JoeUser: What's Your Most-Wanted Feature

One Feature Only!

Published on October 4, 2007 By Zoomba In Blogging

Dear JU Faithful,

At the moment we are looking into what would be involved in an update to this site. There's no question that it's been a while since it got some tender, loving care from development, and we're thinking we *might* have some time in the coming months to address this problem.

As we do these updates, we also might be able to sneak in one or two new features, if time permits. So, we'd like to hear from you on what you would like to see added to the site in an update. Here's how this is going to work:

You get to make ONE feature request. Only one. Be specific
It should be something you feel is a must-have function for the site
It should not be "fix this feature that's been broken forever" We're going to be fixing the glitches. Think of new stuff.
Keep it semi-reasonable. Asking us to make the site 100% customizable isn't going to happen.

There is absolutely no guarantee that all of the requests here will be added to the site. We're going to go through the list of suggestions and see what we can actually accomplish when we set aside time for the project.

Once the project is underway, expect updates on what will and won't be in the site. For now, consider this the exploratory phase before we firmly declare anything You folks have stuck around the site through thick and thin, so we want to give you a chance to throw in your two cents before we get started.

Comments (Page 2)

Zoologist03

on Oct 04, 2007

Hell, I'd even settle for a 'shun' feature which works the opposite way, preventing those selected from viewing MY threads and comments

"Shun the nonbeliever! Shuuuuunnnn!"

I personally would like a feature that can reach out and bitch slap a troll when they are being over the top obnoxious.

I want that tool for every website I visit.

I'm kind of dry on ideas, though...if anything pops into my head I'll come back and tell ya'll about it.

~Zoo

Tiddler

on Oct 04, 2007

I personally would like a feature that can reach out and bitch slap a troll when they are being over the top obnoxious.

Well then in that case I'd like a bitch slap prevention shield.

Tiddler

on Oct 04, 2007

I'd like to be able to search posts and replies by another user with various sorts and filters (by date, by article). It'd be interesting to know what percentage of posts a user makes that are simply abusive towards others. In other words is it just me or is this guy just an across the board knuckle head?

It'd also be nice to able to save a link to such a search (with params) so you could suggest the knuckle head go take a good long look at himself.

Surely thats an easy one to implement.

InBloom

on Oct 04, 2007

I agree with BlueDev and Donna. More customization would make the site more appealing to me. I'm not asking for a myspace clone...just a bit more customizing features would be nice.

Phil Osborn

on Oct 04, 2007

A keyword search system that ranks articles by degree of match. For an example of a highly successful and FAST! keyword search, please see the corporate site - www.seco-larm.com. The site has several product search systems on board but the one I am focusing on is the keyword search, which returns pages (over 1500 pages on the site) almost instantly ranked precisely by degree of match to multiple keywords, and displays a little sumary of what is on each page, as well as letting you go directly there in a flash. The search engine itself was developed by someone who posted it for free use by the JavaScript Source. It was then modified and somewhat improved by yours truly.

To implement this search system, the keywords for each page that a JoeUser creates would have to be entered by the user and then - presumeably usine PHP or something equivalent - added to the search database. The database is included as part of the search system. I.e., it is downloaded when you call up the Search System, so that the search itself is not using the internet at all, reducing bandwidth demand for you as well as enormously speeding up the search process.

To make the system even faster and more compact, a dictionary table could also be referenced. The separate searchable pages in the four product category databases for seco-larm.com only run to a few hundred at most, while I hesitate to imagine how many pages total are encompassed in JoeUser.com. If the PHP engine replaced the keyword entries with smaller pointers to a list of all keywords, then it is possible that both search time and space could be drastically reduced. And of course, most of a page address is boilerplate, which you repeat ONCE if you're coding smart.

The remaining problem, which I am working on, would be to turn the search query into an "aquarium," which all former Amiga owners will understand instantly. The "Aquarium" was the massive database of all Amiga software that presented the user with the option of entering keywords manually or selecting as many keywords as desired from a grid. The system would then return all the matching pieces of software - very quickly. (The name came from the most prolific compiler and distributor of public domain software for the Amiga - Fred Fish.)

The advantage of an Aquarium is that the keywords do not have to be guessed at, and you don't have to deal with dozens of synonyms. You can easilly put a thousand keywords on a screen table. The user clicks on every keyword they want to match and then hits a GO button or Return. The option should be for the creator of an article to select from the Aquarium table first, and then, if necessary, add unique search terms not in the table.

Further refinements might include letting the creator weight search terms - at least those from the Aquarium table, and, of course, allowing the user to save searches and refine them without having to try to select the same keywords again.

dynamaso

on Oct 05, 2007

I would like the ability to be able to create new blog groups. I've been trying to create a JU Writers group for about 12 months to absolutely no avail. I believe JUsers used to be able to do this.

Locamama

on Oct 05, 2007

I want it to be prettier. Colors, more customization would be wonderful.

Gene Nash

on Oct 05, 2007

I am often surprised why my comments are sometimes signed "Andrew J. Brehm" and sometimes "Leauki".

When I post from blogs I'm "Gene Nash." On the rare occasions I post from the forums, I'm "smartaz." That's because my official username here is smartaz, but I have the box checked in my profile settings to "Use real name instead of user name" (or some such). It just doesn't seem to work in the forums. Maybe you also have that box checked? It's in your account settings somewhere.

By: stubbyfinger Posted: Thursday, October 04, 2007
Instead of a watch list just list all the articles you reply to.

List them in descending order with the number of replies and the date of the last reply listed next to the linked article.

Go here: https://forums.joeuser.com/?g=myreplies

I would like the ability to be able to create new blog groups. I've been trying to create a JU Writers group for about 12 months to absolutely no avail. I believe JUsers used to be able to do this.

Yep, we used to be able to create multiple blogs and groups. That would be nice to have back. (Though don't count that as my official request. I haven't settled on one yet.)

foreverserenity

on Oct 05, 2007

I've been trying to create a JU Writers group for about 12 months to absolutely no avail. I believe JUsers used to be able to do this.

Yes. It would be nice to be able to have more than one blog group of your interest if you wish, it only allows you to create 2. And to remove yourself from a group you don't want to be a part of too.

lifehappens

on Oct 06, 2007

I would like to suggest that you MINIMIZE any customization. I like the fact that the site IS plain and simple. No fancy backgrounds or cool effects to distract from what people have to say....just plain, simple and to the point. I want people to have to write something interesting...not clutter up a page with nonsense. Go to myspace if you want that.

It would be nice to have a "follow up" button....bookmark articles I want to follow up on, but maybe not have all the responses emailed to me. Then have a quick link to a page that lists, similar to the forums, the articles I was following.

cactoblasta

on Oct 06, 2007

They already have this, LH. Click on 'my replies' from the main forum page. It's right there under the welcome bar, next to 'my account, watchlist, and my posts.'

If you haven't posted though it won't come up there. Occasionally there's articles I'd like to comment on but not right now; usually I never find them again when I come back to write something.

I'd like to see this feature as well, although I can't think of a practical way to implement it. Chances are the watchlist is as close as we're going to get, although I agree with LH that the emailed updates are annoying.

My feature of choice would be better cross-platform compatibility. Firefox on the Mac doesn't post articles properly (it can't interpret carriage line breaks) and Safari can't even show the post comment box.

It makes using JU a bit of a pain sometimes, although as I don't post a lot of articles I get by fairly well with Firefox.

But if you're going to be introducing new features it'd be great if they could be tested to make sure they can be used by non-PC users.

Zoomba

on Oct 08, 2007

Thank you to everyone for the feedback and ideas, it's helping us a lot as we hammer out the site requirements.

Hopefully we'll have something cool to show you "soon"

Dr Guy

on Oct 08, 2007

Hopefully we'll have something cool to show you "soon"

With you on the job, we expect no less.

Tiddler

on Oct 10, 2007

Something you might consider for yourselves is taking a little time to build in application level exception handling + logging. In the short time I've been here I've been exposed to your stack dumps at least 15 times times typically due to connection pooling issues.

Theres no reason why any visitor should be receiving these notices especially given the platform you're using....it couldn't be any easier to *at least hide*.

It just happened again now hence my post.

foreverserenity

on Nov 01, 2007

Did anyone mention a preview feature? When you type a new article, you want to see what it will look like and have the chances to edit it before submitting.

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