Blogoforum - Who the hell is phillhow
My main interest is the delivery of technical support on the Internet. I will write mainly about that. The nature of "help" sites is changing from a very static Q and A format with users on one side and experts on the other; to a more dynamic distribution of information in well organized pieces that serve to educate rather than rather than just answer questions.
Right now there are 5 main types of help sites:
The contest or game style sites like Experts-exchange... Q and A taken to the extreme. These are on the decline in importance.
Conventional forums like Codingforums. Not a popular as they once were, and many are badly run or neglected. Some will survive, but only as a reminder of how things were.
Social news and discussion sites like Digg. These are very inconsistent in quality, and most like Digg fail to remain focused on the tech areas. They are sort of backward Q and A. Someone posts what they think might be an answer and the questions sort of find it through community voting. Right now these sites are the darlings of the geeks among us, but whether that is short term or long term is yet to be determined.
Collections. Collections of related articles, collections of downloads, collections of snippets, directories of sites or blogs. Sometimes the answer to a problem, but without much support. There have always been collection, there will always be collections. They may evolve to support different types of collections like del.icio.us; evlove further or turning into something a little more organized and usable.
Article and tutorial sites like Experts Round Table. The devlopment of permanent content generated from discussion, research and peer review looks like a good idea. It probably will not appeal to the Venture Capitalist, because it is the only current format where a small group of experts can compete with much bigger sites without needing advertising or big bucks; by generating a little buzz and making quality content available for free. Which reminds me to post http://www.expertsrt.com to give them a little buzz from here.
I am going to be up front and tell you that I think Experts Round Table and other sites trying a similar approach sre the future of tech help on the Internet. I'm not going to post links to the big sites with wal to wall ads and paid subscriptions. The greed owners and their VC friends already make too much money.
Over time I will be reviewing some of the help sites on the Internet with bias toward free sites, ad free sites, and sites that generate mostly original content. I will also comment on trends point out the good the bad and the ugly; and do everything I can to promote good article sites especially Experts Round table.
BTW, if you think you would like to be a tech writer; instead of hiding your work on a blog, contact a tech article site. Then you will get support and help developing your article. I know my friend COBOLdinosaur at Experts round table would be glad to hear from you.
See y'al later.
** If you need as answer ask anyone who calls thenselves an expert; I you want to learn find a teach, Mentor or guru. Experts only know the answer Mentors know why it is the answer. **by philhowJanuary 30, 2007 2:32 PM
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Welcome, and one tip
Thats a great post Philhow. Welcome to Blogoforum.You came on the right time here. I'm brewing new ideas on how to let people to create their own communities here. If you're interested we can exchange a few words here or by email regarding how would you your community to work.
Meanwhile here is one trick (undocumented) you can do. Navigate to a topic of your interest, say http://blogoforum.com/tag/review+site+support+technology+web . You will find "edit forum description" there at the top right.
You can set title and description for that place. Try it.
Denis Krukovsky
Blogoforum
RE: Welcome, and one tip
Thanks for the welcome.
I am still not sure of what this site is going to be. A lot of good ideas for letting people interact and exchange ideas get ruined by abuse. The worst, of course is spamming.
A soon as there is an ability to post, you get spamming. Step 2 is a response to eliminate the spamming, an the site becomes more dificult to use, and the spammers start trying to game the site. That is the point at which things get stupid. On many sites I have seen, the most helpful posts and links get removed not because they are spam but because they are posted by a site owner or an author and there is an assumption that anyone posting their own stuff is a spammer; and anyone who post links primarily from one site is a spammer.
It has happened to me. I has happened to friends who blog or operate sites. What ends up happening is that the spammers increase pressure until a site goes to automated means of controlling them. The 'bot rules generally remove legitimate posts as well as some spam. The spammers find ways around the 'bots and a lot of legitimate poster just leave.
You end up with a small community that most talks to themselves, is suspicious of newcomers, and the site goes nowhere because to grow you have to keep the doors open, to help you have to tolerate a certain amount of crappy posting; and to become a real community you have to accept a diversity of people, cultures and ideas.
Consider a site like Digg. It used to be very wide open, tech oriented and a daily "must read". Now it is rapidly becoming a closed close community around a site filled with links to junk videos dominated by a handful of frequent poster that bury opinion, idea or proposal outside of a very narrow range of what they consider acceptable. IT becomes less and less usable as a technical resource, but the owners are not going to change direction because they are making money in the short term.
So I rant about site that go over to the dark side; try to influence sites that mght be viable support sites, and keep looking for new ideas like this. The biggest flaw I see with this concept, is that it is likely to end up dominated by a small group who post frequently and effective take over, while those with a life outside the Internet who post less frequently will have their voice drowned out.
Most community sites that speak of democracy and community control end up with little more than mob rule, or under the control of a small elite group who bully anyone not in the inner circle. We will see how this goes. I will post and rant for as long as I am tolerated.by philhowFebruary 1, 2007 8:19 AM
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