"popular ideas" rating method

Thanks for the feedback!

There is a way to vote on each idea. There's a 'vote' button at the top of each idea on the right side. I think there might be some confusion about the difference between 'top rated' and 'popular ideas'.

'top rated' ideas have the highest vote average
'popular ideas' have the most reads
'active ideas' are ideas sorted by the most recent comment

Perhaps i should rename 'popular ideas' to most read ideas or something like that to avoid the confusion. I agree that the 'popular ideas' are unfair to ideas that haven't been around for long or aren't getting a lot of hits.

About the commentary weighting, are you suggesting something along the lines of a vote up, vote down system, where the top rated comments appear up top?

I really appreciate the feedback, and I hope to keep improving the current stuff while adding new features based on this type of feedback!

P.S. vote graffin down! I have been waiting for something better to come along! :)

You're quite welcome.

Ah, I see. The top rated are retrieved via either the "Top rated" tab or the "top 3" button on the side panel. Not really clear. Even after reading your response I didn't notice the "Top rated" tab there and only noticed it when closely examining your opening header.

BTW, just so you know where me and my suggestions are coming from, I've had the notion to build a social networking platform since sometime in '98. I finally got serious in October of '06 and have been doing steady research, design, and business modeling since then, sharing time with development since about June this year. I've seen it all. Well, not all, but a lot. I came across Filmforay in a recent Mashable posting and it sounded interesting as I have a ton of movie ideas, some of which I'll soon share on Filmforay. By the looks of things I'd say that you're a Drupal'r. Good choice. Joomla and Drupal floated to the top of my CMS evaluation list. I had settled on Drupal but somewhere during the learning process and tracking various issues in the forums and comparisons with the goals and requirements of my design I determined that rolling my own atop lower-level, yet more focused and agile (as in flexible) APIs, would be my happier route in the short and long run, albeit a bit daunting. So far, so good--extensive research, design, and modeling before coding pays off! Again, I only point this out so that you know where my suggestions are coming from. Just my way of giving back to a site that I feel will give continual pleasure to many. In all of the hundreds, perhaps thousands of social networking sites that I've visited, yours and maybe two others have I been compelled to join simply because of their chosen area of focus. The other visitations were simply for research. So, consider Filmforay among the cream, at least in my book.

Back to "Top Rated" and "Popular Ideas": People look more often at the top of a page to determine the main features of a site rather than a side panel which is most often used for secondary items and top level items do better as larger main menu items or stand-alone buttons. Filmforay is a celebration of the creation and sharing of film ideas. That message and functionality should say "BAM!" with clarity. As far as "Popular Ideas" go: I don't think clicking on a link and showing a page is a guage of someone's interest and therefore not a good guage of popularity overall.

Now, if your "viewed" count was only incremented if someone clicked on a rating, made a comment, clicked on "email to a friend" (let's get viral now), Digg, etc. (ditto), clicked on the feed for that idea, or purposefully clicked on a "Record that I have read this idea" button (which stores the idea in their list of "Ideas that I have read, shared, voted on, tracked, or commented on") THEN you will have an accurate popularity score.

For now, for minimal changes, how about removing the tabs and placing "Top Rated", "Submit New Idea", ""Recently Submitted", "Active Ideas" (as opposed to members), and "Popular Ideas" (as opposed to members)(if and when it becomes more meaningful)? The blocks that appear at the bottom that show the top in each category are nice, even better if the top in all of the others categories (excluding "Submit New Idea" of course) where listed there as well.

An important note: Your use of tabs and AJAX to switch between the current "New Ideas" and "Top Rated" slows your site load time tremendously because there's potentially A LOT of unsolicited text and images being delivered regardless of whether a reader clicks on the other tab or not. If the menu ideas above are adopted then that will solve most of that problem. You can default to showing "Top Rated Ideas" as that is what people will gravitate to initially anyway. You can solve the rest of the problem by delivering only the header info, rating (in a read only fashion) and the first n-words or n-paragraghs of each of the top ideas or so. I think showing the thumbnails is part of what gives Filmforay its character so you should continue to include those, but you may want to experiment with even smaller thumbnail sizes for the sake of making those pages !snap! onto the screen. And limit embedded video to only being shown when the full article is requested and at which time the rating function is enabled rather than read-only as during the initial snippet browse..

Regarding "Commentary Rating": No, I wasn't referring to a vote up or down there, just some way of factoring in the number of comments into the popularity calculation. My previous ideas on that, incrementing the idea "view" count once and only once when one of the indicators (mentioned previously) is clicked. One way of insuring that any particular viewer can only add to this view count only once is upon click, check that user's list across all indicators (read clicked, shared, voted on, tracked, or commented on) and only increment the Idea's view count if it does not already appear in that user's list of indicators for that idea. You'll have to decide what to do with anonymous reader indications, to allow or not. I think it would be ok to include them. But the indicator actions for logged in members should only increment the "viewed" count for an idea once and only once.

Regarding "graffin de siècle": It is rated the highest so it is indeed the highest rated idea!!!

Ok, that's all I gots for now.

Wow, thanks again for the feedback and compliments! I really believe in the opportunities that social networks have opened up not just for sharing, but also for project collaboration. So here are a few thoughts on your comments:

On Drupal:
I think you are making a good decision to roll your own on top of a more flexible framework, a bit daunting, but in the long run will be worth it. I originally chose Drupal to get something up and running quickly, having never built anything for the web it seemed like a good choice and would serve some basic needs right off the bat. I think in the current stage of the development of the site and my overall idea its has worked fine. However, as time goes on and the site begins to evolve to include richer ways of creative expression and contribution I am playing to migrate to a much more focussed and speedy architecture.

Popular Ideas:
Absolute right in that simple page views are a horrible indicator of anything on the web now days, not to mention they are easily gamed. It creates a glass ceiling effect on less popular ideas, basically the rich get richer. I originally wanted another way for idea s to get space on up front, but its time to rethink that.

AJAX tabs:
Will be the first place I look when traffic picks up and a speed boost is needed. Also, a much smaller view of an individual idea could be really useful.

Thanks again for your insights and let me know the day your site drops, Im excited to see what you've got planned!

By the way, I hope my comments don't come across as smug... like my photo. :0) Gotta change that thing.

Regarding choosing Drupal: Drupal is an excellent choice. In my book, the best, especially when you don't want or have the time to spend the rest of your life just getting something functional. Excluding research and design, I estimate that I've added about six months onto my development time by going the custom route. There are at least four days out of every month that I dread. Those are the days when I lose focus and motivation and my belief slips to a low ebb, It's during those times that I question my decision and look back at Drupal and think "So what if CURRENTLY it won't serve up peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches to registered members on demand. One day soon it will because the wonderful community that drives the evolution of Drupal, a community full of lindens, will make it happen." At some point in my confused wallowing though I lift my head, flip randomly through my detailed notes, diagrams, and plans and somehow, magically, the beauty is reborn and I am re-energized.

I'd say you've made an excellent choice given your desire to get up and running quickly. Don't even think to migrate elsewhere unless you really have to. I spent about two months pooring over Drupal docs, browsing the forums, listening to podcasts from lullabot and all over, read and followed all the major Drupal blogs, and did a bit of module development. So, I can tell you that Drupal is very powerful. I'm sure that you are aware of this power and know in your imagination what Filmforay is destined to be over time as you steadily incorporate many of the goodies that Drupal already has on offer, not to mention the many more modules in the works and the continued advancement of Drupal core. Dries Buytaert, at the helm, his core team, the community, your hard work, commitment and imagination won't let you down.

Getting to work this week and next on some cool improvements.