How to make groupthink sites better

Good points - I've been thinking about the growing amount of noise and duplication found on these services.

The only point I disagree with is #5 -- Bloggers shouldn't be penalised for posting their own entries. If they've taken the time to write a thoughtful entry, why shouldn't they post it to Digg or Reddit?

Rather I would suggest that these sites penalise *any* bias in posting. For instance if you post 20 articles from Slashdot, you're not offering much value either -- I might as well subscribe to the Slashdot feed.

Taking that thought one step further, maybe the value of these 'groupthink' sites is feed discovery. Perhaps, if one site gets to the front page 50 times, then it should be promoted to a 'recommended feed' section and new posts linking to that site should be blocked.

When all is said and done -- don't bite the hand that feeds you. As 'boring' as they may be, I wouldn't have found your blog if not for a Reddit link.

Good thoughts, Kai. And believe me, I don't object to the existence or primary purpose of any of these groupthink sites. I especially appreciate the way they can help a blog like this one attract new readers (just for the record, I didn't link this post on Reddit or Newsvine, others did).

At their best, they can provide a "top line" of news and information on a selected topic, and that's what so many of us need: a way to manage the info glut.

It just seems to me the bigger the community, the harder it is for the community to provide a focused top line.

Load in opportunities to promote self-interests, and many people will do it, destroying more value than they add.

Hi Jay. I actually agree with most of that.

1 and 2: I think both of these are just ways to make the challenge of information organization easier. Less topics equals less drift and just less people to deal with in general. If I were bootstrapping a startup and I was really only interested in a certain topic, this would be a great solution. There are a couple of problems with it though. Firstly, one of the primary ingredients for the "Wisdom of the Crowds" effect to work is audience diversity. Without it, nothing works. If you read Surowiecki's book, you'll see that in every case where a collective solution turned out to be better than an expert's solution, there was incredible diversity in the decision makers. Perhaps this is the reason why some people complain of mob mentalities on sites like Digg and Slashdot. Digg has a reputation of being flooded but techy teens and Slashdot has a reputation of being flooded by older techies. I'm not saying if either rep is true... that's just what I've heard. Even in Newsvine's early days, most of our audience is pretty techie, but we feel that the key to success is hitting the right tone with the other 95% of the internet population. The second problem with limiting scope is that it's really hard to branch out beyond your original audience once you decide to widen your subject areas. It can be done, but it's difficult.

3. Absolutely. Believe me, there are going to be a lot of cases where people are not happy about getting their "dry cleaning rant" penalized on Newsvine, but hey, that's not what we're all about. That is content for your personal blog. When you're in private beta however, it's not too hard for this stuff to rise higher than it should... the problem should lessen as we open up.

4. Definitely, definitely, definitely. This is coming. Invitational subgroups are a powerful noise dampener and they also allow for greater moderation flexibility. For example, let's say there is a group of 20 established people with a very high reputation. If a new user joins Newsvine, we have to temper his/her actions by the fact that he has no reputation yet. If, however, this group of 20 invited him/her into their organization, he/she would instantly enjoy some of the group's credibility. It's an extremely powerful concept.

5. I don't know about actually making them list their sites, but I agree that self-promotion should be reported and dealt with accordingly. If you write a great article on your own blog, someone else will seed it for you... there's no need for you to take action yourself.

6. Agreed. It's a quaint concept that everybody in the world has a voice and we're all equal as human beings, but when it comes to publishing, some things are just more interesting and productive than others. We're not afraid to set ground rules and modify them as we go, in response to readers suggestions. In fact, we've solicited feedback the whole way so far, via the Newsvine Blog, and it's helped us craft our guidelines accordingly. A new code of honor is coming out this week and it's almost entirely the product of feedback from users. I guarantee that some people are going to think that enacting *any* sort of guidelines on a community that is supposed to be "open" is authoritarian, but hey, so be it. We're not running a playground here. We're creating a platform for thoughtful participation.

Thanks for the great thoughts, Jay. As with any new service, there are clearly things that are already working very well and things which need adjustment and oversight. The indicator of how good of a company you are is how quickly you can address what needs addressing.

Mike,

Thanks for the thoughtful comments and insights on plans for Newsvine. I wish you the best with the venture.