Animesuki v3 Wishlist

[GHDpro]

I'm not sure if it was clear from my last post, but with allowing users to pick genres I wasn't saying they can just make up genres as they please. Any new genre would need to be proposed & approved before users could pick them.

Anyway another proposal then... how about users can propose genres for series in the same way users can propose similar anime on Anime-Planet? That is, not one particular person will be able to define what the genres for a series are, but all people do - and the genres proposed by the most users will be listed first.

There then probably needs to be some kind of logic that prevents genres with 1 vote be listed (but will still show those 1-vote genres if the total amount of users who voted is low). Also by comparing one user's votes to the average votes for any of the series he/she voted for you can rate how "reliable" a person is in determining the right genre - and filter out the trolls.

I realize this isn't to much different than what Cats had proposed, but I simplified it a bit by not having votes on each individual episode, but whole series.

[felix]

Originally Posted by GHDpro

There then probably needs to be some kind of logic that prevents genres with 1 vote be listed (but will still show those 1-vote genres if the total amount of users who voted is low). Also by comparing one user's votes to the average votes for any of the series he/she voted for you can rate how "reliable" a person is in determining the right genre - and filter out the trolls.

Users get to pick one or more then one genre per series? When you have mutiple picks its not the favorite/dominant that wins, but rather the one that people are at worse neutral about and is easy enough to spell. A example you have a romance/comedy set in the future:

1. "comedy", "slice of life", "robots"
2. "romance", "robots"
3. "comedy", "slice of life", "robots"
4. "romance", "comedy"
5. "romance", "slice of life", "robots"

Series genre is thus: "robots" (fail)

The example was made to be obvious but this error can be more subtle, take for example a case where comedy comes before romance or slice of life can precede both of them. The main point there is you need put a lot of emphasis on which would you place first. Among issues how many? how important must it be? etc. Simplest solution here: only allow choosing 1.

Somehow I see a sort of both critical mass/spread effect happening and the initial top result influencing next votes too much. Particularly troublesome when you think the series is bound to get some random genre tags even before any episodes air (given the category would be created for promo/trailers etc). Also if the count to determine votes crosses between series, whereas votes from people who hang about here longer can get it wrong and the filter won't work on them. This is a issue for newer say more "unique" series, I could think of K-on! getting stamped "moeblob" (joke/example).

Its also easy to abuse depending on how it works. Lets say I'm a troll and want to "moeblob" K-on! If the filter crossed series I would simply go to random old ones or new ones I don't care about and vote for the top 3 genre, then go to K-on! and moeblob-it. But lets say it doesn't cross series, given I have multiple votes I can moeblob-it then add top 1st and 2nd and how many more I think are needed to validate it (always avoiding last genre). Given the vulnerability you can be sure any trolls or people who feel like trolling it will just follow, eventually moeblobing-it.

This is just speculative, since you didn't make clear the details.

[DragoZERO]

Use keywords like BakaBT does. It's simple and you don't have to make a lame cloud with bigger text and stuff.

[GHDpro]

@Cats

To address some of your concerns, I was thinking about putting voting for a series genres on a separate page to prevent existing votes from influencing new votes to much. Genre selection would be through checkboxes (as long as the list of genres doesn't get insane), not text fields.

And to prevent people from selecting to many choices, allow them say only 3 choices. I'm against giving people just 1 vote because with to few voters for series, some genres might not get selected even though they should be (in example you might really have a series in which "Comedy", "Romance" and "Slice of Life" are equally important). Also when displaying genres all votes would count - so in your example the series would be tagged "Robots", "Comedy", "Romance", "Slice of Life" (in that order). Choices with to few votes would not get listed.

To resurrect one of your other ideas from this thread, it might be useful to distinguish between "genres" and "themes" and have one come always before the next (in fact in our current genre system we try to enforce this by numbering major genres before themes and sort by genre id). Should we distinguish between genres and themes, the order (in your example) would be come "Comedy", "Romance", "Slice of Life", "Robots". Btw, I was thinking of allow users to make 3 votes for both genres and themes separately (6 votes total).

With a publicly accessible genre voting system it will always be possible to abuse it. The key will be taking the right steps to limit this abuse. One such step will be to filter out "trolls" but not let people know they've been marked as such and which precise methods were used to determine they're a troll. Another measure I was thinking about is to ask people how much they've seen of a series (none/partial/all) and let this weigh into the voting process. It would also be possible to include vintage date (and possibly last airing date, even though we don't store this info yet) into this process - so if someone claims to have seen "all" of a series before the airing date of the first episode, his/her vote would be disregarded.

[felix]

Originally Posted by GHDpro

To address some of your concerns, I was thinking about putting voting for a series genres on a separate page to prevent existing votes from influencing new votes to much. Genre selection would be through checkboxes (as long as the list of genres doesn't get insane), not text fields.

Won't they need to go to the series page to go to the voting page, so basically its not like its hidden since they went to a page that had it before they went to this voting page? Well its probably not really a issue to worry too much about anyway.

A more serious issue might be time... a lot of series have plot directions that result in the "1st half" being different then the so called "2nd half", where these two do not necessarily share each 50% of the series (a interesting example would be Tengen Toppa Guren Lagann; after like the event in episode 6 I think, the series pretty much turned 180). It doesn't make sense to not allow people to use the system before the series reaches XX episodes or something, but then would allowing them to edit it later be okey? or even practical? (as in would people bother; would the result fix themselvs)

Guren Lagann is a more extreme case, but this is a lot more common. For example, series going from comedy to romance or from slice of life to romance (these are almost becoming part of the formula these days). Or, series going from Action to Tragedy/Drama or series going from comedy/slice of life to something serious is not unheard of either. Sadly for the ones I mention it sometimes goes the other way round as well... to our disappointment (lol). I think you can expect a good deal of voters to vote in the first 6 episodes as well given that's the general timespan when the bulk of the fanbase here will gather around it; so it might be a issue.

As for the selection method, I was thinking of selection combo boxes one after the other at the time, since they seemed the most space efficient; tree-like ones, like the "Forum Jump" at the bottom of this page.

Originally Posted by GHDpro

And to prevent people from selecting to many choices, allow them say only 3 choices. I'm against giving people just 1 vote because with to few voters for series, some genres might not get selected even though they should be (in example you might really have a series in which "Comedy", "Romance" and "Slice of Life" are equally important). Also when displaying genres all votes would count - so in your example the series would be tagged "Robots", "Comedy", "Romance", "Slice of Life" (in that order). Choices with to few votes would not get listed.

How about making one of the vote count as 2 and the others as 1 (pretty much the system used in nominations at AnimeSuki Choice Awards). Reason being to highlight the genre that matters most to the user (since they will likely choose 3 every time even if it only loosely applies). Would also serve to improve data if votes/score for each genre are ever shown.

Also, you can always have special privileges to moderators where as they can force-show it or force-hide it (permanently or temporary).
This could be part of the anti-troll system but small tweeks here and there would be always welcome too.

[Solace]

If we're debating on offering a more complete database in line with sites like AniDB, sure creating all these subcategories and user assisted entries would be nice but I pose one important question to that -

What can we do that a site like AniDB doesn't? Or, what do they do that we can do better? I mean, we link to nearly every relevant information site for a series already, so are we just debating on how to emulate what those sites do so visitors here don't have to click off the site?

I see no point in spending time creating features that merely copy what someone else already does if people aren't left saying "yeah those sites are great, but I like the way AnimeSuki handles it better" or "yeah those sites are great, but I prefer AnimeSuki because they offer _____ and those sites don't". Those impressions are what keep people coming back.

[felix]

Originally Posted by Solace

I see no point in spending time creating features that merely copy what someone else already does if people aren't left saying "yeah those sites are great, but I like the way AnimeSuki handles it better" or "yeah those sites are great, but I prefer AnimeSuki because they offer _____ and those sites don't". Those impressions are what keep people coming back.

The people like that... they already left when you merged the forums (just kidding), they won't leave because you gave them a say on what genre a series belongs to. When the forum moved to vBulletin, the entire database was wiped and people were still here. Improving a system won't destroy anything, I think the community is more then people who come here because they liked the yellow/gray this site has compared to the yellow/gray of some other one.

[WanderingKnight]

Improving a system won't destroy anything, I think the community is more then people who come here because they liked the yellow/gray this site has compared to the yellow/gray of some other one.

What yellow/gray? My AS is blue you heathen!

[felix]

The colors of the main site are a shade of #666 (gray-like) as well as combinations of light/yellow gray (I think its called "FloralWhite" in some places). The other colors are that dark shade of green for the background (monitor's not calibrated but I think that's teal). Somehow I'm guessing you are probably thinking of the forum, not the main site.

[felix]

Right, better stear this discussion back to the topic. I'll take it category/theme/genre debate is on hold for now, so time for next ones. How about...

• "No more inconsistent season/series behavior"
  
  Rather then different seasons counting as different series, simply merge all of them into the the one series that it is. You seem to do this when series season's get a name; and more precisely when the name is used in the title. Series tend to have sub-chapters sometimes, you don't split it up for those, you shouldn't for these either.
  
  "Cross-over" series (such as Mai HiME/Otome/Zwei or To Aru...) as in those that mostly borrow characters and/or plot seemingly shamelessly, are probably best handled separately, but there should still be a link between them.
  
  
• Information on what its made after (or if its original material) should be present in the series page.
  
  
• "Bookmark system"
  
  As with a book given we could have multi-paged list have a little mark where you last opened it at. Mark determines visit by session activity, so when you leave the session it places itself right after the last entry you saw when you opened the session (err page).
  
  
• "Blocklist"
  
  Same idea as with watchlist only backwards. What it does is filter out series you hate.
  
  
• "default age cutoff"
  
  Lets take a example value of "1 year". If a torrent is added and has a vintage date of over a year as well as being completed, its not shown under these settings.
  
  
• "Automatic Anime List"
  
  Site generates a anime list for you as you download torrents; it also updates episode count for you (there are of course manual overrides if you need them). Episodes torrents in the listing are marked accordingly if according to previous downloads you are believed to have watched them (the episode that is). You could also have a setting to allow for higher quality versions, compared to the one you've watched, to have different markings.
  
  You could also have a option to show it on the forum as part of a profile field. But that's extra troublesome coding.
  
  
• "leverage other specialty sites to improve interface"
  
  This is somewhat related to the previous suggestion but also to the "who will add it". Basically instead of re-inventing the wheel use another site for various task you don't particularly specialize in or wish to bother too much with (eg. series synopsis, images for series etc).
  
  A example: http://myanimelist.net/ They have a nice API you can use too. You can use it to grab the series image, synopsis, alternative titles etc. But also, given its a very popular site integrate some features with it, for example take the suggestion above, you could have a option where users can choose to update their anime list there (this is covered in their API).
  

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Cats

Site generates a anime list for you as you download torrents; it also updates episode count for you (there are of course manual overrides if you need them). Episodes torrents in the listing are marked accordingly if according to previous downloads you are believed to have watched them (the episode that is). You could also have a setting to allow for higher quality versions, compared to the one you've watched, to have different markings.

Yeah, um... the only problem with this one is that then you have a nice little database of all the torrents that everyone has downloaded, which is really convenient for when the rights holders come knocking and demand that you hand it over as evidence of copyright infringement. So... that one's definitely out.

[felix]

Isn't pretending to be a peer and just asking the tracker of the torrent(s) much more reliable method for that purpose. You then have the forum - of which you have to be a part of to use it anyway, also the server keeps logs. Well, anyway I'll pretend to see it exactly as you do for a sec, solutions are: do it client side with cookies, you can save the data to sites like http://myanimelist.net/ but it would only pass-though never actually be saved by the site. Reseting might be a problem (its cookies afterall) so you can just do load-back too (something like a button next to the series).

There's also the slightly more complicated approach. Build a animelist system for the use on the forum. I'm speaking of a independent self sustaining system. The system on the site would simply extends to the forum system for its data (though the forum's system's API). Make this forum system integrate in the forum (as in you can add manage your series there, independent of the main site of course) and also capable of import/export functions to other sites (I already gave you a good one above). The relation torrent/list is now dead.

The 3rd option is to handle it completely externally (as in though a 3rd party independent system). Not necesarly full functionality I was talking about; just simple/convenient add/update.

Would any of that work for you?

[edit] Forgot to mention Red, the current Watchlist feature (already implemented), does the same thing does it not?

[WanderingKnight]

The colors of the main site are a shade of #666 (gray-like) as well as combinations of light/yellow gray (I think its called "FloralWhite" in some places). The other colors are that dark shade of green for the background (monitor's not calibrated but I think that's teal). Somehow I'm guessing you are probably thinking of the forum, not the main site.

I think I was missing a smiley in my post

[felix]

+1

• Earlier in the discussion when it came to selecting things like genre I was thinking of dropdowns and GHD was thinking checkboxes.
  Well, how about drop-down checkboxes?

[Preacher]

Wish:

A newsblog with news/reviews of anime e.t.c. ala http://www.japanator.com/, with news linked to forums.

[felix]

+1, alternative to thread(s)/sticky here

• "Report feature"
  
  Torrent/entries/etc get a report feature/button. The implementation can be a little more specific then the report feature on the forum in that users may (besides the comment/report) offer the alternative correct version, so that you may only need to approve reports to make the change rather then go-in and fix it. Any complications with wrongfully approving reports can be fixed with a undo option.
  
  To avoid extra work making it you can/could do it like this: the Report interface is a extension of the Edit interface (I'm presuming you have one and don't do it though some complex script/menu system). After submit (where as changes would normally take effect) they instead prompt a report page where the user also gives a explanation of the change and then they are placed in a que. Of course this is only more elegant then the plain old custom-report if you have/want-to-have report feature for close to everything in the interface.

[Hayaku]

Don't know why but when I visit the beta, the site feels kind of cold, unpersonal if you know what I mean...

This "old" and current style in animesuki is what I've grown accustomed to, and have to even loving it, even though that might be a bit too exaggerated.

So, one thing on my wishlist for the ASv3 would be too not change all the colors and styles completely. Sure a few changes here and there, a few new addons and whatnow, but don't change my animesuki too much

[GHDpro]

Well what's really missing on V3 is Kairin (our mascot)

She should definitely return, probably in the logo (the current logo is one I made in 5 minutes).

Right now I was thinking of perhaps holding a banner contest for the site once V3 is finished (which could take some time).

Though if anyone wants to make a different temporary banner for me to use, be my guest!

Some requirements for such a banner:
- resolution should be 1000x120.
- "animesuki.com" text should go on the left, Kairin should go right.
- Keep in mind there may be more "tabs" added in the future, so keep some distance between the artwork and the "Forum" tab.
- If using existing Kairin artwork, asking permission from the original artist is preferred.
- You do not need to use current (or old) gradient background. You can use anything as background as long as it doesn't clash with existing colors.
Original file can be found here: http://beta.animesuki.com/images/logo.png
Original font (which you are not required to use!) can be found here: http://animesuki.com/downloads/unsteady.zip

Also if anyone wants to play with the CSS file to create a better design / colors, again be my guest