Brainstorming new features ?

[feedback]

fringey wrote: Someone, scryer maybe (?), mentioned a section where people could post original writing or artwork. I was thinking earlier maybe Tpassions could just add a blog for each person's profile. That way, people could post wirting or artwork in their blog. I know it would be memory intensive, but maybe each blog could have a limited amount of memory each person could, with each blog entry being deleted every 60 days or something? Just a thought. It would also be a great way for people to get more insight into each profile they visit as they can see what a person is thinking about on a regular basis. Some of us already have blogs, and have links to them on our profiles, but this might be a way for those who don't to have another outlet outside of the forums for things that just don't really fit the forums.

Hi Fringey,

Well, we wasted the last two weeks working on building the article section for the sites. The idea was to have a central story section where people could submit stories, poems, haiku's, etc. After getting about half way through the project, we realized the code was just getting out of control, so we scrapped it all. We are thinking of just adding a blog system instead, and maybe modifying it a little if possible, so that it is a sort of hybrid blog/story section. The blogging thing might be the easiest way to go, but we're not 100% sure yet.

Just wanted to let you know that we are very actively focused on this specific issue, and we were really bummed at the wasted time we spent on our first approach. We'll hopefully put something in place in the near future though, since it is at the top of our list of new features to add.

Thanks,
8)

[feedback]

fringey wrote: Yeah, it is me again. I am a member of several of the Passion Network sites and I noticed almost all of them have NO ONE posting in them. I n some, i am the only one who has ever posted and never gotten replies. Could I usggest that you have a general email that is automatically sent out on a periodic basis reminding people that the forums are a great way for people to get to know each other? You don't want to do it so often that people will consider it spam, maybe once every thirty days or so. This would also give newbies that may not have gotten around to posting a reminder. Just another thought from my twisted, romantic, matchmaking mind.

We've never sent a mass email to members, and we are leaning towards not doing that. Aside from optional member 'alerts' to let people know they have an email or a smooch waiting for them, we wanted to stay away from contacting people about the sites. Our thinking is that people get enough email from places they sign up for, and we don't want to bother people...even if we think the message might be appreciated by most members.

We would LOVE to see all of the 100+ sites in the network have as active a forum as Trek Passions, and some other sites are getting pretty close. You are right though, there are plenty of site forums that are still completely empty despite daily members visits.

We've pretty much stayed away from pushing the features of the sites. We just build them, and make sure they work, and let the members build the momentum on them. This is how the network as a whole is growing too. We build the sites out, and they attract members at different rates based on lots of different factors.

There are a few sites that are really beginning to take hold though, and it looks like it won't be too much longer before the network as a whole, starts up a pretty fast growth curve.

Since there aren't too many community sites that offer free personals, chat, email, forums, streaming webcam, etc...we are tending to attract more and more links, articles, and of course, members.

Our advice is to just keep posting in all the forums on all the sites you are a member of, and if nothing else, you'll dominate them for the short run. The benefit is that you'll be the only guy in the homepage forum post sections of some of those sites.

Talk about a way to draw attention to your profile!

For now we don't have a big 'forum growth' idea though, although we do spitball different ideas on it constantly. One of these days we'll come up with an idea that might jumpstart things a little more though. We are definitely thinking about it.

We really appreciate your ideas, and your enthusiasm, and we hope it spread to more members.

Thanks,
8)

[fringey]

Thanks for your thoughts and consideration of my ideas. And, as always, your prompt replies to them.

Patrick
a.k.a. Fringey, The Fringe Element
"A life lived without passion is a life not lived.

[scryer41]

There is one other thing that annoys me personally and it's the refresh setup you have running. It's annoying to me because I do a great deal of clicking the "BACK" button on my browser. I hate having to click twice just to get back to the last page I was in. Is there anyway you can get rid of this setup or, if not, make it the refresh time longer? Like... two minutes?

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Beware the beast Man for he is the Devil's pawn.
Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport, or ----, or greed.
Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land.
Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert out of his home and yours.
Shun him. Drive him back into his jungle lair.
For he is the harbinger of death.

The Sacred Scrolls: 29th Scroll, 6th Verse

[feedback]

The 'refresh' you are referring to is the program that runs for the IM system.

It is doing a quick look to see if there is a message for you. Since we can't push the message down into a member's browser, we have to have the browser send a 'Hey, is there anything for me?' message to the server.

We can't remove this without breaking the Instant Message system.

We can extend the time between looks, but that will cause an increase in the time between an initial 'send' of an IM and the initial 'receive' of the IM.

We've gone ahead and increased the time between 'looks', from 30 seconds to 60 seconds.

keep in mind that if a member sends an IM to another member right after the recipient member's browser had just checked, it will be 1 minute before the recipient knows an IM has been sent to them.

We'll leave it set at 1 minute and see if that causes any problems.

Thanks,
8)

[scryer41]

Thank you. It's the little changes that make the most impact on a persons enjoyment of the site. Thanks again.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Beware the beast Man for he is the Devil's pawn.
Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport, or ----, or greed.
Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land.
Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert out of his home and yours.
Shun him. Drive him back into his jungle lair.
For he is the harbinger of death.

The Sacred Scrolls: 29th Scroll, 6th Verse

[fringey]

Just another time saving feature I wanted to propose. It is great that you can now jump from site to site in the Passions Network from your home page, and not have to log in each time. It would be even greater if you could jump from forum to forum in the different sites the same way. As it stands now, you have to go to your homepage, jump to another site, check the forums, go back to the homepage, and start the process over again. If it was possible to jump from forum to forum the same way, it would save time for folks who are members of multiple sites and may even encourage postings on those forums. Just another random thought from the frigne of what society considers "normal".

Patrick
a.k.a. Fringey, The Fringe Element
"A life lived without passion is a life not lived.