Lists? Combine custom list with standard lists?

OK, so I realize this is pretty minor. I was playing with the List section of my profile. Very enjoyable to mess around with. Then I created a custom list. And all the standard lists I'd filled out were replaced by my custom list. Is it "either/or"? Or is there a setting I'm missing that lets you include your custom list and then see all the standard ones you've filled out. Thanks!

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Scarecrow: I haven't got a brain ... only straw. Dorothy: How can you talk if you haven't got a brain? Scarecrow: I don't know. But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they? Dorothy: Yes, I guess you're right.

The only thing that changes is how your custom list and your standard list (MoFo list) are accessed. If I click on your profile and then click 'list' I see your custom list. But if I click on the little stacked lines next to the star by your ID name I can see your standard/mofo list. Is that what you were asking about?

This definitely falls into the "you learn something new every day" category. I never realized the stacked lines next to my name would display anything. I wonder how many MoFo-ers know this?

It's pretty easy to find the lists in the profile. So that's where I'd expect to find both custom and standard lists for a user. Their function is too similar to justify splitting into the "easy to find" and the "really really obscure to find.'

Really appreciate how easy this free-to-use platform is, so I'm not complaining. But there's a wishlist of upgrades, see you're custom list first and then your standards lists in the Lists tab of your profile would be optimal. IMHO, as they say, of course!

So, you're not crazy, there is a quirk to all this, which I will briefly explain: when I introduced Lists, it was just famous lists (AFI, Best Picture Winners) that various organizations had made, directly or otherwise. You'd check them off to display what you'd seen, and those percentages would show up on your profile in various ways.

Obviously, it's a lot more interesting and useful to let people make their own lists for various reasons. That was a lot more work, but eventually I built that. But then we had a problem: that's a very different use case than the old Lists area. And I didn't just want to wipe away the things already attached to people's profiles.

Eventually I decided it would continue to display the percentages for those 'official' lists unless someone had created any public custom lists, in which case it would use those instead. And that's where we are now.

I've been meaning to find time/brainspace to flesh this out a bit more, but ultimately I'm doing all this in my free time, so I haven't gotten around to it yet. But I think when I do, it'll be a little more intuitive than it is now, where it's still sort of straddling the original purpose and the new (and obviously better/more useful) one.

I say this without cheekiness or condescension: what did you think it was/did?

It's all good. I'm happy to take feedback and constructive criticism, provided nobody minds me a) disagreeing or more likely b) agreeing but just saying I don't have time, or don't have time right now, to do such-and-such.

I think we're on the same page though, custom lists are the real function here. My tentative plan is to make it so custom lists and 'official' lists are basically the same 99% of the time, where the 'official' ones just get some kind of badge or designation to distinguish them slightly.

Thanks for taking the time to explain!

All good. Having some (modest) experience in webdev, I appreciate the challenge of just maintaining a site as long-lived as this one, let alone trying to add features that seamlessly fit. I'll wait "patiently" until all the lists coalesce!

Without being cheeky ... until Citizen mentioned some type of menu next to our user name, I'd never really taken note of the star/list menu. It's handy enough.

Of course. I kind of like explaining it. And in your (and everyone's) defense, it's actually incredibly common for people to use the site for years and not be aware of even basic functionality.

Oh, neat; what kinda stuff did you do?

I always end up asking really probing question of other devs when I'm using their sites; feel free to ask whatever you're curious about.

It is, I suppose, pretty small. It might look like 'flair' or something, now that I think about it. Anyway, between that and the links that show up when you hover of the avatars (I hope you noticed those!), the idea is to put a lot of common things right there next to each post without cluttering things up OR requiring a click through to the profile.

Could you do a pop up text description when one hovers over the three lines or star? There's already a pop up text field description when one hovers over User Name or Profile or Post or Message.

So here's the quirk: the little menu that comes up is a script that replaces the little tooltip, I've just rigged it so it happens on click and acts like a menu instead. Which is nice/cool/works great, but might interfere with getting that normal behavior out of it, too.

Might be a workaround, though, I'll take a look. I'll do it if it's easy.

I did a career transition to web development when Microsoft Active Server Pages and VBScript were the thing (late 90s), standing up initial websites for a few tech startups in Silicon Valley. As .Net became the thing, I stepped back into management and eventually found my niche overseeing marketing operations (web platforms, Salesforce.com, Marketo (now Adobe)), etc. Today, my MoFo user ID fits with my hobby website (behindthecurtain dot com), which I've built myself with WordPress, mostly from standard components but with a few PHP customizations underneath.

I'd already snooped around using builtwith.com so I was aware of the PHP foundation and the vBulletin platform. Actually, I'm curious how you keep it free with no ads ... such a relief! Via the relationship with TMDB? (Which is interesting, a crowd-sourced database.)

I assume you have a day job too? I'm in awe ... I'm retired and I find it a challenge to keep up with MoFo discussions and set aside time for writing too!

Ah, I understand..it's good just like it is too

Very nice. I did veerrrryyy little work with ASP/VBScript out of necessity years ago but otherwise it's been almost all LAMP. Worked with WordPress quite a bit, too. Kinda have to these days, it's everywhere.

Nope, just don't make any money from it.

I used to make some, years ago, back when it was a little easier to make money from ads (and the site had a prime Google ranking). Never a living, or even a significant fraction of a living, but enough to justify more time and effort, at least. But no, just a hobby. I'd be perfectly willing to use ads if they produced much but since they don't, I'd rather have it stand out as a free (and ad-free) site for the time being rather than make some totally paltry sum.

I would like to find a way to monetize it again a little bit, if only so I could justify putting more time into it, rather than now where I just kinda work on it when I can.

Well, the fact that it's not a massive community, and that I've built tools so that user reports can deal with a lot of the spam, helps a lot. And yeah, I've got a day job in IT as well. To be honest, that's one of the ways I justify all this: I've learned a lot running this site that I've been able to apply back to other work.