This post is a follow up to a post I made yesterday showing an experimental layout for the Start page:

I'm Just Going to Leave This Here...

First off, I'll say that I pretty much agree with all of the comments...  I really don't like it either.  Like I said originally, this is an experiment.  We want to see how some new models work, but we need live data to get accurate representations, so we posted this on our production system in a hideaway spot.  We like to share what we're doing and what we're thinking, so I figured I'd let you all in on the little secret.

So about this page, how does it work...

This page shows the 30 most pawpular posts in the system, independent of the type of post.  Pawpularity for this page is still based on total number of upvotes within the past 24 hours.  They are "sorted" by pawpularity, but the layout engine may move them around a bit to minimize any gaps in the layout.  Overall though, the most pawpular stuff is at the top, the least pawpular stuff is at the bottom.  Different content types are laid out a little different from one another, but nothing major (events have a month date "flag", discussion have a 'so and so posted' header). There are browser and layout bugs, but as I've said, this isn't meant to be final, simply representative.

So about these new models...

All Posts are Equal?

We're exploring the idea that all posts in myUMBC are pretty much the same thing -- people trying to share a story or an idea. Increasingly, you'll find a news story with a video embedded and a very healthy discussion going on in the comments. In a content system that is fed by hundreds and thousands of contributors, each with their own perspectives, one person's news may be another person's discussion which may be another person's media.

What It's About > What It Is?

Yesterday we posted a discussion asking you all think about a different way of organizing the discussions section. But why can't that same categories be used organize news as well? Media? Events? Do people really want to read all "discussions" or would that prefer to read things about technology or current events? We also recognize that we have different types of users… can we build something that meets everyone in the middle? (and doesn't suck?)

Encouraging Broader Readership and Participation?

We're also thinking a lot about how myUMBC can better engage a broader population of readers, pawers, and commenters. It is very easy for an online community to turn into a clique. Every time I see a comment or tweet about someone completely discounting the discussion section of myUMBC I die a little inside. Rather than forcing users to quarantine an entire section of the site maybe it's better to say, "well if you going to the current events/politics/religion section, yeah there's going to be a lot of crazy stuff in there, but if you're just looking for advice on classes, the Academics/Advising/Advice section is right up your alley." 

A New Start Page?

In an interview I did about a year ago to The Retriever Weekly I stated one of the things we're really spending a lot of time on is figuring how to put the "my" back into myUMBC. The current thinking is to allow users to follow groups, follow categories, and follow tags and have the content that best meets their interest build a custom Start page just for them. Of course, we will continue make sure that we promote community content to everyone to make sure people don't get stuck with tunnel vision and miss potentially interesting posts.