MetaTalk posts tagged with ui

November is National Let's Try Obscuring Favorite Counts Month

cortex — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:02:17 -0800

For the month of November, we're going to try an experiment with how favorites are displayed. [Note: if this whole experiment is driving you crazy, here's a note on reverting the changes.] One of the recurring discussions about favorites is whether or not it's a good idea to display favorite counts on comments. There have been a few proposals over the years to modify how that works, and we're going to try putting some of those ideas into action for the month of November to see how things feel. Here's what we're going to do: 1. We're removing the number-of-favorites indicator from comment bylines. 2. We're replacing the word "favorites" with "faved" for those comments that have one or more favorites attached to them. This will link to the list of favorites for a comment just as the traditional "x favorites" link always has. [After a bunch of feedback, we've changed "faved" to "has favorites". -c] 3. We're including the favorite count invisibly in the byline still, so that those who specifically want to use that information or to write/modify scripts affected by it can do so. 4. All other aspects of the system will remain as is, so various less-visible parts of the site that deal with favorites should be unaffected. And that's the plan. Here's where we're coming from on this: We've talked about how to do this for a while now behind the scenes (and in previous Metatalk threads), and the plan above feels like the best compromise we could think of to address some of the concerns folks have expressed over the years while retaining what we see as the considerable utility of the favorites system itself. Removing the count is the key thing. It's an attempt to address the concern that visible favorite counts on comments may be interpreted as voting system, while still keeping the transparency-of-favoriting function of a visible marker and a favorites list link intact. We're not removing the favorite counts from posts; the concerns about the effects of the favorites system have almost universally been regarding comments, and so we're just focusing on that for this experiment. The change from "favorites" to "faved" is in part a change just to make it clearer that there is a change, for folks who may not be as attentive to Metatalk or site UI details. We've also tried to come up with something shorter than "favorites" just to reduce the byline length a little bit, while keeping it clearly readable and clickable. If folks have suggestions for alternative link text to "faved", we're happy to hear ideas. This change will probably break various scripts that depend on specific formatting of the byline, which we're aware of but don't have any real help for. At the end of the day, we need to reserve the right to tweak the site's UI. However, by including the favorite count information in the source, any script that needs access to it can be modified to get at it, and any script that doesn't need access to that info can just be modified to work with the new layout. (And given that this is an experiment, any changes to scripts should probably be treated for now as just an experimental fork.) We think a month is long enough for folks to get more or less used to the change and develop an opinion about whether its a net improvement or not and whether there are any serious unintended consequences, etc. We're going to go ahead and launch it in the next 24 hours, and we're happy to hear feedback and suggestions in this thread now and throughout November.

Ui and feature request for Recent Activity page

Brandon Blatcher — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:18:25 -0800

Here's a couple of requests concerning the Recent Activity page and one for errors when previewing. 1. Currently the ability to mange posts removed from Recent Activity is hidden at the bottom of the page. Can we move that link to the top, as in this mock up? 2. If a user makes a comment in a post that they have removed from Recent Activity, can that post automatically be placed back on the Recent Activity page? 3. On preview: I forgot to select a category for this post and was confused about why I wasn't getting a "Post" button. After looking around for a few seconds, I saw the error, which hidden within the page. So could we make that error message more noticeable? Here's the original and here's a revamp.

More Inside? You bet.

pb — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 15:11:12 -0800

More inside everywhere! Well, not technically everywhere, but the blue, Metatalk, and Music now have a [more inside] option when posting. (This has been available at AskMeFi for quite a while already.) No need to add to your own "more inside", "after the jump", or "below the fold"; [more inside] will be a appended to the post if an extended description is available. As always, bugs are probably lurking, and I know there are sections of the site that aren't expecting [more inside] yet, but we'll update/fix as we go.

I found it at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, in a dis-used lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the leopard.'

Eideteker — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 16:54:28 -0800

Removing a favorite is hard! [moron inside]

Request: first post and new commenter indicators

spiderwire — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 17:20:38 -0800

How about a subtle indicator of first posts and new commenters? I think I mentioned this before in the comments to a thread, but as long as we're all on the Pony Express and there's no contentious threads on the blue, this seems like the time to bring it up properly. [more inside]

Could the time left before I can another question be displayed?

vanoakenfold — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 11:01:19 -0800

Any chance there could be a bulleted add-on to the "Doh!" page that states you've posted an AskMeFi question within a week by telling me how much time left I have to wait until I can ask again? I could swear I only have seconds left, but there's no way to tell.

Ressurrect the metafilter user sites feature?

DBAPaul — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 08:04:41 -0800

I used to enjoy surfing MeFi members' sites by using the Links, links, links! page but it seems to have been non-functional for about a year and a half (data is out of sync with user pages and no new members listed since January 2004).

Matt, any plans to resurrect this feature to include the newer members (and possibly get the info in sync?)

Wording of the preview button on AskMe

patgas — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 13:48:34 -0800

When posting a question to AskMefi or a thread on MetaTalk, the preview button says "Preview the Link." Should it say "Preview the question" or "Preview the post" instead? (Is no nit too small for picking?)