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An Idea: OO.net Monthly Highlights

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A friend who has only skimmed OO.net told me that it appeared to be a noisy place to trudge through, looking for value. Instead, she asked me to send her links to selected posts or people. (I was on the spot because I had said that OO.net is great if one can figure out what to follow and what to ignore.)

Anyhow, I set out to send her a few links. When doing so, I had another thought: there are probably others like her for whom OO.net has too high a volume of posts. (Consider someone who would like to visit briefly once or twice a month.) Perhaps what would be of value to such a person is an editorially selected set of links to significant threads for the month. From such a summary, they could click through to topics that interested them, and ignore the rest.

Here's another usage. A little while ago, David sent out "chaser" emails to people who had signed up a while back, but had not visited the forum for some months. The email contained info about the features on the forum. Next time, such a mail could contain a summarized "OO.net monthly highlights".

Producing something like this regularly would be time-consuming, so it may not be practical. Still, I wanted to put the idea out there, hoping it might spark other ideas.

To concretize what I mean, an example is attached below. This isn't meant to be an ideal summary of Feb 2007, just enough of a draft to make the idea concrete.

Highlights from February 2007

Who are we? If parts of your brain were replaced one by one, with identical but artificial components, would you still be you? Reviving an old topic, members discuss the essence of being, and whether a new brain would mean a new mind.

The origin of land-rights: If usage is the basis for rights how does it apply to the usage of "free" things like river water? Does usage of clean river water give one a right to that water? (link)

Race and IQ: Various studies say that blacks have a lower IQ than whites, and some say this is correlated to physical factors, not just to culture. Is this true? Even if not, when one knows little else about a person, does it make sense to take race into account based on the probabilities and correlations? (link)

Copyrights and Patents: A YouTube link to an old Mike Wallace interview of Ayn Rand stirs a discussion about copyright. A thread on Windows DRM also discusses related issues, while a third thread discusses why copyrights expire and whether they ought to. A fourth thread explores patents, innovation and progress.

Relationships (friends): One member talks about losing interest in old high-school friends, and wonders if it's normal; another speaks of feelings of guilt.

Romantic Relationships:A thread revives an old topic, on romantic relationships between Objectivists and non-Objectivists.

Reviews and values: DarkWaters reviews Susan Jacoby's book "Freethinkers: A history of American secularism". RationalBiker talks about voice recognition in Microsoft Vista. Rowling fans await the 7th (and last) Harry Potter book in the series. And, if the names "Final Fantasy", "Soul Calibur", "Splinter Cell" or "Hearts of Iron" mean something to you, head over to this thread on games and tell us about your favorites.

The body: The discussion on aerobic exercise continues, while another thread addresses body-building.

Budget-tips: Members exchange tips on eating right on a tight budget .

School project: People volunteered ideas for RealityCheck44's a school project, where he had to play a legislator pushing a bill through Congress.

Finally: Groovenstein's brother turns 21 on his Iraq tour. Send him a card.

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That's a great idea. I'm willing to send out the updates if we can get get the posts together. Maybe we can solicit threads and descriptions from members? Another resource is the thread rating system, although it's not been used much so far.

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The idea is a good one for those occasional users, and to entice more users. I have another suggestion. It would involve more time, so it may not be worth it. How about selecting one or two of the best postings on each topic? You could provide the links to one or two key postings underneath the descriptive summaries in your example.

I really enjoy seeing those well-written postings that make me think. Of course, I am spending the time to find them, but only on a handful of topics that I am currently tracking. It would be neat to see "the best of" selections of postings on other topics that I might not otherwise spend time on. It would probably entice me to dive deeper into some other topics.

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Maybe we can solicit threads and descriptions from members? Another resource is the thread rating system, although it's not been used much so far.
I guess, one way could be that a different person volunteers to do each month (or every few months), and others send suggestions to him or her. Or, if people want to bring a thread to the volunteer's notice, they can simply give it a good rating, and that's one factor that the volunteer can take into consideration.

I have another suggestion. It would involve more time, so it may not be worth it. How about selecting one or two of the best postings on each topic? You could provide the links to one or two key postings underneath the descriptive summaries in your example.
Do you mean like a "Best of OO.net page" with (say) 4 or 5 major categories and with pointer to some highlighted posts or threads within each category?
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Do you mean like a "Best of OO.net page" with (say) 4 or 5 major categories and with pointer to some highlighted posts or threads within each category?

You could do it that way, but what I was thinking of is simply picking out the best posts on however many threads are highlighted in the monthly email. So, if 10 threads are summarized as in the example, for each of them show the one or two best posts.

I actually enjoy just reading the best posts. A good post is enjoyable to read because it is well written and because it causes me to think about the topic, hopefully in a new way. If the topic interests me further, I can then go to the thread to read more posts.

The problem with only featuring threads is that any thread is a mixed bag. There can be many mediocre, one-liner or not particularly interesting posts, in addition to the good ones. Having said that, I do like SoftwareNerd's idea of summarizing the threads in a couple sentences, as shown in the example. That way, I have a summary of all the "action" going on in the forum. Picking out the best post(s) in each forum is an added value.

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Either focus seems to work for me. Whether great topics or great posts, the end result is driving traffic back to the site.

Also, now being an RSS junkie, I might ask how the RSS feed for the website works? Is it just the main blog posts or does it link back to the forum as well? That might be another avenue...

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I'm willing to send out the updates if we can get get the posts together.
One additional thing that would be nice (at least the first time around) is a way to measure effectiveness. For instance, something in the URL that ends up updating a counter. It would be nice to know if an email like that actually generates responses.

I'd volunteer if you need help pulling it together.
Thanks.

Also, now being an RSS junkie, I might ask how the RSS feed for the website works? Is it just the main blog posts or does it link back to the forum as well? That might be another avenue...
Currently, there are three RSS feeds from OO.net:

The problem with only featuring threads is that any thread is a mixed bag.
I understand and agree. Indeed, when creating my sample summary, I avoided some threads with good posts because they were mixed in with others that did not quite showcase the forum in the best light :).
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Currently, there are three RSS feeds from OO.net:

hmmm. OK, you could blast it as an email and maybe also list it in the meta-blog posts.

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  • 2 months later...
  • 2 years later...

GC just created an ObjectivismOnline page on FaceBook. Right now it is empty. Since we're a forum we really don't need a second place to repeat discussions. However, there could be other things for which a Facebook page can be useful.

One thought was that we could post a weekly or monthly summary (just a few lines, less detailed than the first post in this topic) of some of the more interesting topics being discussed on the forum. That way, people who don't come to OO.net frequently can become fans of the Facebook page. They will get updates from time to time, and if anything seems interesting, they can click through to the forum. One problem is: who will do the summaries? If anyone is interested in volunteering, that'll be great.

Also, any other creative thoughts about making use of the Facebook page are also welcome.

Edited by softwareNerd
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Just off the cuff as far as FB is concerned you can make what you post visible to everyone. As a venue for activism you could post something saying "This is what OO.net-ers are discussing..." and leave a link for those interested. You don't even have to write anything except for the intro sentence.

Post links to the most active topics and save yourself the trouble of a synopsis.

The problem I see with that is the number of Trolls/nut-jobs you are likely to attract.

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GC just created an ObjectivismOnline page on FaceBook. Right now it is empty. Since we're a forum we really don't need a second place to repeat discussions. However, there could be other things for which a Facebook page can be useful.

One thought was that we could post a weekly or monthly summary (just a few lines, less detailed than the first post in this topic) of some of the more interesting topics being discussed on the forum. That way, people who don't come to OO.net frequently can become fans of the Facebook page. They will get updates from time to time, and if anything seems interesting, they can click through to the forum. One problem is: who will do the summaries? If anyone is interested in volunteering, that'll be great.

Also, any other creative thoughts about making use of the Facebook page are also welcome.

I just followed the FaceBook link you created to the OO forum, joined, and read this thread as it echoes a desire of mine, how to find the pearls. I wonder if a 'counter' could be added to pick up reader feedback as to a 'like' or a 'helpful' evaluation, for both posts and comments. Each post could then show the number of views and a scroll through the threads would show how previous readers had evaluated the comments. Could that be an automatic way to find the most interesting comments?

I realize that does nothing for the FaceBook postings but could it address the previous discussion? For Facebook a daily 'most viewed' might be enough.

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  • 2 months later...
One problem is: who will do the summaries? If anyone is interested in volunteering, that'll be great.

Maybe, the volunteers would be easier to find, if every summary were made by different person, i.e. volunteers would change weekly, bi-weekly or monthly (depending on how often would the summaries be made). That would mean that volunteering wouldn't be an obligation for a long-term work (I remember seeing this concept on some site summarizing neuroscientific blog posts).

Edited by Blinky
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Maybe, the volunteers would be easier to find, if every summary were made by different person, i.e. volunteers would change weekly, bi-weekly or monthly (depending on how often would the summaries be made). That would mean that volunteering wouldn't be an obligation for a long-term work (I remember seeing this concept on some site summarizing neuroscientific blog posts).
Sure. In particular, for GC's current purpose, if someone's willing to do just a single month's summary, that would be welcome.
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