Stuart, this looks good to me. I did wonder how you would work through the comments on the last news post! Blotanical is definitely a worldwide success, you should be very pleased and proud of it. I am intrigued by your sidenote!

Best wishes Sylvia (England)

Wow! Well done Stuart.

Sounds great. There are bits I like more than others but I think that by now everyone realises that there are so many differences of opinion that you're never going to find a system that pleases everyone. In general I'm positive - specially about the ads or no ads option.

Just one thing that I think may be ambiguous. I presume that a 1 pick doesn't mean "In my opinion this post is not so great" but rather "I think this is a great post - but not quite so great as the one I gave 2 to earlier." The former would be horrible ...

Sylvia - cheers and stay-tuned. It's the next TO-DO item.

Sue - Ha! I think I will employ you as my PR manager.

Well, this should be an interesting change, Stuart. I wonder on our "Mine" pick lists if it will show how many hearts each blotanist gave to the post, or if that will remain a mystery. I was on another forum last fall (where our photos and plant info were ranked with stars) and remember getting a "2" on a contribution. The guy's explanation was that stromanthe was a disappointing plant whose creamy colors would always turn brown. Well, that might be true in the wrong climate or setting, but stromanthe happens to be a wonderful foundation plant where I live. My point is, who can understand the judgment of a judge? It would be nice to know the reasoning and also who gave how many stars. I did kinda like the simple pick or no-pick option on this site.

BTW, I love your points #4 and #5 above.

I think the changes will be good too, Stuart. I was a bit concerned at first about condensing posts--that photos that accompany posts may not load or be visible--but after checking out Google Reader, I see that's not really an issue (assuming your method of condensing posts is similar, as stated). Otherwise, no concerns here at all -- thanks for all your ponderings on our behalf. :)

Floridagirl - I'm not sure it will be wise to display the number of hearts supplied by a particular member. I do plan to continue providing a list of those who voted but showing the number of hearts they gave is not part of the plan.

Nancy - you're right in assuming that images will be supplied if provided within the individual blog's feed. I may offer a preference for people to turn these off who are limited by dial-up speed.

Stuart, I have an ad-free blog, so if Blotanical takes the feed from my blog, and inserts ads, I would be withdrawing my feed from Blotanical. I don't think that it should take the feed, and republish it as an aggregator site. I publish my blog as a RSS feed, so individuals can use their own feedreader of choice to view it, but I don't like aggregator sites taking my feed and republishing, especially with ads.

When we visit whoever's Plot, instead of just the latest post, could we have the list of 5 from the Blog directory page?

I interpret one heart as = signing the guest book = I was here.

Hoping the new algorithm will function like a golf handicap? Popular blogs will have to work a little harder, but they do have lots of votes. New blogs won't give up in despair, because their precious votes will be weighted more?

Stuart, Wow! I'm really impressed by the way you managed to design something that took all those concerns and comments into account. I like this design, but I have some concern about the number of hearts in the pick system (5); I think you would do better to have fewer options. Here's why: In the US education system, there are 5 levels of grades -- A, B, C, D, F -- with A being the best, F designating failure and D being almost failing. I think Americans (who are the majority of Blotanical's members) will tend to turn any evaluation system with 5 options into A-F, which means that either of the bottom two options will feel like an insult (witness Florida Girl's reaction to getting 2 stars on her photo). As a result, there will be a fair amount of peer pressure to "be nice" by only using the top three categories, and I think most people will only use the top two. I wonder if it would be better to start with only 3 "heart" levels. This will feel less like being graded, and the less distance between the top and the bottom, the less likely the 1 heart option will feel like a failure. Whatever system you adopt, people will differ in how they interpret and use them, but I could imagine using 1 heart to say "Hi, I was here; I read this and enjoyed it;" 2 hearts to mean "This is good" and 3 (which I would probably use relatively rarely) to mean, "Wow; this is really special."

One other thought, since I can see why you don't want to link individuals to number of hearts in the "mine" view, would it be possible for the average number of hearts to appear beside each post on the "mine" view? -Jean

Northern Shade - you are certainly entitled to do so. I find it a little amusing that while this site is costing me $1000's per month to run with very little revenue to offset that such a moral stance could be taken. Nobody wants to pay for this site yet everyone's very happy to use it. To be honest, if most people feel this way then it would mean Blotanical would probably fold.

As for your comment "I don't think that it should take the feed, and republish it as an aggregator site." it already does and has ever since Blotanical started. This is how we get the posts onto the site! The only difference is we're stripping a lot of the superlative "stuff" to increase the speed. If members want to still open a post and see it as it normally displays they will have that option - something you don't get with other aggregators!

Elephant's Eye - I like your idea about the 5 posts in a member's Plot. Consider it added. And, "Yes" the new algorithm will favour newbies but only to the point that they're writing good posts.

Jean - cheers for your comment on this. I understand that that is how the hearts could be interpreted but I'm reluctant to reduce it to just 3. While you're right that most people will operate on the top 2, having 5 still gives more options. If a post is gaining a lot of popularity yet doesn't deserve it a few 1 hearts from members will certainly knock it off it's perch (this will be monitored for who's flagging 1's instead of 5's if the post is legitimately good). Plus, as the range is greater, the scope of averages is also wider hopefully offering a more meaningful weight.

I will monitor this and maybe even do some A/B testing with 3 hearts once we get going.

That sounds good! It makes it much more likely that people actually read the post (well, except for the speed pickers, I guess). And I will enjoy seeing some fresh faces among the popular posts. Hey, maybe I will even make it there one of these days ;->

BTW, the picks page has been loading much faster, and I've much appreciated that.

Wonderful! Can we start soonest?

I do agree with Jean here...two choices could be "Like" and "Awesome" or something like that. When in the other forum, nearly everything for everybody was given 4 or 5 stars. If you felt it was a 1 or 2, you didn't dare click those stars! We are civilized, after all. You simply hit the "back" button and forgot about it. That's why the "2" was such a shock, and, in my opinion, unwarranted. It was not in my power to remove that "2." To me, 5 hearts would not be any different than 5 stars. And you said in your own words, that one star would mean "not so great" (code for "insult").

It worries me also that a few bloggers that have been around awhile recently expressed concern about newer bloggers reaching "guru" too quickly, as though they were gaming, instead of enthusiastically participating. It seems votes of "1" would be a way they could weight these newer bloggers in a negative way. In other words, if you were given 5, 5-star ratings, and 5, 1-star ratings, your average rating would display as a 3.0, right? I suspect that the older blogs will be getting straight 5's, as they already have a loyal following.

Hi Stuart, I am getting concerned by this - I have been thinking about what hearts I would give posts but Floridagirl comments made me stop. I had assumed I would use from 1-5 but if 2 is seen as so negative, I am not sure I want to use them. We will all use these in different ways, some using all the numbers, others just the top two. I agree with you don't let people now what we pick, this should be fun. Good posts get good picks, new blogs do appear on the popular lists.

I do hope we can make Blotanical viable for you, I would hate it to fold. Best wishes Sylvia.

I have no probs with ads being inserted into my posts when you carry them over to Blotanical (if that is what you meant, lost the plot a little). My only concern is that wordpress (my platform) doesnt support ads so will this cause a problem?

I'm with Jean. Is it a 2, or a 3, or a 4??? Dunno. Don't care. Life's too short.

What is IS, is Good Garden Writing. The reason I came to Blotanical. The reason Stuart started Blotanical. So that's a 2!

Then there's a 1 for, I read that, but Wordless Wednesday doesn't do it for me. (And just ONE for passively picking!)

And finally there are those special posts, that stay in your mind, that you go back to, following the comments and discussion. That's a 3.

There's a reason why they do triage. 3 choices is doable.

Impressive Stuart. It's always difficult in forums such as these to keep everyone happy, but this seems like a rather elegant solution. I can see virtues in 3 or 5 hearts. I do agree with Jean that 5 might feel a bit like being graded, and not wishing to offend, I expect most readers would choose the upper 3 hearts (figuring a 'C', or 3 out of 5 hearts is average post quality). Three I think would be sufficient though, especially if it simplifies the problem for you.

I agree that you should NOT show WHO picked how many hearts for a post. However, I do agree that some x-hearts average listing somewhere per each post, would be valuable feedback for bloggers. If I consistently received say a 2-heart average for a bookreview post, vs. 4 hearts for a photo intensive post, I might skip book reviews, or write them differenty. Just think it's helpful for us to assess how others are perceiving our postings, so we can improve the quality of blog posts for our readers. I'd also be fine with pickers not receiving points, but I do like that 'pickers' points aren't weighted as heavy.

Awesome! You are da man! All great ideas. THANK YOU!!!

I think there should be a clearly stated definition of what each number of hearts represents. One star might be a compliment from some folks, might be an insult from others. Have it defined so we all are saying what we mean!

It sounds like there is no stopping the five hearts, no matter how some of us feel about them? The only certainty in life is change, so we might as well get ready for it. We appreciate Blotanical and all the work you have put into it, Stuart. Whatever works best for you to keep it going, for when it, Blotanical, is down, we miss it terribly.
Frances

Hi Stuart - I love being part of Blotanical and don't mind at all about a little advertising or even a fee to pay for it as it is such a fantastic resource and way to connect. I'm happy to admit that if I hadn't found Blotanical then my cat would probably be the only other being that would have ever read my blog.

While I understand that rating posts is something that many people would like to do, I'm not so keen myself. I'm not trying to impose my view on others or stand in the way of change, but I'm just wondering - if I don't rank, will this mean my points will dry up? I'm really only interested in picks/points so I can add more blogs to my faves list. I try to make my comments reflect how I feel about the post.

Will there still be other ways to accumulate points or access to faves?

I might be in the minority here, but I guess I'm not sure how I feel about rating someone's work. If someone is putting out their best work or posting on what interests them it could be discouraging to receive low ratings. For me personally I like reading blogs and posts of all different types. I know if I feel I'm being rated on my posts it will honestly take away some of the fun I find in blogging, adding some sort of pressure that I need to impress people.
What I've enjoyed about Blotanical so far are the variety of types of posts from different types of people all over the world. I just don't want to rate that one is better over another, they are all different from each other.
Anyway, that's just my opinion.
I think doing what you need to do as far as advertising is fine, I know you spend your own time and money putting together Blotanical and you deserve to earn something for it.
Thanks!

Hi, Stuart. Thank you so much for all of your efforts and for sifting through everyone's preferences. Quite a job!!! I support your efforts and decisions.

I will weigh in on one aspect only as I tend to agree with Floridagirl. I would personally be devestated to receive a 1 or 2...I would definitely view it as an insult. Nature of the beast, I guess!

Very interesting how everyone's feathers (or petals) are getting ruffled by the thought of saying "I like this" or "I don't like this as much". After a few decades of positive reinforcement, we're no longer willing to have an opinion (unless we're Gardenrant). Sounds like you may have the wrong audience for a multi-point rating system.

My take would be to at least try it, but maybe you should focus on at least getting some ads in to make this whole endeavour more worthwile for you.

Besides, I'm now starting to think I can't give 2 points to anyone without offending the horribly, even if I just don't care for their post for one reason or another...

You go to the nursery - for a yellow daisy, because you are adding yellow to the blue border. A pink one because you are into pinks and mauves. Not A Daisy At All because you are working on foliage. That isn't about rating or ranking. It is about my opinion/passion. That is what we ENJOY in blogs. (someone said - don't take life too seriously. None of us get out alive)

Hi, Stuart! I think you've done a fine job at thinking up a compromise system. I read this a couple of days ago and thought about it some, and I've decided I don't have a problem with the ratings at all. I don't think a one or a two-flower rating would bother me. I think the main things I love about Blotanical would stay essentially the same: meeting and getting to know other garden bloggers, which happens mostly through comments and messages anyway (the relationships), and learning about gardening from all over the world and a thousand different points of view (the plants).

Bravo to you for trying to walk a very tricky tightrope. In the end, as I'm sure you've realized, it will be impossible to please everyone, and if you are spending major money and time on this, I think you'll need to start seeing some return on the investment soon or we'll all be out of luck. In any event, I want what's best for Blotanical, so it stays viable.

Have a great weekend!

After a rather long hiatus, I just logged back in and have to admit to being rather uneasy with the topics under discussion.

When I blog, I do so to relax. I read other people's blogs for the same reason as well as to indulge in my curiosity about what's going on in other people's gardens.

On principle, I can't help but cringe at the thought of having my blog entries "graded". I do not blog to get "gold stars" (or hearts) from my readers. I feel strongly that any rating system which can be perceived as a scale, be it 3 hearts or 10, will end up being interpreted as a grade. In addition, I think many of us often blog about what we're feeling and what is in our hearts and I really don't think that these types of entries should have a value judgement placed on them in that manner. If you really need to be able to give readers some way of responding to an entry in a quantifiable way, how about some Boolean attributes (eg: heartwarming, informative, funny, visually appealing, etc.) with tallies of each?

The degree of concern about how points should be collected makes me wonder how many of us are like Pavlov's creatures, spending large amounts of time trying to figure out what the rules are so that we can press the right buttons at the right times so that we can get more points because Blogger X has 3 more than me... gotta get more points... oh no! Blogger Y just beat me..... For me, at least, that will take a whole lot of pleasure out of the experience -- I am here to interact with other gardeners, in a constructive way, about gardening. I am not here to compete with them and score points.

As for the advertising, if by "include some advertising into these posts " you mean that the advertising will be inserted into a blog entry in such a way that it alters the look/flow of the original, then I'm with Northern Shade 100%. If there is advertising in what is clearly Blotanical screen real estate around the intact post (condensed or not) then by all means, it's your site, go for it.

A further thought on competition and monetization -- how about running a two-tiered site: the free members whose abilities to do fun (competitive?) things are restricted, and the card-carrying paid members who can engage in the full range of activities (competitive and otherwise) available. Perhaps even have a spot on Blotanical where the paid members' blogs are featured (a different blog per page load). That way, if their blogs are monetized, for instance, they get higher traffic and possibly higher revenues too...

Good luck sorting all this out,

Krys

I haven't been able to stop thinking about this since submitting my comment and, for what it's worth, I just had an idea -- not sure how viable it is for you but here goes: What about the idea of collaborative filtering? I believe these types of algorithms are used in movie, book & other types of recommender systems. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_filtering

If this was put in place, people could get articles recommended to them based on their preferences, and yes, this would involve some effort on our parts as well. But, the flip side is that we would be able to have posts suggested to us based on our interests and not simply based on how many people had read them because they had the most picks to begin with. My thought is that this would give all blog posts a higher chance of exposure. (It might also allow you to target advertising? Maybe?). And, of course, we'd still have the option of browsing blogs spontaneously as well.

/krys

Loved your comments Krys and your suggestions. However, you might want to read the previous post and it's comments regarding collaborative filtering. Apparently it's too hard!!!

Stuart, did you mean the part of the previous post in which the difficulty of getting the blog entry author to categorize their post in a timely manner was discussed? I thought that in a typical recommender system it is the users of the system that categorize the movies, books, music... I seem to recall visiting one such site in which I had to rate on a scale of one to ten how much I felt the movie was a horror movie, a family movie, a violent movie, etc...

Would applying CF to the blogs, rather than the individual posts, be any easier while still remaining useful?

Would the fact that there are a number of open source CF packages out there help at all?

Or, hold on, you've already got a list of our Favourite blogs. Would it be difficult to come up with something that says people who read Blog X also read Blogs D, G, and Z? Do you have a sense of whether people tend to keep their faves list current?

And with this, I've gone off topic. My apologies. Have a great week!

/krys

PICKS - I see the conundrum with the picks, but having to decide/judge with ratings will take even more time IMHO. I've also seen the problem on other sites when people get feelings hurt trying to get more stars.

ADS - I agree that you need to generate revenue for supporting a site. However, it is my experience that gardeners don't click ads. Hope you're getting paid ads! On the GardenWeb Forum people complain about the ads all the time. They disable the popups, disable the text line ads and complain. Yet, they use it for free. I doubt they click many ads with all the complaining that they do for all their free forum opportunities.

MEMBERSHIP - on the SlowTravel forum--people join/participate for free, but some features/extras require a membership fee. At some point, I think Blotanical will be too large for you to continue supporting it without charging a membership fee to cover your costs. Or-- you can sell it -- that's what Spike of GardenWeb did when it became a valuable place to sell ads.

Cameron

Wow, I need a nap after reading all that, Stuart, because I'm tired on your behalf. But seriously...a lot of work, and i think it will be a great improvement and cut down on the fussing (although there will always be some who fuss for whatever reasons.) Thank you as always for all you do. I really look forward to seeing what happens next though I've been somewhat less active on Blotanical of late, trying to give some of the newer ones a chance to catch up and be promoted ,etc etc. It's also spring and my garden exploded. ;-)

One more thing. I never joined the paying aspect of Dave's Garden. But I would pay happily to belong here. You do a lot for us and have helped create a great community here. Those who don't like the changes probably wouldn't cough up a fee to belong to a garden club, either. Can't please alla da people alla da time, as the saying goes. Courage!

I'm just catching up after not having internet access for the last couple of weeks. I just think you've done a marvelous job trying to find the best way to handle picks. My feeling is that those who really have a difficult time with your solution don't have to pick at all; leave a comment instead or send messages. I won't be offended if no one picks my posts, I'm just happy if they stop in to read them, maybe leave me a little note. I also like the option of either the ads or a membership fee - it makes good sense.

Hi Stuart I am just catching up with the changes after a very busy few weeks. I would first like to say I really do appreciate all the hard work and time you have been putting into trying to make the changes. I can see that they are still being rolled out however there is one thing in particular that has really annoyed me about the new system this morning and I really hope it is not going to stay...

I have this morning gone first into the pics system through the "My faved Blogs" tab which is where I like to start my browsing. When I have clicked on a blog to view it I have got their post on a beige page without their blog with a dull sign at the top saying "No Alias Added". I have to say this, I feel it very strongly I HATE THIS, I HATE THIS, I HATE THIS! Blogs are very presonal things, reflections of peoples personalites and individualities. I do not want my first sight of something someone has put a lot of time and effort into writting being displayed on some alien blank page removed from the real blog I wanted to visit. I certainly don't want to have to keep clicking extra buttons every time to have to see their blogs. And I really do not want peoples first views of my own blog to be totally removed onto a beige page. If I had wanted my blog to be beige I would have made it so!

Please tell me this is not going to be the default option. I can understand that some people may want to read it that way but could we not make that a choice of a button for them to click? I feel that this new default seems to suck all life out of peoples posts and has made me most depressed. I have got tired of trying to navigate the system and gone back to reading blogs through my blogger dashboard again.

I'm sorry I don't like to be a moaner, but it is this individuality that makes me visit people, I do not think peoples posts should be removed from the context of thier blogs like this, I certainly have never envisaged my posts being displayed anywhere else, and moreover do not wish them to be.

RO :oS

Rothschild Orchid - I certainly feel your pain and disappointment. I love the ideas - and appreciate the passionate sentiment - and will consider making this an option for paying members!

I feel the predicament Stuart, you have to make Blotanical pay. I don't really have a problem with advertising, but I am unhappy to have my blog taken out of context. The idea that my posts can just be pulled off of my blog seems to really upset me for some reason.

I'm not even against paying a members fee. I have met some wonderful bloggers and people though Blotannical over the last year, and the enjoyment is well worth paying a little for the upkeep.

However the downtime on Blot a while back has highlighted that I can live without it and if it is going to turn into a machine that just sucks the life out of peoples blogs to display their posts on a beige background with a few adds around them I would with a heavy heart withdraw my blog and its feed from the site.