As devout meta-followers may know, here is elfling’s <big><big>Calling All Beta Testers: New User Page Design </big></big>. At the moment, it’s tagged solely DK5 and Meta , which might not be enough to catch enough eyes for robust input, feedback, critique etc. It was initially posted June 3 at the staff group DK Announcements (you can find a FOLLOW button there) and then to DK5 Trouble Reports (ibid.) and now also Cranky Users.
(To see a nearly all DK meta groups and key staff meta-writers, click on the updated 📁 New DK Groups #22.)
To put your own new-version profile page (or anyone else’s of course) in a tab alongside elfling’s diary (or mine), just go to your ‘old’ one, and add an <tt><big>s</big></tt> to <tt><big>user</big></tt> in the URL. e.g., my new one is at
<big><tt> ...dailykos.com/users/mettle%20fatigue/ </tt></big>
The extent of my responses to the new design won’t fit as comments there, so I’m posting the narrative here, planning to link it to there, in hopes that this can function as my input during beta phase. No need to read further here, unless you’re interested ;-) …
But if you decide to post a diary of your own, please do link it in the thread here. This might be useful for in case comments close at elfling’s before everyone wanting to give input there has been able to. Then, if comments also close here too soon, please kosmail to let me know if you’ve posted a still active diary, and I’ll re-edit this one to link to those.
TAGS
Right off upon seeing my own new page, I thought that if didn’t know that was me, I’d guess from the tags in the top-front-center box hitting the reader right in the eye, that this kosak must be Orthodox! (Possibly Republican :D what with the high contrast red typewriter of my formerly modest-looking avatar milder against the old buff background.)
Based upon those tags, I wouldn’t myself bother to read any further down that person’s page — she appears to have only a limited range to post diaries about, and not much that’s progressive, to boot! That is because, of course, the total puny few tags always and still are all that anyone’s profile page displays. Anyone who posts on a wide range of topics but once did a lot for one or two dk groups or series, is going to find that prolonged commitment utterly crowding out what she actually writes about NOW.
Because tags supply zero time-context. As a comparison, my avatar might as well be my last passport photo (it was terrific!) … from 1989. :D
I can solve some of that tag problem for myself by laboriously going back thru’ my entire posting history to delete misleading ones from allll thoooose old diaries (mostly group calendar/schedule posts). But I wouldn’t have that herculean chore ahead if a mere handful of tags with no time-context were NOT being used to define the individual kosak. Which we know they are, not only from that pre-eminent placement on the page but becaus the Beta Testers: New User Page diary says so first off the bat:
Our goals for these pages:
- Create a one-stop location where you can learn more about an author and the topics they cover
The tags listed for me might accurately imply that I’m a disabled Californian, but if those were that central in my writing as at all realistically defining me so readers there would know what they’d get if they read my work or “followed” me, I’d have put California and disabilities in my bio section On my own.
FOLLOWERS
For a clearer idea of just how puny the function of those tags, I’ll click on the first follower listed at my new profile page — quite flattered that he does follow me, I admit (‘tho’ I was never sure why), but now he’s at the very top of the column of my current 172, as if the list is site-status ranked, which gives me a creepy feeling about parading site royalty as if we ordinary folk don’t matter ... that list used to start with most recent followers first, which made it useful: e.g., it allowed me to kosmail easily in case new followers were also new on site to whom I’d promised this or that bit of site-help. If there’s any purpose in the new status-ranked followers list, —or maybe it’s by who’s been a site-member the longest, or whatever— I don’t see that purpose stated on the page, so how’s a reader of it spoze to know what it means? The ordering and it’s purpose aren’t stated at the beta diary, either But from the viewpoint of the kosak whose page it is, that listing is kind of useless, because, after all, how often are us ordinary kosaks gonna need to contact the big guns or the person who’s been here longest?
Anyway, here’s that top-status (deservedly so, but still) kosak’s new page with woefully few tags:
The numbers after each tag do suggest that he’s been here a looong time, but they really don’t reflect the remarkably powerful scope of his writing, any more than my few tags reflect the chaotically diversified scope of mine.
GROUPS
There probably was an early recognition that tags can be misleading, but group affiliation says a great deal that’s true of the individual kosak (anyone can leave any group s/he’s in anytime she chooses). See below: groups are list first in a beautifully compact manner, with tags displayed quite a way below:
For anyone who’s in quite a few, the groups give much higher quality information about his/her likely posting topics and interests. On the new profile page, they’re in a space-wastey column down the right side, with the term COMMUNITY GROUP more visible than the name of the group itself.
Is there any usefulness in that term being more eye-catching than the group’s actual name? Nope. I do a lot of work on site groups and have for years —<small>e.g., Where the DailyKosgroups Are: Links to DK’s 285+ Local, IRL, Political & Geographic Groups, by State & Beyond, 2011-2021 and 199 Health/Med, Comm’ty, Heritage, Identity & FriendlyOpenThread Grps&Series, 2011 -2021</small>— and In my observation, over 99% of all dk groups get that term. The few rest are <small>STAFF</small> groups. Sure seems as if the group’s name is what needs emphasis.
(In case you haven’t got your own new profile in a parallel tab, here’s mine so you see what I’m talking about.)
Thankfully, it is possible to click on any group name in order to be taken to that group’s blogview page (not its members/profile page, the only place where the group’s description and <small>FOLLOW GROUP</small> button are) —it doesn’t open a parallel browser tab— but you have to already know the group’s name is its link, since it’s misleadingly ordinary black text color with <small>COMMUNITY GROUP</small> colorful instead.
And with the new profile page, you cannot get a compact list of all the kosak’s groups. There’s only room for about 9 down the side there, maybe 10 if all group names were quite brief. Getting a full listing of all groups takes clicking at the foot of that list. That gets you a massively space-wastey display down the center column, running apparently by order of most recently active group first (i.e., if a diary has been published under its banner or reblogged to it) which means returning some time to find some particular group there again is subject to change: the group you remembered may be way down that page or not on it at all.
E.g., I’m in a mere 25 groups. They take 3 interminably long pages (at my desktop computer) to display. Some of my favorite kosaks are in, like, a hundred groups. The whole hundred used to fit tidily on the ol-fashion page (see 2 illustrations up for a general visual sense). Now, obviously, if my 25 need 3 interminably long pages to see what all of’em are, my friends will need 12 pages, possibly more.
ACTUALBILITY OF “One stop...”
Keeping in mind that the very first new design’s top priority listed is “a one-stop location where you can learn more about an author and the topics they cover”, the new design instead is deeply misleading and incomplete in the moment, and isn’t one-stop where groups are concerned.
MINOR STUFF
TU Badge
I don’t recall offhand what the wooden-brown disk/badge means, but the blue TU (trusted user) appears to be gone. <big>This might be important.</big> because one thing Trusted Users could do/were responsible for is/was to edit tags on stories/diaries/articles. A lot of authors here put so few tags on their work that good ones don’t get automatically delivered to enough Activity Streams in order to alert the extent of readers they merit. If the TU badge is gone, does that mean that function also is gone so we won’t be able to go assisting one another with that? If so, a lotta diaries posted at this sight are gonna get a lot fewer comments. Which might impact site statistics adversely.
Sig Line
Also gone is what used to be called “sig line”. As longtimers recall, that used to be an automatically added line at the foot of every comment of the given kosak, who had composed it at her/his <tt>Edit Profile</tt> page for precisely that purpose. Some folks would have a favorite quotation or permissible expletive or particular group or diary they wanted automatically linked in every comment (a diary of theirs or someone else’s) so other commenters in the thread would see it and be able to click through to it, others listed event announcements … sig lines were infinitely re-editable, even daily if you wanted. The were eliminated when the site changed from DK4 to DK5, but they did at least remain on the profile page.
As you can see from my ol’fashion profile page up there, my sig line consisted of links to the 2 most valuable group directories I assembled and maintain. That was so anyone reading my profile who might want to connect with any of the over 480 dk groups accessible from there could. Being organized multiples our strength for Democratic achievement, besides building friendships and enjoying shared interests. In every way, stronger together, yes? Groups are an easy, comfortable way to be organized here, in additional to facilitating diaries of shared interests. That’s why groups are my thing. But now I can’t offer that access at my profile page anymore.
Following
On the old fashioned profile page, you could click on the kosak’s <tt>FOLLOWING</tt> link (just above and to the right of where <tt>PROFILE</tt> is in the lower bar up there) in order to learn more about his/her interests. You’d next see this link/button bar to learn which PEOPLE (i.e., kosaks), GROUPS, and TAGS s/he follows.
With the new design, that’s not accessible.
<tt>So, again,</tt>
There new design not only doesn’t offer a one-stop way to learn about the individual kosak, it doesn’t offer the slightest depth either. It offers a distinctly superficial and potentially misleading momentary snapshot.
To all visible appearances, the actual top priorities of recent page changes continue to be last 2 of the 3 listed last at the beta-test profile diary (the “unused preferences” apparently refers to the links shown in the two illustrations above):
- Remove unused preferences for better clarity
- Move the pages to our current branding to match the story, blog, and front pages
- Integrate them better with other code so that we spend less time on maintenance.
Having had 30 or so years on-the-job (if not this job), including as office manager here and beta-tester there, I can fully appreciate the final goal/priority which mostly likely is really job one, because it’s talking about ability to meet the site budget. Wreck the budget = no more site.
<big>The 2nd-from-the-last goal</big> —likewise probably the actual 2nd from the top, priority-wise— <big>involves certain assumptions about both aesthetics and function:
- that every type of page of a site ought to look the same as every other type despite that this implicitly means YOU CANNOT TELL AT A GLANCE WHICH KIND OF PAGE YOU’RE AT. The regimented similarity makes necessary to look carefully before deciding if you’re where you want to be or whether you need to navigate further.
<big><big>A KEY MISSED OPPORTUNITY:
THE FOOT OF THE PAGE</big></big>
If the top of a page can be coded to supply various changeable pieces of information (it can — here’s that info from MB’s new page)
then it seems more than likely so can the foot of the page. So far, unfortunately, nothing but links to subsequent pages. Otherwise, to quote the poet, there’s no there there.