May 20, 2008
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Featured Content is Back!
We’ve been working really hard to develop a reliable system for identifying “interesting” content on Xanga… We tried something called “boost” for a while, but it didn’t really catch on; the “star” system seems to be suffering from a combination of low usage and anonymity (which makes it easy to game); the new “recommend” system actually shows a lot of promise, but it’s still too early to say for sure.
While we work to resolve the issues with these new systems, we thought we’d bring back an old friend:
The “Featured Content” module on the Xanga frontpage is back!
The module shows xangans who have the most commented posts from the last 24 hours. Yes, there are ways to game it (although the obvious approach – leaving tons of repeat comments on the same post – won’t do anything for you, so don’t bother
). And we realize that it introduces a bit of a “popularity contest”, which would be ok except that it doesn’t do a good job finding excellent writers who happen to have just a few readers.But despite its flaws, the fact is that “Featured Content” has been the one system that has worked best, overall, for identifying new and interesting content on Xanga. So we’re bringing it back as a *starting point*, and now we’re going to focus on improving this core Xanga system (e.g. by refining it with aspects of the other systems).
Thanks to adam for programming this one. And please let us know what you think!
- marc
Comments (92)
Sounds good.
“interesting” is pretty subjective, IMO. If you could combine the FC thing with the tagging system, you might be on to something.
Finally. BUT, does this now have annoying little settings on it where xanga locked people, friends locked people, and sites with certain ratings on their sites are excluded?????? I hope not. It really should be back to just how it used to be.
@sean - agreed that “interesting” is subjective, heh, that’s part of what makes it so tricky! What’d you mean by combining FC with tagging?
Gracias. =)
So where will we find it? It sn’t going to be front page again is it? Or will we get there just like on stars? I like it! Also I think Recommends will make the cream float to the top…
Can’t wait to see how this goes… You guys are doing a GREAT job by the way… Thank you!
Interesting? Oh, well, I guess that leaves me out of it.
Just like in business, everything is a popularity contest.
Sounds great!
I never liked the Featured Content page because of the fact that it only showed those blogs that to me, weren’t that interesting at all. Then one day I received a heck of a lot of comments in less than 12 hours and I never got featured (I had more than many that were featured) which led me to believe that it was a popularity contest. So no, no me gusta mucho Featured Content page.
@marc - if I could browse FC for items tagged with tags that interest me, FC would have a better chance of showing me something interesting
@sean - ahhh, interesting… haha that raises another issue though: somehow tagging hasn’t really caught fire on Xanga yet either – we need to figure out how to get more posts to be tagged so we have enough data to make your idea work. Any thoughts on that one?
Even if it is a flawed system for picking the “best” content, it’s still a feature worth keeping. It gives people a way to get easily connected into the community by immediately identifying the more popular blogs and discussions.
I am bored with Xanga popularity contests… how about setting up a system through which readers could recommend others’ posts (not their own, perhaps) directly to the Xanga team? Is there a way to use such a system that doesn’t require too much time on staffs’ part?
@StillAmazed - we actually have a test page that shows us the lists of the most “recommended” posts across all of xanga. Even though people aren’t recommending straight to us, per se, it’s still been really helpful for finding new posts to feature (and we’re working on a way to share this list with all of xanga, or perhaps integrate it into the overall “Featured Content” system)
meh…it’s always the same people.
@marc - simple: make tags a requirement, or offer some incentive for tagging, like “top tagger for ‘foo’”
Hmm…wonder if my story would be found more often…
Heh, another venue for Dan to pimp himself. Just what he needs.
On tagging, would it be hard to come up with a utility that scans posts for keywords, and provides a “possible tags” list for the user to pick from before submitting? It really wouldn’t even have to work all that perfectly to act as a reminder to the user to add a tag or two themselves if they don’t like the suggestions.
Personally I love tags because they help me find old posts I’ve written when I don’t remember when I’ve posted them. The problem is having to go through hundreds of posts going back five years to tag them. I’d love some automated way to do it, but I’m sure that would be a resource drain and a programming nightmare.
Sounds like it is going to be a winning idea, however I think I will have to wait and see on how this goes before I start jumping up and down which is highly unlikely on Xanga.
Instead of counting comments, it should count e-props.
I think you guys do a great job of picking stuff out! I guess I’m a fan of a very simple front page.
And star.xanga.com has so much potential. Can’t you just clone digg?
I like the recommend system. It helps me broaden my reading circle – both by showing others a good post, and reading good posts they find.
And I like tags. Like one above said, it helps me organize my site a bit, and find old posts, and trace threads.
I’m all about interesting, creative, clever content on xanga.
So what are featured blogs based on now if it’s not entirely recs or comments?
I love going back to this old way, it worked well.
@mayanao - yup, agreed. there should be some sort of system where if a user has made FC, he/she should be taken out of the rotation for FC choices for some period of time. that way there’s more new people thrown into the mix.
Won’t this mean that the same 5 (or whatever number) people will be featured day after day?
Interesting, as has been mentioned already, is a subjective term. I’ll be curious to see how much “I love xanga” entries make it to the top.
Sorry for the cynicism, it’s just a trend I’ve noticed.
ah good ole’ xanga
Is there are way to opt out of being featured?
I have an open site so family and friends who don’t have xanga can visit,
but I don’t like having my site or photos featured.
Also, any way to get the OLD email feature back, so that borders and backgrounds will be emailed not just the photos or font?
I quit Xanga, and then you guys bring Featured Content back. Great. Just great.
You want to find great posts? Travel and read. Travel and read. Join blogrings and read and comment. Enjoy the journey. Leave a laugh for someone who could use one. Be a friend to a complete stranger. Create your community. Have great debates. It’s all here. Just look around.
Don’t matter how it is done, the Evil Xanga Klique (amandasbiggestfan, DrugInducedDuck, FullMetalBunny, Legendairy) will scam it, making it something bad. Far worse than a popularity contest, it will be vote-for-me-or-else extortion.
cool! if it works don’t fix it, if it’s broke, fix it!
I don’t really know what to suggest for Featured Content. This system seems to work well, but it seems like the Recommend system should work well too. Maybe you should give more incentive for recommending? Maybe you could give out a credit or two for recommending a post? Of course, then you might have people going around recommending a bunch of stuff just for credits. The only other suggestion I could think of is hiring a staff member (or two or three) whose job is to look for good content to feature. But, of course, overall, interesting content will always be subjective so you can never make everyone happy. **sighs** You have quite the dilemma on your hands, Xanga Team. Good luck.
yay hooray
While most of the featured content isn’t great, it is good, unlike the high rated entries on boost which would sometime be only a sentence or two long, and not usually very interesting.
No system will be perfect. There are always going to be great writers that have virtually no readers because it takes a certain type of user to reach out and gain an audience.
Maybe users who are constantly on the Featured Module should be omitted (*cough* Dan) because they’re obviously not new to the scene. Or something like if you’re in the mod every day for so many days, you get knocked off so that others can have a chance to get on.
And maybe some one should get me a new laptop, because I can’t do any serious blogging on this one (backlight snuffed it), and I can’t very well be featured on that module if I can’t blog, now can I?
I like the idea, but make sure that the featured blogs aren’t getting on there because they get all the friggin comments. And why would they need to be featured again? They don’t! D=<
Anywho, I do adore this idea.
This has nothing to do with this post, but I’m a relatively new xangan and I’ve never run into a problem before. I don’t know how or who to contact for help. I have been checking my progress towards the true badge and saw my progress drop from 89 to 66 overnight. I have been posting 3 to 4 times a day and the guage has not moved. What am I doing wrong. Maybe I crazy but I think I would like to get the badge. HELP please. And yes my comments were stuck at 90 for a while. That seemed to get fixed and that when my gauge went haywire.
@tkperito - Being a TRUE member takes time and dedication, not a set number of posts! Not just everybody gets the badge, or it wouldn’t be called a TRUE badge.
Give it some time, jeesh. Besides, they review each case individually and you’re not getting a badge if you’ve only been on for a week.
@HeartOfPandora - That’s for sure and I agree. I have been on for more than a week and I do know and appreciate the significence of the badge. I surely do not want it handed to me. I was just wondering about the craziness going on letting me know about my progress. It is their description of “blog more” that prompted me to include a posting rate. Didn’t mean to get anybody’s knickers in a twist. Goal setting has always been one of my traits and in the long run, strengths. Stop by and I think that you will see that I am not playing games. Thanks for the ans. It is encouraging to know that there are people out there willing to start a conversation. Have a great day.
@tkperito - Well I do appologize; it just sounded a whole lot like you were some newbie looking for fame or something, mostly because you said “I’m a relatively new xangan” and it just twisted me the wrong way. At any rate, now that you’ve mentioned it my progress dropped a few points, too. What’s with that? Maybe your progress goes on a weekly average as well as a total average? Or maybe the system is just out to get us! :O Eh, Xanga is too cool for that. If you get an answer on how it works, let me know. =)
@HeartOfPandora - Sure will do that. I guess I thought 5 months was still ‘new’. Sometimes I’m not as clear when I communicate I wish I could be. I’m still not sure who to ask for help. I noticed a couple of other people mentioning that something quirky was going on too. Thanks for the reply. Checked out your blog. I really like the design.
I’m mostly an observer on Xanga, rather than a commenter, but since I often read the Featured Content, it’s worth speaking up about.
I think that FC needs to be adapted so it’s not all based on comments. Obviously the popular people will get comments. That doesn’t mean that they should be featured. And many of us adult bloggers are beyond the high school popularity phase, and write feature-worthy entries that get very few (if any) comments.
I do agree with those above who said that after you’ve been featured X times, you shouldn’t get featured again for a while afterwards. I’m SO tired of seeing the same people featured all the time. Fresh faces/words is such a wonderful thing on Xanga, and should be appreciated more than it currently is.
FC should also be diversified. It doesn’t always have to be something profound. Sometimes someone just had a really interesting day. Xanga is about all types of writers and writing styles, so they should all be represented on FC.
i like the stars because some people dont have time to comment .. they can click a star.. but leaving eprops without a star is kind of like getting a penny as a tip in a restaurant
I like it. And @sean - idea sounds like it could work, though it doesn’t get rid of all the kinks.
@tkperito - yeah I’ve noticed a decline in progress. (as in I was at 100% and now I’m at 92%) I really want one, but it is difficult to tell where you fall on the scale exactly.
Good stuff. I like. Plus I was just pleased to see my entry in response to recent allegations directed towards me regarding beastiality was on it. Sensical xanga would not have dared featured it otherwise… and to be honest I wouldn’t have blamed them.
I am liking the recommend system,. It seems a better way to share interesting blogs, etc.
Good luck!
I always thought it was a good idea for it to be in the main page so I’m glad that you guys brought it back. But like you noted though, there should be better ways for information to be featured. It would be neat if people could nominate items to be featured or something of the like.
I would think that would be a very interesting and fun system.
To thin out the repeat appearances, dial in a limit of twice per month or something.
Cool.
I love the old way! Thanks for bringing it back
Its a nice idea but it used to show the same blogs dominating the top five spots (or more) all the time. At the moment, four out of the first ten featured are TheTheologiansCafe – so featured becomes a personal promotional tool for this site, rather than introducing a selection of interesting blogs from all over Xanga. Maybe if you limited sites to one entry per top twenty per week then there would be more of a variety of bloggers being featured. Also for a one spot out of 140 there would be not much point in gaming it up too often.
I would like to be able to exclude recommended posts from my inbox as some Xangan friends and subs recommend a dozen or more blogs a day and that clogs the whole thing up with posts I would only be interested in when I’ve seen what my friends-and-subs (my Xangan ‘family’) are up to.
btw I love the Universal Inbox, just brilliant.
just keep the underage naked kids away.
Thank you Xanga!!
I love you for keeping Xanga an interesting place to be in.. And I hope I make it to the featured content la-di-da!!
Good job!!
Hugs and Love,
Ritz
first, gotta say ya’ll are doing a great job and i appreciate the hard work AND the new fun things.
i hope you are able to find a way to integrate the ‘recommend’ button or some other magical way of finding good content, as well as the # of comments. i read a lot of blogs that get very few comments but are sometimes worthy of being featured.
oh, and p.s., i never realized that the stars were part of that ‘featured’ system.
I wish you guys could figure out a way to let us comment from our Private Page!
yea, its good.
I have no problem with FC being a popularity contest. That is what motivates some to seek xanglibrity status in their writing.
I wrote a post a few weeks back aboutchanging the Recommend Feature to a recommend w/ Comets feature. I recived good feedback but I guess it never found it ways to the xanag team. I think it would be great if you could recommend and give your resaon for recommending. I think many resons exist that one would recommend a post, I think the system in it current satte says”I like this, I think you will like it also.” Sometimes a post gets recommended because you strongly disagree or the blog flat out infuriates you. Just a thought. I would love to see teh change.
..:: dante
@TheTytanic - http://www.xanga.com/featuredweblogs – stick any recommendations you have in the chatboard! i look there every day for new content.
Trial and error makes progress! Each time they do something more is learned! Who knows what cool item they will come up with next! It shows they are working hard for us!
@Natalia - Oh awesome Natalia! Is that you job to find featured content that should be used? Awesome, I thought maybe it was some system and thought that some blogs and such shouldn’t be accepted by a system because there may be a flaw and that actualy entry didn’t deserve featured status.
As I know a few members that have true status but it seems mostly because they just go around peoples boards in the ‘Welcome Center’ and say “Welcome” as it seems like every post in the ‘Welcome Center’ has their post saying “Welcome”.
@TheTytanic - yes, a few of my coworkers and I go through the content to pick out what you see on the front page! it’s not automated – it’s hand-picked
@Natalia - Wow amazing. Myspace and Facebook never do that you guys rock way better than any other social-network. You guys are the best I wouldn’t go back to any other network. I would like to say though that one of my favorite features with Xanga is the credits just due to it makes being more active in the community fun. I hope the credit system can expand more over time.
Guys, I adore everything you do to xanga,.. but PLEASE, I need my “update time stamp” option back.
I used to love starting post, putting them on private, and then finishing them later and switch them to public and clicking on the “update time stamp” box..
Please, could you at least tell me if you are considering getting this option back or will I have to get used to the new setup?
Cause I will if I have to… I would never leave xanga.
this sounds great to me.
@sense_of_elation - We’re working on adding it back now! I know the mockups are done… not sure where we are in the programming process though.
@john - YAYYY!!! Thank you SO much John for te quick response! Xanga is the best, and that is because you all work so hard. Thank you for everything <3
Yes, Xanga… you rock.
You get out a guitar and rock.
I am excited to see how this goes over! I think it has merit!
I thought the new way was better because the “featured” stuff was more interesting to me. It seemed like it was more grown up this way. Not to hate on the kids, but it really seemed like a lot of the old-style featured were very young people talking a lot of trash with minimal regard for punctuation, grammar, or spelling.
This is not totally good. Is Xanga more of a popularity contest than a blog site? I joined here because my friend chenmeicai told me there are good writers here and it’s focus is blog.
How come there are blogs with more comments than those in Featured Content but they are not in Featured Content?
I don’t really care one or the other and tend to take the side that it’s a popularity contest – but I do adore the fact that the Xanga “peeps” get to chime in and have their opinions heard. I don’t know of too many open forums like this. Keep it up.
I appreciated the variation that came when the featured stuff on the front page (now “Featured Weblogs”) stopped being just the most-commented-on posts. I find myself reading a lot more of them. So, I’m cool with Featured Content coming back…. as long as Featured Weblogs stay.
Hi, please take a moment & review the ‘grab bag’ concept, also consider the plausibility of your own features editorial …..
Wewt.
can we recommend anybody for featured?
I have two (2) great Xanga friends that are fabulous writers. I have recommended them..and used the star system as well. They don’t have a large audience. I would like to change this.
How do these two get noticed on Xanga? I’m not sure what you mean by a featured post? How do you become a featured post, anyway?
I would appreciate any input on this.
Thanks,
Cyn
Less is more. It might be time to get rid of the star ranking system. Keep the recommended, but make the icon much MUCH bigger. It makes it easier to click.
Thanks for putting me on the featured content I feel so happy that finally people can read my writing and agree or disagree with what i have to say =]
love the new idea for featured content =]
Yay! It’s about time. The new systems don’t work because you try to keep the old system as well. As long as their are eprops, people are going to stick with that
PLEASE HELP THE STAY CONNECTED MODULE THAT KEEPS POPPING UP AND DISCONNECTING US IS VERY ANNOYING!!!!!!
http://help.xanga.com/forums/Default.aspx?g=posts&m=3284೔
It’s doing it right here on your page too. I thought it was only on my own page. But others are having the same issue and it is going to KILL all traffic to Xanga if it isn’t fixed!!!! It makes it impossible to use the site AT ALL!!!!
I loved the FC module, kudos for bringing it back!
Ooo! Can you post me?? I have a
Poem for Girls that are High School Drop-Outs or Wannabe High School Dropouts!
Click on the link please???
i`m soo glad its back!!!
Great!
@marc - tagging hasn’t caught on? people don’t tag? what’s wrong with them? i tag *every* post.
i think being able to browse tags would be great.
maybe if there was a way to have a webcrawler pick our keywords that might go in place of tags on posts where people don’t tag? i dunno… just a random idea.
I don’t bother as I don’t think they are interesting at all!
thanks for bringing it back! though imperfect, for the most part, from what i remember from back in the day, it captured 70-80% of the valid most commented/eproped entries, minus a couple of teens that gamed it with their friends.