rankmylist.com, please critique

Leonard Blaisdell wrote:

In article <efio89$c9n$1 (AT) lust (DOT) ihug.co.nz>,
"Nik Coughlin" <nrkn.com (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

http://rankmylist.com/tabTest/

Perhaps some indication of progress while clicking on options would be
of help. Or a far smaller example group than food. When do you stop or
win ;-)

The ranking algorithm is undergoing an upgrade, once it's done I'll add a
progress indicator (i.e., how close you are to having made a decision for
each possible combination), thanks!

Charles Sweeney wrote:

Nik Coughlin wrote

http://rankmylist.com/tabTest/

Visually it's very nice indeed, clean, easy to read, uncluttered.

As a concept I think it's bonkers. It's a website that tells you how
much you like things? Do you need to be told that? Don't you
already know that? Will there be a rush of people visiting to
remember what they like most?

Whenever things ask me what my 10 favorite bands or movies etc. are I have
trouble making my mind up, the idea was for a tool that could help me get
over my indecisiveness. Hopefully some other people will find it useful or
fun for the same reason

Toby Inkster wrote:

Charles Sweeney wrote:

As a concept I think it's bonkers. It's a website that tells you
how much you like things? Do you need to be told that? Don't you
already know that? Will there be a rush of people visiting to
remember what they like most?

A very good point.

An improvement in usefulness would be a way to save my list as, say,
http://rankmylist.com/my_film_list, and save my rankings as
http://rankmylist.com/my_film_list/toby. Then I could invite people to
visit http://rankmylist.com/my_film_list/ and rank the list too -- and
they could save it as http://rankmylist.com/my_film_list/dave or
http://rankmylist.com/my_film_list/bob.
http://rankmylist.com/my_film_list/ could display an overall set of
rankings.

Hi Toby,

Once I've implemented the private/public list functionality currently on my
to do list you'll be able to do just that I like the url structure
you've suggested a lot though.

Toby Inkster wrote:

Nik Coughlin wrote:

http://rankmylist.com/tabTest/

Make a list of red, green, yellow, blue and click "apply". The first
time it asks, vote for either of the two colours (doesn't matter), now
repeatedly click "I can't decide" and look at the rankings. :-)

When I changed the urls from index.php?blah=blah to just ?blah=blah it broke
that, I've fixed it now though, thanks!

In article <efn7su$fod$1 (AT) lust (DOT) ihug.co.nz>,
"Nik Coughlin" <nrkn.com (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

The ranking algorithm is undergoing an upgrade, once it's done I'll add a
progress indicator (i.e., how close you are to having made a decision for
each possible combination), thanks!

I quit. I had elevens, tens and nines through the first six rankings and
no clue whether I got a cookie or what for completing the thing. Isn't
that some factorial deal for all possible combinations that might take
me the rest of my life? 30x29x28...

leo

--
<http://web0.greatbasin.net/~leo/>

"Nik Coughlin" <nrkn.com (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

A work in progress, would like anyone who has a moment to please take a
look:

Current site is http://rankmylist.com/

Next version is http://rankmylist.com/testTabs/

The tables for layout will be replaced with CSS in the next iteration.

So far tested in IE6/7 and newest versions of Firefox and Opera, seems to
work fine.

Any comments, critiques, questions or suggestions on the html/css, layout or
mechanics of the page very welcome!
The sort algorithm does not seem to terminate! If I enter 1,2 it just

keeps asking me to compare them. You need an algorithm that uses the
minimum number of comparisons and maintains the original order for
equal values - the "I don't know" case. You also need an algorithm
that never gives the user a chance to contradict himself. That is, if
he prefers 1 to 2 and 2 to 3 then he must not be asked to compare 1
and 3 in case he decides on 3. I'd like to give you a suitable
algorithm but I don't know one.

David Segall wrote:

"Nik Coughlin" <nrkn.com (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

A work in progress, would like anyone who has a moment to please
take a look:

Current site is http://rankmylist.com/

Next version is http://rankmylist.com/testTabs/

The tables for layout will be replaced with CSS in the next
iteration.

So far tested in IE6/7 and newest versions of Firefox and Opera,
seems to work fine.

Any comments, critiques, questions or suggestions on the html/css,
layout or mechanics of the page very welcome!
The sort algorithm does not seem to terminate! If I enter 1,2 it just
keeps asking me to compare them. You need an algorithm that uses the
minimum number of comparisons and maintains the original order for
equal values - the "I don't know" case. You also need an algorithm
that never gives the user a chance to contradict himself. That is, if
he prefers 1 to 2 and 2 to 3 then he must not be asked to compare 1
and 3 in case he decides on 3. I'd like to give you a suitable
algorithm but I don't know one.

In the next iteration it will only ask you to compare each possible pair
once, in a random order, I was just too lazy to do this initially which is
why it is always random. However, the user *will* be able to contradict
themselves. It seems to work better if they can, believe it or not!

Thanks for taking the time to play with it.

"Nik Coughlin" <nrkn.com (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

David Segall wrote:
"Nik Coughlin" <nrkn.com (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

A work in progress, would like anyone who has a moment to please
take a look:

Current site is http://rankmylist.com/

Next version is http://rankmylist.com/testTabs/

The tables for layout will be replaced with CSS in the next
iteration.

So far tested in IE6/7 and newest versions of Firefox and Opera,
seems to work fine.

Any comments, critiques, questions or suggestions on the html/css,
layout or mechanics of the page very welcome!
The sort algorithm does not seem to terminate! If I enter 1,2 it just
keeps asking me to compare them. You need an algorithm that uses the
minimum number of comparisons and maintains the original order for
equal values - the "I don't know" case. You also need an algorithm
that never gives the user a chance to contradict himself. That is, if
he prefers 1 to 2 and 2 to 3 then he must not be asked to compare 1
and 3 in case he decides on 3. I'd like to give you a suitable
algorithm but I don't know one.

In the next iteration it will only ask you to compare each possible pair
once, in a random order
I doubt if any visitor will have the patience to do this. According to

my rather rusty maths you will be asking them to do (n*(n-1))/2
comparisons when, in the easiest case, they only needed to do n-1. For
a list of five items that's ten instead of four which is tolerable.
However, most people could order five items without the aid of your
program. For your food list it's 4,465 instead of 94.

, I was just too lazy to do this initially which is
why it is always random. However, the user *will* be able to contradict
themselves. It seems to work better if they can, believe it or not!
I'm sure it does given your definition of better. My definition of

better was minimising the amount of effort for your user.

I should add that I think your project is a good idea and my comments
are only intended to optimise it for my use

David Segall wrote:

"Nik Coughlin" <nrkn.com (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

David Segall wrote:
"Nik Coughlin" <nrkn.com (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

A work in progress, would like anyone who has a moment to please
take a look:

Current site is http://rankmylist.com/

Next version is http://rankmylist.com/testTabs/

The sort algorithm does not seem to terminate! If I enter 1,2 it
just keeps asking me to compare them. You need an algorithm that
uses the minimum number of comparisons and maintains the original
order for equal values - the "I don't know" case. You also need an
algorithm that never gives the user a chance to contradict himself.
That is, if he prefers 1 to 2 and 2 to 3 then he must not be asked
to compare 1 and 3 in case he decides on 3. I'd like to give you a
suitable algorithm but I don't know one.

In the next iteration it will only ask you to compare each possible
pair once, in a random order
I doubt if any visitor will have the patience to do this. According to
my rather rusty maths you will be asking them to do (n*(n-1))/2
comparisons when, in the easiest case, they only needed to do n-1. For
a list of five items that's ten instead of four which is tolerable.
However, most people could order five items without the aid of your
program. For your food list it's 4,465 instead of 94.

I see your point, I'm going to try that. In fact, I may make it the default
and hide the option of doing it the other way away somewhere for those who
are both highly indecisive and have a lot of time to kill

, I was just too lazy to do this initially which is
why it is always random. However, the user *will* be able to
contradict themselves. It seems to work better if they can, believe
it or not!
I'm sure it does given your definition of better. My definition of
better was minimising the amount of effort for your user.

My definition of better was that quite often people don't really know what
they think, so it's quite possible for them to think that they like 1 better
than 2, and 2 better than 3, yet because they don't consciously consider the
relationship between 1, 2 and 3 at the time they may choose 3 over 1 if
asked.

I should add that I think your project is a good idea and my comments
are only intended to optimise it for my use

Consider it on the to do list!

"Leonard Blaisdell" <leo (AT) greatbasin (DOT) com> wrote

In article <efio89$c9n$1 (AT) lust (DOT) ihug.co.nz>,
"Nik Coughlin" <nrkn.com (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

http://rankmylist.com/tabTest/

Perhaps some indication of progress while clicking on options would be
of help. Or a far smaller example group than food. When do you stop or
win ;-)

food? any word subject is accepted. also noted that leaving the page and

returning again my previous data still existed.