Hey everyone. I just wanted to touch base with the community here again on a few things we've been doing and have planned on Nibbits.

So to get us started, over the last few months we've added quite a massive list of new features and revamps:

- User profiles http://www.nibbits.com/profiles/devilesk/maps/
- (My favorite) Sexy previews with full unit rendering http://www.nibbits.com/sc/maps/view/127229/preview/
- An improved overall rating system http://www.nibbits.com/sc/maps/browse/?sort=rating&order=desc
- Map ownership (its still rough, but you can claim maps then update them at will)
- Categories and Articles.

Alright, so, pretty nice list of stuff I've managed to get handled in my free time, but we're not done yet. The last two, categories and articles are what I'm looking for some feedback on.

Now let me start by saying I don't want to replace community resources like SEN. They're invaluable, and Nibbits is designed simply for map hosting. Now, with this in mind, there are a lot of things involved around map making that we want to help cover, and this is where the soon-to-be-integrated articles system comes in to play. We kind of envision it as a competitive wiki. The idea is that you can submit a guide, or article (these could even be branded to promote your site) and you're competing for popularity. This would ensure quality articles, as if it's crap someone else could just write a better one to show you up. At the same time, it has a wiki concept in which it uses the pending change system to allow other users to submit changes to your article. These changes you could then approve, or decline.

The second feature I wanted to get feedback on today is our newly added categories. Most of the map (and by most, it's probably all but a dozen or so) are not categorized yet. They can be categorized using our edit function, or on submission. Getting down to the meat, we've decided to use fixed categories in addition to tags to make browsing a bit easier for the visitors. Each map is allowed to select up to 3 categories, but is not required to choose any. They're mostly geared towards UMS maps, but we're willing to adopt melee categories if anyone comes up with some sane ones.

So the two big things I've come to ask of you all:

- In terms of the article concept. Opinions? Things you'd like to see?

- Additional categories? Categories to remove/rename? (the list can be seen on the submit page here: http://nibbits.com/sc/maps/submit/ )

And I guess, one more thing as I'm not sure who to direct this to. I was thinking it'd be great to show a little community news feed (starting with SEN since you guys have been great supporters). It would either be a ticker (so a horizontal bar somewhere) or a box on the maps home page showing the latest news posts from community sites, or a combination of the two. Who would I talk to setting things up from SEN?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 9 2009, 9:58 am by zeeg.

Is it true that you use a bot or something to see what maps are actually being hosted the most on the public list?

That was in the playbook, but it hasn't been completed yet.

There are other bots that do this.

That is crazy. It's really funny to see who uses certain aliases to perhaps hide their identity, based solely on IPs.

So I've gone ahead and added the basic level system (which was on the old Nibbits.com) and also made several more tweaks.

- If you have a project, and submit a map which has not been previously uploaded, it will immediately give you ownership now.
- There's now an uncategorized maps page. Useful if you want to help with cleanup http://www.nibbits.com/sc/maps/browse/uncategorized/
- Categories are now browsable from the main page, but filtering them will redirect you to the standard "Find Maps" system.
- Revamped the tooltips/user info. Made it so bnet profiles are visible throughout the site on your posts, as well as your level information.
- Random other design improvements.

I'm planning to add features that are unlockable based on the level, hopefully to promote more users filling in map information (you get XP by editing a map, once that edit is approved), and keeping active on the site.

Just another update here from us. Today I launched a revenue sharing model for all map authors.

I won't go into the details here, but if you are one of the many map authors, or project authors, I encourage you to check out the updates here. This only works if you have claimed authorship, and have created a project for your map. So if you've yet to do that, and wish to be included in this system, you can do that easily on Nibbits by finding your map, and clicking "Claim Map". Once claimed, simply add it to your project (you don't have to do this in a specific order), and your revenue sharing options will be active.

I figured I'm not making any money off the site anyways, so I might as well at least offer that same opportunity to others
(Ok, bad joke, but really, the site definitely costs way more than it makes)