Wish list of Squidoo features 

1. Include spell checking for all module text entries.
2. Allow a person to jump to any lens by the ranking number. In addition, as part of this feature, make sure the ranking number of each lens is accurate and consistent throughout all squidoo pages.
3. Include a "print feature" that will allow users to print only the content and not all the other banner and side bars. This will help reduce the number of printed pages.
4. For lensmasters, include a summary statistics page for all lens combined.
5. Delete all lens that does not adhere to the subject matter it claims. This would include all lens that were created just for SEO competitions and not really to provide information.
6. Provide an alert feature to lensmasters when a feedback or blurb is entered for a particular lens. This would help the dialog between readers and authors.
7. After a lens is completed, it would help to click on a button that will suggest "good" tags for the lens in question based on the CONTENT. These tags will help in the search and the ranking of the lens.
8. Allow other methods of payment besides PayPal. This would help some worldwide charity organizations that currently do not have PayPal support in those countries.
9. Periodically prune out lens that do not get any traffic or ratings...They can be moved to an "Archive of lens" that are preserved but inactive.
10. Add a list of TOP 100 lensmasters.
11. To minimize fraud, Squidoo should enforce one registration per lensmaster. This way, a lensmaster could not create a second account merely to use it to improve the ranking of his other lens created in a different account.
12. Create a directory of all lensmasters alphabetically by last name so they can be easily identified. I understand this may conflict with personal and privacy issues. However, this listing can be restricted for access by lensmasters only. My personal opinion is that a lensmaster should always stand behind his or her creations. If he or she wants to be anonymous - this is not the forum.
13. Question for anyone - Does anyone know out of the 75,000+ lens created so far, how many are true lens with legitimate content? I think it is something we should know - don't you?
    My personal estimate is that 25,000 is probably close to the actual number but purely a guess.
14. Separate the ranking and create one for commercial lens and one for non-comercial lens. The reason being that these lens have very different objectives. It is like comparing apples to oranges. They are both fruits but very different in other ways. The ranking algorithm will also necessarily be different for each. Otherwise, one type of lens will be favored over the other.
15. Peer review of all lens. Allow every lensmaster to flag a lens as being "unacceptable". We can then have some volunteer trusted lensmasters review the lens and decide whether to keep or delete. This is a easy and sure way to keep the content on Squidoo on the highest level and weed out all the bad and dishonest content.
16. Add a notation on the dashboard to indicate the status of a lens (published or not). If it is not published, the lens should not be able to be rated. It is work in progress. - suggested by KilnGoddess.
17. Add a module that can create a list or linked list in Alphabetic order. This will allow the creation of a "directory" lens that is easily traversed.
18. Add an option to the dashboard to sort lens alphabetically in addition to rank.
19. It has come to my attention recently that some lens have been transferred from one owner to another. If this is the case, I think it would be wise to maintain a "owner pedigree" to keep track of the current and previous creator od all lenss. This information can be for lensmasters view only. It will help identify and track ownership of CONTENT.
20. For all commerce lens, it would be prudent to force all lensmasters to include the "contact me" function. This will insure buyers a path to contact the seller.
21. It would be nice to add a TABLE module, one that can accommodate columns of text entries.
22. It would be helpful to have a directory of my lens grouped by category. The current dashboard is always presented by ranking and this makes finding lens difficult especially when I have many lens and also it is slow to load because it is so large. By adding groups, it will help organize the lens better.

A test case... 

• Yesterday, I created 2 lens. This one and a "test" lens with zero content(no text, no links, no tags no other modules).
  The initial ranking assignment on (1/30/2007):
  Squidoo features wish list - 75333
  Test - 75406
  
  So far so good.
  
  After the initial process of the current "ranking" algorithm (1/31/2007):
  Squidoo features wish list - 5488
  Test - 6576
  
  Even though I don't have any knowledge of what the ranking algorithm is, I can state that this result shows a basic flaw in the system.
  
  My suspicion is that it is heavily weighted on the fact that a lens was "new" and just created or edited and that no other consideration is applied to this initial ranking.
  
  I will monitor the rankings over the next month and see how they progress.
  
  It would be interesting to learn what happens.
  Perhaps this will contribute to help Squidoo fine tune their algorithm.
  
  (2/01/2007)
  Squidoo features wish list - 1441
  Test - 9032
  
  (2/02/2007)
  Squidoo features wish list - 1344
  Test - 10684
  
  (2/03/2007)
  Squidoo features wish list - 1194
  Test - 12275
  
  (2/04/2007)
  Squidoo features wish list - 720
  Test - 11012
  
  This I did not expect. After 3 days of falling ranking for "Test lens", it went up slightly today. This does not make sense to me. Can anyone explain this?
  
  (2/05/2007)
  Squidoo features wish list - 910
  Test - 10493
  
  Continue rise in ranking for "Test" even though it contains no content and have not been edited since creation. Mystery???
  
  (2/06/2007 One week later)
  Squidoo features wish list - 949 (677) corrected
  Test - 5330 (10473) corrected
  
  Continued surprise of a blank content lens increasing ranking by 5000+ with no updates...(OK it was a bug)
  
  (2/07/2007)
  Squidoo features wish list - 243
  Test - 10357
  I continued to be surprised by this. A blank lens (after one week) should be at the bottom of the rank list. 70000+ instead of hovering around 10000.
  
  Continued surprise of a blank content lens increasing ranking ever so slightly.
  
  (2/08/2007)
  Squidoo features wish list - 290
  Test - 11010
  
  (2/09/2007)
  Squidoo features wish list - 290
  Test - 11377
  
  (2/10/2007)
  Squidoo features wish list - 313
  Test - 11204
  
  (2/11/2007)
  Squidoo features wish list - 345
  Test - 11116
  
  (2/12/2007)
  Squidoo features wish list - 241
  Test - 11324
  
  (2/13/2007 2 weeks later)
  Squidoo features wish list - 235
  Test - 12301
  
  Plot of ranking for my test lens:
  
  The rank plot of this lens "Squidoo Wish List":
  

Explanation of the above 2 plots on ranking 

In case you are wondering, what is the significance of the above two ranking plots. Despite the bug that seem to crept in on 2/5/2007, which is another good reason to fix this bug so that the plots will be more meaningful. The top plot is of a "test" lens that I created about 3 weeks ago. It contains no CONTENT to speak of. I've received very little hits and no ratings and I have not re-published it since the creation. It shows how the ranking behaved over that period. Very odd that it started at rank of 5400 and declined then went up slightly before a slowly decline to approx. 15,000. this was totally unexpected. The second plot is of this very lens "Squidoo wish list". I've added content to it nearly everyday and I've received many hits and I have received 5 star rating. This rank plot is a "good" plot of a "legitimate" lens. The two plots together exposes a weakness in the current ranking algorithm. One that does not take "CONTENT" into account at all.
Without knowing exactly what the algorithm is, it should exhibit certain general properties in order to have any credibility.
Most large groups of data will exhibit a gaussian or normal distribution as shown by the following.

That is in a large population of lens, there will be a small number of exceptional lens, a little more above average lens, a large amount of average lens, a smaller amount of below average lens and a few really poor lens.
An expected rank plot for a great lens should start out say around 40K rank and quickly rise to near the top of the rank and stay there or drop down slightly over time.
A poor lens should start out at 40K and quickly fall towards the 80K rank.
In the extreme case of my "test"lens, ideally, it should start out at 80K and stay there pretty much for the duration. The fact that it started out at 5400 and stayed around 10,000 and falls to 15,000 after 3 weeks is inexplicable.
I will state that I do have other lens with "content" that was created a while back that were ranked below 15,000. That is the crux of the problem. How can a "blank" lens be ranked above even average content lens? What does the rank number mean in this case? How many of the 80,000 lens are below par?

Standard testing procedure... 

Outstanding bugs? 

1. The ranking number for each lens does not always agree with the actual ranking. They can be off by a few numbers up to a few thousand depending on the actual ranking scale. This is a bug that needs to be fixed.
   
   Example:
   My current lens "Global Warming Solutions" is ranked 577 on 1/31/2007.(that is what appears on my page).
   When I click on the ranking listing, I found number 577 has "the Domestic Cat" lens next to it. When I clink on that lens, I see it is actually ranked - 580. A difference of 3.
2. For a more extreme example (1/31/2007):
   My lens "News Media" ranked 24016
   When I click over to the All lens by popularity page, I see that the lens "Media" is listed. It is ranked 26928.
   When I scroll back many pages, I found my lens at 21680 - a difference of 2336. (A significant variation of 10 per cent).
   The question in my mind is - What is my ranking?
3. The feedback feature has a bug. When a lens is first created, if this module is not "edited" to set the initial desired parameters, it defaults to:
   (1) only log in members can submit
   (2) Ask for approval before posting
   Even though it shows the default as:
   (1) only log in members can submit
   (2) Post Right Away.
   
   This creates a false impression that the lensmaster does not have to edit this module to include it.
   Because blurbs are not notified, the lensmaster does not know a blurb has been submitted by a visitor until he goes to edit that lens. This may contribute to long delay in responding.
4. The Top 100 ranked lens pages only display 99 lens. This may be the contributing factor to the problem with inacurate ranking correlation. (FIXED I think 2/11/07)
5. The plot of the ranking stats for each lens created before 12/04/2006 has an anomaly. The ranking for all lens dropped to some 50,000+ which makes the plot useless. This must have been an erroneous data point and should be removed. The resulting plot will look more meaningful without this spike.
   Here is a sample view plot of one of my lens:
   
   
   Looks like another bad data point occurred on 2/05/2007.
   

What makes a great lens... 

• A great lens should first and foremost have great "CONTENT". It should contain relevant information to the subject matter, logically layed out, include links and great images or audio or video and allow for feedback.
  
  There are a few different type of lens.
  1. Commercial lens to promote some products.
  2. How to lens - to help people do something.
  3. Information lens - to explain some concept or idea.
  4. Event lens - one that is only specific for a given time frame.
  5. Opinion lens - one that provide his or her opinion on a topic of interest.
  6. Charity lens - to promote a charity cause.
  7. Bio. of the lensmaster - introduction to the author.
  8. Artistic lens - lens that contain art, photos, poetry, fiction, crafts...
  
  Back to ranking lens:
  
  1. CONTENT
  2. Traffic - not just how many hits to the site but how long people lingers to read the content.
  3. How many links that are clicked.
  4. How many Stars are rated (weighted based on the number of stars).
  5. Number of visitors providing feedback (blurbs).
  6. Number of emails to inform others.
  7. Number of prints - people wanting to print the content of a lens probably think the information is important.
  8. SEO ranking...
  9. How much revenue it brought in.

Some ideas on improving ranking algorithm... 

1. One way to improve ranking is to take the amount of "content" in a lens into the equation. This way, a lens with very little content (text, image, links, other multimedia stuff) should be ranked less than a lens with more content (regardless of what the content is). The justification is simple. A lens with more content usually means more effort was put into its creation and hopefully will lead to a more interesting and informative lens.
2. Any algorithm on ranking can be abused. Once a "trick" is discovered, someone will take advantage of it. I don't have any specific "proof", however, just examining the TOP 100 ranked listing, I noticed some lensmasters have a disproportionate number of lens in the top 100. This can only mean two things, either they are phenomenal lens creators or they have stumbled on some "tricks". That is one reason why the ranking algorithm should be made public. Everyone should have an equal chance of creating a high ranked lens. If a "trick" or shortcut is discovered, the algorithm should be modified to correct the situation unless it does lead to a "better" lens.
3. Freshness of content. I did another experiment with one of my lens yesterday. I took an old len (ranked 25,316) and just publish it again without changing any content. Today I found the ranking increased by 5000+ (ranked 19,094). It appears that the ranking algorithm gives some weight to the freshness of lens regardless of whether the content was modified or not. This is a loophole that should be closed.
4. Today, I made another surprise discovery. I created a lens yesterday on "Environment Protection" and today found the ranking to be #573. This is the best ranking showing of all my lens after the initial creation day. What happened? This is not any special lens compared to all my other lens. It is a modest entry with a few links. Curiouser and curiouser...
   I guess the Squidoo team has modified the ranking algorithm in a major way today (2/6/2007).
   I guess the answer is a bug crept in. It does beg the question - how can an algorithm be so sensitive as to cause errors in such a major way? It does validate my point that any algorithm should be made transparent so that it can be independently verified.

Some misc. thoughts... 

• It seems to me that the "search" function within Squidoo is not working very well. I have added tags to some of my lens and have tried to search on those tags and yet the lens does not show up on the search hit list. That seems to defeat the whole purpose of tags.
  I'm not sure how often the tags are processed and updated in the search listing. Perhaps they should look into updating more often so that all tags are properly indexed.
• Let me explain my proposal why I think all lensmasters should be listed in a directory. All of us lensmasters are a loose network of volunteer "employees" of Squidoo. For various reasons, we chose to devote our time and energy and skills and knowledge to create lens for public consumption. In the process, we hope to gain some income, some funds for charities and some recognition from our peers. Like many companies and corporations, all employees are accessible to each other. They use this information not to invade the other's privacy but to communicate and to keep the organization functioning. In addition, they can monitor each other to make sure all is honest and proper. I hope I've made my case.

Guestbook 

Please submit your ideas or suggestions for improvement to Squidoo.

Loyalis Jack, this is a fantastic lens. I think the distribution these days might look more like a double gaussian (a hump on the low and high ends) and it's slowly evening out to a classic gaussian. If you'd like to talk about this at all, shoot me an e-mail or stop by the Captain Squid chat room. I know that this lens is a little out of date but theory wise I'm glad that someone else has noticed some of the same things I have. Posted February 24, 2008

KCStargazer Wow, Jack, you never cease to amaze me- never a dull lens! I'll admit to being a dream and have my own list of "dream features". We're tickled purple to have you join us at the Pimp My Lens: Great Lensmastering Tips and Tricks Group! Posted July 28, 2007

jackclee I believe it was stated on the forum by Gil that they have experimented with different weighting factor for the various star rating numbers. It probably does affect ranking but to a small degree. My guess is ranking is heavily weighted by sales and traffic. Posted March 20, 2007

sherrysplace Have you found that the star rankings influence the rank at all? Posted March 19, 2007

Margaret_Schaut this is a well thought out lens with excellent points for consideration. As a group master, I see lots of lenses that don't meet squidoo minimum standards with very high rank. squatter lenses are those with less than 3 modules. those should never rise in lensrank until they meet that minimum. Posted February 21, 2007

 

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