I now realize I had already seen that post. Perhaps my memory is faulty, or perhaps the distinction between Frontpage and Community is not one that sticks. A couple of comments:
In general, I think itâs not a good sign if a central feature of a website isnât self-explanatory, but instead requires the reading of a detailed explanation. Moreover, in this case the explanation is buried in a post that new users are unlikely to encounter (and at least some old users are apt to forget). But, more fundamentally, I just donât see a compelling reason for categorizing posts in this complicated manner to begin with. Why not just have a âcuratedâ category to promote posts that stand out in the relevant dimensions, like LessWrong does? Or dispense with the idea of âpromotedâ posts altogether, and let the karma system do the work. Keep it simple, stupid.
Regarding the categories: Weâve been thinking for a while about whether they should remain on the Forum. We hoped early on that they would improve the reading experience for people who were primarily interested in research rather than community topics (or vice versa), but weâre unsure of the extent to which this has happened.
For now, these are internal conversations, but I wouldnât be surprised if we made a decision on this soon after an upcoming feature (tagging posts) becomes available to users (no date on this yet). Itâs possible that using tags like âresearchâ, âeventsâ, or âcommunity cultureâ will obsolete the broader categories we currently have, in which case the distinction could disappear; itâs also possible that weâll find ways to make use of broader category pages that arenât covered by tags.
Note this post on the Community /â Frontpage distinction.
I agree that the term âCommunity Favoritesâ is confusing as well đľ
I now realize I had already seen that post. Perhaps my memory is faulty, or perhaps the distinction between Frontpage and Community is not one that sticks. A couple of comments:
In general, I think itâs not a good sign if a central feature of a website isnât self-explanatory, but instead requires the reading of a detailed explanation. Moreover, in this case the explanation is buried in a post that new users are unlikely to encounter (and at least some old users are apt to forget). But, more fundamentally, I just donât see a compelling reason for categorizing posts in this complicated manner to begin with. Why not just have a âcuratedâ category to promote posts that stand out in the relevant dimensions, like LessWrong does? Or dispense with the idea of âpromotedâ posts altogether, and let the karma system do the work. Keep it simple, stupid.
Regarding the categories: Weâve been thinking for a while about whether they should remain on the Forum. We hoped early on that they would improve the reading experience for people who were primarily interested in research rather than community topics (or vice versa), but weâre unsure of the extent to which this has happened.
For now, these are internal conversations, but I wouldnât be surprised if we made a decision on this soon after an upcoming feature (tagging posts) becomes available to users (no date on this yet). Itâs possible that using tags like âresearchâ, âeventsâ, or âcommunity cultureâ will obsolete the broader categories we currently have, in which case the distinction could disappear; itâs also possible that weâll find ways to make use of broader category pages that arenât covered by tags.