Release: First version of new Activity Feed

[MonsterMagnet]

@joet

@MonsterMagnet

Who decided that people don’t want, or can’t digest information anymore?

In spaces that lack proper white space?

Researchers.

Actual researchers have proven white space is important. Blame science.

But surely adding white space does not mean to bury the information?

[jamestulloch]

Please bring back the old ‘latest activity’ feed. The new one is terrible and is essentially the RateBeer homepage for many users, myself included.

[Viper666.Qc]

it’s still there.
Click on your prifole icon, then New Releases, the local folder.
or directly from
https://www.ratebeer.com/latest/local

[joet]

@fiulijn

Another possible suggestion, rephrasing.
I considered that “brewery” is redundant for 99% of our beers (already in the beer name), and ABV as well because we are a liquor website.

From
BrewDog Passion Fruit Popsicle Parade from BrewDog, a Low Alcohol at 0.5% ABV, was added by Scopey.
To
Scopey added BrewDog Passion Fruit Popsicle Parade (Low Alcohol, 0.5%).

• 30% less characters
• more readable

I know that these kinds of decisions are very unpopular with our beloved experts here, and there’s a reason RateBeer is one of many to make the same changes. RateBeer relies on educating the next generation of beer lovers, and the next generation of RateBeer lovers. For this reason, the interfaces I build and support in development are those that are simpler, more readable, more explicit and more helpful, from the perspective of a general audience. I’d rather our experts be temporarily annoyed by changes than support barriers to entry that make it harder on the new folks coming up.

Some of these feel like small changes that aren’t a big deal for newcomers. Collectively though these add up to a new experience.

[herrklemann]

I’m amazed by the levels of animosity displayed on here, from all sides. At the same time, small suggestions are shrugged off, ignored or buried between “errmagerrd i hate it” and “you people are impossible!”

Have fun improving the site. I hope it works out for all of us. I’m done trying to add anything. Consider this my last animosity.

[joet]

I appreciate the feedback, and it’s the verifiable truth that I’ve incorporated over one dozen suggestions into live code in less than a week. This is extremely rare in the world of software or anywhere in the world of business. That there’s an even greater expectation than this kind of superhuman performance is extremely weird to say the least. I’m actually humbled by the expectation alone, because it’s an expectation I helped create in my better days.

I wanted to provide a reality check though, because it’s important to the health of the site and the community. This web site, this page in question and its related functions are being put together by someone with more ratebeer building experience than anyone else. There are many new parts to it, and it’s one of the largest suites of features that has been put together in several years. Users, expert users in particular, may not understand the reasons for certain changes. This is to be expected because I’m simultaneously developing for three different user types. Development will be ongoing for weeks.

I still very much appreciate feedback. I will not always read every thread. There’s too much going on now, my time is spread over several projects and duties now, and I have a strong vision for how this page will be enhanced and I can’t be derailed at this point. The expert view of this page can be expected to be enhanced during this development period. I’ll certainly read but not necessarily respond to comments.

Again, thank you all.

Joe

[Drake]

@Viper666.Qc

it’s still there.
Click on your prifole icon, then New Releases, the local folder.
or directly from
https://www.ratebeer.com/latest/local

Yeah, but sadly it’s only showing information for one of my friends. I know well more activity than that has happened recently that should show up.

[Ernest]

@Viper666.Qc

it’s still there.
Click on your prifole icon, then New Releases, the local folder.
or directly from
RateBeer.com -- Login

Not IMHO. General local activity is of some interest perhaps, but it’s not what the old feed showed you, which was friend (people you follow) activity. The new “feed” (which isn’t quite a feed IMHO) shows some friend “summaries” but is about equally cluttered with random “newly added beers” from random breweries added by random people (non-friends in all 8 of the ones on my page, which haven’t seemed to change in the past 2 or 3 days). The new feed unfortunately has tilted away from friend/social function and towards advertising function.

[Ernest]

@Drake

@Viper666.Qc

it’s still there.
Click on your prifole icon, then New Releases, the local folder.
or directly from
https://www.ratebeer.com/latest/local

Yeah, but sadly it’s only showing information for one of my friends. I know well more activity than that has happened recently that should show up.

Right, that’s because it’s just local activity, i.e. near you, but not friend-specific. In my case, “local” is not currently showing any of my friends’ activity, because my local friends aren’t very active here anymore.

[Viper666.Qc]

I’m my one and only friend… I guess it’s because I hate people…apart for those who drink good beer…I simply despise them

[bhensonb]

I would like to be my friend. How might I do that in this new weird system?

[puzzl]

Not accounting for novelty effect, typical novice mistake. Lets see the data in a month after this thread has died down.

[jmgreenuk]

Absolutely. It behaves VERY differently. It’s got nothing to do with timing. I had one friend who rated 10 beers yesterday and the most recent was just 7 hours ago. In the old feed he’s right at the top. In the new feed he doesn’t show at all and never has, possibly because he “only” rates 5 to 10 beers per day. The new feed does strangely show friends ratings from 3 days ago, but possibly only because that friend rated 200 beers last weekend, so he’s deemed to be worthy of inclusion. I’m seeing friends place ratings from 13 days ago, so why don’t I see beer ratings from just 7 hours back?

As other people have reported too, i’m also seeing newly added beers by Friends who are absolutely not friends at all. I have no connection with them.

This code should never have been moved into production. The website isn’t a sand pit. Code should be absolutely rock solid and tested to death before it’s moved into a live situation. Yes, there will be bugs occasionally, but this code is simply not fit for purpose i’m afraid

[fiulijn]

@jmgreenuk

In the new feed he doesn’t show at all and never has, possibly because he “only” rates 5 to 10 beers per day. The new feed does strangely show friends ratings from 3 days ago, but possibly only because that friend rated 200 beers last weekend, so he’s deemed to be worthy of inclusion

After beer score and places score, I think we are introducing Friends Score based on their power,

Coming up next month, new functionality: Rate a Friend

[Taboada]

@joet

@Taboada

Continuing the discussion from Release: First version of new Activity Feed:

@jmgreenuk

The new feed only shows the ones that have rated the most.

This!! Why???

It might be the case that your friends who have more ratings have also rated the most recently?

The feed is arranged by time.

Please let me know if your feed actually behaves differently.

It might be. But I only see the most active raters, not the 1 or 2 beers per day raters. I suppose that is arranged by time but with any kind of restriction (Showing only the 7 friends with more ratings, for example).

[Marduk]

@joet

RateBeer relies on educating the next generation of beer lovers, and the next generation of RateBeer lovers. For this reason, the interfaces I build and support in development are those that are simpler, more readable, more explicit and more helpful, from the perspective of a general audience.

For next generation typing in words or using slicer is too complicated. I give you an idea to use something even more simple:





etc. you get the idea. And make those buttons big!

[FatPhil]

@puzzl

Not accounting for novelty effect

Not even accounting for day of week.

I presume that as there’s less information on the page, the fact that the average time spent on the page has gone up means that the new page is harder to make sense of.

[Marduk]

@FatPhil

the fact that the average time spent on the page has gone up means that the new page is harder to make sense of.

How dare you!? Staring at blank white area and New beers entered by my “friends” who are not actually my friends is my new favourite way to spend my time!

[MonsterMagnet]

I had another look at the ‘feed’: I have 8 friend’s beer rating blurbs in my feed, all of them rated in the last three days (well, up to 3 days ago, so that probably means in the last 4 days). All of them have rated a fair amount of beers in the magic reporting period (which I understand is 12 days?), the one with the least ratings in this period has 43.

Then I had a look at my individual friend’s rating pages and I saw another 13 friends who have rated in the magic period (assuming 12 days), all except two even rated in the last 3 days, and all of them rated less beers than the people who did end up in my feed. (edit: I mean less beers in the magic period)

@joet you mentioned the page doesn’t behave differently, but I don’t really know what you compare it to. I would say it behaves oddly, and more importantly, the current behaviour makes the page totally irrelevant. Snippets of information without context or overview are totally useless.

So what exactly is the new feed page supposed to present?

[CH-303]

@MonsterMagnet

Then I had a look at my individual friend’s rating pages and I saw another 13 friends who have rated in the magic period (assuming 12 days), all except two even rated in the last 3 days, and all of them rated less beers than the people who did end up in my feed.

I think this is the most negative thing about the new Activity feed, missing out on what most of my “friends” are rating because they don’t rate huge amounts of beers per week. Also, since I rate just around eight beers per 14 days, it probably also means that nobody will see my activity on their feeds .