New site: BestThing.info

[xkcd]

We've started another side project. It's inspired by this Livejournal community's quest to find the Best Thing Ever via majority vote.

http://BestThing.info/

It uses some statistics to work out what's best, and keeps a constantly-updated list. It should scale nicely, with some tweaking, so submit and vote to your hearts' content!

Thanks as always for davean's freakish dedication to any project that keeps him from getting enough sleep.

[Shoofle]

It's best-things-a-riffic!

[judas]

Damn that's addicting. I just spent entirely too long making value judgments, and some of them were heart-wrenching.

I considered lobbying for a method to nominate pairs for "Best Juxtaposition" or something along those lines, as I got some phenomenal ones... but by the time this post manifested itself I couldn't recall even one example. The interface is brutally simple and effective as it is anyways so fuck it, no need to get all meta about things.

[Aspa]

I got magic vs Lambda Calculus. Had to report it as a duplicate, of course.

[Gozer]

I just did something similar, but then realized "Report as a Duplicate" means it's a duplicate entry, not that you think theire tied in bestness.

[cheesehound]

There came a point where I had to choose between cookie dough and desktop GUIs. In despair at the difficulty of my choice, I screamed "COOKIE DOOOOUGH" and clicked what my heart told me to. Irony.

[Nicolas Bourbaki]

In addition to the "report as duplicate" button, there should be a "report as retarded" button under each item. 40-50% of the stuff that comes up is lamer than a one legged dog.

edit:
Also, it would be nice if there were a way to copy/paste the text of some of the longer items for comparison... even alt-text or something for the buttons? This might also improve the accessibility for blind/handicapped people, but I'm not sure if that consideration is important anymore on the internet.

[xkcd]

In addition to the "report as duplicate" button, there should be a "report as retarded" button under each item. 40-50% of the stuff that comes up is lamer than a one legged dog.

Don't worry, we planned for this. There's pruning in place so that the stuff that sinks to the bottom gets dropped out of the database and doesn't get shown as options, and we've pruned a lot of junk. But right now we're sort of waiting to see how it evolves to figure out what level of pruning would be best before we automate it.

[squinky]

I got nothing done at work today! Thanks, xkcd!

[davean]

I got nothing done at work today! Thanks, xkcd!

Your welcome. We are glad to contribute to the overall lower productivity of the species. Now, I'm going to go add new features to bestthing.info.

[ArbiterOne]

This is an awesome idea.
Things that bestthings.info could use:
- a list of the top 100/top n instead of/in addition to the top 10
- a list of the recently added things
- a list of the trends over time (perhaps the Top 10 could be reset every week, but the overall statistics could be retained)
- I also second the 'mark as great comparison' button
This is really addicting, by the way.

[paige42]

I second the "top n" list and third the "best juxtapositions" option.

[Penguin]

A "worst 10" or "worst n" list would be cool, too, but I guess if you're going to prune it then... nevermind.

[NMcCoy]

Whoa. </keanu>
I just got "Science Fiction" vs. "Magic Realism". I $ORDINAL the vote for "awesome pairing".

Also, "Putting your underwear in the microwave" vs "Nudity".

Also also, someone put "losethegame.com" as an option, causing me to lose twenty dollars and my self respect. This is my official announcement of such. Curse you!

[RealGrouchy]

Damn that's addicting.

Thanks for the warning!

- RG>

[NMcCoy]

If I keep watching this topic I'm going to lose again whenever someone replies.

[xkcd]

Things that bestthings.info could use:
- a list of the top 100/top n instead of/in addition to the top 10

But then where's your incentive to vote obsessively? :)

- a list of the recently added things

That might be a good idea. Though, do you know how many of those things are "MY COCK!#" or variants? Perhaps a list of recent submissions that haven't been immediately voted down. We'll see!

- a list of the trends over time (perhaps the Top 10 could be reset every week, but the overall statistics could be retained)

I'm not sure what you mean -- The Top 10 (20) is never reset, things just keep overtaking each other. 'resetting' isn't that meaningful here as the system is set up so old stuff doesn't have much of a bias over new stuff.

[Tropylium]

(Doh, how did I manage to miss this thread's existence the last time?)

Things that bestthings.info could use:
- a list of the top 100/top n instead of/in addition to the top 10

But then where's your incentive to vote obsessively?

A top 100 might indeed wreck that. But how about listing the top 5% or so instead of the top #X, as the number of entries gro's? Or is the system set so that it will stabilize at a certain size?

[The DL]

I registered just to say that I too would really like to see more than a top 20. Perhaps even a way to see each things score. I'm sorry I basically want this to be more like the regret index.

[Shoofle]

What I think would be kind of cool would be if the top 20 were formatted sort of with three columns, and the middle column would be the top 20, and the first column would be the last thing voted better than the item, and the third column would be the last thing voted not as good.

[twenty10]

I'd really be interesting in seeing that alogorithm, unless it's private..

I'm starting to realize how much I really love statistics and genetic algorithms...

[xkcd]

You can check out http://xkcd.com/date/algorithms.html. However, when we go to improve things, we're probably going to take the MAM approach, which is a lot more efficient and well-defined in the literature for this particular situation than my simulated annealing hack.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximize_Affirmed_Majorities

[narpas]

I don't mean to be a grumpy old curmudgeon, but the top twenty list has, like, four "I found money I didn't know I had!" and "I had really good sex!" things. Like, those things are nice, and all, but they sorta mess up the "Aww, that's so cute!" factor of the list, and while I don't argue that those things don't need to be on the list, they're just hardcore duplicating. Think about it... it's like letting money and sex weed out the warm fuzzys. Yeah, just a little more trimming than the "Report duplicate pair" can handle.

Edit: Also, is "Being the only person awake in the house" and "Waking up to find that everyone else has suddenly disappeared, and surving on tinned food and off the land as wilderness slowly encroaches the city" the same thing?

[davean]

Edit: Also, is "Being the only person awake in the house" and "Waking up to find that everyone else has suddenly disappeared, and surving on tinned food and off the land as wilderness slowly encroaches the city" the same thing?

Not even remotely similar.

[Ephphatha]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! v Killing an annoying fly.


...That can't be a coincidence.

Edit: Stepping out of your shoes and onto the sand v Choreographing your own lightsaber duel.
No contest.

EditEdit: The bastille v Putting cardboard tubes on a cats legs so they walk like a robot.
I'll take option B, Eddie.

[narpas]

Not even remotely similar.

I know.

[mewyn]

I got one I cannot answer! They are both equally as good in my book:
"Waking up in the morning realizing you're perfectly comfy and being able to enjoy it for as long as you want" or "enthusiastic, intelligent conversation about the things you love"

Decisisions.... decisions....

Oh, and I think it may be wise to have a "report this option". I've gotten several garbage options, nonsensical options, and just lame options. To keep it fun I think it'd be a good idea to keep it clean from things that make no sense what-so-ever.

[twenty10]

relatedly: http://www.thebeststuffintheworld.com/

[davean]

Oh, and I think it may be wise to have a "report this option". I've gotten several garbage options, nonsensical options, and just lame options. To keep it fun I think it'd be a good idea to keep it clean from things that make no sense what-so-ever.

Your reports would be less useful then what it already does.

[ZenBearClaw]

I know this is obvious but you shoudl really tell people that refreshing is the acrefree way to exercise your right not to choose. I mean really who could choose between
pile of kittens
&
Obfuscation Via Verbing

both are things that would be valid grounds for suicide if they ever stopped existing.



P.S. the comic touches me in those geeky unshowered places.