Great changes! A spoiler tag button is really nice, especially since the formatting for it can be a bit clunky. On that note though, I think it'd be nice to have an alternate format for making spoilers that doesn't literally have the word spoiler in it.
It's also awesome to see that official collections are explicitly marked, but the way it's done is rather odd. It's a button that creates an "Are you sure?" prompt on the screen when you click it. It seems like something that's meant for instance owners.
I think something less obtrusive next to the collection's name would be better for marking official collections. I implemented that with a checkmark in my userstyle, and I prefer it to the button. Maybe have the text "official" show when you hover over it to indicate what it means.
::: spoiler Like this?
Do you mean just displaying something other than "spoiler" in the header? Or not using the word "spoiler" when writing the tag at all? If the latter, I believe it's done that way to match how it works on lemmy.
:::
(E: I've tried several ways to get it to work, once I got the little triangle but also the word "spoiler" on the end, the rest of the times I got variations of what it looks like now. Am on desktop)
(E2: it's now settled on a little triangle, it was showing the ::: bits before, I swear 😂)
I mean not having the word spoiler when writing the tag. I get that it's done for Lemmy compatibility, which is why I suggest an alternative way to do it (like how italics can be written like this or like this).
The "Add New" button is a nice update to the #Collections page -- should be useful for #discoverability and accessibility which hopefully inspires others to use this feature! Also glad to see that unfollowing a #Collection has been renamed from "Delete" to "Unlike". The spoiler tag update is also definitely welcome.
This is just a prototype, there will probably be some errors to fix ;-) But I want to see how it performs in practice and over time, I will refine the whole thing, and that will take a bit more time.
Yeah, I favorited my private collection (not sure why I did that...) and it seems to have permanently made it public, no big deal in this case, but I feel bad 'squatting' on collection slug.
Actually, I named it incorrectly. I treated as private collections those that don't appear in the listing, but you can still share them with friends. I changed it so that they are truly private, and I will add another status someday - non-public.
Thanks! Looks like logged out the collection isn't accessible at kbin.social/c/collection-name anymore which is excellent, but is still accessible there when logged in (unexpected, though perhaps only accessible to my account, but I feel bad I might be squatting on a nice collection name) and is also accessible at kbin.social/u/gibandaley/c/collection-name (expected)
Thank you, these improvements are great!! I am really glad you are prioritizing stability. Also, I don't want you to be overworked. I feel like you understand the potential of the fediverse, and how best to create something good and lasting.
It just seems to be working better in general, and it feels like I am seeing more content and maybe even more engagement.
If I have to pick some, improved moderation and collections are my favourite improvements. I'm already finding collections useful (both mine and other people's). I like how we can see crossposts too.
I wasn't able to work out how the * button worked (and now it's gone for me on mobile), but that's okay.
Thanks for sharing your site with us, and all the work you do. It's really exciting seeing it develop!
The pace at which you have been improving things and adding new features have been impressive this past month! Thank you and I hope you are taking some breaks in between for yourself!
Regarding Collections: I'm wondering if it might be useful to allow transfer ownership of collections as well? Probably low priority, but this could be useful if:
The owner becomes inactive
A #kbin magazine or #lemmy community becomes problematic + has inactive moderators
Other magazines/communities become more/less relevant over time, thus the collection needing adjustments
Re 1:
Could be mitigated on kbin magazines due to magazine ownership transfers, however, may pose an issue on federated magazines from lemmy
Also could be mitigated by the creation of a new collection, hence probably low priority
Re 2:
Could be low priority in regard to certain magazines/communities becoming inactive over time, however, the chance to miss out on discussions and threads should possibly be considered
However, this is also mitigated by also creating new collections -- I just think people generally like to avoid migrating when followings settle in.
Transferring collection ownership could also be excessive/unnecessary? Thoughts? Does the status of an official collection change automatically based on the user count?
Also regarding collections: After following a collection -- going to a collection's page and attempting to unfollow is described as "delete". This may give off the wrong impression to unfamiliar users. Perhaps "unfollow", or "unfavorite" may be better suited? I also wonder if it may be more appropriate to have favorited collections appear at the top of the collections view so users can quickly find the collections they follow in order to avoid being buried by the popular ones. This could also potentially be solved by giving subscribed collections its own tab in the navbar next to magazines? Is that perhaps too many tabs in the navbar?
Anyways, thank you so much Ernest. I know some people were unhappy about /kbin's development progress for awhile, but I'm really glad I stuck with it. Despite the challenges that came your way, watching you get back into the swing of things and /kbin's growth has been a joy to be a part of. The consistent communication and having our feedback be heard is also a big plus. As always, looking forward to what else is on the way.
Edit: Also, really glad to hear you're prioritizing sustainability, balance, and a strong foundation for the future. I hope you're able to get the support you're looking for, so you can give this project the time and effort you think it deserves. It's clear you care a lot about this project.
I noticed today when setting up a "Fediverse" collection, that another collection already existed with that name. When I went to view my collection, it was showing the other /fediverse collection instead. I changed my name to "FediNews" and that cleared it up.
So, going to https://kbin.social/u/box464/c/Fediverse goes to the other /fediverse collection - actually it still does! Not sure how that is happening since I don't have that name reserved now.
I feel stupid, is this currently available? It seems yes, some people say they've made one, but I can't seem to find either a "Categories" or "Collections" option. Sorry, I don't know which area is called the "user panel", but I've looked at the tabs across the top, and in all the menus (+, channels, profile).
I did see the collections tab on the Magazines page though, and I see Random Collections in the right side panel, just can't find where to create my own category/collection.
Go to settings and click the collections tab. Tbh, it feels a bit hidden rn, and I'd love to see at least some sort of link on the Magazines page in the future.
Thanks but I looked in Settings. There aren't what I would call "tabs" there, but there are different sections (General, Sub channel, Threads, etc) but nothing called Collections.
WAIT, never mind, I found it in the other "settings" I forgot there are two different places for Settings. Thank you
@ernest, you are doing amazing work! I hope you're taking care of yourself, too. :)
In a future update, do you think you could add the ability to set a default sort? I prefer to set my home feed to Top, 1 Day, and it's easy enough to just bookmark https://kbin.social/sub/top/1d on my PC, but I primarily use kbin as a PWA on Android and AFAIK, there's no way to set a custom home page. It would also just be convenient to open kbin to my preferred sort on any platform. :)
Will there be a way for communities to opt-out from being listed in a category?
I think there is a lot of abuse potential in this and even if well intended, a single word or so can’t really describe what communities are about, and as a result those categories (similar to the “all” feed) will bring a lot of off-topic comments and trolling from people not engaged with the communities at all otherwise.
On Mastodon with hashtags the original poster can at least make a conscious choice of being listed under it or not. But this seems fully third party driven and I fear it will increase moderation workload significantly.
I don't understand how content grouping can be used for potential abuses, to be honest. Collections are related to the user, so it will be subject to instance moderation in case of such an attempt. The community can also switch to private mode - then this content will not be aggregated in collections. Moreover, from what I know, there are already external tools that do similar things.
Most trolling and brigading is fairly low effort, and having a sharable collection of communities to troll makes it much easier to organize lots of people to do just that. Edit: yes external tools for that exist but having it built in makes it much easier to abuse and rope in people to do the trolling that otherwise would not bother.
But my main concern is that this isn’t opt-in for communities. Having a sharable and subscribable link with for example “meme” communities means that all of them are seeing a constant barrage of random people commenting that are not members of that community and do not have any idea what the community is about other than that it is somewhat loosely related to “memes”. It basically hides everything that is vital about the communities and actively damages attempts at community building.
I understand now, I'll think it over during the weekend. I haven't really considered it before because the fediverse is still a relatively small and close-knit community imo. Excluding a specific instance would likely involve PR proposal to Lemmy's repository, but that's fine. Thanks for the feedback.
lol I had the same thought. This was one of my most wanted features! Idk if Artemis is still being worked on at this point, but I hope support for collections is added there.
@ernest nice! One of the biggest problems I found with KBin/Lemmy was the duplication of very similar communities across them. This goes a long way to fixing that!
Another banger update! I can't tell you how convenient it is to have that media preview bug fixed. It was starting to get annoying to randomly have words missing. Are you planning to create an official Kbin category?
Edit: Seems like it's already been made. Here's a link for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.
kbinDevlog
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