Scratch

AddZero wrote:

So yeah, our 'favorites' or 'bookmarks' will be larger, but easily sortable.  (see discussion on faceted search and delicious.com above.)... and these tag votes would help the community by keeping categories more relevant.

Yes! I'm entirely sold on this idea.

Thanks fullmoon, coka, others... I hope!  Or something else that would be better for our community.


I moved this conversation from another thread, so I don't take it too far off topic:

boogawk wrote:

I like that idea.... It's kind of like the whole community is a curator.

Right!  It's kind of like that.

boogawk wrote:

But there would have to be different competitors for it to be voting...?

Any project can have any tag added.  When a tag is added, it's like it's nominated for that tag, then on each of those tag pages, that sub-community votes those tags up or down.  So any project can be a 'competitor' for any tag.


Here's another example of the tag voting in action:

Lets say I submit a racing game, with the "Game" tag... and to be silly, I add the "Waffles" tag.
Here's the current tags and votes:
Current tags & votes:  Game: 1, Waffles: 1

It shows up on the "Game" tags page under "Recently tagged 'game' projects."

"Scratcher1", looking for games, visits my racing game.
He loves it, so he adds it to his favorites, by clicking the star next to the Game tag...
He also wants to add this to his "Racing" collection so he adds the "Racing" tag.
It's now telling him he can vote down less helpful tags, so he votes down Waffles.
Current tags & votes:  Game: 2, Racing: 1, Waffles: 0

Now it shows up on the "Racing" tag page under: "Recently tagged 'Racing' projects."
"Scratcher2" sees it, and thinks it's Awesome.
So on the racing project page, they click the star next to the "Racing" tag.
He also wants to add it to projects he thinks are awesome, so he adds the "awesome" tag... and also votes down Waffles.
Current tags & votes:  Game: 2, Racing: 2, Awesome: 1, Waffles -1

So now it also shows up on the "Awesome" tag page under "Newly tagged 'awesome' projects.  If people on this page think it's awesome, they may add it to their favorites with the "Awesome" tag, if they do nothing so it just fades off that section.  If a bunch of people think it's "Awesome" it will show up under "top tagged as awesome in the last 24 hours." then if more people tag it "Awesome" then it may be in the last "Week"... "Month"... "Year"... "All time" 
After a project gets more exposure in a tag page, that sub-community might vote up to agree with the vote, or they may vote up with another tag "game", so that they can vote down with that tag. "awesome"

Lets say after a while, here's the tags and scores for this project:
Game:31, Racing:26, Fun: 16, Car Art: 7, Scroller: 4, Rock Music: 3, [2 hidden]

You can click "[2 hidden]" to see: Awesome: -5, Waffles: -25.

People that added it as awesome still have it in their favorites.  (or perhaps, if feelings are hurt, don't show negative numbers on tags?)



So that's an example.  Perhaps I'm missing something, and in practice people will use it completely differently.  Lets keep thinking about this critically.  We need more devils advocates! 

I think the community can be nudged towards using more basic helpful tags by suggesting them, so people would be more likely to click those than typing them in....  I believe this will balance out and be easier and much more helpful than what we have now... but I could be wrong, perhaps there's something better... let's keep discussing!

Last edited by AddZero (2010-05-11 18:56:33)

AddZero wrote:

Thanks fullmoon, coka, others... I hope!  Or something else that would be better for our community.


I moved this conversation from another thread, so I don't take it too far off topic:

boogawk wrote:

I like that idea.... It's kind of like the whole community is a curator.

Right!  It's kind of like that.

boogawk wrote:

But there would have to be different competitors for it to be voting...?

Any project can have any tag added.  When a tag is added, it's like it's nominated for that tag, then on each of those tag pages, that sub-community votes those tags up or down.  So any project can be a 'competitor' for any tag.


Here's another example of the tag voting in action:

Lets say I submit a racing game, with the "Game" tag... and to be silly, I add the "Waffles" tag.
Here's the current tags and votes:
Current tags & votes:  Game: 1, Waffles: 1

It shows up on the "Game" tags page under "Recently tagged 'game' projects."

"Scratcher1", looking for games, visits my racing game.
He loves it, so he adds it to his favorites, by clicking the star next to the Game tag...
He also wants to add this to his "Racing" collection so he adds the "Racing" tag.
It's now telling him he can vote down less helpful tags, so he votes down Waffles.
Current tags & votes:  Game: 2, Racing: 1, Waffles: 0

Now it shows up on the "Racing" tag page under: "Recently tagged 'Racing' projects."
"Scratcher2" sees it, and thinks it's Awesome.
So on the racing project page, they click the star next to the "Racing" tag.
He also wants to add it to projects he thinks are awesome, so he adds the "awesome" tag... and also votes down Waffles.
Current tags & votes:  Game: 2, Racing: 2, Awesome: 1, Waffles -1

So now it also shows up on the "Awesome" tag page under "Newly tagged 'awesome' projects.  If people on this page think it's awesome, they may add it to their favorites with the "Awesome" tag, if they do nothing so it just fades off that section.  If a bunch of people think it's "Awesome" it will show up under "top tagged as awesome in the last 24 hours." then if more people tag it "Awesome" then it may be in the last "Week"... "Month"... "Year"... "All time" 
After a project gets more exposure in a tag page, that sub-community might vote up to agree with the vote, or they may vote up with another tag "game", so that they can vote down with that tag. "awesome"

Lets say after a while, here's the tags and scores for this project:
Game:31, Racing:26, Fun: 16, Car Art: 7, Scroller: 4, Rock Music: 3, [2 hidden]

You can click "[2 hidden]" to see: Awesome: -5, Waffles: -25.

People that added it as awesome still have it in their favorites.  (or perhaps, if feelings are hurt, don't show negative numbers on tags?)



So that's an example.  Perhaps I'm missing something, and in practice people will use it completely differently.  Lets keep thinking about this critically.  We need more devils advocates! 

I think the community can be nudged towards using more basic helpful tags by suggesting them, so people would be more likely to click those than typing them in....  I believe this will balance out and be easier and much more helpful than what we have now... but I could be wrong, perhaps there's something better... let's keep discussing!

So there's separate votes, but the competition is within the projects with the same tag?

AddZero wrote:

Thanks for the comments!

coolstuff wrote:

I like the idea that rather than people adding whichever tags they want, you actually + and - tags.

The person adding the project, may not think of every possible tag that is relevant to the project at the time...  Perhaps in the future, there will be a group of scratchers obsessed with projects that have techno music... and they'll try to find and add the "techno music" tag older projects.  So I think anyone should be able to add tags as well as vote up and down existing tags.  (+ and -, or star and down arrow. would probably work equally as well.)

I think part of what I think will keep tags relevant, (not non-sense or spammy.) is that by adding (or confirming, or voting on tags,) they are adding it to their favorites with words that help them organize their favorites.

coolstuff wrote:

It would be nice, though, if when a tag gets a certain negative number of stars, that it could be removed? Otherwise, it seems ridiculously pointless.

Yeah, tags voted bellow -5, are hidden.
People that are curious to see those tags, can click the [show 2 hidden] (or however many are hidden.) link at the end of the tags.

Even tags that have been voted down to oblivion, were useful to somebody, because they're using that tag to organize that project in their favorites... (or some may add them to be silly, annoying, but that's ok, because they're hidden.) and that tag might be useful to someone else... or at least for history.

boogawk wrote:

So there's separate votes, but the competition is within the projects with the same tag?

Right!  Each tag added gets some time on that Tag's "Newly tagged as 'X'"  So the community decides how relevant each of those tags are.
On a project some tags are voted up, some go down.

Some might not realize or care that they're voting how relevant this project is to each tag.  All they know is that if they want show appreciation for a project, (like love it) and to add a project to their favorites, (bookmarks might be a better name for this), they click the star next to at least one tag that describes the project.  The community voting is like a side effect of people tring build a useful bookmarks list.
 
Useful individual favorites/bookmarks pages = useful community tag pages.

Some may just pick random tags, to be silly or annoying.  I believe the mini-community in each of those tags will help defend their favorite tags pages... to keep them useful.  I think it would take a very large and organized deviant group to artificially control tag
pages... and I believe the community would respond.

So what if there's only one project to a tag, or a project doesn't have any tags? Also, what if it's something huge, like, "game?"

AddZero wrote:

boogawk wrote:

So what if there's only one project to a tag,

Then there will be only one project on that tag page.

If it's a weird tag that nobody else will ever use (like: fhlewhdsflkj!!!!) is added to a project, people will probably vote it down till it's hidden, when they vote up other tags that make sense to them.  (that would help them organize their favorites.)

boogawk wrote:

or a project doesn't have any tags?

If a project is submitted with no tags, then it won't show up on any public tag page.
Someone might discover it on the user's page and like it, then add tags to add to their favorites, then it may get exposure...

boogawk wrote:

Also, what if it's something huge, like, "game?"

Then it will show up on the "game" tag page under "recently tagged 'game' project" for a short time.  (others will knock it off quickly.) If someone sees it they may vote up game, and more specific tags, like "racing", "mario"
if it gets many "game" votes/tags/favorites, it will show up under "top tagged 'game' projects."

So it would be to the project creator's advantage to add several useful tags when they
submit a project.

Does this make sense?

yes. It really is a great idea!!!

shadow_7283 wrote:

There has been a lot of nice discussion since I've last posted, but I have a new question that I don't believe has been adressed yet. Wouldn't this system make for a crowded front page?

I think it will make the front page less important, because people could go to the tag pages they like...
(Each tag page would be like a front page for that tag: "recently tagged 'X'." "Top tagged "X" And perhaps (but less important) a "Suggested Projects"  (projects tagged as X and also tagged with another tag the user likes.) And with discussions at the bottom.)

The front page could then be like a non-specific tag page, with more general community features.
-------------------------------------
Front page if not logged in:
- "Featured Projects" (projects added to the "Scratch Team Featured*" group.)
- "Top FaveTagged Projects. (last 24 hours, week, month, year, all time  -links to filter.)"
- "Projects tagged as "Scratch Design Studio - Graffiti"  (so anyone can add to the current SDS, but voted/moderated by the community, like other tags.

(notice there's no "What the community is viewing".  I think top views is a poor metric because it's mostly projects that were just successful at getting attention, with their thumbnail or title.  If people like a project, and think others should see it, they will tag it and bookmark/favorite.
and there's no "Top Loved", that becomes Top FaveTagged.
I think top remixing is a good idea, but needs more work... perhaps: projects worked on by multiple people or something.)

-----------------------------------------
Front page if logged in:
- "Projects requesting help or attention now."  (where people that are online now, can put one of their projects on this list.  so people needing help/attention now can get it.  More helpful than "Newest projects" or "random projects." I think. Perhaps only show to online users, for same reason we don't have newest projects shown to non-logged in users anymore... inappropriate content.) 
- "Featured Projects"
- "Top FaveTagged Projects."
- "Projects FaveTagged as "Scratch Design Studio - Graffiti" (see notes above.)
- "Your Suggested Projects"  (this could be rising projects with tags that I like.)
- "New projects by people that made projects I like."  (perhaps there's a simpler way to phrase that...  perhaps merge this with Your Suggested Projects?)

shadow_7283 wrote:

How are you planning on reorganizing it so that you can still see the tags you want to see, without having to scroll through them all?

I think suggested projects would cover this need.  If it is too hard on the server to make suggestions, then perhaps show "top tagged 'Game'" or whatever tags I use the most on the front page.

shadow_7283 wrote:

What if I wanted to see a good game using the tag "game"? So many projects (good or bad) are tagged "game". What if I wanted to see a really good game project, like the ones that sometimes reach the top loved section on the current front page?

I think the projects that get a bunch of "game" votes, will still be what the community thinks is the best "game"...

I mentioned above there may be people that vote up as "game" so they can vote down a tag they want to defend. But now I don't think this would happen very often.  Once a tag on a project is voted below -5, it's hidden.  so it probably won't be enough to make a project top with another tag.  There might be some tag wars... but people are organizing their public favorites with these tags, and I hope/think they will tend to pick helpful tags.  but I can't predict how the community will use this exactly...  (This still needs more thought to be the best it can be.)

Also to answer you question, perhaps it should be easy to also filter a tag page by value tags like "Awesome" "Fun" (and other tags. like filtering the "Mario" page with "Racing" to see just Mario Racing. Perhaps on the side of each tag page, is a list of other tags common in those projects, that lets the user filter down. Perhaps hard on the server if not heavily cached or something. solr... again it's faceted search, discussed above.)

shadow_7283 wrote:

Would you have a section catering to that, such as "Top Favorite-Tagged Game"? Which brings me back to me old point. If many of your tags were listed on the main Scratch page, this would make for a confusing front page.

Yeah, it would, but again, I think this would take pressure off the front page, because people can go right to topics that interest them, and find projects that the community thinks belong.

Great questions! This is still being refined with your help!  I hope I helped.

Last edited by AddZero (2010-05-13 01:52:18)

shadow_7283 wrote:

Thanks for the explanation. I understand it now. So, when does it come out? 

   For fun, I'm attempting to build it as a Drupal module.
But, I will need help to do it right.

It's almost like flags, votes and taxonomy.  It would be nice to integrate with taxonomy at least.

There's other people wanting something like this.  http://drupal.org/node/147448
I think the next step is to write a clear, non-scratch-specific proposal.

Last edited by AddZero (2010-05-14 10:45:56)

meew0 wrote:

I made a mockup for the share dialog:

http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/meew0/1061734

But I really support this idea!

Cool, thanks for sharing!   

For now, I'm working on creating a website for discussion and development of this and other "better ways for online communities to share, organize, discover and remix content."
I hope this (or something else we haven't thought of yet) will be helpful to other communities.

(and I changed my name from AddZero.)

shadow_7283 wrote:

JTxt wrote:

(and I changed my name from AddZero.)

Really, why? (Impersonation alert)!

Time for change!
"AddZero" is kind of depressing.
I do more than nothing!  And my A.D.D. isn't that bad.   

Thanks for the support!
"FaveTags" may be going about it completely wrong.
But I hope to get more minds thinking about this (and better ideas) critically.
And I need to do more reading.
There's great resources and discussions going on about this, like:
http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/social/objects/collecting/index.html
http://quince.infragistics.com/Patterns/Tag%20Cloud.html
...

I believe we can make something that would work even better for us.

I found something else similar, interesting reading:
http://findability.org/archives/000163.php

This site has voted/weighted tags for product reviews:
Here's a random product:
http://www.buzzillions.com/dz_348463_men_rockport_margin_casual_oxford_shoe_reviews

Pros
    * Comfortable (170)
    * Durable (118)
    * Stable (101)
    * Breathable (100)
    * Lightweight (48)
    * Attractive (41)
Cons
    * Stains easily (9)
    * Wears quickly (7)
    * Uncomfortable (4)
    * Too stiff (3)
    * Poor arch support (2)
Best Uses
    * Business casual (111)
    * Casual wear (106)
    * Travel (54)
    * Formal events (25)

Now if these tags were clickable, and the user is taken to a tag page of newly/top tagged "Comfortable" products, (then add/remove related tags from the view, "comfortable+shoes" ) it would be closer to to this proposal for scratchr.  Still, it's cool!

Last edited by JTxt (2010-06-04 01:50:10)

shadow_7283 wrote:

You may have already covered this, but I can't remember and am too lazy to browse through posts. What about names with the same meaning. For instance, I could tag something OS and someone else could tag it Operating System. Shouldn't both appear on your front page?

If the community uses both terms to add to their individual bookmarks, both would appear on the project's page.  (although I think "Operating System" would be used more- be higher in the list than "OS"...  explained later.)

If you favetag "OS" more than "Operating System", then if we have "suggested projects" on the front page, you would see more "OS" projects.

OS can mean many different things: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS
Favetag pages could have definitions at the top.  Perhaps the definition for OS should be like that wiki page; with links to, and encouraging use of more specific terms.

(Tag definitions could be edited in a wiki-like manner.)

Individually, you can put whatever tags you want... whatever (positive) words are helpful to you in organizing it in your bookmarks/favorites.
Then the community can also pick your tag to organize their bookmarks, or they may pick another and vote yours down for being misspelled, or ambiguous. (more than one meaning)  So I think those will have a harder time becoming popular to the community.

Without some moderation, there will be overlap like that...
but that might be ok.  I think the community will decide what's helpful to them.
I think scratchers that like misspelling words or ambiguous terms, or prefer longer words that mean the same thing, would be more comfortable with those like-minded scratchers.

Again, the "definition" could redirect them if they're interested.  (i.e. Waffels definition: "Waffels is a misspelling of Waffles(link)" ) But who knows; later on "Waffels" may mean something different.


Also, auto-complete and suggestions (like google) when typing tag names could reduce overlapping terms. (but that's getting more difficult to implement and serve... and that might not be desirable... perhaps just before adding or using a tag, the definition is shown as a popup, and the user can click suggested variations?)

Thanks for the question/discussion!

Last edited by JTxt (2010-06-04 13:44:19)

JTxt wrote:

Challenge: Go to the waffles tag page, and try to find a project about waffles.

I cheated and used "find" for "waffles". There is only ONE project related to waffles on that whole page!

I like the idea with the group things.