Promoting Yourself
Posted by Connor Boyack on September 22nd, 2006
Folks, Sustain’d is not a way for you to publish your own posts and get more blog traffic. This is meant to be a tool for you to submit things from other people’s blogs and web sites that you find useful and interesting.
For those of you who are familiar with digg, you’ll know that it’s somewhat taboo to promote your own things merely to get attention.
Think about it… in church, you don’t propose your own name to be sustained. Your name is proposed by somebody else (a member of the Bishopbric, for example) and then people can sustain you (and you can sustain yourself).
That being said, please don’t use Sustain’d as a tool for submitting your own stuff. Let’s build the community by proposing other people’s content as we would do in the church. Enjoy!
Amen.
Left by danithew on September 22nd, 2006
Give us a bury feature then.
Left by Kim Siever on September 22nd, 2006
I’d like to include that - and hopefully will in the future. Right now it’s not working in Pligg (the open source project I used to build Sustain’d) so either I figure out how to do it myself (not likely) or wait until those guys get it working.
Hopefully soon!
Left by Connor Boyack on September 22nd, 2006
Voila! I guess it wasn’t unlikely after all - I’ve now added the functionality to bury a story. Three buries will remove the story from Sustian’d. Play nice!
Left by Connor Boyack on September 22nd, 2006
Very cool!
Left by Kim Siever on September 22nd, 2006
Is it too difficult for one to choose the reason they are burying a story? If three persons don’t like a post despite it being completely appropriate, then it will be taken off the Sustain’d queue for the front page.
Left by Kim Siever on September 22nd, 2006
Seems to me that it might be appropriate to limit how many times a person can bury posts. Maybe three a day? Also, maybe the number needed to remove a post should depend on how many sustains it’s gotten, rather than just three.
Left by Paula on September 22nd, 2006
Good suggestions - I’ll take them into consideration tomorrow when I have more free time to work on this.
Left by Connor Boyack on September 22nd, 2006
Dang, I should have read this before I posted my “spam” now I feel bad. Consider me a digg noobie.
Left by Nick on September 22nd, 2006
We’ll let it go this time, Nick. Next time, you’ll be lynched.
Left by Kim Siever on September 22nd, 2006
Just keep making cool ‘toons and we’ll forgive you.
Left by Connor Boyack on September 22nd, 2006
Hee hee, thanks for encircling me in the arms of your grace.
Left by Nick on September 22nd, 2006
i thought there wasn’t going to be any censorship going on. three buries by people who disagree or are easily offended by a post is a rather arbitrary standard.
Left by the narrator on September 22nd, 2006
I’m pretty much a digg.com newbie myself, so if that’s the culture there, I wasn’t aware of it, and nobody has pointed it out to me yet (until now). I don’t see a way to unpublish my own posts, so… hmmm.
Left by Andrew on September 22nd, 2006
i thought there wasn’t going to be any censorship going on. three buries by people who disagree or are easily offended by a post is a rather arbitrary standard.
I never recall saying there wouldn’t be any censorship. If that were the case, anybody could disregard the TOS and put whatever they wanted. I hope to never have to use my “admin” powers to remove a post, and instead trust in the “wikipedia” community model of censorship.
I’ll be changing the “bury” structure tomorrow during my free time - I’m thinking I’ll follow Congress’ model and enact a 2/3 rule. If at any time a post receives 1/3 buries and 2/3 sustainings, it’s out. So if a post has 24 sustainings and gets 8 buries, then it’s out.
Does anybody else have any other suggestions on how to best implement the bury feature?
Left by Connor Boyack on September 22nd, 2006
And Andrew, don’t worry about your self-submitted posts. You live and learn, no biggy.
Left by Connor Boyack on September 22nd, 2006
How about just get rid of complete burying system altogether. if a post isn’t that good it won’t get sustained and will find itself in the depths of the list anyways.
Left by the narrator on September 22nd, 2006
I don’t understand why you’re determined to have the bury votes count as more than the sustained votes. Why not just a simple vote? You can keep the minimums to keep people from burying a brand new post, but why let people bury it if the majority still “sustain” it?
Left by Bryant on September 22nd, 2006
As for the censorship issue, on the about page, you say this:
You imply that the community determines the staying power of a post (and also reiterate this on your comment on the narrator’s site). However, in the terms of service, you say this:
Obviously this is your site and you can do what you want with it, so I’m not going to tell you that your policy is bad, but I am curious about how you intend to run the site, so maybe you can just clear up the discrepancy: Who decides if a post is “appropriate”? You or the community?
Left by Bryant on September 22nd, 2006
it’s one thing if the post is spam, pornographic, etc. it’s another thing if enough people get together to decide they don’t want a certain idea or thought being heard.
burying (especially with such small numbers) makes it too easy for people to censor other peoples thoughts, because they subjectively find it not in their own tastes or disagreeable with their views. this was the very thing that mormonstories was running up against, the very context of my initial question about censorship on mormonstories, and the very thing that initiated sustain’d.
Left by the narrator on September 22nd, 2006
If enough people think there’s worth in what was submitted, then what’s to worry about?
This is why I think it’s a good idea to implement a bury feature like Digg has where you need to indicate one of 4–5 reasons why you are burying.
Isn’t sustaining a story just as subjective as burying one for personal reason (i.e. not for spam)?
That being said, if you don’t like the setup, feel free not to visit or participate.
Left by Kim Siever on September 22nd, 2006
If enough people think there’s worth in what was submitted, then what’s to worry about?
the few who decide that they don’t want others to read it.
This is why I think it’s a good idea to implement a bury feature like Digg has where you need to indicate one of 4–5 reasons why you are burying.
i agree
Isn’t sustaining a story just as subjective as burying one for personal reason (i.e. not for spam)?
yes, but the results are different. the latter is censorship.
That being said, if you don’t like the setup, feel free not to visit or participate.
sounds like what i sometimes hear at church and political discussions. but i still enjoy the church and our nation and want to stay. i just want to point out things where i think improvements can be made.
Left by the narrator on September 23rd, 2006
“yes, but the results are different. the latter is censorship.”
Both of them are censorship. Censorship isn’t just withholding information; it’s also about controlling what information is distributed.
Left by Kim Siever on September 23rd, 2006
I think the ‘bury’ feature is a good idea. If it doesn’t work out or a segment of readers are abusing it, than Connor can mess with it. As it stands, I think a third of the readership is probably a sufficiently high threshold to prevent abuse. I might suggest that there be a minimum — such as three — of burying votes required to boot a post, so that newly-nominated posts aren’t removed by a vote of 1 to 2.
I appreciate the narrator’s concerns, but I’d rather take a wait-and-see approach before I got up in arms about the system.
Left by forpeterssake on September 23rd, 2006
“the Narrator” has already tried to manipulate this site by asking his readers to “find some of the best controversial posts you can find and submit them so you and others can sustain them.”
This is precisely the reason that a ‘bury’ feature is needed — to allow readers at least the option to counteract those who are artificially manipulating/skewing what the site has to offer.
Left by danithew on September 23rd, 2006
danithew:
you’ve discovered part of my evil plan.
you should have included the preceding sentence which said “i want to test this thing out to see if a strong critical/progessive voice can be made from the lds community.”
my post was not an urge to manipulate the system, but rather an urge for progressive voices to become active in it. it’s no secret that critical/progressive voices are often silenced by some in lds communities. i have had friend and friend after friend coming to me and telling me that they’ve decided to leave the church because they feel like they can’t express their views without being spit on by fellow members. it’s sad.
as john dehlin of mormonstories pointed out at the recent sunstone symposium, a lot of mormons who feel isolated in their wards have found hope in the voices that they have found online. i personally know several who have decided to stay in the church because of like-voices they have discovered on the internet.
sustain’d was partly created as a result of mormonstories being blocked on ldsblogs.org for occasionally not towing the party line.
if progressive voices are not strong enough, it won’t get votes and will die. that’s fine. my only issue is the problem of a select few deciding that those voices shouldn’t be heard at all.
kim siever:
sorry, i was using censorship in a more precise sense. “the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds.” you can argue that by lifting one, you are implicity suppressing the other, but the two have two obvious different affects. it is one thing to raise your voice, it is another thing to ducktape the opposing voice.
Left by the narrator on September 23rd, 2006
Help me understand why you care whether a person promotes her own blog. She still only gets one vote. If you like it, you\’ll vote for it too. If you don\’t then you will not. Either way, generally interesting content will rise and less interesting content will not. That\’s the value of this model.
Left by Arosophos on September 24th, 2006
Same reason we don’t like someone sending us an email promoting their own site. In most instances, the desire is for self-promotion and not for community building.
Left by Kim Siever on September 24th, 2006
well i see that the censorship is already in effect. johnny’s ‘10 small advances’ was successfully blocked from readership by 3 persons even though it had received 11 sustainings - a number only bettered by 2 other submissions.
Left by the narrator on September 24th, 2006
Are self-promotion and community building always mutually exclusive? Why not let the sustaining votes decide?
Left by Arosophos on September 24th, 2006
If the content is that good, why not wait for someone else to post it?
Left by Kim Siever on September 24th, 2006
for occasionally not towing the party line.
Actually the phrase is “toe the party line”
There’s various claims to the origin of this phrase. My personal favorite is best displayed in the movie “Far and Away” with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman (I’m such a sucker for that girl). In the underground boxing world, fighters were told to put their toe to a chalk-marked line to signify that they were ready to fight.
Your usage is more consistent with the claimed origin in the British House of Commons. Wikipedia has the full story.
/end threadjack
Left by Ryan on September 25th, 2006
. . . and why wait?
Left by Arosophos on September 25th, 2006
I don’t see a problem with self-promotion if I have something worth sharing.
Self-promotion becomes a problem if people do it repeatedly using poor content with the sole intent to drive traffic to their site. However, the whole idea of sites like Digg and Sustain’d is to make interesting content available to the community and then let the community decide whether the content is great or not.
If we submitters can behave ourselves and only submit legitimate items, then there shouldn’t be a problem but in fact can be good for Sustain’d and the community. Appropriate self-promotion can help Sustain’d and benefit the LDS community (by increasing good, timely content). If this benefits the self-promoter, I’m OK with that. After all, isn’t that what news agencies do? They work hard to find good information for their viewers/readers/listeners, and then they provide that information while touting who they are.
For example, I’ve submitted two posts. One is a link to my blog entry that references and discusses a news article saying Bill O’Reilly (Fox News) is calling Mitt Romney the early favorite. That’s certainly interesting to the LDS community. The other post is a list of websites that I believe are very useful in personal gospel study. That’s certainly interesting to the LDS community. Putting both on Sustain’d myself gets good content on Sustain’d in a timely manner which just helps Sustain’d more.
Long ramble concluded.
Left by David on September 27th, 2006
If we submitters can behave ourselves and only submit legitimate items, then there shouldn’t be a problem but in fact can be good for Sustain’d and the community.
…and therein lies the problem.
Sure, some, if not most, may have the altruistic desire to share good content with others. However, others may simply want to get a notch higher in the online popularity contest and therefore submit their own content in this pursuit.
Being able to distinguish between the two is impossible, and so we leave it up to people to find good content on other people’s sites. The altruistic behavior will certainly (if there are enough users) lead to people postings these things you would have posted yourself.
Left by Connor Boyack on September 27th, 2006
very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce
Left by Idetrorce on December 15th, 2007