Scratch

paulmedwal wrote:

Short answer: don't worry about it, I already have a fix for that.
Long answer: I'm caching the output that comes from the database, and I'm grabbing the top 10* from the db. However on the server I will randomize what projects the user sees . . .

Short reply:  Cool! Thanks for the reply! 
Long reply: Yes, that sounds like a much better way to do it.

Sorry if I was offensive.  I hope I write helpful posts; at least it's fun to try to think these things through for myself.  It's especially nice when those that can affect Scratch join the discussion here.  Thanks!

paulmedwal wrote:

Regarding your other concerns, that is why I am implementing showcase Clutters. This gives everyone a chance to be on the home page, and its not "random" since people are selecting their best projects.

Yes, very cool! I replied there too.


I believe these categories, especially "top viewed" suffer from a feedback loop:
IIUC, "top viewed" projects stay at top until most of the the participating active users of the front page have viewed the project, (views count once per user) then it drops down bellow other projects. (IIUC "top viewed" is usually fed by projects with enticing thumbnail and/or title, and/or the user is already popular, and/or the user self-promotes well... Projects rise in this list whether or not the community thinks it belongs here. There is no recourse if they feel they were tricked into viewing.)

Then top viewed often feeds top love-its, (more views=more opportunity for love-its) and often rises in "What the Community is Loving" until the rate of love-its drop below other projects. (users can only love-it once.)

I think the log of this project illustrates the feedback loop:

The Beach part 8 project notes wrote:

...
3rd top viewed
2nd top viewed
1st top viewed
3rd top loved
2nd top loved
1st top loved

Randomizing the top 10 to top 3 may just make this feedback process slower.

I really like the ratio of views to love-its as a replacement for top loved and viewed.
Perhaps showcased projects can feed that?  EDIT: instead of "newest projects", so that people can easily promote what they want, instead of everything they upload.

Thanks!

Last edited by JTxt (2010-11-01 15:48:02)

Lucario621 wrote:

JTxt wrote:

(long post)

Interesting analysis JTxt! One point I want to comment on;

JTxt wrote:

I believe these categories, especially "top viewed" suffer from a feedback loop:
IIUC, "top viewed" projects stay at top until most of the the participating active users of the front page have viewed the project, (views count once per user) then it drops down bellow other projects.

Perhaps there could be a Love-it/Don't love-it button, in which by pressing love it, once again it would be added so it would move up the front page, but if you press don't love it, than it wouldn't show that you pressed that button or anything, but it would help bump the project down the front page; so people who don't like misleading projects would have a say in things better, while not offending anybody.

But there's likely to be flaws...

that could cause LOTS of fights. people would start pressing that instead of flagging inappropriate projects; people would say "I'm pressing 'don't love it!'" on projects by someone they don't like, that are inappropriate, or are just front paged and they don't like famous scratchers,  and that would start a big conflict, and it wouldn't even be flagged for the scratch team to check it out.

I can already see many flaws in your idea; build up on it more, maybe to make it more fair. 

and remember, there IS a time limit for being top viewed; i forget it exactly, though. 

Lucario621 wrote:

Perhaps there could be a Love-it/Don't love-it button . . .

Yeah, that would give a recourse too, and may work great-- but I agree with emilypie that it may cause fights.

Or, simply viewing then leaving a project without pressing "love it" can be like "don't love it".  That's the effect if we have a row sorted by the ratio of love-its to views. 
(This would replace the views and love-it rows.)

iCode-747 wrote:

To tell you the truth, I hate this idea, I really don't know why. 

Support anyway, because my reason is probably stupid.

There are very few stupid reasons (or ideas.)  I highly doubt you have one of them.  Please share!  It may help us come up with even better ideas.

(If it is, I promise to laugh with you.    )

Last edited by JTxt (2010-10-28 22:42:13)

Thanks for all the feedback and thinking! 

paulmedwal wrote:

The 3 random projects from the top 10 Clutters are now being shown on the Clutter website frontpage. Also, the showcase Clutters are on the front page. Go to clutter.scratch.mit.edu to check it out.

Thanks scmb1, it really makes the homepage more active, and thanks to everyone for helping out by coming up with and refining suggestions. The Scratch team is reading them, and as you see, we may even try a few out!

Announcement on the Clutter site

Awesome! Thanks for trying it out. 

@JTxt
1. I agree, a feedback loop can occur. It doesn't make sense for me to test it on the Clutter site given the small number of projects and users. The Scratch website (and eventually Clutter) has a rule that the top viewed/loved/remixed must be made within 2 weeks, which at least limits the time it is possible for a feedback loop to occur.

2. The views/loveit ratio seems like a good idea. Again, on the Clutter site there are so few users/loveits, that it does not make sense to test it out there.

3. You should assume we don't have access to which projects were just cached (not technically true, there are ways of getting it, but its not a solution we will probably use). A simpler solution is to always have the newest projects randomly take from the top 20 newest projects, as I mentioned in my previous post.

Yeah, its just me. I'm also a student in another lab at MIT (not the Scratch lab), so I work on the Clutter site in my free time.

If you haven't seen already, this idea of taking a random 3 projects is being used on the Scratch home page for the "Newest Projects" section, so now more new projects will be seen. It is completed in Scratch Suggestions and thanks to scmb1 and JTxt for the ideas.

scmb1 wrote:

paulmedwal wrote:

If you haven't seen already, this idea of taking a random 3 projects is being used on the Scratch home page for the "Newest Projects" section, so now more new projects will be seen. It is completed in Scratch Suggestions and thanks to scmb1 and JTxt for the ideas.

I hadn't seen that. Thanks for showing me. That will make Newest Projects a lot better. 

Here's the announcement. I'm hoping paulmedwal will have a chance to implement this for the ScratchDesignStudio row soon as well.

I'm still a big fan of the idea of doing the same for the "What the community is..." rows, but that's a harder sell.  One step at a time. 

I totally support this idea. It will make people have more views on their projects randomly. Brilliant!

Sorry to bump an old thread, but this suggestion is doing pretty well on the Suggestions page. Keep voting!