Improvements in IndiVine

Vipul, I'm really glad you brought this up at this time - we have had IndiVine on our must-revamp list for some time now. I love the direction of your thoughts, and I'd love to see the suggestions from other bloggers as well.

Thank you for putting so much thought into this - one of the reasons I simply love this forum. This is the community at it's best.

hey thnx rennie.. u guys hav put up sch a gr8 community. Um jus doing my little bit.

Hey,

Even I feel its a great place to stack good blogposts made by fellow indibloggers...

Here are my 2 cents:

Presently the Indivine section just shows the current upbeat topics and how the people are reacting to it....

However I feel it would be a great idea if these topics could be divided into various catgories like Politics, Sports, Personal etc etc...

I also agree a 100 percent with Vipul about allowing rating to the blogposts selected in Indivine. May be the good ones get a "Indivine Top Rated Post badge" :-)

Yeah, the presently relevant topics can be clustered undered a CURRENT section while other sections like Politics, Personal, Sports can be created. Once a topic looses its significance, all the posts under it should be transferred to the relevant section like politics, sports, misc. etc

However, on a second thought IndiVine should remain as it is, carrying only relevant topics. A seperate feature can be added for carrying the other general topics.

Great idea vipul.... It would be easy to find which post is better...  try to implement this as soon as possible.

I agree to cloud too.. sections should be divided.. And those sections should cover  wide range of topics. So that each and every blogger can take part. Sections like humors,sports,Poems can be encouraged... I really find many great poems written by fellow bloggers. They should also be encouraged... If possible you can also rate the leader of each section whose post has got more number of thumbs up.

well ofcourse once it is implemntd, a mechanism shud b devisd so tht those who will consistntly have their posts with maximum thumbs up shud b awardd in sum way(a specialy designd indiblogger badge cn do)..

nd yeah um sure renie n his team r closely folowing this discusion, proof being his instnt rply wn i postd this in d form nd this thread appears in 'important suff' section.

Lets c wat d othr indibloggers hav 2 say about it. Till now the discussion is building real nicely though a bit slowly!

this is an extremely useful suggestion... thumbs up to you buddy!! will i think it should be incorporated here!

http://www.parvkaushik.blogspot.com/

hey thnx buddy 4 supporting the suggestion:)

http://vipulgrover.blogspot.com/

Sometimes I really get worried about 'ranking', 'voting' and all such things though I agree to its utility and relevance. Your suggestion is valid in the context of 'fast reading, useful reading and meaningful reading'.  But the best way I see is to keep on exploring the unknown, meet something valid accidently and then spread it across. The percetptions of different people are different. I hope I don't have to trust majority on every thought, I think we all need space to differ.

No offence meant... I appreciate your ideas and your intention to help readers...

Hey aativas i genuinely undrstand ur cncrn. nd thanx 4 appreciating my initiative despite a difference in opinion.

Its true tht while giving a thumbs up or thumbs down, once subjective perception might creep in bt more the members participate, more will be the net objectivity.

Moreover, if there is sum1 who do not want to follow others' judgement, he/she is free to browse through the complete list of posts:)

Guys, superb suggestions as usual. Am sure IndiVine needs these at the very least, and I promise you that IndiVine is looming very large in our task list right now.

My only concern is - how do we keep this feature from becoming another Digg or IndianPad? Is there anything we can think of which would differentiate it? The problem with Digg is that you have teams working together to digg each other's posts, etc. Sometime, we may have posts coming to the top which don't deserve to be.

Off the top of my head - should we integrate all the above ideas with IndiRank? We can have a ratio to rate posts - user rating + IndiRank. (Maybe 75:20)

Or will integration with IndiRank discourage new bloggers who have a low IndiRank?

Another problem with Digg - blog posts submitted into the wrong category!

As far as last cncrn is there, i blive u guys r already moderating the stff (it tuk my post on global warming a week to get accepted), so how cum they'll reach the wrong category?

Secondly integration with IndiRank is really not a good idea as u urslf have revealed its shortcoming!

Lastly, as far as ur first and the most importnt cncrn is cncrnd(regarding teams wrking 2gthr), I prsnaly dont hav any readymade answer rite now. as it is um not tht accustomed 2 d wrking of digg nd indipad(rather hav not usd thm yet). will luk into thm and think of sum 'jugad' (hey i hop u guys undrstand this wrd;)

http://vipulgrover.blogspot.com/

Yep, we can moderate the entries now cause we only have a hundfull of topics. Once we open it out to all the categories, we'll have hundreds everyday, which will be impossible to handle....

Hmmm.. thts true..

I'll see it frm two aspects, first wrong submission and second reporting the wrong submission.

First i'll take the second one:

• u cn intoduce a 'report wrong categorisation' button along with thumbs up and thumbs down.

• once u receive any sch report from a member with regards to any post in Indivine, just put the topic in right place.

• i agree this is not a full proof method as sum miscreants cn make ur life hell by reporting wrongly.

• bt thn whoevr reports such a thing, his/her identity shud be recordd too.

• on first wrongdoing, he shud b mailed to clarify(coz sch a thing mite hav happend inadvertently)

• nxt time persn may b banned or his voting/reporting powers can be taken away temporarily or permanently, based on rules u frame.

Now cuming to the first aspect, i.e PREVENTING WRONG SUBMISSION:

• under each topic seperately mention kind of stff thts xpectd 2 b submitted.
• carry out periodical partial checking to see if there r wrong submissions (if a difficlt task leave it)
• If sum1's posts are reported twice(ignore once) ask him to clarify.
• If there is any particular member whos posts are being reported frequently. Take necessary action against him/her. These actions cn b similar to those i elaborated earlier.

Thts all i cn think of bcoz ultimately only the members r allowed to participate nd if there is any miscreant among the submitters or reporters, he/she cn b identified easily by keeping an automatic record.

Now cuming to another concern, i.e, preventing non-deservable posts cuming to top.

Here again we have two aspects:

1. Preventing teams working together

2. Integrating IndiRank with user voting

I'll again take the second, first

• I did not support intgration of IndiRank earlier bt on a second thought sum weightage might be given. Ur suggstion of 1/4 weightage to IndiRank luks fine.
• However, to take the sting out of it, there is another suggestion.
• u mite give sum special rating powers to members with high IndiRank(above particular IndiRank). Lets call thm HR(high rankers) and others NHR(non HR) for time being.
• But the important thing is u do not reveal this limit and keep it a secret.
• When ever a HR rates a NHR positively, his rating is multiplied by two and when HR rates a fellow HR negatively, it is again multiplied by 2. In other two cases it is taken as single vote.
• In this way, HR's will help in pulling down the non-deserving fellow HR's and pushing the deserving NHR's up
• Hence this will satisfy those who r against use of IndiRank.

Now cuming to the first one, i.e Miscreant Teams:

• Its not necessary tht these teams r alwez miscreant. Those who r here for long hav made frnds nd it is natural tht their frnds will tend to read their articles more nd hence they'll end up with more votes.
• Moreover, if u know sum1, u mite evn give him/her a thumbs up/thumbs down without evn reading, knowing tht how he/she writes(mayb on the basis of just one post u read sum time back)

Um sorry bt i dont think its easy to prevnt this. These r sum shortcumings. lets c wat others think about it.

• Now cuming to actual miscreants
• If their posts r actually deserving there is no pblm.
• But if they r not lets hav another reporting system.
• So in addition to a thumbs down, a person cn report tht this post is not desrving to be at the given position. If such reports are receivd for a particular post from say 5 members, thn moderators cn luk into it.
• This way if any particular trend is seen ovr the time cnrning the posts and votes by sum particular members, thn u may evn end up catching any such team and taking necessary action.
• For this particular reporting purpose u may give special powers to the old and trusted IndiBloggers. Say their single report may suffice 5 reports of other members.

Thats all from my side for time being

All the ideas given above are great...plus I also feel the categories need to be more....so that more relvant topics are incorporated..for example, a category on parenting would be so much relevant in today's world where we have more and more of nuclear families and both the parents working.

nice suggestion neerja:)

let us have indibloggers suggesting more sch topics 2 help renie nd company.

I just took a printout of this topic and read through it... Gosh... Vipul, want to join the team?

Everyone here - thank you for doing so much thinking for us. Our job is half done! We just finished some subtle design changes to the site, and we're working on IndiVine now.

Well um already part of the team bt joining it officially doesn't seem like a bad idea

So do let me know if tht was a serious offer

All d best 4 d changes nd v r looking fwd to d new nd improved IndiBlogger 2.0!

Feedback required on categories for IndiVine please! As you can see, my mind's gone a blank with business & finance.

Technology

• Blogging
• Design
• Programming
• Gadgets
• Hardware
• Software
• Gaming
• Startups
• Social Media
• Tech News

Business & Finance

• Business
• Finance

Politics & Governance

• Political News
• Politicians & Parties
• Political Opinion
• Corruption
• Citizen Responsibility
• Terrorism
• Infrastructure & Development

Social Causes

• Youth & Education
• Animal Rights
• Environment
• Public Health
• Racism
• Reservation & Quotas
• Poverty
• Queer Pride
• Other Social Causes

Lifestyle

• Education
• Food & Drink
• Family & Parenting
• Travel & Tourism
• Health
• Religion
• Arts & Culture

Entertainment

• Celebrities
• Movies
• Music
• Television
• Comics & Animation
• Entertainment News

Sports & Games

• Cricket
• Hockey
• Tennis
• Athletics
• Soccer
• Motorsports
• Golf
• Chess
• Other Sports

Offbeat & Personal

• Short Stories
• Poetry
• Humour
• Odd Stuff
• Love & Relationships

Renie, I guess everythings coverd here... 

Nice job renie.

Change the title Business and Financed 2 sum general one.. cnt think of one. Under it u may add new topics like Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Entrepreneurship.

Also fiscal and monetary policy can be added under it or under Politics and Governance.

Under Politics and Governance, add Judicial Activism.

Under Social Causes, separately add Global Warming.

And within Personal, don't miss adding 'Memoirs',i.e. autobiographical stff!

Under Entertainment, u may try to devise a way of seperating topics under Hollywood, Other Foreign Language films, Mumbai Film Industry and Regional Cinema. Even under Mumbai film industry there can be mainstream cinema and alternative cinema.

My last suggestion regarding movies can be ignored as its like splitting the hair

Thanks Hemal! How's it going?

Vipul, wouldn't global warming come under environment?

Business & Finance - there are lots of blogs about stocks, personal finance, business takeovers, etc, so I think it should be a main category...  the only issue was the lack of sub categories... thanks for the ideas!

Global warming would definitely come under Environment.

As for Global Warming, the reason i asked it to be created as seperate sub category from environment was because it itself is a hot-topic. So bloggers will be writing a lot about it. thts why it desrvs to be seperated frm othr envirnmntal issues.

Once crucial question - do we open voting (or promoting as we're calling it) to everyone? Or only to approved IndiBloggers?

By keeping the voting to approved Indibloggers, it would give them some incentive to participate.

opning 2 evry1 will cause a lot of pblms about which we discussd earlier. It shud be open only 2 mmbrs only!

Hmmm.... also, what about science?

'Science' as a category can include:

Agriculture, Oceanography, Biology, etc.

yeah we cn have science nd technology. i'v replied seperately below!

How about calling the category 'Business'.

Topics could include Real Estate, Personal Finance, (Investments/Stock Market )

and also Start-ups and Business News.

Renie, We can have a new topic, Science and Technology.

Now those sub-categories which u suggstd under Technology mostly pertain to computers and I.T. These can be put under seperate category, say Computers and IT.

Now Science and Technology will be able to cater to other general topics.

As for Global Warming, the reason i asked it to be created as seperate sub category from environment was because it itself is a hot-topic. So bloggers will be writing a lot about it. thts why it desrvs to be seperated frm othr envirnmntal issues.

Under Offbeat and Personal, as i already suggested Memoirs. other one can be Travelogue and India Guide. Here ppl cn giv links to their posts about their own cities or about their trips to othr cities as name suggests.

so does that means we are creating indidigg ?

OMG! Wonderful follow-up. But, inspite of all the discussion, it still seems a mammoth task to see the good posts thru and filter out the old ones. Participation is important, both in terms of nominating entries, as well as reading them. So, including this factor while deciding the IndiRank will give a balanced approach.

Don't we also need a category for Fictions and Stories. And I think Science category can be called 'Science and Research' cos then it can have all the following under it.

MedicinePhysicsChemistryAnimal sciencePlant scienceEarth Science

Can't think of more categories right now.

Thanks everyone - will put everything together in order soon. IndiVine 2.0 is looking good so far!

@Renie,

Many a times we try to design a system intelligent enough to manage the peak condition, when 1000s of people are visiting, people are trying to manipulate and all other things.

I am confident that indivine will reach those heights. However right now I will rather focus on getting the functionality optimized for the current situation and then solve the issues as and when they come along.

If I were designing the indivine system, I will focus on

1. How to select the topics that will be part of indivine. Selection by indiblogger team assumes that you people have a handle on what will interest the readers/ what is important in all topics. It may or may not be true. May be you should think about a voting system to decide topics as well.

2. Gaming on digg happens because the traffic and the pagerank flow is worth it. The SEO attempt may be controlled by making the link nofollow. The traffic angle will always be there and my sense is no matter what you do gaming in some form will always happen. May be you can put in some algorithm that does not allow posts from one topic to dominate many threads unless manually approved by indiblogger team.

However as I already said, the gaming will take quite some time. So get the system out without worrying about the gaming issue. Fix it afterwards.

3. One problem with voting systems is that posts that get early votes remain at the top for longer and hence probability of them getting more vote increases. One solution will be to show the posts in a round-robin manner for sometime and drop posts that get very less thumbs up. Order the posts by number of posts after 3-4 days when the system has stabilized.

Binaryday! Totally agree with you. Point no.3 requires some thought!

You're right, point taken!

Ok, need to bounce an idea here - about integration with IndiRank - how about we increase the value of a vote based on IndiRank? So if a post gets one vote, and that blog's IR is 45, then the vote is increased by 1.4. (Displayed values will be rounded off)

thts a nice idea bt why not keep it xact instead of rounding off.. for IndiRank 44, it will be 1.44 and for 46, 1.46; othrwise just because of a diffrnce of 2 in IndiRank, vote diffrnce will bcum 1.5-1.4=0.1, five times more thn original(0.02)

Damn, just when I wanted to put up a post on it under the 'Queer Pride'

This sounds like a good idea in any case! Looking forward to the new IndiVine.