Let me tell you about a typical day for me in the wonderful world of cyberspace.
After my morning walk (the last exercise I’ll get all day), I turn on my computer and check my e-mail. Do you love spam? I know I do. I especially like the hour or so it takes me each morning to go through my e-mail and delete the messages I get that tell me I can have a bigger penis or that bignipples26 wants to be my friend on MySpace or that for just $199 a week I too can learn how to make money off the Internet. Sure I can. All I have to do is get a couple of bozos to send me $199 a week for a list of e-mail addresses and I’m set.
Better is when I go to Propeller and find that my PM box is full of messages from people begging me for votes on such salient topics as, “How to make your beer cold in five seconds or less!” and “Naked Jessica Alba Pictures!! HOT!!”. Now, I don’t know about you, but I need cold beer in five seconds or less. Planning ahead to have cold beer or just putting the beer in the freezer and waiting fifteen minutes isn’t going to cut it. I need it cold NOW!!! And while I wait that five seconds, I can spend some time ogling Jessica Alba. Thankfully, there are a couple of stories right there on the front page of Propeller that will give me what I need and I can vote for them too. Good for me!
Then of course, there are the fifty or so messages I get each day from people I’ve never even heard of with such great screen-names as, “Pleasevoteformystory123” and “Nocontent54”. These are my favorite, because all I have to do is vote for them and my latest submission, “How To Get A Story To The Front Page Of Propeller” will get votes out the wazoo. “Nocontent54” is sure to vote for my story if I’ll just vote for his. Ah, the wonderful world of reciprocal voting.
By this time, I’ve been on the computer for two hours and have accomplished basically nothing except to go through my messages from my e-mail and Propeller. Now, I can get down to the serious business of reading all of the fantastic content in the stories that I’ve voted for, commenting on them and generally enjoying the camaraderie that I’ve come to enjoy and expect on Propeller.
But, I start to get down a little after I check out “Nocontent54’s” submission. It sounds like a great submission, which is why I voted for it. I mean, who doesn’t want to be informed about great pictures of Bill Smith’s back yard. It’s something that has always fascinated me, so I’m on my way to the story to check it out. When I get there, though, I notice something strange. First of all, there’s only one picture of Mr. Smith’s back yard and it’s not even a good one. If I want to see an old beat up pick-up on blocks I’ll look in my own back yard. And really, there isn’t a second of all because the rest of the site is nothing more than banner ads, Google ads and links to more sites which I’m sure have similar fantastic content.
Well, now I’m starting to get pissed, but I persevere, noting that my great submission about getting a story to the Front Page of Propeller is picking up votes from all kinds of people, like “BannerAdsBoy” and “AdSenseRocks” so, in an effort to be nice and share the love, I dutifully check out their submissions, after voting for them. Surprisingly, “BannerAdsBoy’s” submission about “Fantastic New Bras” is a five page ad for his? new bra line. I figure I’ll have better luck at “AdSenseRocks’s” site. I mean, how could we go wrong with a submission like, “Funny Duck Pictures”? Well, we can. I get to the site and it’s ONE funny duck picture and six pages of AdSense ads about ducks and duck related items. Really.
Okay, that’s it. Now its lunch time and time for me to give my aching voting finger a rest. So, I make a sandwich and fortify myself with Coke for the afternoon. So far, it hasn’t been a great day on Propeller, but the afternoon submissions have to be better and with all of the voting I’ve been doing for my “friends” I’m sure to have a ton of votes for my submission as well.
Back on the computer after a twenty minute break and I’ve already got fifteen new e-mails informing me that if I’ll help Mr. Ongo’s widow get the money from his estate in Nigeria by simply handing over my social security number, my home phone number, my bank account information and passwords, I’ll receive a portion of her $120 million inheritance and I can STILL get a bigger penis if I’ll just act now. All they want me to do is write my name and address on a piece of paper, throw it away and send $50 a month to an address. Sounds fine to me.
Back on Propeller, I’ve got ten new PM’s asking me to vote for really important submissions from my new friends, “SpamMakesMoney”, “NoContentAgain55” and “SockPuppetsforCash12”. I note that they’ve already voted for my story, which is now on the front page, so I vote for theirs. Fair is fair. But, the disappointment continues when I note that the total amount of content on their twelve submissions is less than this sentence. But, there are a ton of great ads!
Finally, I get down to the serious business of commenting on a submission about evolution from my friend EvolutionRocks, where I’m roundly attacked, vilified and submitted to accusations about everything from my character to the content of my mother’s boudoir. Fun times and really what I live for. I keep checking my submission and note that it’s climbing the Front Page faster than, “Bush Authorizes Military Junta For US, Elections Postponed”. Which is good, because who really cares about the Constitution anyway?
By this point, I’m starting to get a little worn out and I realize I forgot to put my beer in the refrigerator and so I follow the instructions from “How to get my beer cold…” And instead of waiting the required five seconds I wait almost TEN seconds, so my lips should freeze to the beer can, right? Wrong. Damn thing is still warm and the naked pictures of Jessica Alba turned out to be a couple of pictures from a movie she did showing her ass. Great.
Warm beer in hand, I spend the next couple of hours voting, commenting and checking out story after story, hoping that I can sift through the chaff to find an important story or two. By the time I’m ready for bed at midnight, I’m half pissed up on warm beer ( I keep forgetting to put them in the fridge and the stupid “Cold Beer” submission is a bust) but at the end of the night I note the stories on the Front Page before I head off to blissful oblivion.
News “How To Get A Story To The Front Page Of Propeller” (I ROCK)
Pets “Funny Duck Pictures”
Food “How to get your beer cold in five seconds or less!!!”
Celebrities “Naked Jessica Alba Pics. HOT!!!”
Science “Evolution Rocks”
Politics “Bush Authorizes Military Junta For US, Elections Postponed”
Celebrities “Bill Smith’s Backyard Pics”
Money “How AdSense Made Me a Million”
Religion “Jesus Loves Me, But He Can’t Stand You”
Do No Evil “Whitetail Deer Refuge”
Humor “Lost Parody”
Health and Fitness “Drink Beer and Lose Weight”
Gadgets and Tech “Microsoft GP-36×9kl$@@L Software Patch”
Sports “Packers Win Pennant, Advance to World Cup”
News “Iraq War Ends”
Religion “Was St. Paul Real?”
Politics “Democrats Declare Victory in Canada”
Food “I Love Tomatoes”
Do No Evil “My Mommy Loves Me, Please Vote For My Story”
Autos “Cars That TALK!!!”
Money “No Content New Money Maker”
Family “Dale’s Backyard Weed”
Popular Videos “Loch Ness Monster and Big Foot Song”
Men “Want a Bigger Penis?”
Women “Why Women Want Men to Have a Bigger Penis”
Look, Propeller is currently one of the more respected social networking sites because of the great content that is available. It isn’t that we can’t or shouldn’t submit our own content to Propeller, but if we’re going to we should try and at least make it relevant and more than a couple of lines of content and five pages of ads.
This is meant to be funny and I hope it is. But, as a person who has been with Propeller from nearly the beginning I’ve noticed a substantial decline in the quality of submissions. And you know whose fault that is? Ours. The users of Propeller. It’s our community and if we want to keep it relevant we can’t let it turn into a place where spammers post garbage submissions with no content. If we don’t vote them up, they’ll go away. If they’re not making money, they’ll go away.
So, if you like a submission’s content (not just the headline) please vote for it. If you know a person or two that you can count on to submit good content, vote for them. But, as Propeller People let’s make a resolution this year that can be summed up in four words:
No Content = No Vote
2 Responses for "No Content = No Vote, Part 2"
I’m new to propeller and have submitted a few of my better stories. Hope they’re not considered spam!
i have yet to check out propeller, but am a fan of helium. to be honest, you have quite a point in the lack of “content”, but you also have to realize that we are living in a “pop” society, fueled on what brittany is doing locked in the bathroom and who is so cool at the moment. social commentary is only substanciated by our need for recognition rather than some form of change.
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