On Friday, we told you how you can control which news Queerty covers. (Hit “Recommend” at the top of any post you enjoy, and we’ll base our future coverage on what’s popular with readers.)
But did you know that now you can also tell us what features you want us to implement on Queerty.com? We’re in the process of setting up a voting system that will allow you, the sophisticated Queerty audience, to nominate new features and vote on your favorite ideas.
It’s nearly ready to go live, but we’d like to get the ball rolling right now. What would you like to see us change, improve, eliminate, or expand on the site?
Bring back the “recent comments” box? We can do that. Not a fan of the color scheme? Want an events calendar? Better commenter profiles? Change the ad placement? The sky is the limit.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Tell us what you want to see in the comments, and then in a day or two we’ll open up some ideas for a vote. Democracy!
timncguy
Please get a copy editor. Or, if you have one, send him to school to learn English grammar.
jason
I want to see a Queerty that is fearless and non-PC. I want to see hypocrites brought down whether they are from the liberal or conservative side of politics.
Mike1987
I like the irreverence with humor and the amount of bitchiness. Also, I would ask timncguy U.S. grammar or actual English as in U.K. grammar? Just wonder’n
Hotone2me
I would really like it that although one can express her or himself, tact and dignity of a person is imploded when one is responding to another post. I find nothing fearless about venomous, slanderous, and downright distasteful debauchery towards fellow persons that leave a message.
I feel the amount of negativity generated in the post was clearly the reason that I have left this site and clearly posted that upon my last post.
I am very pleased that you are asking for feedback Queerty.
I would really like it that although one can express her or himself, tact and dignity of a person is imploded when one is responding to another post. I find nothing fearless about venomous, slanderous, and downright distasteful debauchery towards fellow persons that leave a message.
I feel the amount of negativity generated in the post was clearly the reason that I have left this site and clearly posted that upon my last post.
I am very pleased that you are asking for feedback Queerty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PivWY9wn5ps
Eli Clyne
I like it when you followup on a story. You returned to the fear allah stickers story, and gave us the name of Mohammed Hasnath, when other news sites just dropped the story after speculating that the English Defence League was behind the flyers. Keep up the good work.
timncguy
@Mike1987: Since Queerty is a US site, I would expect US grammar standards.
QJ201
This a gay site, instead of WTF button it should be “Bitch, please”
DasNic
I would like to see a better rationale for the “You Might Like…” section. I feel that, at the moment, it’s generally only thumbnails of half naked men. And yes, you would be right that I like half naked men, but when reading a story on a hate crime, and then seeing “You Might Also Like Dustin Lance Black Naked Sex Photo”, I begin to feel conflicted on the relevancy of the site.
Like on Amazon the other day it told me “If you liked ‘Priscilla: Queen of the Desert’, you might also like ‘The Crying Game’.”
In both cases, yeah, I get it. But I would prefer content similarities.
Robbie K
I would just like for my pretty picture to show up in my profile!! and of course find fame on Queerty someday eh 🙂
zuluaskono
How about a format that can be easily viewed on a smart phone, or even an app?
popopopopopo
How about fact checking…? That seems to be a big one around here.
Stephen
I think it’s great, now. The tone is good right now. Sure, there is a grammar issue here and there, but that’s the nature of publishing stories quickly. Even CNN has typos. I think limiting Davey Wavey was a good decision. Maybe more local stories. A calendar would be great–like 10 things you can’t miss this week?
TomMc
Thanks for asking. Much appreciated. How about:
1 – More “What do you think of this post?” options — either more verbal click-on options, or/and a 1-10 scale rating?
2 – Bringing back the ‘thumbs up/thumbs’ down option for rating individuals’ posts, yet without automatically supressing the least popular posted responses?
3 – Allowing users the option of switching back to the old version of the site layout (the one you discontinued a few months back)?
4 – Creating a daily survey to solicit opinions on current news items (or just fun, fluff stuff)?
5 – Find a way to appease the grammar fanatics (I am not one of them though sometimes their complaints take up too much space in the comments section). Of course, if there are serious factual errors in articles, the grammar fanatics are very good to have around – they are often the first to point them out 🙂
6 – Bringing back “Morning Goods”? I don’t miss it — there are attractive people to look at elsewhere — but I recall that “Morning Goods” almost always had the most daily hits of any item. It increased site traffic, and would likely do even moreso now that you are asking your readers to Like items for Facebook.
7 – (Not sure if this feature has disappeared or if I am just unable to find it but…) Allowing readers not comfy with Feeds to sign up to have Queerty’s daily headlines delivered to their Email inbox.
Overall though, Queerty people, you are doing an excellent job. Glad the site returned, and has not lost its bite. Again, thanks for asking us for input.
Scott
I use other websites for a more highbrow take on the news. I like Queerty’s pop culture bits and stories I don’t see on more “legit” news sites. I understand this site to be more “common”. I don’t like the way Queerty used to venture too close to being a porn site but that seems to have changed since it rose from the ashes. I would like to see surveys of popular opinions regarding news events. I would like to see homophobic posts removed from threads. Several recently have been hijacked. The homophobes could launch a hate campaign and flood the site. I’d rather see this site be a bully free zone.
Avenn
The orange+brown color theme looks dirty. I’d like to see a little more color around here.
But that aside, after the rebirth of Queerty, I haven’t found many interesting stories to read. I’ll still be around, but it’d be nice if you could rethink the content more than the functionality of the website.
I miss Morning Goods.
divkid
bring back comment previews — i needs me a final moment of sober reflection before irrevocably committing inanity, such as this, to posterity.
i kinda hate the way that icon thingie in the comments section disrupts the visual flow of our golden prose.
why the hell not a monthly change of colour? and if you could sync it with lady gaga’s menstrual cycle…
and YES bring back davey wavey… but rendered in cartoon form, by the, ahem, talented artist karl hampe (offof “the regulars”, and the high arts generally ). ye-e-es that would work.
monkey tennis.
Greg
Since Queerty came back from the dead I think you guys have missed a lot of gay news headlines. There seems to be about half as many posts, and the stories that are posted are never really that interesting.
I’d study the old queerty and try to match that. The two major things people hated about the old Queerty was the awful grammar and Davey Wavey.
Anthony
I would like Queerty stop attacking our allies like Lady Gaga or even Miley Cyrus. Hell anyone that is supporting our cause. Whether you like their music or not – if they do something nice that helps our movement an gains visibility for the LGBT community, the writers here could tone down the bitchy tone.
I would also enjoy the blog style format that Queerty used to use. It was less messy and could be viewed from multiple different devices, not just a computer.
Britney
Quit being so damn bitchy, biased and hateful.
Learn some grammar. Would it kill for the editors to proofread? Jesus Christ.
Chandler In Las Vegas
OLD BLOG VIEW OPTION!
Sploid-view killed Sploid.
Every Gawker site offer it.
Michelle
STOP HATING ON LGBT ALLIES! (it is getting old)
Fountouki
My suggestions:
– Better grammar and fewer typos. I’m not a native English speaker. Therefore, I would really appreciate it if reading Queerty articles improved my English instead of worsening it.
– Rating system for reader comments.
– Preview for reader comments.
– No more bitching about straight allies.
– More articles about trans folks and bisexuals.
– More in-depth articles.
Daniel
@Michelle: You know I’m your hero. Also, please stop posting as “Anthony” on this thread. We can see your IP address on our side and frankly it’s needless.
Patrick
Add an option to hide spoilers about shows like Glee. I had to avoid queerty for weeks while I was catching up on episodes I had missed.
divkid
@Michelle:”Please fire Daniel Villarreal. He is one of the worst writers here!”
…or so you aver, without a single fact to back up your assertion. i think we can justly dismiss your gibbering as the crass ad hominem attack it so clearly is.
leeeeave daniel aloooone!
fuzzy
-comment preview
-thumbs-up/thumbs-down option on other people’s comments
-Morning Goods for the gals, please!
-alternate layouts. I know they’re a drag to code, but some people have a hard time with this layout, for various reasons.
-more actual news. you guys aren’t keeping up with it like before. You ARE doing a better job keeping a lid on the BS, though, so good on you for that. Journalism over sensationalism!
Truthful
Lose the bitchy writers or at least have them tone it down. A lot of the articles on this site leave a bad taste in my mouth, so imagine a straight man stumbling on this site and reading them. Attacking our fellow allies for doing something in support of LGBT rights is just fucking ridiculous.
No more posts about Justin Bieber, the guy from the Real World or Lady Gaga, unless it’s them doing something in relation to the gay community.
Maybe some more focus on the queer arts/music scene? Not all fags listen to Kylie Minogue!
hyhybt
I like the content pretty well, and the color scheme is at least stable and easily recognizable (*anything’s* better than changing it all the time, as someone else suggested).
What I’d really appreciate is a better way to navigate the archive. Right now, the only way to do it that I can see is to start at the present and go backwards. Or start at the beginning and go forwards, I suppose, but the first way-too-many pages doing that are completely blank. To make matters worse, if you’re on any of those pages too long (because, say, you were reading one of those articles in another window, or just had to step away from the computer for a few minutes), for no reason at all it pops you back to the current stuff.
One other little thing: the links to outside pages or previous Queerty articles within stories are great… but they’d be far better if they automatically opened in a new window or tab. That keeps people from having to *remember* to come back and finish the original, or alternately, from not checking the links in the first place.
One thing that hasn’t stood out as much: it looks awful when you take pictures the wrong shape and squash them to fit, for example in the bar across the top of every page. (I can’t stand watching TV’s set to do that either.) All the ones up there now look good, so maybe it was a temporary thing.
Steve
I would like some sort of “reputation” system, to go with a thumbs-up/down “feedback” system.
Thumbs-up/down on individual comments can be useful to sort comments when a post gets many hundreds of comments, but only if the thumbs-upping/downing is done in good faith. Experience has shown that “gay” web sites get a lot of “negative” feedback from hateful people. And, from time to time, a huge number of hateful comments are posted by a very small number of people. While those things can generate energetic debate and lots of clicks, they detract from the overall reputation of the site, and cost readership over the medium and longer term.
When a comment is “flagged” as abusive, or given a “thumbs-down’, a moderator can look at it. The moderators decision should become part of a “reputation” score. If the comment really is abusive (or roundly deserved a thumbs-down), the reputation of the person who made the comment should suffer. If the flag or thumbs-down was clearly not deserved, then the reputation of the person who flagged it, should suffer. The accumulated reputation scores, could be used for various purposes: Sorting comments by authors reputation; Disallowing excessive numbers of comments by authors with poor reputation; Disallow thumbs-down or ‘flag’ by readers with poor reputation; etc.
Steve
Oh — and while I agree that better copy-editing would be good… The copy editors recently seem to be doing a _much_ better job of it than they did for a long time.
The improvement is welcome. Please continue. 😉
hyhybt
Reputation systems are nothing but trouble. People start down-thumbing everything said by those they dislike (and vice versa), regardless of content, and, unless you have to be logged in to use them, some will go to great lengths to give as *many* thumbs-down (or up) per comment as they can manage.
AJM
I would like to see more stories about trans, bisexual and women in general. I see the site is populated mostly bu gay men, but gay men are not the only people who make up our community — and this is coming from a gay man.
divkid
i’d like the ability to do fancy pants things like strike-throughs, underlines, italics, bullets etc. or can we do this already? am i just really stoopid not to know that?
and, it’s no biggie, but the queerty logo, well, dayum it’s ugly! c’mon now, we are THE GAYS don’t we own design!
Shannon1981
divkid you can bold and do italics with html. Not sure about strike thrus and bullets. haven’t tried.
As for what I’d like to see? Recent comments/comments live must stay. Also, there are some REALLY articulate/well informed people on here. How about a way for them to write a few things for you?
I appreciate that you seem to be making more of an effort to focus on all things LGBT, but the main focus still seems to be gay men, and the reason for that is probably that everyone who runs the place are gay men. A little input from some trans folks and lesbians would be great, and you can find us right here.
divkid
i’d welcome the ability to view all these other bitches’ archived comments for inconsistencies and downright lies (you can call it stalking if you like) ; P
Annon123
Please,please don’t loose the bitchy tone…
That’s what made Queerty so special….
Shannon1981
haha divkid. That’d be fun.
divkid
@divkid: as in type a name in the box and search through any commenters past archive.
shannon, thanks for trying, but you may as well have been saying that in klingon — backwards. my tech skills end at the level of setting the microwave clock.
Kit
Site is too visually cluttered. Clean it up, along with copy editing skills.
Michelle
Example: Daniel Villarreal recently wrote an unnecessarily bitchy article regarding Miley. Although I am not a fan of her music, it was unnecessary to attack an ally in that sly way. If you reference the comments there, many agreed he was out of line. He is not an asset to this website. He is no one’s hero. He is quite frankly a shame. There are some quality writers here. Daniel’s abilities to misrepresent information definitely do not put him on that list.
Michelle
Daniel’s taste isn’t so great: The vapid desire to cover the A-list show and unimpressive music reviews. (You can view is body of work if you would like…) There are a few gems in there – on one is all good or all bad. Unfortunately, he has lost his way recently and put out some crap.
Michelle
Also divkid, you might want to look up the meaning of some of the words you use as an ad hominem attack is sometimes relevant. (Feel free to look it up, I am sure Wiki has a nice entry.) Although in this instance it is not one. Commenting on someone’s poor writing and article content is in fact quite justified when they are a WRITER. An ad hominem attack would be if I didn’t like him because he was too skinny, too overweight, not the right color, et cetera. You know, things irrelevant to writing on a blog. I based my judgment on his recent posts. If Queerty is seeking to improve, weeding out some of the poorer work would be a way to do that.
patrick
I think there should be hand jobs for all readers!
Jeffree
1) A preview function on comments would help bad typists like me from having to embarrass ourselves publicly.
2) Slighty more participation in the threads by staff would help in cases where people are repeatedly / flagrantly violating TOS.
3) Links should open up in separate windows, when possible.
4) Keep the Recent Comments section please.
5) Guest contributors from the readership could help widen the range of voices: there are lots of people here who have perspectives & expertise that would be good to hear.
6) Blogroll of other sites of interest. [Other blogs link here, so share the love!]
— — —
@Michelle: Your definition of ad hominem attacks is off-base. Please try again. Hint: criticize the arguement, not the person. I think Daniel V.is a fine writer, but he’s at his best when he’s not channeling Matt B. (who has a nice way with words, too)
Shannon1981
@divkid: haha then yes…um…I don’t want to confuse you further. 🙂
but to bold a word [b] where you want the bold word. to close it [/b].
replace the brackets with
Shannon1981
replace them with the greater than/less than symbol and voila! bold
Mike
The first thought I have off the top of my head is please limit Raising My Rainbow to once a month. Personally I’d love it if the feature went away altogether but I don’t think I’m in the majority so I’d rather have cray-cray mom in smaller doses.
Shannon1981
And please keep the snark.
Also, I understand trying to clean up the comments section, but don’t take it too far. Bitchiness, profanity, snark, nastiness, and yes, even personal attacks are a deeply ingrained part of the commenting culture of the regular readers of this website. If you start censoring too much, you’ll have banned us all within the week.
Giselle
I am also very turned off by commenters who seem to be border-line trolls, if not outright ones, particularly those spewing homophobic and hateful rubbish. (Not keen on those who show no respect for others’ opinions either) I would really appreciate some kind of system to be able to rate them. A bitchy tone is fine, but downright nasty and vile is not. I won’t read them and at some point I wouldn’t come back to the site.
I would love it if the downright nasty and homophobic comments could be taken off. Hate is seriously depressing and debilitating.
I’d love to know what commenter profile system you’re thinking of!
Not keen on the colour scheme either, it feels very dated. Fuddy-duddy. I’d prefer the top four links to rotate, I get bored staring at them on every single page.
Again comments: I would prefer a structure where responses are indented directly under the comment they refer to.
Jeffree
@Shannon1981: I love me some snark & vigorous discussion, and have acted profane & bitchy a time or two (lol) which you’ve witnessed. What I think needs to change are threats of violence, same-thread sockpuppetry, racial slurs, and rampant threadjacking. Oh, and that logo’s got to go, too !
I also wish comment moderation would be overhauled. I have gotten “mooderated” without writing anything close to TOS violations, & yet some of my most vile comments slipped through with nary a burp.
Fred
Bring back the Morning Goods slideshows of hot models each day, with the really old Queerty thumbnail previews of all the shots on one page.
Shannon1981
Yeah, the drunken ranting I do gets through with no problem, Jeffree. But some of the more sane stuff gets moderated. Why?
and yes, violence, racism, sockpuppeting- NEED TO GO. As well as flagrant and blatant TOS violations and threadjacking. Agree wholeheartedly with those.
Fred
Bring back Morning Goods models. With all the thumbnail previews on one page.
Shannon1981
IF you bring back Morning Goods its only fair to add women as well. Equal Opportunity Ogling!
and I like the logo. and the tagline is my fave. Don’t ever lose that.
divkid
i think you could be showcase for more lgbt comedians. i’m particularly a fan of politically incorrect lesbians, but you should cast a net wider into transgender territory too.
i recently came across my first tran man comedian, ian harvie and was very impressed. if he’s not already widely known he deserves to be: http://youtu.be/bC_40paWoUk
divkid
oops: trans man
hyhybt
@Shannon1981: They tried female MG’s at least twice and it didn’t take. You think third time’s the charm?
@Giselle: That works very well under either of two conditions: you’re reading through the thread for the first time, or you’re just looking for responses to your own posts. Otherwise, a tree structure mainly serves to make it difficult to find the new posts, whereas having them sorted only by time stamp makes that simple.
@Mike: Count me as one who enjoys those, though once a month is probably enough. I don’t think they’ve been more common than that anyway; at least, not regularly, and after all, it makes more sense to carry those when there’s something worth mentioning rather than “oh, it’s the 15th again, better grab whatever the last item on RMR is and throw it up.”
@patrick: They send out do-it-yourself kits for that.
hyhybt
OH! I forgot one. It may not be possible with this software, but if it is… when you subscribe to a thread, you get an email for each comment thereafter. All well and good… but the LINK in each email goes to the top of the thread, rather than to the individual comment. Not that big a deal if it’s still the last one, but unless you stare at your inbox all day and read everything the instant it comes in that’s unlikely in a popular thread. If those links can be made to direct to the comment itself, that would be an improvement.
hyhybt
One more thing, though this is just a curiosity: this is only about the third or so site I’ve ever used that requires avatars be approved. I can understand why, and also why going through and approving them would (most likely) be a low priority. But if one is rejected, will the commenter know, or will it just say “awaiting approval” or whatever it says forever?
It’s a nice addition, by the way.
ewe
I want to be able to say that Tony Perkins has a smelly crusty asshole again because we all know it is well deserved.
Dick
Bring back the original layout. You know, the one we used to be able to switch back to, that was taken away in favor of the cluttered mess we have to deal with now. Not YOUR fault as you took it over in this format but now have the power to restore order.
James
1. Quit being so snarky in your opinions. You come off as amateur.
2. Redesign the layout to look more like a news site, and less like a crappy myspace page.
3. The color Orange looks awful, please change it.
4. Check Facts better, you commonly mistake Representatives for Senators and vice versa.
5. Maybe consider not making the Queerty label at the top of this page so large, for those who are surfing in a public area or at work or school, or around parents they are not out to, it looks too much of a giveaway about being gay, versus having a smaller title you can easily hide by scrolling down. I know this sounds silly, but it should be considered.
6. Other than that, keep entertaining us! Glad to see you are back!
James
p.s.
please make most recent comments appear first, instead of the oldest ones being posted at the top of the feed
Joebarb
Get rid of the orange! BLEH!
timncguy
check out the comment threads on Pam’s House Blend. Her site has a way of indicating which comments you have and have not yet read. New comments are marked with a bold, red [NEW] flag. And, the comment counter on the home page for each story indicates how many new comments are there in addition to the total number of comments for the story. This makes it very easy to know which comments need to be viewed for new entries.
Sebizzar
There needs to be more “What You Think of This Post” buttons cause some just don’t match. Like there needs to be a “Sad” button if there’s a sad story.
McMike
Queerty can stop being the bitchy person everyone tries to avoid at the bar. For example, your latest “news item”:
Are These Murdering Gay Porn Lovers Getting Raped In Prison?
GIVE ME A F’N BREAK!!!
Would you guys stop using this web site as a bitchfest platform for stupid crap?
Also, can you guys stop trying to find the negative aspect in EVERYTHING? When Taylor Swift made her new music video about bullying, and put the gay boy getting bullied in the locker room as the first segment of it, instead of praising Taylor Swift all you guys could do it bitch and whine about how you don’t think she should be making money off our community. She should have been thanked but instead you wrote a piece that would make any heterosexual think twice about standing up for our rights.
You guys endlessly come out with dumb shite. You have a platform that you could easily use in a positive manner but instead all you can do is bitch and whine about the dumbest crap.
McMike
btw, I must add that I really love Queerty. It can be very entertaining and informative but, to be that bitchy person in the bar, there are some things which could be tweaked.
TJ
One request: no more davey wavey.
Eric
Hire writers that aren’t complete hacks.
robert
bring back morning goods I liked that
Greg From Denver
I like the new Queerty and consider the old logo retro rather than ugly. However if you are the new Queerty now is the time for any new logo or color scheme, but keep it consistent so we know where we are.
I like the idea of a moderated comment feed, but am afraid that depending who is moderating it could cool some good discussions. Maybe you could use some snarky commentary like “Big Meanie” for hate speech and personal attacks. “Get a room” for when two people go back and forth with each other rather than commenting on the article to suppress whatever goes against what ever guidelines you come up with but allow us to read the comment for ourselves.
Please keep including items outside of New York, San Francisco and LA, I like to know what is going on in the rest of the country and the rest of the world.
ChrisC
I personally think everything is perfect the way it is =)
hyhybt
@Greg From Denver: The comments are moderated now, to a degree. If someone comes through here and says “You all are just a bunch of ****-******* *******! Go burn in Hell!” the comment is removed. (Though, in my example, the part I’ve starred out might better be answered with “Yeah, so?”) It’s just done after the fact, and sparingly. A system where all comments have to be approved before they’re posted is, aside from being too much work, frustrating as anything. It slows down discussion too much, and also leads to confusing conversation because previous comments aren’t visible when you add your own.
One thing I do wish is that people with other axes to grind wouldn’t drag those in here. For example, some commenters seem to make a point of taking every opportunity to attack *all* people with any religious belief whatsoever, and never mind that a lot of such people (and more by the day) don’t see gay folks as lesser or evil or anything like that. For one thing, that unnecessarily cuts down on the number of allies you have; for another, many gay people have such beliefs, and it hurts quite deeply to be attacked by your own kind, so to speak. For example, whatever the majority views and interpretations, and no matter what points of view get the most publicity, I know there’s no *inherent* conflict between being gay and being a Christian because I happen to be both. And it hurts at least as much to come here and get called an idiot or a traitor or whatever as it does to go to a church and get a sermon on how we’re trying to destroy civilization and drag everyone to hell with us. I don’t attend such a church, and would never do so intentionally; and when that sort of attitude is prevalent here (it seems to come and go in waves) I tend to retreat to RSS-only. And I cannot doubt others are driven away entirely.
That was meant to be just an example, but I cannot, at the moment, think of another. And anyway, this post is long enough already 🙂
redball
Queerty used to post on the home page the # of views each story had received. I found it super interesting from a sociological perspective: you could see which stories garnered the most interest, hypothesize as to why, etc.
Shannon1981
@hyhybt: Didn’t know that about morning goods, thanks for informing me.
Now, about the rest of your post: Something that needs to be made clear to gay christians and gay republicans is this: you are ALWAYS going to be a minority on gay websites. Always. Organized religion and the GOP have a history of oppressing us, and many of us have experienced very real, very personal pain at the hands of members of these groups. I don’t think any of us believes that every single Christian or every single Republican wants our heads on platters, but many(if not most) do, or, at the very least, those who do are the ones who happen to be the loudest and the most influential. There is no denying that, so I don’t think the railing against those groups in large numbers, especially on a gay snark blog, will stop. If you can’t handle it, you can do one of two things, IMHO: stay out of comment sections where this is going on, or find a Christian- centric gay site where you might be more comfortable. I can’t really say much else. I personally detest organized religion, and will continue to say so, and, yes, on a snark blog, it isn’t gonna be in a nice way most of the time.
Big Woody
Better copy editing! The many mistakes I have seen have portrayed editing as being careless, sloppy and unprofessional.
Johnofsocal
I would take the Share option over Recommend! I miss posting my favorite stories to Facebook!!
Oscar Raymundo
@Johnofsocal: Recommending a story shoots it right over to your Facebook wall.