what's on your wishlist?

[kaigou]

ETA: you can find all posts on this topic at http://kaigou.dreamwidth.org/tag/fantabulous+delicious+extravaganza

I've been watching the spiraling storms of raeg around del.icio.us and its utter fail, and there seem to be about six different places that people are randomly congregating about possibly doing a fandom version. Consider this a welcoming home if you want to link/share for all suggestions in one place. I don't know if anyone else is organizing this, but I'm not talking about the heavy-duty of code. I'm talking about something that has to happen before anyone puts code to screen, or else any project would end up just as messed-up as the current disaster.

Short version: first step is to figure out the fandom wishlist.

I do business analysis & an information architecture (BA/IA), so this isn't scary to me. Those titles just mean I figure/find out what clients (that's all ya'll) want (the BA part), and I figure out how to shape that into something meaningful and findable in a web application/site (the IA part). Basically, I organize stuff. Granted, something like this -- which is effectively tagging potentially the entire freaking intarweebs -- is much bigger than anything I've ever done personally... but that just means I'd be [very!!] happy to be joined by any other IA, or UX, or BA, folks. And, if for whatever reason real life gets in my way, at least this post would stand as a collection-point for the reference of whatever team does end up doing the project.

[NOTE: I'm not volunteering to run this project. I'm not even remotely considering running it. I'm just not a project manager. I will happily defer to, and assist, anyone who is and is willing to take on the lead position. Just be aware that I know where I'm good and PM ain't it.]

To keep this easy to organize for me and/or whomever ends up compiling it:

• PLEASE do ONE requirement/request PER REPLY. If you have five things that you really really think are important, do five replies. It's okay, this isn't spamming. It just makes it easier for the next step:
  
  
• If you see someone else has a request and it's the same as yours, just reply to that request with a +1 as the subject line. Consider it a kind of informal voting; the more +1 replies a request gets, obviously the more important it is to the community.
  
  
• Feel free to suggest something that del.icio.us didn't do, but that you've seen elsewhere. Be sure to add a link to a screenshot or the app itself so the requirements-gatherers (me and my kind) can see your suggestion in action, if that's at all possible.
  
  
• If you want to volunteer, please do that as a separate reply just so it doesn't get lost in the requests. Just put "VOLUNTEER" as the subject line of your reply, followed by the specific task. Like, say, "VOLUNTEER: php coding" or "VOLUNTEER: user interface design" or whatever. If you want to volunteer for something & you see someone else already has, just reply to their post with your own -- this way, everyone with similar skills gets grouped together, and we'll (hopefully) keep the noise-to-signal ratio down a little.
  
  
• Link, share, pass along, signal-boost, whatever you like.

I'm not going to reply to every single post, just to keep the noise level down, but I may reply if I'm not sure what you mean, for clarification. (If you're also a BA, IA, or UX person, feel free to jump in wherever, as you think's needed. The more the merrier.) See first comment & reply if you're interested in the ongoing googledoc with requests to Pinboard. Feel free to extract & copy to this list, if there's a wish there that you'd want recorded here, as well.

Also, anonymous comments are NOT being screened, so be sure to sign your post if you're volunteering, so we can find you! (You do not have to sign your posts if you're just adding to the general requirements list.)

Be civil, help keep the threads organized for easy finding later... and dream big.

Comments

[zellieh]

I think account hacking could be fixed by your second point: having a security question before you start a mass edit session. Anything to avoid the teeth-grindingly frustrating hassle of having to click through editing 1 (or 20) links at a time, as I'm currently having to do with Pinboard.

I just want to be able to mass edit several tags on several links, all at once. For example, if I have 57 links all tagged "SGA fic" and "SGA recs" and I want to change them all to say Stargate Atlantis instead of SGA, you know? Instead of having to change each tag individually, save that change, then start all over again to change the next tag, I want to be able to change several tags for all the bookmarks in a particular group.

Also, if security against the (real, but rare) risk of account hacking interferes with everyday usage and convenience for all users, is it worth it? There has to be a balance between security and usability. But setting an auto-backup option that users can choose to use (to save to a location of their choice, hard drive or website) would make a lot of people happy. Possibly security/identity verification, and also backup, should be separate suggestions for people to vote on?

Second: I think a combination would work best for most people: check and edit on the fly for individual tags would be great, then an extra security step (maybe a security question, and/or a captcha?) before entering mass-editing mode? But once you're in mass-editing mode, no more extra steps, so you can handle lots of bookmarks, links and tags as quickly and efficiently as possible.

I have over 4,000 bookmarks, so two clicks per link is already 8,000 mouse clicks; and each bookmark may have three or four tags... *sighs* Even if I'm only editing 50 bookmarks, it doesn't take long for extra steps and extra clicks to become annoyingly time-consuming.

(As frustrating as it is with Pinboard now I've swapped over to them. Far too many steps in their mass editing. Augh, 4,000 bookmarks, all messed up because I don't have tag bundles anymore. Augh Augh Augh! It's going to take me weeks to edit this mess on Pinboard.)

[kaigou]

How about these (and I'll add them to the end of the post as new replies, so they're easier to mark as requirements, if you think these might work):

for logged-in users (of course):

-- mass editing on-the-fly
---- based on boolean search (find all links ___ AND ___ NOT ___ )
... then you can edit each link one at a time, or...

-- change tag names:
1. select/enter existing tag (ie SGA)
2. enter new tag name (ie Stargate)
3a. apply to all (anything w/SGA)
OR
3b. apply to all links that satisfy X, Y, Z conditions (boolean search)

-- mass-bundling/stacking:
1. boolean search by tags
2. move into single group (stack/bundle)
3. name group

-- mass-deleting:
1. boolean search (to narrow down items to delete)
2. click on delete
3. answer two security questions
4a. if can't answer questions, must delete one-by-one
4b. if answer okay, all deleted

... alternately, this MIGHT be possible -- allow "undo" for 24 hours. Just in case you think twice and decide you made a mistake (or someone hacked and tried to delete!) then if you discover it inside 24 hours, you can still undo.

... which might mean that for 24 hours, those links would still be visible but flagged as "pending clearance" or some other phrase that means 'will be deleted permanently if you do nothing'

what do you think? any of those work for you? (I really don't think security needs to be massively tight on anything but the potential for deleting a whole bunch at once, and even that can be lessened if there's a way to allow a cooling-off period and/or "undo the damage" period.)

[zellieh]

Mass editing/deleting. I think deleting is not the only way to hack an account: there's also vandalism. So if you're going to have security at all, you need to do it properly and protect people against being hacked and having all their tags changed to yah-boo-sucks, or all their painstaking stacking/bundling organisation work undone, so I'd rather have security questions followed by freedom, except maybe the standard "are you sure?" check before deleting.

24-hour regret and undo on both edits and deletes would be a very good idea, just in general. I don't think 24-hour backup & reversal could replace security, because it'd take more than 24 hours to sort out a hacked account. I do want it, though, considering the number of mistakes I make, especially when I'm sleepy. *G*

-- change tag names:
1. select/enter existing tag (ie SGA)
2. enter new tag name (ie Stargate)
3a. apply to all (anything w/SGA)
OR
3b. apply to all links that satisfy X, Y, Z conditions (boolean search)
I'd see step 3b as unnecessary, if you could select groups of tags as well as individual tags at step 1. Put the flexible search and Boolean search there at the start. Google's autocomplete, Firefox's tagging for bookmarks, and Gmail's email labelling all have flexible searches where you can look for a letter or a word and get words and phrases.

Mass bundling/stacking would be great, and could be improved by an auto-add option, which would definitely need to give you a choice, but suggesting "add to recs bundle" for any link I tag "recs" would be a time saver, rather than tagging a link and then sorting it into a bundle as a separate step. (That is a bit wish-listy, because I'm not sure how much extra coding it would need.)

[kaigou]

Good point about the vandalism. Then maybe allow edits under a certain threshold (maybe per page?) to go without issue, but mass-edits to require security question?

-- It could be just as easy to allow deletions to rest for 24 hours, 48 hours, even 7 days, because those are just links flagged for clearance on X date. Not so easy if it's a matter of undoing edits (ie tag-name-changes) since that means saving the old and new. Hmmm. (It's possible, it's just something I'd have to defer to a developer to say whether there's a technical constraint on that, or maybe "undo option on tag editing" would be another premium feature).

I think it seems reasonable that if you have a bundle named Label_X and you tag something as label_X, that it could ask if you want it auto-added to the bundle by that same name... or maybe just add an option in the add-new-link function that lets you add the link, tag it, AND immediately add it to one/more bundles, stacks, groups, etc, at the same time?

[zellieh]

Yes, threshold would be best. Not sure where you'd set it, but it would at least help limit the damage, and still allow most casual users to avoid the hassle.

I think undo delete should be free, but if undo edit is so difficult, maybe it should be premium. Maybe set two time limits: free users get 24 hours or less for both undo delete and undo edit, but premium users get up to [X] days. Power users would pay the extra, and casual free users probably wouldn't need or want it, but you'd still reduce the load on the site.

Yes, a simple, one-step process would be best for both power users with lots of tags, and casual users who don't really want to have to think about their bookmarks. I like your idea of adding a bundle(s) option in the add-new-link function.