Suggestions / Comments

can’t put my birthday as blank anymore after putting a date in. I put my actual birthday in but realized I didn’t feel comfortable with doing so after I already saved changes. I think the issue with the current birthday thing is that it goes back all the way to the year 1 AD. whereas the old one went back only 100 years. could we have at least something similar to the old one back and have the blank option available again?
gosh I rambled. sorry. 😭

@paigey ->> More jurisdictions are requiring age verification for social media sites where users younger than 18 are an important demographic. So, birthdays cannot be left blank.

However, I have added the option to hide your age so that it will not appear in other places around the site.

thank you Nate!

Will the Subscribed Roleplays sidebar in the Roleplay Forums be modernized to look similar to the Hot Topics/New Posts look?

For reference, this is what is looks like now:

@Omni ->> Should be good now! Let me know.

Love it! ahhh tysm

Woo! Thanks for the Nature genre Nate! I'll be sure to use it!

Not sure how feasible this is - but it would be neat if at the end of the month there was like a re-cap on some of the Game Stats like there is for Review Recap and Top Lit Works Recap at the end of each month.

Could list like who completed Word Blossom the most (or had most points overall), who earned most points in Word Trail over the month, etc.

One thing I noticed on the People Tab... when Club Updates get posted there it looks like I should be able to click on the Club Name to go directly to the Club, but it doesn't allow a person to do that. I do really like how you can view club updates from the People Tab though!

I wish when you clicked hashtags you had the number navigation option rather than just the two arrows (helps for finding specific old instances of hashtag use... like for instance, trying to find an old poem I wrote in 2022 with the #imitateme hashtag, but having to comb through a bunch of pages to go backwards in time. Love that you can go backwards in time with it though!

New Green Room navigation stuff looks awesome! Thanks so much!

I also really like the wording you've updated in the "About YWS" section pages and found the Terms of Service language about Acceptable Use very helpful in particular (I think eventually some of that language would be good to integrate into the rules specifically).

Only aspect of those new pages I think might need an edit is in the FAQ "Where can I hang out casually" - right now mentions chat, I wonder if when we get the new WFP alternative it will make sense to mention that there?

@alliyah ->> I didn't think anyone would even notice the new About pages! I did an SEO audit of YWS, and one of the biggest findings that came back was that search engines really had no idea what the site was about. So, hoping to fix that and also make those pages more useful for new & existing members. Glad to hear you've already found it useful. On a side note, the creative commons vector art used there will be showing up a lot more across the site as I'm a big fan of vector art.

Added pagination to the hashtags, and updated the club name to be a link. I had no idea that wasn't even working, so thanks for bringing it up!

I like the idea of a monthly recap for games. Most of the code needed to do that is already written for the literary spotlight and reviews, so won't take long at all to extend that to games.

Okay I'm really loving all the updates, Nate!! I remember my initial thought when I joined YWS being- wow, this looks ahem antique, might take some getting used to. But I'm sure this modernized version is going to be a lot easier to navigate for our newer members. Thanks for putting in all the tremendous effort to make YWS even more special for us!

Now real quick, I wanted to bump up this post @Avian made which you must've missed due to the huge influx of suggestions then. I personally relate to this problem very much and fixing it would really make it a whole lot easier on us reviewers (finding the best work to review takes away half my energy at times). I know it might be trickier to sort out the GR with the new code, but please look into it if it's possible. Thank you!

Avian wrote:update request: adding a poetry/short stories/chapters/other filter to the green room. i most often read and review poetry, and it sometimes is a hassle to scroll through and look for poetry—would be nice if i could filter the others out.

@AlexWrites ->> Forgot to respond to @Avian, but didn't miss the request! That feature is already live in the Green Room. Look for the "Type - All" dropdown, and you can select poetry from there.

Thank you so much, Nate! I must've missed it somehow, guess it's a sign to review more now =D

@AlexWrites ->> No Worries! With all the changes lately, I'm surprised anyone can keep up with them haha.

Suggestion: make an incredibly detailed changelog at the end of all the updates like a video game update XD the longer the more impressive!

I love the new Events tab!

It would be really cool if we could create our own challenges as well, I can think of a couple of examples (for instance, I'd love to do a reading challenge!) where it might be fun to host one. Maybe with an option to upload your own badge for anyone who completes the challenge to receive at the end? That would also be so helpful to the mod team when it comes to hosting events, implementing challenges during events like NaPo would be great! Just an idea!

@LadySpark -> That's a great idea! Didn't even think of reading challenges, but that'd be a great addition.

Once we get into August, I'll add the ability for people to create their own challenges.