Newsvine seeding etiquette: dealing with the "red banner page" and other miscellaneous bogarts

I've also found that items I've seeded have been reseeded, and my view is that the more people that read the seed, whether mine or the other, the better. Sometimes Doppelganger will tell you that it's been seeded and when you follow the link you find a different article from the same source.

I think that doppelganger takes time to recognise the first seed, (it takes about 20 minutes for an article to make it to the screen), so several people can seed the article before doppelganger knows it exists, even Vinestalk doesn't catch seeds until they show up in your column.

This is based on my observations, so don't take it as gospel

That's my stance. If I see the red banner, I drop the seed and go to the original discussion.

If I don't see the banner, seed the article, and then later see that it's already been seeded, I do one of two things:
1. If my seed hasn't gotten any comments, I delete it as if it never existed.
2. If my seed has gotten some comments, I'll usually put up a comment with a link to the earlier version.

I also factor in whether the original seed was done hours, weeks, or months ago. If it's been hours or weeks, I won't even consider re-seeding. If it has been months ago and the original seed got a weak response, I'll consider re-seeding. I also consider who submitted the original seed. If one of the "Big Guns" of Newsvine seeded the original and it got no response, I generally won't re-seed. If a newbie submitted the original and it got no response several months ago, I'll re-seed. It's not that I'm looking to steal any thunder from the newbie, but I'd like to think the exposure I could give would get more eyeballs on the seed.

Of course I've now decided that I will not seed anything for the next 3 months, so my point is moot.

If one of the "Big Guns" of Newsvine seeded the original and it got no response, I generally won't re-seed. If a newbie submitted the original and it got no response several months ago, I'll re-seed.

What should the seeder's status have to do with it? I understand that something seeded by Walt will probably get a bigger response than something from joe schmoe, but we shouldn't overwrite someone smaller just because they don't have the name recognition as the "big guns."

If you see an 'ignored' seed from weeks ago from a lesser-known author, comment it up! Draw some attention to that user instead.

Or better still, clip it to your column and add a comment, you can also clip it to any relevant groups.

What should the seeder's status have to do with it? I understand that something seeded by Walt will probably get a bigger response than something from joe schmoe, but we shouldn't overwrite someone smaller just because they don't have the name recognition as the "big guns."

If it's about getting eyeballs on the article, the person with the most friends & Watchlist adds will draw the most people to the piece. I can count on one hand the number of times I've re-seeded material, but it's always been in those instances when I thought the material was relevant enough that I thought more people should see it. In two instances that I do recall, the people who had originally seeded the articles were no longer active on the 'Vine, they hadn't posted or commented in months, so I figured re-seeding was justified.

Since I've never been an active seeder, which is one of the reasons Digg didn't appeal to me, and because I get far more enjoyment and feedback from writing, I've declared "Seed Bankruptcy" and I don't anticipate contributing any seeds for at least 90 days. I just chose to weigh in on the seed etiquette debate because it has been both a peeve and fascination of mine.

I believe I read somewhere that half the people who will ever see an online post will see it within the first 36 hours of it being posted. As schnoo said, a week in real time is like a year in Newsvine time. The window for votes and comments is a small one. As far as getting eyeballs on the article, much has to do with the circumstances of the original posting. I have long held the belief that items posted before 10:00AM Eastern Mon-Fri will get seen. Items posted after around 6:00PM Eastern Mon-Fri will likely only be seen by a small fraction of people who would see an earlier post. Items posted on a weekend will languish unseen. If the original posting fell in an undesirable window, I think we're all the more justified in trying to get more attention for the piece.

Personally, when the red banner comes up I check the link given to ensure it's the same article. That may sound strange, but I've seeded many articles from local6 in florida and I'll get the red banner, but the link will be to a different article on local6, sometimes one I just seeded myself minutes earlier. In these scenarios when it's a link to a different article I just proceed and chalk it up to the red banner's ignorance.

If the red banner alert is valid and the link is to the same article, even if on a different site, I immediately stop, go to the link, and just clip the article to my column.

I agree that you need to check to make sure it is the same seed, but if its something that I really want seen clipping to my column is almost happier than seeding myself for a few reasons.

First the mechanics of seeding are a chore, even with the tools since I'm a two fingered typist and second, a clipped seed will show with my articles and be more prominent in my column than something I've seeded myself. In addition its a way of sharing that helps build cooperation and expand the views for everyone.

I've found things clipped to the columns of my favorite Viners that have resulted in discovering a user that may not have crossed my path otherwise. While there is a wonderful core group of very active participants there is a vast collection of lesser known and equally valuable voices that don't get the automatic pop to the front page or the views that an incredibly active user gets by default.

It's an easy way to share the wealth, it costs nothing for their two cents vs. yours and a valuable return for both, a win-win.

Some of us cruise the Greenhouse looking for things that aren't ads and spam and there's a Greenhouse Showcase group that you can clip them to. It's a great thing to do, especially days when you get the feeling that you're not making a difference.

I always love coming across an awesome new user in the Greenhouse. I still remember when I was there and nobody would comment on my stuff.

Yes, you do!

Just beware--there's a lot to wade through in order to find the gold nuggets. But it's worth it.

And, be sure to report any asswipe advertiser types as you do. ;)

It's rather amusing.

I don't know how many reports it takes to remove anything.

Rob the Intern has the lovely job of periodically removing this crap from the Greenhouse, but if you happen upon a user who's every post is a piece of advertising, go ahead and hit the "report bug" button when you're on that user's column page, choose "spam or malicious user" from the drop-down menu, and write a very brief description of what you've found. They're usually gone pretty quickly.

I always love coming across an awesome new user in the Greenhouse. I still remember when I was there and nobody would comment on my stuff.

We have a group for that! Greenhouse Showcase.

Do something good, scout new talent.

Dennis P. McCann wanted that I move my comments to other place and not where he was posting because mine were "inferior/off topic".

No, determined. I simply asked you to try and stay on topic, as your comments were all about different topics entirely. I never said they were "inferior" nor did I tell you to comment in "other place," whatever that means.

What I said is that your comments about different subjects were derailing the conversation, and that was not fair to the person in whose column you were doing it, or the people who were trying to debate there. And, as you say, Chindi received complaints about it from others too.

Go back to Chindi's and read your comments.

When I post I know that I am connected completely, is my fault that memories are short and posters forgot details?

There is an Ignore function or just like I do, read and pass by.

End of the subject in schnoo's seed and use my e-mail in the Newsvine next time. Greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Here is what was said:

Everything that I post is related

No, it's not, det.

The Marc Rich thing is in no way related to this.

Different guy, different offenses, different presidential administration, one pardoned, the other had sentence commuted.

Mocking, though, yes. You are attempting to mock Clinton, Marc Rich, the issue, those who care about the issue, the concept of justice and a lot of other things. And for no reason other than your blind support of Bush.
2 !
#17.33 - Wed Jul 4, 2007 9:36 PM EEST

determined0a1

Mr. Dennis, are you irritable for the Libby communting like Bill Clinton expressed in the NYT?
1 !
#17.35 - Wed Jul 4, 2007 9:56 PM EEST

It does bother me that Bush commuted this sentence, because it's a travesty of justice. Even bush didn't say that he shouldn't be sentenced - just that it was "excessive." But it wasn't. 30 months is not too strong a sentence for perjury.

I haven't read what Clinton said yet. I don't need his reasoning to make my argument - I have my own.

I will be honest, though, about what is irritating me right now.

As I said above...

You are attempting to mock Clinton, Marc Rich, the issue, those who care about the issue, the concept of justice and a lot of other things. And for no reason other than your blind support of Bush.

I have nothing against you, determined, but I do wish you would talk about the issue at hand and not wander all over the place. When people are trying to discuss something, it only hurts the debate when someone randomly changes the subject. I find it disrespectful to the people who are trying to discuss the issue, from either side, and to the person in whose column you're doing it.
4 !
#17.36 - Wed Jul 4, 2007 10:20 PM EEST

So, as I said above, I asked you to try to stay on topic.

Sorry for reposting these comments here, Schnoo, but I wasn't about to let false allegations stand unchallenged.

The missing link is founded and I hope that this is the end to our disagreement, Mr. Mccan and we move on.

26.2 - Mr. McCann

You might want to consider doing it somewhere other than in political threads about vital matters

26.3

26/4

.http://chindi.newsvine.com/_news/2007/07/02/814815-bush-commutes-libbys-prison-sentence-?last=1183681007#last_1

If it's already been seeded, I do as the red banner tells me--go to the original seed and discuss it there.

I adhere to what Viki said here (ah...way back at #3), except I always check the original seed out. If it's just the wire, then #$%!$ it....I'll not only go ahead and seed, I'll go back and try to threadjack the wire story.

It's not that I hate the wire (okay, maybe a bit), and I do get that some people value it as a news source, but I'm just annoyed by much real estate it burns -- even in the brave new, more configurable style of the 'Vine (and isn't amazing how quickly we got used to that and started taking it for granted).

Probably, I'm just pretty sure that the NYT is one of the worst. They have the normal url, the non-registration url, the printer friendly url, individual page urls...

It all depends on how many variations of different urls will take you to the exact same article.

Given that the red banner is almost never a false positive I think that voting for the original should happen automagically as soon as the red banner shows up.

Seriously -- can anyone explain to me the situation wherein you found something worthwhile enough to seed, but not worthwhile enough to vote for?

kill:

Given that the red banner is almost never a false positive ....

I'm not sure that's so. What newsguru said in 3.8 above and what I said in 14.2 below indicates to me that local television news/video links are a source of false positives.

Given the migration problem, which will never go away, why not simply a rule of etiquette that if a link has been duplicated, the person with the earliest time-stamp has a right to post a link to the earlier seed on the thread(s) with the later stamps?

schnoo:

Looking to stop them, pod'nuh.

The time-stamp is immutable and inarguable: Thus Sayest the Lord of Hosts (Servers).

What it says could command.

Then round up a posse, marshal, and light out after 'em!

sch

Why to seed when I can write my own original recipes like today? I got inspired and in a 1,2,3 I will name this recipe Sch's shhhh.

I am 50,000 in the leaderboard, I earned my badges and I am not a threat or feel threaten or pressure to be at the top. I raise enough noises in the NewsVine.

Remember, I am the Opinionated Simpleton Spoiled-Rotten Housewife.

Hrmph. Seriously mucked up my formatting on that first sentence:

When seeding a NYT article, it's always best to use their built-in Newsvine seed function. (It's under the share button on all NYT stories.

More info on share button.

Got your pre-order in already have you?

I have my pre-order in since before Christmas. It comes in handy. I pre-order the book for my daughter and my niece, and give them the receipt for Christmas. And then the books come in right before their birthdays, so I give them the books for their birthdays.

They haven't caught on yet, so unless Rowling decides to throw a few more books at us, I think I'm in the clear.

Although, after this year, I guess I'll actually have to buy them presents for both.

;-)

I have a fairly liberal view on different views, but duplicate seeds are duplicate seeds. If someone is seeding the exact same article, it's a duplicate seed.

Even if someone is seeding the "Libby sentence commuted" article, but someone seeds the AP story at Yahoo and someone seeds the breaking CNN article, etc. etc., I would tend to prefer that those people try to restrain themselves and see if a "breaking" story has been seed to Newsvine from any source first. We don't need a half dozen stories that all contain the same basic information, different sources or not.

But there are valid reasons to seed a story that's closely related to another already on Newsvine. If the perspective offered is truly unique, or it offers better or more in-depth analysis, or information that wasn't available in the first article, then I think it makes a valuable contribution.

Of course, some seeders don't pay attention to what's already been seeded and what hasn't, depending entirely on Doppleganger to catch duplicates. That's why I think tag searches (see #16) before seeding are a good idea.

No, tag searches aren't perfect either. But I usually try doing what I can within reason to make sure my seed is adding value and not duplicating someone else's effort.

Well, the more I think about it, maybe using the Newsvine button would be better than sending the raw URL. The raw URL doesn't tend to show up "naturally" anyway, and if we could encourage more people to use the Newsvine share feature instead, it might be more likely to cause the same URL to get submitted to the system.

I don't really mind, it's all about choices and I rather to read the articles/seeds of my "friendly" antagonists because their comments are more aw some and juicy.

Steve:

When I tried to seed this link, Yeoman Truck-Driver Dude May Cripple Romney White House Bid, and got the red bar, I clicked it and was directed to some spammy-type seed by some guy promoting video-phones or something. So I reported that seed, cleared everything and prepared to seed through the red except that the second time it directed me to a different seed, this time, oddly enough, one of schnoo's seeds to an article on the subject which I knew for certain was NOT my seed because schnoo had just told me he had not seen the video of the guy in the story he seeded and expressed interest in seeing it.

So I cleared everything again and just barrelled through the red.

p.s. I was wrong about Yeoman Truck-Driver Dude Crippling Romney's Bid.

It was the dog what done it.

:^{)>

Obviously some kinds would need to be worked out of the system, but i'm sure the technology is there to simply take people straight to the seeded article when they try to seed the EXACT same url. I understand their will be different oultets reporting different stories, but at least it might be written from a different perspective.

woops meant Kinks, not kinds.

Oh brother.

Zaki

I read your seeds and articles and they are kid of.......unique.

Something like it takes a Village or I understood incorrectly?

i've heard the line, "it takes a village to raise a child," or something like that. i'm not sure how it applies as i never read the book, but, ok. i just mean that to belong to a group as loosely strung together as is a set of rules that governs newsvine, you need to follow those rules.

otherwise, newsvine isnt newsvine, it's something else. and i like newsvine.

It seems to me that the rules changes as the game goes.

For example: I am not a whiner and this is why the tracker helps me to make choices of seeds that sometimes aren't worth the time to go through the whole process of clicking in/on it.

actually, i guess you're right - i dont see anything about this in the rules.

i guess i dont see the point of reseeding something. there is an option to flag a story as a duplicate, which i think is what i was thinking of when i was thinking of the rules. but, the point of newsvine is to collect seeded articles and publish new ones. if something has already been collected, by reseeding it, you're (not you, specifically, no offense intended) not really helping, in fact, what you're doing is cluttering up the space. not to mention taking readership away from the person who originally seeded it.

when an article is reseeded by a new or under-read user, i guess i dont mind. when an article is reseeded by a popular user, i want to strangle that user because he or she should know better (it happens oftener than it should), and because that user, in doing so, is engaging in a sort of strong-arming of the system, which is a good way to become a selfish jerk.

hey, if yer gonna do it, you might as well do it.

The true firsty is that I try to help friends and "friendly antagonists with my vote, to me this is what asking someone to join your friends' is about. Because we don't agree we don't have to disagree about the quality of the seed.

I am not a seeder I post my own recipes that I try and I will never have the sith leave, hence why I feel carefree to post anywhere.

btw

The latest seed of Mr. Cash is very provocative but I don't have any comment when I saw the Headlines.

Neither was Rex Manning Day.

Good point. Supposedly if you seed something from a red banner, then it appears only in your column. That's why newsvine allows it.

I think since we now have public clippings, which we didn't have at first, it should just clip it instead, and do that auto vote too!

is it a BA or a BS?

I think we all know the answer to that one.

is it a BA or a BS?

I think we all know the answer to that one.

It's a PhD, thankyouverymuch. *smirk*

Aine.

PhD

Piling high and Deep?

Please help Determined.
Pretty humorous Detritus.
Pot heads' Demesnes.
Poly-humorous Denizens.

...

I thought red-banner links were ineligible for the front page (for what it's worth). Anyone know anything about that?

I believe that's true, but I have seen instances where I have seeded a story at one time and had the same story appear later under some one else's name. I can't recall whether it was the same site but it was a wire story and was identical.

Overall the red-banner system seems to work well, but there seems to be some cracks to look at.

The negative of reseeding is that it tends to build up already popular sources while discouraging new voices.

Exactly. Multiple seeds of the same story, that are all essentially the same, clutter up tag pages, clutter up search pages, and generally make it harder to find material later. I'm not saying I do this every day, but I do use the Newsvine archive occasionally for research.