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

[Pwolf]

Since the org staff wants to wait to gather ideas in an organized manner, I've decided to take it upon myself to create what I think are the necessary threads to get the job done. I don't want to wait until the coding is done before we know what the website will look like and function. Lets start now.

This thread is for ideas about new features and functions the org should provide or support. Examples would be, improving the journal system, allow direct comments to videos everyone can view and reply to, streaming options. If you have an idea, let us know!


Go.

[Nya-chan Production]

I would like to point out one important thing - the new org will actually have LESS features when it appears, since it has to be redesigned FROM SCRATCH.

So the actual question for now is more of - What are the basic features that you think you can't go without? Why?

[Kionon]

I could go back to previous incarnations of the org with no problems. It would be easier to tell you what features I dislike or am indifferent to, since the features I use I might believe are inherent.

As long as I can super search, download, and leave opinions, that is all I need. I hate or am indifferent to pretty much everything else (QCs, star ratings, journals, preview, etc, etc). All that stuff is window dressing. Definitely not necessities.

[CodeZTM]

Uploading, searching with ease, downloading [in a fairly simple manner], leaving opinions, journals and banner voting. That's really all I want to see on the main page. Guides can be banished to a really large FAQ page for all I care.

Oh, and new videos in the middle of the page, each with small preview function.

[godix]

I believe the core focus should be for editors to easily show their videos and viewers to easily watch them. So, basically, any feature that isn't directly related to that can go on a back burner as far as I'm concerned.

[Pwolf]

I would like to point out one important thing - the new org will actually have LESS features when it appears, since it has to be redesigned FROM SCRATCH.

So the actual question for now is more of - What are the basic features that you think you can't go without? Why?

Instead of adding and/or removing features and not telling the community what we are doing, how about we ask them what they want to be added or removed? This website's redesign shouldn't only be discussed by 4 or 5 programmers in a private sub forum.

For example:

Does the community think a slider based scoring system should replace the star scale?

Should we have Studio pages that can be updated and managed by the studio creators?

Does the org need a poll on the front page?

Do amvs need thumbnails on the video page?

These are questions that should be asked so people can design the website knowing what the community wants. If we spend a lot of time working on stuff no one wants, its just going to be more wasted time and energy.

[Nya-chan Production]

We are now working on the core, not features, so it's pointless to ask about those now.

[Corran]

We are now working on the core, not features, so it's pointless to ask about those now.

I disagree. If you know the overall vision of what you are eventually going for you can make important yet seemingly simple design decisions early in the core development to accommodate the development of additional features down the road. If you don't plan ahead you may be pulling your hair out and refactoring a lot of code later on.

[leptogenesis]

Who all is actually involved in the coding process?

Anyway, this seems like a good place to mention the recommender system I wrote for the .org. We may want to put it into greater prominence than the current suggestion query system, since the current consensus seems to be that it works better. It's written in a way that makes it rely very little on the current setup of the .org database or the php code. My wild guess is that the recommender will work better if people are still required, or at least strongly encouraged, to give ratings.

Also, it wouldn't be terribly hard (for me) to modify the same system to find the nearest neighbors to a given video. That way we could have a 'related videos' column on most video pages.

I should also point out that, at least in theory, both of these systems should work better than youtube's 'related videos' system, because the system doesn't have to deal with the huge diversity of videos that youtube has to deal with. If done right, this could give the .org a real advantage over youtube.

[JaddziaDax]

I think choose-able skins would be really nice that way those who want dark backgrounds with white text can have theirs, and those who want light backgrounds with dark texts can have theirs.

Uploading made easier. But keep the old method as well, for those who don't like change.

One of my favorite features on youtube is the "related" videos in the side... it can keep me surfing for hours.

As far as ratings go, I've noticed on a lot of sites they go for thumbs up and thumbs down instead of star rating....