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Thrilled with Sphinn - Iffy About Stalking
I, for one, am jumping around with excitement about this new SM creation. I see this as a wonderful opportunity to get more familiar with the inner workings of an SM site, in a really positive, creative environment.
I know Sphinn is still in beta and I really appreciate the bugs thread as it's helping me figure out why I'm having some trouble with a few of the functions at present. I know Danny & Co. will get these all hammered out.
My topic of discussion isn't about a bug, but rather,a brief snippet of social commentary. I'm concerned that the choice of the term 'stalking' may be off-putting to some potential members. It's a word with a bad connotation, and a frightening one for any woman or man who has ever been stalked in real life.
Here are some alternative suggestions:
following
pursuing
watching
investigating
appraising
valuing
considering
greeting
saluting
It's probably not a big deal, but I'd like to hear what other new Sphinners feel about the use of the word stalking.
9 Comments
Comments
You raise a good point, Miriam. I had that same hesitation at first but quickly glossed over it as a component of the site. But now that you mention it, I agree it can be off-putting and conjures up images of creepy internet stalker types.
I think it's funny, but then, I have a domain name that gets blocked by netnanny filters, so I may not be the best judge. I feel like the term "stalker" to refer to people who follow others online (via social networking particuarly) has become fairly common usage, but I could be wrong. I know I use it a lot. Maybe I'll do some quick research on that...
Michelle our technology directory suggested the name when we were brainstorming, and we both thought it was pretty funny. Of course, we did have a small discussion on whether we might have some people who have really been stalked, which we agree is a scary and bad thing. But we felt despite that, it could also be a fun and different way to describe things here. Anyway, glad you started the thread -- let's here what others have to say.
I was pretty sure this would come up when I suggested we use "stalker/stalking", and with complete sensitivity to people that have been stalked, I really did feel like it was the appropriate name to describe what it is. I know typically 'followers' is used - and that would work as well, but we wanted to be unique. And I thought we should call it was it is - I do feel like there's no difference online if a stranger decides to 'be your friend' or 'follow' you than in the real world. And I'd call that person a stalker :-)
But you are right, if there are users out there that have been stalked, that's serious and no joking matter, and there's no offense intended at all.
I appreciate hearing others' thoughts on this.
I have not forgotten the recent disturbing events surrounding Kathy Sierra and guess I am feeling rather sensitive to language use and how difficult it can be to judge the intent of certain words when you are reading them on a web page, as opposed to hearing someone speak them in person.
Likely, if the main users of Sphinn will be search folks, everyone will get what is meant by 'stalking'...but if the audience expands into the small business realms, I believe people may be puzzled by the word and not enjoy the idea of depicting themselves as a stalker in order to make friends.
I could certainly be wrong about that, of course. I do thank Danny and Michelle for explaining the thought behind this, and Amy and Vanessa for sharing how this is striking them.
Miriam
I'm torn on this one. Over at LiveJournal, a community blog site, they have "Friends" as a way of letting you lock your blog to the public but let a select few read it. What became a bigger feature of LiveJournal is the "Friends Page" and this is an aggregate of all the recent posts by your friends and therefore the place most LJers go to read other people's LJ.
The term is evocative. I've seen countless comments along the lines of "What? I'm not your friend any more?", met with a reply of, "We are friends, I'm just too busy to read all your LiveJournal posts."
It's an awkward movement.
At LiveJournal I like to tell people to get a grip! It's only LiveJournal. It's not a mirror of real life. A LiveJournal friend isn't a real life friend. If LiveJournal matters that much to you then you're too caught up in community blogging and it's time to take as step back!
However, I wonder if LiveJournal regret using such an emotive word as "friend" to describe the feature. Probably not. (And there have been mini petitions to them to try and get them to change it)
Of course, Sphinn is very different. For a start, due to Sphinn's scope it has a professional bias and therefore home to thicker skinned adults.
I didn't use the Stalker feature on my first trip to Sphinn because it didn't reach out and grab me as a good thing to do.
I think I was at least 10 hours into sphinning before I started to read through the guts of the help files. It was there I discovered that stalking allowed you to message people and become their friends.
That's why I started to stalk people!
I guess if that was a marketing survey then "Stalk" would have failed the test. The concept didn't sell itself to me without help.
Do I think sphinn should change it? Actually, I don't think so. These are my second impressions of sphinn. Now that I'm here and can see how everything works - I get the stalking joke. It is a joke.
The SEO community has its own stars (just as it has its unknown talents) and I do suspect "stalking" is a funny/quirky way of describing the attention they get from some of their readers in their fan base. The concept of Stalking seems to import easily over to Sphinn!
Long comment, huh? Let's rush to a conclusion.
Keep it - unless we see a too low percentage of sphinners using the feature.
"Stalking" has negative connotations. I think it would encourage people to use it more readily if it were called something else. I can see the humor-angle, but frankly I'm prejudiced against it.
I applaud Sphinn for taking the chance in using a word that would scare the traditional corporate mindset. Let's face it, this group of people pretty much embraces web geekery and doesn't hide the fact that we are all pretty much nerds with a weird sense of humor and taste. How many times am I gonna listen to Danny talk about his Xbox360 (which totally rocks)... I can't imagine that people would be shocked by the phrase "stalker" when there are plenty other topics that get used casually in posts or being linked to.....
With that being said, I don't think the world is ready for a mattcrouchnude.com
stalkers kind of freaks me out, but not any more so than the admirers on mybloglog. although mybloglog clearly identifies admirers as people who have added you as contact and that you can add them as well or ignore them. much like a friend request on myspace or facebook. i'm still not sure if it's the same thing with stalkers? oh, i guess so, i should've read the help more.