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Big Think wants your thoughts on what we can do to make your user experience better. We're a new site, and everything about us is a work in progress, so we're open to pretty much anything you've got to say. So, say it.
I don't know who to send a question to so I suppose I will post here as I have a couple of questions.
1 - I made a comment and wanted it to link to multiple areas though it primarly fit in the "policy and politics" sections, is it possible to connect to different areas? will it be in the future to have multi area articles
2 - The keywords i entered on my own did not stick with my post. Is there a reason for this or did I do something wrong? Can I go back and add key words?
3 - I posted a link to an opinion piece I had writen and hoped the people who read this site -"big thinkers" or individuals curious to hear what they had to say - would give me feedback; in the future is it possible to have a section to cut and paste links into a post not just audio, video, and slideshow? Or could it be possible to include written articles? I hope people will take time to read the article I wrote and give feedback as I am curious to hear what others think and think it fits with the purpose of this website (as I understand it), but fear they wont because the format. I'm sure other individuals might experience something similar, and thought I'd pass it along.
Thanks,
Daniel
This site needs an audio-only option. The clip of Pete Peterson paused to reload every 20-30 seconds. I gave up. I have DSL, but I am so far from the central office that the speed has to be turned down to maintain a connection. On the other hand, maybe you have a problem on your end, because streaming video is not usually this difficult for me.
At the risk of being foolish (perhaps i've missed something) would a text version of the idea interviews be possible? It is faster to read through something than to view a clip and (surely!?!) no idea can be thoroughly vetted without being subjected to cold, hard print. cheers& good luck with your venture
1. I agree that a transcript of the interviews would be very helpful, though of course there may be a cost involved.
2. There's probably a preferred way to cite something from here, but I'm not sure what it is or how to find it. If I want to quote someone, it'd be helpful to know how it should be done.
When responding to an idea, it's sometimes hard to know whether you're responding to the ORIGINAL idea, or a response to the original.
It would be helpful if the idea I'm responding to (or its description) is shown to me on the page where I write my description of my idea.
Interview transcripts would be excellent, especially if they are combined with some way to quote and respond in the comments, or as a new idea. There's a lot of content in each interview, but sometimes only one or two sentences one might want to directly address. I'd also appreciate some way to format quotes -- when I tried to write one, it got crammed up with my response.
Second, some way to revise ideas. They may be written in "permanent marker," but surely they're not chiseled in stone. When I goof up -- and since this is the Internet, it's likely to happen once in a while -- it'd be nice to get a chance to fix typos or formatting problems. Communities like this one often devolve from discussion of ideas into grammar fascism, and I'd appreciate the ability to pre-empt that decline.
Also, when I created an idea in response to someone's response, my idea didn't show up as part of the original conversation. In other words, it ONLY shows up if you specifically read the response on its own.
I think all responses to responses should show up as part of the thread of theoriginal conversation.
I definitely would like to know how long a video is b/4 starting to watch it.
This post will be redundant, feel free to skip or count as a vote:
1- video size is way to small to be comfortable to watch.
2-Audio mp3 is a must [for itunes and tribalshout.com subs]
3- text transcript would be nice.
[this is available on some other sites: ability to click on parts of the transcript to go to specific section in video]
4-Also agree with the last two posters about runtime info.
5-Ability to embed the videos on our blogs, this will help generate traffic to Bigthink.
This will do it for now, will post some more on my second visit to the site!
I agree with above #5 - embed is essential to create debate and discussion. I was planning on blogging about one of the ideas but without the ability to embed the video there really is no point.
Mobile-friendly content would be a big help for your readers travelling or commuting. Ideally a portion of the site could be audio-only with mp3 podcast downloading features - video bandwidth requirements are still a challenge for most mobile devices.
The site desperately needs RSS feeds broken down by category: Am I missing this somewhere?
player window size is not bad; if too big it will show some lag. But the bug is that my comments are never delivered, so I had to use responses all the time. I hope this can be fixed ASAP
Comments and posts should be in reverse order with the newest at the top...
Not clear to me what happend to a response I made. It appeared after I made it, but when I cam back to the site a few hours later it was gone and my profile showed "no activity"
Richard
I love the concept here... ThinkBig... www.BigThink.com
Read about in in the NYTimes this morning...
Only one problem... I need a catagory of "Commerce" as my parcel marking techniques don't apply to others. Then there is intellectual property... "Global...".
I have two ideas to expound upon... for Commerce that have a global
positive appeal... and cost little... Just need to connect to the right decision makers.
Secondly, I need your profile upload to be accepting photos that are *.jpg (most common...) vs. the ????? ( PJjpeg it wants ????)
Suggest : *.jpg, *.gif, *.png, *.bmp.
My site is www.Thinktargets.com and my
profile username : Thinktargets
Password: Thinkrudders
Tom Brinkman
850.293.5556
The ability to comment on a users profile page would be a very good addition. Every time I browse the site, I, for one reason or another, end up on someones profile page and want to leave a comment, but I can only leave comments on the idea pages, the problem there being that the comments I sometimes want to leave are more related to the person and not so much related to any idea they have participated in.
for instance, I would not mind being able to ask the professor of psychology at harvard a few things about studying psychology. And I would not mind being able to ask some writers questions about their field of specialty, many of these questions are not Ideas but they are quite relevant. This site is a perfect meeting place for intelectuals, but It would be better if we had the ability to discuss with each other on the profile pages in a more personal way.
A guide to formatting posts would be quick and easy to roll out, and very useful. Where can I use html? Where can I use markup? Proper formatting makes ideas much easier to convey.
By the way, this is an excellent idea and a very fun site -- I hope the bugs get worked out.
Hi everyone,
These are ALL great suggestions that we are either going to be implementing in the next few weeks or working on in development for the near future. Its feedback like this that is going to make this site a great and easy place to have great conversation. So please keep the suggestions coming! I promise one of us will be in forums very frequently taking detailed notes! Here's a list of some things that are happening:
1. Searchable transcripts will be available in the next few weeks (phew!)
2. The ability to enlarge videos will be coming in the next few weeks.
3. "Favorites" will be added so you can save and organize your favorite ideas. (suggestions on how to do this welcome)
4. The chance to revise ideas will also be happening in the next few weeks.
5. RSS feed is coming
6. Runtime info is coming
7. PODcasts are a little further down the road, but we want them just as bad as you!
These are some of the immediate responses I have. What else do you guys think should be happening?
Oh! And you CAN embed these videos. If you are on an idea page, you can see where it says "share". The embed code should pop up there!
-BD
The first page on the site is a bit overwhelming (I am in the industry, and I really prefer simplicity over features). There are about 10 different panels on the first page. Features, Most Recent Blog entries, Browse Experts, Most Popular Ideas, Keywords, Browse Ideas, the navigation on the left, more videos on the right, the toolbar on the top. Its too much. I think you really need to look at the things that most people want to do and highlight those on the front. People want to see the most heated/interesting topics, people want to know how to sign up, people want to know how to post something. People want to search. Those are probably about it (just in a few minutes of thinking). I also think that you don't need any more professionally made videos because they overwhelm the site so much that the mission of the site is sort of lost, and the site feels like a place for the same people we've heard from all our lives to have yet another forum to show their wisdom.
- Jon
It would be great if our personal profiles respected formatting, rather than just dumping it into a mass of unreadable text.
What image types are acceptable on one's avatar (image) in one's profile, please? My .jpg photo is rejected.
How does one create threads in this 'Forum', please?
I only see how to respond to existing thread topics.
How does one search only for postings with videos and mp3 files, please?
I don't want to just read another group blog, but to see and hear people speak their ideas and comments.
(I signed up here because I thought it might be a "higher class" YouTube.com, but I'm finding too much text and no video or audio.)
Most importantly, how does one cancel their account? What if I want to leave? How do I do it?
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1. Spell Check: Please.
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2. Edit: Need to be able to edit one's own posts after being posted.
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3. User Site History: Need timeline of where user travels within site.(example: I am here, I was here...one click ago, two pages ago, three days ago, etc.)
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Need to avoid losing a potential post because of problems with the interface. Twice I tried to add a response to Paul Krugman's "Is there an other economic crisis looming" and both of the posts got lost. My third attempt to do something with the topic resulted in creating "Re: Re: Is there another economic crisis looming" as a separate idea rather than a reply to the original. It would be nice if I could edit my response after partially creating it.
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