our every move is the new tradition
Some noders take the point of view that E2 is perfect the way it is. That newcomers should have to work extremely hard to make sense of the site, and that minimal numbers of new active noders are a good thing.
These people are obviously insane.
I honestly believe that E2 could have 50,000 regular users and maintain its current extremely high quality of output. The Something Awful forums are prime evidence that enough intelligent people exist in the world, and that it can be made to work. But, while Everything2's users are unfailingly friendly to new noders, EverythingTwoDotCom is not. In 1999 it was cutting-edge; times, however, have moved on.
Since we're making changes and all, here are some
Things I'd like to see on E2
Reactions from Clampe's students is required reading.
Features E2 has been dying for since day one
A subtitle. Wikipedia has "The Free Encyclopedia". Slashdot has "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." E2 has nothing. I suggest: "Read. Write." -
Move the +/- controls to the bottom of the writeup, so you vote AFTER reading the writeup.
The two most important form controls on the entire website are positioned at opposite ends of every node. After you're done reading the writeup, you have to scroll-scroll-scroll, click "+", scroll-scroll-scroll, click "Vote". It is a system which encourages users to either not vote, or vote without reading. It is a self-defeating design decision, in that it actively works to makes E2 a worse place. E2 will not be ready for live users until this is fixed. I am deadly serious.
Store sent /msgs Allow users to delete their own writeups Allow deleted writeups to be easily transferred to the scratch pad for re-working Allow scratch pads to be noded directly (preferably without having to use JavaScript hacks) -
Make it possible to change your vote.
Otherwise there is no incentive whatsoever to improve an old writeup.
Make all writeup feedback publically viewable, including nuke messages QuickVote buttons as standard AJAX chatterbox as standard Collapsible nodelets as standard Combine A Year Ago Today, Writeups by type and Everything User Search into a single, powerful "Advanced search" node
Bugs which should have been fixed years ago
Make it so that everything on the front page marked "Cool" actually contains editor-cooled nodes rather than C!ed nodes which are completely different - this couldn't be more misleading if you tried. Fix homenode image uploading. Vote buttons in poll nodes.
Front page ideas
A section: "Things Needing Your Attention", including current Quests, the current Poll, a daily selection of random nodeshells, today's daylog and Everything's Most Wanted News For Noders should include the most recent Root Logs and Editor Logs - abbreviated, with links to the full story, if they get too long (a la Cream of the Cool as it is currently) Introduce a <!--lede--> tag to help with the above
Also
Abandon nodetypes (person/place/idea/thing) entirely - they are useless Let's have a clear and concise copyright notice in the E2 footer explaining that nodes are © noders, who should be contacted individually for redistribution permissions Far fewer nodeshells and stubs - some of these are justifiable sources of inspiration, but most of them, again, waste the reader's time. - UPDATE: Ooh, this seems controversial! Guest users should not have the Vitals or Personal Nodes nodelets visible, since they are useless to guest users. Fixed! Thanks!
Guest users should be able to see (but not participate in) the Chatterbox The poll should be a front page feature/link, not a nodelet - after all, you vote once per week, not once per page load Several other nodelets would be better as nodes - Vitals, Statistics, On This Day and Read This, maybe others Make the nuke penalty 5XP, to match the reward for writing a new node (otherwise you get 4XP free for EVERY node - even instanuked spam) LaTeX support
E2 nodes you should probably be aware exist
These are in addition to those listed in the Vitals nodelet (note that that link will take you to the Vitals node, which is an out-of-date writeup about the Vitals nodelet).
Index of my daylogs
- November 19, 2002 - nonfiction - The Meal Game
- November 22, 2002 - fiction - a pattern in the stock market
- December 13, 2002 - fiction - Time Loop
- December 20, 2002 - fiction - Bagel story, part one
- January 25, 2003 - fiction - noisy neighbours
- February 25, 2003 - nonfiction - rant about linear mathematics
- March 9, 2003 - fiction - It, Robot, part 1
- March 21, 2003 - fiction - It, Robot, part 1.5
- April 10, 2002 - nonfiction - cheesecake challenge
- August 27, 2003 - fiction - It, Robot, part 2
- December 19, 2003 - nonfiction - Cheese vodka
- December 20, 2003 - fiction - Bagel story, part two
- April 3, 2004 - fiction - Be Here Now, part one
- April 11, 2004 - fiction - Be Here Now, part two
- April 17, 2004 - fiction - Be Here Now, part three
- April 24, 2004 - fiction - Be Here Now, part four
- May 1, 2004 - fiction - Be Here Now, part five
- October 25, 2004 - fiction - Sirens
- January 14, 2008 - fiction - a message to f1r3br4nd
- April 13, 2005 - nonfiction - Everything2 needs a forum
- August 5, 2005 - nonfiction - in which Sam interviews for a position at Data Connection
- June 2, 2006 - nonfiction - breaking my own fourth wall
- July 17, 2006 - nonfiction - my dinner with stickmen
- March 17, 2007 - nonfiction - The time has come for me to not leave E2
- July 17, 2007 - nonfiction - Multimedia E2
- October 1, 2007 - fiction - my worst nightmare
- January 4, 2008 - nonfiction - proposed new levelling system
- January 30, 2008 - nonfiction - new job
- June 12, 2008 - nonfiction - E2 is no longer cool
Editor-cooled writeups
* awarded for solo efforts - extra juicy!
Quests in the works:
Milestones
If my ideas are intriguing to you, you can subscribe to my newsletter at qntm.org or email me at act[ ]um@gmail.com. (Put "ini" in the gap.)
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