?

This doesn't seem like a good solution - a person might want to see their chosen shows and also new content, but mute stuff they really don't want to see or know they will never care about.

Personally I probably wouldn't use this feature, but I can see why others might like it, especially if there's triggering involved.
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:26 PM on March 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

I would use this feature. I follow shows via My Fanfare, but I find the main Fanfare page super overwhelming. If I could mute podcasts and books, and then systematically take out shows I know I'll never watch (especially the "book and show/just show" double entries), I would actually engage with the Fanfare home page much much more.
posted by donnagirl at 4:05 PM on March 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

OP here, just wanted to clarify that yes, I was thinking about a specific show thing, not a topic/tag style thing :)

For instance if I never see another reference to the show The Orville again I'd be very happy. Nothing against the fans nor the discussion of the show itself I'm just super not into anything associated with Seth MacFarlane.

Someone else up-thread mentioned Handmaids Tale and Game Of Thrones as personal examples which could actually be distressing and I feel that this Pony would greatly enhance the Fanfare front page for a specific subset of people. Might be a small set of people, but with specific (potentially easy to meet?) needs/requirements.

Hope that makes sense.
posted by Faintdreams at 4:22 AM on March 26, 2019 [2 favorites]

Sort of along the lines of differing views, hiding from some, highlighting for others, books have different demands. Looking through the 'archive' section I noticed one book by Butler then looked for another trilogy worth discussing and re-discussion. Lilith's Brood also well known as Xenogenesis have titles (Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago) that do not group alphabetically (unlike the "Harry" books for example). Not a problem for an intentional search but more natural grouping for an informal browse might turn up interesting stuff that one would never intentionally look for.

So would the mechanism of collapsing a series work for books?
posted by sammyo at 6:43 AM on March 26, 2019

I would love to mute whole shows, yes. Whole media types is not as important but would still be nice as an option.
posted by soelo at 11:41 AM on March 26, 2019

For books, I would like to be able to mute an author.
posted by soelo at 11:42 AM on March 26, 2019 [1 favorite]

I like the idea of muting shows that are uninteresting. I periodically scroll down the Fanfare page to see what's new (that I haven't heard of yet) and if I hid shows I don't like or a media type I don't consume, I'd see a lot more new stuff in the amount of scrolling I'm willing to do.

I also use My Fanfare, but to check and see if the latest episode/book in a series is up and ready to discuss. (Okay, fine, to find out what people who watch immediately thought about it, when I get to it a week or months later.) So basically I would use both features but for different purposes.
posted by Margalo Epps at 12:31 PM on March 26, 2019