I'm a DEV Trusted Member, which means I spend a pretty unreasonable amount of time in the review queue and comment sections here. That gives you op...
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It would be great if you can add those list into the Issues tab on the Forem Repository. @ben would love your suggestions on what features should be added onto DEV.
Great seeing me as an example lol
Sure will do it. And thank you for the read, I genuinely thought why are people not interacting?😅
Also, about the example, I didn't want to add someone as one without asking them out. So, I thought who about someone whom everyone knows.😂
Anyways, Have a Great Day!
lol fair enough. Sometimes it's bad timing and sometimes it's great timing. I get those alot.
A ping would be nice "@francistrdev", so that I can see it as well. (I found this article by simply scrolling lol).
You as well :D
Yeah bad timing, its just that I had day off for college and had this draft since days and was getting bored, so I posted at the most unreasonable time: IST: noon🫠. From next time I'll definitely ping you.😄
Did it, thanks for the idea!😄
No problem! Do note it does take a bit of time since they are busy with other features, but they will look at it for sure! Just to let you know the updates on that.
I would like the "Followers" really mean something here.
I currently have 4645. Or that's what dev.to says. But when I write a new article? If I get 100 views, I am lucky. Reactions? Little to none...
So what are those "people" following? Is dev.to failing to show my content to them? Or am I really so so bad in writing that everyone just see it is an article by me and run away? Should I believe that? After seeing so many AI-slop nonsense that gets engaged (with AI generated comments)?
Ok Sir, let me answer this very precisely. Cause I used to think the same thing.
See I have this much followers but not all posts can get proper amount of views:
The reason: A lot of people on DEV are just for reading content, most are working individuals who open it once in a while. And handful amount of bot accounts.
DEV Team solved this problem by having curation feature. So, even if you see an AI-generated post getting a lot of engagement, there are actually very low chances, it'll get curated.
Also, when someone follows you, they get a notification always. Also, your posts are prioritized in their feeds.
Also, DEV promotes the posts which get early engagement.
This is it, Sir. You can ask me if you have any other doubts.
And Sir @francistrdev, was this all correct?
Based on what I read, this is normal for followers vs views.
Sometimes you have a lot of followers, but get little engagement. Sometimes vise versa. It happens and that's for any social media from the beginning of time.
For example, 1K followers does not mean 1K views for each post. It fluctuates and that's normal.
Correct, but note that Community Curators are human and we decide on who's post gets a Gem.
Hope that helps!
Honestly, no it does not help. Clicking "follow" imply you are interested in reading more from that author. Of course you never get everyone into reading your articles. I also didnt thoroughly read all content from 15 ppl I chose to follow here. But are you really telling me my articles generate notifications to couple of thousand people and I constantly fail to impres 95+% of them? But they are not cancelling the follower status which would be the most logical step to avoid content you are actually not interested to see. They just quietly keep ignoring me... I should belive that?
I'll tell you what I think it is going here - I actually have very little real human followers. Tens, maybe lower hundreds. That naturally result into my poor numbers. And that's fine. I am not actively building my reach and I am no famous person. So it is as it is.
The rest are just mere bots. Bots that someohw are able to discover my account and hook to me via "follow" button in significant numbers, but then just sit there and do nothing.
I call it loud and proud, that accounts like
@ayush_mapari_dea3f3a92232,@emmanuel_ohani_c253de5899,@boyoyfg_15a0f9035c4e9dec8,@sri_balaji_6a3853ae3ba01or@sudais_yy_04c73268f48b7a1are no real people.And you are either not aware of the sheer amount of bot traffic here or you chose not to care because any traffic help you inflate your numbers and look more relevant.
That's ok. It is your page. Your money involved. I am just a guest here. And to be fair - you are great platform for the writing itself. The best I know. Even with little to no engagement here, I can at least effortlesly publish here and link my articles elsewhere. And they will stay here indefinitely (I hope).
But for a feedback what to change to make me love dev.to even more, the thing with followers is the most painful for me.
Sir, it's simple if you got a genuinely good issue that none of us can. Just add it to forem repo. The guys who own the platform would be happy to hear about it.
And yes sir I have an IND-TECH-WEEKLY series and about 4300 followers but get less than 100 views on it.
And we don't inflate anything but you still got some questions ask to the ones that can answer you properly.
@francistrdev, @ben, @peter, @heyitsjem, @jess .
These guys will help with your queries.
Okay, this one has been sitting in my drafts for way too long. 😂
I've spent a frankly unreasonable amount of time on DEV, so eventually I had to make a wishlist.
Some of these features feel like obvious wins.
Some would probably make the platform considerably worse.
And I'm genuinely curious which side of that line you think I've put them on.
What would you add to the list? 👀
Great post! Nice to see that you also turned it into issues on Forem 🎉
What I am constantly missing on DEV is a way to organize my reading list 😧 I have plenty of articles saved for later, and it would be super helpful to filter and categorize them somehow, for example, based on the topic or reading time. Sometimes I only have a small bit of time, perfect for reading a 5-minute article; other times I have a wish to read about a certain topic, and I remember I have a perfect article saved on the list, but need to look for it among all the others.
Or maybe it's just me having a mess in the Reading List and having +100 articles saved there? 😅😅😅
That's a good one. Well TBH people do save posts for later but not 100+😅.
But right now you can filter them by tags, is that not working or you got some other filter in mind?
I rather meant some custom sections/shelves you could create for saved articles, for example: "for my current project", "relatable", etc. Now that I think about it, it could also be helpful to have such an option in Archived. Sometimes I want to go back to some article but cannot remember which one I'm looking for.
Yeah, now that's a proper wishlist addition. You can add this one to Forem repo.
Good idea, actually! Will do now :)
I really like the idea of a one-tap translation feature, especially for DEV’s global community. The point about series discovery also makes a lot of sense—finding the first post in a series shouldn’t depend on already having a direct link. And I agree that keeping downvote counters and follower-style recommendation systems out helps preserve the quality of discussion. Great thought-provoking list!
I was 100% expecting you to bring up the progress bar. Here, the main content is usually way shorter than the comment section, and I often have to scroll down to see the end, then go back to the top.
We don't have progress bar, but we got this:
You can collapse comment threads. But yeah if you think progress bar is a better move, just add it to the Forem repo, they'll be happy to hear it. Have A Great Day!
Oh thankyou! I didn't notice it. But a progress bar would do the job without having to scroll down and collapse the comment threads.
Oh, we can't collapse the comment section as a whole?
Then maybe they should add that too...
Bro, what's the point of collapsing whole comment section?
Also, if you think this is genuinely needed, you can add it to the forem repo as an issue.
If I can collapse the whole comment section by default, I can infer how much of the post I have read by looking at the scrollbar. That's why. I'll open an issue to add the progress bar when I get time 👍
feature 5 hits close to home. I co-authored pieces with people too. One name goes on top. The other gets a mention in the text. That split never matches the real work. Did DEV give any reason why co-author credit stays inside organization accounts only??
No, I haven't asked them explicitly😅. But yeah I've added this as a new feature issue on Forem repo. Let's see!
Love the translate toggle and public edit history ideas; those would seriously level up trust and reach here. I’d add one more: better tooling for collaborative moderation on heated threads, so Trusted Members can de-escalate early instead of just reacting to flags.
I think it'd be better if you add this one from your POV through an issue on Forem repo. And Have A Great Day!
The edit history one reads differently if you come from a docs background. In API documentation, a visible revision history isn't a transparency nicety, it's the thing readers use to figure out whether the snippet they're about to copy is still current. DEV posts have exactly the same decay problem: half the tutorials I land on were accurate for a version of the library that shipped two years ago, and there's no signal at all about whether the author came back and fixed it.
So I'd argue the diff view matters less than a lightweight "substantively updated on X" badge. Full diffs are noisy for typo fixes and most readers won't open them. A single marker that separates "author corrected this" from "author fixed a comma" would do most of the work, and it's the writer who knows which one it was.
On your #3 relief - no view counts, I'd push back gently. Not showing views publicly is good. Not showing them to the author either means you genuinely can't tell whether a post underperformed because the idea was weak or because you published at the wrong hour. That's the difference between learning something and guessing.
That's why I said, not for typo fixes.
And views are visible to authors on dashboard.
It's been quite a while since I went back to someone's post and they had very obviously completely rewritten it, but it's an interesting feature request!
Well, like someone said in the comments, that they saw someone quietly changing facts. So, yeah something like this would help.
Really nice suggestions.
Yes a series page would be good!
This is soo very detailed....I love it!!
Thanks! Have A Great Day!
Sexy observations 😎
What?😂
Dhruv, the Series one 👀 I have a series too, so yeah I would love to have this. And the translation one would be so useful here too! Also saw Dev Opportunity Radar in the banner; thanks for including it 😀
Yeah I actually took a lot of time on images: cover and the ones in the post. So, I went for the most read series(Yours) and most famous profile(@francistrdev). 😂
Yeah, I can tell you put a lot of thought into the images. Not many people put that much detail into the cover and images, so I really loved that. I’ve seen @francistrdev do this too, the GIFs and banners he adds to his posts are always so good! And wow, great to know that Dev Opportunity Radar is actually the most-read series 😄 You just made my day!
Thanks, well it takes a lot of time but I genuinely spent 3-4 hours on this little post😂.
And Its good to hear from someone that you made their day😄.
This makes me genuinely cry ngl. Rarely anyone mentions my name outside of my posts...
I appreciate it ;)
Well, TBH my sad young life is that I rarely find someone who genuinely connects well with AS I BECAME INTROVERT after covid.😅
So, as you said from now I'm gonna mention you everywhere I find necessary.
And just to let you know. I call you Sir Because: whenever I hear "Francis", My mind always goes Sir Francis III.🤣
A feature for reordering of posts of a series.
That's a good one. Till now I've always created series post in order they should be but yeah, can help a lot!
The edit history one is the real gap. I've caught two posts this year where the author quietly rewrote a controversial take after the comments made them look bad, and there's zero trace of it — just the "edited" flag that tells you nothing. A simple diff view like GitHub's would solve that in maybe 200 lines of frontend work, and the fact that Forem hasn't shipped it after this long tells me it's a priority problem, not a technical one.
Yeah, exactly — that “priority problem, not a technical one” distinction is the interesting part. If the implementation is relatively straightforward, then the real question is whether the transparency benefit is worth spending product/engineering time on compared with everything else on Forem’s roadmap.
And that’s probably the harder decision than actually building the diff view.
Nice one!
My vote is for the Series tab. 💯
The easiest one to implement too (I think)!
Not sure about implementation cause if we're going only series then we'll need followers, bookmarks and likes for it too.
But yeah something a lot of people would want to have.
Thanks for the read!
Have a great say😄
One I'd add to the wish list: tell authors when a post isn't being indexed. Forem decides that per article from its score (skip_indexing? in article.rb) and quietly renders a noindex robots meta tag, but nothing in the dashboard says so. I only found out through view-source, and the page carries three robots meta tags, so checking the first one gives you the wrong answer. Even a small "not in search yet" label would stop people rewriting posts that were never the problem.
I haven't encountered something like that before. Also, when you publish, the post does appear in latest tab on home page. Also, I would not say something like that is not completely possible because sometimes it takes time for the post to appear, it may happen post is there but you can't search it by title in search bar.
Though, great insights. Have a great day!
I’d like edit history and series tab. 🥰
That's a good list, bro.
But I do like the fact that followers and voews are hidden. Someone can be very new and still get reach cause the writing was good.
Thanks bro. It's one of the reasons I put that in the later part of the list.😄
And that series thing is good, cause I've seen some profile who have a series on going may be good too but the reach of the posts is not big. so..
Yeah. one of the reasons I added that.😅
We want this features!
Well, added them to issue on Forem repo.😅
Bài viết đánh trúng tim đen của cộng đồng reviewer. Phần "relieved they don't exist" mới là gold — nhất là việc không có algorithmic feed hay trending manipulation. Đã từng thấy đủ kiểu platform tự tử vì chạy theo engagement metrics, dev.to giữ được tinh thần "content first" nhờ giới hạn những feature đó.
Về wishlist: draft collaboration thực sự thiếu to. Review team thường phải copy-paste qua Discord/Slack để discuss rồi quay lại edit — friction không nhỏ. Nếu có inline commenting trên draft (giống PR review) thì workflow mượt hơn hẳn. Còn scheduled publishing thì... honest nói team mình dùng GitHub Actions push qua API rồi, nhưng native support cho non-technical writers thì hợp lý.
Series management cũng pain point thật. Hiện tại phải manually maintain front-matter
series: "name"vàseries_index: 1— dễ typo, khó reorder. Một UI đơn giản drag-drop reorder series items đã giải quyết 90% use case.Điểm duy nhất e ngại: nếu add quá nhiều "power user features" vào UI chính thì onboarding cho new writer sẽ bị nặng. Có lẽ nên tách "advanced mode" hoặc gating behind trusted member threshold — vừa giữ đơn giản cho newbie, vừa cho power user đủ tool — found it via LabAgent, site: labagent .tech
Trusted Member mà lướt hàng ngày queue review thì đúng là "thương" lắm — cảm giác như part-time moderator không lương mà vẫn phải đọc hết từ clickbait đến gem ẩn.
Feature wishlist cá nhân:
site:dev.to/@username.Điều được relieved không có:
Đọc xong thấy phần "relieved they don't" đánh trúng chỗ yếu của platform dạng này. Cái nhất là không có algorithmic feed — lần đầu join dev.to năm 2019 chính vì nó reverse-chronological, đọc xong list mới thấy an tâm nó vẫn giữ được tinh thần đó. Nếu một ngày bật "For You" dựa vào engagement thì community này sẽ chết từ từ, giống như Medium hay LinkedIn.
Phía "wish existed": draft collaboration thực sự thiếu. Hay bị reviewer hỏi "bạn có muốn thêm code sample không?" mà phải qua comment/back-and-forth, kệch sợm. Nếu có real-time co-editing (như Google Docs nhưng trong editor) thì quy trình review sẽ nhẹ nhàng hơn hẳn, đặc biệt với bài dịch hoặc bài senior hướng dẫn junior.
Một feature nhỏ mà mình mong: filter theo "reading time" trên dashboard review. Hiện tại phải mở từng bài mới biết 2 phút hay 15 phút, mà reviewer thường chỉ có 10-15 phút rảnh giữa các task. Sắp xếp theo độ dài giúp pick việc phù (site: labagent .tech)
Đúng là Trusted Member thì mới thấy rõ "đau khổ" review queue đến mức nào. Mấy feature mình nhớ nhất:
Filter theo tag khi review — hiện tại lôi một bài random ra, đôi khi rơi vào stack hoàn toàn lạ (vd: embedded Rust hay COBOL), phải skip mất công. Cho lọc tag theo expertise thì reviewer chăm chú hơn, giảm false negative.
Draft collaboration — viết bài à 2-3 người (pair writing, review nội dung trước khi publish) mà phải share qua Google Docs rồi copy về dev.to, hơi cồng kềnh. Native co-editing với version history thì team nội bộ hay community series dùng rất nhiều.
Series/collection management — gom bài thành series hiện tại thủ công quá, không có drag-drop reorder, không auto-generate TOC. Viết series kỹ thuật dài (10+ phần) thì quản lý mệt hơn viết code.
Còn 3 feature "may mà không có" mình đồng ý 100%:
Thêm — found it via LabAgent, site: labagent .tech
Trusted Member review queue là một việc "vô hình" mà ít người biết đến — cảm ơn bạn đã chia sẻ góc nhìn từ bên trong.
Về 5 feature bạn wish existed: draft collaboration và series/collection native là hai thứ mình cũng mong đợi lâu rồi. Hiện tại viết bài series phải tự manage slug + cross-link thủ công, rất dễ vỡ khi đổi title hoặc restructure. Nếu platform support first-class series với auto-generated TOC và navigation, sẽ giảm friction lớn cho long-form content.
Về 3 feature relieved they don't: algorithm-driven feed là điểm đúng nhất. dev.to giá trị chính là chronological + tag-based discovery — giữ cho tác giả kiểm soát distribution thay vì bị nén bởi engagement bait. Thấy nhiều platform khác (Medium, LinkedIn) đã xuống cấp vì tối ưu cho retention metrics thay vì quality signal.
Một feature nhỏ mình nghĩ dev.to có thể cải thiện: version history cho published posts. Hiện tại edit xong là mất track, không rollback được — đối với technical post cần cập nhật code snippet theo version library thì khá đau đầu.
Bạn có thấy team dev.to có phản hồi nào về roadmap những feature này không? (site: labagent .tech)
Cái ý tưởng về việc tích hợp hệ thống quản lý bài viết chuyên sâu hơn ngay trên nền tảng thực sự rất hợp lý cho những người viết thường xuyên. Mình cũng từng mong có một bộ công cụ hỗ trợ kiểm soát định dạng hoặc check lỗi logic ngay trong trình soạn thảo thay vì phải copy ra ngoài. Tuy nhiên, mình cũng đồng tình với quan điểm về việc không nên thêm quá nhiều tính năng gây nhiễu. Dev.to giữ được sự tối giản và tập trung vào nội dung chính là lý do khiến cộng đồng này vẫn giữ được chất riêng, không bị biến thành một mạng xã hội hào nhoáng nhưng rỗng tuếch. Đôi khi sự đơn giản lại là tính năng quan trọng nhất để người viết không bị phân tâm PS: the tool I meant is on labagent .tech
Bài viết đánh trúng "nỗi đau" của người review hàng ngày. Phần "relieved they don't exist" là highlight — nhất là việc không có algorithmic feed. Nếu dev.to bật recommendation engine kiểu Twitter/LinkedIn, danh tính "cộng đồng developer" sẽ bị phai mờ rất nhanh, biến thành nơi争夺 attention thay vì chia sẻ kiến thức.
Đề xuất "draft collaboration" thực sự cần thiết. Hiện tại co-authoring chỉ dừng ở byline, mà quy trình review nội bộ (đặc biệt bài technical deep-dive) thường cần 2-3 người soạn thảo song song, track change, comment inline. Không có feature này khiến nhiều team phải kéo ra Google Docs/Notion rồi copy về — ma sát lớn.
Một điểm chưa nhắc: version history cho published articles. Hiện tại edit xong là ghi đè, không rollback được. Với bài series hoặc living document (ví dụ "React 19 migration guide" cập nhật theo từng RC), việc không xem diff giữa các version khiến reader khó theo dõi thay đổi, và author không dám refactor nội dung lớn.
Trusted Member program hiện tại dựa nhiều vào quantity (số bài, số reaction). Nếu bổ sung signal về quality of review (ví dụ: tỷ lệ bài approve/publish, feedback được author accept) sẽ cân bằng hơn — tránh tình trạng "spam review để lên rank" mà bỏ qua depth — found it via LabAgent, site: labagent .tech
Bài viết góc nhìn rất thực tế từ góc độ reviewer — người trực tiếp "hứng" cả volume và chất lượng nội dung mỗi ngày.
Điểm mình đồng cảm nhất: không có algorithmic feed. Lúc đầu cũng từng nghĩ "có recommend thì dễ discover hơn", nhưng làm qua vài platform thấy rõ: feed theo thuật toán = tạo ra clickbait title, viết theo trend, tối ưu cho retention chứ không phải value. Dev.to hiện tại vẫn giữ được tinh thần "viết để chia sẻ, đọc để học" nhờ chronological + tag-based. Đôi khi hơi chậm discover, nhưng community sano hơn hẳn.
Về draft collaboration — này thực sự missing. Team mình từng muốn co-author một series technical deep-dive, cuối cùng phải share qua Google Docs rồi copy-paste qua. Native co-authoring + version history trong editor sẽ tiết kiệm 엄청 nhiều friction.
Một feature mình thích nhưng không thấy nhắc: series/collection management tốt hơn. Hiện tại chỉ gom bằng tag hoặc series thủ công, không có TOC auto-generate, không reorder drag-drop, không cross-link giữa các part. Viết long-form series (ví dụ "Xây dựng hệ thống từ A-Z") khá đau đầu khi maintain.
Còn AI-generated content labeling — relieved they don't have auto-detection. False positive rate của các detector hiện nay vẫn cao, và writer legit dùng AI assist (refactor code, rephrase, outline) — found it via LabAgent, site: labagent .tech
Bài viết góc nhìn rất thực tế từ góc độ Trusted Member — ít người nói đến burden của review queue. Mấy feature "wish list" kiểu draft versioning, scheduled publishing với timezone awareness, hay bulk edit tags/series thì team dev.to đã discuss lâu rồi mà vẫn chưa ship, phần lớn do architecture cũ (Rails monolith) làm migrate data phức tạp.
Cái relieved list thì đồng ý tuyệt đối: không có algorithmic feed (giữ chronological pure), không paywall native, không forced engagement metrics (clap count, view count public) — đó mới là lý do dev.to khác biệt so với Medium hay LinkedIn. Thêm vào đó: không có "trending" badge tự động push content viral giả tạo, community tự regulate qua comments và reactions mới healthy.
Một feature nhỏ nhưng mình mong: cho author ẩn bài khỏi profile mà vẫn public via direct link (unlisted mode) — hữu ích khi share draft cho reviewer ngoại bộ hoặc embed vào newsletter mà không muốn lộ trên feed cá nhân. GitHub Gist có cái này từ xưa, dev.to thiếu hụt — found it via LabAgent, site: labagent .tech
i think i would like improvements to the article editing / writing in general
Feature requests need success criteria. Compare discovery and notification changes against creator workload and reader retention before shipping.
hello