The Org Redesign - New Features and/or Function...

[Glitzer]

This is just a thought, but I was thinking that it would be practical to put a thumbs up or a thumbs down option next to an opinion given on a video. Most people wont leave an opinion, but some may be inclined to do one click of the mouse to either agree or disagree on the opinions already given on an amv. Also, have all the opinions shown except for the very low rated ones (click to show), perhaps to separate well thought out opinions from the inflammatory ones. It could be useful in the sense that if there are differing views, it would help the author choose which ones to consider more highly than the others.

Just my opinion

[Qyot27]

This is just a thought, but I was thinking that it would be practical to put a thumbs up or a thumbs down option next to an opinion given on a video. Most people wont leave an opinion, but some may be inclined to do one click of the mouse to either agree or disagree on the opinions already given on an amv. Also, have all the opinions shown except for the very low rated ones (click to show), perhaps to separate well thought out opinions from the inflammatory ones. It could be useful in the sense that if there are differing views, it would help the author choose which ones to consider more highly than the others.

Just my opinion

Worse-case scenario on that, though, is that other users would be offended on the author's behalf by an opinion that offers constructive criticism, which would then lower needed advice while trumpeting the ego stroking responses.

Of course, maybe it's just my pessimism talking, but how many editors get enough opinions on their videos to have the above situation really start to matter? Especially if they don't participate actively in Op Exchange, for whatever reason.

[Glitzer]

My mistake was I assumed people generally leave opinions just for constructive purposes and so viewers could choose to either concur or dismiss certain constructive opinions that agree with their way of thinking. I had hoped users would usually mark down ego stroking opinions as they aren't useful at all, or at the very least make them secondary to the actually productive ones.

I think the worse case scenario you speak of would be very common on youtube, but I hope that it would be a rarity on the org for people to be offended by constructive criticism. You have a much better grasp on the community than I could ever have though.

Back to the drawing board.

[Qyot27]

Well, amongst forum users, I think the ego stroking would be voted down. But once you move out to the rest of the site's population, all bets are off. I'm sure a lot would vote up the constructive criticism, but YouTube didn't create the editor circle jerk, they just made it an art form. I don't think we're immune to it, and that plenty of it would occur here if given the opportunity. I'm not going to quote a percentage or something, because 1) I'd just be making it up, and 2) because it wouldn't really say much beyond my own views of human nature.

I'm just jaded, though.

[Arigatomina]

Well, amongst forum users, I think the ego stroking would be voted down. But once you move out to the rest of the site's population, all bets are off.

I'd argue just the opposite. Forum users are largely editors, the ones with the most to gain from circling up, and the ones who'd mostly be interested in rating thier own ops, the ops of their friends, and the ops of their rivals. Their impact on a new op system would be no greater than their impact on the current one - probably not much. Once you get to the main site, you're dealing mainly with non-editors, the ones whose main purpose here is to watch and review vids and the ones who'd be most interested in rating the ops other people leave on the vids they watch. There will be people on and off the forum who abuse the system, but no worse that what we already have. With any and all feedback being an endangered species at the moment, I'd think a little risk-of-abuse would be worth creating renewed interest in leaving feedback here on the org. This idea would serve the people already disposed to leave feedback, engaging them, renewing interest and giving them more reason to leave ops of their own.

The real problem with this idea is that it would change the main purpose of ops. Right now ops are for the editors, and only those 'outsiders' who leave their own ops get to read them all. If they were made public, ops would serve the viewers and potential viewers, and other editors, and anyone interested in writing ops of their own. They'd be reviews subject to approval or disapproval, available to anyone interested in reading them, rather than private exchanges between a single viewer and the creator of that vid. Right now the editors on the forum are pushing to allow disabling of ops, to make them so private that even those who review the vids can't see what others have written. They're moving toward a point where instead of ops, people have to PM the creator in order to leave any feedback so that no one else will ever see what those viewers wrote to that creator. They'd never go along with anything that will make their ops viewable and useful (and interesting/engaging) to people other than themselves.

[JaddziaDax]

As far as how public ops are, I like the system how it is right now... if we go with Zarx's comment system idea instead of QCs, then I think voting on comments would be fine. However I think that they only thing it should to is raise the popular comments to the top, rather than impact any "leader boards"

[Knowname]

you know, if we get playlists I'd love if we found some way to get the org onto Roku, Xbox Live, PSN or some other streaming marketplace. That would be a huge slap in the face to copyrights and such though lol. Our bandwidth use would likely go through the roof as well in fact just having playlists will be a LARGE boon to our bandwidth I'm betting. ppl will be using AMVs as their screensavers, leaving them on over-night and such!

[Cannonaire]

As far as core functionality goes, I think the obvious things which must be reimplemented immediately are:
-A prominent link to the community (the forums and IRC). I can't be the only person here who sees these as the most important aspect of the site.
-Super search and downloads.
-Uploads. I honestly haven't uploaded anything yet, so I can't give an opinion on whether the current system is good enough. Regardless, this is a core requirement in some form or another.
-Guides. I argue this point because this is the reason I came here and stayed here at first - I'm sure I'm not the only one. Also, we have too much experience not to be the authoritative source on how to do these things well and better than everyone else.
-A good system for adding and testing out new features which will doubtless be implemented/reimplemented. The best way to know if something works is through experience and trial. If we have a good system of community testing (I.E. a way to temporarily implement a feature fully into the site without disturbing the core features), all additional features will be more robust.

I think it's safe to say that opinions/ratings/etc. are enough of a divisive topic that they should be addressed after the core redesign and most of the features are in, with the provision that it is expected a system will be implemented again at a later date. I think it's also safe to say that most people think the current system is broken (correct me if I'm wrong). If we've gone this long with a broken system, I think it would be prudent to make sure we take the time and get it right once we've gotten the rest of the core functionality finished.

[BasharOfTheAges]

-A good system for adding and testing out new features which will doubtless be implemented/reimplemented. The best way to know if something works is through experience and trial. If we have a good system of community testing (I.E. a way to temporarily implement a feature fully into the site without disturbing the core features), all additional features will be more robust.

IIRC, there's actually a back-up test server that site coders use to test changes on. Maybe as this all goes through the development cycle, beta-users could be used to test stuff in addition to site coders?

I'm certainly willing to do testing if it was offered (I'm a software engineer by trade and spend a LOT of time doing systems-engineering style bug detection and procedure refinements).

[Cannonaire]

I know I'd be willing to beta test new/updated features if the process were easy and didn't impede other basic functionality.