As has already been mentioned in various forum threads, Wednesday night’s deployment was an important one. We changed a few things and laid the groundwork for other significant improvements in the site’s appearance and function. After quite a few hours of background tasks and making sure that we didn’t break the site, we can begin showing you the first of those improvements.

We’ve redesigned the full profile page to make it sleeker, easier to use, and just plain more fun.

Note: Not everyone will see the new profile right away! We will be introducing it gradually until 50% of people have it. After that, we’ll do a split test to see how it changes people’s use patterns and activity.

Since we know you’re dying of curiosity, here are some screenshots. As you can see here, the top portion of the profile contains basic facts and info about you. The “about me” extends down into the page if you click for more, and each of the stats in the upper right can be clicked for a full listing.

Below that, the page is divided vertically. Roughly two-thirds is devoted to the activity feed, and one-third is devoted to a series of modules for other things.

::record screetches to a stop:: ACTIVITY FEED, did you say?

Yep! People have been asking for years for better ways to know what their friends (and other people they admire) are up to on the site. Your profile feed will show when you…
- favorite a game
- earn a badge
- follow someone
- are followed by someone
- post in a forum thread
- comment on a game
- level up
- leave a shout for someone else
- receive a shout
- share art/sound
- complete a challenge

For now, you’ll need to visit each person’s profile separately to view their feed. Once we have the kinks worked out, we’ll be launching a collected feed (on a separate new page) that will give you a way to skim over activity by everyone you follow. Until then, make the rounds and enjoy adding snarky comments on your friends’ activities.

But wait, there’s more!

To go along with the improved social features, we’ve implemented hover profiles. Basically, anywhere on the site that you see a name or avatar, you can mouse over it to learn more about the person.

If you’re ever wondering who someone is, or whether you know them somehow, or if they’re as cool as their username suggests, this should help you figure it out.

But I get some choices, right???

Well, of course. For starters, you can alter some of your settings by clicking the blue “edit profile” button and scrolling down:

You’ll also have the ability to delete shouts and block the person who posted them. Just hover over the upper-right corner of the post and use the dropdown that appears.

To clarify blocking vs muting: blocking means that the person cannot post on your profile, whereas muting means you cannot see their chat comments AND they cannot post on your profile.

These features are still in beta

The new profile, the feed, the hover profile… this was a very large undertaking. The development team fully expects that there will be bugs and that they will need to make adjustments based on how people actually use these features in practice as opposed to how they function in theory. We’ll be listening to community feedback in order to gauge which changes or additions seem most important.

If you find bugs or have suggestions, please post them in this thread. It would be a big help if you’d clearly label them as bug or suggestion just to keep things clear.

I’ll get the party started! I found a bug in my feed when I was making this post. Based on what I see elsewhere, I’m guessing that should be “their.”

(PS. To grammar-lovers everywhere, yes, I know using “they” for a single person is incorrect. On the other hand, there are lots of people who don’t specify their gender, or don’t want us to share it, and it gets too confusing to try to do his/her/its. Plus what about the people who list their gender as hot fudge? So “they” is fine.)

Hover profiles don’t seem to work in IE. (Don’t hate me for using IE, it’s a school computer)

Sorry, it will be a couple more moments before hover profiles go live. Hang in there.

Yay, Kong turns even more Facebook-y!

not yay, I hate FB

Can we have the option to get rid or disable our shout box?

People who are attention whores have use for it, may like it, but I like how it was, and I would appreciate an option to turn it off. I just screenshot my profile, just to remember old times.

Originally posted by Draconavin:

Can we have the option to get rid or disable our shout box?

You mean the box at the top of the feed that allows people to add a comment to your feed? The only way to do that is to make your profile private.

Hover profiles are now live — try mousing over someone’s avatar here in this forum to see it.

Looks and feels…strange.
But useful, and he have to get used to it. So one day we get on and it will be a normal thing.
Like the new layout.

you are only level 22 tricky? slacker, get more badges.

also, facebook confirmed for being a virus. anyone who becomes associated with them eventually dies. you still have time to save yourself kong!

Oh well, still want people to see things on my profile.
I prefer PMs, but I already have a message on my profile to stop any mass shouts on my profile.
People who love the shout system will probably love this even anymore :)

It looks like the badges can be categorized by difficulty – if I click a difficulty, in which order are the badges? Chronologically with the newest badges shown?

Originally posted by Bluji:

It looks like the badges can be categorized by difficulty – if I click a difficulty, in which order are the badges? Chronologically with the newest badges shown?

Yes, it’s sorted by newest first

Even though it’s starting to be a lot more like facebook, this update actually looks alright for once, aside the feed could possibly have problems such as annoyance. I don’t want to see whenever I post, that happens all the time, same with leaving people shouts.

trickyrodent shared his thoughts on Rebuild

Something I should know about, tricky? :P

Originally posted by emily_greer:

Hover profiles are now live — try mousing over someone’s avatar here in this forum to see it.

+1 for this feature, pretty neat stuff

IT WAS ALL TRUE
ALL OF IT

I didn’t get the new profile, how sad.

Overall, I think the profiles look better.

Very Facebook-y though. Not that it’s necessary a bad thing, but something to be aware of.

I don’t want to see whenever I post, that happens all the time, same with leaving people shouts.

This is very definitely a first pass at all of this, we’ll be tweaking what shows up, when it shows up and how it shows up based on feedback and data—we just wanted to see how real people use it before doing that :)

Currently for forums, the first post you make in a thread will show up, but not any subsequent posts in that thread, and we’ve limited it to posts in game related + kongregate forums, because yeah it would get really overwhelming otherwise.

Maybe I am alone in this, but I personally think this looks awesome and has many of the features I was looking for. Will hopefully have a better feedback when it’ll be live.

omg I hope this doesn’t end up in facebook games. “SANDRA HAS FOUND A GOLDEN EGG”

This update…FREAKIN ROCKS!