From what I understand, the bloggers on this site are competing for scholarship money by writing about society, current events & other issues. I think this is undoubtedly a great idea. With this reward system in place, I assumed that I would be reading many posts about issues or events in the world. Sadly, I was only somewhat correct. I find myself reading about TV line-ups, hair styles & other topics that are irrelevant to the “progress” of society. I have no problem reading a poem someone has written or about someone’s personal life lessons because those both require thought. http://www.progressiveu.org/094137-get-past-the-generic-blog-and-write-something-real-my-purpose-for-being-here Although I don’t agree with everything ResidentGeek wrote, I do think an excellent point is made.
How does this apply to the scholarship regulations? I don’t think someone should be rewarded a scholarship from a site about progress if they aren’t writing about anything to do with progress. A comment was made on ResidentGeek’s post - a person said they were trying to win scholarship moeny [in response to a rant about pointless posts]. Well, why do you think you deserve a scholarship if you aren’t writing about relevant topics; which is kind of the point of the site? I think there should be a regulation that only rewards bloggers for posts that have significant subject matter. I know one argument coming: Who is to decide what a significant post is? The people who control the site & reward the scholarships should decide. If we can be rewarded for mindless posts, I will gladly start posting blogs about every meal I eat, every shopping experience I have & every TV show I watch if that is what it takes to be apart of the progressive society & to receive scholarship money. I know I have some lame, irrelevant posts & I’m ok with those being excluded from my points.
Opinions? Am I the only one annoyed with insignificant posts? If so, please tell me why I am wrong [& why someone who writes about a TV-guide line up deserves a scholarship over someone who writes about religion, violence, homosexuality, politics, etc.]
Also, does anyone know if there are already regulations about this? Or if the people of Progressive U already take subject matter into consideration [something I don't doubt]?
p.s. I am not saying I deserve a scholarship; I know there are many more people on this site who deserve them more than I do. I’m merely angry that people are abusing the system [in my opinion].
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The seemingly "insignificant" posts pop up every semester.
But be assured that at the end of the contest, we do go through every blog and only add up the ones that "count"; blogs that have been copy-and-pasted, or cover nothing of value, or add nothing of value, do not count towards the end scholarship points accumulated (as is explained in both the FAQ and the Official Contest Rules).
We try throughout the semester to catch as many as we can; some get unpublished pending edits, others get deleted, and others get moved to the discussion forums. But, with nearly 100+ blog posts a day, and approximately 4-5 regular moderators able to review blogs most days of the week, we do get a little behind.
But, on important thing to remember is that whil blog posts give you the highest points, they don't often win you the contest. I joined the Progressive U Team after winning the Spring, 2007 Scholarship contest; and it was pointed out to me shortly after this contest started that I had won by nearly a 30,000 point spread between myself and the 6th place blogger; but I had only posted 80 more blogs than that other blogger.
80 blogs accounts for 4000 points: so where were the other 26,000 points? Comments and unique reads on my blogs. Those bloggers that continually post "useless" blogs won't make up that kind of readership within the span of this contest.
And I'm not saying that the other blogger posted useless blogs (I don't even know who it was!) - just trying to emphasize that we shouldn't be too upset when we read a blog that's just up there to be there. Blogs each account for 50 points; but if you can't get anyone to read the blog because of poor spelling, poor grammar, poor content, or poor formatting - that's all you'll get.
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"when you have nothing else to say, "Fwonk" is always the perfect thing."
"yeah well, fwonk"
--Devon
Fanaile Essence,
A-Team Member
Just out of curiosity, how many points did you have? I feel very insignificant with my 1000 point pittance... =(
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"I always knew I wanted to be somebody. I guess I should have been more specific."
~Unknown
She had over 70,000 points, including all read points and bonus point opportunities. The person behind her (directly behind her) didn't break 50,000.
But you shouldn't compare yourself to Fanaile for 2 reasons. First, the spring contest is longer than the fall contest by a month, which can add up points wise. Second, she's obsessed with the site... she posted something like 5 blogs a day during the last contest, so it's not really surprising that she won it.
~C
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LOL - and it's a progressive obsession at that
The Spring 2007 contest was my third contest at this site. In Spring of 2006, I joined very late (with only about a month to go) and so I was still pretty much finding my way around and getting used to blogging when the contest ended. During Fall of 2006, I got an honorable mention, which was encouraging because in the middle of that contest my life had taken quite a few chaotic twists. So after watching the winners from my first two contests, and developing my schedule and increasing the amount of time that I was able to dedicate to my blog, it was a slow process, but it was one that worked out very well for me.
One thing that a lot of the users have an advantage in now, however, is that there are very few participants in the contest that have already participated in the contest. So everyone has about the same experience for this contest. Of course, there are still some long-time bloggers participating, but the ration of new-users vs. experienced-users is a lot larger than it was in past contests.
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"when you have nothing else to say, "Fwonk" is always the perfect thing."
"yeah well, fwonk"
--Devon
Fanaile Essence,
A-Team Member
Thank you very much! Yes, I am one of those American's who skims through terms & through simple instructions... Yet another lesson learned: always read thoroughly.
The read points also seem to follow controvercial topics. So there is some help there to differentiate from the mundane.
"Little vicious minds abound with anger and revenge, and are incapable of feeling the pleasure of forgiving their enemies."
Lord Chesterfield
Fanaile pretty much summed it up. If you browse through the blogs of those in the lead for the contest (and I know you can't see who exactly is in the lead now), you'll see that even though there is a 1000-2000 point difference between two of the members, one of them has significantly more reads than the other (and consistently had higher reads).
People won't read blogs they find irrelevant. Since a good amount of our traffic is derived from outside sources, if you don't put up something that has some significance to it, you simply won't get reads. Without reads, you miss out on a lot of points.
~C
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