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Just interested in this new feature on Inbound.org
What's the purpose?
Is it for times when you have an opinion/thought but don't have a post written to have people's opinion about it?
I think it's basically our version of "Ask HN"
Nice!
Some friendly feedback - I don't think there's a way for me to find out what discussions I started here. It doesn't show up on my profile the way articles I submitted show up there :)
We can fix that up :) I'll add it into Basecamp. That should definitely be there, along with your comments.
Love the feature because instead of throwing up a short post on my blog (like I've been tempted to do at times), I can just discuss it here. Thanks Ed & the rest of the team!
Exactly. Short can be valuable on here - the kind of thing you might ask on Twitter or on G+ - with long form tutorials, analysis and "thought-provokers" elsewhere.
yes, this is svelte, because instead of provoking a comment thread within a submission like this one about Google Communities I can just Start a dedicated Discussion here. (Did you see how meta that just was?). Oh and this slightly concealed text editor within the comments that allows anchor text linking and styles is quite deft.
Hacker News, Quora and other places are great for sharing links, but also great for starting discussions. It's something that was missing, and I feel will really help drive discussion and engagement on the site.
Answering your original question, I've a handful of ideas for regular and irregular discussion types
1. Ask Inbound: What do you want bloggers to write about this week?
2. Ask Inbound: What do you think of X new feature?
3. The Big Thread on How to Get Into Inbound Marketing
4. Weekly themed discussions similar to #SEOchat, #CROchat etc.
5. We can merge multiple threads when a major new industry update comes out into one single discussion thread. It'll keep the homepage and user experience much, much cleaner.
I'm holding back on posing you guys a few questions until Monday when everyone's back at work and on the site, but in the meantime I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Perfect! Sounds like a plan :)
Great addition! To echo Jon, there's been a few times I've wanted to pick the brains of the Inbound.org community without the need to share a link.
I like its dedicated icon as well - makes it easier to tell the difference between Discussions and normal shares.
I wonder if there are other valuable tropes we can re-purpose from other communities, like AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit.
Speaking of which -- and building off of Ed's #4 suggestion above -- it might be interesting to try scheduling a weekly AMA-type event here and see if we can book the thought-leaders and other innovators in our industry to participate: Rand, Dharmesh, Danny, Lisa, Rhea, etc.
...and if you do - use hangouts :)
Are you volunteering? :)
I really like the AMA threads on Reddit. But what I really like about them is the diversity. "Ask Me Anything: I'm a doctor/lawyer/binman/headteacher"... it might not have as strong appeal as AMA on Reddit.
Disagree. I think an AMA of thought leaders would be freakin sweet.
So do I. What I'm saying is AMA on Reddit is picking the brains of thought leaders from a complete diverse (almost random) range of progressions and backgrounds. There's a curiosity/discovery fascination dynamic in that I think.
Gotcha, that makes sense.
Is there a way to find discussions yet? I'm a little confused about this one :(
Check "Incoming": http://www.inbound.org/articles/all/latest and look for discussion icon. Only 2 were created so far.
We already have an "ask inbound" category but it seems the new discussions do not end up there yet?
Ed's idea of starting a discussion is phenomenal, especially because of the fact that Inbound is really growing like anything and discussion ratio is great so its a very timed decision to come up with something like this...
The only thing i am waiting to see is how to control the SPAM at this point?
Well, we can all help by flagging spam & I believe there are 10 mods here who will take care of the rest :)
Saldy in the new version flagging spam is tedious as you get send over to the submission once you click it. So flagging several posts in a row is iimpossible. That's how spam works though.
Yeah, I remember raising this with Ed. If there's a few in a row (e.g. an overly-eager spammer), I Ctrl + T them so that they all open in new tabs, then close them all afterwards. Easier than clicking them all one-at-a-time.
Potential of 'spammability' was an immediate thought for me as well, Moosa. But thinking about it, I wonder if Discussions are less likely to be affected, as a link isn't necessarily included. I could be completely wrong though (and might've overlooked something)...
But as Max says below, we will fight it. :-)
(Just to clarify: I'm not an official mod, but I have been known to use the Flag button on an occasion or two...) ;-)
Two things... mods can already remove any comment. We can also be pretty intelligent about stamping out spammer's behaviour. Spammers are pretty predictable; they follow the same kind of behavioural patterns which are pretty darn easy to counteract with algorithms and focused human review. Hence why spam with the new site has totally tanked :)
What we need to add is the ability to flag comments so we can get to the "fires" quicker and easier. It's coming anyway, but I've nudged it up in the queue.
Seems like a good addition, thanks Inbound.org team.
#HappyDance :)
Right on! By the way, the Tweet button to share on a discussion is currently directing the link in the status to the Inbound.org home page.