patrick.net

"It's a Pizza the minute you put your hands in the dough"

Love Poppy

kapone says

Folks - that's ok. I just wanted to let Patrick know my views on the redesign. He doesn't have to listen to me. :)

I am always delighted to get feedback! It's actually pretty hard to get people to say anything at all.

lurker123 says

I think the link quality has definitely gone down since you let users submit/vote. I use to wait until midnight M-F to check out your page to see what the latest links were. But now I briefly glance at the page two to three times a week and the links don't look too interesting and then I move on to another site. Have you not seen a drop in page views to your site?

The quality really is a function of the VOTING. Please vote! All you have to do is click up or down arrows now and then. You don't even need to be logged in.

Page views are the same as before, with the forum getting more views and comments, and the newslinks getting fewer views. I can live with that, since it's good for people to talk to each other.

My wife is very happy that I don't spend half of each day reading and rearranging newslinks anymore. Her vote counts for quite a lot.

The new format is a little difficult to read. I do get lost in all the links. And it's not just on the home page, forum has it all throughout.

I only recently learned that if I click on forum titles I'll get out of the links on the side.

@Patrick

The feature that allows discussion owners to delete comments discourages posting and thus also discourages reading. Why would I spend my time reading a person's argument, thinking deeply about it, and refuting the argument point-by-point if there is a risk the discussion owner would delete my post simply because it doesn't reflect his own political position?

It's one thing to delete trolling or belligerent posts. But allowing discussion owners to delete postings is going to be abused. It's just human nature. I'd recommend removing that feature.

I want to be able to delete my comments in all discussions. LOL

@Dan8267

Only Premium members can delete comments, and even then only on discussions that they started. So far, all Premium members are pretty reasonable people, like yourself. I don't think they will delete much.

My main motive in doing this is to encourage for-sale and for-rent postings. I know that landlords and sellers are skittish about listing property in a place where anyone can say anything. E-man already said so in the thread about the new for-sale and for-rent forums:

http://patrick.net/?p=1214327&c=844568#comment-844568

We found our last 3 tenants from Craigslist. We don't need to listen or deal with the insensitive comments from here.

And he's got a point. It seems fair enough that a Premium member who starts a thread should get to be its moderator. As a Premium member, you have the same privilege. And you can always quote someone in a new thread of your own that you control.

HEY YOU says

I want to be able to delete my comments in all discussions. LOL

You can. Just click "delete" above any of your own comments. Should work.

I don't have a mass self-delete though. That would muck up the flow of lots of conversations all at once. And what would I label that? Self-destruct?

Patrick - have to chime in on this as well. As a reader since pre-forum, and the old forum.

The main page has turned into a cluster bomb.

Regarding people voting on the articles - that's fine. And it saves you time.

But maybe separate the forum, from the links page. In other words, make your homepage similar to what it was before - news links for the day.

Then have your forum links at the top, but when you click on each link, it takes you to a forum page - without the news links on the right..

I guess my point is to separate the two. I'm with kapone in that I've spent a lot less time on your site since it got so busy.

**DISCLAIMER** I have a poor eye for design. Just found it hard to read comfortably on your site like before.

They are chosen and voted on by users now, and I like it that way. More democratic, not my bias. And the users are doing a pretty good job.

I actually came here to read your bias. At least your bias on picking links. I come less now.
I find the front page confusing and hard to scan.

Before I knew the links where generally ordered starting with real estate as a topic, ordered by "interestingness" with some other sometimes interesting topics towards the bottom.

Now it is pretty random.

Yes, the links are pretty random on the home page, just all topics together in one big bucket ordered by votes.

But as said, you can select, say, politics by clicking the "Politics" link in the header. Then you see the politics forum on the left, and the politics links on the right. That was a user suggestion and I think it's pretty good.

So that cleans things up for people interested in just one topic. "Interestingness" is decided by votes.

I know I was providing some value by personally selecting and ordering links, but it was a ton of unpaid work. It's fun to get readers and compliments, but the bills continue even when there is no income. I tried charging $5/month for the latest links back in 2007 or so, and traffic plummeted and kept falling, with not enough subscribers to make it work. So I made it free again, and readers came back.

I tried begging for money, and that works OK, but it's embarassing and I don't want to work that way. I also tried various kinds of advertising, and premium data services, but not much luck there either. All the while I can tell my wife is noticing that I'm putting in all this time on picking newslinks and not making any money...

Then I noticed that the forum traffic continues to grow steadily, while the traffic coming for just the newslinks was flat even when I was putting all that effort into picking them. So I decided the latest forum comments should be on the home page, and that made forum traffic go up even more. My son reads lots of silly forums and said I should just make it strictly chronological on the home page, not grouped by topic. That's how most forums indexes are done. People can choose separate topics if they want (like clicking "Politics" in the header for example).

The latest idea is to add for-rent and for-sale forums where people can list property, because it has never been possible before for renters, landlords, buyers, and sellers all to talk to each other on a forum. It has all been one-way communication: from advertisements to your eye. No contact with others. And now everyone can update their profile to tick whether they are a renter, landlord, buyer, seller, etc to help us know what the other readers are looking for. Other people are more interesting than anything else, IMHO.

So that's where we are now.

tekkierich says

I actually came here to read your bias. At least your bias on picking links. I come less now.

I do think Patrick's selection gave them an air of gravitas. I totally understand the issue though, with the wife and the unpaid work and all.

I wonder if we could separate the economics, real estate, rent and investment type wheat from the chaff sections?

Seems like that's where your claim to fame lies.

CL says

I wonder if we could separate the economics, real estate, rent and investment type wheat from the chaff sections?

Well, I do separate them like this:

http://patrick.net/real-estate/
http://patrick.net/investing/

Is there a better way to do the separation?

Patrick,
While I understand your frustration of having to do "unpaid" work, that (in my opinion) is not an excuse to lower the quality of what you have. The quality of links now (in my opinion again) is worse than before.

And yes, I completely understand having more time to spend with family vs hand picking links, but you have a "product" to administer. Whether you get paid for it or not is besides the point, you need to make a decision on whether that "product" is still working (as intended) or not.

My .02.

I'm with swebb, joshuatrio and other old timers (hi guys).

I think patrick.net is losing too much of its hard-fought gravitas (the good kind, not the Very Serious People (google it) kind) by becoming a free for all for all kinds of kooks, nuts , shills and all kinds of silly and irrelevant stuff.

What has made Patrick.net great is the editorial emphasis. This is where you would get serious discussion by serious and thoughtful and well-informed people, about serious matters. And sometimes there would be a bit of comic relief, but again from the same thoughtful people.

Now it is just a free-for-all and a big jumble that is 80% nonsense. And I think all the good DATA that you now provide is drowning among all the endless prattling on the forums. Does anyone remember how Usenet went to hell when the AOL-crowd came online in 1994? I'm worried the same thing will happen again here. And it can be prevented.

Patrick, we love the old patrick.net. You saved us from going insane under the siege of realtor and MSM propaganda in 2005-2009.

Are you really getting much monetary value out of all the changes over the last 2-3 years? How about a plot of of unique users/day as a function of time?

I'm frustrated. Respectfully.

Well, I do separate them like this:

http://patrick.net/real-estate/
http://patrick.net/investing/

Is there a better way to do the separation?

Making it like it was before -- more obvious and prominent. And getting rid of the hobo stew of unrelated threads on the left.

You are right that it is still separated out, but I either have to squint to find the link at the top of the page (where I don't tend to be looking), or I have to remember the separate links (and be willing to type them in)....I'm less likely to do either of those than click on prominent link as it was before.

The interesting thing about all of this is that I figured it was obvious, and that if you were paying attention you would eventually change it back. Evidently the new format is actually generating more interest / activity (I believe you said this in a prior comment). If this is the case, then I don't blame you for wanting to keep it the same -- follow the numbers! But, be aware that it's not universal. I don't have an easy way to measure this (maybe you do, Patrick?) but I would bet that I am a less active on the forums after the change as compared to before the change. Of course, I'm just one person.

justme says

free for all for all kinds of kooks, nuts , shills and all kinds of silly and irrelevant stuff.

You have the power to help! Please vote newslinks up or down. And submit good links (just paste the link into any comment or new discussion and they will get picked up).

justme says

This is where you would get serious discussion by serious and thoughtful and well-informed people, about serious matters. And sometimes there would be a bit of comic relief, but again from the same thoughtful people.

As a Premium member, you now have the ability to moderate all of your own discussions. Please start a new discussion and delete the troll comments, keeping the polite comments.

justme says

Are you really getting much monetary value out of all the changes over the last 2-3 years? How about a plot of of unique users/day as a function of time?

Not monetary, but clearly the forum has been catching on. Here's a graph of comments per day (and remember there about 20x as many views as comments):

So the future seems to be in the forum, though I think the newslinks could be very high quality if more than 0.06% of users would vote on them. Voting is easy, just click the up or down arrows next to links on the home page.

I'm trying to give users the power to make the site what they want. I'm a user too and vote and moderate comments, but the site is too big for one unpaid person.

Is there a better way to do the separation?

I think your responses suggest you really like what you've set up despite several people telling you it doesn't work. Understand. Just note that your responses consistently include phrases like "All you have to do...." Asking customers to do something different when they've loved your product is very, very difficult no matter how smart your new design.

Make the links on the front page only the real estate links, like it was before. Try using the voted real estate links, but limit them to real estate. I know that probably conflicts with your computer science, since there will be an illogical structure to the site, but I think that's the request being made by several here.

Why do some links show up as "patrick.net?" I'm confused by that and generally don't click on them.

FunTime says

Make the links on the front page only the real estate links, like it was before.

That's just one click away: http://patrick.net/real-estate/

I think "All you have to do" is the right phrase. All you have to do is click that, or bookmark it. Remember that other users requested each one of those other pages: Politics, Religion, etc. I can't please everyone, but I can shoot for some middle ground.

I know changes suck and drive people away because it's uncomfortable to understand a new scheme. At first I hated Facebook's new timeline or whatever they call it, but now I'm familiar with it and don't even notice. I will try to minimize changes though.

FunTime says

Why do some links show up as "patrick.net?" I'm confused by that and generally don't click on them.

That's a bug. When a user includes a link to an image, I don't have a title for the image unless that user chooses to add that. Say, that gives me an idea. I'll change "Patrick.net" to "Title this Image" and let the first interested person title it.

The usefulness of the website has gone down significantly for me. I normally read wsj, nyt, Bloomberg and Reuters news in the morning - mostly business and economic news.

For years I have come to patrick and read housing news of the days. Now the article quality isn't making it for me.

Hope P that you find a formula that works for you.

-m

swebb says

Making it like it was before -- more obvious and prominent. And getting rid of the hobo stew of unrelated threads on the left.

And if RE isn't generating the hits it once was, broaden it to emphasize the economics. Seems like a lot of your contributors understand economics well, including renting, buying and macro.

Just a thunk.

That's just one click away: http://patrick.net/real-estate/

I get it. I'm just pointing out that many of the comments suggest that "one click" is driving them from the site. I'm basically ignoring the front page now and just going to the real estate link with the one click.

I love the option to get rid of pictures. Thanks!

Here's one example of a problem with this new forum format. The following makes no sense to me:

Needs title (wikipedia.org)
Submitted by HRHMedia 22 hours ago 300 comments Share 16

Click on "Needs title" and you're sent to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy?source=Patrick.net

Click on "comments" and the first and highlighted comment is about global warming.

FunTime says

I love the option to get rid of pictures. Thanks!

That was by popular demand. Glad I could do it.

wbblair3 says

Needs title (wikipedia.org)

Yes, that's that same bug where I couldn't find a title. I will fix it to allow any user to add a title to a link that doesn't have one.

wbblair3 says

Click on "comments" and the first and highlighted comment is about global warming.

Another bug I will fix. The problem there is that the "comments" link goes back to the top of the thread, not to the specific comment where the link was posted.

How do you get rid of pictures? The pictures drive me nuts.

I like coming to Patrick.net for the curated links to news and other "interestingness." If I remember correctly it used to be forums on the left, links on the right. I would like to see a separate section for external links.

justinah says

How do you get rid of pictures? The pictures drive me nuts.

Just edit your profile:

http://patrick.net/includes/profile.php

It's the last checkbox.

Why is it when you click on comments for a thread, it dumps you towards the most recent posts by default? But not necessarily the most recent post. ie. if there is 100 comments, the first one I read under the OP is #68 and then the next 31comments

For awhile I would be so confused as to how the first person posting under the OP was quoting someone, when it seemed they were the first person to respond.

Imo it should be chronological one way or the other. Either the first response under the OP, or the most recent one,,,,,don't mean to sound whiny, just my .02

The discussions show the 40 most recent comments by default. I agonized about that, but it just made sense to have the most recent comment directly above the comment submission box. So everything reads top-down, starting with the Original Post, in chronological order.

You can go back in chunks of 40 comments with the "Previous comments" link.

Comments are all numbered and timestamped to give you a little more orientation.

It's just like Facebook really. You have the original post, then some skipped comments, then the most recent comments, then the comment submission box.

I just don't see the utility in having the middle of the thread being the first post you read after the OP. I don't use facebook, so I dunno

On that chart you posted of your comments traffic, it seems odd that your biggest trough was when TSHTF, is that just from the wordpress blog? Was it less because we had that other forum at the time?

True, it is slightly disorienting at first to see the first comment after the original post refer to some earlier comment which is not visible. I don't see a better solution though, since the most recent comments are the ones most people want to see.

errc says

On that chart you posted of your comments traffic, it seems odd that your biggest trough was when TSHTF, is that just from the wordpress blog? Was it less because we had that other forum at the time?

Yes, could be because we had that other forum taking traffic away from this one. I'm glad there's just one forum on Patrick.net now. Much cleaner and easier to explain.

CL says

And if RE isn't generating the hits it once was, broaden it to emphasize the economics.

That is a good point. But keep it as part of the Real Estate forum, the last thing we need is another fragmented forum.

Here's a graph of comments per day (and remember there about 20x as many views as comments):

Impressive increase in comments, but I just don't have the time nor desire to read them all. I think comment quality is much more important than comment quantity, and I think the quality is on a decline and has been for a while.

What about the number of unique users per day? I think that is more important than both the number of page views and the number of comments.

justme says

What about the number of unique users per day? I think that is more important than both the number of page views and the number of comments.

You can see that number in the top of every page. 19,015 unique users yesterday. I don't have a graph, but it doesn't change much, except that it's lower on the weekends. Must mean people read Patrick.net at work.

I agree w/ many comments that the quality of the links (the main reason for me to visit P.net, the forums are secondary) is not working for me either. I used to come every day for those curated links, and now it is more work to go through what's there than it is worth for the most part. I also understand the lots of work and not much reward part, as I have a similar situation. However, if enough visitors are like me, then that is bad news for this site's traffic. Also, something that is key for me as far as your site, is the trust that you have built over the years. The trust, comes for me, from the type of links you provide, and not so much the comments you post on the forums (which are also good in that regard). But since you are not providing the links any more, trust may be slowly eroding. Could you not possibly 'sell' your links to a news outlet of some sort? I mean you have the traffic, if you sold your links, the people that come here of that could get them from a source that can monetize them (e.g. via existing advertising)...and if they stuff whatever adverts on their pages (e.g. Realtor ads), that's their call, and does not compromise your trust. Dunno, it is a tough pickle, but for me the links were 'it', and 'it' is no longer here...

I get that Patrick is trying to offload some of the work onto us, so I've been voting for links and stories from sources I want to read. It seems to have been slightly improving over the last week as more vote. It does take me a bit more time, but I figure that's the time I'm saving Patrick.

Thanks!

Patrick, please return to the old site format. I echo the cries of distress from the OP. This site looks and feels like a toilet right now. There's a reason no one uses Digg anymore. QUALITY over quantity, please. And user-voting does not ensure quality.

How about a link on the bottom of the page, to return to the home screen?

dannybsmith says

QUALITY over quantity, please. And user-voting does not ensure quality.

If I could make a living at it, I'd do it. But I tried for years, and I can't.

Your votes would help ensure quality!

errc says

How about a link on the bottom of the page, to return to the home screen?

Sure, no problem. Done.

dannybsmith says

QUALITY over quantity, please. And user-voting does not ensure quality.

If I could make a living at it, I'd do it. But I tried for years, and I can't.

Your votes would help ensure quality!

errc says

How about a link on the bottom of the page, to return to the home screen?

Sure, no problem. Done.

But are you making (or expect to be able to make) a living on the forum??