What do you want...?

[nina_vendredi]

Hypothetically speaking, what do you look for in a fan/hobby community website?

What's a must have in a journaling website?

What would it take for you to actually jump ship from say a site like LJ?

Would all of your friends moving be enough or would it be dependent on things like ease of creation, userpics, storage space, etc?

What are you willing to pay for? (special features like tracking, extra userpics, gift images, awesome swag? etc)

What do you love? (the following are suggestions only)
In LJ?
Dreamwidth?
Forums?
Reddit?
Tumblr?
Facebook?
etc

What do you hate? (see above for suggestions)

If this project were to happen, it wouldn't be based on the open source LJ code, so if that changes any of your answers, or gives you new ideas I'd love to hear them.

I'd also be interested in hearing opinions from folks not on my flist, and if anyone is so inclined please link folks back to this post.

Comments

Warning: LONG AS FUCK

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

The easy answer to this is: Have you seen Ravelry? Ravelry is damn close to the perfect hobby site. It's got a huge database of patterns, project pages, just huge resources at hand. And then it has a discussion board. All 'communities' are open, you can join/leave at will (this is a mixed blessing) unless you're a dick. There's six buttons at the bottom of every individual post (you don't have to see them unless you want to): educational, interesting, funny, agree, disagree, and love. Button wank is HYSTERICAL, okay.

Ravelry has an advantage of course in that it's a monotopic site-- knit, crochet, spinning, and weaving. But the platform is solid, easy to use, and friendly. Drawbacks are the open groups and the fact you can only have one "Ravatar."

Journaling websites I think of a little differently, because they're more areas for personal statements/documents. I like the flist, even though in theory I can add whatever the fuck I want to my RSS feed. I like that DW has 'reading' and 'access' lists split up; I like being able to filter, even though I don't do it that often.

I like the "Like" button in Facebook. Yeah, I know it's shallow. I like it anyway. Sometimes you just want to like something, okay. My biggest issues with Facebook are actually the privacy issues and the cultural thing about 'real names,' etc. (Also, sometimes people you don't want to talk to find you. I like that you can basically ban them from your sight though.)

Tumblr is, for me, basically a place to share pretty pictures. Pretty! Can't have a decent discussion there but I don't really want to.

Right now, almost all my friends are on LJ. That's the main thing that keeps me here. And I pay extra to be able to edit comments and for extra icons, on both LJ and DW. I'm increasingly inclined to shell out for DW 'cause there are women doing lots of programming there and it makes me happy.

Re: Warning: LONG AS FUCK

[nina-vendredi.livejournal.com]

This is great. I love what DW is trying to do, but I do feel like it's too niche, and since it's still invitation, you don't get the wank and sockpuppetry that is seriously like 70% of why I stick around LJ.

I think my goal with the idea phase, is to come up with the kind of site that would persuade ontd to jump ship (although god help me, I don't think I'd want that to actually happen, just for the server issues it would cause alone).

I think the current structure of LJ and it's clones is in this weird purgatory, on the one hand there are probably better/easier solutions, in terms of the code, but right now, only DW is providing a viable alternative, and it's still just this side of too elite.

And I like the "Like" button, so I can't judge, I just wish it also had a OMG THIS SUCKS button for when people on your friends list say really stupid shit.

Re: Warning: LONG AS FUCK

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

I know, where do I go for drama? THough, to be fair, Ravelry still has that and sockpuppets are banned.

Hahah, we need to find a site to, like, drag them off to and then drown it.

NGL, I love clicking 'disagree.' And sometimes 'interesting', meaning 'it's interesting that you're that screwed up.'

Re: Warning: LONG AS FUCK

[nina-vendredi.livejournal.com]

I need an 'interesting' button for my family.

Re: Warning: LONG AS FUCK

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

That would be great.

[gwendolynflight.livejournal.com]

I go where the fic is, really. So if the communities moved, that would do it. I'm not over at Dreamwidth because it lacks the plenitude of fannish communities.

[nina-vendredi.livejournal.com]

I think that's the tricky part, you have to get enough people interested in moving, to get everyone else interested in moving.

[rhosyn-du.livejournal.com]

What I would really like to see is some sort of blend of G+ and LJ. I like G+'s "circles" (although I really wish you could customize which circles show up on your main feed) for personal posts, but I'd want threading comments and communities like LJ, as well as multiple accounts and multiple user pics per account. And something like G+'s "+1" is a good alternative to "Like," because it can imply either "oh, awesome!" or "well, that's certainly interesting, grandma."

[nina-vendredi.livejournal.com]

Even though we've already kind of talked about this, I'm going to jot it down so I don't forget it by the time I have my meeting with J.

variations on/site friendly versions of delicious, photobucket, deviant art, and vimeo.