Should we include social features? If so, which ones?

[dustinvtran]

Examples:

• Browse user reviews. Example: all list websites, e.g., MyAnimeList, AniList, Letterboxd. This would require having separate "entry" pages which may be a lot of work. A lightweight version could be entry pages with: the API-gathered data, average rating information, and all non-empty Comments from users.
  • As a sub-feature, the "Like" option.
• Profile comments. Example: MyAnimeList
• "Updated recently" list, where you see the most recent updates from all website users. Example: Letterboxd, Goodreads.
• "List collections" that group a set of entries and can be shared. Example: Letterboxd lists.
• Clubs/groups. Example: MyAnimeList, Goodreads, Steam.
• A discussion board. Example: MyAnimeList, Reddit, Steam. Note we'll also need a version of this if we want clubs/groups.

[dustinvtran]

Entry pages and discussion boards serve different purposes.

Entry pages with reviews. You browse entries or look up an entry to see if it's interesting. You read reviews to get more information.

My major issue with user reviews is that they're frequently awful (e.g., Letterboxd, IMDB, and MyAnimeList to an extent). I'm sure most people just use aggregate critic websites to solicit this information (e.g., Metacritic, RottenTomatoes, Wikipedia's Reception section of an entry). Some of this is more of a community cultivating issue than a design issue. For example, Goodreads' reviews are decent---at the least, they're not filled with sarcastic one-liners or non-information, aiming to be "funny" over informative. I do question whether the user workflow outlined above is something our website should serve though.

Discussion boards. You're not looking to discuss a particular entry but are willing to hear (and possibly participate) about anything.

I quite like the approach in r/patientgamers. r/patientgamers has the format of raising a topic about a game that you enjoyed/found underrated in the past like "Played all Dishonored games for the first time. Appreciation.". Or you raise discussion about a general topic like "The problem with expansive immersive crafty games". It's kind of like how we implemented QuietDiscourse. Discussion boards could be minimal in structure, featuring a flattened list not unlike 4chan and QD, or a upvote-sorted version not unlike Reddit. With that said, my one concern about discussion boards is that they rely on a sufficiently large userbase to stay living. I'm not really convinced that a non-Reddit discussion board is something a typical user would ever want to participate in.

[ghost]

Entry pages with reviews and likes: Reasonably doable.

Profile comments: yeah, sure, maybe it's possible to use Disqus or something similar?

Updated recently: Could be done on the frontpage.

List collections: Hmm...

Discussion board, clubs: dead / pipe dream, if you want to have community activity the day you have a few members my immediate recommendation is a Discord server.

[dustinvtran]

Discussion board, clubs: dead / pipe dream, if you want to have community activity the day you have a few members my immediate recommendation is a Discord server.

Yeah. One setup that could work is to keep the website's goal restricted to just lists. At any point a community builds up, it would be from a discussion board/discord instead that uses the lists for extra info. For example,r/buildapc is the main discussion board around PC making, and it uses pcpartpicker which is basically just lists.

I'm still not sure we even want any of these social features.