Brad Fitzpatrick ([info]bradfitz) wrote in [info]news,
@ 2000-08-22 01:47:00
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Browse by Topic
This isn't done yet, but I wanted to start getting some feedback .... there's a new feature now that lets you browse journal entries by topic. Here's an example of it in action. Feel free to click around starting from that page.

I'd particularly like feedback in the following areas:
  • What are some good applications for this? The "Movie Reviews" category topic seems to be the most interesting and useful. World and Regional news would also be interesting --- people could post their journal entries pertaining to the concorde crash, the Russian submarine, etc.. What other good topic categories can you think of? I'm opposed to music reviews because music doesn't have as clear of start and expiration dates of applicability as movies and news events do.
  • As this feature gets completed and becomes popular and integrated around the site, I'll need an army of editors to approve new submissions (we can't have trolls posting bogus journal entries to every topic). Any volunteers?

(39 comments) - (Post a new comment)

Browsing By Subject - Oh Boy!
[info]zaiah
2000-08-22 02:00 am UTC (link)
That looks like a hellish thing to manage. of all the concievable topics and such.. WOuld you have a page to browse the current topics? and what about making new ones? Why not saddle the burden of editing on the person who began that subject heading - As in.. I feel firmly I wish to say something about and make a category.. I then need to edit the postings made in that same category?

Hmm.. Maybe I'm not understanding it yet?

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: Browsing By Subject - Oh Boy!
[info]bradfitz
2000-08-22 02:05 am UTC (link)
did you click around at all yet? there's already pages to navigate the existing categories.

as for new topic creations, i'll manage the topic categories (which'll rarely change) and other topic editors will manage creating new topics and approving suggested topics from other users.

anybody will be able to suggest a journal entry to go into a topic and then once an editor reads it and approves it, it'll go into the topic directory.

all of this sounds a lot more complicated for editors than it is.... it'll be so automated it'll be a matter of clicking a link, checking some radio boxes, and hitting "Submit review".

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Browsing By Subject - Oh Boy!
(Anonymous)
2000-08-22 11:25 am UTC (link)
WOW!!!! IS THAT YOU IN THE PICTURE. YOU'RE CUTE!

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Did more poking around..
[info]zaiah
2000-08-22 02:31 am UTC (link)
Yeah.. I see you've got it set up quite neat.. I am excited by the idea. A food for though question.. a friend may see and entry posted for "friends only" and suggest it for posting.. you've got a way for future editors to check that tag and privacy level?

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: Did more poking around..
[info]zaiah
2000-08-22 02:33 am UTC (link)
You do realize that I lost all track of checking out our new feature and went on happy clicking and wound my way from one obscure persons thoughts to the next's.. and quite forgot I was trying to be helpful. :P

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Re: Did more poking around..
[info]bradfitz
2000-08-22 02:35 am UTC (link)
Only public posts can be submitted to the topic directory.

That's already in place.

Further, if a post is put in the directory when it's public and then its security is changed later, it is no longer shown in the directory.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Did more poking around..
[info]zaiah
2000-08-22 02:39 am UTC (link)
Thank you. :) Gotta love new things to play with. *laffs at self for the funny feeling of pride at somehow being associated with a "good thing going" like livejournal..*

The kitten seems to think it is a good idea too.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
How Exactly...
[info]short_ankh
2000-08-22 02:32 am UTC (link)
... does this work? We submit an entry of our own or does the site itself do a search of some kind?

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: How Exactly...
[info]bradfitz
2000-08-22 02:36 am UTC (link)
A combination of both. I'm planning a 3 stage approach, actually.

First, journal owners and visitors will submit other people's posts themselves.

Second, I'll have a few very simple searches that automatically mark posts as candidates to be reviewed by the editors and put in categories.

Third, I'll integrate support for this into the clients, so you can choose categories as you post.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]ibrad
2000-08-22 04:46 am UTC (link)
I'd rather have people find me for me, rather than movies I watch... please let there be a way "not" to be part of the searches, etc, maybe...
thanks,
iBrad :)

(Reply to this)


[info]whitaker
2000-08-22 05:32 am UTC (link)
LiveJournal has lots of badass features, but I often find that I'm just too much of a lazy ass to use them... like current mood and stuff. I think it would be great if you had the clients do some sort of searching to try and "guess" a category for the post you just wrote... and then you can just click, "yeah, use that category" if it's correct or something. That would be da bomb.

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re:
[info]bradfitz
2000-08-22 01:27 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, I plan to have a regular expression associated with each topic, and for each one that matches the post you enter, a dialog will come up in the Windows client (by default, but you can turn it off) saying, "It looks like your post pertains to the following topics ... would you like your post included in these topics? .......... (then a list of topics with checkboxes)"

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Editors
[info]newtrip
2000-08-22 06:29 am UTC (link)
I'd volunteer to be an editor over the Computer games and computer hardware part... (if there is one) =) heh.

(Reply to this)

Looks Cool
[info]mattrope
2000-08-22 07:13 am UTC (link)
Looks like a pretty cool feature. The "(Read More | xyz bytes in body)" reminds me of slashdot. Maybe you could set up some kind of moderator system similar to slashdot's in order to control the content. Of course it may be difficult to figure out a balanced system and may be more work than it's worth... Just an idea.

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: Looks Cool
[info]bradfitz
2000-08-22 01:28 pm UTC (link)
Currently I sort the items by date, but in the future there will be a sort by votes option ... each user can add +1 or -1 to the score of the item's usefulness.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]dakus
2000-08-22 08:58 am UTC (link)
Topic Ideas

-Consumer Reviews (Products)
computers, software, audio , video...etc.
-Consumer Reivews (Services)
cable & SatTV, mobile phone, auto service, etc.
-Music Reviews Concerts and Tours
they have the date timeline thing you are looking for and I would be very interested in reading about a tour BEFORE it gets to my city...
-Book Reviews
You could just call it literary reviews and catch the periodicals, poetry, etc.
-Travel and Outdoor Entertainment
you know, amusement parks, vacation spots, National Park...stuff like that..
-Colleges and Universities
You could create catagories for each college, then LJ members from that college would have their own little space at LJ to met, greet and post college and regional topics...get a rep at each campus...he/she would be the editor...
-Games and Hobbies
This sorta goes under Consumer Products but I would give it one of it's own...let any and all games from Paintball to Computer Games...
-In Local News
-In National News
-In World News
Like you said, lots to cover here..

Here are some stragglers...dunno how they could be fit to a timeline or an expire...

-Fashion
Just kidding...no I am sure da gals would want some thing like this, me I once worn a brown belt with black shoes, wadda I know...(you could add to the title "& Style" and then some MAC people could post a review of the latest MAC color scheme...)
-Food, Wine and dinning...
I would love this one...I was a chef in another life...or was it this one???
-Health and Fitness
Sports, fitness, the works...including spectator sports...
-Art and Photography
I just had to throw this one in because it was the only hobby or interest that I had left that wasn't covered somewhere else...

Create some catagories Brad and I'll volunteer for something...

You were asking for topic ideas right?

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: Topics
[info]uncleian
2000-08-22 08:19 pm UTC (link)
This livejournal is getting so big, it's going to need money. Maybe, if it's big it'll GET money!
Anyway, one of the advertisements at the bottom gave me ideas. Also, the list of interests seems like a usefull collection.
Under Health and fitness, add medicine, diet and nutrition, alternative therapy, etc.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Re:
[info]news
2000-08-23 10:47 pm UTC (link)
These were great ... I didn't include them all because that'd be overkill for now (we need content to fill them before we make them) but I did a bunch of the biggest ones and we'll let it grow from there and then I'll come back to this list and add a bunch more... thanks!

I'm going to be posting a new news posting soon, with instructions on how to get admin rights to a category;.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
it's looking good
[info]patrick
2000-08-22 10:06 am UTC (link)
I like this idea. I think it will be a fun toy to distract me from doing really work. I'd even volunteer for being an editor. i'm still a little iffy on the submittion process. you meantioned a search engine that will find some posts, but if going and finding some page somewhere on the website is the main way to submit entries, that would get tiresome fast. maybe if there was a link or a button on the comments page or something like that.

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: it's looking good
[info]patrick
2000-08-22 10:10 am UTC (link)
one more thought. often times when i'm writing a review, talking about something, etc, i often include it in a larger post. like for a little bit, i talk about the movie, then i talk about dinner, then i talk about the murder i saw on the way home, all in one post. what about posts that are only on topic part of the time and the rest of the post is about something else?

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: it's looking good
[info]bradfitz
2000-08-23 09:57 pm UTC (link)
my policy is going to be that as long as a portion of the most pertains to the topic, it's acceptable.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Wow
[info]bryan
2000-08-22 11:36 am UTC (link)
If I were you I would shy away from anything that might add to the administrative burden this site already imposes on your life.

For that reason, try to make it totally automated. Even if you (personally) need to spend just 5 minutes each night reviewing submissions, or finding new editors for abandoned sections, that's 5 minutes you're not talking to Blythe, fishing, bowling, or whatever.

Just my thought. And remember, stress isn't always created by the big things, but by the hundreds of little niggling details that interfere with what's important.

(Reply to this)

Great Idea that I will use!
[info]dpb
2000-08-22 12:37 pm UTC (link)
I personally love the idea! I have been going off of what other LJ people say about movies for a while now and I have to say that on the most part people follow my opinions of the movie as well!

Since I would use the feature a lot, I feel that I should offer my services to edit...so if you need the help, I am here!

(Reply to this)

Terrific!
[info]cg07446
2000-08-22 12:57 pm UTC (link)
This is just a wonderful feature (and not just because one of my reviews showed up under 'Space Cowboys'). One quick suggestion: on the page where the mini-listings occur, the topics appear to be listed in (least recent) date order. Any way to get the date to appear here next to each entry so we can know how topical it is?

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: Terrific!
[info]bradfitz
2000-08-22 01:43 pm UTC (link)
Done...

(Reply to this) (Parent)
dmoz.org style
[info]revjim
2000-08-22 03:01 pm UTC (link)
Your best best for topic editing, would be to have editors apply (and receieve karma or good-boy/girl or brownie or whatever points for doing so) for categories. Owners of the MAIN categories would approve the editors of the sub categories. Every category and sub category could have multiple editors. After an entry has been submitted to a category... it would be up to the editors to approve it or unapprove it. The choice of the editor will stand. However, in order to make certain unfair editing does not occur, the livejournal public at large can moderate the behavior of the moderators. Although users are unable to see WHO approved or unapproved a certain submission, they will be able to agree or disagree with that classification.

Let me use numbers to give you an idea.

Let's say for every submission I moderate, I get 10 cool-points, and I have moderated enough that I currently have 1000 cool-points. This represents my weight in the live journal community. If a user were to disagree with my editing, he/she could disagree. A disagreement would place 1/10th of that users cool points on a tally of bad votes. As soon as the number of points against my editing is equal to or higher than the number of cool-points I have... my editing is UNDONE, the submission is placed back in the queue (or perhaps just unsubmitted) and I am deducted cool-points for my error. This would mean that it would take 10 people as cool as me to disagree with me in order to undo my editing. However, it would only take 5 people twice as cool as me to undo my editing.

Users could get points for other things too. Submitting an entry, submitting a comment, helping people out in the support area.

In addition, you could modify the livejournal.com front page, to show statistics and interesting information. For instance, a list of the "coolest" users. A list of the users with the most posts. A list of the most recently updated journals. A list of users birthdays for that day.

This way.... the livejournal front page would serve as a home site for the LJ community. As it stands now, I very rarely go to the front page. This would also give you a place to put ad banners so this thing will actually pay for itself someday.


A side note.... entries should be allowed to exist in more than one category.


I will be more than happy to go into greater detail if you would like. Just let me know. I can even help design table strucure and help code some of this beast if you need it.

(Reply to this) (Thread)
more like slashdot.org style
[info]revjim
2000-08-22 03:10 pm UTC (link)
Well.. now that I re-read all that... it really isn't dmoz.org style... it is a slashdot.org style with dmoz.org tendencies.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Re: dmoz.org style
[info]news
2000-08-23 02:49 pm UTC (link)
This would be ideal, but I'm not sure I want to put the time into it to make it this cool.... yet.

I'm going to keep it simple for now... 1 or more editors per category ... with varying priviledges --- screening submissions, adding topics, adding categories, etc.

However, I will add voting to the items that are submitted, so good movie reviews (or whatever) can be optionally sorted highest.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
heh heh
(Anonymous)
2000-08-22 11:56 pm UTC (link)
Sounds like a really cool idea and a horrendously complicated programming project. Oh well..real point of this poist, Did anyone else notice that the itemid for this thing is contains "31337"?

God must be a hacker.

(Reply to this)

re:Browse by Topic
[info]insomnia
2000-08-23 12:00 pm UTC (link)
I didn't see anyone mention web design as a topic... but it looks like entirely too many of my posts lately have been touching on the subject, so perhaps that would be a good thing to add, especially given that there are so many kickass web designers who use LiveJournal.

~insomnia

(Reply to this)


[info]segue
2000-08-23 12:53 pm UTC (link)
I'll edit, eh?

Concert tours are pretty much set to schedule. Then there might be presidential terms. Or celebrity marriages. Har-har!

Pregnancy? Sex? Teen angst? Ew, too much of that already. Toxic topics.

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re:
[info]dakus
2000-08-24 10:05 am UTC (link)
I was going to suggest ONE of those too, just to be funny...always trying to be funny!

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re:
[info]news
2000-08-24 01:34 pm UTC (link)
hehe

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Absolutely!
[info]wild_mind
2000-09-17 12:02 pm UTC (link)
I'd be glad to help out with submission editing. I emailed you awhile back offering volunteer services - anything related to communications (writing, editing, PR, marketing, research....) you can think of, if you need it - the offer stands.

Good luck!

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: Absolutely!
[info]bradfitz
2000-09-18 03:17 am UTC (link)
thanks! email patrick@livejournal.com ... he's the guy in charge of the topic system now.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Absolutely!
[info]wild_mind
2000-09-18 10:43 am UTC (link)
Thanks Brad, will do.

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