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- Sphinn It!
Posted By:
steaprok
101 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.bigoakinc.com)
Category: Sphinn Zone
24 Comments
Posted By:
steaprok
101 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.bigoakinc.com)
Category: Sphinn Zone
24 Comments
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Comments
I couldnt agree more and had a similar reaction when I saw this post was going hot. But you know I choose just to ignore this stuff now. Sphinn for me is still a good source of news that I am looking for so I just look past all the social media fluffers.
This issue has already been discussed by the Sphinn team and an update to our submission guidelines should follow shortly.
I don't see the big problem. There are 20 stories on the homepage, how difficult is it to ignore just one of them. And if you don't like Sphinn then simply don't use the website, I for one find great value in the news I get over here.
Regarding the Lisa story I think it's a credit that sphinn is such a close knit community and we can know our members personally, I don't know any other websites like that. Maybe it didn't deserve to be frontpaged but if it stops you from using a site then you musn't have enjoyed it that much in the first place.
Well it was a big fluffy. I voted it up because I found Patrick's writing very funny. As long as the balance is in the favour of serious/quality articles, I can put up with the occassional human interest story slipping through.
In the last week or so quality has gone up here though. People seem to be using the Desphinn button more which is cool. @boorishamerican, you "had a similar reaction when I saw this post was going hot". If you felt that strongly then why didn't you desphinn it?
I'd be interested in seeing those new submission guidelines. I found nothing wrong with wishing Lisa happy birthday or linking to a post about it. Does this mean Sphinn can't do the same for Danny Sullivan?
I depshunn because I consider Sphinn a Community made up of an industry that's over a decade old. Friendships and history most certainly exist. People like to celebrate people. If birthdays are not Sphinn-worthy, perhaps a category for things like weddings, engagements, job announcements and birthdays is needed.
I desphinn the porn and topics that have nothing whatsoever to do with the industries covered here. I also either desphinn or spam the 50th post about Google/Adobe Flash. WE KNOW ALREADY! Read before sphinning.
NickWilsdon - my honest answer for not desphinning is I just didnt want to stir the pot. Meh, I mean I have no idea who that women is. When I saw that submission upcoming it was clearly going to go hot so no reason to fight everyone I guess.
I really agree with you guys thoguh to some extent. If its on or two lower content submissions that go live every now and again I will probably be ok :) I stand behind my sphinn though because I wouldnt want to see stufff like this all the time.
Oh good. I was afraid I was the only one rolling their eyes when a happy birthday post went hot.
To be honest I considered desphinning, my respect of Lisa put aside. However I chose to ignore too - but saying that, I was responsible for a similar submission way back, http://sphinn.com/story/40860.
However, maybe the watercooler category isnt so bad - but maybe they shouldnt be sphunn. Its interesting news, just not frontpage worthy.
much ado about nothing. if you're getting good info from sphinn and you stop using it because you can't ignore the occasional irrelevant post then you're a dumbass.
I for one am not terribly fascinated by the apparently endless articles about twitter and plurk, but if I only get 1 decent article a day out of Sphinn it's worth it.
Even though I'm a huge fan of Lisa, I Sphunn this because you expressed your opinion clearly and respectfully, and I agree with your overall message, despite the example you used to support it.
I didn't mind the birthday post going hot, simply because it delivered as advertised. If I didn't know Lisa Barone, I could just as easily scroll past it and read something else. No big deal.
What I DO mind is the "gated community" environment, where a select group of people all vote up each other's articles, with little regard for the quality or originality of the articles' content. These are not as easy to spot, and therefore I end up wasting several minutes of my time before I realize the article has no real substance or value... it simply went hot because of the author's popularity.
Of course I have the option to Desphinn it... but that only works in theory. In reality, Desphinning a useless article will only get you kicked out of the gated community--and it will never offset the number of Sphinns that the author's clique can cast.
The search marketing industry is a relatively small group of people, so Sphinn is naturally going to be more susceptible to personal favoritism. Ideally, every article submitted would be judged on its content alone, but unless the site makes everything completely anonymous, that's not going to happen. It's always going to be a popularity contest to some degree.
I guess that's good news for nice people like Lisa Barone, but bad news for people like me whom no one likes. ;)
"where a select group of people all vote up each other's articles, with little regard for the quality or originality of the articles' content."
Yes, I agree. This is much worse than birthday posts.
I don't typically sphinn the usual happy bday posts, but this one was different as there was a very funny page to go with it. I had a big laugh and that's always worth a sphinn.
So how old is young Lisa anyway? :)
"Does this mean Sphinn can't do the same for Danny Sullivan?"
Yes, it does. Personally, I haven't found the Happy Birthday posts to be that annoying. You get maybe one per week, and it did give a sense of community spirit. However, they obviously do annoy other people. The idea of maybe making it so they can happen but only be seen in the watercooler area is interesting. But I think the guideline Rob will be putting out will just be to say no, for now.
I'm an outsider, and I guess most of those who read Sphinn are more or less outsiders, because only an elitist inside circle thinks that they are THE industry. So I don't give a damn about birthdays, child births and marriages, in fact about "community". I'm interested in up-to-date news and original insight, filtered by professionals.
But...
Such a post steals about one second of your life before you realize it's not something you're interested in. There's not much harm done.
A post with a slick title that seems to offer something of value, and then it's just some remixed, repackaged content is much worse because those are real time-wasters.
I see plenty of those. Written by some better-known individual, nicely formatted, faking to be comprehensive or ground-breaking -- but at the end of the day... just nothing gained from reading them. Those "so what" posts could be a reason for not liking Sphinn, not stupid little birthday posts.
"What I DO mind is the "gated community" environment, where a select group of people all vote up each other's articles, with little regard for the quality or originality of the articles' content."
I couldn't agree more with you, Darren! Being a "close knit community" can certainly have its advantages, but unfortunately favouritism prevails here. Even articles about that magic blue pill and 4th of July search-engine logos are voted for. The favouritism displayed by the inner circle of Sphinn also dilutes the impact that the number of votes can have. Perhaps we may even witness Sphinn become the Digg of the internet-marketing industry in the near future?!
Why waste your time with such things? If you hate Sphinn and how things go, then you must hate every social media / bookmarking site too, huh? Not only does a small group ususally go hot but if you look around you will see many of the terrible people that manipulate things so horribly, dominating most the other sites too.
You have two choices:
Join the club.
Get out.
I have chosen the latter and I enjoy it. It's up to you but why waste your time complaining about it? Either beat them at their own game or..... Find a different game.
"What I DO mind is the "gated community" environment, where a select group of people all vote up each other's articles, with little regard for the quality or originality of the articles' content."
I'll will second, third, and fourth that sentiment.
Would like Sphinn to expand its scope to include more stuff on Basic, Intermediate, and Advance on-page, white hat, natural organic SEO. There is too much emphasis on link development in Sphinn.
I disagree. Take a look around. There are plenty of sphunn articles on those topics. If there weren't, I certainly wouldn't have much interest in sphinn either.
@ChrisLang
Err..I think you may mean "former" there not "latter" ;)
You guys do know this sphinn is a month old yes?
@Jill
I am thinking in terms of a New Category devoted just to real SEO. Or something like the following.
What I find a bit odd is that some posts about life milestones (ie. Person A is pregnant) go hot while others get marked as spam. That shouldn't be. And if Sphinn turns into a "Happy Birthday!" zone so be it. Most people like birthdays.
@sza
Ditto!
All this posting of drivel on all the social media is a major time waster.
@ChrisLang
That is one of the games being played on Sphinn. It is called commenting and voting on Sphinns.
Well, Okay.
I haven't been to sphinn since I wrote this post on my blog about "Why I don't Like Sphinn" and I have not been visting or using this site, as promised, and haven't missed out, in my opinion. I returned today as I was informed that quite a few comments had been popping up of late on the sphinn of my post, and I should take a look.
Has a Sphinn gotten this many comments with so few Sphinns before. Especially with some well known names? I guess I touched a nerve, which is a good. Sphinn needs revamping and until then I will wait before sphinning again.
I still firmly agree that sphinn is a gated community (props to John for stating this again) so the people inside the gate will love it and the majority outside will find it frustrating and move on. In a way, Sphinn has become its own worst enemy - by becoming a hotspot for the "elite" Internet Marketers they have alienated many of the "trench workers".
The issue frankly is not with birthdays. Everybody likes birthdays, and they especially like it when their birthday is the one being celebrated on sphinn. The problem is that some birthdays go hot while others wallow in 1 sphinn land. So, I haven't read the updated guidelines, but do they say that birthdays can no longer be submitted as articles? If so, would that mean that Sphinn's second birthday, which will be on July 10th of 2009, won't be celebrated?