Lighting a candle for the dearly departed Activity Stream
There are certain things about you that will be missed:
1. You announced New Premium Members and Newly Registered Members.
- You were a not-so-subtle encouragement to get others to "join in" too.
- You gave instant recognition to newbies.
- You gave community leaders a convenient place to see and follow up on newbies listed there. (Where do they go now?)
- You were a visible way to generate a sense of "community" -- which is something that has been talked about in other places here at Stack.
2. You did four jobs in one widget and they had to replace you with two widgets, that's how good you were at your job.
- Replies and Interactions have their own widget now, and New Topics have their own. But they forgot that you also announced new members.
- You were svelte, whereas your replacement, the Content Stream widget, chews up screen real estate and visually looks like a fat blob of text.
3. You gave the appearance that "things were happening at our site."
- This meant you fostered a sense of "community" that people wanted to join -- a subject Stack blogs have been discussing.
4. You were unappreciated by others according to the people who made you.
- They say not a lot of people were using you, so you weren't important. But I thought you were important. Sure, you could have been better, but who can't?
- They say you were too complicated (code-wise), and I accept that. But you know what? Groupee/Hoop/Stack has a history of doing the impossible. They made you didn't they?
5. I know they made you disappear in Responsive Mode, but I always knew you were there lurking in the background.
- In fact, I created a page with just your widget so our community leaders could check you on their cellphones. And now, it only shows "New Topics" which makes me miss you even more.
You're dead, but I hope they will honor your memory by improving your replacements, and resurrrecting one of your most important functions by creating a widget or feature that "announces" new registered members, premium members, and renewals.
R.I.Pieces Activity Stream
Neil
