More New Features #3 - List Improvements
Lists have been improved in two ways...
1. You can now leave comments on a list.
2. You can now create your own custom lists. You can set lists to Private or Public so that they're visible to only yourself or the whole community.
This feature still needs a bit of work, particularly for organising the Public Lists page, so I'll ask you not to all go crazy with it just yet. I may have to make drastic changes which could have an impact on your efforts. Please have a play around though and let me know what you think. I'm very open to suggestions for how to make it function well while avoiding chaos.
All feedback welcome and encouraged.
Have been giving the new lists option a go and, well Ben, you've really gone and done it now!!
Awesome...
OK guys, I need your help. I really think the My Lists / Public Lists feature could be a really fun and useful feature of Metal Academy, but it needs some work. Let's all put our heads together and design the best possible outcome, then I'll do my best to make it happen.
MY THOUGHTS...
In its current state, the Public List section is going to become a complete mess, as everyone's going to create and "publish" their own stuff. It needs to be organised, and the best way to do that is to use categories. It would be really interesting to see attendee top 10 lists for any given year for example, but it would be even cooler if you could see their top 10 list for any given clan for any given year.
So maybe whenever someone creates a list, it's required that they select what year, clan or genre it covers,. They always have the option to leave one or more of those options blank if its not relevant. I could then display all created lists on the Public Lists page and have a title search function, but also offer the ability to find lists that specifically cover a year, clan or genre, or any combination.
I don't think this system limits anyone from making whatever list they want and sharing it, but it does create some control over how searchable and neat it is. I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts, and anyone has any other ideas for how it can work (no matter how different they are), please raise them.
Cheers,
Ben.
I think the "year/clan/genre" idea is a good fair one, though I might have to split my review to-do list into different categories. I like that idea! So far I've been able to manage my own list and don't see a lot that needs to be improved, but if I come up with any good ideas, I'll share them here. Great new features, by the way, Ben! 
Hi Ben, I am a little unsure what you mean. Do you intend to have different sections within the list section to differentiate years, genres etc or do you mean to have a list section within each separate clan? The latter may help tidy things up for clan-specific lists leaving the main lists section for more generalised listings, such as "Greatest Albums of the 1990's" or other less genre-specific lists.
Ben, I just found an issue here, the lists are unable to load in mobile devices like iPhones. Can you please find a way to fix that? Thanks.
Ben, I just found an issue here, the lists are unable to load in mobile devices like iPhones. Can you please find a way to fix that? Thanks.
I can't see any issue with the lists on my iPhone. Can you be more specific around what you're experiencing? Thanks.
Hi Ben, I am a little unsure what you mean. Do you intend to have different sections within the list section to differentiate years, genres etc or do you mean to have a list section within each separate clan? The latter may help tidy things up for clan-specific lists leaving the main lists section for more generalised listings, such as "Greatest Albums of the 1990's" or other less genre-specific lists.
LIST CREATION IN MY LISTS
I'm suggesting that when you're creating a new list, you have to select the Genre, Clan and Year that it relates too. If the list covers multiple of any of those categories, then you select All or Multiple. So every list will have All, Multiple or a specific value for each of those categories.
VIEWING LISTS IN PUBLIC LISTS
I would add User, Genre, Clan and Year filters on the Public Lists page. You would therefore be able to find any lists that (for example) include ONLY black metal albums from 2020, or perhaps any Revolution specific list that covers any date range, or any Doom Metal specific lists for 2018 created by Sonny92 (which would no doubt be pretty awesome).
Make sense? If anyone thinks the system could be different / better, please speak up. I want to get this as close to right as possible before we plough ahead and start making stacks of lists.
I was writing out a request but re-read what you had in mind for the categorization aspect and it completely took care of my issue, so the system seems great to me. Having Lists filtered by Clan is really important and the other two are just icing on the cake for future-proofing searching for lists, so I'm all about it.
Would the thumbnail of the list default to the collage of album art like in the lists currently? Could we select the 4 albums that are shown? Allowing custom images obviously opens up the possibility for issues in the future, but it's something to think about.
Hi Ben. I'm sorry for being thick, but I'm still not getting it. When you say you select, clan, genre and year do you mean via a function that has yet to be added or do we need to state all those things in the list title? I have begun another list but have not been asked to select any of those categories anywhere.
Hi Ben. I'm sorry for being thick, but I'm still not getting it. When you say you select, clan, genre and year do you mean via a function that has yet to be added or do we need to state all those things in the list title? I have begun another list but have not been asked to select any of those categories anywhere.
Sorry if I haven't been clear, but this is a design discussion. I haven't added the categories or filters yet. I just wanted to gather some feedback from the community before I go down that path. There could be a better way to configure things that I haven't thought of.
Hi Ben. I'm sorry for being thick, but I'm still not getting it. When you say you select, clan, genre and year do you mean via a function that has yet to be added or do we need to state all those things in the list title? I have begun another list but have not been asked to select any of those categories anywhere.
Sorry if I haven't been clear, but this is a design discussion. I haven't added the categories or filters yet. I just wanted to gather some feedback from the community before I go down that path. There could be a better way to configure things that I haven't thought of.
Right, Ben I'm with you now. That sounds great. As the number of lists increases there would definitely be a need to filter them I think. What about a way to "favourite" or "like" a particular list then within any given category allow them to be ordered by number of "likes" so presumably the more popular (and by inference, better or more useful) lists are shown first?
An excellent idea. I'll attempt to do just that.
Would it also be possible to sort by most recently made, so that you could view any newer lists first?
Would it also be possible to sort by most recently made, so that you could view any newer lists first?
Yeah, I reckon so. So default to most likes, but allow for order of creation.
Would it also be possible to sort by most recently made, so that you could view any newer lists first?
Yeah, I reckon so. So default to most likes, but allow for order of creation.
Yeah, sounds good, Ben.
The above suggested categories have been added to the My List section and the relevant filters are available on the Public Lists page.
Please have a play around and let me know what you think!
Hey Ben, could you possibly take a look at the "Apply other person's ratings" button whenever you click into a list? I think that a descriptor or heading would make it much more clear as to what it actually does. Even though I was able to figure it out on my own, it looks out of place since its use isn't immediately apparent. I originally assumed that it was used for Clan Challenges to filter the list of albums to only show the ones the person had completed, but if it's going to be at the top of every list then I think some direction is important.
The list creation is really nice by the way, the ability to search either artist name or album name without having to change a bunch of search options is way more convenient. Showing the full release information with the reviews/ratings on all the lists is a great call too in my opinion.
Hey Ben, could you possibly take a look at the "Apply other person's ratings" button whenever you click into a list? I think that a descriptor or heading would make it much more clear as to what it actually does. Even though I was able to figure it out on my own, it looks out of place since its use isn't immediately apparent. I originally assumed that it was used for Clan Challenges to filter the list of albums to only show the ones the person had completed, but if it's going to be at the top of every list then I think some direction is important.
The list creation is really nice by the way, the ability to search either artist name or album name without having to change a bunch of search options is way more convenient. Showing the full release information with the reviews/ratings on all the lists is a great call too in my opinion.
Yes, Daniel had the same question, so it's obviously something I need to make clearer. Will get something added.
Ben, I noticed that the drop down box of member's names is a list, not a searchable box. Whilst OK at the moment, would this not become difficult to navigate as the membership grew? If you had to search a list of hundreds, or even thousands of names it would become unusable wouldn't it? Other than that I really love the new listing features.
I've implemented both of Sonny's suggestions, adding a descriptor for the member selector while making it searchable.
So it's now really easy to see what any particular site member rated the albums on any given list.
