Tomorrow, we're adding a few new, albeit long-requested, features to the site. You can see them both in action in Figure 1 below:


Figure 1: Notice all stories now have a Sink button under the Vote button and a Retract button appears if you have already voted on or sunk a story. Sunken stories (like the two bottom ones in this screenshot) appear grayed out.

You now have the option to not only Vote for stories you like, but add a Sink vote to stories you don't like. This sink vote doesn't affect the actual ranking of the story, but each story will note whether it has mostly positive or mostly negative ratings above the story title, and it will list the number of votes to the number of sinks. If you choose to sink a story, that story will appear grayed out for you (but not for everyone else). However, if a story receives a negative rating over 60%, then the story will appear grayed out for everyone (see Figure 2 below). Also, if you accidently click on Vote when you meant to click on Sink, or vice versa, we now have the long-requested Retract button, which will allow you to retract votes or sinks that were unintentional or if you happen to change your mind about a certain story.


Figure 2: Since over 60% of the votes for this story have been sinks, it shows up grayed out in the On Deck page, even though I have yet to either vote for or sink the story.

For those of you who are worried that your enemies will Sink every story you submit, rest assured that they will at the very least be held accountable for their actions. Just as Netscape keeps track of who voted for every story in the system, we will be keeping track of who sunk a particular story (see Figure 3).


Figure 3: Who sunk this story? These guys did. Quick add them to your Enemies list! (Note to developers: We need an Enemies feature on the site.)

It also bears mention that Sinks will now be tracked as part of your overall activity on the site on your member page. With tomorrow's push, we will have also fixed the Activity page display so stories do not appear multiple times in the list, but rather each time you interact with a story, that story will pop to the top of the list with all the interaction you've had with the story. We hope you all enjoy these new features, as we think they will make the site more dynamic. If you have any ideas for future improvements, keep them coming our way. We're all ears.

Figure 1: Our developers worked hard over the past 24 hours in the computer dungeon we've built for them.

You know all those people you see on TV who have gone in for some plastic surgery and come out with just a wee bit too much Botox? Or people who have their smile worked on and it just looks a bit too much like the smile on Jack Nicolson's version of The Joker in Tim Burton's Batman?

Well, yesterday, after our facelift to our member pages, many of you let us know loud and clear that you thought we'd crossed that line from delicate touch up to Frankenstinian abomination.

Today, we pushed an update to those changes that we hope will convince you that we were just suffering from some post-facelift swelling.

We've fixed a lot of bugs, ordered member activity in chronological order on the profile page, and added more options for the Friends' page, including as list of your friends' recent submissions (as in the last generation of the profile pages) and a Recent Friends' Activity page, which is a web-based version of our recently released Firefox extension. We've also added a new stats page and upped the font size of any Notes you want to add to the stories on your Activity pages. Also, there is now a note at the bottom of each story indicating what type of interaction you had with the story.

As always, let us know what you think. We'll keep the developers in the computer dungeon for as long as it takes to improve this site. They like it in there.

Figure 1: A new approach to the story capsule for Netscape can be found on the hometest3 page.

We're constantly working to improve the new Netscape experience for our members. If you head over to the hometest3 page, you'll find a new look for the site that we're seriously considering. As you can see in Figure 1, we've changed the story capsule format as well as the appearance of the Netscape Anchors Recommend... section. The pictures are slightly smaller, so that the page loads more quickly. The title exists on its own line and is linked to the permalink page for the story. The channel is highlighted in all caps at the beginning of the summary, linking to that channel page. The View link lets you view the site in our framed Navigator interface. Discuss shows you the number of comments and links to the comments on the permalink page. The Source link takes you directly to the submitted story and off of Netscape. And then of course, you will see the age of the post followed by the name of the member, which links to the member's profile page.

We also have changed the way the Top Netscape Contributors and the Tracker display in the righthand column of the site.

Let us know what you think about this new look for the story capsule. We'll take your comments into consideration, tweak it a bit more, and barring any blatant deal-breakers, we'll be launching this new story capsule in the near future.

UPDATE: Chat is now live on the site!

In addition to our Netscape threaded comment system, via which you can communicate with other members about stories, and our messaging system, via which you can send messages to your friends on Netscape, we're adding a new feature very soon: Netscape Chat.


Figure 1: The link to Netscape Chat will appear directly beneath the Today's Hot Stories headline, across from the link to our On Deck page.


Thanks to our developers and some help from our friends over at Userplane, we'll have a static chat room on the homepage of Netscape. If you're a logged in member of Netscape, you can launch the chat and join a live discussion of the top story on Netscape. If everyone is bored with that top story, there will be a list of the top 5 stories with links to all of them. Best of all, it all updates live, so as the ranking on the site changes, everyone in the chatroom will know as the top story listing changes, and the discussion can move on from topic to topic. The chatroom will fall under the normal guidelines set forth for participating in the Netscape Community as outlined in our Terms of Use, and Anchors will check in from time to time to make sure no one is abusing the system as well as to participate in the conversation. As with your comments on the site, please keep the conversation civil or you risk having your chat privileges revoked or a possible ban from the site.

We hope Netscape Chat will provide another way for our community to grow and discuss the news on Netscape, and we hope you all like it. As always, if you have any ideas about how we could make it better, let us know. We're all ears.

Figure 1: View of the new threaded comments on Netscape.

Threaded comments help you follow along with who said what to whom when. To participate in threaded discussions on Netscape, all you have to do is sign up to be a member. If you are making a new point in your commentary that is not in response to another member's comment, scroll to the bottom of the page and fill in the "Add Comment" box.

Yesterday, we silently launched a new feature of the site: the On Deck page (see where we hid the link to it in Figure 1). This page (and all the numbered pages after the On Deck page) updates every 5 minutes with the highest ranked stories that haven't yet made it to the homepage, so you can see what stories are about to make it, try to spot where stories you've submitted are in the rankings, and vote up stories you'd like to see make the homepage.


Figure 1: The link to the On Deck page is located immediately beneath the date and time at the beginning of Today's Hot Stories list on the homepage.

We'll be tweaking the On Deck list over the next several days to try to make it more accurately display what's almost on the homepage.

Let us know what you think.

One of the great features of the site that helps you find great content that hasn't yet made it to the homepage is the Tracker, which can be found in the right side bar of the site. If you click on the "Watch LIVE" link on the tracker you will be taken to this page where you will see everything that is going on on the site, updated every 45 seconds.

Notice the tabs at the top of this page. You can track All Activity, Stories, Comments, New Users (we're currently up to 62,465 members!), Votes, and even find Anchor Commentary.

You can also quickly jump to find new stories by clicking on the "Find new stories" link in your member box at the top of the right-hand column.

UPDATE: Now videos are in the Tracker too.

Check after the jump for a full preview shot of the Tracker.