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.

My Favorite Pages on RateItAll

Like most obsessive RIA'ers, I spend most of my time on the recent reviews page. When I'm really bored, I'll sit there just hitting refresh until new stuff comes in. As RateItAll has grown, I usually don't have to wait very long to see new stuff.

I like that this page is always fresh, and I like that it's a good drop in point to catch "discussions" in the comments section, and to get ideas for things to rate.

Another page that I like is the new additions page. Recently, this page has been a little slow, and we've had to cap it at 1,000 items as so much new stuff has been getting added recently.

And finally, I also like to drop in on my favorite reviewers. I'll go to their profile page and then click the link to see their review history. For example, Abichara is one of the guys I like to read - especially around political season. If I miss his posts on the recent reviews page, I can go to his profile page to check them out directly. You can check out his reviews HERE.

Over the last few months, I've been obsessing over this so called "river" of content format. This is exactly what you see in the recent reviews page - a stream of reviews that starts at the top page, and slides down as new reviews appears at the top.

I like reading reviews this way. And I'd also like to see more things included in this page - maybe new stuff that is added to the site, reviews from my favorite reviewers, and maybe even topics that I'm interested in like basketball and beer and mexican food and san francisco and internet and the world champion philadelphia phillies.

I think it would be really neat to have a single feed - a single river if you will - made up of just the stuff that I was interested in. Posts from people that I find interesting, posts about topics that I find interesting, new site additions, activity on interesting weblists, new reviewers that others are discovering - and the key aspect of this river that it is totally tunable by me. So that my river doesn't look yours, and no two rivers look alike.

I also don't want to lose the global aspect - as annoying as some of the hit and run posters and MSers (IDK!) and FBers and Grizzlers and Dog Food Fundamentalists are that hit the site, it's nice to feel part of a larger community and to be able to discover new opinions and people outside of your regular realm.

Those who read my posts closely on the site may have seen hints that we are working on a big new release. I may pull some of the RIA regulars in to take a look at some stuff in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

Calling All Gamers

We just added a boatload of new video game titles to our db.

If you are a gamer, please help us in getting these new sections off the ground.

Post of the Day

From Irishgit:

As is the case with Obama, McCain is undoubtedly polarizing, and moreso since his campaign became home to so many former Bush aides and operatives who have brought their style of campaigning with them.

This is not to say that polarization is intrinsically evil, but for the long term good of the nation it is the responsibility of all activists to keep it in check. The kind of extremist language and outright hatred used by partisans on both sides in this election has reached a disturbing point. Neither side is free of guilt in this, and neither occupies some kind of moral high ground.

It is a despicable thing when it has become politically acceptable to call the opposing side anti-American and unpatriotic because they happen to disagee with you. Both sides have been guilty of that, and of other extreme language, both on the campaign trail an on this site.

I remember a particularly good review someone wrote on here back in closing days of the 2004 election. Speaking as a GOP partisan he said:

"This (becoming a united nation after partisan strife) is the responsibility of the republican/conservatives. Dems will be able to be good losers if rep/cons are gracious winners. All such responsibility now for unification of the country is on the winning party. Don't expect amicability if you are spiking the ball in their faces, in their endzone. No touchdown dances, ok? At least, not in public."

The reviewer was Eschew Obfuscation, and the same applies this election. Those people some of you are spewing hatred at? Those are your neighbors.

You can react to the post HERE.

I'm looking forward to the end of election season

The political rhetoric, my own included, is starting to give me a headache.

I miss dog food and grizz reviews, and ratings of "4-Good!" with the review "three."

Any RIA'ers on Twitter yet?

If so, you can follow us here: twitter.com/rateitall

Those that click through can check out pictures of the fire that grazed our office building today.

Fewer Crap Reviews from MS and FB

You may have noticed a slow down on one word nonsense reviews from FB and MS.

This is intentional.

Irishgit, this one's for you.

The Passing of a RateItAll Reviewer

Harlock (formerly known as SpanishGonzo) has apparently passed away. She wasn't one of our community's most prolific reviewers, but she made an impact. From my limited interaction with her, I thought she was a sweet and nice young woman. She will be missed.

There are some memories being posted HERE.

All Time Record Traffic Day Yesterday

According to Google Analytics, we eclipsed our all time traffic record yesterday, finishing at over 42K visits.

I'm happy to say that our servers handled the load without even a hiccup.

Movies, Movies, (directors), Movies, Movies

Guys, we have recently added MASSIVE amounts of movies, directors, and actors to our database.

Our friends at Netflix have made their entire catalog of movies, tv shows, actors, and directors available to us (and other sites) via what's called an API.

We've loaded much of this stuff in - and are still loading.

So I challenge you to try and find a movie, a director, or an actor that we don't have. Seriously. Use the search box and search for anything. Click through to check out the Netflix Movies or Netflix Directors.

Oh yeah, this is also cool.... if you look in the margin of movie or director or actor pages, you'll find related items - movies that the director has directed, or actors that have appeared in the movie.

For example, check out this listing for the classic surfing movie Big Wednesday. Here's what you'll see in the margin:























For you movie buffs out there, I think it will be fun to follow the trails of actors, movies, and directors around the site.

Lots of New Categories

Those of you hitting the "browse" link in RateItAll's header will notice lots of new categories. We are in the middle of spring cleaning / re-categorization of all of our lists. As the number and diversity of the lists has grown, so has the need to create more specialized landing pages for various themes, such as religion, military, the arts, pets, and relationships.

The other thing you might notice is that RIA lists and Weblists are all mixed together now - this is a sign of things to come.

We are managing this project on the fly, so you may notice some odd and/or wrong categorization of things for the next week or so... please do not be alarmed.

Rate Your Credit Card

Let's all pile on the credit card industry when they're down.

We've added a pretty comprehensive database of cards for credit card reviews to our site - find your card(s) and rate it (them)!

One more plug for the RateItAll Toolbar for Firefox

I am loving the RateItAll toolbar for Firefox. I love it so much that I abandoned the new Google browser, Chrome, and came back to Firefox 3 - just so I could use the toolbar.

I use the toolbar to 1) rate sites (and add them to ria) as I browse around the web; 2) directly access my reviews and my network's reviews; and 3) search RIA from anywhere.

If you use Firefox and haven't yet taken the toolbar for a spin, why not try it out? Click here to download it.