I noticed a several people suggesting features in other threads, so I'm starting one explicitly for that. I know there's a lot that needs improving; the site is pretty bare-bones at this stage. So propose whatever new features you think we need, and vote for the ones that you want most.

marking a comment up or down should use ajax- especially so browser history is preserved (pressing the back-button to get to the front page). I assume comments can be marked into the negative range for those hopefully rare occasions where it's needed? [please don't test it on me!]. Other than that I love the minimalism.

Paul, can we play with arc, go on, please, you know you want us to really, go on mate, have a heart. <smile/>

Its interesting to me that everyone here seems to have advice to offer, some of it very personally critical, to a man who is merely outlining his own train of thought, not telling anyone to follow his path. I am nearing the end of my fourth year in physics grad school and have never been closer to quitting. My own experience has been very isolating-I work long hours in the basement of a lab, limiting of my personal growth-I've been in a kind of 'stasis' where I'm in this college environment but very clearly do not fit the mold of a college student, and professionally frustrating - not only do I not have the kind of control over my project which people claim as the holy grail of a Ph.D., there is no clear end in sight to what I am doing. The only thing keeping me here is momentum and fear. Here is a man who just took his life off the usual path and spat in the face of fear. That deserves respect.

You wrote on reddit that an RSS feed is coming. If you're prioritizing that would be my first choice.

1. AJAX for the voting arrow(s); 2. RSS; 3. Search

Since community-building is part of the goal of this site, could you include an optional "location" field in the profile? I'm interested in getting in touch personally with other people in my area.

I think comments are where the action is. Three simple things that get most of the bang of markdown IMO: Working permalinks for comments, paragraph dividers and clickable links.

Whoah! Give me a little more credit than that! Octopart is a startup which we've only been working on for three months- we're no where close to being done. So far as my comments about women and society go, I think they will resonate with physics grad students and probably a few others. Otherwise, I agree, they don't make sense.

As a former employee of Lands' End, I can attest to the quality of their customer service. (The quality of the internal employee care is less good than it used to be, since back when I started there in 1998, but I could just be bitter after the I/S department layoffs! :-) Anyway, the whole customer service area is saturated in an ethic of serving the customer. It really is amazing. For example, there are no timers on the calls. Ever wonder why some CSR's are so brusk? Well, they're usually trying to beat the clock. If their average call time goes above some magic number (often as low as two or three minutes) then they get written up by their supervisor. No such problem at Lands' End. I had to smile that Joel linked to the OCS (The Online Customer Store where he orders his logo'd shirts). I was one of the lead developers on that project. :-) As for what happens to the returned items? They're sold off in the company employee store for a few dollars. If the company makes stipulations about the use of their logo, then a patch is applied over it, before selling to the employees, to protect the customers brand. As I recall, most customers don't mind.

Please don't. I vote for the simple, straightforward design you currently have.

This has got to make PG nervous. How many people's life is he affecting? :-) He's definitely had an impact on my priorities in a very big and positive way. I hope everyone who makes changes based on his inspiration and motivation does it with a clear head and can take responsiblity for the decision and outcome.