Every so often at Netscape, we get a message asking, "What's up with the Do No Evil Channel?"

The concept behind the Do No Evil Channel, originally, was to post really good, even saintly, stories about people or companies out there in the world trying to make a positive difference for us all, juxtaposed with posts about downright evil and wrong actions by others. Do No Evil was supposed to be a place to shame those who were engaged in shameful acts and applaud those who were doing good in the world.

We see some of that in the channel, but recently, several members have been using the channel to post bits of humor and humorous videos.

So we're wondering, should we continue down the road of good and evil with the Do No Evil Channel and open a separate Humor Channel? Should we in some way reinvent Do No Evil as Good vs. Evil or Good and Evil? Or should we end this Channel and replace it with others?

Let us know what you think. What channels do you like and which new ones would you like to see?

Yesterday afternoon, we pushed a newer version of the homepage. Instead of 3 stories from each of the top 5 channels and 2 stories from each of the next 5 channels, this new iteration of the homepage displays the top 2 stories of each of the top 10 channels and the top story from each of the next 5 stories, ranked. We think this brings a more balanced experience to the site, while allowing for more growth of the individual channels. You can still find the pure-ranked version of the homepage via the More Hot Stories link at the bottom of the homepage. We still have hometest (what had been the homepage last week) and hometest1 (top story from the top 25 channels) up and running as well. Now, what can we test on hometest2 next... ;-)

Since we re-launched Netscape, one of our constant struggles has been to make the homepage one of the best experiences it can be for a social news website. Initially, the homepage was dominated by stories from the Technology and Gadget channels, as early adopters of the site were either technophiles and/or people who were used to Digg and who came over to either kick the tires or try to in some way sabotage or break what they (incorrectly, I think) saw as a site trying to become another Digg. We began trying to grow other channels like News and Politics, and we succeeded in getting members involved in those Channels, but, as a result, the site has become overly focused on Politics and partisan disagreements propel most hot point political stories to the top of the pile and crowd out a lot of other interesting stories from other topic areas.

Our goal has always been to provide a new experience. To build a social news site on top of a portal experience with an editorial layer providing original content and follow up metajournalism in the form of Anchor Commentary. We want Netscape to become the best marriage between what new media, citizens media, traditional journalism, television news, and blogging has to offer. We want it to be an evolution of news and an evolution of the portal. Evolution takes time.

With that in mind, we've come up with a few alternate views of the Netscape Homepage that we'd like you to consider:

• http://www.netscape.com/hometest/ This first variant of the homepage checks to see what are the top 10 Channels at any given time, and then it pulls the top 3 stories from each of the top 5 channels and the top 2 stories from each of the next 5 channels and ranks these stories on the Homepage. As a result, no single channel will ever have more than 3 stories on the homepage, but only the top 10 channels will ever appear in the rankings.
• http://www.netscape.com/hometest1/ This second variant of the homepage checks to see what are the top 25 Channels at any given time, and then it displays the top story from each of those channels and ranks them.

We think both these variant homepages give more balance to the site as a whole, provide a wider variety of information, help people who have less interest in Politics a chance to have their stories rise to the top, and encourage everyone to check out the individual channels, rather than always living on the homepage. What do you think? Would you prefer one of these views over the current homepage? Do you have an idea for another way we could display the homepage?

We'll take whatever you say into consideration and if we change to one of these views, we'll announce it beforehand and keep the previous view around as an alternate.