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ANN 2015 Survey Feedback


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Tempest
I Run this place.
ANN Publisher


Joined: 29 Dec 2001
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 9:29 am Reply with quote
wewtgoose wrote:
Registered just to ask about a possible feature. I visit ANN daily and consume the News more than anything. I don't care for dubs and am not interested in news about it. However, filtering out "Anime" or "News" as a category is too broad of a brush just to avoid those topics. Would there be a reasonable way to add and filter out sub-topics (no pun intended)?
Interesting request. There are many different people who would want to have slightly different filters. It would be impossible to include them all as easy to see/use filters, but maybe in the future we can make some sort of advanced filter options. As it is though, we don't even label articles as "sub" or "dub," so we'd have to come up with a new labelling system, and make sure it doesn't inconvenience (slow down) the writers too much.
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st_owly



Joined: 20 May 2008
Posts: 5234
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland
PostPosted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 10:42 am Reply with quote
Could there perhaps be an article tagging system, and users can choose not to see articles tagged with certain things, for example in the previous poster's case, he could choose not to see anything tagged with "dub" ?
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Tempest
I Run this place.
ANN Publisher


Joined: 29 Dec 2001
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 11:37 am Reply with quote
st_owly wrote:
Could there perhaps be an article tagging system, and users can choose not to see articles tagged with certain things, for example in the previous poster's case, he could choose not to see anything tagged with "dub" ?


I'm thinking perhaps a UGC tagging system, similar to the "tag clouds" that were all the rage a few years ago.

Regardless, it will be challenging to make sure that the filter only affects articles that are only about the undesired topic.

For example, this headline:

New anime produced by XYZ Company, to be simul-dubbed in 15 countries

I assume wewtgoose would want to know about that article, since it's about new anime, but if the article doesn't explicitly mention subs (because information about subs hadn't been released yet), the requested filters would remove it from his newsfeed.

Anyways, I'm going to end this conversation here. It's an interesting topic and we will keep it in mind, but there no chance of immediate development. The Encyclopedia is our priority.
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Spider



Joined: 22 Jan 2004
Posts: 9
PostPosted: Wed Apr 29, 2015 1:27 am Reply with quote
Tempest wrote:
st_owly wrote:
Could there perhaps be an article tagging system, and users can choose not to see articles tagged with certain things, for example in the previous poster's case, he could choose not to see anything tagged with "dub" ?


I'm thinking perhaps a UGC tagging system, similar to the "tag clouds" that were all the rage a few years ago.

Regardless, it will be challenging to make sure that the filter only affects articles that are only about the undesired topic.
[...]
Anyways, I'm going to end this conversation here.


Thanks for entertaining the thought, it's genuinely appreciated. I avoided specifics originally, and I think my intention was lost by my fault. I apologize if I'm mistaken about that, as it's not my intention to to push for further discussion of the details/merits of tagging, but I wanted to clarify what I had intended to suggest. Below are clarifications. The topic will not be continued beyond that and I'm not seeking any reply here.

Rather than individual property tags from UGC (from readers), I mean to suggest pre-established categories at a finer grain, which editors/writers would associate an article with upon publishing. Adding 'labels'(categorization) to articles in the form of "tags". The term 'labels' is abstracted away for now as they could be simple(mutually exclusive categories like 'Industry News', 'Interest', 'Events') or more complex, one-to-many relations with properties[1].

Honestly, simply adding finer grained categories under "News", "Interest", etc, was my intended highest impact/pay-off/desire, with a way to view those categories all together, or to view each child-category separately (just simple category pages/rss-feeds). With possible ability for readers to craft custom view(s) to present a list(s) of filtered/combined categories (an indexed search of 'labels', if you will). -- Specifying what category(s) to view by following a crafted url to a page/feed/rest-api/wherever-appropriate, or by browser/server side preferences - could result in a page/rss, from a request as simple as "show me just this category('label')", or displaying results from any complexity of filter logic (include, or exclude from 'all'/subset of categories). Or even a 'My News' page with checkboxes/filter-box that changes the combination of articles shown on it's page.

[1] On what 'labels' can be - All labels(categories) could be mutually exclusive, one per article. Or, articles could have a one-to-many 'labels' relation (w/ optional 'primary' category property). It may only add slightly more value, but it can approach something more dynamic then simple classification, where a 'label' has a "category/sub-category/anime/tag/..." property, and multiple of these (except a primary category relation) could be associated with an article. However, that approaches a more complex system regarding inserting/querying metadata or types of querying/displaying to provide users, and possibly requiring knowing what's useful to readers in advance. This would be my ideal that I was hinting toward.

Be it specified by set logic in url parameters, persistent user/server side setting, non-persistent html check-boxes on a page, or just finer grained category page/feed urls. A larger UGC with reader contributed tagging (from a much larger but fixed set) could be fun and would off-load types of writer-coordination/advance-consideration and is flexible for users, but could be polluted, require a different type of additional maintenance, or be too dynamic for readers trying to customize their subscription of tags; and is also a much large scope then I'd intended to suggest.

Allowing one to view all "News" or a subcategory of "News", was my intended suggestion; not suggesting detailed tags like 'subtitled' 'english-voiced' 'theater-screening' 'snacks'; but instead 'Events' (convention reports/announcements, fan events), 'Industry news' (new release/licensing, business announcements. separated by manga/anime, or not). 'Seiyu/Staff life' (obituaries, life events), 'Interviews', etc. Those aren't terribly thought out, just here for examples. How detailed/flexible the implementation is would be less concerning, but nice/exciting to consider in design.)

With that, I'll follow suit - that's all I'll mention here about filtering/tags. Again, I'm not at all seeking a reply, just clarifying this so it's in mind for a later time. Thanks for considering feedback and continuing to evolve ANN!
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noblesse oblige



Joined: 22 Dec 2012
Posts: 277
Location: Florida
PostPosted: Wed Apr 29, 2015 1:53 am Reply with quote
Tough survey man. So many editorial columns I'd like to see resurrected, not the least of which are Astro Toy and Brain Dive (Pile of Shame too but I can understand that Jason felt that column had run its course).

Along with the great editorial content, I am super grateful for the encyclopedia and I believe it is an asset deserving of as many resources as can be spared. I enjoy being able to look up a show and find out everything from its release date - to who was responsible for the key animation in episode 4. I also enjoy the well-organized links to any interesting news or editorial articles in which the show might have appeared. I've discovered many an interest tidbit about a show's production history via these links.

I know someone already brought this up, but one improvement I'd like to see implemented is some advanced filtering options for the homepage. Dragging through all those article titles can be, well.....a "drag". I know that tagging articles is extra work and as Justin mentioned there are way too many possible tags, but I think some tags are reasonable enough. I'd love to be able to filter out things like "Cosplay" and "The personal lives of Japanese voice actresses"....okay, maybe just "Voice Actors" in general.
GokuMew2 wrote:

- I check the forums exclusively by searching for threads I've participated in. It would be nice if there was a way to remove certain threads from showing up in those results. Maybe if you respond to a thread, you are automatically subscribed to it (without email notifications) and there is a page to see those subscribed threads, and you can unsubscribe yourself manually. I don't really like seeing a thread from however long ago suddenly pop up again, or new posts of threads I no longer read.

I think a page where you can view/edit which threads you're subscribed to is another fantastic idea for the site. This would make being an active member of the forums more manageable and enjoyable.

All in all, those are just two minor quibbles about an already great site for anime and manga.

edit: One more thing. I found the Sakuracon Q&A (as well as the interview) with the guys from Under The Dog both informative and compelling, and would like to see more coverage like this from conventions. For example, Anime Japan had some really interesting speakers giving presentations and lectures that I would like to have seen covered. Also, the only way to reach the UTD interview page, that I'm aware of, is the scrolling banner on the homepage. Seems a shame to make such great content so hidden.
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Mr. Oshawott



Joined: 12 Mar 2012
Posts: 6773
PostPosted: Wed Apr 29, 2015 5:07 pm Reply with quote
Anyone know where I can find the survey? I can't find the link to it anywhere.

...or is the survey over already?
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Tempest
I Run this place.
ANN Publisher


Joined: 29 Dec 2001
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Location: Do not message me for support.
PostPosted: Wed Apr 29, 2015 6:21 pm Reply with quote
Mr. Oshawott wrote:
Anyone know where I can find the survey? I can't find the link to it anywhere.

...or is the survey over already?
It's closed now. Thanks though...
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Mr. Oshawott



Joined: 12 Mar 2012
Posts: 6773
PostPosted: Wed Apr 29, 2015 7:56 pm Reply with quote
^
Oh...Alright, then...
No problem.
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Dan42
Chief Encyclopedist


Joined: 02 Jan 2002
Posts: 3781
Location: Montreal
PostPosted: Fri May 01, 2015 1:35 pm Reply with quote
checarlos87 wrote:
I just like seeing reaction to the article immediately (sometimes even before reading the article itself). The comments themselves can be motivation to read the article, and the current setup doesn't allow such a reading flow. In that aspect, it's a wasted opportunity, IMO.
You can click on the "comments" link on the front page, read the comments, and then click "this is the discussion thread for this article" at the top to go read the article. So I think the site does allow such a reading flow.


Many people are bringing up a desire for more fine-grained categorization/tagging of articles in order to target certain types of news they are interested in (or ignore those they have no interest in). But this is really difficult to pull off correctly. We're entering the world of "personalization" and lots of websites have attempted it and failed.

First we have to establish additional categories (BTW we already have filters for Anime, Manga, Novels, Games, Toys, Events, People, Live-Action), such that it doesn't get utterly unwieldy for the news editors but is also sufficiently fine-grained to satisfy readers' extremely diverse preferences. But even if you say you are not interested in marriage announcements, if you're a fan of the person involved then you probably are interested. Trying to personalize news based on manual tagging/categorization is just very prone to error; you're basically saying "show me only the stuff that I'm interested in" and while it's possible to setup a taxonomy of interest/disinterest, it will only be a very rough approximation of your true preferences. You'll wind up missing articles you would've been interested in.

It's just far simpler and more effective to read the title of the article and click if it sounds interesting. Until we develop telepathic preference-matching Smile
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