Javablogs is annoying
Javablogs is a fine lovely idea, and I’m sure pretty much everyone uses it to decide what they should think and say on any given day. Now, aside from the actual content, there are some highly irritating ‘features’ if you will that said site suffers from.
First, let us consider the popular entries list. Enough idiotic items have risen to the top of the list to demonstrate that there’s absolutely no quality filter going on. The very idea is in fact fairly flawed, as one can rise up to any day’s list by following two very simple procedures:
The first can be addressed very easily. Instead of maintaining an absolute 24 hour range for popular entries, switch to a rolling range. As in, show the most popular entries for the last 24 hours. This ensures that the list doesn’t become completely empty every night, and that every story gets a fair chance of getting up there regardless of when it was sucked in.
The second is less easily fixed, and would involve a lot more work. Some sort of moderation system would be rather neat (a la Slashdot).
We also have that annoying navigational ‘quirk’ on entries. Clicking on a new story’s title will take you to that blog, but clicking on the ‘view’ link under it will….also take you to that blog! If you want to read the story on javablogs (for example, for any freeroller story), you in fact need to click on ‘details’. Nevermind that ‘view’ will also show you details. Some sort of visual cues as to which is which would be nice.
Of course, this is insignificant when one considers the utter irrelevance and uselessness of the search facility. Just try searching for anything at all, and chances are you’ll have the same (usually irrelevant) page returned 5-6 times. Setting this aside, the actual blog meta-data is not indexed at all it seems. One would think that searching for ‘rickard’ should bring up his own blog first, but no, he’s nowhere in the list of results. Blog meta-data should be indexed, and given a higher score that general entries. I know javablogs uses Lucene so this is very trivial to implement.
Then of course there’s oscache being applied like a sledgehammer. It’s possible to configure oscache such that frontpage stories dribble in in a timelier manner, rather than the current spurt of 5-6 bursting in at a time.
The biggest problem by far though is that javablogs foolishly assumes that readers are responsible and intelligent. Some examples that this is clearly not the case:
August 28th, 2003 at 11:31 am
Posting a midnight only gets you part of the way. You get the early hits to give you an edge up on popular blogs for the day, but on a busy morning you’ll be pushed out of the recent entries pretty fast. I think the misleading / controversial title entry posted in the early morning is the most effective way to get attention. I’ve been doing a lot of entries in the afternoon at work and those entries get a lot fewer views than the ones I do late at night or in the morning.
I agree 100% on the rolling 24 hour thing. Who knows how many interesting 11:30pm entries I’ve missed. I’d also like to see a popular posts of the last week/month.
August 28th, 2003 at 11:33 am
You know, using a limit of 3 frontpage stories *per user* instead of per blog would just make Mr. GB register multiple accounts. Unfortunately, that kind of stupidity is just too much for machines to deal with.
August 28th, 2003 at 11:45 am
The best javablogs stories are those that just provide links to other stories linked-to by javablogs.
Also, I love the feature of the “for more than the 3 allowed entries click here” entry that essentially takes up a 4th space.
August 28th, 2003 at 11:48 am
I see three types of blog entries. One is the insightful post about how a problem was solved. One is the lay-on the line, this is how I feel about an issue type of entry. The last is a post with links the author feels may be of use to others. I think all 3 types are necessary. But the bloggers that consistently annoy me seem to only post type 3, clearly intent on getting traffic and wasting our time. So when you get the blog metadata working, add a “jacka$$ salepitch blog” category.
August 28th, 2003 at 6:00 pm
Wtf are you doing at javablogs anyway? You all care about what Gerald Bauer has to say?
August 28th, 2003 at 6:22 pm
“Enough idiotic items have risen to the top of the list to demonstrate that there`s absolutely no quality filter going on.” – Oh geeze! you could have at least waited another day before posting this.. yesterday was my first ever time at the top ~ way to go giving a guy a complex Hani.
I agree with most of your quick fixes though, it`d be nice if javablogs honoured the freeroller categories too. It seems to prefer grabbing all posts rather than just the Java ones. Javablogs not adding old posts to the frontpage, just because a sites been resubmitted is another good one – but I`m sure many of these are by accident due to frustrated and impatient posters confused by the caching and timezone differences. BTW Just how did “profile of a Java idiot” get pinged to the top yesterday?
Short of some of the magic bayzian categorisation going on at bad magic number, I`m not sure how we can filter the posts effectively..
Wouldn`t a moderated system leave Matt, Mike & Hani hogging the top spot every day? We could have recommended authors and allow bloggers to assign several meta data tags to their blog entry and allow readers to subscribe to their topics of interest. Then again that in itself isnt a guarantee of interest, and I`m sure I`ve just talked myself out of any more readers banging on about vulgar client-side concerns. I quite like the randomness of the javablogs as is, gives me a feel for the current Java Gamut and every now and again I hit upon interesting off-the-wall ideas this way..
Otherwise aren`t we talking about an organised forum, plenty of free bandwidth over on Java.net guys! phew – talk about dying on your feet.. painfully quiet.. almost too quiet..
August 28th, 2003 at 6:23 pm
The posts I hate the most are the ones that say things like: ‘I bought a new computer and it rocks!’ or ‘My cat’s breath smells like catfood’. Some things should not be posted to JavaBlogs.
August 28th, 2003 at 9:51 pm
I’m obviously going to have to start posting pictures of my cat to Javablogs.
August 29th, 2003 at 12:25 am
I bought a new cat and it rocks!
August 29th, 2003 at 12:36 am
Mr Mike Wall:
Some good points there.
Part of the problem is the tension between people that post to their blog because they want an entry in their blog and people that post to their blog because they want an entry in JavaBlogs. As Charles has pointed out -http://fishbowl.pastiche.org/archives/001423.html – JavaBlogs is turning blogging into something much more like Usenet.
On a related note, I’ve been embarrassed more than once by posting some inane little thing to my blog, that ended up wasting the time of hundreds of people, because it caught the “ViewPopularBlogs” wave early in the morning.
September 4th, 2003 at 2:20 pm
> Idiots who post multiple stories on multiple blogs
> to hog the frontpage: Namely, Gerald Bauer.
Sorry for dropping by so late. Hani, can you point me to a story that I cross-posted on my blogs to “hog the JavaBlogs frontpage”.
PS: Hani, if you’re looking for a job at Sun may I suggest trying a more professional way to prove your loyality than bashing Sun critics.