March 12, 2009

• Debates! What I REALLY think part 1

  Just cuz I’m bored I figured I’d post what I actually think about all these topics.
  
  Should Xanga’s Front Page Focus More on Featured or Top Blogs?

  Featured. However the select process for Featured should be more open. It’s currently an editorial process and like all editorial pages in all newspapers and magazines in this country, no matter how hard they try to be otherwise, they are biased. That’s not to say they aren’t trying to be otherwise, no doubt the Xanga Team does its best, but it’s impossible for them not to bring their own natural biases and inclinations to bear when picking content.

  Everyone is biased, that’s natural. The problem is that for a website that is supposed to be open and attractive to everyone, being open to the criticism of bias is dangerous and distracting. Further, I think the whole business of picking out featured entries distracts the Xanga Team from the business of making Xanga itself better.

  I think you can kill two birds with one stone by making the Xanga community choose the Featured Content through a sort of rotating editor-ship. Where groups of Xangans are given voting privilege for short periods of times to select the Featured Content out of featured submissions and high scorers in votes and recommendations. It would work sort of like Slashdot works. That removes any sense of bias provided the editors are chosen at random and it gets the act of selecting Featured Content out of the hadns of the Xanga Team.  You also have to have some sort of VETO process so that Xanga Team can reject entries that conflict with the wishes of their advertisers or their desire to be a Family Friendly site. But I think that, 1. that should be open, and 2. the person who wrote the entry should be given an opportunity to alter or censor their work and resubmit it to be featured.

  With regards to Top Blogs I think it works fine right now except I think it should be in the central part of the main page as another Tab. Featured would still display FIRST, but you can just click one click to pull up Top Blogs. 

  I also agree with theTheologiansCafe’s comments about putting more content in the rotating banner at the top.

  Topic: Should Timestamping Be Allowed?
  
  Yes. Timestamping is of dubious morality but you can’t really stop people from doing it. Not by a social crusade. Even if you convinced most people not to timestamp, the few people who did would have an inherent advantage creating a free rider problem. 

  To remove Timestamping is to take away a feature of Xanga which will undoubtedly annoy people. Many people use these time manipulation features for beneficial purposes.  Further to remove timestamping would likely push people into the arms of other features of dubious morality like tagging and mass messaging or reposting.

  The solution of course is to alter the way the subscription browser and universal inbox work so as to make timestamping less annoying or visible to people. If I can mark an entry as READ, timestamping would be irrelevant to me.

  TheTheologiansCafe: Overrated or Genius?

  Neither as far as I know. He’s  a good blogger and popular. I have no idea what his IQ is.

  Are trolls good for xanga?

  Does it matter?

  The answer is of course not. If they were there’d be no reason to call them “trolls”. By definition a Troll is a being who disrupts the flow of discussion in a community, intentionally. Certainly the term arose because of a behavior that people found unacceptable.

  However, let me just say that a LOT of what people call Trolling isn’t actually Trolling and IS Good for Xanga.  Like basic disagreement, even FORCEFUL disagreement. That’s not trolling but many people see it as such. The fact that people can’t agree about what constitutes trolling means that there’s little or no point in trying to police trolling. You really can’t do anything about Trolling hence the question is rather pointless.

  I’ve written plenty on trolling before so I’ll stop there.

  The case for or against featuring pics and videos on the xanga front page.
  
  eh. I think I’m against but I don’t feel that passionate about it.  I think you should just be able to post a Blog Entry that is just a picture or just a video and that can be featured on the front page if it’s good enough. Same standards as other blog entries. It’s also possible I think to bifurcate the Xanga Home Page into a Video Centric or a Picture Centric site.

  Are eprops and credits beneficial to xanga?

  Credits are. Eprops are pointless.

  Eprops don’t appreciably differ from unique poster count which is proportional to overall comment count in which is a sufficient statistical measure of popularity. Outliers, (mostly flame war caused) can be excluded in other ways.

  Credits however allow Xanga to price features creating an economy. That’s Good. Even if Xanga doesn’t have any good use for it, one day they might. Credits give a lot of flexibility for encouraging or discouraging features without having to charge people actual money for them.

  Should we be allowed to Mass Message with such ease?
  
  Yes. Really it isn’t THAT easy right now. I don’t get a lot of Spam on Xanga. I get almost none.

  Honestly though in principle you can’t stop Spam. It’s virtually impossible. Email is still useful in spite of Spam. Xanga messages can be too.  The fear is that if you start restricting messages you limit the usefulness. Open systems are superior to closed systems. We wouldn’t have the modern internet were it not for them.

  However, I have no problem with making an option to opt out of messages sent to “all subscribers” and “all friends”. Make the people who want to spam enter in all the addresses themselves.

  ARE CLIQUES HARMFUL TO XANGA?

  A little but not really.

  It’s hard to say cuz nobody really knows what a Clique is.

  With a broad definition Cliques are just groups. In that case trying to stop Cliques from forming is like trying to stand on the beach and keep the sand from receding with the waves.  Human beings group up. It’s natural. And that’s actually a good thing over all. Joining Xanga and feeling isolated and alone is the greatest risk. I’ve felt that myself when I joined.  People need to find subscribers and friends. If you get a group of friends on Xanga you open yourself up right away to being accused of being a Clique, by a broad definition.

  But a more restrictive definiton associates Cliques with mini-Xanga Gangs. Or maybe like Fraternities or Sororities. In these cases danger can arise. If these kinds of Cliques start to dominate people can feel alienated and excluded.  Further harms can arise as gang behaviors tend to lead to war and terrorization. Initiation might also be cruel or disparaging.

  Two things are important to take into account here. One is that Cliques by the stronger definition aren’t inherently evil either. A “Gang” that engages primarily in community works ought to be encouraged not discouraged just because of the gang-style organization. For this reason, it’s silly to try and eliminate or destroy Cliques. Rather the goal should be identify harmful Clique behavior and prevent THAT.

  The second is that Cliques represent only a small subsection of the overall community. What THAT means is that Xanga itself has to be very careful not to associate itself as an institution with *any* Cliques. It ought not even associate itself with any particular users. If Xanga Team were to, say, join a Clique then anyone who does not agree with or get along with the members of said Clique would feel put out and be likely to leave Xanga. They would perceive Xanga Team’s behavior as favoritism. Xanga needs to keep as close as possible  to at least the illusion of impartiality to maximize their ability to recruit users of all stripes and sizes.

  • 2:37 pm
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