To Blog or Not to Blog

how important are replies versus articles

Published on December 9, 2003 By Solitair In Blogging

Over the past few weeks I've noticed an annoying (to me) trend with blogging. Debates are often stifled and die off by the addition of new articles as oppossed to comments and replies to old articles.

Being fairly new to this method of communication I had expected an initial article to spawn a deep discussion of the topic raised and various peoples feeling on this topic. I had (perhaps naively) expected a topic to go on being discussed for weeks as more and more people read the article and the comments and replies on the article. In reality though this does not seem to happen.

What actually seems to happen (on this site anyway) is that at some stage someone will post another new article often spawned by the original, and the original article will fall away into obscurity and be forgotten. This leads to the frequent problem of people (myself included) having to restate arguments and opinions in new threads. This method ensures that eventually the fanatics (extreme views) will win the day as more central viewed people will just not feel strongly enough to keep on reposting in new thread after new thread. Perhaps I am wrong but surely there is a better way?

So how can this site be further improved?

For me I'm as interested in hearing peoples views on other peoples articles as I am in reading their own articles. It allows me to form an opinion of who they are on a wider variety of topics, which helps me make a personal determination of what level of respect I give to their words. At the moment this site does not let me do that. It provides no facility for me to look at a user and see not only their articles, but also their comments and views on others peoples articles. This is the first thing I would love to see added to this site.

Secondly I would like to see comments and replies given the prominence that articles get. I would love to see people being able to post a new article as a reply to a current article. Other users could then be able to either reply to the original or to the new article as they desired (like a news reader tree structure). Looking at an original article would then lead to all replies and articles spawned by the original discussion.

Thirdly I want to know if an article has any NEW replies (Knowing how many replies is not the same) since I last looked. I look on good articles as old friends. I want to easily see if someone has added some new reply or if a new article has spawned from that original one, without having to open and scroll through the entire replies.

This site is very good but these small changes would greatly enhance it for me.

Paul.

Comments

Dark-Star

on Dec 09, 2003

Hey Paul,

Those really are great suggestions and believe me, we hear ya! We want to see this site become successful and we really do need feedback like this. Thank you for letting us know your honest opinions. If you can image, this is an ongoing project with new improvements being added in a daily process. Managing data is one of the toughest and yet most important aspect of any successful website. We are in the process of working with new ideas in dealing with this issue. Creating something for everyone to use and yet not get overwhelmed at the same time. Your suggestions are great appreciated and I'm certain that we will address your ideas. So with that, I personally want to thank you for your input. Great work!

To answer your question, you can have an email mailed to you when an article has any new responses. We call this a "Watched Article" and you can add it to your "Watch List". To do this (this is a cool and handy little feature.

), click on the magnifying glass (located just to the left of the email & printer icon next the Articles main title on the right). If you're logged in you should see this feature appear on the site. If you don't see it, try clicking on the Articles Title to go in to single article view. You should then see the feature appear. Then, to track your Watch List and to manage it, you can click on the "Track Watch List" option on the top right of the screen where you log in to the site.

If you have any further questions, please let me know. Hope this helps and thanks again for the great comments. Keep it up Paul! We hear ya loud and clear!

--Dark-Star

JEPEL

on Dec 09, 2003

I totaly agree with you. I am a new user but I start to these flaws. It seems to me that more of the articles are forgotten the day after their publication. May be that people are trying to increase artificially their score by vampirised controversial articles.

May be a good upgrade would be to a track watch list for article and user (includind articles and replies) so you could follow the people you find interresting. May be it's too much of a big brother kind of thing.

I don't really understand how the scoring system works. Either what is difference between Featured articles and home articles ?

I don't want complain I think this is a great blog site, versatile and interresting but could be definitevely improved

Dark-Star

on Dec 09, 2003

Thanks JEPEL for the comment as well! We're working on making some improvements as we go with your feedback, we're certain to find success!

Solitair

on Dec 09, 2003

Dark-Star,
I did indeed use the watch list. It's very handy for seeing what you favourite articles are doing but as mentioned above articles only seem to stay current for a day or so before another new article takes over the same discussion and you need a new watch. I tend to use the main lists to glance through articles and open the ones I'm interested in. Unfortunately I never can remember how many previous replies there were so I always have to open them. An indication of new replies or time/date since last reply would be easier for me.
Keep up the great work. My 3 articles versus 100+ replies seems to indicate that I'm more of a commentor than blogger!

Paul.

JeremyG

on Dec 09, 2003

Personally I disagree with some of what you say.

This isn't supposed to be a message-board, where conversations/arguements go on for ages. A blog should be YOUR expression, not a response to someone else's. Nor do I think that tracking other people's comments would be a good thing. That leads to clique-ism where the same 5 people always wind up discussing things, which sort of artificially increases their user-rating even though they dont help the site as a whole, just bicker between each other alot.

The quality of a blog is how well they create their blog. Linking to other people is a concious thing you do in your blog. A good blogger will link the original article that inspired the current thought, but not nessacarily use a brand new article to simply continue an existing article.

To me this is a basic aspect that should be used when rating people's blogs. If someone posts and article that says "I was reading so-and-so's blog who was talking about..." but doesnt link them....they get no points from me. I rate on both content and quality.

JillUser

on Dec 09, 2003

If you click on the link provided in the email for your watched article, it takes you directly to the last comment.

Solitair

on Dec 09, 2003

Jeremy,
I appreciate your comments but I think you have missed my purpose.

I agree that a blog should be YOUR expression but my whole point is that at times a reply or comment could be as important because it adds to the whole and is not just a seperate article.

What I would love would be to read an article, read the replies and then write my response. I can post that then as a reply (under the original artcicle) or as a new article (reply and a link to my new article which carries an automatic link to the original article), as I see fit. Other users can then see my article when reading the original article or seperately. Either way they see my article as part of a bigger discussion and are aware of it's position within that discussion.

Your worry about clique-ism could be valid. I don't actually know if that would happen. It could lead to the opposite situation with like minded people finding that they are like minded and forming groups which enhance the site.

Linking to blogs needs to be simple and almost automatic or else it will not always happen.

paul.

Anthony R

on Dec 09, 2003

I agree with you Solitaire; while I still like the site enough to use it, the undeniable fact is that the features of Joeuser.com have only diminished since the beginning.

The original Joeuser.com had more features, in the original reply section, the last post came up first, the replies could be edited; HTML could be used in the reply area.

The original site looked a lot better and had articles that were almost all worth reading, as opposed to today’s influx of welcome messages and two liners like, "Hi my name is Jane/ John this is my Blog."

The main problem is that a lot of articles get lost, blanketed in five seconds by one liner welcomes.

No one wants to look through a hundred one line welcomes, combine these enigmatic and interminable hellos with an aggressive campaign of what one person finds relevant becoming featured, and it makes for a dilemma.

Dark-Star

on Dec 10, 2003

Again, really good input here. Thanks Anthony R! See, feed back is a good thing. This is a very useful chat we are having. I'm certain we can do more to improve the site.

As it stands right now, not to many things have been done to the site lately (that the user can notice) because we are busy creating a message board that will be incorporated in to the website. But in the mean time, your input will help us refine what we do have in hopes of creating something much more user friendly and feature rich.

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