NO CONTENT = NO VOTE

Don’t Be A Blind Voter!

Propeller is a unique social news network. Like any good community there is a great deal of diversity and though passionately held views are bantered about sometimes, the vast majority of comments remain amiable and tolerant. Ideas are debated and considered, though sometimes skirmishes flare up, for such a diverse community the majority seems able to freely express themselves without resorting to clawing, scratching, and personally attacking those with divergent views. Everyone posting here has a stake in the community, after all, if we didn’t like it we wouldn’t be here. Keeping Propeller a high quality social on line community is each of our responsibilities.

Newer members- the best way to have a great experience on Propeller is to participate in the threads, as you encounter people who post things you find interesting or commentary you enjoy, add them to your friends list. To keep the value of our community high, select your propeller friends based on a shared interest, respect for their submissions, or because you enjoy their comments. Please do not pick them randomly only to vote for your personal submissions. For instance if you post an article about Britney Spears don’t ask someone who never visits celebrity posts to vote for it unless you really think there is something in it that would interest them. This isn’t Digg. If you have a blog yourself, before you submit your blog as a story on propeller, please be sure it has enough content for members to bother with.

I get private messages every day from people I’ve never conversed with who ask if I will vote for their story. but when I look at their story it’s merely one or two sentences, or maybe a picture of a cat. This is not a credible submission. The blog is often loaded up with ads but little content. I love personal blogs, but some have nothing to say and are obviously attempts to garner some income through advertising, and nothing more. This is a type of spam.

On some social news sites, this may be an acceptable approach to getting traffic to your story.

It may be the norm. Our network of friends on propeller, at least in my experience usually is based on something more than “I voted for your story now vote for mine”. What has made Propeller different from other social sites is that it neither suffers from heavy handed editors-censorship; nor has it been overrun with trite articles voted up without consideration for content. Judging from my inbox, and the front page of late. This is changing.

Everyone- The front page has been having an awful lot of these “game” articles appearing with no content to speak of. A number of people are voting for articles without actually visiting the sites. Please consider your vote a recommendation, an endorsement of the article. If there is only a sentence on the blog, it is poorly constructed and loaded with ads, what does this say about your integrity? Look I’m guilty of this also, someone sends a recommendation about how to buy a watch, in an effort to be “friendly” I voted for it only to discover there was only a sentence written and a bunch of ads for watches, wrinkle removers, and penis enlargers.

I have voted for stories because there is an attractive photo of a pretty female as an avatar (It’s not unlikely the submitter is actually a balding old man in a mustard stained wife beater tee shirt guzzling beer). I was wrong to do this. It dilutes the strength of the community ’s merit. If enough people vote blindly, a picture of a cat becomes the top news story. I have vowed to stop this blind voting and I hope you will consider doing the same. We are not talking about any particular viewpoints, or subjects merely the lack of content. If for instance Mary812 sees some intriguing posts by Philmackracken 666, and decides to see what articles Phil voted on, will she find more stories of interest? Or spam and wasted space?

 

 

EE-YI EE-YI OH!
Old MacDonald had an ad farm…

I sincerely hope we all consider whether or not a submission is merely spam masquerading as an article. Anytime a valueless spam article makes the front page, the experience of everyone on our site is diminished. Not only that, but the success of one spammer encourages more.

A little thoughtful discretion will go a long way.

Help keep Propeller the best social news community on the internet! Be a good citizen.

Don’t enable spam and certainly don’t submit it!

Remember…No Content- No Vote !