Atheist Nexus Needs Vast Improvements

So a few people are talking about this new website “Atheist Nexus“. I was invited yesterday by the managing director Thor and I signed up to take a look. Although the site is a very good idea, it is currently very poorly designed. I’d love to comment on all the great things it could do for the community, but before it even tries to connect people it needs to address a load of issues:

There is far too much code on every page. This bloats the website out which leads to slower loading times as well as slower actual scrolling of the website.
There is a stupid amount of CSS for the site layout. I’ve been designing websites for years and the site could be made easily with a fraction of the CSS they use.
The JavaScript is bloated and used way too much. AJAX is great in moderation, but using it for everything only works when you have very tidy and small scripts working together, not a load of large scripts dotted all over the place.
What is up with the theme? Since when did cityscapes have something to do with atheism? I’m afraid that light blue on white doesn’t go very well for the main links, and they could have saved resources in a load of areas by using color attributes instead of images.

Now I know everyone is getting all excited about a new social networking site, but it’s not new at all, and it certainly isn’t original. A quick look at the source code tells you that the entire site is just linking into ning.com, a “make your own” social networking site. Put simply, this entire project isn’t original, and it hasn’t got a team of devs behind it. It will be updated when ning.com wants to update their entire system.

Compare this with another popular atheist site, Atheist Spot. They actively listen to user feedback and change the site accordingly. An example of this happened a few weeks ago when they reduced the number of categories to a measly 3 generalised ones, a which point there were a few angry emails, and the next day they were back, along with tagging abilities a week later.

This level of devotion to the users is exactly what makes Atheist Spot so brilliant, and what makes Atheist Nexus (as a dependant of ning.com) so useless. People want changes and they won’t get them.

I’ve had a brief discussion with a friend who I’m moving in with in a few weeks, and we reckon the “atheist community” deserves more. As programmers, we will be developing a proper atheist/agnostic/skeptic/rationalist/naturalist social networking site. Unlike Atheist Nexus it will have an active team of developers who will listen and implement new ideas quickly and effectively. It will be fast loading with only neccessary flashy effects to make the user experience better.

If you are a programmer and want to help, let me know, or if you have ideas please make them heard.

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Written by Adrian Hayter

July 7th, 2008 at 1:54 am

Posted in atheism, general

Tagged with atheism, atheist nexus, social networking, website

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Comments to “Atheist Nexus Needs Vast Improvements”

Lenny (The Atheist Spot) Says:
July 7th, 2008 at 2:46 am (GMT)

Interesting perspective. I just blogged about this very site myself (http://atheistspot.blogspot.com/) taking a different angle, and if nothing else being a bit more constructive with the criticism :)

Love the passion though! The more things like this people try the better off we’ll all be.

Btw, I think you got the wrong impression about the size of our team at the Atheist Spot. It’s a number much smaller then the number of visitors we get. You make it sound like we’re the next Google over here! Thanks for the kind words though.

Adrian Hayter Says:
July 7th, 2008 at 2:49 am (GMT)

I think I read your email wrong :P I see now you meant you had a higher ratio of devs to users! Ah well, it’s still praise!

Lenny (The Atheist Spot) Says:
July 7th, 2008 at 2:54 am (GMT)

haha ok glad I didn’t lie to you. Good luck with the project to create the killer atheist social network!

Here’s one place to start:
http://portal.insoshi.com/

Adrian Hayter Says:
July 7th, 2008 at 3:02 am (GMT)

Don’t expect anything soon :P

Development starts on the 24th July and we probably won’t have much to show for a few months. Then again at the rate Atheist Nexus will develop (i.e. very very slowly) it won’t take much to catch up.

I’ll certainly have a look at insoshi. I’ve been using Ruby for a while so we might as well just develop that platform more to our needs.

Lenny (The Atheist Spot) Says:
July 7th, 2008 at 3:04 am (GMT)

Wow, didn’t realize you were so far along already, that’s exciting. Just make sure to resist waiting for something perfect before getting it out to the world. Fail fast and fail often!

Adrian Hayter Says:
July 7th, 2008 at 3:07 am (GMT)

Hehe, well I’m moving into a house of computer scientists in a few weeks. We all have a 3 month long summer with nothing to do, so we’ll be developing things like crazy.

Lenny (The Atheist Spot) Says:
July 7th, 2008 at 3:10 am (GMT)

Some more helpful bookmarks I got:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/14/34-more-ways-to-build-your-own-social-network/

http://www.techcrunch.com/wp-content/white_label_social_networking_solutions_chart2.html

I’m also planning on reading this book, but I keep hearing it’s really good for anyone developing social software:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594201536/ref=s9wishf_r3_at-rfc_g1?ie=UTF8&coliid=I16P7R6A4JKUA5&colid=2IOV9MSII2BN9&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=right-1&pf_rd_r=04GJS6SBFZG2BJ7VJ91H&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=280762101&pf_rd_i=507846

Lenny (The Atheist Spot) Says:
July 7th, 2008 at 3:17 am (GMT)

You party animals!

j/k, sounds awesome. God’s speed!

Adrian Hayter Says:
July 7th, 2008 at 3:21 am (GMT)

Hmmm…”God’s speed”

Since God is nonexistent his speed is logically 0, so does that make it an insult? :P

Lenny (The Atheist Spot) Says:
July 7th, 2008 at 3:23 am (GMT)

It was meant to be ironic, freaking internet eliminating all body language!

How about…Dawkins Speed!

Adrian Hayter Says:
July 7th, 2008 at 3:29 am (GMT)

Hmmm, how about FSM-Speed? Or however fast invisible pink unicorns can run?

Lenny (The Atheist Spot) Says:
July 7th, 2008 at 3:31 am (GMT)

Sounds like a plan!

Oliver Says:
July 7th, 2008 at 4:31 am (GMT)

I signed on today at Atheist Nexus. I thought the layout was ugly, but everything else was okay. We’ll see how fast it grows and how dedicated the users are.

If you think you can do better, I’d like to join your team of devs. Rails seems to be all the rage, but I’ve never done anything with it. I guess it is time to learn.

amiable Says:
July 7th, 2008 at 7:42 am (GMT)

Yeah. I joined because others are (i’m such a lemming!). I’m no website expert like you, but I did notice that it was super slow when scrolling.

help Says:
July 10th, 2008 at 6:28 pm (GMT)

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/what_is_atheist_nexuss_game.php

db0 Says:
July 18th, 2008 at 1:19 pm (GMT)

As programmers, we will be developing a proper atheist/agnostic/skeptic/rationalist/naturalist social networking site.

I think that is a mistake. If you are planning on helping organize a Atheist Social site why not help with the Nexus instead? By Building your own version you will only serve to split the community.

Since Brother Richard took over he’s been asking for volunteers for Web Design, Graphics, programming etc. If you do have ideas that can help improve it would be better to improve what we already have instead of starting anew.

For example, I’ve taken over the support and I’m trying to convince people to provide their ideas etc. However without capable programmers and web designers we won’t be able to implement much.

So, my suggestion is: If you want to an Atheist Social Network, help with the Nexus. if you think Ning sucks, I don’t see no reason why we couldn’t move to something better. On the contrary, if you colaborate with Richard, we may be able to transfer the accounts as well which will not force people to register somewhere else

Adrian Hayter Says:
July 18th, 2008 at 1:37 pm (GMT)

db0,

I’ve sent “Brother Richard” two emails saying I will gladly volunteer and help out. I have not received any messages back from him.

There are other problems with trying to “fix” Nexus instead of making our own version. Namely having to read through the entire source code (which I bet will be very bloated), and then fixing things according to that source code.

To use a comparison, Atheist Nexus is a bit like MySpace, slow and bloated. What we need is a site like the old version of Facebook (before it got applications). Facebook has always been fast and has AJAX that actually works.

Looking down that list of support queries, it seems most of them are bugs. Instead of trying to fix bugs by reading through the code and trying to figure out what is happening, it would be worthwhile redesigning the site from scratch and making sure those features work first time.

db0 Says:
July 18th, 2008 at 1:45 pm (GMT)

It’s probably going to be difficult to speak with Richard since he seems to be swamped with stuff. The best way to contact him for me is to send him a pop-up msg through the nexus when you see him online.

I agree with what you say about bloat and you may be right that we may need to start from scratch again but what I’d prefer is that we start from scratch all together, under the same name and pooled resources.

If the Ning platform is as closed and bloated as it seems and bugs are difficult to solve I’m certain that Richard will not oppose peope taking ways to fix it.

Adrian Hayter Says:
July 18th, 2008 at 1:47 pm (GMT)

db0,

I’ve just sent him a message through Nexus again. If you have his personal contact details could you make him aware that I have sent him something.

As far as I am concerned, I will still be making a new social networking platform. If we get to the point where Nexus cannot be fixed easily, we will use the new platform to host Nexus.

db0 Says:
July 18th, 2008 at 1:49 pm (GMT)

could you make him aware that I have sent him something.

No problem, I will

As far as I am concerned, I will still be making a new social networking platform.

But if Nexus can be fixed, what are you going to do with your new platform?

Adrian Hayter Says:
July 18th, 2008 at 2:18 pm (GMT)

But if Nexus can be fixed, what are you going to do with your new platform?

In the highly unlikely event of Nexus being fixed, we will continue to develop the platform as open source, or sell it or something.

db0 Says:
July 18th, 2008 at 2:24 pm (GMT)

Ok 2 things
1. Why don’t you start developing the platform as Free Software under the AGPL3 anyway? It will go much faster (not to mention ethicaly) with open source development. If someone wants to use a propriertary product, well, there is always Ning isn’t there?

2. The way you say it is that you’re dead-set on developing a new platform. That is all well and good if Ning is really unworkable and I would support you all the way if the new platform is going be free software from the get go but it would also mean that you won’t be willing to help improve what we have now, or at least that’s how I read you.

Adrian Hayter Says:
July 18th, 2008 at 2:40 pm (GMT)

What I mean is, if Richard is prepared to let me have a look at trying to fix the site, I will. However my “diagnosis” will probably be to develop something better from scratch. In this way I could both develop a new platform whilst helping Nexus at the same time.

The problem with making the software Open Source from the start is the overall workload. With a specific site software, you do not have to build easy to use backend functionality, since we would be able to change the code manually to do whatever we wanted. With an Open Source product, the emphasis is on usability for the admin as well as the user. We would need to fashion an admin control panel to do everything.

So yes, I am “dead set” on making a new social networking engine/platform, but that doesn’t make me exempt from helping out at Atheist Nexus, and in fact it might benefit Nexus greatly if my engine works better than Ning’s.

db0 Says:
July 18th, 2008 at 3:06 pm (GMT)

However my “diagnosis” will probably be to develop something better from scratch.

If you are so set in your mind to do, it means that you’ll be filtering your review through this prism. The bad stuff will grow huge and the good stuff will be marginalised.

The problem with making the software Open Source from the start is the overall workload.

Ah but you see you don’t have to start from scratch with it. You can easily begin from Drupal or Joomla and move from there.

With a specific site software, you do not have to build easy to use backend functionality

Which one do you have in mind?

With an Open Source product, the emphasis is on usability for the admin as well as the user. We would need to fashion an admin control panel to do everything.

I don’t understand where you get that impression. With a Free Software the emphasis is where you want it to be, like with any other piece of software.

Adrian Hayter Says:
July 18th, 2008 at 3:16 pm (GMT)

If you are so set in your mind to do, it means that you’ll be filtering your review through this prism. The bad stuff will grow huge and the good stuff will be marginalised.

Not at all. I will fairly analyze what needs to be done, and what can be done with the current interface. However, it is my current understanding that Ning doesn’t really allow much editing of environment code, and judging by the amount of work needed in Nexus, my initial conclusion would be a better model.

Ah but you see you don’t have to start from scratch with it. You can easily begin from Drupal or Joomla and move from there.

Yes, and I’ve already found a few open source engines that we might build upon. However getting everything to work well from the start is a big priority, and we would still have to learn the basic code layout. I’ve worked with Drupal and Joomla in the past, and they are very bloated, so I would be looking for a lightweight platform to develop.

Which one do you have in mind?

I think you misunderstood me. When I said “specific site software” I mean software developed for the site itself. Unique stuff. For instance, the facebook platform is developed for facebook, so they probably do not have a powerful backend interface. If a change needs to be done, it would be better to do it by accessing the database or code instead of building a way to do it through a website.

I don’t understand where you get that impression. With a Free Software the emphasis is where you want it to be, like with any other piece of software.

Yes, but the Open Source world prefers software that is easy to use rather than software which is not. The easier to use the piece of software, the more people are going to use it. People use Firefox over I.E because it is easier to use and certainly more powerful. The same applies here.

There is also the problem of security when it comes to Open Source. Although security flaws are usually fixed faster with Open Source projects, this is only done if they are very popular. It would be worthwhile keeping Atheist Nexus closed source for the beginning so that security holes are kept to a minimum. The developers will of course try to hack the site as much as possible, and then fix the holes as they see them.

db0 Says:
July 18th, 2008 at 3:42 pm (GMT)

Drupal and Joomla in the past, and they are very bloated,

I beg to dissagree. Drupal epsecially and without all the plugins is quite lightweight which is the reason why so many places customize it to do what they want.

When I said “specific site software” I mean software developed for the site itself. Unique stuff

I honestly think you’re underestimating the amount of work that would require.

Yes, but the Open Source world prefers software that is easy to use rather than software which is not.

That is absolutely incorrect. The Free Software community prefers stuff that they can use and modify. True, if its easier to use, you might get more people using them but even if it’s not, as long as it’s useful, people are going to use it, and because it’s open source, they will help improve it as well.

Most open software projects started very difficult to use and indeed many still are.

People use Firefox over I.E because it is easier to use and certainly more powerful. The same applies here.

The Free Software community was using Firefox and Mozilla before it because it was better and free, not necessarily because it was easier. The Usability only helped to make it popular in the NON-Free Software people.

Although security flaws are usually fixed faster with Open Source projects, this is only done if they are very popular.

Again, incorrect. You’re thinking about Propriertary software where an obscure security bug might go unfixed for years.
In Open Source things are fixed as long as someone decides to fix them, like say, the admin of a site that might be compromised by it.

It would be worthwhile keeping Atheist Nexus closed source for the beginning so that security holes are kept to a minimum.

Security through obscurity is not security at all.

Adrian Hayter Says:
July 18th, 2008 at 4:30 pm (GMT)

“I honestly think you’re underestimating the amount of work that would require.”

Not at all. I know it’s a lot, but we have a summer free to do all the work.

“Again, incorrect. You’re thinking about Propriertary software where an obscure security bug might go unfixed for years.
In Open Source things are fixed as long as someone decides to fix them, like say, the admin of a site that might be compromised by it.”

There was a recent bug in Linux that was fixed which was traced back to the original UNIX core. It wasn’t harmful, but it does prove that some bugs can go unfixed for long times even in the Open Source community. The thing is, if the code is open, someone may find a bug and attack the site and not report it.

There are positive sides to both perspectives. If I were developing a platform for a market release, I would be it open source and make sure everything was user-friendly. In the case of Atheist Nexus or another unique site, I would make it closed and concentrate on making the user side of it good, as well as making the code as tight as possible.

db0 Says:
July 18th, 2008 at 4:40 pm (GMT)

Not at all. I know it’s a lot, but we have a summer free to do all the work.

Well, not anymore. 1 month left :P

There was a recent bug in Linux that was fixed which was traced back to the original UNIX core. It wasn’t harmful, but it does prove that some bugs can go unfixed for long times even in the Open Source community.

I never said differently. I only said that a bug can always be fixed, even if the original devs have no intention of doing so.

The thing is, if the code is open, someone may find a bug and attack the site and not report it.

Same happens with Propriertary. The Only difference is that no-one else except the malicious one gets to find out.

Adrian Hayter Says:
July 18th, 2008 at 4:45 pm (GMT)

“Well, not anymore. 1 month left :P”

Actually, being at university I have until the end of September :D

db0 Says:
July 18th, 2008 at 6:00 pm (GMT)

Adrian, I’ve told Richard and he’s asked me to tell you to join the Volunteers Group. He’s got around 300 people vying for his attention atm so he’s going to get back to you ASAP. until then by joining the volunteers group, we can organise a meeting.