I'm thinking about enabling a user-blog feature. This is was something active early on in TKP's history, but ultimately I killed it because there was confusion between the difference between it and a forum topic.
Ultimately a forum topic would serve as a way to share a short thought, link, YouTube video, social media blurb, etc... Whereas a user blog post would be for long-form thoughts, statistical analysis, and it's something a TKP staffer could bump to the front-page of the site.
Is this something you'd use? Any feedback on the paradigm?
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Not here, but thank you.
I'm not sure, and I'm not positive I understand the point. There have been a lot of good comments that have spun off into their own forum topic.
Is the main point of it for users to write/submit long-form posts so that they can be bumped to the main page? Because if that is all, why not make some kind of "letter to the editor" submission page?
Joe, have you ever thought about moving tkp to an independent platform like F5? They have a couple of independent sites for other schools and their platform is pretty nice. Might give you back some time in your day not having to do all this coding.
I've looked at off-the-shelf options, but none of them are as good as TKP's stack. I'm actually working on the next version of TKP right now, which will launch in 2021.
what stack does tkp use? would you want volunteers to help out?
I'm almost certain he built it himself from the ground up.
It's built on top of Drupal 7, the new version is built on Drupal 9.
Would I like the ability to write a long form piece, have the ability to format it like a staff piece, and (if it's actually good) potentially see it bumped to the front page? Yes.
However, I think asking the writer to differentiate between a 'blog post' and a 'forum post' will cause confusion. Are there technical differences between the two? Is there a different user experience? When do I have to decide if it's a forum post or blog post? If I write a forum post that's too long, are you going to ask/suggest/force me to make it a blog post?
I notice that the articles on the front page have a very specific layout/format (cover photo, subheaders, etc) - Perhaps you could call forum posts and blog posts the same thing, have them created the same way, but just allow a 'richer' or premade format option? Could even be a feature limited to paying members.
Yeah you nailed it. Asking users to distinguish between them was confusing. There were some one-line forum blog posts and other long form forum topics. Ultimately I simplified the process by killing the blog post option. But there have been a lot of great "forum" topics over the year that I would've loved to share on the front-page.
So do you have the ability to move a worthy topic post to the front page? If so, that seems like the simplest option to me....but what do i know?
I think this would be a legitimate approach to it. I looked in to developing a similar model for a hypothetical ecommerce assignment last year, and one of the basic ideas was that articles written by the common folk would have the ability to migrate on to the main page as a promoted article based on article traffic and positive user feedback. Over time, if the same author continued to get positive results on their postings then anytime their article was published it would get immediately posted to a promoted page on the site. The biggest incentive for authors (other than a growing ego) - a percentage of web traffic revenue distribution. Not sure if thats in the cards for TKP version next, but something to think about...
Joe gets the main cut, and aspiring sports writers get a free chance to make some coin by producing some quality content. E.g., that sub-thread that bar1990 started a couple days ago on the Beamer vs. Fuente recruiting results would have been a prime candidate for a promoted article.
Sounds like a good feature but would likely require another editor depending on the number of long-form opinions people submit.
I need an editor on my comments. I'm pretty sure any threads I've started should require an editor.
I think the best part of TKP is its hybrid feel where simple posts and longer articles all jive together.
I do like the idea of bumping user posts to the front page.
Don't kill the bar dude.
How would this kill the bar?
what is the bar?
I think he means the current way we have informal communications on this site.
The feel of tkp as a sports bar is how I took it
"Sometimes you eat the bar, sometimes the bar eats you."
That would be a pretty neat option, but I'm not sure what it would entail. Would new comments on the blog pop up in the tracker?
I would be interested in adding to a stats blog, if I didn't think I was going to be spamming/annoying everybody that didn't want to be inundated with numbers stuff until a finished project actually comes out.
Some of us would probably love to see each other's progress and keep track of that. If it's like a workshop you could opt into I'd love it (and opt in). If it's conversation that goes straight to the tracker, I'd think the average poster would find a lot of shop talk "noise".
It would be nice to have a more nuanced formatting options for longer posts than forum topics allow. I'm not sure the benefit of splitting those on our end (vs just adding more formatting options for all posts), but if it allows you to move the site more towards your vision of it, go for it.
For those of us that know absolutely nothing about social media outside TKP can you explain in knuckledragger terms the difference? Also this is your site so really whatever you want to do.
I'm not sure exactly how that would be different from the current site.
I sort of like the way the current format keeps things of interest at the forefront, and anyone can post, subject to some fairly loose rules. May be that I'm not understanding the proposal completely.
Seems like you're proposing to add more work to the site on your end, but I'm not seeing a huge benefit to the user community.
I don't think its a bad idea, but I think the forum posts work just as well. Not sure if it would be worth the effort imo.
I think it would work, and I'd be interested in it.
Hopefully this clears up what I'm thinking.
Would we still have the "Active Discussions" ticker on the front page?
Yes.
Will they be displayed differently in the Tracker? That's how I navigate the site 99% of the time. For me personally, this is a distinction without a difference type deal. I'm going to read just about anything, so blog or post doesn't really matter.
If this allows exceptional user-generated content to be pinned to the Front Page then I'm all for that, but would a blog automatically get pinned to the Front Page or is that something that gets done by you? If it is automatic, then I can see it getting abused and the Front Page cluttered up by one or a few high-volume posters. It could work as long as blogs get submitted for approval and/or editing prior to being posted.
Lastly, do whatever doesn't add to your workload maintaining the site. It works great now, so don't tinker if it isn't necessary or makes your life more difficult.
Forgive me if I'm looking at this wrong but it looks like this 'blog' post would just be a type of post that would allow a user to post in the format of the official article posts. Is that the case? This also give you the same functions as an official article post on the back-end, I assume.
If this is the case, is there a way to put a word count requirement on the 'blog' post to keep them from being misused when a forum post is meant to be used. I would have this as a validation requirement on submit, if that is possible on the current software being used.
I wouldn't mind a blog post because some of the greatest comments can become a blog post.
If it's how you've described it, I see very little value in having Blog (differentiating between what constitutes a blog, would add more clutter to front page) vs widening the formatting options available for typical forum posts, and/or allowing staff and mods to "add to front page". Eg the big eleventy posts, the recent post about recruiting under beamer/fuente
I typically use active discussion panel for 95% of browsing and 5% comes from tracker, so that might influence my opinion.
I never understood the need for the tracker until I browsed on the phone. So, my percentages align with yours. But, it also aligns with:
active discussions Is used on iPad and desktop
Tracker is used on the phone.
I much prefer using active discussions.
I also primarily use the active discussions panel.
I'd support maintaining the consistency of a single post type and adding additional formatting options. What about converting everything to a 'Blog' post type but limiting the power to promote to the main page to admins and moderators?
Sounds good, I'm for it.
I just found my old Livejournal account from my early 2000s days and that was embarrassing AF so I'm going to go ahead and say that I dont really need a blog on this site where I actually know many of you in real life.
Thanks for asking though.
Idk yet I'll get back to you about it
Will there be dark mode for the site in the new iOS update?