New Profile Pages
37We like to give VMP members sneak peek access to new site features from time to time. Over the last part of January 2016 we're rolling out new profile pages.
If you're a VMP member and you click someone's username (@shawn) on the forum you'll be taken to our new profile page. Right now it looks like this:
We'll be adding to it over the next few days.
- 46 comments, 217 replies
- Comment
Today's update adds self likes into the activity stream.
You guys (@carl669, @Ignorant, @Barney, @hallmike, @PurplePawprints, @KDemo, @Thumperchick, @jqubed, @ceagee, @Shrdlu, @thismyusername, @stardate820926, @brhfl, @Kidsandliz, @studerc, @cengland0, @gio) all enjoyed the self like stat so much that we decided to pull those into the activity stream with its own special icon.
@shawn You're on fire @shawn! Thanks for all the great work.
@shawn I have no idea why this one is "for" me, other than that you just like to keep up your reputation as Peck's Bad Boy. So it goes.
I believe I've starred every single comment I've made here (and this one will be no exception). Sometimes I forget to do it when I first make the comment, and I go back and do it later. There may be one or two I've missed. I'll probably keep right on doing it.
It would be nicer if there was an option to keep things private (without tying it to VMP status), and I do agree with whoever suggested that, if you must show purchases, at least just make it a range, rather than a specific number.
XXOO
@Shrdlu I simply mentioned everyone who replied or liked yesterday's discussion about the new self like count stat.
@Shrdlu I totally agree with keeping certain things private.
@shawn
@shawn Howzabout you make my posts visible to me in a different font color? I give myself self love when I want to easily follow replies to my brilliant posts. Or my smartass ones. OK, only my smartass posts.
If someone replies at me, I choose to get the email, and that's fine, but if someone replies to my replier, or replies to my repliers replier, I don't get an email, unless they "@"me.
All of that is still a good thing, but if I want to follow up, check answers, bask in the star glory, etc., I need to slowly scrollscrollscroll my way to self gratification.
If my posts are a different color, then I can QUICKLY scroll my way to self gratification fulfillment! That's WIN-WIN-EW for everybody!
@G1 or do a find of the your name on the page and provided you have all the posts showing you can quickly find them all.
@Kidsandliz Sure. Or, I could self-congratulate myself and look for the yellow star. Doing a "Find G1" would work. So would scrolling down for a different color font.
The world is FULL of options, Some are wonderful, some are meh. Some are downright silly.
Today's update adds likes that a user has received to the activity stream.
This one works a little different than other entries in the activity stream though.
When we first built this out naively it was a unique entry in the activity stream for every like the user received. When we were testing it out internally it was awful. Someone would post an animated GIF in a comment, get 20 likes for it, which resulted in 20 nearly identical entries down the page.
What we decided to do instead was take the most recent like a user received on a topic, comment, or reply and then collapse all other likes received on that post into a single activity stream entry. Works much better this way.
Hope you "like" it :)
@shawn You are quite the busy bee! Thanks for all the great changes and hard work.
@PurplePawprints Honestly, after a week straight of working on "likes" I'm ready to work on something else. What should we do next?
@shawn How about @'s?
@shawn On a totally different track completely, an entry for number of Irk questions answered and/or contests won etc would be fun
@shawn Maybe bring back a multi-month Meh face calendar for logged in VMP members, so the more creative & motivated can make bigger and better face creations?
@shawn private messaging.
@shawn Look at me, forever immortalized in picture form!
Today's update adds a summary of total meh buttons clicked, orders placed, and polls voted on.
Rather than a boring list of stats we tried to make it a fun, conversational tone with flavor text like "shawn is a hardcore meh fiend" that's powered by a dumb little algorithm. Hope you dig it.
@shawn I love the profiles however with the profiles only going so far deep... I can't find old topics started by users... I can't remember what the topic was called when @thumperchick announced she was pregnant and I gave some advice on things to get... that someone else was looking for info, and I think I missed a few things... so Trying to find that... Then again Pinging @thumperchick she may tell me where it is... :)
@shawn Do I need to go to rehab for being a hardcore meh fiend???
@sohmageek agreed. we'd like to work on extended the time range past 30 days but that work didn't make the scope for the immediate things we have planned.
This first wave of changes is about providing a summary of all-time activity along with a transactional drill-down of recent activity.
@sohmageek I think this was the thread we announced in.
The google thread search on the main forum page is still pretty useful for stuff like that. I found it rather quickly with the terms "thumperchick" and "baby" - so we have a work around in the mean time.
@shawn Yay! Thank you so much for the improvements! I just wish that I hadn't waited to make an account until Day 0. I didn't know about the other forum when I signed up for the Kickstarter.
@shawn nicely done. Yah, the page could be packed with stats, but then where would the room be for that fun, stat-packed annual(?) email we received last year?
And a page packed full of "stuff" somehow wouldn't be clean & simple "meh".
Today's update is for @Ignorant @KDemo @cengland0 @Shrdlu @luvche21
We fixed the "days old" calculation to be timezone aware.
Today's update is for @PurplePawprints who said:
And for @sammydog01 who said:
@Barney and @KDemo also commented about the idea. @christinewas, @Sabre99, @Shrdlu, @sligett, and @Thumperchick liked the idea. @stardate820926 went so far as to create a mockup for what they wanted to see.
Here's what we ended up with:
Simply pick the types of activity you want and don't want to see when you're browsing profile pages. The filters are sticky. Your preferences are saved to your account and remembered on subsequent profile page views.
Note: this feature is currently only available for desktop browsers. Mobile browsers coming soon.
@shawn You are the absolute best!
@shawn
It was getting so wooted up, but now you've fixed it! It is perfect. I really, really love that it saves settings. @shawn, you are a magician. Thank you.
Oh, and good job, goat @stardate820926.
@shawn Neato
@shawn I don't know if it's due to the length of my name or if it's just display issue on my side but I thought I'd let you know that the Filter button overlaps the text a bit.
@stardate820926 I guess it really is your fault that your name is too long.
@Barney
@shawn
@Barney Correction: @lotsofgoats fault.
@matthew put together a little video of an interview he did with me where I rambled on and on about the new profile page. It's going to launch as the daily video tomorrow. Even though there's likely a couple more bugs to fix I think it makes sense to go ahead and launch this page to non-VMP members.
Thanks to all the VMP members out there who helped beta test and shape the new profile pages over the past month. It's been a fun project to work on.
Update for @heartny who asked:
Wow, @heartny, service with a smile. (I think.)
@shawn Awesome! Thank you for such speedy service! I love it!
Every time I see that Kickstarter "K" I think I work at Circle K
@somf69
@somf69 strange things are afoot.
Today's update introduces comments to the user's activity stream.
Works the same way as the topics in that we're surfacing 300px of the content before showing an "expand" link.
Keep in mind, we're only showing "comments" and not "replies" (so far).
@shawn - You're spoiling us.
@KDemo You're welcome.
@shawn I star this (am I doing it right)?
Today's update is for @Bingo who asked:
And for @sligett who asked:
Also, @Bingo thought we should make it harder to achieve "nonstop, irrepressible chatterbox" status, and we made that change as well.
@shawn Talk about responsiveness! Well done, Sir.
today i found out my altruism score is 2.4. which makes me think i'm not as much of a fucker as i thought i was. damn you @thismyusername!
@shawn Thank you. Yay, my altruism is up over last year.
brilliant.
@shawn "stingy" with given 800+ stars, altruism of 0.3??? Stingy like that is negative? Nope I say that is "discerning". Stars are to be earned, not given. LOL.
Then we have the methian who shall remain unnamed (whom I checked as it looked like this person basically starred about everything)...
"In the forum, XXXXX is usually up for a chin-wag with 4 topics created, 44 comments, and 77 replies. XXXXX is free and easy in handing out likes for other people, having doled out 11587 (for an altruism score of 92.7)."
Hmm perhaps a reason to goat this person? For reading and starring most comments on this board? Tells you they are on here a lot and likely read everything or close to everything. Perfect for a goat.
Also you should list the number of times people self star and give them a narcissism score LOL.
@Kidsandliz I think you're taking this way too seriously.
@PurplePawprints No not seriously at all, rather I am kidding with a straight face LOL. I was also going to add that we should add the number of comments that someone else has starred of ours and give it some some snarky "value to the community" or "in crowd" caption (grin).
@PurplePawprints woops waited too long with the edit function to add:
I mean heck if they are going to bother quantifying all of this might as well measure everything possible there is to measure - number of words used, number of different days posted.... just trying to be helpful and offering up suggestions to use up all the free time @shawn apparently has on his hands. Ya know, help him keep his job by helping him look busy (grin).
@carl669
@Kidsandliz a fair point on stinking up the Altrusim score by staring everything.
However, when the Altrusim score hits double digits (to the left of the dot) the stink starts to grow, exposing the game. (Either a lurker or a star-every-comment-placeholder.)
@RedOak Umm on the goat thread the 11,000+ star double digit person is pissed at me and I am getting mildly trashed there for me joking around and suggesting they be goated for over starring. On that thread several are taking it WAY too seriously. Sheesh. Bet that person never stars me again LOL. Of course if that person wants to keep her star record up that will put her in a quandary about what to do about punishing me with no more stars (grin).
@Kidsandliz FYI, your post didn't come across as "joking".
Today's update is for @Kidsandliz who said:
Bonus update for @carl669 who pointed out the goat badge was pooping out words. We fixed that.
i've apparently liked myself 317 times in 876 days. that's means i like myself once every 2.75 days. that seems kind of low.
Hmmmm
@carl669 I've liked myself 7 times. I can't believe I like myself that much.
@Ignorant Listen smarty pants that is 1+% percent of my stars. You also have an ew at 1+%... Hmmm. We have a lot of self starring to do to catch up with @carl669 as he is at 4+%. Watch out carl669 we are coming after you LOL. I wonder who has the record. I can't remember who says they always self star.
PS thanks @shawn. But saying ew if anyone self likes (based on your ew at 4 self stars) is not as discriminating as your other categories. Should run from 'they don't think much of themselves' (no self stars) to 'they are a narcissist' (top 10% of the self starring group in percent of stars is a self star or percent of posts is a self star or both).
@Kidsandliz @studerc with 1327
@carl669 Cool. Nearly 15%. @studerc this is for you
I would like to point out that I quit the self lovin' as soon as they started displaying who was self lovin' (well except for voting etc).
@thismyusername - Me too! I starred my posts to make odd numbers, cause I don't like evens. It was hard to overcome, but I've mostly let it go.
@KDemo mine was much more nefarious, the primed tip jar if you will. :)
But now I know not to post things like this for you...
@thismyusername I was surprised to see I'd starred my own posts eight times. I can't remember ever doing it, but apparently I did at some point. Nothing wrong with a little self-love, I guess.
@thismyusername
@thismyusername
@shawn
Why would you fix that???
@thismyusername
Master of your domain, eh?
the 23 likes they gave themselves (ew).
I am proud to say that I self star during contests. If you don't like your own entry enough to vote for it, why bother ? That and prizes.
Today's update adds replies to the user's activity stream. We now have topics, comments, and replies!
today's update shows me i'm probably on here more than i should be.
@carl669 they've been trying to drop hints.
@shawn - I have to say the replies without the context are pretty entertaining.
I gotta say, I actually really like @Kidsandliz idea of a narcissism score for how many times you've starred your own posts
@Bingo agreed. The Altruism score is cool. But deserves this counter-score.
@Bingo It will help us identify more users of @TaRDy's extension!
@jqubed I don't think my extension works these days but I'm not sure, I kind of stopped working on it :-/
@Bingo Narcissism score should = (a) the # of self stars (the absolute count, which in and of itself needs a context) (b) also represented by # of self stars divided by number of total stars given (so % of stars you out that you give to yourself), and (c) the number of self stars divided by number of posts made (so % of your own posts you starred). And I am now self staring my own post. LOL
@Bingo gonna go ahead and go on the record stating that it would be difficult to beat my narcissism score as i have self starred about 95% of my comments since the beginning... #thatguy
And I've never used the @Tardy extension
@Bingo Narcissism score? Would that be someones predilection for mehstarbation?
@shawn the goat! it walks across things. although, it does look like it's pooping out words, so maybe just leave it be.
Today's update is for @Kidsandliz who said:
And for @Pavlov who said:
There's a new checkbox on your account page that reads "View user profiles and allow my user profile to be viewed":
Pretty simple. If you leave it checked you can view user profiles and other users in the community can view your profile.
If you uncheck that box you're opting out of the profile page feature. If you try to view profile pages with the setting turned off you'll see an error page:
If you stumble upon someone's profile page that has disabled the profile page feature you'll see an error page:
@shawn My reaction as I started reading:
Followed by:
Can the choice to opt out be permanent, though? That way those who care so much about their privacy can't flip-flop when they want to briefly stalk someone else?
@shawn
So it's an all or nothing deal?
Yay for mediocrity!
@shawn Thank you.
@PurplePawprints Circumvention is easily accomplished by simply creating multiple accounts regardless of whether or not the election of an opt-out may be "permanent" specific to any one singular account.
@shawn Thank you.
@MrsPavlov Probably, but that takes a little more effort and commitment than a check box. I'm too lazy to deal with multiple accounts.
@MrsPavlov @Pavlov @kidsandliz @purplepawprints and all others
Please note: the following question is pure curiosity not trying to start a thing.
I find the profile thing rather benign. The info -- all except the purchases is already on the forum. The purchases list how many not what or how much $.
Why do you see this as an issue ? It doesn't seem to me to be any chance of security thing. I seriously doubt that anyone on here cares whether you've bought 1 item or 100 or none.
And if you bought 100 it could of been in the $5 and under bracket and if only 1 it could of been a big item like a vacuum or fancy cappuccino machine or ... can't remember the most expensive item, but you get the idea.
I am genuinely curious why that number on the profile bothers you. OR is it the whole profile thing ?
Thank you.
@ceagee It doesn't bother me at all. I think the new profiles are great and appreciate all the work @shawn has put into it. None of the info that is shown bothers me and I have no plans to make mine private.
@ceagee I never said I found profile thing to be anything other than rather benign. All I said was aspects of it were disconcerting and the ability to opt-out of [a continuously developing thing] it would be appreciated.
Please note: the following question to you is pure curiosity not trying to start a thing, but why does your seeing me have an issue cause you to have issue enough to ask about it? : ) and : P
It was summed up on my end when it was said (and I'm paraphrasing): " a lot of us old timers have seen enhancements do nothing but fuck up a perfectly good thing" - in other words, if it ain't broke, why fix it.
I have seen the forum at woot and other e-commerce sites blow the fuck up over comments made like "why do you even care, you haven't bought anything in months" and "why are you even visiting here, your buy count hasn't gone up in a year". And I sit and wonder why the fuck someone cares to look - but then I'm smart enough to know that's why the enhancements are there in a way - to motivate people to participate with their wallet or seem out of place.
Simply a matter of time until the same happens here - and regardless of whether or not such comments are ultimately tolerated by the moderator / owner here, it is the MENTALITY being fostered in many respects. You're subconsciously judged by the information contained on your profile by those that visit it. Personally, I have reservations about such.
I respect you and others for liking the changes, offer me the same polite courtesy in finding aspects of the changes possibly being used by the community in a manner disingenuous.
@ceagee To answer your question, here is why it matters to me. It isn't anyone's business but mine if I buy and how often. Had this been the situation when I signed up that would have been different. I could have chosen to sign up or not. It changed after I did and there was no way to opt out and keep my account. Not only that I'd have had to create 2 - one to post from and one to buy from which would have been a pain. I didn't want to have to do that and probably would not have done that.
While I wasn't on Woot enough to witness the bad behavior and the fall out from that MrsPavlov talks about, I can fully believe it could/would happen. There is already has been nastiness here aimed at me for wanting to opt out and bringing it up anytime someone gave an opening (I also contacted support about it too). Purplepawprints didn't agree with me about opting out - which is fine. There is a split opinion on that and we are each entitled to our opinions. What was not fine was then she looked at my profile and attacked me for "claiming" to be poor yet I bought things. Yeah I did. $60 for 15 presents for christmas, just for example. Did it for the christmas before that and for birthdays. Made it possible to even give family presents and for that I am grateful to meh. But how is that even relevant to the issue? It is an example of using information to be mean and sling mud. Then I was really, really stupid and tried to defended myself rather than blow her off, then she was nasty again. I walked away and let her have the last word in that series of exchanges. Not worth engaging in this kind of crap. When I talked about perhaps solving the problem by closing my account since that was the only option available, Barney basically said don't let the door hit you on the way out we will help you leave and went to the effort to post a jpg. As has been pointed out, this kind of crap has potential to ruin a community.
Yes some people can occasionally be far ruder/nasty online than in person and/or things can be misinterpreted (as has happened when I said something I though would be read as joking, didn't anticipate it wouldn't, and unfortunately upset someone), and certainly sometimes people are just having a bad day, but as MrsPavlov pointed out, regardless this is not good for community and having some of this information available ups the chances of the kinds of behaviors she is talking about happening.
@shawn Thank you. Very very much. XXOO
@Kidsandliz You may want to go back and reread that thread because I never once said a word about you buying anything, or anything about you claiming to be poor or otherwise. The only one talking about your purchase history was you. I'm also pretty sure you were the last one to post.
@PurplePawprints I am not getting into an argument with you. In one of the threads several threads this discussion was on you mentioned said I said I was poor yet I bought things... which was implying I was lying about being poor and implying that this is why I wanted that information hidden. I replied and you asked why I gave personal information. On Tuesday at 10:45 am you made a post to me and said, "I'm sure having purchase numbers out there may make it hard for some people to claim to be poor and broke...".
@Kidsandliz Ahh, I get it now. I said you were poor in the exact same way I attacked you. In your imagination in your head. Believe it or not, not everything I say and do here is directed at you. Also, again, someone disagreeing with you is not the same thing as attacking you. Saying it in thread after thread doesn't make it any more true.
@Kidsandliz I don't think anyone cared that you wanted a way to opt out and in fact there are probably many people that agree, and I definitely don't think anyone gives a toss about your purchase history.
What people don't/didn't like was you mentioning over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again that you didn't want your profile page viewable. Oh and then you mentioned it some more too.
@Kidsandliz Bad, Barney. Bad!
We've reached beating-a-dead-horse stage here, so I'm gonna lock this specific comment from further replies. Not sure we've ever had to use this feature before so I hope it works.
For today's update we added a list of forum topics created by the user in the past 30 days.
The old profile page had a list of all forum topics (instead of focusing on the most recent 30 days) and we'll get back to that eventually. One improvement here is that we're surfacing about 300px of the forum topic's content with a little "expand" link if you want to read the topic inline.
@shawn Looks great! Thanks for all of the ongoing improvements.
@shawn Are you sure your servers have enough room to list @legendornothing's forum topics?
@cinoclav maybe @legendornothing is just beta testing for @shawn.
how about a profanity proficiency score? maybe count up the number of profane words used (i'll leave what qualifies as profane up to you) divided by total number of comments?
(credit to @ceagee for the idea inspiration)
@carl669 Fuck that.
@sammydog01 hey now. quit trying to pad you proficiency.
@carl669 - I'm sadly deficient on this scale. Will it negatively affect my annual review?
@KDemo it will be noted in your employee file, but will not necessarily be considered a demerit.
@carl669 - Just please don't send me back to profanity training.
.
Pumpkin pumpkin pumpkin pumpkin pumpkin
@KDemo Fuckin' A.
Today's update is for @Barney who said:
@Barney wasn't very specific so we tried a couple things. First we tried to add the posts where the user mentioned someone in the activity stream. I found this not particularly helpful, especially since this basically added 2 activity stream entries for every reply the user added.
So, we scraped that idea and instead added the posts where the user was mentioned. I like this approach much better.
@shawn I'm not exactly sure what I was talking about either. Maybe it was the total number of @'s a user has received. Is that different than any other stat that we already have?
@Barney You probably have the highest @ score, thanks to purple.
@heartny Hmm, people talk about purple, but not necessarily with an @. I'm a thinking it's @Thumperchick.
Today's update adds meh button clicks to the activity stream.
@shawn Will you add a meh button eating monster too?
Shall we start Meh button support groups? A few Mehtizens join forces each day to check on the others and remind them to click the Meh button if they haven't already?
@jqubed Some of them have already clicked... then tragedy strikes and the face goes away... the meh button eating monster bot gets them.
@jqubed Thank you for reminding me to click it today.. since the system was laggy last night, I didn't successfully click the meh face :( but you reminded me!! :)
@mikibell That's all it really takes to not lose your streak. Like they teach you in school, you just have to check your work. Glad you caught it!
@PurplePawprints 11:58 alarm set to double check meh face :)
@mikibell Smart. That way you never miss a click or a turnover. :-)
Spiffy.
Will these someday expand to include a list of recent posts/comments?
@Thumperchick I would miss that if it went away.
@2many2no Me too - it's such a useful tool.
@Thumperchick Guess you'll just have to stay tuned to find out.
How about adding a total of how many stars they've given out to comments and threads?
Also, should the algorithm be expanded since it seems we have a lot of active people so nearly everyone seems to be at "nonstop, irrepressible chatterbox"? To me, it feels like that is apparently the highest level which should only be attainable by a small percentage of users. IE - not everyone should be a black box but only maybe 5%. There's no way I should be in the same category as someone like Thumper yet I am. I'm not even remotely as active as her.
I should add that I really like all this stuff. It's fun and engaging. Thanks for the work that went into this.
@Bingo ahh... the black box/triangle of woot.
Today's update is a minor terminology change to set the stage for future updates.
Before today you could click the star icon to give "votes" on topics, comments, and replies. You could sort forum topics by "most votes today" and sort comments by "most votes".
I think we probably settled early on for the "votes" terminology because we were used to needing extra down-vote signal to help improve deal ranking over at Deals.Woot. Since we don't have down-votes here it's not an ideal term.
To make things more confusing, when we sent out Year One Meh Stats emails we referred to these at "stars" instead of "votes".
We've decided to make this more consistent by calling these things "likes". You give topics, comments, and replies "likes" by clicking the star icon.
Who knows, maybe we'll change the star icon to a heart in the future.
We've change the sorting options on forum pages to reflect this change:
@shawn
I enjoy these progressive updates. It gives more time for all the 1s and 0s to decide how they want to be, and it's cool to see a site slowly change over time instead of hearing leaks about future updates, and then randomly seeing the site radically changed.
@FroodyFrog Cool! I enjoy having a bunch of ideas queued up and then making the site slightly better every day. When we did this before with Forum Updates I had what I thought was a pretty firm roadmap in my head but was fun to take some twists and turns along the way as the feedback rolled in.
@shawn - I wish we could have a way to express empathy - Often it doesn't feel right to "like" someone's misfortune. Maybe a moon to complement the stars? Just a thought.
Thank you for keeping this experience useful and fun.
Edit: On second thought I can see how "mooning" someone could be twisted into a downvote. Maybe instead use the heart to represent empathy?
@shawn @KDemo I was going to mention this as well. A 'like' and/or a 'heart' conveys a very different message than a 'vote' and/or a 'star' (or similar neutral symbol of acknowledgement or notability). This came up a lot when Twitter switched over to hearts - suddenly people had retroactively hearted a bunch of posts about terrorism, personal tragedy, etc. Case in point - 34 of us don't like the fact that David Bowie died, but a vote was sort of a sense of community 'I feel this, too'. Obviously, liking a conversation isn't the same as liking the event that brought it to fruition, but it's… food for thought, I suppose.
As always, appreciate the updates - not just to the site, but to this thread!
@brhfl I don't use social media, but wasn't there a whole push for FB to have a dislike button for tragedies which people posted? I know there were unofficial extensions just for this reason.
@FroodyFrog I'm not much of a FB user, but I have a vague recollection of hearing something like that. Feel like a dislike button would turn really antagonistic really quickly, though…
@FroodyFrog Supposedly they're working on that, as well as other emotions, and they're acting like it's a huge, difficult problem to accomplish.
Someone's math doesn't add up.
@Ignorant Fucking timezones.
Thinking about making this change (https://gist.github.com/freshlogic/57d813c496ca808e9c2f). What do you think?
@shawn I like it.
Today's update adds experimental dark mode support to the profile page.
"Experimental" because I'm sure there's a long list of bugs to fix since we're not even done fixing all the issues with dark mode (still in VMP-only mode) through the rest of the forum: https://meh.com/forum/topics/forum-updates
@shawn Love dark mode.. could we make the reply box softer than bright white?? it is quite glaring in comparison.
@shawn oops..I didn't say please...pretty please? I am sorry for my lapse in manners.
@shawn Once you get the bugs worked with dark mode, some of us would like a purple mode option. Please.
@heartny @barney loves purple. Just saving her the trouble.
@heartny Oops, I missed that comment. Thanks, @Bingo!
Found a new(?) error page today, apparently for when a mehtizen closes their account?
Will there be a song? So many possibilities ;-)
@KDemo Who would want to close their account?
@heartny - I know!
Maybe they're going underground in the witness protection program?
@KDemo Perhaps it is the purchasing protection program - you know the one where they post using one account and buy using a different and close the original one to wipe away the public records of purchases...since meh won't honor being able to keep that private.
Glad we were able to come up with a solution that works well for everyone. I think we've built a pretty cool v1.0 of profile pages here. I'm really happy with how it turned out by giving our VMP members a sneak peek of the feature and letting the early feedback shape the implementation over time.
If nothing else, I hope the continual evolution of the new profile page over the past month (and the forum updates before it) where we're posting daily updates on changes we've made based on VMP member feedback demonstrate that we are, in fact, listening...
Unless it's about our popcorn popper deals
@shawn i don't know man. i kind of miss the goat looking like it's pooping out words.
@shawn I really love that you've not only kept us in the loop on the evolution of this place, but you've actively involved everyone. It's not often a company can be nimble, open, and transparent enough to make these types of changes - especially with the quick turn around time on many of the features.
This is one of the reasons I love this place.
Today's update adds a summary of forum activity, along with some flavor text based on activity levels.
D'aww, thanks!
669 comments! seems to align to me quite well. so, from now on, i can never add another comment. i can only reply to comments. so, someone help me out with this, m'kay?
@carl669 your count is now at 670. Sorry dude.
@Thumperchick fuckity fuck fuck shit. i broke my own no comment rule. and, i know which one it was
damn you kristen bell for being hot!!
@carl669 Time to change your username, I guess.
@shawn Minor cosmetic thing- when you have "is not shy about piping up" level forum involvement, it doesn't mix well with the forum stats- "who has added" (the whole thing reads "is not shy about piping up who has added").
Thanks for all the improvements here!
@Mehrocco_Mole Checkin' this out...
@carl669 Side note: I met a girl the other week who looks a lot like Kristen Bell.
@jqubed how do you know it wasn't actually Kristen Bell pretending not to be Kristen Bell? and, can i also meet this non-Kristen Kristen Bell?
@dave
dave said Wednesday at 12:19 PM
How does one do that? (I'm currently feeling OK, but some days are Blue.)
@carl669 You can't meet her until our marriage has been definitively ruled out, or confirmed.
Today's update surfaces the total number of likes a user has received:
@shawn Sounds a bit depressing... Although, Maybe it should separate a self-like... I mean we want to know how much self-love we give! cough @studerc cough
@sohmageek Yes. I already suggested a narcissism score.
I feel so exposed!* Promise me I'll still have some secrets, though?
*sarcasm
I've been around longer than @mediocrebot. He's a hack.
Can you allow us to host images and htm code? And can you rename it to MehCitiesFire?
@DrunkCat MehSpace
@shawn XanMeh
Today's update is for @dashcloud who pointed out that the forum stats flavor text doesn't read correctly in all cases. We've smoothed that out a bit.
Bonus update today for @PurplePawprints who found a bug that prevented us from showing all comments and replies for user's that participated in a large number of topics. We've improved that.
@shawn - Your bonus update worked because yesterday my comments only showed up to last Saturday, a 4-day gap. Now they're current. Yay!!
Today's update adds the user's likes they've given to the activity stream:
@shawn Can the next thing be the ability to filter what you see? If I'm looking for someone's specific comment, it would be nice to be able to filter it so just the comments or replies show up to find things faster.
@shawn - This is the first that really feels like a little TMI to wade through. Perhaps I dole out too many stars, but it really dominates the info on my profile. I second @PurplePawprints' filtering request. Thank you.
@PurplePawprints @KDemo how would filtering work?
@shawn Maybe a menu to choose to only see likes, comments, replies, or topics created? I don't know how difficult it would be to implement, as it's definitely not my area of expertise, but if it's not too hard, it would make the info a lot easier to wade through.
@shawn A button in user's settings that says something like "Don't show username's likes"? (I'm not very knowledgeable about this kind of stuff.)
@shawn Perhaps small clickable version of the icons at the top of that section (Stars, Comments, Replies, and Topics) so you would just see a list of that particular activity. Even if the default is ALL, you would still be able to sort them if needed.
Something like this (but done much better haha)
@shawn - I would have just asked for an option to turn the 'likes' reporting on and off. So glad @stardate820926 and the others have more knowledge and imagination.
I don't really know what's behind all of these changes, but I know it takes exceptional vision and skill and I have major respect for what you have created.
@shawn You are have done some awesome work here. I have looked at this info quite a bit, understanding what my habits are like around here. With that said, could we make this info private to only the user? I just feel there is a little too much out there now. Like I said, I love having this info for me, but not sure how I feel about others knowing. If you can't tell, I am big on privacy, I don't have the Facebooks or the Instagrams, or any of those other new-fangled things all the kids have.
@conandlibrarian I understand the desire for privacy in general, but all of this stuff was already public. Short of not participating on the forum at all, there really isn't a way to make this info private.
@PurplePawprints I understand that it is not private, I guess what I am trying to say is that it is just way easier to access the information now.
@conandlibrarian True.
@PurplePawprints The part that was not public until now is the number of purchases people have made and how long they have been on meh with an account. Purchases is what I'd like to see the option to make private.
@Kidsandliz I could see at least keeping the exact number private. Having some way to indicate a range might be better, the way Woot does in the colored badges. Maybe have it say "30+" and don't immediately increment it when it reaches the next range. Say someone is checking to see if you bought a present for them on here; if they check your stats every day and see the purchases increase one day, they'll know you've bought that day's item. That could still be a problem crossing from one range to the next (20+ to 30+, for example), but if it doesn't update for a couple weeks there's more ambiguity, and it's still technically correct, which is the best kind of correct.
Today's update added poll votes to the activity stream.
One tweak we made here is to suppress showing your actual answer when we have anonymous polls, like this one: https://meh.com/forum/topics/how-much-total-do-you-typically-spend-on-christmas-gifts-your-answer-will-remain-anonymous-
great. now i have to follow the crowd on polls so i don't look like some weirdo.
@carl669 Too late.
@Barney so say we all.
Figured this was coming. Not that it matters, the polls are ludicrous, but I prefer anonymity.
@carl669 Thus why I only voted in 4 polls in 575 days ;)
@shawn I love your enthusiasm, but my profile looks like the Dallas phone directory. Any chance of cutting out mentions of likes?
@carl669 LET THE PUBLIC SHAMING OF THE VOTING MINORITIES (LOSERS) BEGIN!
It makes me feel so naked.
@Barney purple naked? ;)
@Thumperchick Well... I'm still wearing my purple socks.
@Barney why aren't you sure about us?
Aw gee, @hollboll, sometimes I feel like I'm being pulled in two different directions and I just don't feel like my old purple self.
@shawn Since there has been dialog about this, can we add the labrat numbers for those impacted to their profile?
@readnj @shawn i like idea. mainly because i can't find the email with my lab rat number. also, if you could just go ahead and make me lab rat #669, that would be great.
@readnj Agree. I have a Woot number that I can find easily. I'd like my Meh number here instead of digging through old emails (that I printed).
@carl669 424 https://mediocre.com/forum/topics/whats-your-number#529e9c28949cc3c40b00010d
Is there a level above Hardcore @shawn? What are the levels? Is there a chart? A handy wallet card?
@oppodude Missing a comma after Hardcore. But it still works read the other way.
@oppodude You have to discover all the levels. That's part of the "fun".
@shawn Why does "fun" always cost so much? ;-)
There's a secret level that you can only find by starrring and un-starring one of your own posts 10,000 times.
Thank you, @shawn. You are the bestest.
@shawn Thanks for all your hard work on this. Could you maybe add a link on the account dropdown to take mehmbers to their own profile page when they are logged in?
rad.
woo! i only joined 1 day after @shawn!
@carl669 Eat my dust....
@jsimsace dammit.
@jsimsace Twins!
@capguncowboy Now we're gonna need a time stamp next. :)
@jsimsace If I recall correctly, I was labrat #333 in the Seligman experiment. I suppose I'm only half as evil as labrat #666 -- I've always wondered who that was. They've got to be a horrible person to be twice as evil as me.
At any rate, I think those were assigned in the order that you signed up
@capguncowboy You young whippersnappers, always being so smart *and*correct. I am Lab Rat #237. :)
@carl669 I'm 3 days behind you
@capguncowboy @jsimsace i forgot how you check your lab rat number.
@carl669 you go back and find an email from almost 3 years ago and it tells you.
164 checking in.
@Thumperchick supposing, just supposing, i can't find this email?
edit: the only email i could find just says "Lab Rat carl669". i'll just take that as meaning i'm too good to just be assigned a number based on my order of appearance. yay me!
@carl669 the email had the subject line of:
Maybe that will help you locate it?
Fearless Leader Rat #286 here.
@Thumperchick negative. i'm guessing i may have deleted it in a drunken rage or something. i'm just going to call myself Lab Rat #669.
@carl669 I would love for that to be your #.
@carl669 Fearless Leader Rat #1,465 here. If it helps people locate the email, it's from hello@mediocre.com.
@Stumpy91 thanks for the info. sadly, still couldn't find it.
@carl669 Some people (but apparently not you) announced their numbers in this thread: https://mediocre.com/forum/topics/whats-your-number?
ETA: The "?" is part of the link
@msklzannie thank you! i apparently did announce my number! Fearless Leader Rat #424!
@carl669 I glanced through that thread and totally missed your announcement. Maybe I should have been wearing my glasses?
searching for 424 on images gives me this site.
@carl669
@carl669 #72 here.
So if I understand correctly, this is a look at 'what will be' and it isn't actually active for VMP members yet...
@chienfou The newest changes are live. At least, they are when I look at my profile.
@chienfou Each release will be active for VMP's immediately. We'll fully release all of the updates to non-VMP's at a later date.
@Shawn Could you put the "altruism" score on the profile page?
I LOVE my new Profile page. Oh what JOY to see all the time I've wasted around here, ha ha! May my stats only grow from here!!!
https://meh.com/@stallion
@Shawn Is there a delay in how long it takes comments and replies to show up in the activity stream on profile pages? As an example, mine shows the last thing I did was comment in the Abe Vigoda thread yesterday, but I've been active in other threads last night and this morning.
Oddly enough, this comment shows up, but other ones that I've made recently have not. Are there criteria for what shows up on the profile page and what doesn't, or is this just a bug?
@PurplePawprints All forum topics, comments, and replies from meh.com should show up. Do you have an example I can look into?
@shawn I've made tons of comments in the fuku thread that aren't showing up (both comments and replies), I've commented in the Why does Meh hate the east coast thread?, the reminder to click Meh thread, and the Fantastic Load Time thread.
And maybe let people opt out of having a public profile page...
@Kidsandliz your activity here is already easily searchable via google, and the search bar here. It's best to assume anything you do or say on the internet is public information.
@Thumperchick It still makes me feel naked.
@Thumperchick Yeah but then they'd have to work a bit more to get at it. And yes I assume everything is public. That is why I have a number of fake ID's I use online. I only use my real one professionally and on one of my 3 facebooks that is linked only to family and a few very, very close friends. Not to mention I have posted there about 5 or 6 times, the last time nearly 2 years ago. The others are used differently for different (but non-nefarious) purposes.
@Kidsandliz or you could change your name to something equivalently online-anonymous like "John Smith".
@Kidsandliz aha, a relatively easy profile deficiency to adjust: (just star more)
@Barney You would be naked only if your profile page stated how many times you had written purple.
Purple.
PURPLE.
Purple?
Purple!
(Sorry, I got carried away for a moment there.)
@sligett Meh did a "purple" count last February, but I think it might be a little outdated because I've said purple a few more times since then.
@RedOak Nope not adjusting. Just as people need to earn their A's in the classes I teach, people need to earn their stars. Stars aren't worth much if you click on all or most of them... (grin)