298
dfox
7y

A devRant Update!

Hey everyone,

We thought now would be a great time for a devRant summer update on what we've added recently and what we've been working on.

Highlights since our last update:

- We launched devRant++, a supporter program for people who want to help us cover our costs while getting some cool extra features (a supporter badge on rants/comments/profile, reserved spot on our in-app supporter list, ability to edit rants/comments for up to 30 minutes instead of 5, and thanks to immediate user feedback, we also added the ability to post a rant every 1 hour instead of 2, and post comments that are up to 2,000 characters instead of 1,000!) We are extremely happy and thankful for the great response the program has gotten and we plan to continue to improve it using your feedback.

- We added the ability to subscribe to a user's rants. This makes it so you get a notification whenever that user posts a new rant!

- We added an "active discussions" feature (available in the "more" tab on the right). If you're looking to join a conversation happening in the moment, then this feature will help you discover those rants. It shows rants that have recently been commented on so if it's a topic that interests you, you can easily get in on the discussion!

Some stuff we have in the pipeline:

- More fun avatar stuff, including fun new OS/language-themed pets
- More perks for the devRant++ subscriber program - if you have anything you'd like to see, please let us know and we will try to make it happen!
- We will be testing some stuff to help classify rant types (rants, jokes, questions, etc.) in order to create a more personalized experience
- On that note, we're also going to take some more time to do some work on the algo as we haven't done much in terms of improvement since the initial smart algo launched
- Community projects page update - we've been slacking on updating the page and apologize for that. If you have created a devRant-related project and it's not on the community page, please resend it to david@hexicallabs.com (even if you sent it already) so we can make sure it gets added. Sorry about that!

A note on community etiquite regarding voting on content:

We've always believed that one of the most important and awesome experiences on devRant is getting your content noticed and appreciated by others. If you enjoy a piece of content, you should upvote it. If you enjoy 500 pieces of content, you should upvote them all. People really appreciate others enjoying their rants and comments so let them know if you do! If you don't like content, you can downvote it with the relevant reason. What we don't encourage is voting on content that you haven't actually looked at or spamming upvotes in mass for content you're not even actually reading/viewing. While we don't encourage that, it's not explicitly disallowed so we won't impose any penalty for it.

What is strictly prohibited and enforced is using scripts or automated procedures for voting on content. Anyone who is caught doing that will have their account deleted without warning. While very rare, we caught a couple of people doing that this week and both accounts in question were immediately deleted once discovered. To be clear, this is the practice of explicitly using a script or automation to mass vote on content. You will NEVER be banned/deleted for voting on a lot of content manually, even if you vote quickly and on lots of stuff. We just want to make that clear becuase this is not meant to discourage people from voting, it is only regarding votes not placed by humans. So if you're a human voting on content, you have nothing to worry about, we promise!

Please feel free to let us know if you have any questions or feedback on any of this. We love constructive feedback and in the past it has gone a very long way to improving and advancing the devRant community. And as always, thank you to everyone who contributed to the community in any way, we really appreciate it and want to keep making your experienfce better.

Happy ranting,
~David and Tim (Team devRant)
@dfox @trogus

Comments
  • 20
    People who bot on any social media are shitty people. There's a particular person on Instagram who made one and is selling access to it. I fucking hate getting "Wow this snapshot looks amazing!" or other bull shit comments on all my pictures. I wish Instagram would strengthen their policy on bots to make it banable.

    Thanks @dfox and @trogus for not allowing that annoying crap on here.
  • 19
    I was actually very amused by that one bot which disliked any posts including my name. Offended, yes, but it was quite interesting and funny.
  • 2
  • 7
    @elonmusk I've already said numerous times I've stopped with ++'ing people's rants like crazy on the exception with @coffeeneia since she was off by I think 50 or so
  • 3
    @f03n1x I did not know that bot was existed! :(
  • 2
    @elonmusk well I stopped @Many I guess
  • 3
    Well, if someone goes and makes a bot for voting with more human behaviour, then that would be a bit harder to detect, I guess.
  • 3
    @elonmusk I don't really understand, I never made a bot
  • 3
    Yeah, stop botting on social media!
  • 4
    I would love to make a script to upvote that 600 comments of @elonmusk ...
    #notificationsquad
  • 1
    @f03n1x no I did not say you are making bot 😒
    I just wanted you to notice this rant!
  • 2
    @CozyPlanes 😂😂
    I did ++ @dfox all rants ! May be he got angry! 😂
  • 3
    Nice stuff, but about the upvoting bots... meh. Instead of deleting the whole acc just check before if it's *just* a bot acc or if it's just some kiddo who discovered macros on Android. If it's the latter case, just punish it in some other way i.e. drop their posts in algo completely, hide their comments or something nastier for X period.

    The point is that now you just cut off people, which means they'll just create another acc (go banning and they'll use proxy or tor) and for each deletion you'll most likely need to update db to remove their votes which will be expensive later, if more people will bot. The end result is bots: 1 devrant: 0. Ignoring people, however, shames them and preferably teaches manners.
  • 1
  • 13
    We need to remember, we use devrant because we love it. We are not using devrant to see who has the most upvotes or more points etc. we are here to rant, we are here to express what we do, we are here to talk about what we do every single day. Lets not make this a competition of any sort. Lets enjoy and let others enjoy. Stay positive my friends 👍
  • 2
    @f03n1x
    Me neither I hacked maple story years back all my friends played and hacked it at the time. On days end i came back home and could show off what I got. 2 days later I deleted the game. Bots cheats get you a high level but there is no enjoyment. It's lame you feel it when you put a bot/hack on... This now became completely boring. If you try it without you know you could just hack it and win. The struggle brings enjoyment.
  • 5
    Am I the only one that would like to see the username in the rants preview without opening it?
  • 7
    @shelladdicted
    I did but when I thought about it, ATM we don't and I select on preview of content. I think this gives every ranter the same exposure. My feeling is makes the community more inclusive. And about the content, instead of a popularity contest like amount of upvotes etc.
  • 6
    Feature request : adding captcha in upvotes button to prevent bots. 😂
  • 1
    @CozyPlanes ReCaptcha please! :P
  • 1
    @Triskelion yep, you have right, but I (and think everyone) often read short rants without opening it.
    Maybe a solution can be that the username is displayed only after ++ or --
  • 5
    @CozyPlanes No! Just no.... no No NOOOO! NO!
  • 2
    @filthyranter i hope you mean "NoCaptcha ReCaptcha" which is the one where you just press a button. "ReCaptcha" is the one where you enter wobbly text.
  • 2
    Sounds great!

    Why why why would someone bot their devrant account? Is getting a white tiger really that important?
  • 3
    @GigaMick i want penguins though...
  • 0
    Good stuff!
  • 1
    @srganiga
  • 1
  • 3
    You guys are doing a great job! devRant has progressed so far over a little more than a year. The community is supportive of one another. It has been. Great ride and the best it seems is in front of us! Thanks!
  • 5
    A TUX ON MY SHOULDER!!!!
  • 3
    QoL change:
    I just accidently reported a rant, while trying to mute it...
    It would be awesome if there would be a small confirmation dialog!
  • 2
    Do you think @dfox sends stickers and stress balls to himself everytime a rant gets enough upvotes? 🙃
  • 2
    @dfox, I'm having trouble trying to subscribe. I have several Google accounts on my Android 6.0 phone, but I only use one to buy stuff. When I use your subscription button, I get tied to one of the others and there is no way to change it. I tried uninstalling and installing again while checking that the right user was on Play Store, to no avail. I can't add a payment method to the account I get because it's a corporate one. Any ideas on what's going on?
  • 0
    Yay !! Cool updates
  • 3
    @dfox do you think you can add a feature that if you want to support but don't have money theirs a button so you can watch an ad because when you watch an ad the main company gets money
  • 4
    @programmingTrtl It's rather sad that people start "demanding" the ads when you don't provide them. Do you actually know how much @dfox would get for a "let's have a button maybe someone will look at it and maybe even click"? Why other sites don't give you an option to choose an optional clicking or no ads at all?

    I bet the amount of money would be so small he wouldn't be able to withdraw it at the end of a month. A better thing is having a donation website (and more efficient if you imagine how many people will tell you to fuck off w/ ads) such as patreon, paypal, or even sending money in an envelope

    Once you allow the ads, it'll spread worse than an old fart in an empty corridor. Ads are useful and I don't mind then if there's like one or two ads in place where you can see it(almost never), but not accidentialy click it (in the feed). That's not the mentality of the ad providers.. Such websites will push the ads down your throat, because it's their money first and then maybe yours.
  • 1
    @programmingTrtl yeah cause I'm
    Broke AF!
    But if they throw in that skull tee I'm all in for some $$ @dfox just looking for a little more incentive. Aud to Usd isn't a good deal! Haha
  • 2
    I think ads that are from developers that are text form would work well, where it's more so used to describe something, maybe some sort of web hosting service or some form of service that developers would appreciate or even something like coffee roasters.

    If they were designed in a way that it blends with the regular rants then I'm sure no one would mind. A lot better than some random banner that loops some crappy animation or some pop up that changes where the x button is located.

    Might take a lot of work but it'd definitely be worth it.
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