Patrick.net

Patrick...no other way to say this.

By kapone   Follow   Sun, 15 Jul 2012, 6:05pm   8,123 views   95 comments
In Rockville MD 20850   Watch (1)   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike (2)  

Are you trying to drive people AWAY from your site? The new layout/format sucks. Big time. A "forum" should feel like a forum, right now, your site feels like a cesspool of links.

Any chance you can revert back/fix it? Personally, I used to visit your site atleast a few times a day. Since this new layout, it's become a few times a week or less.

Most Liked Comments

1. swebb Follow Befriend (3) 29 threads 507 comments Denver, CO

   1   6:42pm Sun 15 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (3)   Dislike   I tend to agree. I find it a whole lot harder to use than it used to be. I figured I was just being a whiny bitch complaining about change, and that I would get used to it after a while. I haven't. I'm not a big fan of the way the links are done now, but it's a second order issue to me. The big thing I don't like is how the forums are all obscured now. It used to be that there were several links on the left side of the page that would take you to different forums, now you see messages from all different forums together... There are multiple problems with this. 1. It's confusing. Politics and housing and investing all get lumped together. 2. Threads have to fight with other forums in order to stay relevant / on top / commented on. A good "investing" topic might get lost because it has to compete with 3 hot-button political topics and a very active housing forum. Lost in the noise. 3. It forces me to have to think about which links I want to pay attention to, instead of just clicking the forum I am interested in. I definitely think it was better before.

2. joshuatrio Follow Befriend 41 threads 704 comments Monterey, CA

   2   9:29am Tue 17 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (3)   Dislike   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.

3. justme Follow Befriend (2) 34 threads 3,497 comments

   3   5:43pm Tue 17 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (3)   Dislike   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.

4. TMAC54 Follow Befriend (9) 70 threads 930 comments San Leandro, CA

   4   6:41pm Sun 15 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   kapone says The new layout/format sucks. feels like a cesspool. I guess "constructive criticism" can be transmitted in any number of ways. You dick wacker. See, if I would have called you a 'little" dick wacker you might have taken it offensively and ignored my concerns. I was going to mention the new layout seems repetitive, but was going to give it more time to try and understand it's intent and benefit. Now if you will excuse me, I am going to the cesspool.

5. Patrick Follow Befriend (54) 5,240 threads 6,175 comments 46 male Menlo Park, CA Premium

   5   7:13pm Sun 15 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   Protected   says I wish I could configure the forum to be like it used to be for me when I'm logged in. This should be very close to how it used to be: http://patrick.net/forum/real-estate/ I agree that the housing bust just isn't as fun as it used to be. No real debate about whether there was a crash, and not such huge price drops anymore. More of a slow deflation. So I'm looking for new ways to have fun with the site. It really is about fun since the site never made money or came anywhere close to justifying the time I put into it. My latest idea is to let people designate what their housing interest is (renter, landlord, buyer, seller, lawyer, agent) in their profile, and have that interest show up by each of their comments. Click on their profile, and you see their written description of what they're looking for. I think this could perhaps help a lot of people find rentals, tenants, houses, buyers, customers, etc. Please try it out! Next step is to add for-rent and for-sale forums, where landlords and sellers can list property for free. Think it will be useful? What would make it more useful?

6. Biff Baxter Follow Befriend 65 threads 188 comments

   6   9:10pm Sun 15 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   First of all, regarding swebb’s reasonable feedback, the problem with many topics being lumped together drove me nuts too, but this has been resolved. You no longer have to put up with political crap or any other crap if all you want is real estate. Real estate only is here: http://patrick.net/forum/real-estate And there is a link for each topic that pretty much excludes the other topics. As Patrick said, it might not be obvious, but it is there. It actually makes sense that the main page covers many topics. It’s just like the front page of a newspaper. And inside the newspaper (and Patrick’s site) there are separate sections for each topic. Secondly, regarding kapone’s complaint about there being too many links and only wanting to see user’s comments, that is pretty easy. I know this because I pretty much hate the user’s comments and only want to see the links. They are separated on the page enough so that I am not bothered. And I can manage my eyeballs while chewing gum. If I can live with the user’s comments, most of which are crapola, maybe kapone could live with links from topic relevant sites. Biff

7. HEY YOU Follow Befriend (4) 357 threads 965 comments

   7   11:49pm Sun 15 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   Patrick, Whatever changes you may make, there will probably still be complaints. Just roll with the changes.

8. tekkierich Follow Befriend 1 threads 34 comments York, PA

   8   9:35am Tue 17 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   Patrick says 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.

9. justme Follow Befriend (2) 34 threads 3,497 comments

   9   10:31am Tue 17 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   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.

10. CL Follow Befriend (12) 141 threads 1,367 comments Emeryville, CA

    10   11:54am Tue 17 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   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.

11. FunTime Follow Befriend (3) 41 threads 835 comments San Francisco, CA

    11   6:50pm Tue 17 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   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.

12. dannybsmith Follow Befriend 18 comments

    12   10:57pm Tue 17 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   And just as a further bit of anecdotal evidence - I used to readily send people to this site if they were new to the whole housing bubble idea and needed some good info. I do not feel comfortable recommending this site anymore. What would someone find here? They would not know what they were looking at, and they would almost certainly leave before they learned anything useful.

13. Patrick Follow Befriend (54) 5,240 threads 6,175 comments 46 male Menlo Park, CA Premium

    13   6:23pm Sun 15 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Protected   Do you mean the links on the right hand side of the home page? 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. Or do you mean something else?

14. kapone Follow Befriend 5 threads 93 comments Rockville, MD

    14   6:26pm Sun 15 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   See the attached image. Does this "look" like a forum to you?

15. kapone Follow Befriend 5 threads 93 comments Rockville, MD

    15   6:27pm Sun 15 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   er...the image. Sorry

16. kapone Follow Befriend 5 threads 93 comments Rockville, MD

    16   6:31pm Sun 15 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   er...once again. Sorry.

17. Patrick Follow Befriend (54) 5,240 threads 6,175 comments 46 male Menlo Park, CA Premium

    17   6:50pm Sun 15 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Protected   says 1. It's confusing. Politics and housing and investing all get lumped together. You can see any of those topics separately: http://patrick.net/forum/politics/ http://patrick.net/forum/real-estate/ http://patrick.net/forum/investing/ Did you know that they are all separated that way? I admit it's not obvious.

18. swebb Follow Befriend (3) 29 threads 507 comments Denver, CO

    18   7:02pm Sun 15 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   You know, I think I have clicked the links across the top of the page before, but I don't really use them regularly. They aren't obvious, and I was never really sure that it was doing what I thought...Also I'm one of those fickle lazy web users, I think. I still think lumping all the topics together in one feed waters things down. I wish I could configure the forum to be like it used to be for me when I'm logged in. At the end of the day I use patrick.net a lot less than I used to. Partly due to shifting priorities / interests, I'm sure...partly due to the nature of the housing bust...it seems to be settling/resolving, there aren't huge YOY drops, etc...but the new format is definitely a part of it. Not trying to be harsh -- I like the site and appreciate all the work that you have put into it...I just happen to think it was better before.

19. kapone Follow Befriend 5 threads 93 comments Rockville, MD

    19   7:30pm Sun 15 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   TMAC54 says kapone says The new layout/format sucks. feels like a cesspool. I guess "constructive criticism" can be transmitted in any number of ways. You dick wacker. See, if I would have called you a 'little" dick wacker you might have taken it offensively and ignored my concerns. I was going to mention the new layout seems repetitive, but was going to give it more time to try and understand it's intent and benefit. Now if you will excuse me, I am going to the cesspool. How much invested ? How much back ? What's the risk ? A spade's a spade. I hope Patrick realizes that it wasn't meant to be offensive per se. It was meant to convey my own personal viewpoint. I chose that word quite carefully btw. Again, this is supposed to be a "forum". It doesn't feel like one right now.

20. Patrick Follow Befriend (54) 5,240 threads 6,175 comments 46 male Menlo Park, CA Premium

    20   7:31pm Sun 15 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Protected   I'm not offended. Just trying to understand how to make it all more useful and intuitive. kapone says Again, this is supposed to be a "forum". It doesn't feel like one right now. Why not? Seems like a forum to me.