Hi all. This is the first time I have posted a note rather than a list, but I think the time is right. We are currently getting around 30 thousand visits per day and the site popularity is increasing constantly. So the time has arrived for me to ask you all to tell me what you would like me to do to improve the site. This is also a good opportunity for you tell me the things you most hate about the List Universe and the things you love most.
JFrater, in red, with the List Universe users
So, please use the comments to tell me what you want. You, the users, make a huge contribution already through the comments, and we constantly see new users saying that they love the comments. I have a few idea of my own for ways to improve the site, but before I spend money on developing these ideas, I need to know what you want; that is, after all, the most important thing.
Feel free to be completely candid. Don’t hold back (though I am sure you won’t if some of the past comments are anything to go by!) I write my lists for you and now it is time that you talk to me instead of me talking to you.
In case you are interested, in the last 3 months (since this site started) we have moved from 1.5 millionth popular site on Alexa to 35,771 thousandth most popular. On Technorati we are now ranked in the top 7,000 (from 4 millionth at the outset). I believe that the main reason for this is the enormous amount of great user comments, contributing to each list.
I would like to take this opportunity to say thanks to you all; you are the ones making this site great.
– Jamie
Boy its kinda hard, I love the site. Perhaps the member profiles could be more personalized such as having in depth profiles optional complete with avatars, and having other media (such as games or popular and weird news stories). Oh, you can put an option to change font or italics or size on comments, to a reasonable degree
I agree with perhaps adding user profiles, but that is about it. I absolutely love this site, and I’m glad its seeing so much success. Just keep up the good work.
ben and skyler: one of the things I am definitely going to do is make the profiles much more personal. I would like to include histories of favorite topics too.
hi, new to the site (as in, yesterday) and i’m already spreading the word. i think what i find great about this site is links to other sources of information so that the users can expand their mind. whether through wiki or other means. great site, i’ve been on it most of the day today (sunday, working.. kind of.) i think you have a great thing going!
i second Ben’s suggestions. more interactivity amongst members would be cool. i do like the widget but maybe have it more customizable? is there a way to show the entries and # of comments posted in one of the sidebars..like keep a running tally of comments made. or is that too much? reason i ask that..i don’t comment on all entries but that doesn’t mean i’d not be interested in seeing what kinda responses those entries get.
just a suggestion to you…pace yourself. do not overdo. this ‘baby’ is taking off but don’t let it overtake your routine. the frequency of posting new lists has been great w/ no loss of quality..i’d like to see that continue but not if it becomes a burden to you and this site. less might equal more.
and again..thank you for setting this site up. i’ve learned a lot. the commentors are wonderful. amazingly few jerks which i don’t know if you filter/censor commenting or not but that is cool considering the # of jerks i’ve encountered at other sites or forums.
keep up the good work!
Survival lists are always good, or lists helping you out in any situation, examples:
How to survive in prison
How to survive a shipwreck
etc.
also, pictures are pretty good. a list by itself is a little bland but when pictures accompany them it’s good.
not much else i can think of; love this site.
matticus: thanks
I will keep up the links to other sites – it is important for credibility.
Cyn: Hopefully if I can afford to get the new site built, a better widget will be part of that – it should include the features you are asking for. As far as comments – in three months I have deleted 3 comments which I think is really impressive – the calibre of the posters really is high. In fact, of the ones I deleted, I regret two of them and have changed my opinion of how I should approach them from now on – the best thing is to let people say what they want – unless something illegal happens that might get me in trouble, I won’t delete. Of those three, one was span and the other two were related to that small argument over revisionist historicism (I think you will know the articles this relates to).
since comments are a big draw on the site and discussion is so viable on the posts, i think a great start would be to change the comments to allow directly replying to someone. no longer having to post
XXXX: reply.
besides that i love the site and always look forward to lists.
Yea Cyn is right, dont try to overdo the site all at once. Also, i got to thinking, maybe you could have your own profile with a short biography cause i was really wondering how you found time to not only keep the site going, but turning out lists on such a quick, regular scale. Great job, three cheers for jamie
This site can be improved?!?
I don’t believe it!
J – I wouldn’t change much. Your site suckered me in and makes it difficult to be productive at work. Why change what doesn’t need changing? Keep up the good work.
Maybe use a spell checker once in a while.
Other than that… it’s perfect.
Rocking site Jamie! I recommend it a lot and it’s a Great conversation starter. The joke list was pretty funny but there was some sketch language that could have been avoided.
Did you hear the one about the blonde and the ventriloquist…..
Thanks! Keep up the Great work!
nothing the site is aewsome leave it how it is
this is my first time here and i almost read all articles.. well skimmed through them.. two things i want are a) pictures/video to all the lists b) brief description of each lists.
This site just rocks. I can’t think of anything to change. It is one of the first sites I go to every morning.
Thanks
threaded comments will be cool.
dont change anything much. but ya i would like little buttons to upmod/downmod lists. yes, that will be cool, to see the items in the list rearrange themselves according to the votes they are getting.
Jamie, I LOVE your site! I love the intellect and insight I find in all the lists, as well as in the other readers! Very rare on the internet. As the popularity increases, I hope that it is not lost. You, very comprehensively, cover a wide range of topics and nearly every list grabs my interest, which is surprising time after time. I also agree about the profile thing that some people above said…it would be great to be able to interact with these people who have the same interests and appreciations as I do! Blogging is frequently a thankless job, so I take this opportunity to thank you for all your hard work.
its all good…
I love the site. I have been on it everyday for the last three weeks and now i say something about the site in everyday conversation. I dont think you need to change a thing.
Snacks.
I would like to see more snacks offered. Perhaps a cool beverage, too.
Other than that, you’ve done a splendid job.
Rob
I love this site. I check it everyday. I would suggest something more eye catching, the layout is pretty plain and the ads are overwhelming. But other than that, it seems perfect to me.
don’t hesitate to push the limit… freedom of speach baby… maybe you could do lists with multiple vantage points. for instance, top 10 evil men, is relative depending on one’s perspective. you have a list where stalin is #1 and a list where george bush is #4 or a list where ghandi is #2.
I have to agree with RobS. Snacks would easily push you past google in my opinion.
Anyways I do love the site, found it around 2 weeks ago and check back every day. There is always something interesting to read.
The only suggestion I have is to keep it as simple as it is now. New features are great and I think the personalized profile idea is good too, but you dont want site navigation to be a hassle. In other words i disagree with anesb, I always prefer plain layouts and if you keep the content of this site as good as it has been, the layout wont matter. And the ads arent overwhelming, plus it would be a bad financial decision to remove them as i’m sure with your amount of traffic they are paying off.
Its perfect now, but a few small adjustments wouldn’t hurt I suppose.
Keep up the great work.
Matt
Honestly, I can’t think of a thing. GREAT site! I look forward to every list.
While we’re on the snacks idea, what about a pizza night every friday?
what i suggest:
- A WYSIWYG editor for the comments.
- I agree to Juggz at 7. A reply function that shows who you’re replying to.
- I also agree to inanytime at 16. A voting system for each comment, maybe not rearrange the lists, but a feature for us to flame the sucker comments and of course give credit for great ones too.
- A search with more detailed features maybe? Either by topic, words within content and users?
- I don’t know the overhead for this, but maybe some functions to collapse and expand the comments? Pages can get realllyyy long.
- A personal list of favourite lists
Some of the features may already in place that I don’t know of hehe.
Awesome site already I must say. Cheers.
Jamie, firstly, congratulations on your hit rate! Secondly, Great site!!!
I would not change a thing. Cyn made a valid point, the list are quality… this is one of my main draws.
As long as the lists are good, the other goodies can take their time! Leave the typo’s, they make me feel better when i post my comments!
Any chance of a list on 10 things we need to know about Jfrater?
I like the site but… I like a hundred sites. Could you do full feeds instead of partial? I would love to read all the lists but as it is I can only pop over for the most intriguing.
First of all, congrats on your success! As for my suggestions to make the site better, I have none. There is nothing I dislike about it. I only wish that I am still able to view the site at work after you make any changes. My office has a huge firewall but as of now I am able to access your site there. Rest assured, if this is not possible I will still be visiting your site from my home computer, as I often do already.
Best Wishes from a Dedicated User,
Sarah
A personal suggestion of mine is to create a list creation page for those of us who cannot code HTML. The page remains hidden until the administration staff reviews, corrects simple errors, (like spelling or punctuation) and then contacts the poster via email to explain why or why not the list will be approved. You could also contact the poster if the list will be approved if they make necessary changes and allow them access to make those changes.
This will greatly increase outside contributors and provide a lot of great new content. If you were to do this, I have a few ideas I would love to post and I would do it for free.
Thanks to everyone for the comments – I am very pleased that you all like the site as it is. I am definitely keen to implement some of these suggestions. While I can code a moderate amount of PHP and HTML, I am not good enough to do the majority of this work myself so I will be needing to pay someone to do it. This means the work will be done bit by bit. From your comments, and my own ideas, I think the priorities will be improved profiles and threaded and rateable comments. I would also like to make some visual enhancements to the site but that will probably take longer.
As far as snacks are concerned, if someone else wants to take on that burden, I will have a Hawaiian pizza
Soonerproud: I do like the idea of user submitted lists for voting. That is going to be quite a big one to implement and we would need to get the profile enhancements done first so it can be tied in to that. This is definitely something I am interested in though.
As far as full instead of partial feeds, I am unable to monetize the feeds at the moment, which is why I use partial. I only make revenue when people come to the site, and with the high price I am paying for the two servers we are running on, I need the site to generate enough revenue to cover it. If we start making more money in the future, I can definitely consider this though.
Okay – I have made a few visual changes to improve the appearance of the site. I hope you all prefer it. Nothing functional has changed.
I think you should leave the site the way it is, i love it just the way it is and i really admire the amount of time and work that you put in it.
still looking good.
I found this site through Ebaumsworld a few months ago and have been a return visitor everyday. bookmarked even.
I think there were only a total of 8 lists when I got hooked. I love how there is a handful of new things to learn each day I log on. I can spend hours each day expanding on the information you post on here by doing a simple search on wikipedia or a search engine. I always learn new and interesting things by visiting your site. Awesome site.
kass: thanks
Guys – take a look at this site: http://www.keyvan.net/code/paged-comments
Tell me what you think of the comments system – they are split in to pages and show from newest to oldest (on listverse it is oldest to newest at the moment). Would you like to see this implemented here or do you prefer to see all the comments at one go?
This is the first day I’m commenting on the site after finding it. I enjoy the site a great deal and the first place I check for update everyday. I particularly enjoy comments and I prefer it all be in one go then have to go through pages. It’d be nice to be able to respond to someone directly through some way to quote.
Sid: I agree about the quoting – threaded comments will give us that when I can either get someone to make it or write it myself
I also think it might be nice to be able to send private messages to others.
Jamie i think comments should stay oldest to newest makes for a more fluid read but paged comments would be nice.
Hey Jamie, as far as gathering and prioritizing improvements, Salesforce.com and Dell both use the same engine for letting people submit ideas and allowing others to promote them. (Kinda like Digging other people’s ideas, not just the articles.) Check out ideas.salesforce.com for an example. Salesforce just released it as a product, but there might be a free/cheap/opensource version out there. or build your own.
Scurfy: thanks for the suggestion – it looks very good.
I agree with almost everyone else who has commented and said that the site is great just the way it is. Always interesting and educational. I love it! I’ll take a Hawaiian Pizza also and a bud light =)
I totally disagree with adding things such as “How to’s” ….IMHO there are plenty of sites with that type of info. Stay with the “Top 10…” type of format. I would hate to see this veer to far away from the original premise.
well i must say i check your site everyday..its hands down on my top 5 fav list..i dont think you should censor urself..language wise..you already have warnings and that is good enough if harsh or vulgar language is being used..the joke list was a great idea and more interactive lists would be nice as well..but keep up the good work..keep it creative..and scan as many topics as possible..i love the morbid or out there lists!!!
I check the site every day, love it! My favorites are the historical lists. Keep up the good work!
I think the listuniverse is excellent. Never fails to provide a source of entertainment for me. Perhaps a user profiles page would be nice, but I’m neutral as far as that goes (some people are complete dolts on their profiles on other sites, what with racism or eltism promotion being what they “are.”) Other than that, I love this place. Eat your heart out, nameless website that I won’t *cough ebaumsworld cough* mention.
Thanks for all the comments – it has been very helpful to me in prioritising the site changes
Jamie the site is great – I love it as it is. I like the way the comments are set out, they are easy to read. Well done, I tell everyone (even people who we do trades with) about this site and how good it is – incl. writing down the url for people. Vonnie and her family are frequenting here occasionally now
Just over a month ago I followed a link to this site from ebaumsworld. This site is amazing, a true oasis in the desert that is the internet. You’re doing a great job here, and you should be very proud of yourself. Please, please, please don’t change it too much. It’s wonderful the way it is. Thank you for continuing to amaze me!
sarahj: hehe thanks – the more the merrier
Marcy: Marcy: thanks
I will definitely keep the changes to a minimum 
i hate chatboxes or shoutboards but something like that in either side panel for general commenting not related to a specific entry would be cool. think its been suggested already but an ‘en’ site communicating feature, like private messaging.
something that allows for us to communicate w/ each other and something else that allows for us to communicate in a general way.
Cyn: I agree that that would be a really great idea. I just need to devise a good way to incorporate it in to the site.
okay – I have started doing a bit of work on the profiles. At the very least I should be able to show your usernames and URLs, and any other information you are able to enter when you register. It will take me a bit of time so be patient
i can wait. *taps foot* …well..okay, maybe. *grins*
so like where is that Hawaiian pizza, while i wait? *grins*
Cyn: I am still waiting for mine! I volunteer you to organize the snacks
well forget pizza. i’m from Texas…*sets up taco bar in the right hand sidebar. loaded w/ fixings. meat. cheese. salsa. lettuce. tomato. onions. peppers. course..taco shells. leaves the rest to your imagination.*
will add dessert bar later if ya like.
Cyn: tacos will do fine. And I definitely want a pudding bar
I agree with simple user profiles with a post counter. ( I like to see how many posts I make =)) Avatars are fun too. I’d also like to be able to link you with myspace. I’ve got a few people hooked on this site now. Strangely enough, I found your site through the Unexplained Mysteries site when a poster referred to one of your lists. I’m pretty sure it was on the recordings list for the exorcism. Even if you didn’t change anything, I would keep coming back. Thanks for all the great entertainment!!