The history of fanart.tv: Part 3— Where’s my hover car already.
This is the final post in this series. It will include some screenshots of the new site and some details of what to expect. You should also read Part 1 and Part 2.
A “new” site has been in the works for several years. There was a Wordpress version. That was followed by a CodeIgniter version. Followed by a Laravel 5.2 version. The currently in development version is Laravel 5.5.
The problem has always been a lack of time, the transitory nature of our admins; contributors; and moderators, and above all just how complicated everything has become.
None of that has changed. But with the introduction of our Discord server, I finally feel confident that I can get some decent feedback. Without feedback it’s very hard to build something useful. I’m a web developer, not a moderator or contributor.
A new responsive design
Our current site sucks on any mobile device. The new site is being built with mobile in mind. The majority of our users, nearly 80% use a desktop. Whether this is because the mobile experience is so bad will be easier to find out when the new site goes live.
The above screenshots are still rough and unfinished, but should give you some idea of where the site is heading.
New features
The site will have a lot of new features; improving contributors and moderators lives has been a key concern.
Probation system
When a user signs up they start off on probation. While on probation the user will only be allowed to upload 1–5 images. While a users probation score is less than 5 they will only be able to have 1 image pending at a time. If the image is approved their score increases by 1, if an image is denied their score is decreased by 1.
0–4, 1 pending image
5–14, 2 pending images
15–29, 3 pending images
30+ user is taken off probation
Quality score
A users quality score is similar to that used while in probation, but it doesn’t affect the amount of images they are allowed to upload. The quality score is calculated on the last 80 images uploaded after probation ended. If the users quality score drops below 50% (so 40 of the last 80 images were denied) the user will automatically be put on probation.
Additional IDs
While there will be a single “base” ID we use when adding things into the database, the new site will allow additional ID’s to be specified. So for example, a movie, in addition to TMDb ID could also have an IMDB ID, wikipedia ID, anything really. These additional IDs will need to be filled in by members and approved by moderators. The plus side is if we ever need to change the “base” ID it will be fairly easy to do. Another upside is people will be able to do requests for the new IDs.
A focus on contributors
The new site focuses on activity much more than the current site. Activity is displayed on the homepage, on section pages and on profile pages. There will be a new “Contributor Centre” which will group everything contributor related. This will be the place to go to find tutorials, rules, requests etc. Level 1+ contributors will be able to “Check Out” a request. This will show that they are working on a request.
Another new feature will be image edits. This is where an uploaded image makes minor changes to an already approved image. Rather than “replacing” the original image, the new image is considered as an “edit” to the original image. Both uploaders will be credited under this system, something like “Uploaded by Kode, Edited by Aries”
Moderation Centre
The new Moderation Centre will be visible to the public. Members will be able to see whats in the queue, what moderators are online. In fact, they will be able to see most anything a moderator can see, what they wont be able to do is approve or deny images. The hope is to make things more transparent and hopefully gain more interest from people to become moderators.
