I'm seeing more and more blogs authors link their articles here, especially as they discover they can get some nice inbound traffic from Plime.

But there's a special group in particular that is disturbing my use of Plime and I think we need to discuss it as a group.

There are two types of blog posts that irritate me:

• An ad-covered blog has what amounts to non-content (i.e. a few short paragraphs of text that doesn't say anything that interesting at all and were obviously only posted here to earn the poster traffic/ad revenue).
  
  
• A blog has a more in-depth article, but in the case of intended factual data, does not quote sources explaining where it got its information from.
  
  In the case of the non-information, it's simply a case of adding noise to Plime. In the case of unsourced news, it's a case of encouraging both disinformation and plagiarism. I'd like Plime to be as informative and substantial as possible. When a blog post reports that the Pope was just assassinated and rehashes what was reported in CNN (without bothering to mention that CNN did all the reporting) leaves the reader of the blog with no way of verifying the truth of a claim.

I think it's time we started down-voting those types of posts.

Thoughts?

I agree, and do down-vote. I think as others find their footing here you will see more "Voting" both up as well as down.

Have these blogs been getting up-voted?

I agree. I think personal character should prevent people linking to their own stuff. Personally, I don't like bragging on myself (aka "tooting my own horn") for what I've done, which is why you won't get any links from me to my personal work/website/blog/etc. Now if someone else finds and posts it, that's another thing altogether.

Also, I'm tired of links to opinion articles. Give me whatever else you want, but hold the "opinion" posts, please.

From what I've seen, most blogs don't list their sources, they just report the news themselves or pretty much copy and paste the news.

Personally, I'm tired of visiting blogs for news. I also feel these blantant attempts to get more traffic to their sites by linking their blogs as "news", will only increase with time unless it's nipped in the bud.

I don't know if there is a way block or not allow links to blogs, but it wouldn't hurt my feelings to end all of them. We may miss out on the occasional interesting blog, but they are far and few between.

As far as downvoting them goes, I'll give it a shot, but sometimes they can be hard to distinguish from real articles. I also believe any traffic, even negative, only encourages these people. Plus, as one person has stated, they can just add multiple accounts to upvote their own links. Depending on how devoted they are, they could be difficult to counter.

Edit to add: Looking at the current front page, there are several links to blogs, and one article linked by the writer himself. The question is are they worth linking? Some our informative, some aren't. We don't make a habit of downloaded uninteresting links, just ignoring them, but they will still get many hits as people find out for themselves that they aren't worth upvoting.

One way that may help the ad ones, is to require a member to be a certain level, say 3, before posting a link. That would stop the people who create an account just to push their ware.

Also, if possible, I wouldn't mind everyone's stat page showing when they became a member. That would give us an indication if someone recently created an account.

I wanted to add.

If you vote down a submission for this reason, it would be extremely helpful to add that in a comment. I can almost guarantee more of a response from other plime members.

People who only link to their own blog here are here only for one reason, to spam their own stuff. I tend to downvote all those.

From the point of view of the community, allowing self-promotion does not benefit it in any way. A page (news, blog, whatever) that is interesting enough to be linked here would get linked by someone anyway. If it doesn't, well, it probably wasn't all that interesting to begin with.

Some bloggers who shall remain anonymous (such as FriedBrains) seem to think that every single article they write is interesting enough to be linked. Would they get linked if he didn't do it himself? No. And it's no for a reason.

Now what if said anonymous person had sent the link privately to several users (say, the ones who had been in the top five the last few days, for instance), or perhaps posted it in a forum thread, and asked if they thought it would be interesting enough? Then perhaps one of them could have posted it and it wouldn't have been spam. Eh?

No. I usually don't care who submitted it. I care about the content of the submission. If a top submitter started linking things that were spam, I'd vote them down.

Spam is about content, not authorship.

agree!

I usually don't bother even reading blog posts (the exception being really really funny ones - but I'll look at the comments first to see if it is), and it's frustrating to read blog posts with no links to the original article(s). I go to Plime to find news, not blogs [Maybe a blog category could fix this? Although I know I'd never use/visit that category]. Jax is right, it's plagiarism if these bloggers do not cite their sources, and I won't trust anything a blog says unless there's a source to back it up.

I've been downvoting some links to a user's blog for two reasons:
1. If something really is that freakin' interesting, it'll be elsewhere, and usually somewhere credible/official.
2. I read the 'comments' for people's opinions; I don't need to read a whole article on an opinion.

What if instead of downvoting we replaced the URL to a more credible source, if the story they are discussing is interesting enough.

In other words, always link through to the original or most substantial source of content.

If a blog post is simply citing a gizmodo post, change it to the Gizmodo post. If a blog does not cite a claim that the Pope was assasinated, but you see it all over Google News, replace the link with one to a credible news source.

The blogger shouldn't mind, right? If they really are part of the community and the community stands to benefit from more qualitative articles on Plime than a rehash post, then how can they complain about this?

I think the line for exceptions should be drawn where a blog is genuinely informative or interesting in its own right. An example might be WWTDD.com, which I regularly read not for the celebrity news, but for the hilarious writing style of the author. So in other words, if there is substantial value in visiting the page itself, there's no need to change it to a more recognizable source.

Does this make sense?

Yes.

In the sense that the link you're posting is there because it's funny, not because it's a good source of news. I go to SomethingAwful because it's funny, not because it's good source of facts.

I like this idea a lot. Let people visit and comment, thereby showing some active involvement in site before they can post their own links. Users who are genuinely interested in contributing can reach level 3 easily enough just by their up-voted comments, but it would be enough of a deterrent that Joe Schmoe can't create an account just to generate traffic for his blog.

I have found interesting stories discussed on blogs, but whenever possible I trace the story back to the original source and use that link on plime. Unless the blog is actually breaking the story (which happens very, VERY rarely), there is no reason to link to it. Let us see the original source for ourselves and form our own opinion on it.

I did that just this morning.



I agree with everything else you said, too.

The level requirement sounds great to me, but I'd suggest level 2. I think even level 3 is enough of a deterrent that it may drive people away that we don't want to leave. According to the new chart:
user level 1 karma 10
user level 2 karma 80
user level 3 karma 270

Getting 270 points takes a while for most folks these days.

80 karma would be enough. many people dont get that much karma for comments and they can learn what is considered good or bad on the site. for real at first i was so interested in other peoples posts i didnt post my first article untill i while after i joined. (i was still level 1 but still)

I made a post on my blog at about this topic. I am repeating it here so that you don't have to go there to read it:

My Response to a Forum Topic on Plime

Yes, I have indeed read Should rehash news blogs that don’t link their news source be allowed on Plime and the forum comments following it.

I am not debating your issues with blogs that purport to report the news without revealing their sources. I agree with you on that. I do not agree with you on this:

“An ad-covered blog has what amounts to non-content (i.e. a few short paragraphs of text that doesn’t say anything that interesting at all and were obviously only posted here to earn the poster traffic/ad revenue).”

How do you determine what’s interesting for everyone else? Where do you think you are, Slashdot? Also, what do you consider ad-covered? Have any of you ever heard of Adblock or Adblock Plus?

This sentence, “I think personal character should prevent people linking to their own stuff.”, is obviously made by a person with no experience in professional writing. When an author writes a book, who do you think the first one to promote it is? The author, of course. How else is it going to be published?

Search engines can take weeks to properly index any website, even longer for new blogs. There’s no shame in getting their information out in front of as many eyes as possible. If the information is poor, user moderation will take care of it quickly. Whether their purpose for linking the information is for self-gain is irrelevant. Are you trying to tell me that you don’t gain anything from participating on Plime? If you are, you’re lying.

Some of you seem to think that Plime is a news aggregator. It is not. It’s a social website of which news is only one facet. Opinion pieces will and should be linked, along with other types of content. This is why Plime was designed with user moderation in mind.

While you have a right to your opinions about any of this is not debatable. Your opinions, however, do not give you the right to determine what’s suitable for Plime. Whether you know it or not, blogging IS replacing traditional news services and it’s happening rather quickly. The fact that blog owners, authors, and supporters are putting advertising on their websites should have absolutely no bearing on whether a posting is a suitable topic.

I feel insulted by the action of a mere one or two users. My post, Do You Like Spam?, concerning email forwards is indeed more relevant today than it was five years ago. More than 80 percent of email is spam (statistics have already been published elsewhere). The spammers get email addresses from people who do NOT know the facts that I provided. I'm sorry that I could not stretch the post to make it look like there was more substance.

The point is not that we have to suffer through seeing your ads, the point is if a person has a blog, and all that they do to generate content is copy and paste whatever they read over the wire, without adding anything to the article. What do we get from the blog that we wouldn't get from the original article? How is that not plagarism?

The author first promotes their book to publishers. They then spend money to BUY advertising in newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and even on the internet. Notice I said buy, not spam everywhere there is a captive audience. This kind of thing is like running in a movie theater before the movie starts with a bullhorn and yelling about your new book.

Going along with what you said about user moderation, yea, the good blogs have people who want to share something they found interesting. People meaning not the person who wrote it.

And what have I gained from participating on plime? I've met some interesting people, and read some interesting things that I probably would have otherwise missed. Also I've let a crazy person know that I live less than 5 mins away from their house ( /waves at Bornbad, Please don't drive up and down my street at night ;). I don't make money.

Note you said opinion pieces, not plagiarized rehashes of everything Yahoo, Google, and CNN post.

This is where you really start going off into imagination land. Last time I checked, pretty much everything to do with plime is debatable, right down to the color scheme for each category. Yes blogging is replacing traditional news services, but when a blogger just reposts the same stuff as the other guys, just with THEIR ads, that's nothing special. That's not replacing the traditional news outlets, that's making a buck on someone else's work.

I read your post titled "Do You Like Spam?", for the record, I don't like either variety. The point is, it's just not very interesting, or too helpful. What you are suggesting is that there are sinister people at the end of every "FW: FW: FW: FW: FW: Lawlzzzz... this is funny... look at this picture" e-mail that sells the entire list of addresses to some spam house. That's just not how everyone's address gets out there.

Honestly, your post was probably just made at the right place, wrong time. A whole bunch of blog posts got voted down right after this thread began. I am hoping for more discussion and a community affirmed stance before people took it as a license to downvote all blogs. I apologize if my post contributed to your article being deleted as a result.

I'm really, really glad we have the viewpoint of a blogger in this thread. I'd like to see more voices like RTCA's in this thread, as like it or not, everyone is welcome to be a part of the community and they have a right to help decide the direction of Plime.

I have a blog, too (who doesn't these days), and I have posted from it a couple of times, but that's all. The times I have posted were completely original content - stuff I took pictures of in the real world and posted on my blog, because where else would I post them?

My blog isn't quite like some of the others, where people write up big opinion pieces or talk about their baby. Mine tends to be mostly a collection of links to other sites I've found interesting. I have posted some of those same links here on Plime, but have always posted a link to the original article, even if I felt like my blog post was good. For example, I posted a link here about "stuff you never thought to use your cell phone for" that I had also blogged. I summarized the original article in my post, distilling it down to just the stuff that was actually helpful. I thought I did a really good job, but I still linked to the original article.

I agree with RTCA that an author has to promote their own work, because who else will? Even when people sell books to publishers, they still do things like go on book tours. However, my personal opinion is that Plime is not a site for people to make money from (don't know if that applies to anyone specific or not). If you want to make money from a link to your site, buy an ad on Fark.

I actively vote-down anyone who is self promoting. Thats not what this site is about. As far as people reaching a high enough level.. There are a number of folks here who are just wantonly copying stories from other sites.. they are getting HUGE karma points for some very lazy work... soon it may be enough duplication as to render this site useless. I know this is a tangental issue.... but I feel pretty strongly about it being wrong.

..that, and those crappy indy-music blog links.

I think it's definitely time to down-vote these articles. There are several users I have seen that post to nothing but their own blogs. RTCA, and friedbrains are the most outspoken of them. In my opinion that is definitely trolling. I don't think it's fair to the rest of the Plime users to do this. Granted there have been a few of these articles that have faired well with the Plime community. (I read a few and thought they were nothing but opinuendo and tripe) However like the people before me have said they should use a Farkish type services.

I like the suggestion runninutes made to require level 3 to post articles. I feel level 2 is too low, but I must agree that 3 is too high. Is there any way to make it 2.5? Anyways, with a level restriction you must first tell the community that you are willing to participate and add to it not abuse it and take from it.

Punching up your blog on Plime should be cause for point status loss. I have a stupid blog I'm embarresed of (except for my son's stories).