More than anyone else, the overall success and efficacy of ProgressiveU depends on us, the users of the site. Yet I have never been more disappointed with the "quality" of blogs going up on this site than I am now.
When I first came to this site, I knew I simply didn't have the time to win the contest. Granted, that didn't stop me from entering; and here and there I am able to put forth a huge effort of trying to post more comments and a few more blogs than I really have time for. But what attracted me to this site was not the thought of the scholarship (nice as it might be to win); it was the entire concept. A place to talk about and exchange knowledge about news, politics, religion, society and to do so for free without pop-up ads or an overwhelming amount of advertisements plaguing the site and cluttering my messages. A place where people of some intelligence and learning to come together and share their ideas and how those ideas were developed.
And what happens? I have seen more blogs about garbage than on MySpace - I swear! It's ridiculous. How many blogs do we honestly need about how unprogressive someone else's blogs might be? Or about how someone else is spelling words wrong or misplacing a semicolon? How many? One or two are not bad to swallow, 18 in a week is a little much. And every time someone posts one, three more come up.
It saddens me to think that this site is being diminished to nothing more than a bitch-fest.
So, something has to be done. Perhaps rather than a user be entered into the contest and have quantity of reads and blogs posted count, maybe each user should individually submit each particular blog that is to be entered into the contest? In other words, put a check box just above the little "submit" button that says whether or not that blog will be entered in for the contest. That way, those who just want to bitch about grammar and spelling can do so, but such blogs would not go into the count for the contest. Perhaps we can even put in a rating system; something that will let new users know which topics are hot and which are not, and where other users can rate the content of the blog they've just read.
What do you think? Can we fix this, or do you think that it's not broken?
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Honestly, after seeing a blog arguing if Bow Wow or Romeo was "more gangsta," I've come to suspect that the quality of posts on ProgressiveU is steadily declining. I mean, come on! Most of us come here to bounce intelligent ideas off each other, not to degenerate some question into a swear-fest.
No way! I want to read that blog! Sounds awesome, can you post a link?
I think $1000 is a lot to someone that has nothing, and they will do everything they can to get it.
Yea, damnit...
Whatever happened to "cheaters never win"?!
I think they lied, must have been a cheater who said it to get us off his trail...
:)
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"Dream as though you'll live forever, but live as though there's no tomorrow" --James Dean
http://www.progressiveu.org/user/fanaile-drupal-org
lol-yeah!
More recently...i'm finding people that are just posting garbage, and pathetic posts, I'm afraid their posts are going to count-when I actually put thought and time into mine. Sure, I have a few blogs that I don't entirely spend a ton of time on, but more than most of mine do take time and thought.
Good point. in the end, its quantity versus quality to get the points.
Just a question. Do you think that people are going to not check the blogs that are about celebrities? I mean, why not?
Well, I would hope that the honor system would count for *something*. My guess is that the people who are here for a while, perhaps for the span of two contests or at least for the entire duration of one contest, would help keep the number of garbage posts being submitted for the contest to a minimum. Since those of us who have been here for a while seem to have the same complaints as to what they view are contest-worthy posts and what are not.
Perhaps with that, there could be a system where the administrators go through the contest blogs and decide what should count. So, if someone does happen to go against the honor system, it would still be caught and not count towards the contest.
Or, maybe there could be a better motivation? Something like if you submit more than three garbage blogs to the contest you become disqualified from winning? That, I think, would make people think twice before just placing anything in for the contest.
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"Dream as though you'll live forever, but live as though there's no tomorrow" --James Dean
http://www.progressiveu.org/user/fanaile-drupal-org
Money tends to track idiots, and ProU makes some of them grow into coherent sentence writing, capital using genius'. If I could believe the honor system then this whole thing would work perfect.
Maybe if the 'check checkers' found a cheater the would lose points. Or make it like some multiple choice tests were a blank answer does not count against you, a good answer earns you points, and a bad answer (what we are talking about) loses points.
all truths are easy to understand once discovered; the point is to discover them ~galileo
I'd be afraid to tell people that they will be disqualified for posting "garbage" posts.....this leaves too much room for flooded complaints on why their blog was NOT garbage. It might just be opening a can of worms for consistent arguments. Or maybe it wouldn't - I guess I don't know, but I would hate the moderators to take on more than they need with dealing with whiners and those who are going to go out and seek possible "garbage" posts just to try and get more people disqualified.
I don't think its a good idea because people always stretch the progressive tags a lot to cover their totally unprogressive topics and they can argue it either way.
Looking at the list of active threads and the post with the second to most replies has to do with Nickelodeon? I mean come on! I know that a lot of users here are students but isn't that network geared for kids under 15 years old? I would think there would be more pressing issues on people’s minds but maybe I'm wrong?
The contest should be re-worked to emphasize quality versus quantity.
Exactly!
Plus, for those of us trying to write and actually put forth effort into making our blogs worth while and interesting, it's much more motivating to see others doing it; not just posting something about garbage, cartoons, music groups (unless it's really news worthy), and which rap star is best.
But how can we do that?
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"Dream as though you'll live forever, but live as though there's no tomorrow" --James Dean
http://www.progressiveu.org/user/fanaile-drupal-org
So what if the tv show is for 15 year olds? People discuss dr seuss still and how he used cartoons to promote political ideas/issues. As long as it is progressive, I really dont mind.
Great ideas -- keep them coming! A rating system is in the works for next year.
That's great, Art; and thanks for the encouragement. I would really like to see the next contest end as smoothly as they usually start :)
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"Dream as though you'll live forever, but live as though there's no tomorrow" --James Dean
http://www.progressiveu.org/user/fanaile-drupal-org
Oh, so the rating system wasn't here last year? I must admit that the rating system is pretty dang cool.
I am not really as concerned about winning the scholarship as i am just glad to be involved in this concept, like the original blogger mentioned. I too am becoming increasingly aware of how many just angry complaining blogs there are. It's true that a person gets 50 points for each post, but you also get 10 points for responding to a post and 1 point for each time someone reads your post. If we use the rating system properly and respond to articles that are angry and useless, even just by engaging that person and saying "hey, I see what you're saying, but here's why I don't agree with you, did you think about this?" It takes two seconds to do and then you are contributing to the integrity of the site as well as becoming a stronger competetor in the contest.
The site already has a pretty decent system of how to filter what is quality to the forefront if we use it actively. (Though I wonder sometimes if they put blogs on the front page just because they are controversial and "not that bad"...I suppose they just want to get people talking though, fair enough.)
I've only been a member of Progressive U for a few weeks, so I can't really say if the site is getting worse or not. However, I did notice that after the contest began the number of ridiculous blog posting increased dramatically. I stumbled across the site while looking for scholarships, but I've honestly been more interested in the site itself than in the scholarship (not to say I don't want it :). Some people who post on here have really great things to say and bring up controversial issues and careful, innovative opinions and ideas; however, it seems there are an equal amount of people hell-bent on churning out ten completely UNprogressive posts every day just to win. You're completely right, the shallow myspace mentality seems to have penetrated this site.
Perhaps there should be a panel of contest judges who are void from the contest and who can objectively vote on whether a post is deemed progressive or simply garbage. Also, I think your idea that there should be a check box where people can put comments without including them in the contest is a great one.
-JP
Enter... the A-Team! A group of people not eligible for the scholarship that help keep the site alive. Course, even we can't handle the sheer volume of blog posts that have been put up recently...
But in the long run, people putting up unprogressive posts aren't going to win the scholarship. After the first couple, people will just stop reading their blogs, and so they won't get reads. I know not everyone believes us in this, but we've seen the numbers, really...
~C
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keep on keeping it real
The great thing about ProU is that its getting bigger.
One of the problemswith ProU is that its getting bigger.
Look at the sheer number of blogs per day, per hour and its gotten HUGE! The problem with that is that a lot of new members are the ones writing a lot of blogs. As much as we all say that its not the number of blogs that win a contest, people still dont believe it.
I'll reveal something that I did when I was actually in the contest. I didnt put a lot of stock in writing tons of blogs. Generally, I tried to come up with one well thought out blog a day. If I could do that and get a lot of reads I was in good shape. My meat and potatoes were the comments I made on other people's blogs and especially on my own blogs in response to other people's comments. That's really where all the points are. If you write blogs that get a lot of comments and respond to almost all of them you can do pretty damn well. Its about starting a debate on the issues you raise in your blog. Every comment you leave gets you points. Every time a person responds you get reads and can respond to that comment and get even more points that way. This is a good way to approach the contest because then you're writing good blogs, you're really tackling (discussing) the issues involved in these blogs You're basically doing what this contest is about. Think. Speak Up. Reach Out.
That is what this contest is really about. I urge people to write well thought out blogs people will read and it will take you a lot farther than if you write twenty crappy blogs that are almost incomprehensible.
"Its all very well in practice but it will never work in theory."
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/daimler
Yeah, its huge but I noticed that over winter break and other holidays it slows down A LOT. BUt, I haven't been here long enough to know the difference.
I am in support of any body that is to stand up against the garbage that people are putting up. Anytime I read a post to help quality control I am there. it is a shame that people would think that there blog should lack substance. i make sure my blog encourages others. I want people to read my blog and think to do something better. It is all about upward progression. On the light side I would love to see the other members attack me for my grammar. Hands down my topics are original and I will continue bring substance.
Tiffany Southall signing out by keeping you up-to-date.
Well, there is no lack on my side of people posting helpful tips and comments, which i truly appreciate!
You know what's funny though? Those bloggers who post meaningless posts and comments never seem to last long.
I've noticed the people who really care have been here consistantly (at least consistant in the 3 weeks I've been here...) and the others fall off the face of the planet very quickly.
It's interesting.
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http://progressiveu.org/003838-the-girl-who-cried-rape-or-in-this-case-d...
So true. I mean, I may sometimes post meaningless blogs and comments but at least I stick around. Lots of people that I met left during the first month and haven't come back.
I agree with you. I worked my butt off going on this site every single day during my senior year of high school (now i'm a sophomore in college) to win the scholarship. I did win one of the $300. When I actually thought about it, though, I would have earned more than $300 if I had worked in a job the amount of time I blogged. But I really enjoyed the blogging. There were so many important and interesting topics. I'm on this site much less recently, but I've noticed that the blog topics are ridiculous and you can tell people are mindlessly posting just so they can win the money. And I really hope that whoever does win the next scholarship is someone who actually cares about what they write. Because I know that I always tried to write about things that were actually pertinent to my life.
I'll be honest, I didn't really have any clue about what blogs were "ProU" worthy and which ones shouldn't be. I had to do a lot of reading to know how this site works and unfortunately this was after I had already submitted a blog or two, so I am not sure if having a check box will make a difference, especially to "newbies" who aren't sure exactly what they are doing.
The cool thing is that I was able to go back and delete my crappy, not remotely worth for any kind of scholarship blogs and move on from there.
So maybe if there is something posted that serious scholarship participants should confirm that each of their blogs are worthy and if they do not feel strongly, the blog can be edited for content or simply deleted. The best part about deleting the blogs is that the 50 points earned for posting them is lost as well. This should help clean up the site as well. I know some of the blogs I have posted I have been embarrassed to have my name next to them, so I deleted them to be able to provide other members a better example of my writing (which I know isn't very good anyway, but at least the worst of it is gone).
In conclusion, I think the editing should be left in the hands of the authors.
1. I can't believe this hadn't been rated yet. Come on guys, let's get on the ball here!
2. I completely agree with you. I fear that people are going to come rip my blog a new one after I inform them that their boyfriend woes aren't progressive, but hey, at least I'll get some read points. :)
Find out everything you need to know about poop here:
http://progressiveu.org/000701-everything-you-need-know-about-poop
This blog was written a year and a half ago. Our current rating system didn't exist then, and it's pretty rare that blogs get bumped up from this long ago.
~C
Check out the latest entry in the Between The Lines column!
Want the highest rated list to change? RATE those blogs, then!
Rest in peace
yourfuneralguy
http://www.lowercostfuneral.com/rbrianblog
Many times World Wide Web=World Wide Whiners. Today it is not ruling ProgressiveU.