recent list completions

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recent list completions

Postby wayfarer » Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:40 am

What do you think of this idea? Having on the homepage, perhaps on the right side or at the bottom, a visible list of the 10(?) most recent list completions? It would include any list that anyone completed that would automatically display such somewhere on the site anyway, including all custom lists, or at least shared ones. Something like this:

?-??-?? John Kirk completed - All 53 CO 14ers
?-??-?? drkismet competed - All 67 CO 14ers with at least 100' prominence
3-01-08 - Peter J Barr completed - All 102 NC 5ers
3-01-08 - Peter J Barr completed - All 200 Southern Fivers
7-18-09 - Jeff Rinehart completed - All 27 NC 6ers
6-16-10 - BobPackard completed - All 62 Southeast 50 Finest Peaks
7-10-10 - TeresaGergen completed - All 1000 CO Highest 1000 Peaks
9-05-10 - esquared completed - All 36 OR County Highpoints
9-13-10 - RoySwkr completed - All 200 NH Highest 200 Peaks
10-21-10 - wayfarer completed - All 25 Southeast P2Ks
11-06-10 - wayfarer completed - All 43 Wythe County Ranked Summits

Anytime a new list anywhere on LOJ was completed by anyone that generated such a statement, it would automatically show up at the top of the list and bump the last completion off the list. Perhaps a more extensive, permanent list of all such completions could be added as a menu item under: What's New-Recent Content > List Completers > Any List

I don't know how frequently such lists tend to be completed on the site. Obviously, if an average of 50 people completed a list or lists every weekend, you probably wouldn't want something that extensive on the homepage, unless it was a dropdown or scrollable list, but I expect completions are infrequent enough that a block 10 or 12 would tend to display a completion for a week or two before it got bumped off the list by newer completions. Also, the name of the list completed could be a live link to that list, or better yet, its Member Area, assuming it were an actual list that existed as such on the site. It might not be a link in some cases, such as CO Highest 1000 Peaks, which I do not think is an available list to see. Perhaps even these same list completions could be made to show up on members appropriate profile pages if they are ones that don't already? Another thought is about the flashing stars that accompany such completions on members profile pages. I love those on the profile pages and completion maps, but they would probably be annoying and distracting on the home page.

A few more observations. In the case of state elevation threshold completions, when on a member profile page showing, for example, All 102 5ers, it doesn't show what state is being talked about. Doesn't matter on the profile page, because in this case, you know you are on Peter J Barr's NC profile page and it is referring to NC 5ers. But on the recent completions list it would need to show what state these 5ers were completed in. Also, any list that has unranked peaks would require those unranked peaks to be included in the count. Such as the Southern Fivers Custom List. This list includes 200 peaks in NC, TN, and VA that are 5,000' or more and have 200' of prominence. There are only 136 ranked peaks in this list but the recent completion list should state "All 200 Southern Fivers". Finally, would it be possible to make this work with unvalidated peaks and still have it know the date that someone completed the last peak. Were I to claim all 43 Wythe County Ranked Peaks without validating any, I assume it would still show up on my Virginia profile page as having completed all 43. I don't know if it would be possible to have the site add a completion date though if someone had not validated all peaks or at least the last peak on a list.

Just a thought, obviously one I have been thinking about for a while,
Rick
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Re: recent list completions

Postby Peter J Barr » Sun Mar 06, 2011 10:53 am

Wow. That's a fantastic idea. As it is, you really have to dig into the subpages of the site and personal profiles to discover individual accomplishments. I think I speak for many when I say it's LOJ's fault that many of these lists are pursued, and ultimately completed. I think advertising the completions could also draw a lot of new users, especially those peakbagging/cohper holdouts that haven't yet transitioned to the gold standard of listkeeping...

I had in mind a while back to have some sort of LOJ incorporation of Facebook (posting a bagged peak to a profile, or a completed list to a profile), but this would probably be less complicated and more visible to all users of the site. Cohp.org has a similar feature on its top banner, but I think that site has become increasingly less visited with the emergence of LOJ, and it only displays cohp completions.

While it might not carry much weight, I'll throw in my vote of support of this idea....
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Re: recent list completions

Postby John Kirk » Sun Mar 06, 2011 11:40 am

It is a good idea, but without a filter as it is set up now, the server would be brought to its knees calculating the # of lists available here simultaneously. The only solution I can think of would be non-dynamic, where completions are put into a separate table when a filtered list (such as elevation thresholds for a state) is run. So if no one has yet looked at a page showing State_X completions after someone completed a list, it wouldn't be inserted yet. At least with this method, the completer could visit the particular completions page and upon doing so the entry would be placed in a table used to list recent completions...

Another thing to consider is scale of what to include, like counties that have one ranked summit, or elevation thresholds with one or a few summits. (ie. Rowan County NC ranked summits, or Nevada 13ers). I think it would be kind of annoying to see 95% of list completions involving less than 5 peaks, with a multi-year or multi-decade task like CO's 13ers being in the same company.

Any thoughts on how to "separate the wheat from the chaff"?

Summing up, there is not a pretty automated solution for this, so I've kind of left it up to users to self-promote or fellow LoJers to promote. I know it takes some digging and staying on top of things to catch completions as they happen.
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Re: recent list completions

Postby wayfarer » Sun Mar 06, 2011 1:52 pm

I have essentially zero experience with programming, writing code or software, setting up an interactive website, etc., so I didn't know what difficulties it might pose. But your idea for a non-dynamic list seems quite reasonable and a good approach, unless you thought of something better in the future. I assume most members are quite aware of when they finish a list they have been working on for some time and could easily go to the page showing that completion to thereby cause it to show up on the completion table. Perhaps there could be a small "info" or "?" link in the header of the "list completions" table that instructed members about how to get their most recent list completion(s) to show up in the table. Also, just so I understand, would it be obvious or easy to explain how to get a completion to show up? Or might it be practical to add a small button or link after any qualifying completion that essentially says "Show in recent list completions"? This would also give members the option to keep it semi-private if they desired, by simply refusing to click on the button. Then the only way other members could learn of the completion would be to stumble across the page showing the completion, not an unlikely scenario if they are attempting to complete the same list themselves and are researching it. And after enough new completions made the list, it would become impossible to click the button. Perhaps it would disappear completely once 10(?) more recent completions were actually on the table.

As for how to limit inclusions, perhaps you could make it require a minimum of 5 or 10 peaks on lists that you have already built into the site, or whatever reasonable number you deem appropriate. I think it would have to include unranked peaks though, so as to include such things as county highpoint completions for an entire state, National Park Highpoints completion, and even for state highpoint completions, as several states have unranked highpoints. (To diverge from the subject momentarily, it might also be a nice touch to recognize completing the 49 states excluding Alaska, as many, many serious state highpointers have no intention of doing Denali and have set the remaining 49 as their long term final goal, still a quite impressive accomplishment.). So completing the 3 ranked Virginia 5ers would not appear but completing the 94 ranked Virginia 4ers would. As would completing the Virginia 100 Highest, Virginia 100 Most Prominent, or All 106 Virginia 1000' Prominence Peaks, or All 100 Virginia Most Isolated Peaks.

As for custom list completion, perhaps it could require your approval before it would show up. I don't know if you could set it up so that a person visiting the page showing a custom list completion would notify you of the completion - rather than posting it to the table. You might get a lot more individual requests than you can deal with that way though. Perhaps a better way would be to include in the "info" link that if someone thought a list they were about to complete, or had just completed, was worthy of recognition on the homepage, they could notify you and ask for that particular list to be recognized. If you decided it was a worthwhile list to recognize completion of on the hompage, then you could enable it for the automated process so that when the next person completed that list and visited the page showing such, it would show up on the table without them having to bother you. You could have predetermined criteria for inclusion, just as you do for adding peaks to the database, with the discretion for you to overrule your own criteria if someone presented a convincing case to you to do so. This would have the potential advantage of self-limiting the lists recognized as most people would not bother to ask you to recognize frivolous or meaningless lists. I, for one would not create a custom list of "Unranked Virginia Peaks Over 5,000' Climbed Blindfolded and Backwards on Wednesdays" and then have the nerve to make it a shared list and ask you to recognize it if I completed it. On the other hand, I would certainly be willing to ask for approval of such things as Catskill 3500, Northeast 115, Eastern 50 Highest County Highpoints, Southern Sixers, Southern Fivers, Southeast 50 Finest,...You get the idea - anything that seemed like a reasonably difficult and noteworthy accomplishment, even though several of these lists contain unranked peaks. Even obscure stuff that nevertheless met the criteria or your personal exemption could be eligible for consideration. One would assume that something like the thus far non-existent custom list "Virginia Overall Steepest 50 Ranked Peaks", for example, would certainly be a fine achievement and one that someone could be the first person to complete.

Also, it seems that Peter and I independently had similar thoughts about list completions showing up on member profiles. I mentioned this in the original post, but to refine it somewhat, perhaps the only list completions that would show up, either on a members main profile page, or in many cases, only on their appropriate state profile page, would be the same lists that had met your criteria and/or approval to be on the recent completions table. But unlike the numerically limited table that would only show the 10 (or whatever) most recent completions, these would become permanent additions to that members profile just like the proposed menu item of list completions. On the profile pages, the completion could be accompanied by the usual flashing stars to deliberately draw attention to them. After all, list completions are one of the main things you want to know about when you visit someone's profile.

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Re: recent list completions

Postby TWorth » Sun Mar 06, 2011 4:19 pm

Along the same lines, how about an automated script tracking "milestones"? For those like myself who see peak lists primarily as a source of destination ideas rather than binding contracts, this may have some value. For members, say a page documenting completing 50,100,200,500,1000,..., peaks total, along with the date and peak? Same thing could be done with quads, or peaks climbed by state. That would be a simple numbers check each time a summit is logged, should be easier to program than tracking every individual list. Wouldn't stress the server as much, since only a single member's table of peaks completed would be scanned, not every single list in the database. Retroactively compiling milestones based on past dates entered would also be interesting but probably a seperate script. Downside: It would not be a comprehesive listing as many members don't log dates. The other flaw with any numbers based tabulation/recognition scheme is that it implies all summits take the same amount of effort to reach. I'd guess most are aware that's obviously false and take numbers based lists w/ a grain of salt, but there's no harm in putting them out there.
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