You are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

Votescam ago

May I ask ... WHY does the link come in the title?

Why not do it as every other thread is done ...show a topic and then give the link separately?

Would that change any of the problems?

Vindicator ago

Votescam, are you asking why Rule 3 requires titles to clearly state the link to PG and accurately describe the content being linked in a "Share a Link" post? Discuss posts already include the hyperlink separately and can explain the PG relevance in the body of the submission. "Share a Link" posts have no body text -- just a headline and link. Therefore, the headline has to do the whole job of satisfying all of the submission rules.

Votescam ago

No -- I was asking why the TITLE also had to be a link .. and why the link couldn't just appear in the body of the message.

But now that I'm reading some of your explanation, why are there two ways to do it? Why not only one?

Unfortunately, I've never really tried before to get deeply into the ways and means of the website/rules, etal. And actually haven't yet finished reading the sticky as it seemed so confusing, but will be back on it tonight, I trust.

:)

cantsleepawink ago

why are there two ways to do it? Why not only one?

From my experience, direct links to videos or articles sometimes engage people more than detailed discussions which require more effort on the part of the reader. Particularly if it is related to something current in the news or it's a new video that has popped up on Youtube and needs to be seen by other people.

There's an area within computer science called Human Computer Interaction (HCI) which is all about the psychology of what motivates people to engage with digital information. It's where website designers get their 'good design principles' from. Just having a thumbnail next to the title of a post, as happens with direct links, has a significant effect on the number of people who will actually click on it. Discussion within the comments section then becomes an effective mechanism for pooling resources. Perhaps you could try posting a bit more, and trying out both options and observe the difference.

Taking that option away would be a HUGE mistake.

cantsleepawink ago

why are there two ways to do it? Why not only one?

From my experience, direct links to videos or articles sometimes engage people more than detailed discussions which require more effort on the part of the reader. Particularly if it is related to something current in the news or it's a new video that has popped up on Youtube and needs to be seen by other people.

There's a area within computer science called Human Computer Interaaction (HCI) which is all about the psychology of what motivates people to engage with digital information. It's where website designers get their 'good design principles' from. Just having a thumbnail next to the title of a post, as happens with direct links, has a significant effect on the number of people who will actually click on it. Discussion within the comments section then becomes an effective mechanism for pooling resources. Perhaps you could try posting a bit more, and trying out both options and observe the difference.

Taking that option away would be a HUGE mistake.

Votescam ago

cant --

Thank you for the response and, sadly, you're probably wasting your time sharing your knowledge with me as I've never paid any attention to the systems here and certainly not the discussions about them. But I got an email from someone asking me to look at that thread and to vote. And it's been at a bad time because I'm way behind in my internet reading -- that is backed up! And since I know very little about the systems I do ask a Q or two, but I have no intention of advocating any changes.

On websites that I visit, most often the Title/Subject can be the headline of an article ... but the "title" is not an active link to the article .... the link is at the bottom of a paragraph or two or three or four about the article.

That way readers have the option of deciding at that point whether they want to explore the article and/or subject further.

Also, then, the comments can also be seen at the same times.

In some of the threads here, if you hit the title you're taken immediately away from the website... and you cannot see the comments.

Frequently, not realizing that the title is an active link, I have to back up to the Voat again and then hit "comments."

Not that I'm letting others decide what I'm reading or not ... but because I really prefer it when someone gives me at least some info about what I might find in the article.

:)

cantsleepawink ago

Therefore, the headline has to do the whole job of satisfying all of the submission rules.

Uh oh. Looks like you guys are seriously fixing to get rid of another important tool for distributing information. Did you not see my example yesterday of my 'direct link to a video' post which had 4 upvoats within less than 5 minutes (explanation and context in the title and comment section); it was then deleted by MF, I reposted in the discussion format - ZILCH votes in 15 minutes before being deleted again?

There are many good reasons to keep it.

Vindicator ago

There are many good reasons to keep it.

It definitely makes the page less boring to look at. :-) And we won't get rid of it unless a lot of users agree that would be worthwhile.

Honeybee_ ago

Can we add an image (thumbnail) to our posts headers that appear on the front page instead of a video thumbnail, add that to the "discuss" link as an option?