It’s time to raise the Sphinn bar

Hot News Archive

Sorry this site requires JavaScript to be enabled in your browser. See the following guide on How to enable JavaScript in Internet Explorer, Netscape, Firefox and Safari. Alternatively you may be blocking JavaScript with an advert-related or developer plugin. Please check your browser plugins.

News Source: 1
Published: Dec 03, 2008 - 02:19 pm
Story Found By: Sugarrae 3427 Days ago
Category: Sphinn Zone

It has become obvious that by having the number of Sphinns required to go hot at the low count of 23 is letting a lot of unworthy stuff hit the homepage due simply to networking. One thing that makes that glaringly obvious are posts that hit the homepage and then don’t even get another 7 Sphinns before dropping OFF the homepage. I propose the required number of Sphinns to go hot be raised to 30 in an effort to help increase the quality of homepage posts. My take anyway.

120 Comments

Comments

from yourseomentor 3427 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Totally agree!!!

from Skitzzo 3427 Days ago #

Votes: 1

While I agree that it should probably be raised, I don’t think we’ll see much of a difference in the quality of the articles going hot. The people that can get friends to push them to 23 can probably find enough friends to push them to 30 as well. Also, looking at the home page now, there are only 3 or 4 stories that have under 30 votes and they’re all fairly fresh.

from Sugarrae 3427 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Skitzzo yeah, but that’s because they hit homepage... the question is, would they ever have hit 30 WITHOUT going homepage. And if they can’t, should they ever hit homepage in the first place?

from tonyadam 3427 Days ago #

Votes: 2

I would totally agree to the change to 30...but do we really feel that is going to make the quality of the homepage any better? Or, just increase networking? (Think Digg?)...just wanted to play the Devils Advocate. :)

from dannysullivan 3427 Days ago #

Votes: 4

Might be time to take it up, though I’d suggest we go to maybe 25 or 27 first. Incremental to me is often better than dramatic. Also, with it being the holidays, activity tends to go down. We could also kick the weight of comments up. Comments do contribute as to whether something goes hot.

from Sugarrae 3427 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Maybe, but I don’t think making an entire category not "homepageable" was the solution either (having a rug to brush the crap under)... a raise in the bar might help a bit more than a scapegoat category.

from Sugarrae 3427 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Danny, prob with that is, sometimes the comments are more discussing why the post doesn’t deserve to be front page... I’d be happy with 27 as a medium... bottom line is, some people moving companies matters and some don’t (total out of the hat example, don’t go getting emo on me if you’ve changed places recently and it was on Sphinn)... raising the bar would help differentiate real news from "my friends all have Sphinn accounts"

from Sugarrae 3427 Days ago #

Votes: 0

P.S. Digg’s problem Tony wasn’t increasing the required Diggs, it was mod interference overriding community opinion.

from UtahSEOpro 3427 Days ago #

Votes: 8

There are algorithims in the works with Sphinn to raise/lower thresholds depending on variables. I agree the bar should be raised. The algorithims need to look at natural voting patterns and the like. But try getting 22 Sphinns on a weekend or during a big conference...next to impossible. Raising it to 30 would just encourage more "circle jerking" (as Rhea Drysdale says :) ) or networking (imagine the Twitter noise) to push front page submissions home.Also, FP submissions sit on there for days. That’s kind of a joke. Raising the threshold would make that worse. The excitement of visiting Sphinn for fresh content would be stale at that point. Compare to Digg where FP posts last 2 hours due to high quanity or compare to Reddit where a FP submission will be gone after 24 hours (which I think is fair).I often find good perls in the "what’s new" section that never front page which I think is kinda sad. One issue with quality is that there’s not enough quantity of quality submissions to constantly keep the FP fresh. I think that’s a large reason for not-so-great content reaching FP. I’m glad Sphinn decided on the "watercooler" area for industry inside jokes/gossip/announcements.I’m presenting on social news at IM Spring Break. Debating on making my presentation strictly about Sphinn to teach people the concepts of user submissions and participation so they can actually do more themselves about the quality of content instead.

from toddmintz 3427 Days ago #

Votes: 1

I’m with Jordan. I think 23 is a good number because I think the right number of articles are going hot. <div></div><div>Perhaps, I would give "comment power" additional weight...threads with long comment threads that stay out of the flame-throwing territory (gee, wasn’t I just in one yesterday) should go hot at a much lower threshold.</div>

from graywolf 3427 Days ago #

Votes: 11

I dont think raising the bar is going to have desired affect, I think people need to vote on good or thought provoking stuff not just back scratching posts.

from Sugarrae 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 1

>>>because I think the right number of articles are going hotTotally disagree with you there. I see a ton of crap going hot a lot of days.>>>during a big conferenceThat just goes to prove the point IMHO... when all your friends are gone, you need real votes.>>>"watercooler" area for industry inside jokes/gossip/announcementsBut some announcements ARE news. If Bruce Clay retired tomorrow, THAT would be news. If person B who 98% of the industry has never heard of takes a position at a new company tomorrow, it’s not. A raised bar would make it so the annoucement would need to be more important to go.>>>networking (imagine the Twitter noise) to push front page submissions homeI still don’t get how raising the bar affects that - except that it means your post would need to be A: good or B: important to get enough PAST the circle jerking votes to go.

from graywolf 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 6

added if your stories suck but you keep getting voted popular because your friends tell you you’re great and vote for you then:a) you will start to believe that your crap is actually goodb) you’ll never learn how to create anything really interesting

from Sugarrae 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 1

>>> think people need to vote on good or thought provoking stuff not just back scratching posts.We’ll get right on that after world peace, donating to charity and reducing the crime rate... are you serious Michael?

from Sugarrae 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

>>>if your stories suck but you keep getting voted popular because your friends tell you you’re great and vote for you thenadded: and how does keeping the threshold low help prevent that?

from Gamermk 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

@graywolf: Do you think it’s even possible for "the people" to just collectively one day vote for higher quality stories? The community is what it is. I don’t think it’s ever going to change. Social Media in general seems to be destined to always be about Water Cooler talk even if its really, really sophisiticated Water Cooler talk.

from Sugarrae 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

This post went homepage in 36 minutes and got 15 comments in the same time... because the topic was important and people are interested. It’s easy as hell to hit homepage if your post is interesting/valuable/important/discussion worthy - unfortunately, it’s also easy as hell at the moment to hit homepage because you know people. I see posts struggle to get to 21... i’d rather they have to struggle to get to 27 or 30.

from Sugarrae 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Am I guilty of being a promoter? Before someone points it out? Hell yes I am... as I’ve said many, many times, social media IS a popularity contest... raising the bar helps ensure people are good enough to market their own post before they tell you how to market yours via their homepage featuring. IMHO.

from graywolf 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 3

ppl need to not blind votei have no problem with ppl asking for sphinns on a story but if it’s lame i’m not going to vote for it. I dont have to agree with something to vote for it (as long as its not innacurate). I want real news and I want posts that make me think, i want posts with info that hasnt been regurgitated 53,000 times in the past year with no unique new or interesting value add.

from Sugarrae 3426 Days ago #

Votes: -2

>>>i have no problem with ppl asking for sphinns on a story but if it’s lame i’m not going to vote for it.I AGREE. I market my posts, but if people don’t think it’s GOOD, I don’t want them voting for it. And a raised bar means it will be harder to get enough blind votes.

from tonyadam 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Jordan, I couldn’t have said it better myself when it comes to the "circle jerking"...thats the exact point i was trying to make...I don’t think changing the algo to 30 sphinns really makes a different, we all know about 15-20 people that would sphinn something for us and add that to twitter, etc, would be just the same...that said...i do agree with Rae, that the "networking aspect" would definitely take more time, etc...but to me, it just doesn’t seem like the "end all" solution I would rather see something a bit newer and dare I say it "cooler" than the norm of "here is a page full of posts that went hot." I think social news sites need to keep content fresher, and at the same time give a mix of different topics...e.g. 3 stories from each section or something along those lines....Also...newsworthy topics might be good to take down after 24 hours, but things that are more resourceful and wouldn’t lose value after 24 hours, maybe should be highlighted a bit longer...

from TCSM 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 5

All due respect Rae, this went hot because YOU wrote it, and YOU and Michael talked about it. If I’d posted this, it’d be ignored, unless I get people like you, Michael and so on to talk about it.

from Sugarrae 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

@TCSM I’m not going to apologize for busting my ass for years to build up enough of a following to be able to get something attention by talking about it... but that is kind of my point. As for things being ignored unless a bigger person talks about it... dude, marketing is all about getting your site attention. If you can’t get your POST attention, does it or you (you being general) belong on the homepage of a site that teaches people tactics for internet marketing?

from Gamermk 3426 Days ago #

Votes: -2

@TCSM:...really.Can we just leave this argument out of this discussion. Please... can we? Just this once.

from TCSM 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 2

@sugarrae I’m not asking you to :p I’ve got nothing but respect for you and those in your position. And I agree completely. I’m just saying I’m not sure your solution will work, because what you think of as homepage-worthy and what the community at large thinks of as homepage-worthy might not be the same.My only worry is that you’ll sorely dissapointed that the community isn’t as good as you think it is.

from neyne 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 2

is there a system where posts that have no discussion need more sphinns to get frontpaged ? if not, why not ? say, posts without comments need 30 sphinns and posts with 3+ comments need 25 and so on. oh and while we at it, spam flagging the comments would also be useful. ktnxbai

from mphung 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 5

I think raising the number of sphinns required would actually backfire. It would ensure that ONLY people aggressively participating in the social media circle jerk (or, to be fair, people who have huge brand leverage even if they aren’t guilty of the circle jerking) would have their stories go hot. When Digg changed their algo, it did the opposite of what they claimed they intended: it basically decreased diversity on the FP to the point where only "power diggers" had any hope of hitting it simply because they were the only ones with a strong enough following to push their way past the bigger hurdle.

from TCSM 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

@mphung So you’d take it down to 15ish, so the rubbish would get desphunn faster?

from Sugarrae 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

@mphung I disagree... digg made it harder algo wise, sure... but it was the hand moderation that killed digg

from Sugarrae 3426 Days ago #

Votes: -3

PS... sorry if some of you can’t handle the fact that proving you can market a single post is INDEED required to prove your post is even worth reading with your little negatives on my comment. 1. You’re who I’m talking to2. You’re upset cause my suggestions makes it harder for you to fake it3. Get a pair :)http://www.1938media.com/stop-crying/

from graywolf 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 5

well the only good thing about raising it to 30 would be the stuff that made it to the front page that didnt deserve to would really stick out.I don’t know how to say this without pissing people off so I’ll just say it. Maybe I’m a bit naive but I’d like to believe people might be able to have enough self respect to not dump a pile of crap in the middle of thier own living room, and in my opinion the "23.79 Ways to make Your Twitter Profile Better Than a Value Meal Toy" type of posts are almost always crap.The first ones for the industry may have some value, and occasionaly someone does write one with some pearls of wisdom but by and large they are the same thing I have read 57 other places in the past two weeks. If you work in the search industry and you cant do enough research before hand to figure that out, then you need to step away from the keyboard.

from Sugarrae 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 1

>>>"23.79 Ways to make Your Twitter Profile Better Than a Value Meal Toy" type of posts are almost always crapCome on Michael, if we’re going to be honest, please mention how they’re almost always by people following 4,220 people who have 110 followers themselves. (insert any medium with Twitter, Twitter was Michael’s example, not mine).

from bbcarter 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 1

lol this is a great debate.I don’t know if anyone has the answer here yet.what hasn’t been discussed is #1 I don’t read every frontpage post, or every hot post- I still skim that, so they don’t all have to be awesome#2 unless a lot of people read the up and coming posts below the "what’s new and hot" level, the community (apart from the networkers/friends) can’t help sphinn increase quality, right?SO... I think should the frontpage show more of the new posts? e.g. make the new/hot sidebar section bigger? more post i mean?

from Sugarrae 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

>>>I think should the frontpage show more of the new poststhat would be a decent idea ALONG with a higher bar... make it 27 to go hot, but the top 15 or 20 in upcoming show...

from bbcarter 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 5

and while we’re at it- another thing that bugs me about sphinn- that may not be fixable unless we get more people on here-is that it’s so SEO heavy. it’s hard to get ppc posts to go hot... harder than posts about SEO or Google or Sphinn. which is too bad for spreading good info about ppc.and if sphinn is really about internet marketing broadly, not just 70% seo 25% social media 5% ppc (figures pulled out of my a$$), then...I think we should try to get more bloggers and writers from social media, online pr, email marketing and other types into using sphinn. That would increase the diversity of content AND size of community which might help indirectly with some of the issues Rae has brought up.I’ve asked some of the PR people I know on Twitter about Sphinn, and it’s foreign to them- IMO we should do some outreach to these people to get them to participate.But obviously, it can be a less than inviting community at times. We need to lower the personal attacks and venom a bit, I think, if we want to welcome more people.

from neyne 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

and i thought my suggestion was kinda ok. should i tweet my followers to read my comment ?

from TCSM 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

@bbcarter agreed. But how do you get people on here when they can’t see any content that’ll interest them? And the community won’t send their posts hot, because it’s not interested, and so they’ll get bored because they see no success, and leave.

from tonyadam 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

You can’t make people write better more quality posts, what you can do is make a system that allows the higher quality posts to be highlighted more...a couple ways to do this (not saying all work, so bear with me): 1. Raise the number of votes it takes to go hot. (I have to say this: This could result in stale news and stories, which, im sorry Rae, but it is a problem that I feel Digg has now. Maybe its just a difference of opinions, but, mine none-the-less.) 2. Different ways to view information, examples of this: I mentioned earlier having a variety of post topics, etc. or different time constraints. Also, the point of highlighting upcoming/new stories more would be a good way of getting stories that might not get attention, some attention. Now, I hate to bring recommendations into the mix, but, that is another idea that you could use to highlight stories that others may not typically see.3. User-based news/stories: Meaning, users choose the topics they want to see on the FrontPage. Not sure if any of these are the final answer, but, again, I have to say that it is not going to be possible to stop people to write crap, but, you can figure out ways to present the right crap to the right people. ;)

from AnnieCushing 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 1

I’m kind of frustrated b/c, for the life of me, I can’t come up with a valuable opinion on this one. I used to follow Sphinn stories a lot closer than I do now. It just doesn’t have enough diversity to sustain my multivariate interests. Lately, I only go to it if someone on Twitter references a particular article that sounds interesting (so marketing your posts does have value for those of us who don’t have an IV hookup to Sphinn).But I think part of the reason for my diminished interest in Sphinn is the same SEO sites have Sphinn buttons, and I’m admittedly too lazy to submit cool SEO-related posts I find outside that circle. If it doesn’t have a Sphinn button, I just don’t think about it. I don’t know if Sphinn offers a browser plugin that would make it easier than going to the Sphinn website to submit something. But with the speed I cycle through my RSS reader in the morning, that would help me to Sphinn resources that other SEOs might also find interesting. But, on a much less mature note, this made me giggle: "... don’t go getting emo on me if you’ve changed places recently and it was on Sphinn." Classic. :)

from styletime 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 3

I’m a relative newbie her so no flaming but imho it’s not the level needed to acheive ’hot’ status that need’s changing I agree with Brian Carter it’s the user base that need’s expanding.<div></div><div>There are too many stories from too many great people that go unnoticed because they don’t go hot, did you look at the traffic you would get for a non hot post so what’s the point?</div><div></div><div>Tony Adam said it will go stale like Digg to find any new adventurous stories on Digg you have to patrol and page through the upcoming sections for hours to find some gem’s and the same on here.</div><div></div><div>Digg is still governed and dominated by the few and the lucky, there must be other solutions to improve Sphinn and increase it’s potential rather than just raising the bar!</div><div></div><div>As someone said earlier combining the amount of comment’s to go hot?</div><div></div><div>Paid or at least moderated membership for submissions that will get rid of the atrocious spam problem.</div><div></div><div>Does Sphinn have a twitterfeed? Why not?</div><div></div><div>Increase Top 10 most Sphunn to 20 at least so we can see more active posts.</div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div><div></div><div></div></div>

from theGypsy 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 4

lol... my money says that raising it ENSUREs only the super pimpers get there... regardless.Back when I took a powder, I talked to a few mods and during that conversation we spoke of pimping being against the TOS... Since dropping in again after a few months off, I gave it up. Of interest a few peeps actually emailed to see if I had pissed off the social gods... I told ’em "Naw, just stopped pimping"..and there’s the rub. One merely needs to hang on Twitter for an afternoon/evening to see all the pimping... and from Mods no less, not just power/reg users....sigh...Can you imagine back in social networking 1.0 (U know, forums?) if we posted a link that went to a page that led to a page where the article we’re referring actually was? Wouldn’t happen... but these days on Twitter and elsewhere? Fer sure... plenty of Sphinn links .....So, really... what is raising it to 30 going to do but ensure the pimperati get front pages?... not necesarily good content.

from TCSM 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Just as a quick afterthought too... We had one of the most sphunn posts ever once (hit the top fifty in greatest hits, still probably top 75ish), and it sent a little under 900 visits. That’s not exactly Stumble/Digg/Reddit levels is it?And don’t go on about "quality of traffic" either, because it’s not that much better. I’d rather have Stumbles.Seriously, hitting the Sphinn homepage isn’t that big a deal for you. Write for the community. You may as well, because passing on knowledge is the only thing you’re going to get out of it.Disclaimer: no that doesn’t mean we’ll be removing the Sphinn links on the Searchlight Digital blog. Just saying...

from mphung 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 1

Was I just told to grow a pair b/c I said there was circle jerking (it’s my favorite sphinn-related analogy: circle jerk, there I said it again) ... or was that only reserved for those who downvoted rae’s comment ? ;)I think there are some good suggestions here. Probably the bigger issue, in my pair-less (?) opinion, is that the audience needs to be bigger and more diverse. That should naturally increase vote counts on the truly good articles. Most of the non-SEO/PPC folks I push this too, however, just don’t get engaged with what’s here. In terms of how I use sphinn... I read the recent comments. I don’t submit stuff or ask people to vote or look at the front page. The comments is where I find value and how I know what’s hot. I concede that I probably miss a lot of good stuff that way, but oh well. So why don’t we just try it? Why not up the threshold and see what happens? If the results suck, we go back? We’re small enough that it shouldn’t be a huge deal to experiment a little. To be honest, though, I bet I’ll end up sticking to just checking the comments queue no matter what happens.

from Dorian 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Reduce the amount of weight comments have for an item going hot. A lot of people comment when they desphinn a post.Increase the value of a desphinn... to stop an item from going hot.Some of the vote circles and networks are SO obvious. Just take a look a the 2-paragraph 138-word blog post that told people to check google webmaster tools... it made the front page and stayed there for days. Look at who voted it up and you see the pattern of same people. Too bad there is not a way to decrease the value of their votes.

from Sugarrae 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

>>>it’s the user base that need’s expandingI actually give that opinon a lot of weight as well.... maybe we all need to send this: http://sphinn.com/story/89564 to some folks we know, who don’t know Sphinn, to start helping the userbase expand>>>dominated by the few and the luckyBut that, I don’t agree with...>>>to see all the pimpingPlease, stop complaining, start marketing

from Sugarrae 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

>>>Was I just told to grow a pair b/c I said there was circle jerking (it’s my favorite sphinn-related analogy: circle jerk, there I said it again) ... or was that only reserved for those who downvoted rae’s comment ?No, that was specifically for the who voted me down with no comment/admission. But if you’d like to think it was for you specifically, so you can get emo, go for it ;-)Circle jerking can occur with both worthy and non worthy posts... there is a very thin line between promoting/networking and circle jerking... imho, the quality of the post IS that line>>>ncrease the value of a desphinn... to stop an item from going hot.Totally agreed - I’ve been complaining about this for a long time.

from neyne 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

@Dorian"Reduce the amount of weight comments have for an item going hot. A lot of people comment when they desphinn a post."I would guess that a desphinn carries more weight than a comment. you cannot get a post hot through comments, it needs to have enough sphinns

from Sugarrae 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

>>>I would guess that a desphinn carries more weight than a commentIt takes five desphinns to counteract every ONE sphinn once a post hits homepage... so you need at MINUMIM, 115 desphinns to take a post with 23 sphinns off the homepage - good luck :)

from tonyadam 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

I agree the user base needs to expand...I tried to submit a post recently that was a bit outside the normal "Social media" type material we see in here...maybe i will start doing more of that and pushing it a bit more...I would love to see some more general internet marketing and other sides of the social media space posted on here. :)

from neyne 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

@sugarrae"It takes five desphinns to counteract every ONE sphinn once a post hits homepage... so you need at MINUMIM, 115 desphinns to take a post with 23 sphinns off the homepage - good luck :)"that is a different issue. I agree that a desphinn should have more impact, but dorian was talking about the power of comments which, IMO, is lower than a desphinn. If you take a look at the majority (not all) of the crappy posts that reach HP, you’ll see that there is no discussion going on around them. Just people blindly sphinning because someone asked them to and they haven’t even bothered to read the damn thing, let alone comment on it.Now I know that you prefer comments on the original post, but if you read something worthy on Sphinn and knew that the comment you give could help it reach HP, woudln’t you do both ?I would and I do and therefore my number of comments is even slightly higher than the number of sphinns that I’ve castedPS. Love the MINUMIM word. adding it to my firefox spellchecker :D

from TCSM 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

@sugarrae so what ratio would you set desphinns as? I’ve always worked on the theory of about 3/1 or 2/1 (so you’d need one third to one half the de-sphinns to kill something). Where would you go?

from Sugarrae 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

@neyne LMFAO, shut it... I can spell... I CAN!!!! ;-)I do prefer comments on the original post - half the time I comment on Sphinn it is because I DON’T like the post... so maybe comments should only have weight IF the commenter ALSO sphunn the post... I don’t sphinn posts I don’t feel worth spinning, even if I feel the need to comment on them. What I’d be afraid of is that if comment weight means more, peeps who like your article would comment on sphinn INSTEAD of the original post.@TCSM dunno... but since depshinn is public, it takes some balls to use it and the ratio needed should reflect that... depshinning at the moment is nothing but a token gesture... why risk backlash over something that will have no effect ... I wonder how many people take that train of thought...

from crashingflwrgrl 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

I agree that the bar should be raised but there isn’t much difference between 23 and 30, therefore how effective will it really be?

from Sugarrae 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

I think you’d actually be surprised the difference between 23 and 30 when the post is shyte :)

from shor 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 1

This is an interesting topic. Raising the bar equals: Write better quality content OR network harder. For most people, the 2nd option is the easier (lazier) way. Very few will do both.>> Circle jerking can occur with both worthy and non worthy posts... there is a very thin line between promoting/networking and circle jerking... imho, the quality of the post IS that line Agreed. Remember threadwatch with its many OGs of search marketing? You went there and it was cool to lurk because the NFFC, fantomaster, rcjordans of the world would give you no BS stuff to read (can you imagine those guys begging for Sphinns?). I trusted those posters. I don’t think there is that trust at Sphinn. The difference IMO is Threadwatch was a place to go for cynical commentary about search marketing while Sphinn is the place to go for cynical commentary about search marketers :)

from Jill 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

I think everything that can be said on this topic has been said, but I just wanted to give my two cents.I happen to check out sphinn nearly every day sometimes a few times a day. Like Melanie, I mostly come here for the comments. But how many in the community only come to sphinn their own stuff, their friends’ stuff or because someone at twitter asked them to come? Other than that, they aren’t here.I don’t think upping the hot count can change that. Not sure what can or if it should be changed. Let’s face it, most of us don’t really need nor want to read most of the articles that get submitted here. We may agree something is good for those still learning, but we’re not all that interested in reading it (all the way through) ourselves. I rarely visit the home page here for that reason.

from JamesDuthie 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

The question is whether most people know if the post is shyte Rae? :) To me blind voting is the issue. That’s generally what allows the shyte to rise (or more blatantly the pimping of shyte). Perhaps we need to disable the vote button before the link to the article is actually clicked. Not a perfect solution, but a barrier to blind voting.

from mphung 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

>> But if you’d like to think it was for you specifically, so you can get emo, go for it ;-)I’m soooo blue! Why is it all so haaaaard? How come nobody luuuuuuvs meeeee?;) Hey, how come Streko hasn’t been in here yet telling all of us that we’ve been sipping the lame sauce?

from streko 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

no time for love Doctor Jones.

from Sugarrae 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

@mphung LOL... streko is working... I’ve given him a beat down on what’s important :P

from graywolf 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

LMAO @streko with the shortround quotes

from BrettBorders 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 1

I think it would be cool to leave the threshold at 22/23.. but you could custom filter the home page based on the minimum number of Sphinns you’d want to see:20-30 Sphinns - some 2 paragraph rant that your friends liked but no one else30-40 Sphinns - something interesting but not actually useful or widely applicable40-50 Sphinns - a well-researched, well-styled post with some substance or utllity.. maybe50-60 Sphinns - a hot rant or emotional sentiment that touches the right nerve of the SEM community60 or more Sphinns - really good stuff. true "front page" material100 or more Sphinns - "Vote up if..." - like on RedditI also like the idea of being able to have a wildcard of "3 sphinns" for a really exceptional article once a month... or a rating system.. where I could give an average post 2 stars out of 5.

from incrediblehelp 3426 Days ago #

Votes: -1

Raise it to 30-40 whatever, but it would be nice to have some moderators input giving it his/her thumbs up or down. I know this is not how this social media site is suppose to work but having some sort of editorial process before crap hits the front page would be nice. In the past I wrote a list of my top 10 favorite fruit that got 80+ sphinns for Christ sake.

from AffanLaghari 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 1

1st cent --> Danny can make the desphinners/sphinners anonymous, or maybe have such an option. Graywolf and SugarRae won’t mind if they send you a story and you don’t sphinn it (or even desphinn it). But how many of the non-experts have the same attitude. With SEO going more towards PR, if Tom sends his buddy Dick a URL for sphinn, that would get sphunn ’cause Tom has given a juicy link to Dick in past. 2nd cent --> Once a story hits homepage, if it doesn’t get ’x’ (say 5) Sphinns for x (say 6) hours (or for x homepage visitors), it can be sent back to the ’what’s new’. I mean if a story is on the top of the homepage for 5 hours, 100 people come to the homepage but only 1 of them Sphinns that, isn’t that an indication that the story isn’t interesing to a large crowd. The value of ’x’ can be tested to get the optimal fresh content to quality ratio.

from Jill 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

In the past I wrote a list of my top 10 favorite fruit that got 80+ sphinns for Christ sake.Yeah, and that totally pissed me off because that showed exactly what this community was made of. (Good ole boys/girls.) It was a sad but true statement of Sphinn.I don’t know the stats here, but it feels like it’s hanging from a thread in terms of true community members who care.

from DazzlinDonna 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 2

I seriously doubt raising the bar to 30 is going to make a difference, but of course, none of us knows for sure until it’s tried. Until then, all we have are opinions, and everyone knows, SEOs know how to have opinions.I do want to address the bit that Michael was moanin’ about though - posts he’s read a million times before. I don’t agree there. I get emails all the time asking me questions that have been answered on industry blogs thousands of times. And yet the questions still come. Why? Either the readers haven’t seen all those other answers, or the answers were not explained well enough...or something. In any case, the point is, if you have something to say, say it. Regardless of how many others may have said it before you. DO NOT STEP AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD. If the post is lame, so be it. But don’t let others tell you what to write and what not to write.ON THE OTHER HAND, if you write a lame post, and someone else submits it to Sphinn, you shouldn’t be held accountable for that post being submitted or voted to to the top (unless of course you had a hand in making that happen). Do let me give an example.Recently, I posted a quick post on one of my blogs. Was a simple observation. "Oh looky what such-and-such web service finally did. Neato keeno" - or along those lines anyway. I then was away from my computer for the rest of the day. When I returned that night, someone has submitted my post to SU, and I was getting bombarded with traffic - AND was getting accused of wasting people’s SU time. Um, excuse me but I didn’t submit the damned thing to SU or promote it. Someone else did. So just keep in mind that if you see a lame post on Sphinn, perhaps you shouldn’t be blaming the person who wrote it. He or she may not have intended to be wasting YOUR particular time. Just sayin’... :)

from DavidZHawk 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 2

Well, since I am post #600 on this topic, I’m thinking not many people will read this, but here’s my two cents:When Sphinn launched, I thought it was an awesome idea. First, I love crowdsourcing as a means of determining quality. Second, there is so much crap written on SEM and SEO that there is truly a need for a site that cuts through the junk.Sadly, Sphinn has not met my expectations. And I think the fact that it only takes 20 Sphinns to make it to the front page is proof that I am not alone in this assessment. I do agree with the posters who have mentioned "back scratching" or - more crudely - "circle jerking." Sphinn to me has become a site where insiders high-five fellow insiders. "So and so joined a new company" or "Did you see me dancing on stage at SES?" These posts aren’t interesting to me and indeed they aren’t interesting to most people in the SEM/SEO community. As a result, the utility of Sphinn has slowly faded away.I actually wrote a blog post about this and even submitted it to Sphinn, but ironically, no one Sphunn it. The overall gist of the post was that crowdsourcing doesn’t work without personalization. Thus, if I am not an SEO insider and I don’t care to hear about ’going out for drinks with Matt Cutts,’ I can rate these stories - and for that matter, any user who has Sphunn such a story - down and gradually see results that reflect my interests.Without personalization, you end up with the insiders controlling what shows up and what does not and this results in alienating everyone else. My complete post is here if you are interested: http://www.blogation.net/2008/04/why-digg-sphinn-stumbleupon-are-in.html.I’d love to see Sphinn become the site I dreamed it would become. Ultimately, however, human nature being what it is, I think without technical innovations, the path ahead is pretty clear and bleak.

from Jill 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Good point, Donna!

from Jill 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

@DavidZHawk that was a good article as well. Unfortunately it’s the nature of this kind of medium. Doesn’t really work for those who aren’t prepared to or don’t want to pimp their stuff. I’m not a big fan of doing that either.

from steaprok 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

raising the sphinns to 30 wont do squat. youll still have people voting for crap , it will just require more votes for the same crap to go hot and if it doesnt go hot, some more crap will replace it. there is enough crap to go around Im sure! Adding an extra 3 or 5 or 10 or 20 sphinns wont stop people from blind voting things just becuase they recognize the avatar. and thats the problem IMO

from DavidZHawk 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

@Jill. Thanks for reading! I think personalization is the only way around the pimping. If I rate a user as a ’pimp’, then the algorithm should exclude that user’s rating when determining what to show me on the front page. Similarly, if I rate a user as "legit", the user should get extra weight.

from Halfdeck 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 2

Where do I begin?<div></div><div></div><div>First Rae says too many crap stories are going hot. That’s a given. The main reason is Twitter/IM/email promoting back scratching the other is popularity. Off-Sphinn promotion isn’t gonna end and the magnitude of that depends on popularity (e.g. if Shoemoney tweets a sphinn submit droves will vote it up to the front page in a matter of minutes).</div><div></div><div></div><div>There’s nothing wrong with being popular or having a network of buddies but those are the problems, not the 23 sphinn threshold. Raise it to 30 and you’ll see 10 days old stories rotting on the home page.</div><div></div><div></div><div>What needs to happen is Sphinn’s algo needs to track voting patterns (same group of people voting for stories by the same submitter, etc) and dampen their pull. Of course Pligg isn’t that sophisticated but Danny, its time for Sphinn to stop being just a Digg knock-off for online marketers. Listen, if I vote up everything either submitted by Rae or is hosted on suggarrae there’s a possibility of bias. No need to discount my vote since its also possible that Rae writes good stuff consistently but still Sphinn’s algo should take my vote with a big grain of salt. </div><div></div><div></div><div>Maybe Sphinn should also give more weight to people who don’t sphinn a ton of stuff, and more weight to people like me who sphinn things up once in a blue moon? I see problems with that approach too but using multiple weights and attacking the problem from multiple angles would result in a better home page than just blindingly counting sphinns up to 23. What would Google’s SERP look like if Google gave #1 ranking to the page with the highest PageRank? Well, that’s basically what Sphinn’s doing right now.</div><div></div><div></div><div>Increasing 23 to 30 will hurt Sphinn and we’ll still still crap rise to the top, except maybe just a less crap and only from those with enough off-Sphinn pull and trumpet loud enough to wake up the whole social-media neighborhood. Still won’t mean their popular crap will be any good.</div>

from Sugarrae 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Wow, did we actually have a discussion go 70+ comments without a single flame war? Can it be? :)

from seanmag 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 1

I would turn it over to the BCS voters.

from Halfdeck 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Just read a few comments above mine and realized most of what I posted’s already been said, but hey I’m bored (and too lazy to read 69+ comments) so here’s one additional point: Sphinn needs voting blocks because What’s New page is spam infested. This thread is a reminder why cleaning up that page would also clean up the home page.

from JoshuaSciarrino 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

As @dazzlindonna said ’Everyone has their own opinions’ and ’No one will know what works unless we try it’. (Paraphrase)Also, @briancarter made some great points about Sphinn being more narrow than it claims. It’s not IM, it’s mainly SEO then Social Media [I’d add Affiliate is next]...and throw in a little PPC but I’d like to emphasize, it’s mainly SEO.Sphinn should broaden it’s doors more than anything. I think that’s a more pressing issue. Traffic first..then conversions ;)After the broadening, I think increasing the value of Desphinn-ing would be important. Then i’d worry about the # of Sphinns to hit the homepage.Re: Broadening; I’d love to throw some Public Speaking stuff on sphinn but I doubt it would ever reach the FP, ever, just because of the current Sphinn culture. Marketing entails Public Speaking..and location doesn’t change Public Speaking because technically everything on the Internet is public speaking. But that’s just one funnel of marketing Sphinn is missing out on.And after the last debate (at least the last one i read) over ’watercooler’ hitting the front page, clearly showed that Sphinn isn’t managed full-time or if it is...it’s under-maintained. So...how can we solve the growing issues of Sphinn? Grow Sphinn. We are SEO’s (some are Internet Marketers) it shouldn’t be to difficult to rebrand sphinn as a community of Internet Marketers, not just SEO’s.That’s my 4 dollars. :P

from shalom 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

It’s not about # of posts - to im[prove the quality of posts hiting the front page the algo would have to be able to1) determine voting paterns2) apply a type of authority value to users specific users3) remove ability to sphinn from initial view (home page, hot, etc) - cut down a little on blind voting

from Gab 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 2

*reads*......What if the problem is being framed incorrectly? People are seeing stories go hot that are rehashed crap, as Mike pointed out, and then Donna made the equally valid point that it’s not necessarily the author’s fault either, if they didn’t promote it...CRAP ON THE FP IS A SYMPTOM. (Sorry for the caps, but I needed to get this out there.)------>>The problem is people not being held responsible for what they’re promoting on Sphinn. If you promote crap, and the community has the good sense to let you know, then next time it should be more difficult for you. I’m writing a separate thread on that to submit in the morning :).

from neyne 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 1

that is a very interesting point. Put a face to the crapHowever that could potentially further strengthen the clubs and cliques that we have here. People will not give negative points to Graywolf or Rae or Lisa (just examples) regardless of what they submit. On the other hand, if someone submits a crap piece and then submits a good one, the chances of the good one making it to the HP, i believe, are pretty slim

from sza 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

I would replace desphinn with a "Don’t want to see this story on my Sphinn interface" option for every post.The way sphinn/desphinn is supposed to work is the subject of ongoing debate and is regularly misunderstood and abused.In contrast, completely clearing a story from your sight is straightforward. It’s good for you as a user (interface no longer cluttered with stories you don’t give a hoot about). It’s honest (getting rid of something is the surest sign of your opinion about that thing).And, in the aggregate, it’s also an unmistakable feedback that could be factored into the ranking (going hot) of stories.

from DVOLA 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 1

If you up the number of sphinns required to go hot, the "networking crewe" simply need to add another 3 people to the network to make it hot, whereas the non networking crewe just simply wont get a lookin !

from seoz87 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 1

now we have 53 Sphinns to this page right?And tell me the one single thing which I or any other person learn from SEO prespective through this article?Any??

from neyne 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

ahm, since this post is in the Sphinn Zone, it is not supposed to teach you SEO, it is supposed to discuss Sphinn.

from evilgreenmonkey 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

The number of Sphinns required to go Hot has previously been based on how fresh/old the homepage gets. The last move from 21 to 23 was a result of Sphinn’s increased popularity and stories getting knocked off in less than 2 days. The number is constantly reviewed and I’ll look into how the frontpage has stood up this week (although not ideal due to Thanksgiving). Sphinn v2 will have a more complex voting metric which should further help to improve the quality of FP stories.

from graywolf 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

please dont ever make desphinn annonomous, you have an opinion dont like something man up and take responsability for it.Go ahead desphinn my story if you think it sucks, but at least tell me why. i dont need a thesis paper 1-2 sentences will be fine.I’m pretty sure I’ve desphunn things ppl have submitted from my domain cause i didnt think they should be here

from Sugarrae 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

I agree with graywolf - never make desphinn anonymous - you wanna thumb something down, be a (wo)man and do it.>>>People will not give negative points to Graywolf or Rae or Lisa (just examples) regardless of what they submit.Well, I think that’s because none of us will submit or vote on crap for the sake of voting on it, to be fair. Hell, upon sending Lisa a Sphinn link, she READS it first. Imagine that. ;-)I’ve submitted less than 20 articles to Sphinn and I’ve been here since BEFORE day 1 (for those who don’t know, I was a beta tester AND one of the original mods here). And many are from my own site (which is allowed and I don’t push out a 3 paragraph post of regurgitation each day and submit it daily)... the other articles I’ve submitted all were done on merit, not who wrote them. I didn’t even sphinn my own post the other day because I didn’t really feel it was a "Sphinn topic" so to speak. Don’t get me wrong - I get what you’re saying... but you’re also naming names that aren’t guilty of pushing crap on a constant basis.

from Sugarrae 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

@seoz87 1. look at the topic it was submitted to 2. if what happens to this site and the quality of this community isn’t important to you, then your comment doesn’t hold much weight as far as I’m concerned and 3. an attempt, but failure, to give us an epihany.

from zigojacko 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

What I would like to know is where the fuck have I been while all this has been going on!I took the time to read every single comment (and it’s times like these I wish their was "quote" bb code available :p )... Many points have been raised in this discussion that I have been repeatedly mentioning for the past month or so. I think I pretty much have to agree with everything that @neyne as said so far although a lot of people have stated very valid points throughout this discussion.I am not sure if raising the amount of Sphinns before a topic goes hot is the solution right now, however... If we can get a wider, more active and more contributing member base on Sphinn (which I don’t feel would be too difficult), then this would definately be required in order to filter the awesome topics from the crap.As has been brought up by a few members (including myself in this topic I created a few weeks ago http://sphinn.com/story/85798), blind voting has a massive part to play in the amount of sphinns a submission is getting, I have done thorough research into this (because I really am that sad and have no life) and could list members that go through the whole of the ’Hot Topics’ and ’What’s New’ pages sphinning practically every topic on the page with literally a matter of seconds between each sphinn, they are clearly doing this to boost their sphinn count up and haven’t even read the topics so a lot of topics are getting members votes when they literally could be the biggest pile of $hite you have ever read in your life, the topic could even be about mating between giraffes and elephants if the topic was misleading! I also have numerous screen shots of the ’Sphinn Live’ feature where it shows certain members doing this, and their username just occupies the entire live feed because they are going sphinn crazy, I even sent one of these screenshots to the group email for Sphinn moderators, I didn’t receive a response from it.As I believe @neyne also mentioned, I too am one of the few people with a higher comment count than a sphinn count. Purely because I will only sphinn for a topic that I think is excellent, fcuk me, I’m even going to emphasise "excellent". It would be nice to see more comments and discussions on Sphinn, as previously mentioned, that is again a true way of knowing what is hot in the members mind, because it has caused a debate... Partly how I feel a social media network such as Sphinn should be! Too many members though are just abusing the current system though and I think it needs to be revised in some way, I don’t know what they feel they will achieve with a sphinn count of 100,000+ but there we go!Whilst I am on the subject though, I thought I might just mention, that in the last week and a half, I have had a handful of Sphinn members take the time to obtain my personal contact information (probably from my profile on here) and get in touch to say they agree with me about my comments on the blind voting... The question I ask myself, is why did they not publically speak up? In the fear of being slaughtered by the already existing well reputed member base already I can imagine. Only until the comments throughout this topic have I seen people speak up about it at last.Again, I feel it’s probably the same principal as to why the desphinn feature is underused, I think there is confusion as to the sphinn/desphinn functionality because even when a topic is complete bollocks but has caused a stirr/debate, people are still sphinning it even when they have admitted the topic is nonsense... This because sphinning a topic is the way to get it more recognition I guess... ? In my opinion, a sphinn is an ’up’ vote and a desphinn is a ’down’ vote or at least that was the impressions I got when I first started using Sphinn. I guess that members feel intimidated to desphinn a topic because it seems like people sometimes see this as a personal attack/’outing’ which is not how it should be, if the topic is submitted by a reputable name in the Marketing industry then I don’t think anyone daren’t desphinn, heh. Maybe the name of this feature does need to be changed though as someone mentioned above, not sure about the whole SearchWiki idea though where you can hide submissions you don’t want to see e.t.c. HahaAnother issue is the amount of spam hitting the ’What’s New’ page, I know it has been brought up time and time before (see my topic on it posted about three weeks ago http://sphinn.com/story/84263 and Danny Sullivan’s topic on it http://sphinn.com/story/87854), but at the rate it is filling the page up, very good articles/submissions are getting very very little visibility and only receive about 5 - 10 sphinns before disappearing off the face of the earth, another issue along with this is time zones. Most of you are probably asleep when I check out Sphinn in the morning here in the UK, as the majority of the Sphinn memberbase appears to be in the US, I am very reluctant to submit a decent find in the morning now as I know it will be out of sight by the time Sphinn starts getting busy with activity (lunch time onwards GMT). I know Sphinn is being rebuilt/designed so hopefully it will eradicate the spam issues, I do think it may be an idea to get some mods across the globe though, even if they just go on for an hour a day at least it will keep the spam to a minimum.As you can see from the discussion on this topic though, plenty of people aren’t happy with the value and quality of the articles, so start using the desphinn button, Sphinn staff: make one desphinn take away one sphinn, none of this 5:1 ratio nonsense. Change the name of it if it’s seen as an insult, this is the only way we can truly make a difference to what topics reach the front page... When the memberbase is more contributive, then the Sphinn bar needs to be raised (in my opinion).It would also be great to see commented topics carry some weight in the algorithm as well though, I certainly target the topics with comments on first before anything else as they are of more value to me. :)Right, that’s my piece, gonna stop now coz feck knows how much I’ve just typed. :p

from JMorris 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

I couldn’t make it half way through this discussion before it wore me out. When companies are built specifically for paying people to manually game sites like this one and when sloppy "SEOs" are leaving spreadsheets public with lists of comments made with name, email and links, the problem isn’t an arbitrary number needed to go hot. The problem is that the entire system is too easily gamed. Raising the bar from 23 to 27, 30, or 100 wont change that. Raise the bar to 500 and somebody will come up with a system to pay people to reach that bar too.Sphinn is actively being gamed. There are services out there that pay people to sphinn stories and comment on them. Real, live people. And these services are cheap too. Less than a buck a vote.Want to cut down on the crap?1. Don’t allow votes unless there is a valid referrer in the sent headers2. Don’t allow votes from behind public proxies3. Flag posts that receive xx votes in less than xx minutes for manual reviewEven with these changes, give me a day and I can come up with a way to circumvent it. The only way I can see to make a significant impact on quality is to increase the number of active members who self moderate content. Either that, or become the next Digg with a Moderator team that only approves what they want.Lately, I’ve spent more time actively desphinning crap here. I don’t have much time to spend on this site anymore, but what time I have, I don’t want to waste reading stupid posts from ignorant marketers, so I desphinn crap. Maybe we should all spend a little more time desphinning crap.Just my 2 cents. Take them for what they are worth.

from Ruud 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 2

If you want better quality, don’t make it *harder* for stuff to go FP. That’s insane. Gypsy wrote 3 great posts about GA and they moved liked frozen peanut butter. If you stay away from FP you do find nice stuff -- stuff you know won’t go anywhere simply because of this medium being social (circle jerk).<div></div><div>So if you want better FP quality, make it easier to get rid of *stupid stuff* instead. Desphinn ratio of 1-on-1 and make it anonymous. People would beat the crap out of bad submissions.</div>

from streko 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

^^ okay real quick i wanna comment on that cause it just caught my eye on twitter.then, i am going back to taking over the serps while you all site here and moan about the sphinn.push comes to shove, people need to grow a pair when it comes to the desphinn. to many people pleasers or people that dont want to piss anyone off by hitting the desphinn button. me frankly, i dont give a [insert favortie curse word] - never have & never will. the sphinn don’t pay my bills and none of the people on this site pay my bills - so if i disagree with a story it gets the desphinn, but to be honest i would rather sit here and work then try and play sphinn cop all day. i hardly even check this site anymore, not unless it comes across in my twitter feed that someone who i think doesnt have his head up his/her [insert favorite body part related curse word] talks about it.now please keep debating and carrying on im back to try and catch up to learning all the parts of the algorythim that SEOChampion knows.

from mpilatow 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Streko, nobody will ever catch up with the Champs algorithmic knowledge

from rfergie 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Agree with Brian Carter about the SEO/social media bias.Basically what people seem to be saying is that a site targetd at people who spend their working lives manipulating algorithms to get the best results for themselves is getting gamed.I’m not sure why anyone is suprised.If I was Google, I’d buy Spinn to beta test all new anti-spam measures.

from tamar 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

"As long as desphinn is completely broken (a post with 23 sphinns will go hot regardless of the number of desphinns), such discussion is pointless."This is a lousy Desphinn reason. Things break. Things get fixed. If you think the tech team at Sphinn isn’t trying to make things 100%, you’d be sadly mistaken.

from zigojacko 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 1

Is the desphinn facility broken at the moment then? I’ve been trying to desphinn for weeks and I am unable to. All I keep getting is:-"TOO SHORT: Your message must contain at least 50 characters."When it does have over 50 characters!!

from tamar 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

@zigojacko, check the other post -- I responded to you in the comments.@davidtowers: how does that address ANYTHING? "Writing great content" sounds so 2003. Plus, this is a fun discussion. And as for manipulation, there are mods who watch for blatant abuse.

from kerimorgret 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 1

Not all of the votes that look like blind votes really are blind votes -- I’ll have read something in my RSS feed, and two hours later I’ll see it on Sphinn and vote on it from the Upcoming page, without having clicked through via Sphinn. If we want to increase the diversity of posts that are Sphunn, I suggest you visit Upcoming more often. Look at posts that weren’t submitted by an avatar that you recognize, or even an avatar at all. There are some gems there that never get Sphunn, so give them some love. If it’s crap or spam, Desphinn it or report as spam.

from zigojacko 3426 Days ago #

Votes: -1

@tamar: Awesome, you fixed it, thanks so much. I replied to your comment in the other topic as well: http://sphinn.com/user/view/commented/login/zigojacko#c59919 :)

from zigojacko 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

@morgret: I appreciate that and actually have taken that into account as I check my Sphinn RSS feeds initially first (well I used to, I don’t so much now due to the spam)... But my blind voting comments above are aimed at the people that literally sphinn every topic on the page within a minute... Heh

from sza 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

"This is a lousy Desphinn reason. Things break. Things get fixed."No, Tamar. Unfortunately, they don’t get fixed. Desphinn is broken since the day it was introduced, and that wasn’t yesterday.This thread is about how to make Sphinn work better. Fact is, Sphinn’s owners don’t give a damn about how to make this version of Sphinn work better, because the new version is already in development (for about 6 months now).Handy excuse for not doing anything about stuff that’s broken, but then, why should anyone else care about how this version of Sphinn should work.It’s already left for dead.And as for the new version, I did offer constructive ideas about two dozen comments earlier."Lousy" is the way you come to this thread adding nothing but your opinion on other people’s opinion.

from Jill 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Streko said:i hardly even check this site anymore, not unless it comes across in my twitter feed that someone who i think doesnt have his head up his/her [insert favorite body part related curse word] talks about it.And that right there is the crux of the problem. People have pretty much lost interest in sphinn as a community due to the variety of factors already discussed above. Not sure what (if anything) can be done about that.

from tamar 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

"No, Tamar. Unfortunately, they don’t get fixed. Desphinn is broken since the day it was introduced, and that wasn’t yesterday."I’m not sure how long you’ve been active here, but that is an inaccurate statement. It’s just not true; it worked, it broke, and it may or may not get fixed soon but it will get addressed.There are changes that are being made every day to this current implementation. And it just so happens that they’re builing a new version of Sphinn to address other issues.So how about cutting the tech team some slack and not making totally incorrect statements? You have no idea what’s happening behind the scenes.

from Ruud 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

I still see good comment threads. That’s community. I’d love to see this as a central "neutral" ground where we can discuss things. In fact, "we" (SEPeople) are considering using Sphinn as the place to point people for ongoing discussions.Flip the thing around: make both desphinn & sphinn anonymous :)

from seoconsult 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

At the crux of this argument is that basically ANY user generated content voting system is prone to abuse, it can never be fixed. If you up the Sphinns required to get to front page that will further make it harder for the smaller (but no less accurate or authoritive) users pieces to hit front page.I agree with the point that this is what becoming an expert is all about - people listen and follow certain individuals, and will continue to do so, sometimes blindly.There should be more of a focus on upcoming stories with comments on the post, as surely a post with a comment from every Sphinner is a million times more valueble that a Sphinn from a ’contact’ who doesnt even read the article?Also I know of a user who constantly has their accounts terminated by admins for Sphinning HIS OWN ARTICLES, and not participating in the community. This individual does actively comment on others posts and sphinn other articles, and the FAQ on this site say they prefer you to Shinn your own work!Any way I digress, I dont see any immediate solution unless we can have an efficient way of desphinning, or an algorthm that tracks users trends in sphinning.

from sza 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 2

"I’m not sure how long you’ve been active here"Tamar, may I call your attention to the various possibilities profile pages provide?I’ve been here before desphinn came about, and I could see how it has been plagued by technical problems from the beginning.Labeling something "totally incorrect" is just a cheap way to discredit what you disagree with.

from tamar 3426 Days ago #

Votes: -1

"Tamar, may I call your attention to the various possibilities profile pages provide?"Which is kind of the reason why I added "active" versus "how long you’ve been here."And it IS incorrect. So I’ll continue labeling it as such.

from DrPete 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 1

Although I have serious doubts that raising the bar will solve the quality issue, I’m going to agree with Rae because of one thing that we all know - The bar isn’t really 23, it’s much lower. Let’s reveal the dirty little secret - a Sphinn campaign looks something like this:(1) Get a power-user to Sphinn your post(2) Announce it on Twitter - Get 5-8 thumbs up(3) 5-8 = Standing out in the What’s New list(3) Use that 5-8 to do a 2nd round - hopefully hit 12-14(4) 12-14 = "Top 10 Most Sphunn in What’s New"(5) Top 10 generates a couple more votes, ask friends for 2-4 more(6) 23+ = Hit the home pageI know I’ll get blasted for saying that out loud, but let’s face it: we all know that’s how the game is played. I’m a goody-two shoes usability guy, and I play it, so don’t try to tell me that you don’t.Because the bar is only 23 or so, the "Top 10..." list only takes slightly over half that, which is pretty easy to reach. Raising the bar would raise all of the bars in that 6-step process, making the first hurdle harder to reach from just a quick Tweet or a few emails to friends.I’m with Danny’s approach - bump it up a bit and see what happens. It won’t magically solve the problem, but the system is currently based on a number and that number needs tweaking.

from dannysullivan 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 2

Thanks, everyone, for your comments. At over 100 of them, one thing is for certain -- people do care about the quality of posts and activity on Sphinn.I want to remind everyone that the entire site is being rebuilt on a new platform. Among the changes will be ways to filter out stuff except from those in your network and some other tweaks we think will keep What New less spammy and more relevant with new stuff.Michelle also spent the past couple of days putting in some further anti-spam measures which I think have helped.Even with the new platform, things won’t be perfect. This is a community site, and you have sub-communities within it. You have people who will spin anything their friends submit, regardless of the quality. You have new people who don’t have a network who have stuff that will fail to get noticed. This is, I suspect, the nature of community voting sites. There will always be imperfections.Still, we will tweak and change and try to make things more "right" for the majority of the people out there. Things you can do to help.Comment. Seriously -- you really think that story should go hot? Then drop a comment about why. Nothing irks me more than to see a story that immediately gets a ton of Sphinns but no one talking about it. OK, comments aren’t always necessary. Some stories clearly should go hot. But considering making a comment. Comments are the thing I like the best about Sphinn, myself.Dephinn. Really, the entire debate about how no one will desphinn because it’s public, you don’t want to tick someone off, you’re not brave enough. Enough. We’re adults. Desphinn is there so people can say politely "hey, like you, like this, but it’s not really first page material." Or "hey, this just ain’t first page material, period." If we make it private, then we get accusations of their being a Digg-like bury brigade. We’ve gone over and over this again. Let’s move on with it. Make it acceptable to use by actually using it. And if you get desphunn, don’t get into a huff over it, make a stink about it, starting desphinning others just out of spite or go off and start twittering "oh no, i was desphunn, everyone hates me." Everyone doesn’t hate you; most people are not desphinning for a personal reason.Sphinn: I try to be in the site several times per day. I see good stuff that no one seems to Sphinn because the submitter isn’t known or the title isn’t that great. I love when I find stuff like this and can give it a sphinn. Seek out the unusual. One of the new features will make it easier for those who follow you to see what you’re sphinning.Submit: There’s good stuff that doesn’t get submitted for days or missed entirely. Folks are out there reading a lot. Start submitting more! I’ll try to do more of that myself.Don’t Submit: Really, is your article that great? Do I really need to read another five paragraph summary of the basics of social media marketing? Are you really substantially pushing things forward with something fresh or new?Submit The "Real" Story: Do I really need to read your two paragraph summary of original reporting or an original news event that you merely point to? I generally don’t. Unless you seriously advance the story, don’t submit your recap.Stop Enlisting Your Friends: People get their friends to vote. Fact of life. But before you call in your army using IM or Twitter or whatever, ask yourself -- is THIS the story where I really want to expend my friend capital?

from DrPete 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 1

Pardon the self follow-up, but here’s an idea: What if the moderators had a limited, collective power to promote 1 post/day to the home-page - call it an "Editor’s Choice". By limiting it to 1/day, it wouldn’t subvert the social process, but it would potentially allow a great article by an unknown that only got a couple of Sphinns to hit the top solely based on quality.

from dannysullivan 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

We have the ability to put anything on the home page and in fact, when the site launched, said we might put stuff up independent of voting (big story that editors think everyone should know about, for example). Maybe we should do more of that.As a reminder, we do have Sphinn Weekly which highlights things:http://blog.sphinn.com/But we’re behind on getting out issues, so we’ll step that up.

from Jill 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Great tips, Danny. If everyone would follow them, Sphinn would be much better for it.

from Gab 3426 Days ago #

Votes: 0

@Danny - The point about using your friend capital wisely is excellent. Ditto the 5 para recaps on social media basics. @Everyone generally: Here are some Suggested Guidelines on Desphinn You Can Point To So It’s Not Personal When You Desphinn - no need to worry about retaliation then. @Michelle Robbins and the sphinn dev team, it’s also got some techie ideas for making people take responsibility (and sanctioning them) when they promote crap.

from JMorris 3425 Days ago #

Votes: 0

@dannyGood suggestions. Perhaps they should be placed in big RED LETTERS on both the submit page and on a sphinn confirmation page. Just kidding on that last part, mostly. However, I hope the developers will be wise enough to analyze the server logs a bit and consider some of the technical issues and finger prints left behind by those who are getting paid to sphinn stories here. Otherwise, we’ll be right back here next year.

from mike 3425 Days ago #

Votes: 2

Can I just say, this proves that, @65 sphinns, in every community, the favourite topic is itself! Digg, reddit, all favour stories about the site itself.Is it just me, or is that weird?

from Sugarrae 3425 Days ago #

Votes: 0

>>> "TOO SHORT: Your message must contain at least 50 characters.">>> When it does have over 50 characters!!Agreed, I have this problem ALL THE TIME@davidtowers really... so you yawn about how boring the topic is, show your disdain that everyone is talking about it and then comment on it... and you’re probably for real...>>>I’m not sure how long you’ve been active here, but that is an inaccurate statement. @tamar I believe what he means is that the ratio of desphinns needed to actually remove something from the homepage once it’s gone hot is impossible. 115 for a post with 23 votes. Even a post in upcoming would need double the sphinns... danny thinks a move from 23 to 30 is drastic, yet, the desphinn remains insanely drastic. DANNY, your post/comments has failed to address the fact that a desphinn is nearly a token with no real power.>>>Flip the thing around: make both desphinn & sphinn anonymousYou can’t be serious. Would you send every child home with a trophy too? People need to be anonymous to voice their opinion? Their opinion DOESN’T MATTER if they can’t put their name next to it.

from zigojacko 3425 Days ago #

Votes: 0

@Sugarrae: "You can’t be serious. Would you send every child home with a trophy too? People need to be anonymous to voice their opinion? Their opinion DOESN’T MATTER if they can’t put their name next to it."Agreed, I really wouldn’t want to see the Sphinn/Desphinn functionality anonymous...I’m still in favour of my previous suggestion. 1:1 Sphinn/Desphinn Ratio, I can’t see the harm in this. If enough members desphinn the article to make the total sphinns -something then enough members don’t rate the submission and it doesn’t deserve to hit the front page. End of. :)

from JMorris 3425 Days ago #

Votes: 0

For what it is worth, +1 on the 1:1 Sphinn/Desphinn Ratio suggestion.

from incrediblehelp 3424 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Danny can we get an RSS feed for http://blog.sphinn.com/??

from nickmattern 3424 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Isn’t the point of social media to let the community decide? If too many friend networks start making the site suck, in short order it will become a hangout for those friends only, no one else.The site dies naturally. I say let it die if folks, especially in this business, migrate the site’s culture to a quid pro quo repository of content they think is relevant.Raising the limit of what qualifies kind of serves no purpose in the long run. 18 months from now, there will be another more targeted sphinn-style site that serves the people reading whatever flavor of the month happens to be in play. People will forget about sphinn as a primary source and move on to the new hotness.

from sza 3206 Days ago #

Votes: 0

As long as desphinn is completely broken (a post with 23 sphinns will go hot regardless of the number of desphinns), such discussion is pointless.

Upcoming Conferences

Search Engine Land produces SMX, the Search Marketing Expo conference series. SMX events deliver the most comprehensive educational and networking experiences - whether you're just starting in search marketing or you're a seasoned expert.

SMX Web Site » | SMX Difference » | SMX News »

Join us at an upcoming SMX event: