all 55 comments

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (48 children)

Yeah I think we can do this and it's been requested a few times now. Would everyone prefer this, or prefer that we retire the auto subscribe feature instead? Its intent was discovering more content when there was less being submitted.

[–]OldManCorley 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (39 children)

How about an "auto subscribe to new subs" - toggle?

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (38 children)

I like this idea. Should new users have this checked by default, I guess?

[–]OldManCorley 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (37 children)

I think the standard model is the best, there's a set of standard subs that new members are subscribed to and no auto subscribe. This encourage the culture of subs the admins promote through a curated "default" set.

Or perhaps make it an event, each month the admins add a promising sub to the default list etc.

In the beginning the explanation for auto subscribe was to encourage niche subs AFAIK, but that feature is maintained by hot and new /all.

Opt in auto sub. 👍

[–]magnora7 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (35 children)

I think the standard model is the best, there's a set of standard subs that new members are subscribed to and no auto subscribe. This encourage the culture of subs the admins promote through a curated "default" set.

Yeah that's not a bad idea. We originally included everything to make sure that no one missed anything, since the community was so tiny back then. However we also then later put the /home page (which is a copy of /all with just a few subs like s/ads removed) as the front page to accomplish the same thing, so on reflection I suppose it is a bit redundant. I'd be OK using the more standard model as long as /home (basically mirroring /all) is the front page still, like you said.

We might just change the policy for new users and leave existing users unaffected. I think that'd be the easiest way to make that change if we were to do so.

So we're talking about changing these two things exactly:

  1. Have a small set of default subs that new users are subscribed to, instead of them being subscribed to all subs

  2. Create a 'auto-subscribe to new subs' checkbox in user preferences

I think we could do that. Item 1 is easy to change, I could do it in 10 mins if I have the list of subs that should be default. We'll have to decide on that I guess. Like /s/pics and /s/technology and /s/worldpolitics and /s/worldnews and /s/news... something like that. Maybe 20-30 in total?

Item 2 will take a little work, probably going to need d3rr's help for that one

[–]OldManCorley 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (20 children)

Sounds like a good way to go about it.

I suggest including the community to allow us to share a sense of ownership of the site identity, like a post calling for suggestions, and the most upvoted suggestions not already in the admins list (and are suitable) get included in the default set?

[–]magnora7 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Okay that sounds like a good idea, I'm always for more community involvement in the process of developing saidit in to something special and this sounds like a great thing to bring to the community.

[–]magnora7 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

I'm remembering now that the reason we did it was the idea that subscriptions would be opt-out, so you could just unsubscribe from the ones you don't like, rather than subscribing to the ones you do like.

I guess we could add a "subscribe to all" option in the user preferences just like there's an "unsubscribe to all" option. That way people can do an opt-out subscription method if they prefer.

I'm going to talk this over with d3rr in the coming days, then if he thinks it's a good idea then I'll make that post to the community. I've already written it :) This is the default list so far:

/s/pics

/s/maps

/s/technology

/s/worldpolitics

/s/politics

/s/worldnews

/s/news

/s/quotes

/s/collusion

/s/science

/s/privacy

/s/corruption

/s/censorship

/s/Antiwar

/s/finance

/s/business

/s/TechCompanies

/s/Saidit

[–]OldManCorley 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm remembering now that the reason we did it was the idea that subscriptions would be opt-out, so you could just unsubscribe from the ones you don't like, rather than subscribing to the ones you do like.

Which is what I did, and it worked as intended. But after manually filtering the third page it got tedious. That system is at end of life, as planned.

This is the default list so far:

/s/conspiracy 👌😑👍

[–]JasonCarswell 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

All it needs is an indicator in the preferences: All, none (reset to zero), custom.

Default on all.

Any change to All or None automatically switches to custom.

Or check a preset box, after which any custom things would switch to custom...

  • All

  • 0 = a lot of subs have 0 posts, and some are still good to have should folks find it topical

  • 1 = some subs have only 1 post

  • ...

  • 10+ = I'd say more than half of the subs have less than 10 posts.

  • 20 = >80 subs have 20 or more posts

  • custom

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

We have an existing list of default subs already that is high visibility in the app before someone logs in, and also on site in 'My Subs'. I like your new list here, the existing list is kind of skimpy and generic. It's good that this is getting attention.

/s/funny

/s/gifs

/s/music

/s/musicvideos

/s/pics

/s/saidit

/s/science

/s/technology

/s/videos

/s/worldnews

(these are set via the command line into some global variable, it's kinda weird)

[–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

I'm not saying this list is right or wrong but I see one huge problem with it through no fault of anyones.

If you know this is the list then you are only going to post stuff under these labels. It doesn't even have entertainment or media or propaganda or YouTube or a lot of things, thing that I'd want over "TechCompanies". So were I to post for example a Tin Foil Hat episode I might be compelled/forced to post it in "news" or ... there is no where else really. You didn't even list "conspiracy". It's not about what you did or did not list. It's that this list whatever it may contain will EXCLUDE a lot else.

People post for whatever reasons. Some for points. Some for eyes. Some for passion or purpose or whatever. Most posts are meant to be seen. Being seen would mean conforming to a list.

I've just talked myself into hating the list.

I'm willing to be talked out of it.

I have another idea that doesn't really improve things but is something to consider.

On 2019-01-02 I made made this table - https://infogalactic.com/info/SaidIt#Site . It was painful but once I started I was determined to finish it. I wasn't subbed to several subs in the last month, I'd guess under 20 of the latest are not included. In this table the "Posts" columns are sortable by number.

Maybe there's a way set this up in code on SaidIt rather than manually. Discounting the 0-post-subs you have a VERY clear indicator of the most populated subs, for whatever reasons. Maybe you can create other statistics based on votes and fun too, to really source the literally popular subs. (ie. My (fictional) "MaxHeadroom" sub with 50 posts is ignored by everyone - so it has a lot of post but is not popular.)

Once again, you'd get pooling/puddling People posting where the eyes go, rather than under the best sub title - thus this defeats the main purpose of the sub titles - to better classify the torrent of incoming content.

I'm adamantly against the lists that will collect into puddles of mush.

OR

Make the mush puddles AND improve or upgrade to a better internal search engine. DuckDuckGo and Google search suck ass on SaidIt. These may be fixable. There are ways to ask their bots to search and scan SaidIt, and I'm sure there's apps or something that might be able to ping them and the InternetArchive, etc.

I really hope I don't sound grumpy. This is all IMHO.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

So were I to post for example a Tin Foil Hat episode I might be compelled/forced to post it in "news" or

But you realize 99% of users just look at /all because it's the front page, right? So only some tiny portion, like 1%, would be excluded by posting it to a non-default sub. Seems like a non-problem tbh

[–]JasonCarswell 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Do your statistics really reflect that or did you figuratively guess that?

I used to use "hot" and "new" and "comments" only - never "all". Trying to break my addiction I stopped using "comments" - ironically before you created the "comments" tab.

I hope to stop using "new" soon too. (So I can focus on projects.)

This will leave me in the same position I was just complaining about that is inherent in Reddit too. The "hot" items will be "popular" but not necessarily the best if there aren't enough folks actually sifting through all of it.

Similarily on Reddit, stats prove that the first dozen comments are waaaay more likely to be voted the best even if #50 of 100 is clearly the best. It's a flaw of the system.

It's also quantity problem. I'm overwhelmed here and feel like I'm missing stuff. Like anything I guess. Can't read all the books, see all the movies, hear all the music, etc.

[–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

I created a "SaidItSurveys" sub for just such an occasion.

/s/SaidItSurveys

I hadn't noticed there was already /s/AskSaidIt

Maybe /u/magnora7 or /u/d3rr can move the two surveys to the AskSaidit and delete that sub? You have my permission and I'd actually prefer that. If you can't delete it I'd be happy if you could move those posts to AskSaidit and change the sub to "ZoonPolitikon" to save me a week.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

/s/AskSaidIt is for general Q and A with the SaidIt community, like hey saidit does toothpaste really strip enamel because it is polishing compound? So I think your SaidItSurveys is perfect.

[–]JasonCarswell 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Okay. You changed my mind back. Thanks. I feel good about it now, again.

You can talk me into almost anything.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Doesn't matter, we can have two

[–]JasonCarswell 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

I guess. :(

I like order where possible when it comes to information.

I would be a great librarian or totalitarian if I didn't care about people.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Redundancy is unavoidable in a federated sub system like saidit has. You can delete your duplicate sub if you really want though lol. It's okay either way

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (13 children)

We can do whatever we need to here. I suggest:

  1. Signup page gets a new checkbox "auto-subscribe to all subs" (can be checked or unchecked by default)
  2. If you auto-subscribe to all, you will also be auto subscribed to all new subs (a new feature, and we can force catch up existing users who are subscribed to 100+ subs)
  3. Add a new preference "subscription model" with choices "auto-subscribe all" or "manual subscriptions"
  4. The "unsubscribe from all subs" preference can stay in place and work with either "subscription model" preference

So then we support both approaches pretty good and just have to decide what the default approach should be.

[–]magnora7 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Sounds good to me, let's do it. The only thing missing is a 'default sub list' option for 1, for the 20-30 handpicked subs. So we really need 3 options: All, none, default list

Other than that, it sounds very good!

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

I think we can combine 'none' and 'default list'. If someone wants none they can come in and choose "unsubscribe from all subs" or manually unsub fom 30 subs. We can offer 3 choices but it will make my mom's head spin, especially if she has to choose from those on signup :) If there's a single subscriptions preference with 3 choices that'd be okay but I think signup should be straight forward.

edit: whoops I forgot about chat I'll get that going again.

[–]magnora7 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Okay, that works too! I agree no 3 choices on signup. But I just am thinking that tbh only about 1% of users are going to use the subscriptions as long as it's not the main page, so I don't know if it's even worth putting the checkbox on the sign up page. We could just put it all on the user preferences page.

Yeah sorry about chat, it was doing this weird thing where I'd start everything up and it would work perfectly for about 3-5 mins, then thelounge would crash and it would 503 the chat box. Then I'd restart thelounge and it'd work again for another 3-5 mins, then crash again. I couldn't figure out why, do you have any ideas? Is there some secret sauce command? lol

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

The 3-5 minute thing sounds like TheLounge was already running and a second server instance got started, just guessing though.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Actually thinking about it more, maybe the 3 options could be in the user preferences and not on the signup page. I think we can just put all users to default, but give the 3 options in the user preferences page. We don't want to overcomplicate the user signup process, especially for a feature that few will likely use (as long as /home is /all instead of /subscribed) so I think it might be easy to just put it all in the user preferences page and default new users to the default list.

And then also add a "auto-subscribe to new subs" option in the user preferences too. That'd cover everything I think.

So basically the choice to reset subscription list to (all, none, default) and the auto-subscribe to new subs checkbox. Both just added to the user preferences page.

Just thinking aloud here, if you have a better plan, go for it

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Sounds good, I like it. Nice and simple and expected Reddit-like behavior for new users.

[–]magnora7 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Yeah exactly. Sweet deal

[–]JasonCarswell 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

But declare it in the registration. "By default you will be subbed to all subs. Other options exist in your preferences." Otherwise you'll have new Redditers always asking about it.

[–]JasonCarswell 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I like this idea of a curated "default" set with promising additions (but with the option to add 1, 0, or more as they see fit).

Further it might an option to do it by count, perhaps with several options. For example:

  • 0 = a lot of subs have 0 posts, and some are still good to have should folks find it topical

  • 1 = some subs have only 1 post

  • ...

  • 10+ = I'd say more than half of the subs have less than 10 posts.

  • 20 = >80 subs have 20 or more posts

In this table the "Posts" columns are sortable by number : https://infogalactic.com/info/SaidIt#Site

Note: That list was made 2019-01-02 and I wasn't subbed to several subs in the last month, under 20 of the latest I'd guess.

Being anal as I am I'm not thrilled about where a few folks are posting stuff. Either in something too general (ie WorldPolitics when it's about a region) or a far tangential stretch (ie conspiracy theory when it's not a conspiracy or a theory). But I'm picky and calling the kettle something.

Opt in auto sub. 👍

ping /u/magnora7 /u/d3rr

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

In the same vein, could we perhaps add a user option to set the default page to be 'subscribed' instead of 'home' if they choose? Also keep in mind https://saidit.net/subs/new/ exists so it's easy for users to add new ones if they want.

[–]JasonCarswell 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Can you please add the https://saidit.net/subs/ and https://saidit.net/subs/new/ to the menu at the top?

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

The "edit subs" at the top button already has this, then you can go to the 'new' tab

[–]JasonCarswell 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

DAMNIT. Now it works. I tried that before. I'm so confused.

[–]magnora7 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

It had an error I just discovered today. If you were on the main page, it worked fine, but if you were in a sub's comment page and clicked it, then it would give an error page.

I fixed that today, took about an hour. So you're not crazy, don't worry lol

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Dude great fix, sweet

[–]magnora7 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks! :)

[–]JasonCarswell 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

You didn't need to but thanks for clearing that up.

I feel a modicum of sanity returning.

Gonna have to do something about that.

[–]magnora7 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

No, existing users are not automatically subscribed to newly-created subs.

You can see the newest subs here though, and add the ones you like: https://saidit.net/subs/new/

[–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Doh!

I thought you guys fixed it so it was all autosubs.

My 2019-01-01 chart will be missing some.

Also, all folks who don't realize this could be missing lots of content.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Also, all folks who don't realize this could be missing lots of content.

Not really... because we have everyone going to /home which is similar to /all, and doesn't depend on subscriptions. Only /subscribed is affected by subscriptions.

[–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Can you please add the https://saidit.net/subs/ and https://saidit.net/subs/new/ to the menu at the top?

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

It's already there.... it's a link called "edit subs". Then click the 'new' tab if you want new subs

[–]JasonCarswell 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

DAMNIT. Now it works. I tried that before. I'm so confused.