Demo

OK folks, I'm going to start letting a few of you onto our new demo site.

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind:

None of the data (reviews, comments, profiles, etc.) that you post on the demo site will be saved, or linked to your regular rateitall account. This is only for testing purposes.

You will not be able to login to your real RIA account on the demo site. Please create a new test user.

Also, there is still some important functionality missing. Specifically, "quizzes" and some aspects of "sharing" are not yet live. Some of the pages still need to be optimized for speed as well.

Here are some things I suggest checking out:

Try posting a review from both the item page and the list page.

Try commenting on a review

Try making a list

Try configuring your home page by clicking on the gear icon.

Check out Community < style="font-weight: bold;">

What Browsers do we Use?

Here's a look at what Internet Browsers RateItAll users have hit the site with over the last 30 days:

Internet Explorer - 62%
Firefox - 27%
Safari - 8%
Google Chrome - 1%

I'm currently using Firefox, after a brief trial with Chrome.

Need Your Help

For the past couple of months we've been working very hard on a new version of RIA (code name: v3) that incorporates many of the best things about the current site, a number of your suggestions, as well as a number of new things.

Over the next few days, I'm going to be reaching out to some of you to hammer on a demo version of "V3." It will be running on a test database, so anything you post will not be saved.

Here are a couple of things you can count on for V3:

- A return to RIA's original blue / green color scheme
- An emphasis on the format of the Recent Reviews page throughout the site
- The addition of a "disagree" button
- The addition of our compatibility tests / quizzes to RateItAll.com (many of you have tried these on Facebook or MySpace)
- Significantly improved publishing and sharing experiences
- More in depth hall of fame / member stats tools
- Significantly easier ways to add things to the site

And lots more.

Stay tuned - if you'd like to be included on this early sneak peek, please message me on the site. If I know who you are, I will give you access.


- Lawrence

Back in Business

Thanks to Automatt for his hard work in bringing us back up on schedule.

Scheduled Downtime Tonight: 10PM PST

Guys, we'll be going down tonight for about an hour to do some memory upgrades on our servers.

Coverage

One of the things we've been working very hard on is improving our site coverage of things to rate. With a name like RateIt All there's a lot of self-inflicted pressure on us to have a bunch of things in the db.

We've already built out things like video games, movies (and actors and directors), and startup companies. We are now in the process of blowing up our music coverage.

If there are obscure albums or bands (or not so obscure ones) that you've been meaning to rate, try running them through our search engine. Our coverage is getting pretty good.

New Rules

Guys, I've made some changes to the RateItAll Site Rules.

For the most part, we are loosening the rules a bit. We have gotten rid of things like "no personal attacks" (replaced with "no threats, menacing behavior, or harassment") - "no personal attacks" was often very difficult to moderate and there was rarely a clear bright line between a disagreement and a personal attack. For example, did it really make sense to consider "you're acting like an idiot" to be allowed and "you are an idiot" to be a personal attack?

We've also changed our wording on what sort of profanity is off limits from "excessive" to "extreme." Basically, any mainstream curse word should be ok as long as its not hate speech or really, really gnarly (our call). There's still an annoying filter on the comments section which disables all comments with certain curse words. This is going away soon.

We've clarified my feelings about hate speech in terms of who is protected by site rules - my view is that if you choose to be something (a San Franciscan, a liberal, an agnostic, etc.) you are not protected from getting hated on (e.g. "San Franciscans are liberal wusses!!" is fine). But if you don't choose to be something (a race, a heterosexual, an old person), we should do our best to keep people from hating on you (e.g. "Whites are a dirty stinking race who enjoy keeping everybody down" is off limits, as is "young people should be drowned in a well!"). And if you want to use our publishing tools to say, talk about racial stereotypes, there are probably better places to do that than RateItAll (read: I don't want that crap on my site).

Which brings me to my final point. I've been doing a lousy job at site moderation recently. I've grown way to comfortable with the site regulars, and have been lazy in differentiating between who I am as a reviewer, and who I am as an enforcer of site rules.

As such, we have some new policies in place. Unless someone is speaking to you from this account - RIAAdministrator - you should consider them a fellow reviewer, and not an admin.

Nobody will be moderating the site from a personal account any more - not me, not Automatt, and not Jose. It's too confusing, and sends mixed messages about what is a disagreement between reviewers, and what is a violation of site policy.

To hammer this point home, I will no longer answer messages from my Magellan account regarding site policy. If you want an answer from me in an official capacity, you will need to email me (lawrence at rateitall.com) or message us through the RIAAdministrator account.

Note that I say "us." There will be multiple people operating behind this account. We will do our best to be consistent, and I will decide all internal RateItAll disagreements.

Sorry for my recent moderation sloppiness of late - it's been busy.

Just added a few new pics to the RateItAll group on Facebook

If you are interested in seeing the RIA team, join our Facebook group - we're only 68 strong right now, so there's plenty of room for more.