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The Quest for New Content
OmniNerds, once again we turn to you in search of new thoughts, suggestions, and critiques. You see, we’ve got a problem at OmniNerd: our staff talks too much. In 2006, the OmniNerd admins and moderators submitted 79% of articles, 82% of news, 67% of coffee shops, 65% of polls, and 45% of comments. Why is this concerning? Well, there are 6 of us and 600+ of you. In 2007, our goal is to increase the content submitted by our users. We’re prepared to work hard to get on track, but need your help in two ways to do so.
First, tell us why you haven’t submitted content before, or why you’ve stopped submitting content. If the site is a hindrance, let us know. If you feel the bar is set too high for content, please speak up. OmniNerd can only be successful with diverse, nerdy content … your content. We’re looking to you for our answers. So if you’ve never even posted a comment, this is the perfect opportunity to do so and tell us what’s stopped you in the past.
Second, we feel that there may be content gaps on the site. Polls are simple and mindless, articles are long and thoughtful, and somewhere in between are news and coffee shop posts. Is there other content that you would submit but simply don’t have the means to do so on OmniNerd? Tell us about what you’d be willing to write if you had free reign on OmniNerd’s design.
Lastly, keep in mind that with only ten years before the Great Purge, this may be one of the few opportunities you have to save yourself.
Similarly tagged OmniNerd content:
- OmniNerd Version 3 Nearing Beta, by markmcb almost 6 years ago
- Building a Better OmniNerd Society, by markmcb almost 6 years ago
- OmniNerd Version 3 in Development, by markmcb about 6 years ago
- Dlog on Nerds, Dlog on, by markmcb over 6 years ago
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Dont be concerned by kyle44
Hello, I am back.
I have a few comments about why I have not been participating lately on the O-Nerd. I am stuck in the land of slow internet and pop-up blockers. It is not the content at all. Although Will’s lengthy and frequent submissions are very intimidating to me. I dont understand half the words!!!
By the way dont let the ‘Man’ know I got onto the site. he will try to block me, again.
My 2 cents and a possible upcoming submission by stopgap
The level of content at OmniNerd is superb and it seems the admins and moderators are responsible. Several times I attempted to submit news items only to realize that I don’t have the time or the wherewithal to polish the material to the level I feel is adequate for this site. Does that mean the bar is set too high? Not at all. I like it where it is.
That said, I plan (for what that’s worth) on writing up the rebuilding an old raised garden bed and offering it for consideration to The OmniNerd.
Shorter or Tiered Articles? by markmcb
I had a few conversations with the other admins about our current articles. I’m less than excited that our Halloween (October) article still has a padding of 3 articles before it is bumped off the front page. Granted, I know articles will be less frequent than news, etc., but they are too infrequent currently.
I mentioned a blog I had written about Rails to one of the other admins, to which he replied, "why don’t you write an article about that?" I said, because writing an article for OmniNerd would take me a month while writing my blog takes me 5 minutes. That’s what sparked my idea for shorter or tiered articles.
What if, much like the comments, we had a very objective framework for different types of articles. All articles would still have to be original and informative/interesting. However, quality could vary. So, I could submit my Rails stuff and it’d be a Tier 3 "short, no depth, few or no source" article. Tier 2 could be something greater and Tier 1 could be the usual, well-sourced, highly structured article that is so commonplace today.
With tiers established, the higher tiered articles could get certain benefits like more time on the front page or something like that. Does this sound interesting to anyone? Would you be more willing to write an article if we set something like this in place?
The unfortunate time factor. by gnifyus
The time it would take me to do an article is the one thing hindering me right now. As a father of two, and having a full time job, about the only time I have for OmniNerd is between about 10:00 and 11:ish at night, and sporadic short posts from work. That time so far has been spent in replies, a few News items, and one Coffee Shop post. Since I like to try to give quality replies, (at least in the actual wording part) this much has so far kept me busy.
On the other hand, since I discovered this site around Thanksgiving, I’ve noticed that probably, in that amount of time at most, only about 20 different people including the moderators seem to be active at all anymore.
When I first started trying to contribute of course, it was new. I wondered early on if I would get ‘burnt out” as time went by and become just another name on a list.
MySpace & Digg by VnutZ
Everybody hates MySpace. Everybody wonders how Digg became the popular site over its similar clones. What is the thread these sites share that make them so popular? I believe it’s user interaction.
And I don’t mean just the I can post stuff and read stuff kind of interaction. People can vote on Digg. People can obsess over getting lots of popular diggs. People can fuss over getting negative diggs. People obsess over their "friend" count on MySpace and how to get more. People look at the linkages between them.
Launching the Nerd Log was a half-step towards this. wyldeling commented once that he wanted to see more stats. Nerds tend to be like that. Nerds like seeing patterns in chaos. Nerds like interconnectivity.
So where am I going with this? We have a lot of the elements in place. User Pages. Nerd Rank. Scoring. Simple Statistics. But no system to tie them together. Now I’m not saying to degenerate into some sort of NerdFriends type system. But what if Tersh could be integrated into this site? Users could give "nerd props/boos" to various articles, posts and comments internally to OmniNerd. These would be separate from arbitrator scoring (which must be objective). Such an integration could provide the sort of things users like – an interactivity with a visual result.
Perhaps the "Props/Boos" could be used not to influence Nerd Rank. Rather, to establish a guru-ness. I’m pretty sure wyldeling would receive a ton of props for his physics insights. Over time, those props would establish him as a category leader which in effect makes him the guru of the physics category. There could be some challenges within the theology category and computing category. Various users would simply "emerge" as gurus in their respective fields.
I’ve been told by others they don’t comment because someone else has said exactly what they wanted to say – but far more eloquently. This mechanism would allow them to virtually "stand behind" an opinion. There are likely many people that read the site’s content that are not interested in saying anything … but could commend those that say what they would have liked to say themselves.
These days, the web is driven by users that feel they’re doing something. We can cater to those users that want to say "Yeah – what he said!", without having to lower any of our own bars. And the system that provides that ability also gives people a variety of little statistics to fuss over.
Not quantity but quality by EyeOfSage
Well, the reason why no one other than the top nerds post is simple: Most people are not as ‘skilled’ as the top nerds.
So how do we solve this problem? The solution is simple also. Omninerd needs more staff. At least more moderators. Of course the candidates will need to take a test to prove their worthiness.
Looks like you're losing this quest ... by Anonymous
By my calculation, as of this comment, the moderator/administrator-to-user ratio has gotten worse. Ouch!
Comment on content by Anonymous
I like reading Waddell’s stuff.
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One thing I hate by jmarkdavison
This annoys the hell out of me: the Amazon ads on the right side of the page. I hate how it snoops into my browsing history- it’s worse than the Gmail ads.
I would never buy anything that that stupid little box recommended.