DiPot: Ice Tea tech » Services

Ning Greek Localization Error in Translation

ageor — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:26:43 +0000

I am a user of two Ning networks and I think it’s a great product-service!

Localizing everything can some times be a waste of effort. In other cases, localization (ie. of an infrastructure) can be well worth its while. Ning is such a case. In terms of multilanguage support prolepsis, as english is a simpler language than greek and others, building localization mechanisms is no easy task and translation can be tricky…

The case in point is four terms in Ning Forum’s messages greek translation. When Forum conversations grow long, pagination is introduced at the bottom of the page with the english messages “First”, “Previous”, “Next”, “Last”. The greek terms used for these messages are “Όνομα” (”honoma”), “Προηγούμενο” (”proeghumeno”, in Ning notation, where “h” shows where the word is stressed), “Επόμενο” (”ephomeno”), “Επώνυμο” (”ephonymo”) respectively. However:

“Όνομα” is greek for “First Name”, not “First Page”. The correct term would be “Πρώτη” (”prhoti”, “first in order”)
“Προηγούμενο” and “Επόμενο” are basically correct. In greek, however, adjectives have a gender. In this case the term refers to a page, which is “η σελίδα” in greek and has a she-gender. Therefore, the correct terms are “Προηγούμενη” (”proeghumeni”) and “Επόμενη” (”ephomeni”) respectively
“Επώνυμο” is greek for “Last Name” (or “Surname”), not “Last Page”. The correct term would be “Τελευταία” (”telefthea”, “last in order”)

Ning first-last messages in english

Ning first-last messages in greek (translation error)

Thanks, Ning, for allowing us to built our own social networks. Please keep improving!

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Twitter: Unable to follow more people (following 2000 limit)

ageor — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:47:59 +0000

Twitter has never been my favorite, especially compared to FriendFeed, but I can’t overlook the valuable community built around it. Lists have just made it much better, but there’s still no decent way to manage them that I know of and they come with limitations of their own.

Twitter: You are unable to follow more people at this time. Learn more here.

Plus, I have just ran into the inexplicable “You are unable to follow more people at this time. Learn more here.” pop-up, only to discover there is a 2000 follows limit! From http://help.twitter.com/forums/10711/entries/68916:

“…

What are the limits?

We don’t limit the number of followers you can have. However, we do monitor how aggressively users follow other users. We try to make sure that none of our limits restrain reasonable usage, and will not affect most Twitter users.

We monitor all accounts for aggressive following and follow churn (repeatedly following and un-following large numbers of other users). You can read more about these below, but if you don’t follow or un-follow hundreds of users in a single day, and you aren’t using automated methods of following users, you should be fine. Please note that the only automated following behavior that Twitter allows is auto-follow-back (following a user after they have followed you). Automated un-following is also not permitted. Please review our Automation Rules & Best Practices for more information on automating your account.

…

Additional limits if you are following 2000 or more people:
The rules about aggressive following and follow churn still apply. In addition, every user can follow 2000 people total. Once you’ve followed 2000 users, there are limits to the number of additional users you can follow: this limit is different for every user and is based on your ratio of followers to following. When you hit this limit, we’ll tell you by showing an error message in your browser. You’ll need to wait until you have more followers in order to follow more users—basically, you can’t follow 10,000 people if only 100 people follow you. When you reach a daily or total limit and we show you an error message, you’ve hit a technical limit imposed to limit egregious behavior by spam accounts and to prevent strain on the site. These are just the technical limits for your account; in addition, you are prohibited from aggressive following behaviors. These behaviors may result in account suspension, regardless of your account’s technical ratio.

Limits improve site performance by ensuring that when we send a person’s message to all of their followers, the sending of that message is meaningful. Follow limits cannot be lifted by Twitter, and everyone is subject to them, including verified and developer accounts. Based on current behavior in the Twitter community, we’ve concluded that this is both fair and reasonable.

…”

For the record, my behavior has never fallen into anything described in Twitter’s Following Limits and Best Practices page, except for trying to cross the 2000 limit. It turns out that “… this limit is different for every user and is based on your ratio of followers to following …”. It seems this ratio is a big secret, although online sources like @JanSimpson and “Using Twitter” give it a value around 1.1. Limits seem to be the approach of choice for Twitter to keep their service running. They have another one: you can only have up to 20 Lists, which, of course, you discover only when you try to create the 21st!

I am not happy with adhoc limits, particularly undocumented ones. The 2000 limit is both hidden and its mechanism undocumented by Twitter. Look it up and find that “basically, you can’t follow 10,000 people if only 100 people follow you”; hardly indicative of the ~1.1 actual ratio. Why? They claim this is to prevent spam and overload! Spam, though, can be measured with any number of real (and, preferably, documented) criteria…

I say, Twitter just can’t handle the volume. Arbitrary limits may give easy short-term solutions. Then, what? In the mean time, I have to decide weather to start unfollowing good people, try to “Get More Followers Fast” (oops, this is against the rules), try to get more followers slow (wait, “Remember, Twitter isn’t a race to get the most followers”), leave it be, or quit Twitter and concentrate on FriendFeed. Or put new people in an “over 2000″ List…

Did I mention how disappointed I am and how alienated I feel?

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7 Favorite, Value Adding FriendFeed Applications

ageor — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:09:48 +0000

I like FriendFeed much better than Twitter; that’s no secret. In a conversation with @Trianta earlier today, it seems the only FriendFeed desktop clients out there are the Adobe Air-based Twhirl and feedalizr. They both leave a lot to be desired. There is also the announcement of .NET-based FriendFeed Client. Web-based FriendFeed applications are also scarce, compared to Twitter’s.

This isn’t a wish list. It’s a wish come true list, including existing applications that accomplish specific tasks and add great value to FriendFeed. True, there are many more than the following but those are my favorites (in no particular order):

Friendfeed Like Compatibility Calculator

FriendFeed stats only show 10 people who like me and another 10 that I like most. It’s not enough. Friendfeed Like Compatibility Calculator lists who gave a user the last 300 likes. Utilizing the 3 included modifiers, the list can show people with similar interests. It also shows the subscription status with a small “sub” next to each user. No password or passkey is required.

FriendZone?

Find out the top 100 subscribed to people among the people you subscribe to. This defines your friendfeed neighborhood, or FriendZone and results to contacts you may want to subscribe to, if not already. No password or passkey is required.

FriendVenn

This is one function FriendFeed should perform itself. FriendVenn answers who subscribes to you that you don’t subscribe to. Only for oneself, as it requires both username and password (not passkey). It returns 3 columns: “people you are subscribed to”, “people who both sub to you and you sub to” & “people who only subscribe to you” with totals for each.

Twitter2FF

Twitter2FF helps sync Twitter follows and FriendFeed subscriptions both ways. It requires usename/password for Twitter and username/passkey for FriendFeed. It then provides a one-page, one-click per user interface to invite or subscribe to Twitter friends in FriendFeed and follow FFd Friends in Twitter. It uses its own expanding database of Twitter-FriendFeed account pairs, as well as the Twitter feeds of people you subscribe to in FFd. Friendfeed recently added its own support to massively Find (and subscribe to) your Twitter friends on FriendFeed but Twitter2FF is still useful for the other half of the job.

FriendDeck

FriendDeck runs different concurrent FriendFeed searches live. Each result includes all poster’s details, the originating service and Like, Re-Share & Link ability.

FriendFeedLinks

“FriendFeedLinks is a memetracker that tracks links shared on FriendFeed”. It also makes them available via RSS.

ffholic

ffholic reports (collectively or per user) on the most Discussed, Liked, Commented, Popular or Active Entries, Users, Rooms, Photos, Music or Videos (not all combinations exist) for the last 1, 7 or 30 days. The good thing is Entries, Photos, Music & Videos reports are available in RSS feeds and include a language filter, powered by Google. Last but not necessarily least, ffholic also presents user metrics and calculates “activity points”.

Find more in FriendFeed Apps and, please, let me know of other FriendFeed apps, clients etc. that you find useful. There is also Robert Scoble’s discussion “To new friendfeeders (there are thousands due to Twitter invites and follows), here’s what you need to know:” on Friendfeed, with plenty of tips and links.

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Which Service should a Post go to?

ageor — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 17:21:55 +0000

I have been trying to organize/visualize the way I post, be it blogging, a comment on FriendFeed, an interesting link a came across etc. During the time it took me to complete the flowchart, more services were added as sources or carriers of my posts. As a result, the chart got more complex than originally anticipated. Interestingly enough, there is a pattern and the flowchart works for me most of the time.

Also get the Posting Flowchart as built in Dia (hence the crudeness), for your own use. So, there it is:

Posting Flowchart

Please do comment. Is posting a one-way street for you? Are there any general rules or do you post on a case by case basis?