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Making writing sites better – new categories?

I get great ideas and suggestions all the time in comments and PM’s. It is the only reason honestly that, based on my PM interaction with two authors, I didn’t ask for PMs to be removed. I get a lot of great ideas in my mailbox on the site. Today I wanted to share that concept and design that was in my “inbox”. First off, if someone PMs you and tells you to do something on this site, if they are not an admin, ask them to go away. We do not currently have royals on this site, other than the one self-appointed royal.

The idea that was shared was incredibly simple. But it is also incredibly elegant. The idea is also something the admins could choose to do reasonably quickly, and it is literally to change the available categories for posting. We have had the categories (travel, technology) for a long time. I don’t recall them changing since the early days of the site when I joined. I have a couple of ideas that the idea originator and I discussed in PMs. But that said we all know there are many more categories we could consider. This list is a start. I do not think overall that it would be a significantly big lift for the dev team. It is a drop-down box, which from a coding perspective, is merely linking to a list.

I will do this just like every other version of this making the site better – the first is the call for ideas. Fire away – in the comments or in the voting talk about the categories you would like. The concept would link beautifully with the author’s review board concept. In this model, the author review board would act like the moderators did on Niume. They would select the top of the best articles in each of the categories to be featured on the landing page. Based on the code that the site has today, I suspect the would be a more significant overall lift for the admin/dev team overall.

Finally, my friend that is doing the study of the various social networks on bloggers and blogging asked me if I would consider making a change around the middle of this month. I thought I would throw this out and get community thoughts on this because it will impact all of you directly. It is quite simple. He wants me to respond to all comments on my post but then going forward to the only comment on those posts of people that commented on mine originally.

Thoughts? Like that? Hate that? I am on the fence, honestly.

This work is Copyright DocAndersen. Any resemblance to people real or fictional in this piece is accidental (unless explicitly mentioned by name.)

  • Question of

    would you like to see new categories on the site?

    • Yes
  • Question of

    how about poetry?

    • Yes
  • Question of

    women’s issues

    • Yes
  • Question of

    short stories

    • Yes
  • Question of

    works of Fiction?

    • Yes
  • Question of

    add this to the author content council and it is a neat concept right?

    • Yes

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What do you think?

12 Points

Written by DocAndersen

One fan, One team and a long time dream Go Cubs!!!!!!!!!!!!!

44 Comments

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  1. I like the idea of adding poetry to the categories. Split science and nature up. Maybe ad a photography category. I like the idea of a moderation category, but not sure how that would work. I don’t like the idea of 20 views, but should go by the comments and likes. I know this might not work though. They have to moderate plagiarism, nudity, drugs, word count, and no telling what else. Just my two cents Doc.

    1
  2. Q: WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE NEW CATEGORIES ON THE SITE?
    Yes (6 votes) – 100%
    Q: HOW ABOUT POETRY?
    Yes (4 votes) – 100%
    Q: WOMEN’S ISSUES
    Yes (5 votes) – 100%
    Q: SHORT STORIES
    Yes (5 votes) – 100%
    Q: WORKS OF FICTION?
    Yes (5 votes) – 100%
    Q: ADD THIS TO THE AUTHOR CONTENT COUNCIL AND IT IS A NEAT CONCEPT RIGHT?
    Yes (5 votes) – 100%

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  3. How about a not published yet category, and put all of the unmoderated articles in there.

    In that way, those that read it would sort of be doing a job for the moderators too.

    If enough readers approve the article, it could then go straight on the site without moderation, at all.

    We need to do something it seems to help the moderators moderate, otherwise, the site is dead right now.

    I have waited another two weeks in vain, and still, my latest article is not yet moderated.

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  4. That is not a bad idea. I always thought we could use poetry, movies, and a specific history category. However, I am noticing that every time I post the views are getting less and it seems not everyone is interested in very much anymore.

    2
  5. Having other categories is a nice idea including having author review board on selecting the best articles in each category to be displayed on the landing page. Poetry and short story should be included. And Animals done away to include several categories such as pets.
    Your friend’s suggestion is not bad since he’s doing an analysis but I don’t know if many will take it in good faith.

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  6. I actualy wish for things to be more narrow but then that would cause overlapping.
    say, I would love to have “gaming”, “movies”…etc than just Entertainment
    Or “recipes” rather than just food.

    But that is just me :p

    3

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