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Hi folks,

Have the settings changed on the main site home page? It looks like it is showing all recent models rather than the most recent model for each member. I probably preferred the old way as it gave you more time to see each new addition. 

Cheers,

Rob. 

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Hi Rob,

I dont think @netsmithUK has changed anything but with lots of people working from home globally the updates are moving through quicker than normal.

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Actually I have changed it :) just trying something new, felt the way it was working was actually hidding a lot of new content and some old content was staying there just a bit too long. Leaving it like this for now and will review again in a couple of weeks. Adam is correct though in saying the number of new items has gone up since lock down and the free subscriptions initiative. 

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When I looked yesterday, eight of the twelve slots under "Member Gallery" were taken up by the same person which seems a little unfair. If someone does a batch update to their showroom they could conceivably take every slot. I liked how it worked before with the red indicator to show more than one recent update.

@netsmithUK While you're tweaking, I spotted a typo on the car listing page (like this one: https://www.tamiyaclub.com/car.asp?cid=549)

Question mark is in the wrong place:

REMEMBER THIS CAR MODEL PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW?

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Its a fair point and thats why i introduced 'the stacked' method originally but back then there was a lot of people posting a lot of content, these days its a lot less. Thought it was a real shame that 'new content' was being hidden by default and 'old content' was hanging around on the home page for a week or two or even more. Its not cast in stone though so will take feedback on board and review at some point.

Cheers

Chris

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Thanks for explaining Chris. 
 

I was going to update my showroom with 6 new models but didn’t want to take up so many slots. 
 

FWIW I always clicked on the red dot to see all the new models behind the members latest model. 
 

I prefer the old setting, but it’s not a big deal. For the record I love this site, especially in these crazy times. 
 

Cheers,

Rob

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No probs. Maybe you could just stagger your uploads over a few days — that’s kind of how I hoped people would use it but it’s not really a problem either way just the luck of the draw how many the next persons publishes

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I find the ‘browse’ function at the top of the page helpful to catch up if I haven’t been on for a while by clicking on Showrooms. 

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FWIW, I prefer the old method.  Too many people are batch uploading and models are moving off the page too quickly now.

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On 4/6/2020 at 11:29 PM, netsmithUK said:

No probs. Maybe you could just stagger your uploads over a few days — that’s kind of how I hoped people would use it but it’s not really a problem either way just the luck of the draw how many the next persons publishes

Case in point... :unsure:

tc-allslots.thumb.jpg.c4f015ab4442371d6c9549add1b30cf8.jpg

I do feel your pain though, it's not easy to strike a balance. A major problem with user generated content is the quality varies wildly. For showroom entries some people are writing detailed descriptions full of useful information, with a dozen or so high quality photos that have been planned and composed well, and others are adding just a single photo of a kit box we've seen a dozen times before, sometimes with no description at all.

One idea might be to have an algorithm so that models which are engaging with visitors more (views, comments etc) stick around longer and those which get fewer views and comments drop off the homepage faster.

 

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I actually like it this way, before you missed so much content.. When I previously browsed I would stick to the home page and I rarely clicked on the more of that user (if loaded more than one) for me it just needs a button on the home page to load more content to save you going through the hamburger menu... I have quite a few to load as I like my showroom to reflect what I have... But I'll just load as and when... Plenty of time!!! 

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I’d still prefer to go back to the old way. Gave it a couple of weeks but reckon I’m missing quick a few new additions. 

Just my 2c. 

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On 4/9/2020 at 7:36 AM, zakspeed said:

I actually like it this way, before you missed so much content.. When I previously browsed I would stick to the home page and I rarely clicked on the more of that user (if loaded more than one) for me it just needs a button on the home page to load more content to save you going through the hamburger menu... I have quite a few to load as I like my showroom to reflect what I have... But I'll just load as and when... Plenty of time!!! 

I'm with this view - prefer it how it used to be before it was changed a few years ago. Maybe do a vote thread/thingy and keep it open for a month @netsmithUK

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Hope you don't mind if I drag this up again.

No disrespect to Chris, I fully understand the reasons for changing the home page on the main site, but I really don't like it!

The situation is different now, people at home more and a lot more content being added to showrooms. Which is great, but the situation where someone uploads a load of models and pushes everyone else straight off the page - well, it seems kind of unfair! Must admit I much preferred the old page layout where it wasn't just 12 different builds, but the work of 12 different builders.

I worry that it's going to put people off adding models to their showrooms. We all like our 15 minutes of fame, the comments and the likes but if no-one sees your entry because someone else uploaded pics of their entire collection - what's the point?

So I hope it's ok to make a couple of suggestions:

Go back to the old system, if only as a temporary change for a couple of months and see how it goes

and/or add an extra row so there's 18 models shown instead of 12 (less risk of one person dominating the whole page)

and/or would it be possible to add a function so the viewer can switch between the old layout and the new?

 

What does everyone else think? 

cheers,

Rob

 

 

  . 

 

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Hey no disrespect taken :) All feedback is always welcome. I completely understand where you are coming from BTW and don't disagree in that ideally I like to see lots of update by lots of users and at the same time I don't care who posts them I just like to see new models, for me its the picture that makes me decide if to look or not, not the builder - but thats personal preference

Now I've been able to test it for a while now I'm able to see how people are using it compared to the way they used it before. The bottom line is the new system produces nearly 40% more click throughs than the old system and that is shared more evenly across posted models. Thats means on average more models are being looked at, which leads to more likes, favourites and comments for those posting. Thats data not personal opinion and there is no denying thats a generally positive result. The trade-off is occasionally models will drop off the page quicker than the poster would have liked - i understand that. Previous approach had its own 'unfairness' in that one model could be on the home page for 2 weeks, at the same time I could post two great models but because they were grouped one might only be on the homes page for 1 minute. The red indicator was my first attempt to fix that but its just not used in any meaningful numbers.

All that said I've just about got a refined test ready to go, which will look at what is has been posted over a time frame and then automatically switch between the old and new way when required. ie if some has more than three items in one go it will group them, so lets see how that goes.

Im not really a fan of personalisation options, I've built in lots of these before but ultimately very few ever got used and then are just a pain in the code that I have to maintain going forward, so I'd rather not add more if possible.

Please bear with me, we'll get something that feels better soon.

Cheers

Chris

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8 hours ago, netsmithUK said:

Hey no disrespect taken :) All feedback is always welcome. I completely understand where you are coming from BTW and don't disagree in that ideally I like to see lots of update by lots of users and at the same time I don't care who posts them I just like to see new models, for me its the picture that makes me decide if to look or not, not the builder - but thats personal preference

Now I've been able to test it for a while now I'm able to see how people are using it compared to the way they used it before. The bottom line is the new system produces nearly 40% more click throughs than the old system and that is shared more evenly across posted models. Thats means on average more models are being looked at, which leads to more likes, favourites and comments for those posting. Thats data not personal opinion and there is no denying thats a generally positive result. The trade-off is occasionally models will drop off the page quicker than the poster would have liked - i understand that. Previous approach had its own 'unfairness' in that one model could be on the home page for 2 weeks, at the same time I could post two great models but because they were grouped one might only be on the homes page for 1 minute. The red indicator was my first attempt to fix that but its just not used in any meaningful numbers.

All that said I've just about got a refined test ready to go, which will look at what is has been posted over a time frame and then automatically switch between the old and new way when required. ie if some has more than three items in one go it will group them, so lets see how that goes.

Im not really a fan of personalisation options, I've built in lots of these before but ultimately very few ever got used and then are just a pain in the code that I have to maintain going forward, so I'd rather not add more if possible.

Please bear with me, we'll get something that feels better soon.

Cheers

Chris

The new refined test sounds interesting, Did that or something like it get tested briefly recently? I thought I saw something that resembled that a couple weeks ago?

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On 4/9/2020 at 3:27 PM, Truck Norris said:

Case in point... :unsure:

tc-allslots.thumb.jpg.c4f015ab4442371d6c9549add1b30cf8.jpg

I do feel your pain though, it's not easy to strike a balance. A major problem with user generated content is the quality varies wildly. For showroom entries some people are writing detailed descriptions full of useful information, with a dozen or so high quality photos that have been planned and composed well, and others are adding just a single photo of a kit box we've seen a dozen times before, sometimes with no description at all.

One idea might be to have an algorithm so that models which are engaging with visitors more (views, comments etc) stick around longer and those which get fewer views and comments drop off the homepage faster.

 

My apologies about this, I didn’t know about staggering the uploads

know for the future though 👍🏻

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8 minutes ago, KalEl63 said:

My apologies about this, I didn’t know about staggering the uploads

know for the future though 👍🏻

Don't worry about it, its not a rule or anything thats even written as a suggestion somewhere. You are not the first to upload a lot in one go given a shiney new empty showroom to fill :)

Im working on an automatic way that handles the home page automatically when someone does though, so it should just become a none issue.

Cheers

Chris

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1 hour ago, KalEl63 said:

My apologies about this, I didn’t know about staggering the uploads

know for the future though 👍🏻

Sorry to use you as an example! I wasn't suggesting you'd done it deliberately, it just happened to occur to demonstrate my point :) 

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I don't claim to know the ultimate answer, but I too am very keen to see a solution to this.

While it is great that people are sufficiently interested in the hobby to want to share their pictures, multiple models from the same person filling the page is quite de-motivating to those of us who are considering uploading one project at a time as we know it will be moved out of view in short order, and IMO it also makes slightly dull reading since while we are all individuals with our own styles, seeing multiple models done by the same person in the same style isn't as interesting as seeing multiple models from multiple people in multiple styles.

I don't know if it is practical, but is there perhaps a way of limiting the number of new showroom entries from a given user in a given time period? That way people will be encouraged to focus more on quality rather than quantity, and we would hopefully see more variety on the site at any given time.

Whatever the outcome, your efforts are appreciated!

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18 hours ago, Truck Norris said:Sorry to use you as an example! I wasn't suggesting you'd done it deliberately, it just happened to occur to demonstrate my point :) 

All good no need to apologize I always like to try and do the right things

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I've implemented my auto switch mechanism, it basically switches between approaches depending on numbers of models uploaded by a single user. So will leave that for a while and see how it goes.

Chris

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3 hours ago, TurnipJF said:

I don't claim to know the ultimate answer, but I too am very keen to see a solution to this.

While it is great that people are sufficiently interested in the hobby to want to share their pictures, multiple models from the same person filling the page is quite de-motivating to those of us who are considering uploading one project at a time as we know it will be moved out of view in short order, and IMO it also makes slightly dull reading since while we are all individuals with our own styles, seeing multiple models done by the same person in the same style isn't as interesting as seeing multiple models from multiple people in multiple styles.

I don't know if it is practical, but is there perhaps a way of limiting the number of new showroom entries from a given user in a given time period? That way people will be encouraged to focus more on quality rather than quantity, and we would hopefully see more variety on the site at any given time.

Whatever the outcome, your efforts are appreciated!

Think we have to be a bit careful with saying things like "encourage to focus more on quality rather than quantity" - there has certainly been nothing to show that buly uploads are 'worse' than single uploads. Its generally just new user coming on board and uploading their collections on a new service they have just subscribed to. Once people have got over that initial stage and using the use of the site is generally just a case of 'you get a model, build it and post it' which is fine. I think what I really need to do is improve the onboarding flow for new users, that and the switching methods approach I think will be fine.

(Like I said before the previous approach was not without its problems, with some great uploads just generally being missed because someone had uploaded 2 models in one period - and Im not saying that people in this thread did not click the red number indicators, they obviously did, but the vast majority of people didn't)

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