OT: Follow-up on the 2014 Metrics/State of TKP

About a month and a half ago, Joe posted the "The Key Play's 2014 Metrics, 2015 State of TKP and TELL-a-thon 2.0". There was a lot of really good discussion and feedback generated in the comments of this post. Plus, I'm sure that the surveys that were submitted added another great source of information.

1. Is there a plan on releasing a summary of the feedback from those surveys/comments?
2. Is there a way to create a TKP wishlist that people with appropriate talents could volunteer to tackle individual improvements to the site or community (fundraising, promotion, etc.)?

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Comments

both great ideas +1

I volunteer for quality assurance of all bourbon served at TKP tailgates.

"I liked you guys a lot better when everybody told you you were terrible." -Justin Fuente

The TKP/VT version of a sommelier? I'd drink to that!

Go Hokies

1. Yes. That's going to happen. TKP's birthday is March 14, so expect a post then. I don't know if anyone has noticed, but I've been deploying new features here and there based on the feedback I got.

2. I have open ears for marketing / fundraising advice and support. I really want to be able to support TKP hiring its own full-time beat writer (for lack of a better word), and I need to convey that message better. If TKP hit $3500 - $4000 / month in recurring donations (350 - 400 people at $10 / month) I would have someone full-time for this fall. The cool thing is this person would essentially work for you, the reader and the community.

I thought maybe I had just missed a meta post on some of those features. The ones I noticed were the new comment navigation shortcuts to the top comments and then the carat that brings you up to the comment above the current one for following replies.

Along the lines of a TKP beat writer, what would it take to afford to hire Andy Bitter away from his current gig?

what would it take to afford to hire Andy Bitter away from his current gig?

In dollars or Hardee's coupons?

The Orange and Maroon you see, that's fighting on to victory.

To hire him away and provide benefits I would think 70,000-100,000 all in.

Wet stuff on the red stuff.

Join us in the Key Players Club

There wasn't a meta post, I'm waiting until more features go live. Hardcore users probably started to notice them already. Also, I just deployed an update version of the search, it's no longer junk.

What about sorting of results by date/most recent? I noticed there are more recent results, but older ones are still mixed in.

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-What we do is, if we need that extra push, you know what we do? -Put it up to fully dipped? -Fully dipped. Exactly. It's dork magic.

As far as sorting the comments in a thread, I mentioned this before, but what you are asking for is a feature of TKP 3.0. It's something to implement when I rewrite my own CMS from scratch. It's a fundamental change to how the guts of the current commenting system works.

Nice. So, things I'm waiting for:
Drew Harris!
Trey to LB!
TKP3.0!
Are we there yet?

The Orange and Maroon you see, that's fighting on to victory.

Slow down big horse.

6-5, 10-1-1, 2-9, 3-8, 6-4-1, 6-5, 5-6, 2-8-1, 9-3, 8-4, 10-2, 10-2, 7-5, 9-3, 11-1, 11-1, 8-4, 10-4, 8-5, 10-3, 11-2, 10-3, 11-3, 10-4, 10-3, 11-3, 11-3, 7-6, 8-5, 7-6, 7-6, 10-4, 9-4, 6-7, 8-5..........

I was referring to sorting of search results.

Also, on Windows 8.1 with IE 11, the toggle switches are there (I can click) but I can't see them. This is probably the way my preferences are set up, but I haven't really messed around with them, so I'm thinking it would be a default setting.

Edit: it isn't happening on my other computer, so problem on my end I think. Any body know what I need to change to fix it?

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-What we do is, if we need that extra push, you know what we do? -Put it up to fully dipped? -Fully dipped. Exactly. It's dork magic.

The search results are ordered by rank with the most relevant ones listed first. A sort option doesn't make much sense there and won't happen. Although, I have something else in mind to address your issue.

The toggle switches are a custom font that was recently updated. My guess is your mobile browser has it cached. Clear the browser cache on that device or track down how to do a "hard refresh".

Thanks, it's working now.

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-What we do is, if we need that extra push, you know what we do? -Put it up to fully dipped? -Fully dipped. Exactly. It's dork magic.

I added a filter for post titles in the tracker, that should help fill some of the feature gap you described.

Joe put is some magic that you have to do first:

(You may need to hold down shift while clicking refresh for them to appear.)

It worked when I did but have no idea how.

"We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior" Stephen M.R. Covey

“When life knocks you down plan to land on your back, because if you can look up, you can get up, if you fall flat on your face it can kill your spirit” David Wilson

Awesome! I look forward to seeing the feedback.

Is there room for volunteer efforts to add functionality to the website? It could be a way to take some of the load off of your shoulders. I'm sure that there are plenty of qualified people who could help in this way.

Thanks for the updates. I just signed up to make a monthly recurring donation.

I pushed some more code live tonight. The last button in a comment's header is a toggle switch. (You may need to hold down shift while clicking refresh for them to appear.) If you click the switch it will dim all the other comments except for the current comment and all of its ancestors. You can flick any switch in that "family" to turn all the comments back on, or click a dimmed switch to highlight a new family.

Folks have been asking for a better way to visualize / find parent comments, and this is what I came up with. I didn't want lines all over the page, and I think it works well. If you're in a long thread with a lot of branching comments, you can flick a switch, then scroll up to see all the relevant replies.

Wet stuff on the red stuff.

Join us in the Key Players Club

Dude, that is slick.

"Exit light..."

I read Joe's post, said exactly your words out load to no one, then scrolled down to your post. This site freaks me out a little......

"Don't go to, go through"

"When I was growing up, Virginia Tech was a school that was kicking ass and taking names, and it's time we get back to that" - James Franklin

AND THERE'S A LITTLE ^ BUTTON THAT TAKES YOU BACK TO THE PARENT POST? AMAZING

There's always a lighthouse. There's always a man. There's always a city.

The dim doesn't appear to be working properly on mobile. Using an android tablet and when I clicked the button on your comment it dimmed everything but your comment. Just a heads up, very cool concept, though.... Glad to see the continual improvement to the site.

"When I was growing up, Virginia Tech was a school that was kicking ass and taking names, and it's time we get back to that" - James Franklin

That's exactly as it should work. When you click on a comment for the first time it dims everything BUT the current comment and its ancestors.

Clicking a top level comment really doesn't provide much functionality. In fact, in the first version I didn't include the switch on the top level comment. I put them in because when I was testing I would scroll to the top of a long family of comments and then have no way to restore the rest of the comments in the thread.

A better way to think about it is the switch highlights the current family of comments by dimming all other comments.

Oh tits... I mixed up ancestors and descendants. You're completely right, it works properly, and I just tested on the tablet and it works there, too.

"When I was growing up, Virginia Tech was a school that was kicking ass and taking names, and it's time we get back to that" - James Franklin

These new comment features are awesome!

Glad you like them. The goals of TKP have always been to provide the best content on the best software platform.

mission_accomplished_shirt.gif

"Exit light..."

"We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior" Stephen M.R. Covey

“When life knocks you down plan to land on your back, because if you can look up, you can get up, if you fall flat on your face it can kill your spirit” David Wilson

To coin a phrase, you are the tits. And they apparently can do this

This might not be the correct place to complain but I keep getting
random ads with sound. I do not mind the ads one bit but it is annoying at
work when random ad sounds are coming from my computer.
Is there a way to fix this? Or maybe to mute them?

@AMB4VT

Have you tried looking at some Emma Watson gifs :)

"We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior" Stephen M.R. Covey

“When life knocks you down plan to land on your back, because if you can look up, you can get up, if you fall flat on your face it can kill your spirit” David Wilson

emmawatsonlaughing.gif

well done sir

I haven't forgotten about this. I planned to publish something near TKP's birthday on Saturday, but have been busy adding new features folks requested in the survey.

With that said, collapsable comments are live now. Click the ∨ in the comment header to collapse a thread, then > to expand it. If you don't see the ∨, hold shift and refresh the page.

Threads you collapse will remembered on a per device basis. I am using cookies to store the data, and more often than not those won't sync between devices. So in most circumstances if you collapse a thread on your laptop, and view it on your iPhone, it won't be collapsed. If you collapse a comment, all the comments threaded underneath will be collapsed too, the same thing happens when you expand. This should be a quick and easy way to ignore a section of a comment thread, or make a longer thread more manageable to navigate.

Also, when you use t / T, n / N to keyboard navigate through a thread, it will jump to the proper spot and not cut off the top of the comment.

Joe I don't know if you can hear this enough, but Yall do an amazing job on this site. I hope you got the check I sent and more will be coming in the future.

Wet stuff on the red stuff.

Join us in the Key Players Club

I did. I sent a thank you email when I got it to the email associated with your TKP account. Maybe it got ate in the pipes. In any event, thank you!

I just tried it and I just have to say

"Nope, launch him into the sun and fart on him on the way up"
-gobble gobble chumps

"11-0, bro"
-Hunter Carpenter (probably)

collapsible comments?

"That kid you're talking to right there, I think he played his nuts off! And you can quote me on that shit!" -Bud Foster

This is awesome! Thank you!

Happy Birthday to TKP!! Hope my donation helps (finally!!) Thanks for
all you guys do to make this such an awesome website. :)

@AMB4VT

collapsible comments?

Warning: this post occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)..

Chuck - what a great show.

Really love the new site updates!

Awesome job with the updates, Joe!

@historyhokie.bsky.social