It's Time III: The Hero Edition
Great news, folks, our very own heyrocker volunteered run Listology just as soon as we can manage a graceful passing of the reins! I am so relieved and happy (and grateful!) that the site will live on. I hope you'll join me in thanking him for taking on the job. I can say first hand that it's very rewarding, but also a lot of work, and as I made clear in my initial resignation post, there's some significant labor ahead. Speaking of which...
heyrocker and I agree that maintaining the current Listology code would be impossible for anyone but me. I've grafted so much stuff onto it over the years, and it has become a morass. So the site will migrate to a new platform. All the data (lists, discussions, etc.) will be migrated, and the site will be rebuilt from the ground up. The focus will stay on the two most important things: the great community we have here, and discussing lists in a simple, straightforward manner. That said, this will be an evolutionary process, some bumps in the road are inevitable, and change is hard. I hope you'll be patient as Listology goes through this long-overdue overhaul. I'm confident heyrocker understands what makes this site special, and will keep that at the core of his efforts. I've already seen a prototype that renders lists and threaded discussions, and it's just as easy to use as what we have now. Very cool.
Anyway, when we are ready to migrate the site will stop taking edits for a period, we'll move the data, point the domain name to the new site, and reopen. We shouldn't have much downtime; a day or two at the most. Of course, one of us will post again when the time is drawing near. For now though, business as usual!
Finally, let me be the first to say THANK YOU to heyrocker for volunteering to do this!
BLAH! You took away my custom font/size ability. Back to the magnifying glass. Maybe...
Not sure what you're talking about? Nothing has changed on this end yet.
Any spoilers to new features/changes, etc.? IE: a screenshot?
Thank you so very much, heyrocker :)
I just want to clear my confusion up - this is permanent right?
Say yes... =)
So far as I am planning, it is permanent. I have no intention of simply being a "temporary" landing place.
Confusion cleared, thanks mate.
I posted some suggestions here - http://www.listology.com/content_show.cfm/content_id.33526/Music about what all changes would be cool.
Adding to that, some more features needed imho :
- permalinks to individual posts
- a mobile version of the site maybe? If you're migrating to wordpress, something like the wordpress mobile edition CSS available at alexking.org might give you a general idea.
- a more detailed profile for users, maybe?
- a more intuitive user rating system
Some things this site doesn't
need, imo :
- avatars, signatures and other bloaty GUI
- reputation system or post count system. The current system is more or less good enough I think. The post count is visible only if you muddle through the profile
Just my 2 cents...
Good luck!
I will be using an open-source content management system called Drupal to build the new Listology. It is coming along ... slowly. My current plan is to launch with the same features as the current Listology, plus a lot of niceties that Drupal comes with out of the box. In terms of these specific requests...
- Permalinks to comments will be there
- Mobile is an interesting though that wouldn't be too tough. I'll have to keep that in mind.
- Adding new fields to user profiles is pretty simple and I'd be open to any suggestions.
- I'm currently considering just dumping user rating entirely. Without a reputation or meta-moderation system it seems kind of pointless. Thoughts?
I am adding avatars but they will be pretty laid back.
I should ask Jim if I can make a front page post to solicit opinions and report on status. Thanks for the comments!
Just repeating here what I posted on lbangs' list, for the sake of a whole picture :
- quote function and multi quote function
- simple formatting tools like italics, bold etc. without needing to type in html, ie graphic tabs for formatting
- tags for lists
More suggestions I'm just throwing about :
- embedding multimedia like pictures maybe?
- for profiles : location, favourite movie and favourite band, maybe? This is just to begin with of course
- I think some kind of user rating would be good. Maybe based on a mix of number of endorsements and post count?
- and finally, I think it would be cool to have a new category of content : reviews
I'm excited already :)
The new site will incorporate free tagging, so you will be able to classify your content however you want, which I think will really help to bubble up content to places it didn't before. So you could just tag all your review content as "review" and be done with it.
I'm hoping to get a simple visual HTML editor in, but I'm not happy with any of the ones I've seen yet.
I'm thinking about extended profile functionality but I want to do it in a cool useful way like Facebook where they link off to other people who share them. It might end up being a "version 2" feature.
We will continue to have "endorsements" of users and that could possibly be used as a rating system of sorts (most endorsed for instance.)
Awesomeness!!!
Just wanted to add my thanks as well.
Heyrocker, where do you live? Can I throw you a party? :)
Yay! Thanks so much, heyrocker! I'm a recent Listology convert and I was really sad to think my new favourite place might go away.
Hey Rocker... You Rock!!!
Wow, this is such good news! Thanks heyrocker! What a relief that the site gets to stick around. Yay!
Heyrocker for prez! Thank you, sir.
I'd vote for him.
Thanks so much heyrocker, we really appreciate this. Best of luck getting it set up!
Thank you so much heyrocker!
thanks heyrocker, this is the best site on the net, you're awesome for stepping forward. great news all round!
Hooray, Heyrocker! I'm so glad to hear that someone is taking over the reins of Listology. I really think this web site has a lot of built in camaraderie and good will based on Jim's excellent work and the good work of the users over the years. Hopefully it can continue to grow and you can turn it into a profitable (or at least not money-losing) proposition.
I'd also like to restate my thanks to Jim for creating this meeting place for like-minded souls all those years ago. The Internet is a great place but without individuals using it for its true potential it'd just be a bunch of interconnected computers and not much more. Hooray, Listology!
Heyrocker! Thankyou, you have saved the best website on the net.
Thank you so much! I'm glad the site's sticking around - where else can I bitch my heart out over avant-garde music?
Thanks to everyone for the kind words. I look forward to getting the new site up and running as soon as possible! I definitely intend to keep the site simple (list making will change very little) but add some updates here and there. If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions, please feel free to get in touch! I'm excited!
RSS feeds for users would be one hope of mine - is there any chance of this maybe? Just a feed of what they've recently updated and the date the change occurred, maybe..
But really, I'm happy with things as they are now, so anything on top is just a nice bonus. Thanks again for agreeing to take over the site.
edit: oh, but I really hope you manage to keep the loading times down. I love Listology because it doesn't lock my old computer up like Facebook and stuff. I know change is inevitable but it'd be cool if you keep it a pretty fast site :-) But hey, I'm only one user... I'm just thinking out loud!
RSS feeds of new content per user will definitely be there, not sure about updates though. I am hoping to keep the load times down, and it won't be javascript-heavy like facebook or anything.
A day never to be forgotten, Listology lives on; thank you so much for making this come true. The best of luck and everyone will appreciate the efforts you do as the savior of Listology.
Hey, heyrocker!
Thank you!
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs (who will have to go back to reviewing stuffs now!)
Wow, great news.
Thanks muchly, heyrocker!
Hey, heyrocker! You rock! :-)
AWESOME!!!!! :-D :-D :-D
Massive thanks to heyrocker. Just MASSIVE.
I also like stuff... stuff like heyrocker.
And let me be the second! I'm so glad Listology is staying alive, I'm sure it's in good hands, and I'm excited to see the changes in store! Thank you, heyrocker!