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1. Click around and get comfortable. You can find wire news here faster than any site on the web, as well as contributions from people all around the world.
2. Head over to the Help Section and read more about what you can do here.
3. Sign up for a free Newsvine account and begin commenting, chatting, and writing your own column. (And replace this big space with something useful).
Shiny new user columns.
As you might've noticed, we've dropped a few goodies your way this week. First, we released the second installment in our series of Fantasy games with the introduction of the World Cup 2006 Pick 'Em Game, which we're pretty stoked about since we're big football (soccer) fans here.
Next, we just unveiled brand new user columns today!
You'll notice a whole smorgasboard of changes. Some users were wondering where the Newsvine Team has been lately, since everyone is so used to seeing new improvements and features every week. Well, we had a lot of work to do in order to lay the foundation for the next layer of Newsvine love.
Most noticeably, you'll see that we've made the columns much more flexible. You can now choose which components to display and in what order. Head on over to your Newsvine column by hitting the new "Home" icon in the top navigation bar and start rearranging the furniture. Want to feature your articles more prominently than your seeds? Easy, just move the seed module to the sidebar. Want to expose a list of the most recent things you've voted on? Just hit the "Show" button on that module and move it wherever you'd like.
Probably the most significant result of this new arrangement is that your column can appear much fresher as a result of much less work. For example, just commenting around the site can now automatically fill up your column by way of the comment module. You shouldn't have to write 10,000 word essays every day to maintain an interesting page.
The Newsvine community wants to know about you, so take the time and make your column your home. We think it'd be great to hop on over to Praetor605's column, one of our favorite science contributors, and see what books he recommends. Or, knowing that Brian Ford is a huge movie goer, we'd expect to see a quality list of films in his movies list. Also, you'll be able to see what tags people contribute the most to, which can be very helpful if you follow a certain user, but gravitate toward contributions of theirs on a particular set of subjects. For example, Claus Jacobsen and Aine MacDermot are two of the most prolific contributors around the Vine, and you can now see the breakdown of the topics they write about. All of this information, and lots more, is now easily accessible through the modules in the new user columns. You'll also be happy to know that there are many more modules on the way.
Another significant addition to Newsvine is the introduction of Friend functionality. This is just the beginning of what we plan to offer in terms of social interaction and collaboration. The discussions surrounding Newsvine Guilds/Branches/Whatever-you-want-to-call-ems has been a hot topic around here, and ability to designate others as people you'd like to interact with on a deeper level, is a necessary beginning to this sort of focused and organized collaboration. Soon you'll be able to send your friends chat requests and be notified when they post, seed, or comment around the site.
Another important development in the evolution of the Newsvine community is something we call "Vineacity" (pronounced Vine-assity... like "tenacity"). Vineacity is a measure of multiple qualities about each user on the site. Rather than a simple "Positive Feedback" percentage -- as we've been experimenting with over the last several weeks -- Vineacity looks at a lot more. For instance, how long you've been an active member, how many items you've received a substantial amount of votes on, and how big your watchlist/friend network is. The problem with a straight "Approval Rating" percentage is that it doesn't map ideally to who the most productive users are. For instance, the very prolific writers might be around 90% while someone who just posts one or two vanilla articles incapable of stirring up any dissent might be at 100%. With Vineacity, approval rating only accounts for one of six factors -- the "Courtesy" branch -- and even then, you're either courteous or you're not. It's much less susceptible to misrepresentation. Expect a more lengthy post on Vineacity soon, but until then, feel free to click on the "Vineacity" link in every user's column for a more complete explanation.
Other new features launched as part of this major update include:
This is the biggest update to Newsvine since launch and we're quite anxious to get everyone's reaction, so start kicking the tires, invite more friends, get better acquainted with one another, and let us know what you think! Many more things on the way as always...
Important Note: We're now showing avatar photos which are twice as big as before so your existing photo might look fuzzy. Please re-upload a new avatar when you get a chance... sorry for the inconvenience.
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Comments:
once again, you guys have done a great job. all of the new features are extremely easy to use. it helps a non-techy girl like me feel like i can be a part of the action now. ; ) can't wait to see what else is coming.
A big two thumbs up! This is exactly what I have been waiting for.
fun fun fun. Yet another great reason to ignore work and spend more time on the vine.
My real-life friends were making fun of me for talking about my "Newsvine friends" -- but now my Newsvine friends can be real too!! But when can I make Milkdud Tang my friend?
Milkdud just sent you a friend request ;-)
My first friend request in my gmail was from Milkdud! Very exciting for such a little horse to get around so quickly! ;-)
Calvin, you're a freakin' legend. Milkdud's on my watchlist - I'll be expecting more articles soon. :-)
Oh my. I'm friends with a pony!
I am a Miniature Horse, not a Pony, not a Shetland Pony, a Miniature-Friggin-Horse!
Milkdud, please respect the Code of Honor #1.
Oh, man. It's really sort of sad how much I just laughed at that. Can't you guys and gals all just picture Calvin (based only on his avatar, of course) feverishly trying to log out and log back in before anyone screwed up his continuity by responding to Milkdud's comment...? Oh, man.
(Actually, I've just noticed that there was apparently a 23 minute gap between the two postings. Look at CT being all cool and nonchalant and ruining my sweaty-browed mental image of him. Dammit...)
tsk, tsk *shakes head*
The only thing I do feverishly is wash dishes. Ok, that's not true, but it created another good mental image for you, momentarily at least.
There should be a little column on the vine called "magic vine moments" with links to things like ----> this, just above ;-)
grey-
Don't you know that Calivin controls the world of Newsvine? Obviously, he altered time to make it appear that he was nonchalantly logging back in twenty minutes later, when in fact he had immediately turned around and posted his response to his Milkdud/Mr. Hyde alter ego. Don't let his seeming calm ruffle you. It's all an illusion...
The
forceshell-account is strong with this one.Actually, I shouldn't be revealing this, but he has 21 computers in his office (on a few LANs), each one connected to Newsvine using a different personality. From his throne, he wreaks havoc on Newsvine on a daily basis!
I thought he did it all with his mind. He just thinks the comments and they not only appear, they appear anywhere, correctly timestamped, with any of the avatars he has. Just by thinking it.
He's like the Chuck Norris of Newsvine. And he never cries. EVER.
Milkdud may not even exist. That's just Calvin's name for his left hook.
I'm way more Bruce than Chuck.
Yep.
The really pathetic thing about Chuck baby is that he's a sad wannabe Bruce. Can I say that?
I was thinking more like... Jackie Chan!
You got me there, Aine ;)
I LOVE IT
You said it.
Amazing job you guys. I like it here. And my wife could not be more happy that Milkdud Tang continues to be a topic of discussion on Newsvine.
Does Milkdud have a flickr photo page?
This looks slick, newsvine keeps getting better and better!
Could this be enough to summon me from hiding?
In two words: bloody fantastic. I'll have to get to work on my recommendations list. And get some articles posted up so I can get that uber branch on my Vineacity thingy.
First and foremost, a big thank you for the recommendations feature that allows for a more personalized column with external links to sites and resources. Also, the user interface is very smooth. I look forward to "get smarter" about the members of Newsvine, and I hope the new features will further some glasnost in regard to the relative online anonymity of the site users.
I still think the Write and Article section could benefit from XHTML for links, subheaders, bold and italic. It's a time consuming exercise to apply these effects at the moment, and while I commend most users for still taking the time, often articles are burdened by long and ugly URL's that tend to corrupt the page.
Come to think of it, there is an oddity that has occurred with the new system. When you click the home button, you are sent to your column, but lose the left column features, such as
* Your Column * Your Watchlist Page * Your History * Your Clippings
* Write An Article * Edit Articles * Edit Links * Edit Your Profile * Invite Friends
Backyard
Your watchlist
The features can be accessed only from an article now. This means that the main managing board is incomplete. Checking the Watchlist being one of my daily routines I feel that this is a decline rather than an improvement, but hopefully one that can be easily mended?
I'll second that, the left column is extremely useful throughout newsvine and laving it off of the home pages makes me jump between the homepages and the main newsvine front page a lot more than I used to.
Also it appears that the green leafs of newsvine no longer appear next to new seeds so that I know what is new to read.
Anyway, keep up the good work.
Claus and Adam, thanks for the suggestions. Actually, I totally agree on the need for quicktag buttons. About the user columns missing the traditional left column navigation. Mike thought it would be too crowded with all the modules and that column. You'll notice that your user tools are in the black subnav under the categories, but I see how the loss of your watchlist can be troublesome. Maybe he'll figure out a way to work that functionality back in. As always, we're open to feedback and are willing to make adjustments :)
rob, I will ask Milkdud if he has uploaded any digital photos to flickr lately and he'll let you (or your wife) know. Last I heard, he was waiting for a USB card reader to arrive in the mail.
About the crowding: my screen's at 1600x1200. Can we use some of it please? :-p
I have a couple of suggestions.
The biggest problem with the new layout (which is great, really fantastic) is that if you put your seeds over on the right -- and you want to do that because it's really nice to separate them and deemphasize them -- then a visitor clicking on a seed title goes straight to the seed article, not to the column seed item. That means seeds won't get votes, also it means someone's taken out of newsvine too early; they might want to check out the seed description and comments instead.
A little request - could we have a "bigger" option on the right column items to double their size? I'd like to give my seeds a little more prominence.
Great work though, you guys are genius.
Good feedback Djehuty, we'll play around with it when we get back into the office this week.
After having used the new and improved user columns I experience - in addition to the concerns I raised in the previous entry, and those mentioned by Djehuty - some obstacles when comes to research. I often want to track an article written by a Newsvine columnist for some particular statistic, thesis, phrases or references made, or to link to it in an article of my own, and this is considerably more difficult with the new system that mixes feeds with original articles, especially with columnist who contribute a large amount of external links.
When I want to have an overview of my own articles, they drown in the number of seeded articles. If I pull Latest Articles to the right side of the column, then click show more, they appear in a jumble with my seeded articles. I should very much like to be able to separate these two categories more than they are. Do you think this is possible?
I'm not sure I understand. It seems easier to separate the two now, no?
Could we eventually have statistics, and the options to make them public. What i mean is Pageviews, Postings (by catagorie), Postings (by tag), article length, etc. We already have a simple version of this, showing numbers in our columns, but what I was hoping for would be a graph system, possible pie?
Hi Mike, my apologies. I hadn't noticed that I could choose articles or seeds by checking or unchecking the boxes. You guys are still geniuses! It's just me being a bit slow with to catch up when it comes to the tech improvements :)
Thank you so much for this . Iwas about to rearange my column manually. Now you have done the work for me.
I feel the newsvine love :)
In three words: Brilliant! :-)
I love you guys. No really, I do. This just made my day (it's only 8:00 AM so far, but still). Absolute great stuff. If ever you guys deserved major props, it's now.
Wow!! Guys this is awesome. Newsvine has elevated to the next level. I'm in an airport in Columbia South Carolina and booted up my laptop to kill some time and I got give props to the Newsvine team. You guys have outdone yourselves. I'm going to tool around on it when I get home but I think the layout change and everything else is going to quadruple newsvine's traffic.
Congratulations guys. The Vine keeps getting better and better.
Fun fun fun! Newsvine is truly becoming a king of all trades: news, social networking, blogging, comment. Keep the goodies coming!
Question: can one cut off the amount of "latest comments" shown? I'd like to have that on the side column, but not at the expense of taking up so much space. Can't I just show a few?
Hmmmm, interesting idea Jordan. We'll munch on that for a bit. There are going to be tweaks without a doubt. We were making adjustments right up until the last moment and there are still a few things to add and change over the next week or so.
Regarding the Latest Comments section:
Everything from May 11th to current times has the comment itself as bold text. May 7th and older is not bold text as it should be, only the heading is. Feel free to take a look at http://fool.newsvine.com to see what I mean (see right sidebar). This looks very noisy. Is it possible to only bold the headings, regardless of how old the comments are?Maximum number displayed
You are able to restrict the number of Comments/Feedback on your personal page, however you do not have control over the number of Latest Comments, Seeds, or Articles listed on the page. This is especially important for Latest Comments, since I find this important, but in limited form, and therefore I would like it restricted to the last 5 comments rather than the current 11. Counterpoint: More Comments are visible by default than seeds, and yet take up a fraction of the screen real estate...thing is Calvin...this is where the Media is going..push the envelope...but make it fun...work sux..dont go there........fun,facts and friends(even if we do scratch and fight abit...)(-:}...just dont burn out...
..Calvin, I think you are on the knifes edge..this could be the media of the future...
That's what we're hoping Rob_NC ;)
Agreed.
Good job Newsvine team!
1.) Excellent, excellent, excellent layout. You guys truly have outdone yourselves. It's nothing short of incredible.
2.) Love the freinds requests and lists.
3.) The vineacity thing is one of the most creative feedback tools I've ever seen.
4.) Love the sorting by tags.
5.) Like custom user columns.
Great job guys. This has been more than worth the wait. Calvin, Mike, et al. keep it up.
Suggestions to the recommendations feature:
Include a field to specify the author of books or increase the space for being ablee to write a long booktitle and a long author name in the book field.
Increase the field size for allowing us to recommend a very good movie called:
"Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" by Stanley Kubrick
For some reason I can't create a category called "Movies". It always becomes "movies", without the capital "M". Either fix that or change the default "Books" to "books".
I liked this feature a lot, and i think those minor changes will make it better.
Duly noted, the last bit sounds like a bug. I ran into the same question when I was including the author of a book. We'll improve as we go.
Beautiful job. It's now much easier to find writers who's work you would be fond of following. I like the hypertext in the upper right corner which makes this very clear: "View [name]'s column".
I like the fact that the only home button available is one which takes you back to your own home. It's always annoyed me that every business and private site on the internet calls their root page a "home page" - at the end of a long day of plodding through the internet, it grates on me "this direction is the way home, when it's not. It's like hansel and gretel being led hither and thither, farther into the woods.
The recommended books, weblogs, and websites is a great feature - oftentimes we look to those writers we admire most for information on other literary resources.
The option to show comments, voting history, and watchlist is pleasant too - it can give you more thorough insight into the columnist and his ideas about life.
Direct feedback on your column page is nice, too. Sometimes you want to say something to a columnist, but you can't find an appropriate place to put that comment, so you let the opportunity go.
Groupings of contributions by tag is nice - that offers a quick overview of the writer's interests.
____
I think you ought to look at how the pages render in the opera browser. This is my favorite surfing tool. There's an awkward difference in the formatting when you touch the hypertext to "read more" of a person's articles or seeds. It might just take a couple of lines of css to correct this.
_______
And one question I have... what kinds of options are going to be given to us when advertising goes live on the website? Are we going to choose whether or not we want banners on our column page? Are we going to be given the option to use that space ourselves? Advertising is one thing I think really burdens the internet. The eyes when they float across a webpage, really need to see pictures which are representative of the thrust of that website, or the text which is written there. Otherwise it's confusing and distracting. I would love the option of forfeiting the advertising revenue, in return for a more legible web page for visitors.
TO, thanks for the thoughts on the new columns. I agree that the new setup gives the Vine a new level of richness, especially when it comes to getting recommendations from others outside of seeded links.
We'll be releasing information about the ad system, revenue share and layout very soon. At that time we'll put some things up for discussion.
Thank you for your response, Calvin. It's nice to see what Seattleites are doing these days. I was raised in the puget sound area. I don't want to take any more of your time, but if someone who knows could spend a minute with me, I am curious what the pattern is behind the order of the daily stack of user comments is. Things don't seem to be organized chronologically.
Oh I see... it usually follows the order in which the article was originally posted.
Wow, this batch of upgrades was fantastic. Great work (and thanks for the mention)
Incredible improvements! Thanks so much for all your hard work. Now I have to go and find a bigger photo for my column.
This is Great, Newsvine has been my homepage for awhile, now it realy is.
I just had to change my pic and bio though, the pic i used is a shameles self promotin of one of my designs. :)
Lovely, just lovely. I can't stop staring at my pretty profile =D
Anyways, you guys forgot to remove the oneline description on http://www.newsvine.com/_tools/edit/profile
Ohh, and also, how is the watchlist ordered? I watch a lot of people and my list only shows the first few. Possibly could it be made random or limitless?
Great job, guys. Reminds me of Mike's MySpace.
Hey, I wasn't lying when I said it was an experiment with a purpose!
thanks Newsvine -- it looks wonderful and runs smoothly. I often have visited the columns of other viners to find out more about them and been disappointed if they hadn't taken the time to fill it in. Now, much of the sort of information that will be helpful can be there regardless of their participation.
I like to know how long someone has been around, how much they've participated and the nature of that participation. Now I can see it all at the click of a button.
thanks again.
Very cool. I can't wait to provide some random greatness so my vineacity grows.
Great, how about the custom homepage? The google moveable content sections that were mentioned in the beta?
One thing I couldn't find on the new user columns: when looking at another user's column, there is no "Watch" button. It would seem that people will start to gravitate around these pages, and presumably if you navigate to a new one that you like, you should have the ability to add it to your watch list.
Anyway, it was just something I noticed. Otherwise, great work!
Oops, I see it now, next to the avatar. :p
I was looking for that green button!
The green button was quite the eye-catcher. Hopefully it will make it's return to user columns. However, not knowing how it looks integrated with the rest of the design...I can understand why they might've opted for a text link.
Oh wow.. the power of five (is it still 5??) incredibly talented web developers enable Newsvine to outperform sites like yahoo news and cnn and every other news source with the however many gazillions of employees they have.
I love coming here and seeing a significant improvement just about every week.
Now we have raised the horsepower at Newsvine HQ to 6. But yes, we are still an efficient little operation ;)
This reminds me of the 37signals "Getting Real" methodology. Smaller groups of people who are talented in many different areas usually get better work done faster, etc, etc.
I was walking around seattle the other day, I commute across the cascades quite often, and saw the newsvine offices. Nice little quiet operation.
Yep, this is a nice little spot to be at on the Seattle waterfront. It won't be as quiet once we fire up the Friday keggers on the deck in the coming weeks.
After playing around with it for a day or so now I like it, I just miss a couple of things.
The percentage feedback has been replaced with the vineacity meter and although that's great, it doesn't give away as much information.
Also when on the users column, under the about me section it would be nice to see the number of articles and seeds they've made, like you can at the top of their articles when reading them.
Keep up the good work!
Yes, you're right, we should add this to the user column.
We actually feel that Vineacity represents a greater amount of information about users. Give it some time, you'll have to start correlating particular user's contributions to their Vineacity over a period of time to start to see the benefit. We decided that a quantitative form of measurement was too linear and granular, so we opted for a qualitative one instead (furthermore, it would've been too confusing to have 6 different numerical representations).
That's fair enough and I can agree with what you say. It does give a more round view on the newsvine user which is quite nice to see.I've just got to remember what each branch stands for!
It'll be interesting to see how many people get the branch in the top right and what they get it for.
Lo siento, pero me gusta. I don't know if the whole thing really extends the Newsvine model. It's like Mike just let his discontent for MySpace cloud his head, so he threw a lot of resources into making his own. It's blog-centered MySpace with a snot-coloured background.
Congratulations Mr Davidson, you've redone MySpace. Now, back to the news...
I can see your comparisons to the redesign and Myspace. However, I think the difference lies with how the new user columns empower the news. By looking at Myspace, Mike has honed ways to use social technology in a way that elevates the content to an new level in the world of collaborative journalism.
I would sincerely be interested in hearing/reading an elaboration on this point. How exactly do the new tools improve the flow of news and important content?
Before the user column redesign, a big hurdle was relevant content being hard to access b/c of simple design flaws. Increasing the interactive connection between the user and the interface allows a more stylized and succinct approach to presenting information.
The inclusion of comments, feedback, recent votes, friends, recommendations, etc. creates greater visibility for content site-wide. By giving the user power over what and how to present content, you might come across news that you wouldn't have through a regular AP feed or user seed. You might be intrigued by an article title in the recent votes section, or the comments section, etc.
Before, you might've had to dig through huge threads before coming across something like that. Now, it's right there in front of you in one centralized place. Newsvine wouldn't have made these changes and people wouldn't be using them unless they positively impacted the community. I highly doubt Mike is trying to re-create Myspace. Both you and I are members of this community because we enjoy participating in the unique aspects it offers to the world of news.
Finally, "important content" is subjective. What you find important may not be what I find important. That's the beauty of Newsvine and this redesign. It's giving both of us the ability to maximize potential content discovery. That, in itself, is above and beyond what other major news sites are offering to date.
Colin R Williams wrote:
I would say it doesn't necessarily improve the flow of news and important content, unless you consider its social networking context. It facilitates the flow of information from user to user - if you find a user whose articles / comments interest you, you now have more complete access to that user's contributions to the vine.
If you use the vine as you would other major news sites (CNN, GOOGLE, etc.) and don't follow individuals and their contributions, then the new changes will have little effect on your vine browsing experience.
The addition of the new user columns is just one of many things which are designed to bring people together around information a bit more. There's certainly no shortage of posts or seeds around Newsvine, but there's *so* much stuff that things tend to be a bit more spread out than they should be. The idea is to make it very easy for people to quickly identify contributors they enjoy, find out more about those contributors, and create their own network of people based on who they find. The first generation user columns were just a list of articles and seeds... the bare minimum, really. Now it's possible to find out a whole lot more about the people behind the articles and seeds.
When a site adds an important feature, it is generally not a panacea. This is no exception. It's just one major step towards friendlier, more personalized Newsvine.
I don't honestly don't believe that was his purpose either, but being someone who maybe isn't involved in the "social web" as much as a majority of members here, I needed some persuasion on how this benefits my news-reading experience.
You know, this is a point that I often forget about.
Good point. I think that's exactly what category of Newsvine users I fall into.
A superb update. But I do wonder how strict you wish to be with formatting of the text. I am not a big fan of the classic Times Roman look font, prevering to have my entire page in Helvetica/Arial type - would it be possible to do that?
But other than that, the functionality is great! I wonder when you guys will get bought up by Murdoch, he cannot ignore this site any longer...;-)
After reading through all the comments (up-to-date), with the exception of a few minor issues brought up by very insightful users, I really do feel that you guys have championed the biggest hurdle in the entire project: usability. On such a large scale, considering and functionally adapting to the myriad of ways a user interacts with a web interface and service like Newsvine is extremely impressive to me. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: kudos.
All I want to know is, what Random Act of Vineness do I have to perform in order to get that last branch on the Vineacity meter!
Here here! I'm trying to work that out. As far as I can tell, no one has it.
While many folks around here have already done such things, we decided to start from scratch to avoid a mess of trying to decide who deserves it and who doesn't. Basically, there is no 'defined' way to get it, other than a person achieving a moment of greatness in relation to Newsvine. This can range from thinking of a terrific practice that others adopt or doing something outside of Newsvine and documenting it here, to coming up with an idea for a feature that we end up developing or even simply writing an article that gets a considerable amount of attention outside of the Vine. The list doesn't stop here, and I'll be announcing a new recipient of the Random Act of Vineness branch from time to time, once I have a little breathing room to write a post about how it works.
An example of a potential branch in the making is bmvaughn, TopJedi and Corey Spring's recent efforts to put together a Newsvine charity event.
Do you mean that you will announce all recipients or just some? I am not sure how many you plan on giving out or at what pace. I would enjoy reading about all acts that achieve this RAoV branch.
What if I donate 5000 FL OZ of Ice Harbor beer?
We'll announce them as they happen. Also, there is no limit to the number of folks who will receive this distinction, since we tend to think that the creativity and benevolence of our users is correspondingly limitless.
That's a very worthy possibility for inclusion, IMO.
Ever think of going into politics, Calvin? You truly have "the gift of the gab" :-)
I think that's a compliment. *scratches head*
;)
I wouldn't make a very good politician in this country, being the fair-weather fan that I am. I'd turn too quickly on my own party if I thought they were being insane.
Yes, it was a compliment (in my stupid, jokey sort of way :-)
Here in Brazil we tend to use the word "político" ("politician") very often in the sense of "someone who manages to make everyone happy", rather than in the official sense.
This is lovely, you guys have done good work. In fact, I have only one complaint:
Could you please give us a heads-up when major modifications are coming? I need to be able to plan to carve big chunks of time out in my schedule in advance! Here it is Sunday, and I am only just now getting to play around with my profile. I had nightmares about it last night....people going to my profile and saying "Hmm...Celestina hasn't done anything with this. I wonder if she died, or if she just really sucks..."
I know I have issues.
*smile*
Its true. over the last couple of days its sucked my right back into newsvine and I've lost time doing things I really should be such as revising for my exams!
I have a little suggestion. If you opt to leave your articles and seeds in the left column, they are displayed in one box, in chronological order. Could we not have the option to separate articles from seeds, yet keep both in the left column? Or at lest the option to sort them in a different order (not only chronological, but by "kind", for example: first articles, then seeds). I would like to keep them both in the main left column, but well separated one from the other.
Anything is possible, and what you say makes sense. The new columns will only become more customizable as time goes on. A couple modules I personally would like to see are:
Best Contributions - All Time
Sites Most Seeded From (incl. #)
I personally am missing the link to just look at a person's seeds or just look at their posts...
Click on the 'show more' under the listing of articles and seeds. Then, on the next page there are checkboxes designating whether or not you want to see seeds, articles or both. Here's an example.
Hey guys good update but I miss being able to go from person to person or tag to tag on the watch list, could you work in some sort of a drop down menu that would show the tags and people who have new things posted? I don't like having to keep going to the home page to look at the next tag or user.
Just a suggestion -- if I move my article seeds to the right sidebar, there should still be a way of getting to my summary and being able to comment on it. As it is now, when it's in the right sidebar you can only get to the link that it's seeding. However, I'd rather not have both my articles and seeds in the main column as I see them as separate entities.
This has been changed in response to your (and others') request.
My $.02:
The number of posts and seeds was what I brought up on this comment.
The clips idea is also nice - it seems to be the only part that's been left out really. Its a feature that I use occasionally for articles I know I want to return to later, so having them on my homepage would also provide a good way for me to get to them.
All good ideas. We'll discuss internally and put this into the mix.
Pretty good stuff CT - like watching an artist creating what may be his masterpiece....
Hmm...another thing is that when I go to a watch listed author's page, it no longer points out to me which articles/seeds have been posted since last time.
It was kind of helpful when I went to an author that it said had 20 new items. Yet, I arrive there and see no new items.
Yep, we'll be adding that little green indicator arrow soon.
On the downside of the upgrades; As a reader, I watch the people on my watchlist, I click and go onto their page, My watchlist is no longer on the page, so to get back I have an extra click to get back, It would be nice if the person browsing had a section that the author could not control that did remain. The watchlist and navigation block that is the default, you might consider making standard no matter how the author's page is setup.
Just my 2 cents.
Great new stuff. Can't wait to read the article about Vineacity.
So that I can remember what each branch means when looking at people's users I've had to print off the image that explains them and put it up on the noticeboard in front of my so i can keep looking what people have got.
Newsvine is now truly leaking into my real life!
The new user homepage is brilliant! Very tidy design and with just enough configurability without losing the Newsvine feel.
Just one thing - in the "main area" of the page you've lumped both the seeds and articles together. I'd like to have the option to put the articles above the seeds if I want to.
Thanks for all the hard work to get us this far!
I agree with you. See comment 41 above.
Cheers Paddy - missed your comment the first time ;)
Dude. These social features just keep getting better and better. All of a sudden my friends' comments are in blue, and I have this little people icon thingy in my Conversation Tracker so I can keep track of them all.
You guys really are amazing, and if Newsvine doesn't turn out to be the Next Web, I'll eat my hat. I swear it.
Okay, I had to get some fanboyishness (I'm allowed to make up words; leave me alone) off my chest there.
Now, I have a question: As far as Vineacity goes, does anyone yet have the upper right-hand branch, the 'Random Act of Vineness' one? And, if they do, what was their, uhh, random act of vineness, as it were? I've been checking most everyone, and I haven't found one yet.
No one has the Random Act of Vineness branch yet. I'll be detailing how that works, soon. Of course, many of you have already done things that more than qualify, but it would be difficult to retroactively award these folks. Plus, part of the distinction is being called out for the random act, and it means a lot more when the act itself is relatively current. Don't worry though, the people who have performed such acts of creativity and goodness tend to be repeat achievers.
I'm glad you're liking the new features Grey, we've just got to work out a few kinks. This is by far the largest amount of code we've rolled since the public launch.
Hey, new features, nifty. I suppose this is the first of the additions of Friend List features, and I like it. One small suggestion, though. Could you add a "Clear all count" button on there somehow? I tend to browse in tabs, and I tab-clicked each of the Friends Comments I was interested in, then had to go by checking off each of the ones I wasn't interested in individually.
Also, a question. When you click "Stop Tracking" on a Friends Comment section, will you no longer get updates from those Friend Comments in that same article? I know that if I check "Stop Tracking" for my own threads, then make a comment in a thread I stopped tracking, it retracks it. Just wondering if that works the same way for Friends, because that could get a bit tedious.
I don't mean to sound like I'm griping, I think this new feature is great. Just a few suggestions to make it a little easier for people with limited time and OCD. ;-) I had about 130 Friend Comments when I logged in, and after about 10 minutes of reading a story I clicked somewhere else on the site and had another 110. Maybe I need fewer friends, or at least less prolific ones. :-P
Postscript: In the last 10 minutes, I've gotten about 60 more. Thank you, Newsvine, you've made me officially terrified to go to sleep. ;-)
Only 60? I keep getting 150+ aaaaiieeeee!
Just read what looks interesting, and unsubscribe to all else.
Sorry about this, the same thing happened to me when I had around 800 things in my tracker. We're having some issues with expirations, so I'd lay off on the untracking of items in your conversation tracker for the time being. We'll try to get this fixed asap!
That explains why things were going a bit wacky on the counter.
Has this been fixed yet, btw? I'm not nagging. Just checking. No pressure. Seriously.
We haven't fixed the bug in the Friends conversation tracker yet. The rest should work fine.
See the easiest way around the friends tracker problem was like I had:
Have no friends when the tracker is released.
Get friends afterwards but keep the number smallish.
And voila no problems with high tracking numbers. The highest I've had is about 6 I think.
I notice that the region selector is back up and working. I also notice that it still has its stuttering problem of calling the country dropdown repeatedly after you've already selected a region.
Any chance of prodding the tech lads to have a poke at it when they surface from the important stuff?
Very nice. Good work. I kinda miss the percentage of positive ratings from the old design, though.
Yours must've been on the up and up ;)
I love it! Friends list was a huge thing I was waiting for. Im curious though, I already had somebody, my brother, on my watchlist automatically put into my friends list. I didn't even send or recieve a friend request. I guess Newsvine staff can read my mind. Spooky.
Anyone you invited to Newsvine, as well as the person that invited you (if anyone), was automatically added.
Oh well, that makes sense now. Thanks for taking away the spookyness. :P
JC is a mind reader. You can beat having a prophet on your staff.
cannot*
Being a newbie, nothing you have recently changed is new to me so I cannot comment. But I will. I think I am going to love this place. I have to show it to my brother, he is a real muckraker. Hope I can get my daughter, who recently began a 2 year tour in Qatar as Department of Army Civilian, to provide material. Could be interesting. Everybody says the Newsvine staff is doing good work so keep it up. Thanks.
Amen to that.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who's hoping for more local (sep. international local) content on the vine.
oldfogey, welcome to Newsvine. The first thing we gotta do is get you outta the Greenhouse......ok, done.
Feel free to invite your brother and daughter by visiting this page. I hope you and your family enjoy the Vine. Just let me know if there's anything I can do to make your stay more pleasant around here.
Djehuty, you're right that Newsvine could use some more local content. The best way to start is to follow Miss Dev's lead and start seeding some from your neck of the woods ;) I know that users from around here have Seattle covered fairly well.
How about some links from eastern washington? Tri-City Hearald covers most of the south part, and Spokane times gets most of the north.
I've started seeding a lot of local Indian content recently, if anyone's interested. And the GatelessGate magazine has a column and is posting articles about my city and its folk.
I've been doing my bit Calvin - not that there's a lot of interest in Tasmanian elections, wilderness rallies, or logging practices... but I consider it my patriotic duty to bother people with this stuff ;-)
I'd second Simran, and I'd like to recommend Maung Yit (Burma), as well as many good Australian correspondents.... I'll forget and leave some out if I try to name them. There are many others, like ChinaWatcher, TheEgyptian, etc who are expats or have particular areas of interest which they cover in depth. So I guess we're getting there as a community... yay!
Thanks for the tip on Maung Yit. I have been to Myanmar (Burma) and saw the tough situation there firsthand. We need more coverage about that place, not just here on Newsvine, but everywhere.
Amen. It's forgotten in the west just how evil that junta is.
I just wrote a piece about my personal experience in the local (Peru) presidential election... and have several other ideas for stories. Hopefully I'll be able to make the time for them. :-)
I love the international dimension of this site, and hope to add to it soon. ;-)
When I was in Peru folks would always walk by me and point, saying "Fujimori". It wasn't a compliment ;)
Depends on when you were here. If it was 6 years ago or more, then it was a good thing.
If not, then... yeah, sorry about that. :)