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WebWord Weblog Posting Posting Date: August 15, 2002 WebWord Comment -- Oh boy, I have another idea! Imagine a web site that ONLY ever posted comments based on other comments. Wrap your head around that. Start with only one posting. Then, every other posting is taken from the comments that people write. You can kind of see how this has worked with WebWord. I post something, people comment on it, then I grab something interesting and I post it on the home page. Full circle. Every posting serves to feed more comments and therefore more postings. Very recursive, very cool. One giant, monster, amazing, amorphous posting with a history going back to the seed posting. That's a fine name: Seed Blog. If someone builds it, I will help. In fact, Seed Blog could be a multi-author blog. Votes for best comments would be considered for front page publishing, and so forth. Someone needs to create Seed Blog! I claim no rights to the idea. Take it and run!
Reader Comments...
Let me know how to do it and I would be willing to go for it. I can even do the domain for it for no charge. www.seedblog.com is available. I've been meaning to start a blog, but got sidelined the last time I started. What do I need for this? Posted by: Morris Cox on August 15, 2002 08:46 PM
Morris, I think all you need is to do is get the domain name, get hosting, set up some blog software, and make your first post. As long as you have some comments, things should start to grow. You might want to pick a starting topic, but you could probably start with something generic. I'd be happy to flow some traffic there to get things going. What do others think? Any specific ideas to throw at Morris? Any software recommendations, hosting recommendations, or other advice? (By the way, I checked out seedblog.com too and saw that it was not registered. I was hoping that some person would be curious about it.) Posted by: John S. Rhodes on August 15, 2002 09:09 PM
Oh, I just thought of two more things. You might need to think about setting up a registration system and comment voting system. Of course, you could start very simple, without the registration and voting; you could just be the site dictator. You could choose what would get posted to the front page. No need for voting or registration in that case. Posted by: John S. Rhodes on August 15, 2002 09:15 PM
If some folks want to chip in with a few more usability suggestions, I can hack something up pretty quickly... I have modular user registration code and forum code that could fit the bill... (and some extra bandwidth) Posted by: TimW on August 15, 2002 09:59 PM
I think this sort of blog would require something more than your average blogging software. Most systems don't allow comments themselves to have comments, let alone that second level of comments to have even more comments - and then repeat without bound. A plain old blog would allow 1 level of comments and then require someones attention to move a specific comment to the top level which only then would allow subsequent comments. I feel that would be too time consuming. (John, your solution works fine within this small system where your posts are organized and there is only 1 level of comments to sift through) But that brings up another question: Where would a user start? How would they navigate this possibly immense tree? After a while it seems a single starting "trunk" (the first post) would fall over with the weight of all those "leaves" (comments). Or perhaps I'm being too metaphoric. Posted by: MikeC on August 15, 2002 10:11 PM
perhaps some type of forum software, where users would comment and trusted user would vote on the next comment to make the front page. From there, have the server take the next highest rated comment and make it the new post on the front page... I think the problems come in with who and how folks become trusted users, and what happens with slow traffic.. (ie no trusted users are voting, or no quality comments to add to the front page) Posted by: TimW on August 15, 2002 10:43 PM
Rather than the seed metaphor, this seems like a form of free association. Register freeass.com. It will be all the rage. Oh damn, already registered for some website about felines. Posted by: Jack on August 15, 2002 10:58 PM
I think this sort of blog would require something more than your average blogging software. Most systems don't allow comments themselves to have comments, let alone that second level of comments to have even more comments - and then repeat without bound. Actually, I don't think this will be a problem. The voting system is merely meant to prompt people to put the best comments on the home page...to encourage even more comments. Let's try this again. The first level is a posting on the home page. The second level is a page like the one you are reading right now. It is a bunch of comments. People that are registered and logged in can then somehow vote on their favorite posting of the day (maybe only one vote per 24 hours). Then, a moderator or moderators sift through the top 2-3 voted on comments. Those comments are then lifted out of the second level on to the home page and the process begins again the next day. Seed Blog grows and evolves entirely based on the postings of the day, the comments, and the votes. The best comments survive (evolution my friend!) and bubble to the home page for a new round of comments. Yummy! Posted by: John S. Rhodes on August 15, 2002 11:12 PM
"Most systems don't allow comments themselves to have comments, let alone that second level of comments to have even more comments - and then repeat without bound." Conversant can do exactly this, and it can do it very well. It is all ready and waiting in the default site without any customisation or fiddling around. Hosted Conversant sites are available through Macrobyte, the developer. It is possible to try out the service for free, with no ads, for an unlimited time, and if it takes off, flip a switch and go over to a hosted version, or put it on your own servers. Conversant doesn't have collective voting of posts, but I believe the whole system is written based on plug-ins, and pretty much any features can be added by writing the plug-in. It has been known for Macrobyte's clients to sponser writing a plug-in that then becomes available to the rest of the user base. No, I don't work for the company, I'm just a very happy user. Posted by: Lyle on August 16, 2002 06:45 AM
I dunno. Kinda sounds like a different take on Metafilter. But you GO, booooiiiy... Posted by: John on August 16, 2002 07:24 PM
It would cost us $499 a year to use Conversant on a server. Not worth the cost. If we do decide to use it and go for a lower version, I detest ads. I wonder if we could get someone to code it, maybe put it on sourceforge.net as a project. As for bandwidth, I get 10GB a month data transfer available over any domains that I have. Posted by: Morris Cox on August 16, 2002 08:05 PM
Not like Metafilter. The difference is that all content on Seed Blog would come from comments in the depths of other postings. It feeds itself. It would not depend on submissions from the outside, although the outside might influence things. Everything would be related to what came before. A common thread would always be there. Posted by: John S. Rhodes on August 16, 2002 11:13 PM
The hosted versions of Conversant are not lower versions in any way. The only difference is that they are hosted. Also, there no ads on any of the Conversant sites, and even the free sites are totally ad free. Posted by: Lyle on August 17, 2002 04:49 AM
I apologize for not checking into it closer. However, I was hoping to have this thing on its own domain, not hosted on someone else's site, though we could do a redirect. I did http://www.free-conversant.com/seed_blog/ and set it up as a News Page / Weblog. I went ahead and added John. sourceforge.net needs to improve their search function. I did a search for blog and saw some possibilities. If there isn't something there that is useful, we can start a project to create what we need. Posted by: Morris Cox on August 17, 2002 10:36 AM
Morris, I'm not sure what you mean by you "added John" -- could you explain? If you set up a username and password for me, fire it off to me and I'll sign in. Otherwise, I'll regsister. Just let me know. Thanks! Posted by: John S. Rhodes on August 17, 2002 11:36 AM
The site let me type in a name and email address and it sends an email to that person, letting them know and inviting them. I can add a new member and give them a password, but when I first set it up, it only had the invite function, not the add member with password function. It didn't prompt me for a password, though I just found out it assigned one. I'm going to reset the password and send it to you. I'm also making you a manager. Posted by: Morris Cox on August 17, 2002 12:00 PM
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