rankmylist.com, please critique

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

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!

make sure the list also includes 'validate code'.