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We Hunted the Mammoth 2.0 is coming! Add your suggestions for improvements.

Hard at work, or hardly working?
Hard at work, or hardly working?

We’re working behind the scenes to bring you a new, improved We Hunted the Mammoth — at least as far as the design of the site goes. As I think I mentioned earlier, I’m not doing anything radical. The aim is to streamline and declutter the site and to make it easier to navigate and use.

Here’s what to expect:

  • Less-cluttered sidebar
  • Less-cluttered main bar
  • Cleaner, clearer design overall
  • Better navigation between pages of comments
  • Buttons so you can blockquote, etc without HTML in comments. No more need to fear the blockquote monster!

Someone also suggested it would be better to do “nofollow” links for MRA sites rather than using donotlink, so I’ll be doing that.

I will now be able to use WordPress plugins, so I can add other features/options as well. I don’t want to add them willy nilly, but if they can add some useful functionality without cluttering stuff up I’m open to suggestions.

Any other features/plugins you want added? Upvotes and downvotes for comments perhaps? Polls in the sidebar?

Any stuff that gets in the way that you want moved or removed?

Any issue that you have with the design or functionality of the blog now that you think could be improved?

Let me know what you think, from your feelings about font size to possible WordPress plugins to look at.

Oh, and again: this redesign is costing me some $$, so if you’re a fan of the site and haven’t already donated, please consider donating through the PayPal button below. Thanks!

 

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Some sort of username
Some sort of username
9 years ago

@kirbywarp

Uh, you… already nthed suppost for that. I’m also gonna throw in support for that too.

Also VERY highly support the Who’s Who of the Manosphere™ idea, it’d pretty useful for remembering which asshat is which.

me and not you
me and not you
9 years ago

Is there a way to see what the edits were? I know some sites let you see what was changed. Ravelry.com has a kind of unofficial policy (or did) that people would do ETA: (“edited to add”) if someone changed something, since it indicates that a post was edited, though on heated convos there was lots of screengrabbing (you could also delete posts). It might be a good way to avoid the “PC meltdowns” when someone says something unintentionally —-ist, and they could just go kill the comment and say something like “sorry, made an inappropriate comment, removed” or something. It would be a good way to show at least some effort towards fixing their language.

Moggie
Moggie
9 years ago

I agree with anti-vote sentiment. It can lead to people chasing popularity, which is often not a good thing. I write as someone who got over a thousand votes for a dick joke comment at the Guardian, so please don’t tempt me: the results wouldn’t be pretty!

kirbywarp
kirbywarp
9 years ago

@some sort of username:

That was just a joke, since I had a typo in my comment supporting an edit ability for fixing typos. 😛

Pandapool -- The Species that Endangers YOU (aka Banana Jackie Cake, for those who still want to call me "Banana", "Jackie" or whatever)
Pandapool -- The Species that Endangers YOU (aka Banana Jackie Cake, for those who still want to call me "Banana", "Jackie" or whatever)
9 years ago

I don’t think we should be able to edit comments at all, even if it’s only temporary. It would have to be a very short window of time to prevent trolls from editing their comments. A preview button will be best, or maybe some system that inserts HTML into the post for you and maybe highlights unclosed tags?

Verily Baroque
Verily Baroque
9 years ago

I also think it would be better if there was no way to edit comments. The ability to edit or remove comments would just make trolling too easy.

Preview function might work instead. Or if editing has to be possible, could the editing window be something like one or two minutes? That’s long enough to fix a typo, but hopefully not long enough for anyone to actually reply to the unedited comment.

Additionally, please keep the “first comment automatically goes into moderation” policy. (Speaking of which, why am I in moderation again? What did I do?)

msexceptiontotherule
msexceptiontotherule
9 years ago

I think a 10-20% increase in puppies would go especially far to improve the overall experience! Kittens are wonderful and I like them a lot, but not seeing puppies here gives me the sads. 😉

katz
katz
9 years ago

I actually have to come out in opposition to comment editing of all stripes. There’s something charming and honest about your first effort being written in stone, and I think it leads to people thinking more carefully about what they want immortalized. Something is lost when you can go back and revise your words, even if you have only a limited window to do so.

You know, I kind of agree with this. As long as everyone has a good attitude about typos and the like. A preview button and easier markup tools would get rid of most of the problems, anyway.

WRT threading and upvotes: Not only does the community here traditionally oppose them, but we actually consider the absence of those features a plus. Reddit and YouTube both have comment threading and upvotes. ‘Nuff said.

quantumscale
9 years ago

Nth-ing comment preview, better comment navigation, and more puppies

Shadow
Shadow
9 years ago

Not a programmer so I don’t know how viable this is but, if there’s a way to edit by adding to posts rather than changing what’s already there that would be great for those times when someone steps in it. That way they can just add an apology/retraction to the post so newcomers that see the post also see that it’s been addressed. That would help with unintentional pile-ons

Buttercup Q. Skullpants
Buttercup Q. Skullpants
9 years ago

I sometimes fantasize about a “Recent Necros” sidebar, for new comments on articles where the previous comment’s timestamp was more than 1 month ago. Trolls often sneak obnoxious comments onto old articles, which can drop unnoticed off the “Recent Comments” sidebar if there’s a vigorous discussion going on elsewhere.

Also nthing the support for a Preview button, not just for edits but for accidental posts. I’ve lost count of how many times the cat has stepped on the Post Comment button while I was in the middle of a sent

Wetherby
Wetherby
9 years ago

There’s a forum I hang out in which lets you edit your posts invisibly for 30 minutes after posting, and then for a further hour with an “Edited at x:xx” timestamp – but 90 minutes after you made the original post it becomes permanently locked. This has generally worked pretty well, and you can always quote contentious posts if you don’t trust their authors not to tweak them afterwards.

Paradoxical Intention
9 years ago

Quinn | August 25, 2015 at 4:44 am
One suggestion i’d have is relaunching the web store with new tee shirt designs. I had a look at the store recently, and it mostly seemed to be “manboobz” era stuff so I didn’t get one. If there were updated T shirts i’d happily buy one 🙂

AHEM. YES. I am a graphic designer who has experience with making designs for shirts and things (see: my redbubble store. [/shameless self promotion] and I interned for a screenprinting business so I know how the process works in meatspace as well), so if David would like to make new shirts and things, I’d be happy to lend any expertise I have with the process. (And my copy of Adobe Illustrator.)

And, to further get your attention: have a kitten looking professional.

http://www.iizcat.com/uploads/2014/09/xugjo-bowtie8.jpg

Newt | August 25, 2015 at 5:17 am
A “preview comment” button would let people fix markup if they get it wrong first time, overcoming the blockquote monster. However, a button to reply-with-quote would usually be superior as it can include a link back to the original comment for context.

I love the idea of a preview comment button! That sounds like it would be the best way to not only make sure everything works, but also makes it so we don’t have to worry about trolls editing their comments.

booburry
booburry
9 years ago

If you change the ads I will definitely turn off adblock. My phone has very limited adblock and video ads just start playing randomly. That a. wastes data for no reason and b. startles me every time(I realize this isn’t your fault)! I wish ad companies would realize irritating people doesn’t make them want to give them money.
Also, not sure if its possible for you, but some places have a “membership” thing where you donate monthly and get ad-free viewing, so they still get money. I would be interested in something like that but …seems like it might be complicated.
I’m sure whatever you come up with will be great and even if it totally sucks I’ll still be here everyday anyhow. 😀

isidore13
isidore13
9 years ago

Will the editing plugin also alert readers that comment was edited?

marinerachel
marinerachel
9 years ago

Will you be hiring those kittens

kirbywarp
kirbywarp
9 years ago

I tend to use the recent comments as an indicator for which threads are busy, because I tend to want to go to the posts that are active (rather than posts that have had a lot of comments previously but now aren’t active). Therefore, I don’t personally see the use of the recent popular widget.

The recent posts widget is useful to me though, since it’s an easy way to jump around to recent posts which tend to still be active, as opposed to going back to the main page and scrolling.

When there are both, sometimes I get the two confused and start looking at the wrong list.

If there were a longer term measure of popularity (since I think the popularity widget drops off rather quickly), and were more of a ‘greatest hits’ thing, I could see that being generally useful. Maybe if it had the time-span of a month or a year or so.

TL:DR; My vote would be to keep the recent post, ditch the popular posts and replace it with a “greatest hits” thing that used a longer-term metric. Maybe find a way to expand the number of recent comments shown so it’s a little harder for comments on one post to dominate the list.

Alan Robertshaw
Alan Robertshaw
9 years ago

Rather than list every recent post, would it be possible just to have the last used 10 or so threads and an indicator of the time of the last post to each thread?

That way it might be easier to keep an eye out for what’s new since the last visit.

kirbywarp
kirbywarp
9 years ago

@Alan:

I personally wouldn’t go for it because I can sometimes tell from the recent comment list which comments I’ve already read and which ones are new, so I can jump right to the oldest “new” comment directly from the list. It’s handy. 🙂

katz
katz
9 years ago

Also: your thoughts on recent and popular post widgets? Do I need both? If not, which is more important? How many posts should I list?

I think what people (me at least) really want is to know what posts have had activity since we were here last. For instance, some forums have links for “unread posts since last visit” and “new replies to your posts.”

The sidebar I would find most useful would be a longer list of “recently-commented-upon posts” instead of recent comments, since (as people mentioned) necro’d posts or posts that only got one or two new comments don’t always show up in the top posts and quickly disappear from the most recent comments.

Viscaria
Viscaria
9 years ago

I rarely comment anymore (miss you folks!) but if you don’t mind me butting in anyway:

1) I only ever look at recent comments, never recent or top posts

2) My mistake-prone, phone-typing fingers would love a limited edit function (2 minutes?)

3) When you’ve got some control over ads, could you please watch out for a malicious Android ad that pops up claiming that the reader has a virus on their Android phone, and redirects them to a malicious site? That one made this site unreadable for about a week for me and it gave me the sads.

Alan Robertshaw
Alan Robertshaw
9 years ago

@ Kirby

The thing with that is, if there have ben more than 15 comments since I last looked I can lose track of which threads have something new.

Now, with my incessant dropping into here where I’m skiving that’s not always a problem; but sometimes I can’t put off my procrastination.

katz
katz
9 years ago

Miss you too, Viscaria!