some thoughts on the site

[Biplav]

I'm kind of digging Socialect, but here are a few things right off the
bat that I feel might enhance the site (perhaps I haven't figured out
some of the features yet):

- would be nice to have an activity feed so I can see all the posts of
the people I am following
- when going to a personal page- there is no link to Socialect
homepage unless I scroll down to the very bottom where it says
"powered by.."
- By changing my location from "Kathmandu" to "Ring Road, Kathmandu" -
a few of the posts, events, groups, etc. do not show up (i presume
because they are no longer in my "neighborhood")
- It would be nice to have all the replies on one page instead of the
"sub-replies" under some of the replies to the original post (maybe it
can be done similar to Facebook where one can expand and collapse
comments to a picture, post)
- Would be nice if I can easily search someone's blog by classes,
places, events, groups, topics (maybe I just want to read their
"places" entries)
- I dont like that that the blog entries are not interlinked. For
example "Disaster Preparedness" is under the "Kathmandu" entry under
the tab PLACES. But if I search for "PLACES" on Socialect - there is
no "KATHMANDU" entry. Similarly "Disaster Preparedness" is not on the
Topics section in Socialect. The only way I would find the post is by
going to socialect.com/sthapit
- creating one's profile is a bit of a pain. Why not just have a
template and people can choose the information they wish to share.
Dont like that I have to go to a third party website just to upload my
Avatar.

[sthapit]

biplav - thanks for the feedback and we're glad you like the site.

> - would be nice to have an activity feed so I can see all the posts of
> the people I am following

There's a lot of options to follow people

1. http://socialect.com/biplav/timeline - shows posts of people you're
following
2. http://socialect.com/biplav/timeline.rss - feed of posts of people
you're following
3. http://socialect.com/biplav/timeline.lmx - follow people on your
nokia phone
3. http://socialect.com/biplav/timeline.gpx - follow people
(literally) on your GPS device

> - when going to a personal page- there is no link to Socialect
> homepage unless I scroll down to the very bottom where it says
> "powered by.."

This was a conscious choice so that a user's blog is free from ads or
links (which includes socialect itself). If more users want a link to
socialect from their personal page we'll add it. Incidentally,
clicking on the post title takes you to the main topic to which the
post belongs.

> - By changing my location from "Kathmandu" to "Ring Road, Kathmandu" -
> a few of the posts, events, groups, etc. do not show up (i presume
> because they are no longer in my "neighborhood")

That is correct. All entries on Socialect are location (i.e. GPS
coordinates) based. You can either drag the marker on the map on
http://socialect.com/places or increase your search radius.

> - It would be nice to have all the replies on one page instead of the
> "sub-replies" under some of the replies to the original post (maybe it
> can be done similar to Facebook where one can expand and collapse
> comments to a picture, post)

We designed the site this way to create a balance between letting non
registered users post replies at the low level without getting spam
posts at a top level. But the expand/collapse sounds cool and is easy
to implement - thanks for the idea!

> - Would be nice if I can easily search someone's blog by classes,
> places, events, groups, topics (maybe I just want to read their
> "places" entries)

Great idea - we'll implement this in the next version.

> - I dont like that that the blog entries are not interlinked. For
> example "Disaster Preparedness" is under the "Kathmandu" entry under
> the tab PLACES. But if I search for "PLACES" on Socialect - there is
> no "KATHMANDU" entry. Similarly "Disaster Preparedness" is not on the
> Topics section in Socialect. The only way I would find the post is by
> going to socialect.com/sthapit

I checked and the reason you couldn't find it under places is because
someone moved the marker for Kathmandu outside the city :) The places
tab is a wiki after all. But since it's a wiki it's also easy to
rollback changes (which we did) and the Kathmandu entry is back to
where it should be (see the marker in http://socialect.com/place/np/kathmandu
)

> - creating one's profile is a bit of a pain. Why not just have a
> template and people can choose the information they wish to share.

Good idea.

> Dont like that I have to go to a third party website just to upload my
> Avatar.

We thought it would be the opposite since a lot of users already use
gravatar so when you sign up you already have an avatar. If we get
more complaints we'll setup socialect to accept profile pics on the
site directly.

Thanks for the great feedback and let us know if you have further
questions :)