Promoting Good Content (rel="nofollow")

[omarhachach]

TL;DR: Supreme, active members or good threads should have their content promoted by MCM, like what Reddit does. Currently MCM uses rel="nofollow" on all external links, which means that it doesn't promote good content. (Although I would want you to read the post, before commenting).

I think that people who post good content, or are very active, should get promoted by MCM.
Currently MCM uses rel="nofollow" on all external links, which tells search engines which are indexing MCM, to not follow this link. Not following a link means that it won't get indexed by search engines, and therefore not promoted by MCM.

This is very good to prevent spammers from gaining anything by just posting their link all over MCM, but I personally think that MCM should be promoting good content, or at least the content posted by high quality users.

I believe that we can look to Reddit, to see how to do it properly. Currently, Reddit by default has a rel="nofollow" on all external links, so spammers don't profit from the huge online presence which is Reddit. But! When a link becomes popular (gets enough upvotes), Reddit removes the rel="nofollow" from the link, to promote good organic content.

I think MCM should do the same, and I propose these 3 ways of doing it:

1. A Supreme perk. This would be an amazing perk, if not the best perk of the ones available.
2. For active users, if a user has reached x posts and/or x reactions, they can use it. This could also be based on reputation, so if a user has good reputation, they will presumably also post good content.
3. When a thread has reached a certain amount of positive (winner or like) reactions.

Example: 1amDev's thread. We all know him, we all know what he does. Currently, this is what his threads link looks like, even with 60 winner reactions!

His website isn't getting promoted by MCM, even though in my opinion, it really should. This would be a great way of promoting good services, links, and new ideas.

It really wouldn't be that hard to moderate either. Especially not with the 3rd way of doing it, that way it would be controlled by the community. And as always, if moderation don't like the thread, they can take it down for any reason they please. (As stated in the ToS).

 

[Fire]

When a thread has reached a certain amount of positive (winner or like) reactions.

Reactions might not be the best way. Reactions dont always represent the quality of a post, but instead who it is that posted it. Some people attract far more reactions than others for a number of reasons. Less popular people wont get as many despite the post being of the same quality.

Extreme case, but if a new user posted a thread, just saying "Hi" general discussion. People would rate it funny, and complain calling him a shit poster. But if Mick posted the exact same thing it would get at least 10 winner ratings. If not more.

Often popularity not quality.

 

[Fluddershy]

This is a good idea, and thanks for putting it out here. I feel a thread could be labeled "hot" after a while if it gets a bunch of traffic, and once that dies down they add "nofollow" back after things have slowed down.

 

[omarhachach]

Reactions might not be the best way. Reactions dont always represent the quality of a post, but instead who it is that posted it. Some people attract far more reactions than others for a number of reasons. Less popular people wont get as many despite the post being of the same quality.

Extreme case, but if a new user posted a thread, just saying "Hi" general discussion. People would rate it funny, and complain calling him a shit poster. But if Mick posted the exact same thing it would get at least 10 winner ratings. If not more.

Often popularity not quality.

It could be a combination of all these things. I personally think positive reactions (on the thread) and reputation are the best way to do it. As those two are community based.

I know some people will be complaining about false negative reputation, but that is still a part of the community opinion of you.
That is how reputation works.

If you use a combination, it could narrow down the possible false rel="follow" links to maybe one or two a year. I would love to take that chance to promote good content, and staff can easily handle these edge cases.

 

[omarhachach]

There's a fucking thread with 130 winners
which might... change a few things but as a supreme park it will limit newer members and premium just for the "big dogs" to get more sales and newer people with talent will be ignored.

This may cause more newer... I mean WILL cause new users to farm sales with "glws" not to mention I have a warning point for saying "L" on a trashed thread, so if repeated alot of people might be banned and staff wouldn't be too happy even with dealing with our shit in shout box. It would be neat if a popularity bar came out or something with thread views/sudden burst of replies.

Do you not know what this means? This is for external links only, and currently everyone is getting limited.

I think I need to put this here: This would in no way effect any parts of MCM internally, or any content you may have posted.
It will either help your SEO, or do nothing.

 

[omarhachach]

So your saying a full reaction system for links?

You're really misunderstanding. This would stand only for threads, and the links on there. If a thread reaches x amount of positive reactions, the OP has a good reputation and/or the OP is supreme. (Multiple ways of doing it) it will make all links rel="follow" instead of rel="nofollow".

Shitposting GLWS would do nothing to further this result. It wouldn't be alienating any users either, as it could be a perk or just based on community reaction to him/her or his/her thread.

 

[Ivain]

No. This will start yet ANOTHER popularity race. There is no proper way to rate threads automatically on whether they're good or not, so it would already need to be manual. And then what? What criteria would you implement? I vehemently oppose anything that has to do with quantity, this community is obsessed enough with quantity as is. If you want your thread featured in a marketplace, buy a sticky. If you have some sort of guide or list of tips or something, make a post in the wiki.
Apart from that, there's not really any sort of content that should be featured, barring the way the resource system currently works.

 

[omarhachach]

No. This will start yet ANOTHER popularity race. There is no proper way to rate threads automatically on whether they're good or not, so it would already need to be manual. And then what? What criteria would you implement? I vehemently oppose anything that has to do with quantity, this community is obsessed enough with quantity as is. If you want your thread featured in a marketplace, buy a sticky. If you have some sort of guide or list of tips or something, make a post in the wiki.
Apart from that, there's not really any sort of content that should be featured, barring the way the resource system currently works.

This has nothing to do with being featured on a marketplace. And this has nothing to do with content on MCM itself, it's just that I see that organic good content should get an SEO boost (via good backlinks, like MCM), so on organic good content you change the link from rel="nofollow" to rel="follow".

I don't get how this will start a popularity race, it isn't visible, and it won't affect anything other than reward good content. I really think you're misunderstanding what this actually does/is supposed to do.

 

[Ivain]

Yeah, I probably lack the required web knowledge. What i thought it meant is something like featuring threads and stuff. Apparently you mean something to do with offsite. Any chance you could explain it in layman's terms?

 

[BOOP]

If you want your thread featured in a marketplace, buy a sticky.

This gave me an idea.

Only sticky threads are eligible for rel="follow".

Requirements:
- Buy a sticky.
(MCM Profits)

- X Amount of Winner Ratings
(So they can't just buy a sticky and get even more views)

 

[Ivain]

This gave me an idea.

Only sticky threads are eligible for rel="follow".

Requirements:
- Buy a sticky.
(MCM Profits)

- X Amount of Winner Ratings
(So they can't just buy a sticky and get even more views)

I'm not gonna give an opinion on this until I have a proper idea what this suggestion is, but I'm not sure about the winner rating in the first place, since that'll just be farmed the fuck up.

 

[Lyphiard]

I'm not gonna give an opinion on this until I have a proper idea what this suggestion is, but I'm not sure about the winner rating in the first place, since that'll just be farmed the fuck up.

Essentially, the position of your website on search engines such as google is determined by a complex algorithm that takes into account many factors, of which include how many external sites have links to your site. Since MCM is a very popular website (search-engine wise), having a link on MC-Market point to your website "boosts" your search engine score and makes your website rank higher when someone searches for a keyword related to it.

Currently, there's an attribute (rel=nofollow) that tells search engines NOT to take into account that MC-Market has linked to your site (search engine essentially acts as if it doesn't exist). The suggestion wants this attribute to be removed for certain links coming from MC-Market so that certain sites will receive this "boost" in score.

 

[Ivain]

ah, I see. Then in that case, doing that for stickies might definitely be an option. Or you could make it separately buyable, or maybe it should be for side-ads alone? That would allow MCM to seriously upgrade the price, since it could make a big boost in view count.
The downside is, of course, that it would make MCM associated with that site or content. If it turns out to be illicit or otherwise negative, it would reflect negatively on MCM. That's the main downside I can see right now.

 

[Ivain]

Well, prices just went up, so I think this should be accepted for stickies now.

 

[omarhachach]

ah, I see. Then in that case, doing that for stickies might definitely be an option. Or you could make it separately buyable, or maybe it should be for side-ads alone? That would allow MCM to seriously upgrade the price, since it could make a big boost in view count.
The downside is, of course, that it would make MCM associated with that site or content. If it turns out to be illicit or otherwise negative, it would reflect negatively on MCM. That's the main downside I can see right now.

Not really, it doesn't work directly in effect like that. MCM isn't associated with the linked content. Just when your website (for instance) gets a backlink from MCM, the crawlers (Google Index Bots) will continue on to your content, and will count your site as more legit (with higher score) because of it having this link on MCM.

If this content turns out to be negative content, MCM will just have promoted this negative content instead of promoting something good. (That is why currently MCM just doesn't promote anything external).

Here is where this suggestion comes in, I (and this thread), is trying to get MCM to promote good content, but first things first we need a way to define what good content is. I have proposed 3 solutions, and there have been a couple solutions proposed in the replies. We just need to discuss it, so when Mick (eventually) comes around to doing this (if he and the community wants it), he will be able to pick the best way to promote the good content, and filter out the bad content.

 

[Ivain]

then I support this for bought stickies. it can always be filtered out by not approving ads for threads that are really bad content(doubtful, but you never know).

 

[omarhachach]

then I support this for bought stickies. it can always be filtered out by not approving ads for threads that are really bad content(doubtful, but you never know).

A little comment on this, in accordance with Google's (and probably the other big search engines) ToS, any paid content has to have the rel="nofollow" attribute, or else it could be viewed as what's known as buying backlinks.

So this has to be implemented for normal content only. If ever implemented.

 

[Ivain]

A little comment on this, in accordance with Google's (and probably the other big search engines) ToS, any paid content has to have the rel="nofollow" attribute, or else it could be viewed as what's known as buying backlinks.

So this has to be implemented for normal content only. If ever implemented.

well, you learn something new every day.