So what would you like to change?

by Anand Lal Shimpi on 8/9/2005 3:28 PM EST
Comments Locked

39 Comments

Back to Article

  • Houdani - Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - link

    I'm city folk, and don't have an ounce of cowpoke in me, but that won't stop me from expressing an opinion of what I think life is like out on the range.

    When herding cows, the preferred method is to gather them all up and move them as a group. In other words, ROUNDUP! Sure a stray bovine might wander off, in which case you may ride out and bring back that individual, but generally speaking it's best to round all the cows up en masse and move them as a collective group.

    Likewise, when herding video cards, the preferred method is...[wink]
  • willstay - Monday, August 22, 2005 - link

    I wanted to request Anandtech.com for few CPU comparisions but couldn't find one single email address to post. I was reluctant to post new thread in the forum for that.

    Anyways, here is my request. I am looking for two combinations
    a) Pentium D 820 + ASUS 945 = $241 + $110 = $351
    b) Celeron D 351 + ASUS 955 = $129 + $190 = $319

    Option (a) is expensive and there is no upgrade option, option (b) is inexpensive and there is upgrade option to dual core EE.

    Now, I would like someone speed test Celeron D 351, Pentium (with and without HT) and Pentium EE (with and without HT) all running at 3.2 GHz.
  • justbrowzing - Tuesday, August 16, 2005 - link

    This might just be a personal problem but I've tried to post 3 or 4 times since the new system is online and I've received an error message that sends me to the home page and erases my post. There's a glitch somewhere in the system, or the post comment window is set to time out too early. (Some of us proofread before posting, believe it or not.)
  • justbrowzing - Tuesday, August 16, 2005 - link

    You vote and you end up back at go--can't we go back to where we were when we voted?

    Admittedly it's not the end of the world, but all those posts look alike and scrolling down to find where you left off is annoying and stops me from rating posts.

    Otherwise, the new system is very good (oh, and if the colors could also be a little less institutional, that would be a plus, too) and has done alot to rid the posts of pre-adoloscent nonsense. Well done! rating: 4
  • Scrogneugneu - Tuesday, August 16, 2005 - link

    I dislike the fact that when I post, I can't vote anymore. I do understand why it was implemented, but I would suggest a better implementation : if I post in a thread, I shouldn't be able to rate any post in that thread, but still be able to rate every other posts.


    This would, IMHO, enable readers to express themselves by voting on some subject and posting on another at the same time, while restraining them to alter the ratings of their "opponents" during the short debates.
  • GhandiInstinct - Tuesday, August 16, 2005 - link

    Totaly agreed, I think this is one of the bigger issues.

    Also, a rating system that could implement a "Worth Reading" and "Not worth reading" mini-chart next to the poster, because as you notice the ratings could be going up and down however many times but we don't truly account for how many bad's and good's there are.
  • Sunbird - Saturday, August 13, 2005 - link

    A double post detector!!!!
  • oepapel - Friday, August 12, 2005 - link

    I like the idea of the ranking system but it seems a bit anonymous to me. I'd like to see a button or something next to the ranking that brought up a list of the people that have ranked that entry. That way, people that support a post can make themselves known and people that disagree can go "on the record". Currently, if I want to voice my support for someone's post, I have to choose to either rank (and stay anonymous) or post (and lose my ranking capabilites).
    Also, there have been a few posts that I've seen that were ranked at -1 for, what I could see, no good reason and others that were a 5 that were just noise. If people wanted to stay anonymous then they could still read all the posts.
  • GhandiInstinct - Saturday, August 13, 2005 - link

    I don't understand the reason to limit the rating to 5. It should be limitless, according to however many people like the post. Because once the rating is at 5, the next person to read it and view it as "worth reading" has no option to voice his positive opinion.
  • Jason Clark - Thursday, August 11, 2005 - link

    Hi folks, I've thrown a few new changes in:

    1) posted by etc is all in the header on the left
    2) there is now a new comment notice system that tracks your last visited date and colors posts red that are new since your last visit. If you leave your browser open, after 2 hours it will reset your session, otherwise when you close your browser and come back your last visit date will be set to when you left.

    Enjoy.
  • crimson117 - Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - link

    I find myself going to the RTPE more and more often for product searches, but often I can't find the product type that I'm looking for - USB flash drives, for instance.
  • icarus4586 - Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - link

    One thing is that the tabs on the top used to have icons + text. Without the icons, it took me forever to find "Displays."
  • crimson117 - Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - link

    I agree, the icons made it easier to find the categories.
  • MrJim - Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - link

    quote:

    It's your site, let your voice be heard :)


    Thats why i love Anandtech.com! Rock on! Hey Anand, can i find pictures of your house somewhere? Im looking at different styles and read that you built your own as you wanted and im thinking the same.
  • GhandiInstinct - Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - link

    Yay, he's already implementing some of our ideas, like myne: "I however don't like that the threads are closed and you have to manually go through all of them and click and open them. Also, you can't see the poster's name unless you open the thread. "
  • cosmotic - Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - link

    Now that the system supports threads, some times the most recent post is at the top of the list nested inside another. Would it be possible to devise a color coding system that made older and low rating posts whitish, and recent or highly rated comments the darker blue? Then maybe variations in between.

    I like the red self post color code.
  • cosmotic - Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - link

    Along the same lines, I think it would look nice if you made the collapse/expand arrow red for other peoples comments. And if people dont like that, you should make the arrow for self posts red. You need to be consistent. Ether they are the same color as the post or the oposite color.
  • ViRGE - Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - link

    It would be nice to have a sort by score system, ala "Highest Score First" with the SlashCode(Slashdot) CMS. With big articles that attract a lot of comments, it would be fairly helpful in getting to the most meaningful/insightful comments right away.

    PS Post in your blog more =P
  • creathir - Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - link

    I would LOVE to see the tree "collapse arrow" collapse the sub posts of a comment. This would GREATLY aid in navigating the comments....
    - Creathir
  • glennpratt - Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - link

    I second this.
  • olliemaitland - Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - link

    I third this, this would be very useful.
  • Anton74 - Tuesday, August 9, 2005 - link

    The option to view posts since the last visit is great, but something seems to not work quite right (on my computer anyway). For example, just viewing these comments for the first time, 5 out of 8 posts are shown as new, for some reason, while they all should be classified the same. I found earlier - with another article - that the same posts keep being shown as old, and everything else, existing or new, continues to be shown as new since the last visit - there seems to be no change for subsequent visits. Since I'm connecting through a proxy cache (Squid), I tried shift-reloading the page, which made no difference.

    Second, I'd also like to be able to both rate and post. I understand the argument that you don't want people to rate others down simply based on disagreement, but quite frankly, that can (and probably already does) happen whether someone's part of the discussion or not. I suspect that those "spite" votes will be outweighed by legitimate votes the majority of the time. Could this at least be enabled on a trial basis?

    Also sometimes I'd like more than 1 vote for every 10 posts.

    Overall the changes are good, especially considering what's already in the works for the near future. The new layout is very nice. Anandtech.com continues to be my very favorite among other, similar sites. :)

    Anton
  • Anton74 - Tuesday, August 9, 2005 - link

    I just thought of something, but I'm not sure if it's feasible to implement:

    What if people were given rating privileges (weight, number) based upon the average rating that they themselves have received in the past, and possibly tie in the total number of comments they have posted? Kind of a reputation-based rating.

    Just a thought.

    Anton
  • qat - Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - link

    This is a great idea. In regards to giving people who post more worthwhile stuff more slack, why not do it in a ratio?

    I have 1 post, it was modded +1, so I now have a 1:1 worthwhile post. As long as that stays above 1:1, then the person gets X as their priveleges. That way, even if i've posted 300 comments, a person who has only made 10 still is capable of having the same rights.

    Not everybody is a very avid poster, but many would likely rather just go through and moderate threads (Worth Reading/Not Worth Reading markings)

    Up until recently, I never posted, but would vote, based on wether or not a person presented any new information or what have you. It's all relative to the reader.
  • cosmotic - Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - link

    With a system like that, you would be hurting people that rearely post comments that are in the top 2% of quality.

    Some people only post when its worth posting, and their posts are really good. Some other people post completely worthless posts constantly. Your going to need to find some ballance there. A system where people with more posts have higher voting weight would be seriously easy to exploit.
  • Anton74 - Thursday, August 11, 2005 - link

    There's some truth to that, indeed. However, people who constantly post worthless posts should have a very low rating themselves, and therefore (almost) no voting privileges no matter how many posts they have to their name.

    People who rarely post comments, but make it quality ones, should have high ratings, and a certain degree of voting privilege. Like you said, a balance should be found here. Maybe a relatively low minimum number of posts should be looked at, or a minimum over the past week/month/etc. All in support of their own average rating, which should be the main criteria. This is beginning to sound complicated...

    The reason I thought of including the number of posts in this (aside from the more important rating based privilege dispensing), is that otherwise one could post a single really good comment just to receive a high rating to gain voting privilige, and then abuse that voting privilege ever after, just based on that one good post.

    Either way there may be some room for exploitation. It may overall be a big improvement though (it better be if someone were to go through the trouble of implementing this :).

    Anton
  • smn198 - Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - link

    I like that idea. It may actually encourage people to write something worth while reading. Not sure how much more overhead it would add doing all those averages.
  • tappertrainman - Tuesday, August 9, 2005 - link

    I would still like to see the poster name moved over to the left-hand side. Put it either up top, or below, but it needs to be on the left. Just my opinion. Thanks!

    James
  • friedrice - Tuesday, August 9, 2005 - link

    I would like to see a firefox plugin that lets me know when something new is on Anandtech. This could be taken even further and notify me if someone has replied to a post on the forum. :D
  • cosmotic - Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - link

    Just what we need, another firefox plugin. Have you tried RSS?
  • Golyc - Tuesday, August 9, 2005 - link

    I´d like to see an option the see more than 5 of the newest reviwes, sometimes I go out and spend more than 3 days out, without acess to the net. Will be good to encounter the reviwes witch out sections search.
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, August 9, 2005 - link

    On the front page you get the 5 latest reviews with images, then to the right of that column there is another labeled "More Reviews." That column features another 7 reviews.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • GhandiInstinct - Tuesday, August 9, 2005 - link

    The rating system is the best implementation by far. As we can swiftly navigate to "worth while" posts.

    I however don't like that the threads are closed and you have to manually go through all of them and click and open them. Also, you can't see the poster's name unless you open the thread.

    You should be able to vote and post a comment.

    That's it for now.
  • GhandiInstinct - Tuesday, August 9, 2005 - link

    Ok this also reminds me to talk about the search interface on the site.

    It's very hard to find specificaly what you input. For instance, a specific game or hardware benchmark is very hard to hunt down.
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, August 9, 2005 - link

    We've already got something in the works for that ;)

    You should see it in a week or so...

    Take care,
    Anand
  • smn198 - Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - link

    I look forward to that. I was on holiday for a week and it was a bit of a struggle trying to find the last weeks articles. I almost missed the X2 3800+.
  • smn198 - Saturday, August 13, 2005 - link

    I am liking the new articles since last visit addition. Good job!
  • nowayout99 - Tuesday, August 9, 2005 - link

    My main wish is to shorten the width of the comment window (if it must be in a window at all).

    The width makes a lot of comments look like they're only two or three lines long. It's a bit hard on the eyes, and I tend to skip over those posts. Some vertical height would help alleviate that a lot. Right now I resize the comment window manually, which makes it pretty nice. ;)

    But overall I think the revision is really nice, Anand.
  • smn198 - Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - link

    I don't find that a problem but I'd like to be able to get e-mail notifications for replies to my posts or even better, a list of replies that have been made to all my posts which I have not yet read/ignored.

    Thanks!

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now