December 13, 2009 at 17:54Habratopik rules of life
Summarizing my work on a series of hub vending posts about vending , I made some interesting observations and conclusions that may be useful to anyone who is interested in writing interesting and resonant posts on Habrahabr.
Of course, we are not talking about “the secrets of an ideal habratopik”, “how to collect a thousand pluses and raise your karma in fifteen minutes” and other habramagia. The main secret of a successful article is interesting material on a relevant topic (in accessible language). And this is for the best - if there was a “designer of an ideal habratopik, for children under 16 and older,” thenchildren would be flooded with the InternetHabr hardly became such a useful and respected resource. The material below is just information for consideration, which, obviously, will subsequently be expanded, corrected and supplemented - simply as new data become available.
On the example of my four posts about vending, the tendency for the reader to decrease interest in the topic is very clear, we look at the assessment of the post (the number of comments): introductory post 113 (80) - post about the features of legislation and tax regulation 39 (44) - type overview vending machines with pictures and examples 78 (97) - financial aspects of a business, calculations and planning 27 (30). The conclusion is obvious, but, nevertheless, important: in the cycle of publications on one topic, their rating will steadily go down.
A comparison of the results of these four articles leads to another interesting conclusion. Because The topics of publications in my cycle about vending were selected primarily on the basis of users' questions based on the results of previous materials, then two of the four articles had a pronounced applied bias (laws and finances), while the third, as originally planned, was a review - and it was she beat out in a positive direction in the general fall trend. Consequently, review articles outperform applied ones simply because they, by definition, have a larger target audience. Someone may find this situation unpleasant - supposedly, Habr is a thematic professional resource, and here, applied materials should be in the first place - but let's take the world objectively: in the first place among the Habrausers - Boomburum, the man who became famous for his reviews. This is the current Habr, and to find out why it is not a cake, of course, you can devote a couple of war games in the comments, but this will no longer be relevant to the practical side of the issue.
“A picture for attracting attention” is not just a funny turn with a certain amount of self-irony embedded in it, but also the purest truth. Once, I was surprised that in the first hour and a half one post collected 1 comment (even from the troll) and zero votes in general, I decided to attach a picture to it before the kat - and over the next hour and a half the post was actively dispersed as in the sense of pluses (went out home), and in terms of discussion.
Of course, the picture didn’t add meaning to it (although it’s better to choose an illustration not only in the topic, but also with subtext), the very effect of attracting attention just worked: for example, I read Habr through rss, and in a stream of dozens of text news updates from other resources , headers and text announcements from Habr are often lost - and a post with a picture, according to my subjective observations, has three times more chances to be seen in the general stream.
Habr, which is also not new, does not like advertising - and if you are too intrusively promote a certain topic in your post, it will most likely cause rejection among users - only if you do not write in “I am PR” (and you must PR and not forgetting about sense of proportion). The user of Habr is not a mouse, and insistently laid out pieces of cheese in the order you proposed will not eat. If the user is interested in the topic, then he will follow all the necessary links. If not, then it won’t go anywhere, and put another minus.
However, the majority of readers follow the lines of those who are hesitant - in principle, they are ready to read on the topic, but they are, however, not very willing to follow links to third-party resources. Thus, it is pointless to state a certain thought without revealing it right there, but only, for example, providing a reference to “more here”. Most likely, the topic will remain unsolved. And by the way, for the same reason, it’s pointless to write link links that do not contain at least a brief summary of the contents of this link - all the same, half of the commentators will not follow it, but will, nevertheless, discuss the topic in the comments - using only that information from your post. And then you yourself are the evil Pinocchio, if you did not give it enough.
If the first comments you received include instructions for your typos, then you wrote a bad post. About design (and literacy is design, rather than informative, as some people think, the part) is written only when there is nothing more to say on the topic. And this, of course, is your problem as a top starter. Of course, if you wrote a great post with grammatical errors, then you will also be written about it - but only in the second place.
By the way, taking this opportunity, I want to once again ask each habrayuzer to remember a good habra-tone and send messages about typos in a personal message, and not leave them in the comments.
Working with comments, as practice has shown, is not of particular importance for the success of the post. That is, if you wrote an interesting post, then people who came to read it and comment on it will perfectly communicate among themselves in the comments.
In my first posts, which collected more than fifty comments, I, as the party owner, tried to somehow arrange and organize communication, moderate and direct the discussion - but I quickly realized that such actions a) are not needed by anyone, b) interfere with normal, easy communication . So now I respond to comments only if I really have something to say - or a joke. Moreover, if this “something” goes beyond the scope of the local discussion, then it is better to disclose such a topic in a separate post.
If you wrote a post on a specific topic, then be prepared for the fact that, regardless of your real competence in the topic, you will be accepted as an expert by default, or maybe by the principle of “fishless and cancer-fish”, and they will ask questions - in PM, by ICQ, by mail.
It is best to try to answer these questions and help people with tips: they called themselves a cargo - climb into the back. Perhaps this will not affect your habrakarma and habrasilu (many of the questioners will not have an account here), but it certainly will give you +1 to your karma in real life.
Of course, we are not talking about “the secrets of an ideal habratopik”, “how to collect a thousand pluses and raise your karma in fifteen minutes” and other habramagia. The main secret of a successful article is interesting material on a relevant topic (in accessible language). And this is for the best - if there was a “designer of an ideal habratopik, for children under 16 and older,” then
1. Interest always falls.
On the example of my four posts about vending, the tendency for the reader to decrease interest in the topic is very clear, we look at the assessment of the post (the number of comments): introductory post 113 (80) - post about the features of legislation and tax regulation 39 (44) - type overview vending machines with pictures and examples 78 (97) - financial aspects of a business, calculations and planning 27 (30). The conclusion is obvious, but, nevertheless, important: in the cycle of publications on one topic, their rating will steadily go down.
2. Review articles outperform applied ones.
A comparison of the results of these four articles leads to another interesting conclusion. Because The topics of publications in my cycle about vending were selected primarily on the basis of users' questions based on the results of previous materials, then two of the four articles had a pronounced applied bias (laws and finances), while the third, as originally planned, was a review - and it was she beat out in a positive direction in the general fall trend. Consequently, review articles outperform applied ones simply because they, by definition, have a larger target audience. Someone may find this situation unpleasant - supposedly, Habr is a thematic professional resource, and here, applied materials should be in the first place - but let's take the world objectively: in the first place among the Habrausers - Boomburum, the man who became famous for his reviews. This is the current Habr, and to find out why it is not a cake, of course, you can devote a couple of war games in the comments, but this will no longer be relevant to the practical side of the issue.
3. Pictures rule.
“A picture for attracting attention” is not just a funny turn with a certain amount of self-irony embedded in it, but also the purest truth. Once, I was surprised that in the first hour and a half one post collected 1 comment (even from the troll) and zero votes in general, I decided to attach a picture to it before the kat - and over the next hour and a half the post was actively dispersed as in the sense of pluses (went out home), and in terms of discussion.
Of course, the picture didn’t add meaning to it (although it’s better to choose an illustration not only in the topic, but also with subtext), the very effect of attracting attention just worked: for example, I read Habr through rss, and in a stream of dozens of text news updates from other resources , headers and text announcements from Habr are often lost - and a post with a picture, according to my subjective observations, has three times more chances to be seen in the general stream.
4. Advertising is evil.
Habr, which is also not new, does not like advertising - and if you are too intrusively promote a certain topic in your post, it will most likely cause rejection among users - only if you do not write in “I am PR” (and you must PR and not forgetting about sense of proportion). The user of Habr is not a mouse, and insistently laid out pieces of cheese in the order you proposed will not eat. If the user is interested in the topic, then he will follow all the necessary links. If not, then it won’t go anywhere, and put another minus.
5. More information in the post.
However, the majority of readers follow the lines of those who are hesitant - in principle, they are ready to read on the topic, but they are, however, not very willing to follow links to third-party resources. Thus, it is pointless to state a certain thought without revealing it right there, but only, for example, providing a reference to “more here”. Most likely, the topic will remain unsolved. And by the way, for the same reason, it’s pointless to write link links that do not contain at least a brief summary of the contents of this link - all the same, half of the commentators will not follow it, but will, nevertheless, discuss the topic in the comments - using only that information from your post. And then you yourself are the evil Pinocchio, if you did not give it enough.
6. Literacy.
If the first comments you received include instructions for your typos, then you wrote a bad post. About design (and literacy is design, rather than informative, as some people think, the part) is written only when there is nothing more to say on the topic. And this, of course, is your problem as a top starter. Of course, if you wrote a great post with grammatical errors, then you will also be written about it - but only in the second place.
By the way, taking this opportunity, I want to once again ask each habrayuzer to remember a good habra-tone and send messages about typos in a personal message, and not leave them in the comments.
7. Comments.
Working with comments, as practice has shown, is not of particular importance for the success of the post. That is, if you wrote an interesting post, then people who came to read it and comment on it will perfectly communicate among themselves in the comments.
In my first posts, which collected more than fifty comments, I, as the party owner, tried to somehow arrange and organize communication, moderate and direct the discussion - but I quickly realized that such actions a) are not needed by anyone, b) interfere with normal, easy communication . So now I respond to comments only if I really have something to say - or a joke. Moreover, if this “something” goes beyond the scope of the local discussion, then it is better to disclose such a topic in a separate post.
Bonus track
If you wrote a post on a specific topic, then be prepared for the fact that, regardless of your real competence in the topic, you will be accepted as an expert by default, or maybe by the principle of “fishless and cancer-fish”, and they will ask questions - in PM, by ICQ, by mail.
It is best to try to answer these questions and help people with tips: they called themselves a cargo - climb into the back. Perhaps this will not affect your habrakarma and habrasilu (many of the questioners will not have an account here), but it certainly will give you +1 to your karma in real life.