Just curious, as the thing about this site is the quality of people who use it and contribute to the threads. Would Nick keep the major contributors but remove the lurkers, who contribute nothing?
As we are all aware wmw was the place to be and many of us made friends and helped grow our business's by sharing info their. But then it became bigger and bigger and many "good" people stopped posting, as they were not going to share their info with the thousands and thousands of lurkers. So there started being unofficial gatherings etc. Then Nick started this and many good people came and started sharing, but the lurkers are coming as I am sure you can see in your logs Nick and once there are too many the "players" in this industry will vanish from the site.
Just my thinking.
It's a great idea Nick, but the issue is at a point people will stop helping if it gets too big and looses its eleiteness.
Ok, let's deal with this now (again....) as i was really enjoying the monetization conversation - lord knows i need the help heh..
I don't see any help me posts
I see lots of lurkers, that is a given for any community site
That is absolutely NOT why people stopped posting at wmw
This isn't wmw, nor does it want to be
We talk about all kinds of stuff, there is very little "helping" going on - how can people stop helping?
Maybe that's because we do not permit help posts! heh
Comparing this place to wmw is wrong, you're attributing problems where they couldnt possibly exist (as in people stopping helping) as that just does not apply here
If i see shit posted, i remove it. Regardless of who posts it.
I dont want TW to be WMW, did i say that once before? Lemme just say it one more time: TW is NOT wmw, and it wont be. There are lots of help forums in this space, we dont need another one.
Thanks!
I've always said that comments could get noisey on occasion, ie. lots of posts, but the way the system works, and my tendency to nuke shit on sight will mean that apart from big news like Autolink, the number of new posts a day will be fairly constant - we post what's topical at the time, and discuss it - simple model :)
what harm do lurkers do? they don't increase noise and there's no hit counter so aside from Nicks bandwidth bill they aren't effecting anything really.
Sorry Nick if I dragged this away from making cash, but I thought this may be interesting to also we where other sites are failing.
MrMackin
By making a statement like that and quoting a date I will fall for the trap:)
What happened on that date, it maybe interesting to expand this to make sure it doesn't happen here.
And they are most welcome to lurk. Every now and again, one of the lurkers feels comfortable enough to join the conversation, and to me, that's a wonderful thing.
Even so, without lurkers: no new members. Without new members, TW would become a stale and incestuous community of ex-WMW mods now posting about BH stuff on SEW {grin}
Ok, I'm generalising a bit (why do people always do that?). But lurking is natural on internet forums/blogs. And the odd conversion to active posting is of course a plus.
Doug, WmW has problems of its own to be sure, but you're really addressing the "bell-shaped curve" problem.
And, Nick, you're subject to the curve, no getting around it. Can you come up with some new mechanism that will allow this community to side-step a syndrome that may very well be hard-wired into the DNA of public community sites? Too soon to tell. One thing to consider is that new players, the next generation of seos/sems/oms/a-bloggers have to rise from somewhere, perhaps this will be the place.
But going back to Doug's concern... I can tell you that many of the old guard are tired of the crowds. Elitism? Success has its privileges and chief among them is not having to filter noise.
Reckon a lot comes down to how much any of us are prepared to pay to avoid the noise. Interesting equation that one.
And to be fair to WMW they are in fact managing to avoid the Bell Shaped Curve - I suspect by hoovering up a "new generation" of wantabees - but no doubt very profitable none the less r
SES-NYC numbers were just mentioned here in a thread, basically it came close to doubling in a single year ...and that is at the high-$$ end of the spectrum. SES, and webmaster-related forums, are already seeing the edge of the boom. Note too that WmW's focus has become much more generalized; css, forum-building, etc. All good moves to increase the vortex power of the hoover, IMO.
Without new members, TW would become a stale and incestuous community of ex-mods now posting about BH stuff on SEW
An excellent point Wit, as that has happened in other communities, both public and private.
communities are an evolving creature and whoever is here at the moment may not be in the future.
rcjordan, as is his wont, got me thinking earlier today when he mentioned Bell curves and communities. Surely the point about the Bell curve is that it is in fact a wave, and as web marketers or programmers or proprietors, we aim to surf it as best we can as it evolves and until it breaks.
But one constant is that it will be constantly changing and that at one point it will crash on the shore, despite whatever moves we pull on the crest. That's part of the fascination and the fun of what we do.
aim to surf it as best we can as it evolves and until it breaks
Bingo! That's exactly the point. WmW's evolution/path, as an example (and in my personal opinion), has been to spread the focus into more mundane but high headcount topics like css, forum-building, php, you-name-it. Don't forget that when I started with it, it was SearchEngineWorld --and I think that point is a telling one.
But, to use your analogy Nick, experienced surfers ride a wave as long as it challenges them or is fun. Once it starts to flatten, they kick back on the skeg and drop out of the wave to catch the next one. And that's the process that Doug is concerned about.
I can't thank wmw enough, I learned lots and met some great people, but alas I now find I don't have the time to go through the "noise". I now only go to selective gatherings, most of which are not open to the public. Not because I don't want to, just I don't have the time to spend time with who don't know the basics.
The problem with a place like this is not just keeping the noise out, but also once everyone starts reading this forum the value of the information that gets posted drops.
So how do you keep the noise down, but also how do you ironically limit the amount of people who get to see the valued information. Becasue once many people start seeing it, then its value drops.
Im not going to quote people particularly, but some general points based on the discussion so far:
Older members leaving
As someone pointed out, wmw's readership is on the increase - part (a large part but certainly not the only) of the reason older members left wmw is that they've outgrown it. Not all wmw members hate it, far from it, i see posts there all the time saying how great it is.
These posts are from "the next generation" of webmaster. PR, H1's, link exchanges - that's all NEW to them, and they love it. Whilst for old hands, it's duller than dishwater. So, they leave.
Personally, i dont think that's a bad thing given the particular help forum format that wmw runs off - and the business model behind it - there is no money in those older members as wmw works now.
Quite frankly, if it's worthy of serious bitchin about, it's high time those members moved on. Where i think Tabke gets it wrong, is trying to please everyone - the old hands and the new - that's real hard to do, clearly.
How does that apply to TW?
Only loosely. If members get bored of talking about whatever the current issues of the day are, i'd suggest it was time they moved on. Im not trying to please everyone here, and wont be trying to in the future. I would hope/think that the number of members who, over time, simply get bored with the things we report on and discuss here would be minimal, but only time will tell.
Noise
As I've said many many times here, it's rather difficult under the present system (and ive no plans to change it) for the amount of new threads per day to increase much - im not saying it wont happen, all things are possible, but i find it very unlikely. Don't forget, im not afraid to nuke, and im very much aware that to make an omlette, the occasional egg needs to be broken. So, if the occasional members nose gets put out of joint over a nuke, so be it - the good of the many is what's important and thankfully, to date, everyone (and it's not many) that i've removed posts of, has understood the reasoning and been more than gracious about it.
The comments could get noisey, but i think we can whether that, personally i'd love to see the threads more active - but same rules apply, no help me posts..
If for any reason noise becomes an issue, i will act in the best interests of Threadwatch - you may not like it, but i'll do it.
WebmasterWord
It seems that there's a lot of bitterness and resentment toward that place, and i include myself - those of us that invested a lot of time there were given rather a raw deal, to put it mildly.
However, Threadwatch, is NOT wmw, and I most certainly am NOT Tabke, this site could not be any different. The only thing it shares in common, to my mind, is members.
I think you, and I, should move on - it's over, done with, and in the past. Threadwatch will do what it does, wmw will do what it does and no doubt we will continue to share a few members, harbour a few outcasts and occasionally use it as a good point of reference for talking about large communities.
Becoming the wmw whine fest, is not part of the agenda though. That's just noise.
Curve's
Nothing sustains growth forever. Rather than focusing on the doom and gloom scenario that one day we'll all wake up and i will have become Tabke, this place will be full to the gills with noobs asking about pagerank and and ill be deleting threads that criticize sponsors - why not focus on what's good here? What we can improve here? How i can continue to do an 18hr day 7days a week and eat here? heh...
The doom and gloom has really got me down on an otherwise lovely day in Denmark. I know nobody asked me to start TW, and that certainly nobody owes me a living, but i would appreciate one small thing for my efforts.
I think everyone is giving you the benefit of the doubt - TW is a great site.
I think what is being said, rephrase that, what I am saying, is that monetisation of the site and numbers are a difficult thing to balance. Personally I would like you to make a fortune, and for the site to continue to run in the cutting edge way that it does today.
However whatever way you look at it, numbers are important. The money has to come either from users in some way, or from advertisers. Either way the more numbers you have on your books, the more potential there is for profit.
Somewhere down the line your business plan has to make a stab at the sort of numbers you want to attract, in order to give yourself an an idea of the cash flow to work on, and the sort of site you personally have fun operating. In a world where growth is the sine qua non of business plans, its a brave (or confident businessman) that plans without it.
I have no axe to grind, I cut out growth from my business model years ago, and make a good living doing my own thing and am very happy doing so.
Agreeing with Serious in that you should not get drawn in.. but the thing about curves/waves is that you don't have to quit, you can surf them :)
I'm a great believer in that all things happen in cycles/waves and that each full cycle takes about seven years. This applies to life, business, getting out of the bad luck cycle after breaking a mirror hehe..
It's the weekend so: apparently I'm not alone but it's actually been narrowed down to 6.4 Years ~ me wonders is that an upshaped 3.2 year bell then a down shaped 3.2 year bell? - Ok enough, now fade out x-files music...
I studied Elliot Waves for a while and while that is a term generally used for the Stock Market Analysis. World Business does indeed reflect the general trend of all business models, imo smaller business tend to lag behind the curve a little, which is ok as that is the way it goes.. unless you want to be at the top!
These communities are all a form of business model so they are all prone to the same highs and lows. The only real way I can see to "avoid" it is to diversify so you're on the up curve on some businesses while on the down curve of others so balancing it out.
and the way you can talk Nick, I reckon if anyone can do it you can :)
No doom & gloom, Nick. That said, I knew WmW (in the form that I loved, anyway) was dead as soon as I walked into the hotel at Boston, just ask Travoli --he was unfortunate enough to be the one riding with me for the 10-hr drive home. The sad part was that I had help kill it.
And, FWIW, why do you keep bumping the 'bitterness' topic? I haven't read the thread that spawned this one, but I didn't see anyone dripping vitriol in the above. WmW is an example of how things have changed and it's going to be pointed out time and time again, just as everyone once talked about Jim Wilson's SEF.
But the surf-then-move-on-to-a-better-beach IS a problem for anyone who going to monetize or even just maintain communities. And I'm not sure there's an answer.
Like the others above, I DO tend to believe that the wave/cycle phenomenon is going to happen most often, i.e., that the forum stays fixed and the membership cycles through it.
if what we do is point to threads elsewhere which members find interesting, and all your 'regulars' evolve together to find the same things interesting, you may have beaten the curve.
But if by some miracle you manage to get no dropouts you will still get more members and the same % of recipes will still equal more noise. I don't think you can win both ways.
I have worked a lot with number-crunching and such. Still, i didn't get the "bell curve" part - i know the Gaussian Normal Distibution of course, it was just that i couldn't figure out exactly what you were talking about as it can refer to a lot of different things.
With the talk of waves and the link to the alexa page it dawned on me that it had to do with number of users/members/posters ..duh... next time i'll just take a look at the thread title, right?
Anyway, this graph compares TW, WMW, /., tripod, and eBay. I didn't really have to include TW, but i like the movement of that blue line as a contrast to the other three. Note how similar the others are?
The alexa numbers reflect more than anyhing else the use of the alexa toolbar *lol* Also, try replacing one of these sites with Yahoo.com and you will see it at #1 as a straight line. Now, has Yahoo traffic been constant for two years? I think not... It's just traffic for alexa tbar users relative to Yahoo traffic it seems. So, when Yahoo grows more than others, the rest falls.
I like Nick's outlook on lurkers. Not everyone is chatty. It goes with people's personality. Not being chatty is not a good reason to boot people out. There are always opportunities to contribute, in one way or another.
I'm pretty new to Threadwatch and am just learning how it works. I'm genuinely curious about what types of contributions are sought. Comments to posts? New posts?
Quite frankly I come here to get most of my news, so I wouldn't have much to post in terms of news. Should I post SEO findings / research? This blog doesn't seem to be oriented towards that type of data.
So I'd love to know what kind of participation is being sought.
Of course you have it Nick. You know we love what you're doing here! It's just when you get a group of really clever, talented people like that above you're bound to hear their opinions.
Posted by DougS
As we are all aware wmw was the place to be and many of us made friends and helped grow our business's by sharing info their. But then it became bigger and bigger and many "good" people stopped posting, as they were not going to share their info with the thousands and thousands of lurkers. So there started being unofficial gatherings etc. Then Nick started this and many good people came and started sharing, but the lurkers are coming as I am sure you can see in your logs Nick and once there are too many the "players" in this industry will vanish from the site.
Just my thinking.
It's a great idea Nick, but the issue is at a point people will stop helping if it gets too big and looses its eleiteness.
DougS
Numbers
Ok, let's deal with this now (again....) as i was really enjoying the monetization conversation - lord knows i need the help heh..
I've always said that comments could get noisey on occasion, ie. lots of posts, but the way the system works, and my tendency to nuke shit on sight will mean that apart from big news like Autolink, the number of new posts a day will be fairly constant - we post what's topical at the time, and discuss it - simple model :)
Not the reason...
People stoped posting at "that other place" because there was no community left to post to. It became a MEDIA COMPANY on 6/23/2003.
just out of curiosity
what harm do lurkers do? they don't increase noise and there's no hit counter so aside from Nicks bandwidth bill they aren't effecting anything really.
6/23/2003 or 23/6/2003 for us Brits
Sorry Nick if I dragged this away from making cash, but I thought this may be interesting to also we where other sites are failing.
MrMackin
By making a statement like that and quoting a date I will fall for the trap:)
What happened on that date, it maybe interesting to expand this to make sure it doesn't happen here.
DougS
>>what harm do lurkers do?
None.
And they are most welcome to lurk. Every now and again, one of the lurkers feels comfortable enough to join the conversation, and to me, that's a wonderful thing.
no harm what so ever
I lurked for 2 years before I decided to join in and start posting.
I bet Nick wishes sometimes...
...some of us reverted to lurking mode ASAP :-)
Even so, without lurkers: no new members. Without new members, TW would become a stale and incestuous community of ex-WMW mods now posting about BH stuff on SEW {grin}
Ok, I'm generalising a bit (why do people always do that?). But lurking is natural on internet forums/blogs. And the odd conversion to active posting is of course a plus.
Doug, WmW has problems of its own to be sure, but you're really addressing the "bell-shaped curve" problem.
And, Nick, you're subject to the curve, no getting around it. Can you come up with some new mechanism that will allow this community to side-step a syndrome that may very well be hard-wired into the DNA of public community sites? Too soon to tell. One thing to consider is that new players, the next generation of seos/sems/oms/a-bloggers have to rise from somewhere, perhaps this will be the place.
But going back to Doug's concern... I can tell you that many of the old guard are tired of the crowds. Elitism? Success has its privileges and chief among them is not having to filter noise.
Noise
Reckon a lot comes down to how much any of us are prepared to pay to avoid the noise. Interesting equation that one.
And to be fair to WMW they are in fact managing to avoid the Bell Shaped Curve - I suspect by hoovering up a "new generation" of wantabees - but no doubt very profitable none the less r
>hoovering up
hoovering up
SES-NYC numbers were just mentioned here in a thread, basically it came close to doubling in a single year ...and that is at the high-$$ end of the spectrum. SES, and webmaster-related forums, are already seeing the edge of the boom. Note too that WmW's focus has become much more generalized; css, forum-building, etc. All good moves to increase the vortex power of the hoover, IMO.
Without new members, TW would become a stale and incestuous community of ex-mods now posting about BH stuff on SEW
An excellent point Wit, as that has happened in other communities, both public and private.
Posted by stever
communities are an evolving creature and whoever is here at the moment may not be in the future.
rcjordan, as is his wont, got me thinking earlier today when he mentioned Bell curves and communities. Surely the point about the Bell curve is that it is in fact a wave, and as web marketers or programmers or proprietors, we aim to surf it as best we can as it evolves and until it breaks.
But one constant is that it will be constantly changing and that at one point it will crash on the shore, despite whatever moves we pull on the crest. That's part of the fascination and the fun of what we do.
aim to surf it as best we can as it evolves and until it breaks
Bingo! That's exactly the point. WmW's evolution/path, as an example (and in my personal opinion), has been to spread the focus into more mundane but high headcount topics like css, forum-building, php, you-name-it. Don't forget that when I started with it, it was SearchEngineWorld --and I think that point is a telling one.
But, to use your analogy Nick, experienced surfers ride a wave as long as it challenges them or is fun. Once it starts to flatten, they kick back on the skeg and drop out of the wave to catch the next one. And that's the process that Doug is concerned about.
exactly RC
I can't thank wmw enough, I learned lots and met some great people, but alas I now find I don't have the time to go through the "noise". I now only go to selective gatherings, most of which are not open to the public. Not because I don't want to, just I don't have the time to spend time with who don't know the basics.
The problem with a place like this is not just keeping the noise out, but also once everyone starts reading this forum the value of the information that gets posted drops.
So how do you keep the noise down, but also how do you ironically limit the amount of people who get to see the valued information. Becasue once many people start seeing it, then its value drops.
DougS
General Points
Im not going to quote people particularly, but some general points based on the discussion so far:
Older members leaving
As someone pointed out, wmw's readership is on the increase - part (a large part but certainly not the only) of the reason older members left wmw is that they've outgrown it. Not all wmw members hate it, far from it, i see posts there all the time saying how great it is.
These posts are from "the next generation" of webmaster. PR, H1's, link exchanges - that's all NEW to them, and they love it. Whilst for old hands, it's duller than dishwater. So, they leave.
Personally, i dont think that's a bad thing given the particular help forum format that wmw runs off - and the business model behind it - there is no money in those older members as wmw works now.
Quite frankly, if it's worthy of serious bitchin about, it's high time those members moved on. Where i think Tabke gets it wrong, is trying to please everyone - the old hands and the new - that's real hard to do, clearly.
How does that apply to TW?
Only loosely. If members get bored of talking about whatever the current issues of the day are, i'd suggest it was time they moved on. Im not trying to please everyone here, and wont be trying to in the future. I would hope/think that the number of members who, over time, simply get bored with the things we report on and discuss here would be minimal, but only time will tell.
Noise
As I've said many many times here, it's rather difficult under the present system (and ive no plans to change it) for the amount of new threads per day to increase much - im not saying it wont happen, all things are possible, but i find it very unlikely. Don't forget, im not afraid to nuke, and im very much aware that to make an omlette, the occasional egg needs to be broken. So, if the occasional members nose gets put out of joint over a nuke, so be it - the good of the many is what's important and thankfully, to date, everyone (and it's not many) that i've removed posts of, has understood the reasoning and been more than gracious about it.
The comments could get noisey, but i think we can whether that, personally i'd love to see the threads more active - but same rules apply, no help me posts..
If for any reason noise becomes an issue, i will act in the best interests of Threadwatch - you may not like it, but i'll do it.
WebmasterWord
It seems that there's a lot of bitterness and resentment toward that place, and i include myself - those of us that invested a lot of time there were given rather a raw deal, to put it mildly.
However, Threadwatch, is NOT wmw, and I most certainly am NOT Tabke, this site could not be any different. The only thing it shares in common, to my mind, is members.
I think you, and I, should move on - it's over, done with, and in the past. Threadwatch will do what it does, wmw will do what it does and no doubt we will continue to share a few members, harbour a few outcasts and occasionally use it as a good point of reference for talking about large communities.
Becoming the wmw whine fest, is not part of the agenda though. That's just noise.
Curve's
Nothing sustains growth forever. Rather than focusing on the doom and gloom scenario that one day we'll all wake up and i will have become Tabke, this place will be full to the gills with noobs asking about pagerank and and ill be deleting threads that criticize sponsors - why not focus on what's good here? What we can improve here? How i can continue to do an 18hr day 7days a week and eat here? heh...
The doom and gloom has really got me down on an otherwise lovely day in Denmark. I know nobody asked me to start TW, and that certainly nobody owes me a living, but i would appreciate one small thing for my efforts.
Just one. The benefit of the doubt.
Thanks
Navel Gazing
Dont be drawn in Nick - threads like this will happen.
You are doing a fantastic job and you have created a unique community here and are sure to join the industry leaders - whether you want to or not ;-)
Just keep it coming and go with the changes and I'm sure you will do well.
And if you follow the bell-shaped curve you'll know when to quit and start something new.
But for now - You da man!
The benefit of the doubt.
Nick,
I think everyone is giving you the benefit of the doubt - TW is a great site.
I think what is being said, rephrase that, what I am saying, is that monetisation of the site and numbers are a difficult thing to balance. Personally I would like you to make a fortune, and for the site to continue to run in the cutting edge way that it does today.
However whatever way you look at it, numbers are important. The money has to come either from users in some way, or from advertisers. Either way the more numbers you have on your books, the more potential there is for profit.
Somewhere down the line your business plan has to make a stab at the sort of numbers you want to attract, in order to give yourself an an idea of the cash flow to work on, and the sort of site you personally have fun operating. In a world where growth is the sine qua non of business plans, its a brave (or confident businessman) that plans without it.
I have no axe to grind, I cut out growth from my business model years ago, and make a good living doing my own thing and am very happy doing so.
Everything, and I mean everything..
.. comes in waves
>..Bell curve is that it is in fact a wave
Agreeing with Serious in that you should not get drawn in.. but the thing about curves/waves is that you don't have to quit, you can surf them :)
I'm a great believer in that all things happen in cycles/waves and that each full cycle takes about seven years. This applies to life, business, getting out of the bad luck cycle after breaking a mirror hehe..
It's the weekend so: apparently I'm not alone but it's actually been narrowed down to 6.4 Years ~ me wonders is that an upshaped 3.2 year bell then a down shaped 3.2 year bell? - Ok enough, now fade out x-files music...
I studied Elliot Waves for a while and while that is a term generally used for the Stock Market Analysis. World Business does indeed reflect the general trend of all business models, imo smaller business tend to lag behind the curve a little, which is ok as that is the way it goes.. unless you want to be at the top!
These communities are all a form of business model so they are all prone to the same highs and lows. The only real way I can see to "avoid" it is to diversify so you're on the up curve on some businesses while on the down curve of others so balancing it out.
and the way you can talk Nick, I reckon if anyone can do it you can :)
No doom & gloom, Nick. That said, I knew WmW (in the form that I loved, anyway) was dead as soon as I walked into the hotel at Boston, just ask Travoli --he was unfortunate enough to be the one riding with me for the 10-hr drive home. The sad part was that I had help kill it.
And, FWIW, why do you keep bumping the 'bitterness' topic? I haven't read the thread that spawned this one, but I didn't see anyone dripping vitriol in the above. WmW is an example of how things have changed and it's going to be pointed out time and time again, just as everyone once talked about Jim Wilson's SEF.
But the surf-then-move-on-to-a-better-beach IS a problem for anyone who going to monetize or even just maintain communities. And I'm not sure there's an answer.
-added-
Like the others above, I DO tend to believe that the wave/cycle phenomenon is going to happen most often, i.e., that the forum stays fixed and the membership cycles through it.
perhaps
if what we do is point to threads elsewhere which members find interesting, and all your 'regulars' evolve together to find the same things interesting, you may have beaten the curve.
But if by some miracle you manage to get no dropouts you will still get more members and the same % of recipes will still equal more noise. I don't think you can win both ways.
curves
I have worked a lot with number-crunching and such. Still, i didn't get the "bell curve" part - i know the Gaussian Normal Distibution of course, it was just that i couldn't figure out exactly what you were talking about as it can refer to a lot of different things.
With the talk of waves and the link to the alexa page it dawned on me that it had to do with number of users/members/posters ..duh... next time i'll just take a look at the thread title, right?
Anyway, this graph compares TW, WMW, /., tripod, and eBay. I didn't really have to include TW, but i like the movement of that blue line as a contrast to the other three. Note how similar the others are?
The alexa numbers reflect more than anyhing else the use of the alexa toolbar *lol* Also, try replacing one of these sites with Yahoo.com and you will see it at #1 as a straight line. Now, has Yahoo traffic been constant for two years? I think not... It's just traffic for alexa tbar users relative to Yahoo traffic it seems. So, when Yahoo grows more than others, the rest falls.
Lurkers
I came across quite a good (but old) article on Lurkers "shedding light on lurkers" which does try to dig into the subject a bit.
Worth a read if you are thinking of trying to do anything with lurkers. This figure of 100 lurkers for every poster seems to be the one bandied.
More on lurkers
I like Nick's outlook on lurkers. Not everyone is chatty. It goes with people's personality. Not being chatty is not a good reason to boot people out. There are always opportunities to contribute, in one way or another.
I'm pretty new to Threadwatch and am just learning how it works. I'm genuinely curious about what types of contributions are sought. Comments to posts? New posts?
Quite frankly I come here to get most of my news, so I wouldn't have much to post in terms of news. Should I post SEO findings / research? This blog doesn't seem to be oriented towards that type of data.
So I'd love to know what kind of participation is being sought.
The benefit of the doubt
Of course you have it Nick. You know we love what you're doing here! It's just when you get a group of really clever, talented people like that above you're bound to hear their opinions.