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You are here: MacNN Forums > Community > Feedback > Has "NewsPoster" been a positive change?

Has "NewsPoster" been a positive change?
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Laminar
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Iowa, how long can this be? Does it really ruin the left column spacing?
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Sep 15, 2013, 09:45 PM
 
If I'm not mistaken, the point of this integration was to combine comments on news articles with the forums in hopes of driving up activity on both sides, right?

Has this been successful?

Have forum registrations and activity seen an uptick?

Are the news comment makers becoming active on the forums?

Where do you find the news articles? Some of what I'm seeing NewsPoster put up has been around the web for a few days, it's certainly not breaking news. And why does something like the most minute change made to the online Apple Store warrant a news article? No one comments on those.

From what I see, NewsPoster just floods the "New Posts" page with discussionless topics, driving out threads where people are actually talking about something.

The front page of my New Posts has 50 threads. Of those, 40 are NewsPoster article and 30 of those articles have 0 comments. I've tried commenting in a few threads (as have a few other forum regulars), but it seems most of the comments are run-by trolling on the news page, no one is there for discussion.

So what's the deal?
     
shifuimam
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Sep 15, 2013, 10:33 PM
 
A lot of people who just register to comment on news posts never check out the rest of the forums, including the useful technical stuff.
Sell or send me your vintage Mac things if you don't want them.
     
Laminar  (op)
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Location: Iowa, how long can this be? Does it really ruin the left column spacing?
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Sep 15, 2013, 10:59 PM
 
Originally Posted by shifuimam View Post
A lot of people who just register to comment on news posts never check out the rest of the forums, including the useful technical stuff.
Why do you think that is? Do you think keeping simply copying/pasting comments between the forums and the news article comments as is done now propagates the divide between the two?
     
besson3c
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Sep 15, 2013, 11:16 PM
 
I think part of it is that Apple is no longer the scrappy underdog that we like to root for. Maybe I've just gotten older, but the Mac world seems kind of boring compared to the days of trying to find leaks of the next OS X release (esp. in the very early days), suffering through transitions such as PPC -> Intel, new hardware form factors like the Cube, etc.

What is there to talk about, really? I think the same is probably true in the Windows world, we are just in a lull right now. The most discussion we've had in here by far has been mobile stuff, but I think the people that get really excited about phones might be a different demographic, some of them not also computer geeks. I really don't care much about phones, so I wonder if I'm strange in that regard...
     
Ω
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Sep 16, 2013, 08:34 AM
 
Can we ban him for spam?

I particularly like the forum recap threads which are about as useful as pissing into the wind.
"angels bleed from the tainted touch of my caress"
     
The Final Dakar
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Sep 16, 2013, 09:25 AM
 
Originally Posted by Ω View Post
Can we ban him for spam?
The mods offer a News forum ban that achieves a clean, fresh feeling. (The Summer's Eve Ban)
     
Spheric Harlot
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Sep 16, 2013, 01:05 PM
 
The truly idiotic thing is that News story commentors AREN'T BUMPED INTO THE FORUMS!

You can comment directly on the news page and never even see the forums. In fact, almost everybody does, which is why we have people continually complaining about stuff like OS X stuttering and never, ever reading the replies.

So what NewsPoster does is to encourage regular forum members to comment on news stories, but NOT news commentors to roam the forums.
     
besson3c
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Sep 16, 2013, 01:39 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
The truly idiotic thing is that News story commentors AREN'T BUMPED INTO THE FORUMS!

You can comment directly on the news page and never even see the forums. In fact, almost everybody does, which is why we have people continually complaining about stuff like OS X stuttering and never, ever reading the replies.

So what NewsPoster does is to encourage regular forum members to comment on news stories, but NOT news commentors to roam the forums.

That explains a lot.

I would say our jury verdict for this feature should be "incomplete" then.
     
reader50
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Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: California
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Sep 16, 2013, 02:48 PM
 
I was under the impression posting a comment on the News story would send them into the forums. ie - click the Reply button. The reply would subsequently appear on the front page, but the commenter would have the forum thread load.

If they're never directed into the forums, then we are getting little benefit. False higher traffic. While the front page gets our much-improved spam control.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Sep 16, 2013, 04:03 PM
 
Try it. There's a quick reply field under the news story. You never leave the page.
     
turtle777
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Sep 16, 2013, 06:50 PM
 
If the mods hadn't banned Newsposter for me, I wouldn't be here anymore. Rediculous crap.

-t
     
besson3c
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Sep 16, 2013, 07:08 PM
 
Why is it ridiculous crap?
     
Laminar  (op)
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Sep 16, 2013, 08:07 PM
 
Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
Rediculous crap.

-t
     
besson3c
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Sep 16, 2013, 10:42 PM
 
It's interesting to me how undiplomatic and untempered criticism of MacNN and places like it are. I guess certain people feel less inclined to temper their criticism when the product is content driven and they are the product. However, many people also bitch about any sort of web application in a similar no-holds-barred way.

I wonder if a significant number of people don't stop and think that MacNN is not Comcast, and that there are actual people behind this work who have invested a lot of their personal time and effort into developing these apps?
     
mattyb
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Sep 18, 2013, 09:05 AM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
The mods offer a News forum ban that achieves a clean, fresh feeling. (The Summer's Eve Ban)
I agree, it makes the New Posts button welcome instead of feared.
     
   
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