The UberSpat Blog

Always thinking of the users

2008-08-27T13:09:00.001-07:00

First of all thank you to all the registered users who have been putting in their 2 cents worth on UberSpat. Without you our site would be pretty dull. Those of you who visit and leave, well as far we’re concerned you can PLEASE, PLEASE COME BACK AND GIVE US A TRY! We really do need you.

Next, I hope the changes made last week were relatively painless and improved the look and function of the site. These changes were made with you in mind. Aren’t we thoughtful? Nothing is too good for our users. It doesn’t matter how many hours our developers slave over a hot keyboard with the glare of the midnight screen burning into their eyes. Our users come first. Well enough of the browning nosing and on to bigger and better things; More changes!

Yes there will be another update to the site this week. I know some of you are thinking “Oh no! Not more changes! I don’t like change!” But don’t worry change is good. You’ll see.

At the bottom of each Spat page an Add This icon was added replacing all the little individual icons. Clicking the icon produces a Bookmark & Share dropdown menu allowing the user, once logged in, to add that Spat to your Favorites and/or to share the Spat with your friends through various sites, hopefully intriguing them enough that they will rush right to UberSpat and register as a user. See, change is good for you and for us.

Next the Help window was expanded making it easier to read. We’re always thinking about the users. No more squinting and less scrolling. Again change is good. The remaining changes were minor ones like typos and popup messages incorrectly positioned. You may not even notice those changes unless you’re one of those people who proof reads your friend’s emails and replies back with the corrections. Yeah you know who you are. Seriously though, we need people like you to keep us looking professional. So you can rest a little easier knowing we’re one step closer to be a typo free site.

Being a new site, change is inevitable, but we’ll continue to do our best to make them in the best interest of our user. That’s about it for now.

What you waiting for? Login and start a debate.

UberSpat Changes

2008-08-18T13:44:00.000-07:00

I’d like to welcome all of our registered users, and to those users that aren’t registered I’d like to just take a moment to beg you to register. Ok, I’m just joking. I won’t beg. I’ll just whine and plead until I annoy you enough to register.
Since UberSpat is a new website, we don’t have a very large user base as of yet. We do expect that to change as we begin begging for more users. I’m sorry, I mean advertising. As we begin to advertise more, we should get more users. However, we’ve held off on advertising until we make some adjustments to the program. If everything tests out well, UberSpat will be updated with these changes this week.
So you ask, “What are these change?” Thank you for asking. Even if you didn’t ask, I’m going to tell you anyway. That’s the power I hold in my little blogging fingers. Ok, here it goes… Users are sent directly to the Spat page whenever they click on the expand/collapse buttons. Unfortunately this does not look quite as pretty and exotic as the old way of expanding the spat on the main page, but we think it might help new users. In the future we will probably make this an option that each user can set, once they register.
We are making the comment voting buttons show up in color even when users are not logged in. We did this for what we like to call a better look and a more mouthwatering appeal. Ok, I lied about that. I honestly doubt it will make anyone’s mouth actually water, but it should look a bit nicer.
We’re improving the size of the windowpane for our help pages, and adding a help link to the UberSpat Support section. Now that’s a winner. No more searching for help, now it will be right there at your fingertips. I know, I know what you’re saying. You feel spoiled don’t you. Yes you do, yes you do.
We’re adding a new register now section at the top of the page. That’s right, all part of our devious plan to capture more users. We call it our Venus flytrap. I had suggested hypnotic animation, but I was out voted. Hopefully it works, and we capture thousands of new users.
The “All Spats” tab will be renamed “Popular Spats” and it will be automatically sorted by the most popular spats in the past 24 hours. The “Up & Coming” tab will be renamed “New Spats” and will be sorted by the newest spats.
That’s it, that’s the majority of our new changes. Now I bet you feel happy that you’re well informed aren’t you? Well, get busy, start spatting. God, have I got to do everything?

Brian Yakman

Welcome to UberSpat

2008-07-18T12:12:00.000-07:00

I'd like to start out my first blog by welcoming everyone to UberSpat. My name is Brian Yakman and I am one of the founders of UberSpat. The concept of UberSpat is that it's a community where people can go to debate a topic of their choosing, or research both sides of a particular debate.UberSpat was conceived out of the notion that most articles are biased toward one particular point of view. For example, if you look for articles related to global warming, most will either indicate that global warming is caused by man, or that it has nothing to do with man. Typically these articles do not explore more than one point of view to any great depth. That's where UberSpat will stake its claim.UberSpat will provide its users with both sides of a debate. Those who support the debate will have an opportunity to add their articles of evidence and opinions, as well as those who oppose the debate. We propose that this is the means of a more meaningful debate, a debate where facts are presented from opposing sides of an issue, where substance is important and where everyone can be heard. This is democratic, this is fair, and ultimately, this is what UberSpat is all about.The French essayist Joseph Joubert once wrote "It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it." With that, I encourage you to become part of the UberSpat community and help the world sort out its issues in a meaningful and spirited forum.