September 27, 2014 at 12:16About the Benefits of Collective Blog Restrictions
Do you manage a team blog project? This article is for you!
Your well-known in the (already far from narrow) circles site has thousands of users. The word is almost offensive to a member of the community: we are not users, we are the authors of this blog. Actually, the word "user" you can only see in EULA or, perhaps, in your personal account there is something like "Registered * date * at the invitation of the user * user *".
The audience of the project - progressively minded people interested in X - your blog is thematic. Maybe you do not plan to confine yourself to a blog only: thematic sites, television and radio channels, magazines, newspapers - as you call it all together, I forgot. The project is equally interesting to X there and to journalists, as well as to all those for whom X is not just N letters of the alphabet.
You have different authors: someone writes really high-quality articles, behind which you can see a lot of experience and intelligence. Others are active in the comments, which is also important: many readers, having seen that the article is long, read the comments before the article in order to understand whether it is worth spending efforts to delve into the author’s expositions. Still others, with their posts and comments, arouse the readers' desire to punish the author and somehow limit his activity - to nudge his verbal fountain.
If we realize this desire through the ability to vote for the user, and limit the authors to something with a negative balance of votes, we get a self-regulatory community. Side effects - conformism and the "closure of gestalt."
Conformism
Users are afraid to openly voice their opinions. In anonymous voting, of course, no one is shy. But what exactly the author disagrees with, he will never know. And not everyone will decide to go against the majority opinion in the comments. Solution: strictly dictate the possibility of anonymous commenting. This may be the privilege of users with a large positive balance of votes, or the opportunity for everyone once a week, or a free day on April 1, for example.
Gestalt closure The
ability to vote demotivates a person to comment. Maybe this is good: fewer meaningless comments.
Restriction on the frequency of commenting
Inadequate users with a negative balance of votes can initiate an interesting discussion in the comments, but adequate discussions prevail in the discussion itself.
Restriction on writing posts
Unlimitedly can be written only by those who the community evaluates positively. In order not to clog the blog with uninteresting posts, users with a negative balance of votes can write posts only once every few days.
Restriction of functionality when commenting
The ban on unpopular users to put large pictures, videos and links is understandable. On the other hand, the inability to issue a quote or make a spoiler is frustrating. This is not a preference, but a necessity for observing the rules of decency.
The reason for this decision may be:
The desire to make the article rating more honest by depriving part of the community of the opportunity to vote. For example, to limit the “Chukchi non-writers”
It is not very logical: if my balance of votes allows me to vote, what difference does it make for votes or comments? Or to appreciate the dish, you have to be a cook?
But in general, such a measure does not cause negativity among uninhibited users, so this can be done.
Consideration that the majority of authors of exclusively comments are cheaters.
One can ignore the opinion of those who honestly scored their votes but fall under this criterion - again, no one will be offended.
Your well-known in the (already far from narrow) circles site has thousands of users. The word is almost offensive to a member of the community: we are not users, we are the authors of this blog. Actually, the word "user" you can only see in EULA or, perhaps, in your personal account there is something like "Registered * date * at the invitation of the user * user *".
The audience of the project - progressively minded people interested in X - your blog is thematic. Maybe you do not plan to confine yourself to a blog only: thematic sites, television and radio channels, magazines, newspapers - as you call it all together, I forgot. The project is equally interesting to X there and to journalists, as well as to all those for whom X is not just N letters of the alphabet.
So why do you need to impose restrictions?
You have different authors: someone writes really high-quality articles, behind which you can see a lot of experience and intelligence. Others are active in the comments, which is also important: many readers, having seen that the article is long, read the comments before the article in order to understand whether it is worth spending efforts to delve into the author’s expositions. Still others, with their posts and comments, arouse the readers' desire to punish the author and somehow limit his activity - to nudge his verbal fountain.
If we realize this desire through the ability to vote for the user, and limit the authors to something with a negative balance of votes, we get a self-regulatory community. Side effects - conformism and the "closure of gestalt."
Conformism
Users are afraid to openly voice their opinions. In anonymous voting, of course, no one is shy. But what exactly the author disagrees with, he will never know. And not everyone will decide to go against the majority opinion in the comments. Solution: strictly dictate the possibility of anonymous commenting. This may be the privilege of users with a large positive balance of votes, or the opportunity for everyone once a week, or a free day on April 1, for example.
Gestalt closure The
ability to vote demotivates a person to comment. Maybe this is good: fewer meaningless comments.
How to limit authors
Restriction on the frequency of commenting
Inadequate users with a negative balance of votes can initiate an interesting discussion in the comments, but adequate discussions prevail in the discussion itself.
Restriction on writing posts
Unlimitedly can be written only by those who the community evaluates positively. In order not to clog the blog with uninteresting posts, users with a negative balance of votes can write posts only once every few days.
Restriction of functionality when commenting
The ban on unpopular users to put large pictures, videos and links is understandable. On the other hand, the inability to issue a quote or make a spoiler is frustrating. This is not a preference, but a necessity for observing the rules of decency.
Should I reset the vote counter?
The reason for this decision may be:
The desire to make the article rating more honest by depriving part of the community of the opportunity to vote. For example, to limit the “Chukchi non-writers”
It is not very logical: if my balance of votes allows me to vote, what difference does it make for votes or comments? Or to appreciate the dish, you have to be a cook?
But in general, such a measure does not cause negativity among uninhibited users, so this can be done.
Consideration that the majority of authors of exclusively comments are cheaters.
One can ignore the opinion of those who honestly scored their votes but fall under this criterion - again, no one will be offended.