New Year, New Plans: An Un-Official YWS Road-Map

It wouldn't it be a New Year if YWS didn't have big changes in store, right? After all, 2010 was ushered in with huge changes to the site (no more Instructors & Greeters), and 2009 was ushered in with the announcement of the new YWS. So, what are those big changes, you may ask?

Well, to be honest, I'm pretty happy with YWS as-is. Reviewing and activity went way up in 2010, and our once lonely corner of the web is slowly growing. Profiles went from static, boring affairs to an interactive kaleidoscope of fun. We also have Clubs now, Storybooks are a more important part of YWS, and Notifications now let you know about all the activity that concerns you. So, there's really nothing else that I think needs to be added.

So 2011 will be more of a year of improvement rather than anything else. I plan on adding a Help section, and also on fixing the bugs in the new Clubs area. Notifications still need a bit of improvement (would be nice to know how many notifications you have before clicking on it), and I'd like to add the ability to tag profile comments so that we can have site-wide conversations. All in all, that's only about 12 to 20 hours worth of work which I plan on spreading out through the entire year.

Besides being perfectly happy with YWS as-is, there are two other reasons why I don't plan on doing much this year. The first is that I'll be graduating from law school in a couple weeks, and I'll hopefully be joining the Virginia Bar in a few months. But the second is WriterFeed. WriterFeed is a writing site that's for everyone, and a blend of Twitter and YWS. I've been working on it a little bit every day for the past several months, and I'm hoping to be done with it by March (if not sooner).

So that's pretty much it! Nothing much to say, really.

Edit

Forgot to mention, if you have any thoughts on what you'd like to see removed/changed/added here at YWS, please let me know in the comments!

Sounds like it's going to be an interesting year for YWS. I especially like idea of WriterFeed who knows Nate you may become the next Mark Zuckerberg (except for writers) and have a smash hit movie made about you! The notification thing would be great and also implementation of tagging comments sounds like a great way for site to improve. Good luck with Law School Nate and you've done a great job, take it from someone who's been here most of the time!

Edit: You still doing Featured Reviews idea I had Nate?

On clubs under Admin there says there is more coming soon..... maybe work on that area a little?

I know this was there in the Comments thread, but I mentioning it here as well. I would love the tagline-thingies for works. Like before.

I know nothing of coding and how this works, but currently if you post more than once on a status, if someone else posts on it you get notifications for each post you yourself made. This can be quite confusing if you're the kind of person who comments a lot or who is involved in wall wars (which I've seen a lot of lately). It'd be nice if you could make it so that you only get one notification per status, not per comment. But again, I don't know how hard this would be or if it'd be possible. But it'd really up the notifications quality, at least in my mind.

I think there was something about this in your blog, Nate--and Paladin's comment reminded me of it--but the review rating system of sorts, with the stars or the thumbs-up or the featuring? Will that still be happening? We've got the (amazing, possibly insane) prolific reviewers covered, but it'd be neat to see who's the most helpful. Maybe even make it somewhat specific so that the strengths of various reviewers get recognition?

Though that could get complicated fast. Perhaps way too complicated far too fast.

But everything planned sounds wonderful. Good luck with all that law school craziness, and thanks for all your work here!

Sounds awesome; it IS the little things that make a difference, yes? Good luck in law school, Nate!

Would it be at all possible to receive notifications for debates we've participated in? Same methods as storybooks, I'd assume, for the coding. I sometimes like participating in debates, but it's not a forum I visit frequently and I can forget to participate in debates.

Rosey Unicorn wrote:Would it be at all possible to receive notifications for debates we've participated in? Same methods as storybooks, I'd assume, for the coding. I sometimes like participating in debates, but it's not a forum I visit frequently and I can forget to participate in debates.

I like that idea, and it'll go in when the Notifications system receives an overhaul.

Can we like comments on statuses? Not that it particularly matters, but yeah.

Other than that, everything's marvellous from where I'm standing, Nate.