Site Post » Potential Upcoming Notification Changes · 3:19pm Jan 2nd, 2013
I've recently been working on some significant changes to the notifications system that I think have needed doing for a while, and will improve the site experience a lot.
The current situation:
Right now, there are 8 different notification types: Comments, Watches, Favourites, Group Additions, Group Threads, Comment Replies, Blog Posts and New Stories. These are all shown at once, and their count is all included in a single notification count number. The problem with this is that it gives all notifications the same precedence, regardless of content.
The changes:
Broadly, the proposed changes are to filter notifications into 3 categories:
Meta: Notifications that relate to "meta" data. Watches and favourites go here.
Content: Stories, blog posts and group items go here (explained more later)
Social: Comments, comment replies and new group threads go here
Each of these would have their own section on the toolbar, or stacked with a drop down (similar to DeviantArt). Now, I said I had a little more to say about content notifications...
Well, the plan is to not even display them as they are right now. While they would have a number that is maintained, the current plan is to move them into a feed-like format that emphasises the content in them, and give them higher value than anything else on the site. This is still highly WIP, so please bear that in mind, but you can see what it looks like be going here. Right now there are no display options, but when it's done you'll be able to filter by content type, and scrolling down to the bottom will load up more content for you.
For social notifications, they will not be marked as read automatically upon going to the notifications page now. Instead they are marked as read when you actually read them. This means 2 things: it's easier to track what you've read after you've received a load of comments after a period of time, and now you can stay on a comment page and refresh to mark notifications read, rather than having to repeatedly visit the notifications page. The page itself is also being revamped.
Stacks now show their full count on the right, and new notifications are more clearly highlighted with a green background and border. The number of new items in a stack is shown to the left.
Let me know what you think.
Honestly, I'm used to the old layout. But this one seems nice
Looks good.
It seems nice, but the whole al-la facebook timeline structured Notification thing gets me. Would there be a way to switch between a compact view and the timeline type view?
We'd still get the popup thingy in the bottom corner telling us when we get new notifications, right? With the beepy sound?
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That's what I'm thinking, yeah. As I said, this is highly WIP and missing most of the display options I have planned.
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Of course, yeah.
I'm used to the current layout, so my kneejerk reaction is DO NOT WANT.
But it looks like it'll be more efficient and effective at delivering the content I'm actually interested in. Thanks for all your hard work.
I like how the notifications are being separated into groups- that was one thing that has bothered me for a while. Also, the other updates are going to be nice, not having them all wiped just by going to the notification page and such.
As for the new layout, I will need some time to adjust, but I like how it looks so far. Thanks for the updates!
I'll admit that I like the idea of stacking notifications, but the feed... it reminds me of Facebook...
-Glassed
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Sounds good then. Go for it. I've sorta gotten used to all the updates, they always work out for the better in the end.
Still think you guys might want to do something so that new stories and updates are more prominently shown, since the changes I find myself much less drawn to them and more just looking at the feature box or checking group updates for story's.
this will go good with being able to set your favorites to private
I only just now clicked that link. I... really do not like the timeline look. I use the notifications page as just a quick way to get to other places on the site, I don't need it to be more annoying to use it to get to those other places. So long as there's a way to switch it back to some kind of a list like it is now, I guess it wouldn't matter. All the rest of this though, I like. Filtering the notifications into three different categories is a good idea, I think. If it's between showing all three categories on the toolbar, and doing a DeviantArt-style dropdown menu to get to all three, I'd vote for the dropdown menu, with the always-visible button on the toolbar having a total count from all categories.
Fucking hell, I just wet myself in glee. That notifications page looks fantastic, though the facebook style one is a little more meh. Personally, I like things to be as minimal as possible until I take the time to look at what's inside. Folders and dropdowns are my best friends.
My only thing is that the filtering has never been persistent for me. Could we make notification filtering a site setting so it sticks when you make changes? Hell, even if not, this would make it VASTLY easier to ignore the notifications I don't care about.
Looks good.
Looks good to me. It'll eliminate that
crushing disappointmentwave of sadnesspit of despairerr, feeling that I get when I click on that exciting "these may be comments" number and find that actually someone's been going to town with groups and adding all their stories to them.Then again, I will no longer be able to delude myself with imaginings of great popularity the moment before I click the notification button.Everyone's saying the feed looks like Facebook, which is true, but it's really only a complaint if you don't like Facebook. Being able to read all the new blogposts and things without clicking off to other pages is something I think I'll quite like, actually.
I like where this is going as long as the feed is added in addition for those who want it. I prefer a more information oriented layout similar to the picture you included instead of the messy feed preview.
That last part about not being marked read until you actually read it will be useful for me. I go to the store, I come back, I have a dozen notifications or more. I go to bed, I wake up, I may have over 30 of them.
And I dont wanna miss ANY of them! (All I ask is that you do not cause us to lose the social interactions here)
I like it.
If it doesn't screw over mobile, I'm happy.
I like the look of the notifications being stacked, and working more like dART's, but the new /?view=feed page looks a little too much like facebook's timeline for me.
This is similar to what I've been thinking, knighty; one of my growing peeves has been that I couldn't tell if I missed any of my unread notes upon a simple refresh, leading me to have several windows that I just leave open, each with 10-12 tabs each.
This one is currently Tab 9 of 12, for example. All of the tabs are FimFiction, so this might help
somea lot with that, as I'm an active memory manager on my machine; I take having sometimes upwards of 30+ FimFic tabs open as a necessary evil, though.But, yes, it looks good.
I really like notifications structure. It's a lot more compact and the stacked feature makes everything look a lot less cluttered. The newsfeed page is a little confusing to the eyes with the way that the blog posts flip-flop, but it's something that I could get used to.
google.ca/imgres?um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&sa=N&tbo=d&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1366&bih=638&tbm=isch&tbnid=f0lGgNSa1vQ6pM:&imgrefurl=http://www.vaughanpl.info/vortex/%3Fp%3D2695&docid=i3oBlZvm2EXITM&imgurl=http://www.vaughanpl.info/vortex/wp-content/uploads/its-beautiful.jpg&w=480&h=640&ei=F2TkUMWkO47fqAHO2oHQCw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=4&vpy=91&dur=1209&hovh=259&hovw=194&tx=50&ty=96&sig=111833354397917481875&page=1&tbnh=133&tbnw=97&start=0&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:88
As long as the Content notifications retain a read/unread status I'm fine with these changes. They tend to be the majority of what I see, and it would be a bit of a functionality loss if I could no longer tell which ones I have and have not read.
Could we maybe get an RSS or Atom feed for notifications? While we're at it, could we have a better story updates feed, maybe one that links to the new chapters rather than the story page?
Knighty, have you ever thought about adding a notification for when someone joins a group you created?
I'm used to the normal layout, but this may help people with prioritizing their actions. I say go for it man.
For a user like me who would only gets 5 notifications a day the old style is better but for more involved users the new layout will be much better
But good work knighty
It looks a little too early to say yay or nay. But as it stands right now, this could be quite the interesting, and useful, change.
Looks good to me.
Hey Knighty, you keep streamlining the site.
Just make sure it doesn't lose that character it's always had.
It looks really damned good though.
Yay, changes.
It's a wonderful change! Thanks, knighty, for all the hard work you and the others put into the site to make it the very best!
Yes on all fronts and I await more changes to make this site more streamlined.
make it so we can delete them
Sure, that seems reasonable. Then I won't get my hopes up that someone talked to me and all it turned out was to be a story.
Seems like a good idea to me.
I was tired of getting notifications from the groups I was in so I left all of them. I would like to have the option to be in a group and pick which folder(s) that stories are added to so that I can recieve a notification of it being added. Plus if it was added to one folder that I chose, I won't receive another Notification saying it was added to another folder that I had chosen as well. This would eliminate extra notifications from the same thing. Also, just because I enter a group doesn't mean I want to be notified upon EVERY story that is added to the group or to a particular folder. I may want to have the option to turn off all of those notifications all together.
Cool beans.
As long as it doesn't result in endless "Error insert number here", I'm cool with that.
I never had much a problem with the current layout, but I can see why you wish to change it and I agree with your reasons. If I may make a suggestion, when I add something to a group I founded a notification pops up, is there way to change that?
new changes, i like the idea of the timeline but as glassed said it kinda reminds me of Facebook. Not saying it as a bad thing, just saying what it reminds me of. Also, i think the watches and favorites shouldn't go under meta as it reminds me of just a joke or a gag story. maybe give that category a different name. since it has to do with your personal status maybe you should just call it status category. that sounds more reasonable and people will most likely remember it
This is the change I've personally been waiting for.
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As you said favoriting (which means bookmarking) will display any chapter updates. It would seem redundant to have the same function in two places.
Neighty, I think I wuv you. I've gotten kind of tired of checking my notifications only for 90% of them being "STORY X WAS ADDED TO GROUP Y," so I am highly in favor of this sort of thing.
672655 Not the OP, but my five cent: but what if the story isn't so good that I want to favourite it, I'm just curious to see how it goes?
I'm personally very picky about what stories I fav, I really have to love it to do that. After all, it's my public rec list of sorts.
Though yeah, I use my Read Later list for tracking not-quite-fave-worthy stories. But that means I have to manually check the list to see if those stories have been updated.
Might take some getting used to, but it could be good.
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This all sounds pretty good, except I do agree with this sentiment. I don't like the "timeline" structure at all. The two-column style really messes with me (I hate reading one blurb left-to-right, top-to-bottom, and then having to switch right instead of just continuing to scroll down), and I'd rather have things organized into an easy to manage compact list anyways.
Just my two cents.
I was just thinking to myself last night and this morning that notifications needed to be improved. I'm glad to see you can read minds!
Would love to see other more important things taken care of first personally.
- Report Comment button that was most with one of these recent updates. It's nice thumbing it down and all, but it takes a lot to bury a comment using that method.
- The Feature Box. Where to begin? Lately there have been stories that, well, simply put suck ass that have made it into the feature box. I do not know what algorithm(s) are used to decide which makes it up there, but recently there have been : A Futashy Sex story that struggled to obtain a 2:1 Up/Down Vote ratio, and had numerous other stories in front of it on the Popular Feed box that performed much better. Right now there is a Halo related story that is poorly constructed and is on the feature box. When can I look at it and see, you know, stories that are worth featuring? It is a broken system, and it needs another look.