Favourites Have Evolved, And Other Features

24th Jan '10 by promethean

22 comments 4173 reads

We've made quite a lot of changes in the latest update - here's a quick summary.

1. Favourites:

You can now follow not only users - but also other tags, stocks and specific threads.

I know that many of you have asked to be able to follow tags and topics for a while, and we've been listening. All the latest updates from anything you 'follow' are listed on your 'favourites' page http://www.stockopedia.com/favourites

You can manage your 'followed' lists on the following page http://www.stockopedia.com/profile/following

How do you 'follow'? At the top of most stock, tag or forum topic pages you'll see a little button that can be clicked similarly on users profile pages you'll see it under their profile image.

2. New Navigator:

We've also created a navigator bar to make it easier to find the best content no matter where you are on the site... whether at the site level, topic level or right down on a single stock.

You can quickly switch from threaded to unthreaded views, and see the newest or most popular content at a glance. You can also filter by content types - to filter to only articles, or events, or documents, and switch timeframes easily.

3. Forum Navigation

Screen_shot_2010-01-24_at_22.48.38.png

All tag pages now include the content navigator bar - and the tag cloud is available from the Browse Tags button in the Forum Menu (http://www.stockopedia.com/tags).

It should now be much easier also to follow the discussion at a topic level, e.g. this page will just show you Oil-related content: http://www.stockopedia.com/forum/topic/7554 and this page will just show you Mining-related content: http://www.stockopedia.com/forum/topic/7324.

4. PDF Browser

We've also rolled out a new PDF browser - keep your eyes peeled for the new content coming from some of our prestigious content partners.

Please give us plenty feedback on these features - I hope you all recognise that we are trying to evolve to a greater ease of usability. I know that change can sometimes be a little uncomfortable, and as the regulars know we change things here quite regularly - apologies if you are taken aback! We are still in rapid development so please continue to let us know your feature requests... we are able…

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promethean

25th Jan '10

It's still there - under the number of replies in the third column...

doverbeach

Could you please reverse the type sizes there or bring back the red - or BOTH!

The number of 'New' replies is massively more interesting than the number of total replies!!!!

And when are you going to do something about the fact that the 'New' on new threads etc , yellow on red, is stupidly small, and very hard to read. For anyone colour blind it may well be impossible! The old white on red star was massively clearer.

keep your eyes peeled for the new content coming from some of our prestigious content partners

sorry, but this is all a bit of a big yawn for me. The prestigous content partners' are just letting their stuff be reproduced here. They aren't really posting here at all. If you reply to one of their threads, they never answer.

For example, I have had quite an interesrting discussion on one of Craig Pirrong's articles - but I had to go and post on his blog to do it, so no-one here will have seen any of it. And I could have done that anyway as his blog article I was interested in popped up on one of my Google alerts. So I gained nothing. And other S'pedia readers gained nothing.

Unless you can persuade the 'prestigious contributors' to respond to replies, then this is just another clippings service and they aren't real S'pedia members at all.

emptyend

In reply to doverbeach (post #4)

Could you please reverse the type sizes there or bring back the red - or BOTH!

The number of 'New' replies is massively more interesting than the number of total replies!!!!

And when are you going to do something about the fact that the 'New' on new threads etc , yellow on red, is stupidly small, and very hard to read. For anyone colour blind it may well be impossible! The old white on red star was massively clearer.

Hear hear!

ps....if it ain't broke etc etc etc

Murakami

In reply to doverbeach (post #5)

Hi DB, it's a mix actually - many are posting directly, some are syndicating. We are developing some tools to allow the syndicators to keep track of comments, so that they can reply easily if they want to, but all this stuff takes time to implement. Obviously, at the moment, if you go to the original blog, that may be a much more direct line for feedback in some cases and that's fine, but, as you say, that discussion would then be cut off from S'pedia readers unless you link to it.

Cheers, M

doverbeach - you are normally right about things... so we'll take a look at the 'new' colouring.

re. contributors not replying
I guess it's important not to blur the distinction between active forum users and article/commentary contributors, which is the reason why we have the difference in layout and type between 'articles' and 'forums'. On most news sites you don't necessarily expect the journalist to reply on the comments thread of the piece in question and it's the same here.

It's really up to the author of the article the extent to which they check the site or choose to be notified of comments made. Many of our contributors do, but in the case that they don't we clearly publish links to their websites where they can be contacted more directly.

The whole point of the new favourites facility is so that people can personalise their own 'active threads' view. We recognise that as the site gets busier and we pull in more and more content the active threads page will start to get busier. If people just follow the topics they are interested in they can then filter out the content that isn't appropriate to them by using their favourites page instead.

Hope that helps.

alano20

In reply to promethean (post #3)

I think it's a start-up problem. There were no entries of the "n new" typelast night on the active threads page after you switched to the new release, e.g. ee's posts numbers 309 and 310 on the M & A thread made after I checked around 6pm were not shown. All working fine now, except I totally agree with db's comments above.

marben100

And when are you going to do something about the fact that the 'New' on new threads etc , yellow on red, is stupidly small, and very hard to read. For anyone colour blind it may well be impossible!

FYI I AM red/green colour blind (the most common form) and the yelow on red stands out very clearly for me - though I agree it could be larger. Red/black combinations I struggle to read.

I agree with the comment that the "new posts" indicator should be more prominent and prefer the old layout.

Best,

Mark

In reply to promethean (post #8)

Hi prom,

I guess it's important not to blur the distinction between active forum users and article/commentary contributors, which is the reason why we have the difference in layout and type between 'articles' and 'forums'.

I have to say, though, that I think you've "drawn the line" incorrectly here. The "imported artcles", where you can't interact with the author are more of the nature of news and IMO belong more in the news part of the site. OTOH articles created by S'pedia contributors really are no different to thread headers and IMO should not be distinct - though, as we've discussed before, there could be a review/flagging mechanism for rich thread headers to gain some form of "approved" status. It is debatable, though, whether anything beyond the current voting system is needed for that latter purpose and on the KISS principle, I'd advocate leaving it at that.

Regards,

Mark - thanks for the comment.

Most people seem to have bookmarked Active Threads as a home page, and it's the only page they see - because of this they've been missing key content on subjects they follow. We added articles and events into active threads as so many people had specifically requested it and were upset to be missing articles on their stocks!!! It seems whatever we do is going to be popular with some and unpopular with others.

I think the issue is that many on the site are here primarily to follow stocks that interest them, and the macro and economic articles are on subjects that don't interest them. If an article or research document was posted about Soco International by a third party, I don't think anyone would complain! And increasingly that will be the case. The Fox Davies reports are being appreciated by the regulars, and we have more content in a similar vein with a resources focus that will appear shortly.

In the interests of KISS - we believe that quality content should all be visible at the top level threaded view where it's most visible. It's up to the individual whether they want to 'follow' specific areas of interest. If we are successful, then over time I do think active threads will become swamped... so please do take advantage of the new favouriting facility! As people become more aware of the changed nature of the site they'll start to filter the content into their own areas of interest and probably bookmark the 'favourites' page instead of 'active threads' thus disregarding the top level.

As mentioned - we are very much in development and the site is still in a transitionary phase. All will become much clearer as we move to a category based navigation system in the next 4 weeks or so - thanks for your patience and for all the feedback.

In reply to promethean (post #12)

I may not have made myself clear. I am perfectly happy that the "active threads page" shows all new content and find this useful myself. It's just that I feel that the distinction between "articles" & "threads" may be better drawn slightly differently. In particular, when a S'pedia contributor wants to create new content, ISTM that the "thread" facility is sufficient - augmented by wikis to collate information on a topic.

Cheers,

Mark - I hear what you are saying... and that's certainly the approach that most users of traditional bulletin boards may be familiar with. Thing is that we are syndicating the best content from the site onto Bloomberg, Google News and other platforms and we need to make a distinction for them and act as a filter. The article format tends to be written for reading in a more stand alone format, whereas a forum message needs read as part of an ongoing discussion. For that reason, syndication is easier for articles, and most news sites won't accept forum posts as news.

If anyone wants to have their thoughts reach a wider audience and be syndicated around the web via Stockopedia then the article format is the way to go!

Hope that makes it clearer!

To add to Promethean's comment, we will be making it much easier to create and submit all content from just one form. Going forward (in a couple of weeks), it will be possible for someone to be writing a normal thread header or a post, and then decide at the end that they think it's good, accessible content and would like to submit for consideration as an Article via a quick checkbox.

Why is it worth submitting content as an Article?

Well, to take the example of wantedman, we managed to get his excellent Marenica Energy article syndicated onto both Google News and Bloomberg, which gives the analysis in that Article the reach it deserves.

Indeed, quotes from that Article even managed to get into the Namibian local press (see: http://www.namibian.com.na/news/full-story/archive/2010/january/article/areva-grows-presence-in-namibia) so that gives you a sense for the potential impact here.

Obviously, this won't necessarily interest everyone (and not every bit of content will be suitable for this kind of distribution), so it's up to the individual user whether they submit or not.

27th Jan '10

re the Fox Davis regualr updates. Is there any way these can all be put on the same thread? These are almost always just exerpts from RNSs - not stunningly interesting stuff. By having them as a new article every day, they are starting to drown out posts on on going threads. eg Tullow see http://www.stockopedia.com/forum/topic/7649. After a couple of months, this will be a PITA.

Alternatively:

They are of interest just for a heads up on the day they are posted. Looking back, anyone interested in a stock should look at the RNSs for a complete record. So could the new one just replace the old one each day?

Or:

either don't tag stocks on it. or remove the tags the day afterwards

Lots of ways of skinning the cat, none of which may strike you as appealing. But this could grow into a major nuisance if not tackled

doverbeach... thanks for the feedback and understand your concern.

The approach that we have taken is that any content that relates to a specific topic - e.g. Tullow, should be accessible from the Tullow pages by being tagged TLW. I understand that you would rather have all the Fox Davies reports on one thread rather than many, but in that scenario we wouldn't be able to tag each post individually with the stocks concerned.

The content navigator is designed to help you filter out the content you don't want to see. Let me know if this isn't clear, but the text 'All Types' on the right has a dropdown filter which allows you to filter the content down to see just threads or just articles etc. So if you wanted to see just threads, you would go to: http://www.stockopedia.com/forum/topic/7649?type=forum

We are considering adding a 'save' button on the navigator so that you can save your own default settings and not see all the other content types - let us know if there is demand for this.

Hope that helps

hi prom,

no that doesn't really help at all. Sure it would get rid of the Fox Davis stuff, but it would also get rid of potentially interesting stuff as well - eg the monkeynuts article. The only way I think that could be made to work would be to move the FD stuff to news (which is where it really belongs, not articles anyway!) and introduce a 'everything except news' filter option.

The Fox Davis stuff may seem like nice additional content to you at the moment, but it is rapidly going to grow into SPAM! As I said, it is fine on the day posted. perhaps even keep the last weeks. But after that it is just a brief extract from old news and of no interest to anyone.

Can I emphasise how uninteresting the FD stuff is? It is not comprehensive for the sector. It rarely has any comments. And there are no links to RNSs.

If you want to see what GOOD looks like, then there are two alternatives each day on TMF:
H's comprehensive round up http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=11818125, which also covers later RNSs the previous day, ASX announcments and things like Oilbarrel; and tgg's fabulous daily commentary on the day's RNSs http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=11818184

But even these two very useful daily bulletins have the problem of badly clogging up TMF's search facility (which is now pretty good). This problem will be worse for you, because threads are kept going for longer here, so the daily spam will be more likley to drown real posts out.

db

31st Jan '10

In reply to marben100 (post #10)

After waiting several days to get used to the new format, I too strongly prefer the old layout. There was one number in red in a separate column showing the number of new posts on threads.

This quickly and clearly identified the threads I was interested in, and allowed me to ignore all the rest at first pass. Then I would come back to view the rest at leisure. This was especially useful after I had been away from my PC for a few days. Now it would be much more difficult, and time consuming, to catch up on what to me are the key threads.

I agree withalano20. I complained immediately and it really hasn't got any better after a few days.

The 'new posts' is the most sensible field for people to click on, as it takes them to the first post they haven't yet read. It's not some bit of background info such as who created the post or when, or how many people are looking at it, or when the last post was made - those are all unimportant and can safely be left in small grey font.

So my suggestions to improve this page are:

1) EITHER make the 'new posts' field red so it stands out OR reverse it with the total number of replies, so the New Posts is large and in blue and the total number of posts (not very useful) is small and in grey

2) change the horrible colours for the NEW sticker

3) make the NEW sticker clickable. This means that people will normally be clicking in 3rd column to view a post

all those are really important. One more suggestion which is less so:

4) make the name of the person who did the last post grey. There is a lot of info on this page and it looks cluttered. The last poster is not that interesting, so keep it there but downplay it.

db

SW10Chap

1st Feb '10

In reply to doverbeach (post #20)

The last poster is not that interesting, so get rid of it.

There. Fixed that for you...

:-)

SW10

BobGe

2nd Feb '10

In case anyone hasn't noticed, "xx new" posts has improved since it is now 'right clickable' and can open in a new tab/window at the correct post location, which didn't happen previously. That is a big improvement.

Favourites have Evolved, and other features

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Promethean

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