Friday has been Suggestion Box Friday for over a year now, and I think it’s time to change it to something else or add another ‘scheduled’ day to the JMTC week. The problem with leaving comments on this blog is that you have the forum and a slew of other multimedia sites which provide you, the reader, a plethora of ways to communicate with your fellow brethren. In fact, there is little reason to visit the site more than once a day other than to navigate to the other sections of JMTC for you more frequent readers. Another detriment to comments is spam, which forces me to moderate comments and I really don’t have much time in the day anymore to spend doing that so comments can go as long as 24 hours without getting moderated. This takes away from the discussion because there is no real way to have a conversation unless I moderate with some sort of scheduled frequency.
Ironically, I’m asking you to comment and give your ideas as to where I should go with the blog for Suggestion Box Friday as well as commenting itself.
Options for Comments:
Leave them the way they are.
Remove comments and add a shout box similar to what’s on www.castaclysm.com.
Remove comments and allow discussion to go on in the JMTC forums only.
Options for Suggestion Box Friday:
Keep it and leave it the way it is.
Remove and just make a normal post each Friday.
Rename to Community Spotlight Friday and just focus on highlighting other blogs/articles/sites.
Add a Community Spotlight Day.
Add a Twitter Day with a tweet that can be retweeted and passed around.
Why stop at comments and suggestion box Friday? Let’s talk about the monthly email… what do you want from that? Would you rather I sent little tips and things every week or so to the email list? Assume I get it working 100% and there are no issues with html coming out incorrectly for some people.
12 comments: on "Give your opinions - Suggestion Box Friday"
jimmyolsenblues said... April 16, 2010 at 8:04 AM
I think Markco you should be putting up more what you are doing.
If you aren't playing lately...say I ain't playing lately...
I think most people are afraid to post their own ideas about making money like someone will steal them or they will sound stupid...I don't know..
And sometimes people just don't know what to post ...
I say change Friday's post to weekend plans for wow and some times for non-wow plans.
Its friday , have a beer!
Anonymous said... April 16, 2010 at 12:11 PM
Would it help if comments appeared immediately and you could delete them when you had time?
Unknown said... April 16, 2010 at 1:19 PM
Personally I like the comments the way they are. But if you do decide to give them the axe then you should start a new forum thread for each post where we can discuss it.
bo-breaze said... April 16, 2010 at 3:13 PM
Just make comments a free for all and moderate when you have time. Most people are generally good about not clicking links in comments or they should at least be wary.
Michael said... April 16, 2010 at 3:23 PM
Oddly enough, my work blocks the 20kleveling site (forums), but does not block the JTMC site, so here's one vote for leaving comments here. :)
I have often found almost as much value from the comments as from the posts, so would hate to miss out if they are moved to the forums.
However, I understand wanting to eliminate the need for approving all comments, so will respect whatever you decide.
As for Suggestion Box Friday, I like the idea, however, I imagine you get a lot of e-mail on any given day, so having a day dedicated just to suggestions is probably redundant, no?
Being the selfish, greedy reader that I am, I'd rather see a new topic on Friday. Don't know if that's more work, or less work, so again, I respect whatever you decide.
Keep up the good work!
Cold said... April 16, 2010 at 6:05 PM
Rename to Community Spotlight Friday and just focus on highlighting other blogs/articles/sites.
Add a Community Spotlight Day.
I Like Both of These Ideas.
Have the Guru give some props to the other bloggers that are doing it right.
Remy Godwin said... April 16, 2010 at 7:12 PM
On comments -
Personally I think if there were an option to down rank the redundant ones or something then we could in a way self moderate.
On Friday Blog -
I agree with rachaels_dad
Most people are scared to post ideas. Fearing that others on their server will "take it and run."
Perhaps a change of pace is in order.
Wiggin said... April 16, 2010 at 8:40 PM
What I would like:
Follow what Tobold has done: allow comments to flow freely, without prior approval. They stunt discussion, and ultimately, lead to less discussion altogether. You had to have noticed that you receive far fewer comments than ever before.
In fact, I don't know why you still have comment moderation on at all, you don't get the traffic gevlon or tobold get.
And I would be sorely disappointed if you removed comments altogether, I usually only read your blog from work, and while I can access your blog, I cant access any forums. :(
I think the value of comments is the prospect of also hearing from the author (yourself) to follow up to a commentator's question, etc.
Robin said... April 17, 2010 at 3:25 AM
Before I read the options to choose from I was thinking what rachaels_dad said. Friday could be the blog about your personal life or what's going on with you. But between the choices you gave I'd like it to be a community spotlight.
Anonymous said... April 17, 2010 at 5:13 PM
WordPress offers an option for comments that forces everyone to have one comment approved, then all future comments appear. Also, they have excellent spam filtering, which makes allowing all comments to go live a little more palatable.
Does Blogger not have similar options? If not, would you consider a switch to a self-hosted WordPress installation?
Markco said... April 18, 2010 at 3:55 PM
Wiggin what are you smoking... I passed Tobold's numbers a very long time ago... Gevlon has more subscribers but we are on top of each other according to most web stat checkers. He mentioned last november that he had broken 1 million hits... but I'd broken it two months prior to that. Don't forget the youtube, twitter, forums, xfire, etc. JMTC is pretty big!
Markco said... April 18, 2010 at 3:56 PM
Thank you for all the ideas, I'm looking into them!
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