Top Things To Make Mahalo.com Better?
Feel free to add :)
#1 Make the page load fast - It takes a long while for the page to load on my 1 Gbps internet connection.
How you get this thing done right?
-> Compress your pages/ Minify the css and combine javascript. The main page could easily be reduced by 200-300KB and so can the other pages.
-> Fix the non existable files. I reported that requests are made to non existent elements whenever some pages are accessed. This thing should have been fixed long time ago.
-> Use latest technologies like data:URI support for browsers..
#2 Make Page Approval Faster - Takes like a few days and make me feel that Mahalo team is sleeping.
How this helps? It will help those users who are trying to cover news events. If you get page approved after like 2-3 days then there is no point of the user contributing as the searches are dead. Should get approval within minutes.
#3 Allow option to Page Managers to have Vertical Manager or not - The purpose of Vertical Managers serves only well if they can give some proper guidance to the manager in return of the 20 percent revenue that goes to them. That guidance could be in terms of how that page can be promoted apart from just the edits...
The only reason I specified this one was that I felt that Vertical Managers currently don't offer importance to smaller members.
Something that I really felt was that If I was assigning tasks to members I would have offered them tasks that would have offered them a lot lot better returns on their time. If a user is here for 6 months and he is really spending a lot of time then the experience should be worth it and he should be raking in atleast $xxxx per month and not peanuts.
But in the end that is just me and I think most people with disagree with what I have said..
There are always users who are just here for contributing value to the internet...
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M$6 Answers
I like to answer these "how to improve Mahalo" questions as they come up quite often and usually with very different results but there ares some things you have asked for as improvements that either are being done or are in the process of being done. I will address your concerns then suggest a few improvements of my own.
1. Make Mahalo pages load faster.
I agree this would be fantastic and there is a top guy on the project. I am not aware of the progress but our CEO Jason Calacanis has asked for help in this are and judging by the size of the tip associated with this crowdsourcing attempt at brain storming he is quite serious about it. Many of the suggestions you make are addressed in this question (compressed Java script etc etc) valued at the time with a $100.00+ Mahalo dollar tip. I also believe Mahalo is still seeking some excellent developers if you are interested.
Have a look at the answers to this question.
How would you make Mahalo pages load faster?
2. Make page approval faster.
We have a buzz team and if you are on this team you can bypass the need for page approval or QC team approval and just write the page and publish at will. Mahalo has to trust in your abilities and be confident in your judgment to be part of this team but I am sure they would love to have a new writer.
Email Lon directly for more information. ~~~ Lonharris(at)mahalo.com
3. Allow page manager to have vertical manager or not.
Of course anyone would love to be able to do it all on their own and I wish the same but I cannot see them changing this. Adding the vertical managers was a huge step forward in the eyes of Mahalo and a very large portion of its page managers. However there are lots and lots of pages without vertical managers if you really want to fly solo on your own projects. I am happy with the new system of vertical managers but the pages I do or did manage were and are not pages that make a lot of money so the difference would be and is negligible. I feel for the most part that the vertical managers are a good idea for the good of Mahalo as a whole if not for any other sake than uniformity of pages.
The only thing I would do to change Mahalo for the better in my eyes is stop the anonymous questions. At least when we had to import questions from Twitter an actual question had to be asked by a real person seeking an answer to that question. This allowed a importer to filter the questions and served the purpose of both inviting a new user to Mahalo by answering their question and it allowed a page manager an opportunity to promote the page each question was in reference to by using Mahalo Answers in a constructive manner.
Anonymous question have decreased the equality of both the questions and the answers here and if it were up to me they would stop today as in right now. Down with anonymous questions and God forbid anonymous answers.
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M$Relevance, relevance, relevance. As many great questions and answers as I've seen on here, I've seen some questions that are just plain irrelevant. Some of them aren't even questions at all. Some of them are actually declarative statements. (In one case, I suppose this was all right, since it was a very special occasion.) But in most cases, it's not okay, because I think that people not using Mahalo Answers for the purpose for which it was designed (that is, asking and answering questions) kinda undermines the integrity of Mahalo Answers.
I would suggest some sort of committee of Mahalo members, ones who have been here long enough to be trusted members of the Mahalo.community whose objectivity is more or less unimpeachable, whose function is to review every posted question for relevance and either approve it or reject it (with clear and precise reasons given for the rejection). If this hypothetical "relevance committee" worked out shifts so that one or two members were monitoring Mahalo Answers at any given time, this idea could actually work, and it probably would reduce the amount of material to slog through to find a good question..
What do you think?
Personal opinion
observation
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M$
Yeah, @balinesecat I've noticed sometimes Direct questions post on the main board too, even when they're selected as private. Maybe it's something that can be fixed by coding?
Liked the "Relevancy" factor.
Hey @baka13, re: the "questions that aren't questions" ... sometimes, these get posted when an inexperienced user thinks they're running a search. They use the "post a question" box by accident to post a search query. Seems strange, given the second screen you go through before a question is posted, but it does happen...
I rather liked @davepamn's suggestion of having a customizable frontpage: http://www.mahalo.com/answers/mahalo-answers-community/do-you-want-a-mahalo-frontpage-which-can-be-custom-controlled
I think I'd also like to see "helpful/unhelpful" voting boxes on comments as well as answers, just because some comments are actually quite helpful - sometimes it'll be the original answerer clarifying a point (perhaps better than they explained it in their original answer), or sometimes a person comments on an answer that's not their own to elaborate further on a particular point.
I'd also like to see better profile pages, such as an improved "recent activity" tab - perhaps with sorting menus or a search box so you don't have to go through each page to find what you're looking for.
Just a few suggestions. :)
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
Say, that's a good idea, this adding a helpful/unhelpful box on comments. I like it, @potterarchy ! "Helpful" ratings make a member look good, and seeing comments that are voted helpful will likely prove an effective visual aid for how to write a good comment. The idea does have quite a bit of educational merit.
2. I wish you could expand the recent activity tab to show more recent activties instead of hitting "next". same for the rest of the tabs.
thats all. for now...
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$The one big thing I would like is for Mahalo to 'feel' more like a community. I would like to be able to follow people who ask interesting questions, maybe create a personal network, and make in easier to chat with people I've met here. Maybe that means using a twitter-like thing or a blog-like thing or something completely new.
Mahalo has become one of my favorite sites but I've never felt like it's a community, just a place with cool stuff that does cool things.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
You are able to add as a friend anyone that you like their questions. You can click their name and add them as a friend. To me Mahalo has more community feel than most places, because we respond to each other in questions and we are also in IRC and that is a very nice addition to the questions contact. http://webchat.freenode.net/ channel is Mahalo.
So if you would like ot get to know others this is a nice place to start. As is the Weekly Mahalo Broadcast. There is live chatting while the broadcast is on. It is great to see new people starting to become more active. Welcome to Mahalo :) and try to visit the tutorial on Wednesdays at noon PST. I am including a blog about the weekly chat with you so that you can learn more about it from Gno's blog. http://www.mahaloground.blogspot.com/
I hope you feel the community very soon :)
And I'll tell you something else. Sometimes, like today, I find that Best Answer to one of my questions has been awarded without me being notified that it's time for me to choose one.
That pisses me off.
Sometimes I get emails, and sometimes not. If I don't get an email it also does not notify me on my Recent Activity tab. For example, this morning I found that my question about silicone bake mats was closed and Best Answer awarded without me knowing. A few hours ago though, I was emailed and told on Recent Activity's to close a different question.
Does this happen because I have a number of questions open at the same time? I can't figure it out.
You didn't receive an email from Mahalo in your email inbox? I always get an email with the title "It's time to choose your best answer" in it.
That page don't exist anymore.
Answering this time traveled question would be nice of Mahalo to do as well.
@Buddawiggi
Thanks for the quick reply ^^
The only things that I have been good at is
- Promoting
- Making site faster
- SEO
Being part of Buzz Team sounds good ^^. thanks again
You welcome.. I am far from a great writer myself but through Mahalo Answers I have learned a lot and improved considerably. I have written a few ..maybe 10... pages from scratch and it really was not that difficult to learn and the staff was really helpful/supportive. I have learned everything I know about online promotion, SEO, page writing, keywords..from Mahalo and folks like yourself.. we like to have and really need folks with these skills around here.
Don't get discouraged ...your skills in SEO and promotion would be a great asset as a page manager. There are pages out there already written and just waiting for someone with your skills and drive to rescue them and drive them to the top of all the rankings.
Good luck.. I am sure you will fit in just fine here.