More descriptive "Profile" area

[feathertail]

Title:
More descriptive "Profile" area

Area:
profile

Summary:
I don't mean the "User Info" page. I mean the "Profile" section of your journal, which (right now) is surprisingly sparse.

Description:
Okay ... take a look at any Twitter page. In the upper-right hand corner you've got a name, a location, a website link (which is actually labeled as such) and a 140-character bio, plus icons for people he/she is following. They don't call this section a profile, but it gives you a good idea of who you're dealing with.

Here on Dreamwidth, pretty much every journal has a section that's labeled "Profile," but all it is is your name and userpic. On hover, your userpic displays a link called "Profile" which actually takes you to (your journal).dreamwidth.org/profile, so apparently you've got to click on a link in your profile in order to see your profile!

Besides that is a personal link, which is not labeled as such and which may or may not actually look like a link depending on your journal's style. Finally, we have a few buttons for watching and things, which are nice but aren't informative or profile-y.

I think if we're going to have a "Profile" sidebar widget, it ought to be informative, instead of leaving our readers thinking we just left it blank. (And in my case, wondering why I'm named "Tachyon Feathertail Become Your Fursona.")

Specific ideas:
* A quick blurb with a "Read more ... " link that takes you to the bio section of your User Info page
* A note like "Web:" to indicate the personal link's nature
* A custom field -- see what DW'ers come up with!

Poll #3458 More descriptive "Profile" area

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 42

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
11 (26.2%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
3 (7.1%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
21 (50.0%)

(I have no opinion)
6 (14.3%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (2.4%)

Comments

[cesy]

I agree that this area could do with a revamp, but I'm not sure that this is the best way of doing it, particularly since it'll break existing custom styles. I'd rather have either a new module, that could be opt-in for existing users and default for new users, or make it a style-specific thing on new styles.

[inarticulate]

I like the idea of a new module in particular, personally.

[feathertail]

I agree -- the existing "Profile" module should be depreciated in favor of a new, better one, not simply replaced.

A number of commenters have pointed out that "Custom Text" can be used to do something like this. I personally do that on my LiveJournal, feathertail. I'm not saying that it's impossible to have a better profile, I'm saying it's fiddly and hack-y to get one, and that the default "Profile" module is misleadingly named and poorly formatted.

[kyrielle]

I'd love to see a new module to do this, or a more heavily-configurable profile module where you could choose to add in the new features (because really, a new module with more parts means someone will want half the new things and not the other half) in some easy way. The latter would be ideal; the former would likely be simpler. But I agree I wouldn't want it to force-replace the existing profile module.

[ratcreature]

I don't see the need. AFAIK if you want a brief bio or about section you can just put a custom module with text under the userpic area no?

[saekhwa]

The suggestion confuses me, because under 'Customize Journal Style,' there is a module that can be added called 'Custom Text.' I'm not sure how many characters are permitted, but to me, it sounds like this is what's being requested? Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding.

[ratcreature]

Yes that's what I thought too. You already have a custom text field of decent size that you can title whatever you want if you need it, and your website is already linked too. I like that the text it is freeform now and not the 140 character length of a "tweet".

[matgb]

Yes, you can, but it's in a different place, and not as useful. I've hacked my layers to do pretty much as this suggestion says, did it nearly a year ago, and am still hacking it. I also intend to hack some more to give myself more than one custom text module.

For a reason why, look at miss_s_b's sidebar; the custom text is a bit excessive all in one place, we plan to split it up and move it. I have (just) the coding skills to do it, most users don't.

In addition, virtually every other site I compare DW to in terms of rival featuresets allows this, and multiple extra boxes, in some way or other. The current profile setup hasn't really changed since LJ started, so many sites have done better since.

[ratcreature]

I almost never look at these "about" sections or all this sidebar clutter if I'm linked to a specific blog article (I just read the main column then with the article), and if I'm wondering whether I'm going to subscribe, which is the moment I look there in blogs, I will do that on the profile page in journals unlike with blogs. So I read the section there, not some box on the recent entries page.

I'm not against other people putting in different modules in their layout, and if there were two or three custom text modules instead of one custom text module, I wouldn't mind, because I could just continue to use none. What I don't want is my simple profile box changed with some sort of fields I won't fill out because I don't see a reason to have a biography section on my recent entries page. And I definitely don't want a text in front of my website link that says "web:", as if it wasn't painfully obvious that the link titled "ratcreature.net" under my name and icon goes to a website that belongs to me. And the Profile header links to the profile page, so I don't see why there needs to be another link.

[matgb]

if I'm wondering whether I'm going to subscribe, which is the moment I look there in blogs, I will do that on the profile page in journals unlike with blogs

But a journal is a blog. And many of us specifically use our DWs as a normal blog, with many if not most readers coming here as they would a normal blog.

Both SB and I have been in and out of the UK top 50 blogs more than once, I'[ve barely been posting for a year, so I'm currently nowhere, but I use DW as a blog.

I want/need somewhere to give non-DW natives somewhere to look for basic info. This follows very basic usability guides for blogs, I specifically need to add my photo into the sidebar ASAP, for example.

You don't see the need to amend your profile. You don't need to. The suggestion is to allow others to do so to theirs.

The OP wants to be able to do it, and I've hacked mine to alreayd do it. Combine that with it being recommended for usability,a nd ther'es aclear rationale plus a clear demand. You don't have to do it, but you can.

As it happens, I'm going to be following up witha comment elsewhere to remove the link from the profile as is, and instead put it into links list, while allowing all links list entries to have XFN declarations so you can say multiple sites are "me", or friends, or whatever. So I'm not sold on the idea of markign the web link as proposed, but encouraging some text in there?

I'm all for that.

[ratcreature]

You don't see the need to amend your profile. You don't need to. The suggestion is to allow others to do so to theirs.


Actually that is not how I understood the posted suggestion. The suggestion as posted was not "allow more flexibility with several custom text modules rather than the current one", it was that the current Profile module should change and become a "profile widget" that should look like on twitter or something like it. And that would mean my profile module would also become this "informative widget" even though I don't use my DW journal as a blog and have never used twitter.

[matgb]

I think you might be getting confused by the (probably badly worded) description. The actual proposal is:
More descriptive "Profile" area

* A quick blurb with a "Read more ... " link that takes you to the bio section of your User Info page
* A note like "Web:" to indicate the personal link's nature
* A custom field -- see what DW'ers come up with!
==
That's it. I've pretty much agreed with you on the web: bit, but the other two? An optional custom field, you can put something in it if you want, or leave it blank, and a space for blurb text to give a quick bio. That you don't need to use.

The current profile is already a profile widget, and you can choose to display or not many of the bits (I don't display my real name, as that's also my website link currently for example). So you could choose not to display these extra bits as well.

The proposal is for extra, optional, boxes to fill in that display with your profile. Sure, it'd encourage people to use them, but some people don't display their profile at all currently.

One, last, point. I don't use my DW journal as a blog

Yes. You do. Your journal is a blog. You write, publicly, in a sequential manner, about a variety of topics, with entries displayed by reverse date. That's what a blog is. Sure, a journal is a subset type of blogs, but even the backend DW code refers to 'blog' fairly regularly.

A lot of people misuse the term blog. But DW is, by definition, a blogging platform, and many of us want to use it as such. You don't want "blogging" features, fine, don't use them. But many people do, including some that feel teh same way as you about whether you "blog" or not.

(honestly, I hate the word "blog", but if it's to have a meaning, then the definition is fairly clear).

[liv]

I don't really like this idea, because it's already easy to put all this information in other modules. If you want the custom text module to be more prominent, for example, you can move it to the top of the sidebar.

[feathertail]

This isn't about whether or not it's possible to have this, it's about whether or not it's easy and logical. And whether or not the default behavior is broken, misleading, and borderline useless.

[lanterne_rouee]

Like others, I don't see the need - at all. The label 'Profile' is also a link to the profile now. It's pretty easy to figure out.

Generally speaking, I don't want DW to look/behave more like other places online. In most cases, I don't like the other places (some, I outright loathe). That's why I'm here instead or more often.

[feathertail]

You're right, sorry about that.

[lanterne_rouee]

No need to be sorry! I'm just (still awake), catching up on reading and giving my two cents all over the place. lol

Suggestions are good. Most of them make me, personally, think about things I never even considered before reading them.

:)

[feathertail]

This is true. I'm just noticing that mine seem to be more geared to a different kind of site. >.> Oh well, Dreamwidth's still fun. I just wish sometimes that there was, like, an open-source version of Tumblr or something.

[lanterne_rouee]

Ohhh, I see what you mean now.

Yeah, I'm not personally a fan of tumblr either. I never even got as familiar with that one. It always seemed like... chaos to me. *ducks* lol Different things work for different people.

Maybe there will be an open source version of it though. Or, you know, something very similar. (Once people get fed up with some aspect of it or how it is run, they'll come up with an alternative, I'm sure.)

Hope you stick around here, too, though! :)