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Creating a more standard article like experience

immamac

By immamac
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immamac

immamac 44420

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We want your feedback, TL:DR we are going to start building out a better content experience for non-current posters/members.

For threads that have a decent OP or original content that anyone wants to write on any topic there will now be the option for me to turn it into an article from a thread and inherit the comments or you can create an article and it will automatically create a thread in the relevant forum. The comments will be synced between the articles and the threads, not every thread should be an article, but every article will have a thread (which in turn shows in the comments).

This will help with our SEO, but also it sets up the groundwork for some of the content that we will be producing (for free, forever) for the site. It won't be limited to just Football and Recruiting, but we will probably be fairly heavy on that side at first. Yes, this means we are going to have staff writers and possibly a staff photographer in the near future. 

Eventually we will have the option where default navigation happens to either the forum or the "website", but a lot of search traffic will end up on the "website" section first and the forums after they figure out what is going on here. 

Here is a sample of some existing threads that I pulled and put into the "Entertainment" page.

We will have these pages to start(linked pages are already live):

  1. Football (all football related content, UT or not)
  2. Texas Recruiting (not specifically football related, but mostly football)
  3. Sports (all the other sports boards and their articles here)
  4. Entertainment (movies, music, hobbies, lulz, food and travel)
  5. News (Daily Texan and 6th Street Journal)
  6. Politics (Cloak Room)

My ask of the community is if you are a Top Contributor (750+ rep full member) or have editor permissions (mostly recruiting) when you create new threads, if you are creating a longer format post that isn't to just kick off a discussion to think about creating an article, it's the same workflow from the top of the screen you will now have the option to create an article: I can clean up and move stuff around behind the scenes, but I can also create articles from threads that you don't follow this workflow through it's just a bit of extra work from an admin perspective.

image.png.508d7b9ccf73621e9c112a52809e36f9.png

 

I'm open to things like every 100k pageviews your article gets or 1M etc that there is financial incentive involved.

Also open to Post-Game Summaries that are commissioned regardless of pageview amount (25 bucks per or something like that to get started)

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Mitch Cumsteen

Mitch Cumsteen 19003

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It looks like right now you can only post new articles in 2020 coaching carousel or entertainment. Seems a little odd to only be able to post an article inside a thread vs it's being it's own topic. I'm not sure I get this whole thing. When you say "inherit comments" are you talking about replies in a thread? Or outside the forum stuff like twitter responses appearing inside a thread?

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Blotto

Blotto 24044

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The few times I have visited this site not logged in, it's a damn clusterfuck of ads. I get why, but if you are looking to improve the non member experience, I'd start there. I wouldnt spend 3 minutes on this site dealing with that abortion of UI. 

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immamac

immamac 44420

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1 hour ago, Mitch Cumsteen said:

It looks like right now you can only post new articles in 2020 coaching carousel or entertainment. Seems a little odd to only be able to post an article inside a thread vs it's being it's own topic. I'm not sure I get this whole thing. When you say "inherit comments" are you talking about replies in a thread? Or outside the forum stuff like twitter responses appearing inside a thread?

As soon as I get a few free hours this will accurately reflect all the categories in the OP I've got to shuffle some things around. 

If you post to entertainment you have the option of movies and tv hobbies music and lulz already as a secondary selection. 

Yeah essentially the thread becomes the comments and the OP is the article. 

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Blotto

Blotto 24044

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1 hour ago, ztejas said:

What stage are we at? Angel investment? 2nd round of capital? IPO? I have some big cigars with Armenian mob ties wanting to get in on the ground level.

Shit I dont think immamac has even reached the "bus trip to stillwater" fundraising stage yet

 

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Tex Long

Tex Long 4672

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I'm wondering if this is a joke. The contorted conjunction of  "more standard" with "article-like" and "experience" seems to guarantee tongue is firmly in cheek. God damn, but I sure as hell hope that's what's going on, because I do believe I'm not the only surly asshole who wants nothing to do with anything even remotely connected to "standard" - should we be helping our school find a standard head coach? If I want "article-like" content, I'll look for some "magazine-like" source for it. 

Fuck me, but I'd rather you keep the format as-is and use ads/no-ads and/or paywall to extract that $9.95 erry month... but maybe I'm the only one who likes it just fine already.

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immamac

immamac 44420

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The format isn't changing. There will be an additional area that is formatted differently for search engine purposes. It will also have original content that is just automatically synced to the regular forum in for form of an OP. 

We aren't changing anything, we are doing additional things. 

 

 

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HOOK'EMHOOAH

HOOK'EMHOOAH 1610

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On 12/24/2020 at 2:07 PM, immamac said:

As soon as I get a few free hours this will accurately reflect all the categories in the OP I've got to shuffle some things around. 

If you post to entertainment you have the option of movies and tv hobbies music and lulz already as a secondary selection. 

Yeah essentially the thread becomes the comments and the OP is the article. 

I hope above all that @CHAD BRISCOE
decides to use this feature.

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TXs

TXs 229

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The biggest hurdle is surly is currently so focused on texas that it becomes an echo chamber with any different opinions getting crowd sourced and banned. It be like if tiger droppings was only the Tiger Rant forum. It should be more long term inviting to a larger community imo (that decides it's worthwhile to stick around and contribute) for growth.

So smart move to try and adapt long term. I like it.

Edited by TXs
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immamac

immamac 44420

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The goal isn't to change anything with the existing experience. Just add a way for search to find us and send traffic. 

Google's algorithm changed pretty significantly with discover or Google now or Google news. Only articles show up there everything else is deranked. This will boost that significantly and they will land there and either interact with the comments or sign up and post in the thread. Whatever gets commented shows up and visa versa 

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immamac

immamac 44420

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for instance:

This thread in daily texan about covid vaccine looks like this by default and for everyone using the site:

image.thumb.png.0d0b822a675931e6f8e9b234435d4bb2.png

image.thumb.png.9482ab6e87e40624ffd97b95125f42e8.png

 

The article like experience looks like this:

image.thumb.png.669fff8309fd59df293aaacce44b264d.png

image.thumb.png.2b7bb219185d76a3307eeb4af2c8a75e.png

 

As you can see it's a very similar experience, but it looks like a comment section instead of a forum thread and it looks like an article instead of an OP in a forum.

 

 

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immamac

immamac 44420

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you can see all the articles here:

image.thumb.png.7be5450b0fe0292261fdc81d5032db23.png

and if you have the right permissions you can post via the create menu:

image.png.bd59e2876e24cba6e7333cb64f7c1136.png

Create topic and create article are synonymous as far as the forum is concerned, however if you create an article you will be able to add a header photo and it will go into the article database as well with the comment thread being synced. 

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