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Spurring Discussion (Posts) on Sphinn
Went Hot: January 25, 2008 - 12:26 pm
Posted By: billslawski 163 days ago
Topic Type: Discussion
Category: Sphinn Zone
I think it's great that news posts are so popular, I wondered if discussion posts could gain in frequency with some minor changes to Sphinn.
I do believe that the architecture of a social site can influence how it is used, and that there might be some way of calling more attention to discussions. Since Sphinn allows both News posts and Discussions, it seems like discussions were envisioned to be part of the site, perhaps on a greater manner than they are now.
One change that might make a difference is having a comments box for news stories and a comments box for discussions. Presently, comments for both inhabit the same area on the pages of Sphinn.
Anyone find that thought interesting, or have some other ideas on how to spur on more discussion posts?
Thanks.
18 Comments
Comments
While discussion posts may get people engaged in posting multiple comments, they appear less likely to gather the needed sphinns that move them to the homepage.
I like the idea of discussions but how do we discover the conversation and let others know in a timely manner?
Perhaps the integration of services like twitter (many users are on there) with messages like: there's a discussion going on at sphinn, join in on the conversation. sphinn post link
What says you?
Good thought, Bill. I attempted to Twitter this but Twitter seems to be off-line for the past little while. Perhaps Twitter is not fully scalable.
Sadly I have to admit how clueless I can be. I only just now figured out how to start a discussion post. With all the tools to submit content to Sphinn and social news sites in general I almost never submit content directly through a site.
I'd always thought the 'Submit' button up top was for submitting a news item and it never occurred to me that it could be for submitting a discussion post as well. The saddest part is I've actually looked for how you start a discussion and still never clicked on 'Submit'
I hunbly admit my shortcomings in case there's anyone else out there who's as clueless as I am.
I think when people want to begin a discussion piece, others may see it as a waste of time.
Depending upon who submits the discussion, what someone may have to gain/not gain by commenting, and/or time availability etc..will play a role in Sphinns as well as the actual presentation of commentors, etc..
As so many want to discuss their viewpoints, they will try to follow the idea by directing traffic to their personal site in order to draw visitors as opposed to discussing it without kudos on a Sphinn discussion platform.
It is sad to say, but a reality.. as so many marketers have a tendency to be this way inclined. (not all marketers of course, but you get the point)
I tried starting two discussions relevant to the community in important, productive ways: asking for ways to get free, non-google feed analytics; seeing what people were thinking of the variety of google maps updates (not just in universal search, folks!). Neither went anywhere.
Sphinns to hit the front page are one thing, but for a large part people don't care to converse here, which is a shame. You try, but people ignore it... Not motivating to continue starting discussion,y'know?
At the right side of pages we have at present a category:
Top 10 Most Sphunn
In What's New
To make discussion posts more visible and accordingly encouraging discussions, Danny and Co may wish to add another category:
Top 10 Most Sphunn Discussion Posts
In What's New
@Harihth: Good idea..How about "Recent Discussions"
@SpostareDuro
Sounds good too ;-)
It's indeed interesting. I now seek out discussions by looking the right sidebar where last comments are posted. Sometimes there's a good hint of something good there.
The other thing I've noticed is that two discussions on hot topics often happens, where comments are on the actual blog post and here at Sphinn. It creates this back and forth clicking to keep up with the conversation if its something you're interested in.
We sometimes use the Cre8asiteforums blog to point readers to hot discussions inside the forums. I wonder if there's a way for Sphinn to do something similar where a moderator purposely promotes the really productive discussions to inspire more involvement? I don't come here to drop links and promote posts as much as I come looking for the community to see what's on their minds.
In fact I wrote, for around 4 months ago, something related to the subject of this thread:
"News Story" vs "Discussion": Unfair Competition On Sphinn!
==================
You might have noticed that "Discussion" submissions would seldom make it to Sphinn front page "Hot Topics", unfortunately. The reason is the inherited weakness of Spinn's rating system.
At present a submission needs to be sphunn 20 times in order to make it to "Hot Topics".
The majority of "News Story" submissions cover articles on blogs. Those articles are exposed to sphinning in two ways. They could be Sphunn by the visitors of the blogs as well as the visitors of Sphinn.com.
While "Discussion" submissions are only exposed to sphinning on Sphinn.com.
And that is an unfair competition where "News Story" submissions have much bigger chances than "Discussion" submissions to reach the "Hot Topics".
To bring a balance to the equation, Danny & co might wish to consider to lower the number of sphinns required for "Discussion" submissions to reach the "Hot Topics".
================================
Gab makes good points. Many of the people on Sphinn are the ones I'd most want to have conversation with. I've been interested in the map changes and look forward to conversations related to new changes.
@bwelford: twitter can get wonky but seems to be the place most people from here are gathered at.
@Harith & @SpostareDuro: I like those ideas as well.
I like the idea of having a 'Discussion' tab on the horizontal nav bar, between 'Greatest Hits' and 'Comments'. There's enough space for one more tab. Set up a feed just for discussion posts as well. :)
A 'Latest Discussions' section on the sidebar as Harith and SpostareDuro has mentioned, would be great too.
There are a lot of good ideas in this discussion. Thx for starting it Bill.
You're welcome, Matt.
I was wondering if this post would evolve into a discussion, and I'm really happy to see that it has. Thanks, everyone. There are a lot of good ideas.
Hey, Bill, look...you started a discussion that's got all these comments in it! I'm with you 100% on the idea that a discussion tab would be a great addition to Sphinn.
Kim - I do exactly the same thing now, looking at the comments. Sometimes some of them are really funny and you just have to click on them (or interesting, or weird, etc.). I wondered if anyone else was clicking through on those!
Miriam
I wish to see Danny or Rob to chime in on this thread.
I will on Monday. Saw it late Friday when I was signing off and wanted to read through everything and the ideas. Short story is, I'd love to see and encourage more discussions.
Danny,
Thanks for chiming in. Hopefully we would see soon practical steps taken to boost the visiblity of discussion posts as well as encourage more discussions as you mentioned.