(Optional!) Interaction analytics and suggestions

[azurelunatic]

Title:
(Optional!) Interaction analytics and suggestions

Area:
circle management

Summary:
Allow the option to automatically suggest circle modifications, a la Facebook except with less creepy.

Description:
The thought that the website is watching you and has all sorts of helpful suggestions about your personal life is at heart amazingly creepy. Despite the fact that you trust the website for rather a lot does not mean that you actually want the website peering over your shoulder.

However, that changes if you invite the website to peer over your shoulder, and know the things that the website will be looking at. It's the permission that changes the perspective, and while knowing the factors is counter to a "this is our proprietary algorithm" outlook *cough*facebook*cough*, it sounds positively Dreamwidthy. It should also have an easy and intuitive way to turn it off, if it winds up not being what a user wanted for whatever reason.

If turned on, the analytics could suggest possible interactions between users, such as: "You comment to Anna and read their journal more than many other users who are not on your reading list. Do you want to add Anna to your reading list?" or "You have deleted 99% of the comments left by Bit in your journal in the last 2 weeks. Do you want to ban Bit from commenting?"

This might introduce users to features they were not previously aware of.

Any suggestion should be able to be ignored or declined; ignored (no interaction with suggestion) would be left in place; declined suggestions would go away and not come back; declined suggestions would have the option for the user to leave a note; declined suggestions would be listed in a user-accessible place, along with the notes (if any). Saving the declined suggestions would let the user recover from dismissing a suggestion if they did not mean to, and the notes would be a reminder of why the user dismissed that particular suggestion, in case things changed later (for example: "Add Charlotte to reading list?" might have been dismissed with "I'm not interested in Iron Man"; upon looking in the bin later, the user might re-visit their decision on the grounds that they love the Avengers now.)

Poll #10463 (Optional!) Interaction analytics and suggestions

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 50

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
6 (12.0%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
25 (50.0%)

(I have no opinion)
15 (30.0%)

(Other: please comment)
4 (8.0%)

Comments

[azurelunatic]

I am very curious to hear potential problems (including "still too creepy; no"); this is half-formed noodling around rather than spongebob I've fully thought through.

[shameless2shoes]

I'm going with "still too creepy; no." I feel like it has all the downsides of facebook without the one upside: linking you to people you might have already met but not thought of finding on facebook/just plain forgot. On Dreamwidth, we've most likely only interacted with that person under this name on this website and we'll continue to see them in the same places we've met them. (Unless you see a way to use it that I'm just plain missing.)

But the idea itself isn't bad. Now, if you want to advocate for some kind of journal stat tracker for this kind of thing, as that's what I've gathered from your quotes above would drive a friend/ban suggester, that would be some nice information to know. Though I wonder how many people would be interested without the interactive component of suggested action.

[marahmarie]

Can't stand websites thinking for me. Like it would never occur to me that I read and comment on poor Anna's journal more than anyone else does so therefore I should subscribe to Anna - I subscribe to any DW that I take any interest in at all, so it's therefore kind of automatic for me to add all the Annas I'll ever run across. It's like Facebook all over again (but I do get the Dreamwidthy aspect of this - we like our stuff easy on DW, and we get it that way most of the time, so I'm with you in spirit, even if I disagree with the exact concept you're working out).