Sphinn What The Hell is Going on?

To be honest there isnt anything wrong with that – Jordan hasnt submitted any of his sites there – and to be fair the content of the submissions was good enough to go hot regardless of who submitted it.

Many people get their RSS feeds pretty quick, scan articles and submit them – as long as its not spam shouldnt really matter who submits them.

That is true but that is not what I was stating. But most of them stories do not deserve to be there such as 9 WordPress Plugins You Need

How many articles have we seen like this?

Is it to do with the fact many Sphinn users are Yanks? Say no more.

to be fair the content of the submissions was good enough to go hot regardless of who submitted it.

Some of the stuff he submitted, Jordan just beat a lot of people to submitting them. They use sphinn a lot, simple as that.

Not everyone on sphinn has a lot of experience and most of the stuff he’s submitted has been helpful to the IM community.

Re ‘quality content’: Just think of it this way. Your vote counts on sphinn, but your vote, nor my vote, is going to make something go on the frontpage (unless you have like 40 user accounts). The sphinn community thought they were FP worthy, don’t bash a submitter that finds content that the community likes, just because you disagree with the quality.

Oh, and saying something ‘isn’t personal’ and you have his icon up….is personal. FYI.

I met Jordan, he’s a young guy, just like most people in IM. He’s just a social media addict (He made that BTW )

Don’t be jealous nor throw hate posts around because the community thinks it’s FP material. I’d suggest you’d say sorry to Jordan because calling someone out like that, directly or indirectly, is just wrong. Especially when it’s off base.

I am not jealous and I did not throw hate posts

I think you are getting me wrong please read the posts where I mentioned I have nothing against this guy

It was an example nothing more nothing less.

And people can slate the post as much as they want but its the truth in the end most of them articles do not belong to be there

Checked all of those posts, you didn’t desphinn any of them .. hmm wonder why you didn’t start there instead of writing a post.

Its my blog so I thought I have a right to an opinion

Any how they just removed the post on Sphinn so where is user generation in that I ask?

Where does it say in the Terms Freedom of Speech is not allowed?

The post was not spammy nor abusive, my question is answered already by the removal of that link. Enough said really

@SEOtops – I can somewhat understand your concern. The same rhetorical bash was made against MrBabyMan (Andrew Sorcini) on Digg not long ago for so many front page submissions. Once power users gain momentum on social news sites they’re unstoppable.

Social news can be difficult for some to understand. I spend WAY more time on Digg and Reddit than Sphinn. From what I learn front paging stories on those sites I’ve applied to Sphinn. Sphinn isn’t very tough to front page a story on. If I wasn’t submitting most of these, others would.

There is a desphinn feature if you don’t like what’s submitted. On Digg people bury, on reddit they downvote like crazy.

The bottom line is I’m simply the messenger (submitter). The community decides what goes front page and what doesn’t.

And if you’re going to write a post about me, at least have the decency to give me a link, lol. jk

To be fair, you picked the wrong example to use. I can think of one person who is now banned that used to get to the top of sphinn.

Also, I DONT think Sphinn should have removed your post – it generated enough comments and discussions and wasnt spam – but your own opinion as you say.

Hi Jordan, thanks for taking the time to stop by..

Yes I was referring to Digg too at Mrbabyman, he was blatently not reading any posts and digging non stop… I agree once you have the popularity its unstopable, but this is NOT how it should be

I guarantee if I or another non active user submitted any one of them stories they would not get front page

I am just urging people vote stories not people. when digg was first created it was to get your own blogs out, getting little sites noticed etc. That’s what was so good in the beginning.

But this is nothing against you just the system that is in place.

And yes I can give you a link in the blog roll if you like Theres alot of people that jump to conclusions before reading and understanding the full post.

I have been online for years and know when something is out of place

what the fuck is sphinn?

@SEOtops

I agree that it shouldn’t be removed but be kept as an example for all to see. At first, I was glad it was removed but thinking about it more (after rishil’s twitter comment) sphinn should’ve kept it up.

And people can slate the post as much as they want but its the truth in the end most of them articles do not belong to be there

Lmao. Dude. Your opinion doesn’t equal truth. Nor does mine, nor does Jordan. Your opinion is just that an OPINION.

I think you are getting me wrong please read the posts where I mentioned I have nothing against this guy

Dude! Seriously. Look at Graywolf, he meant ‘no harm’ to Guy. It wasn’t personal. But guess what! It was still wrong to call someone out by name. So, therefore, Graywolf (an Industry leader, IMO) apologizes for it.

It’s not the substance of the message that was wrong. It was the way Graywolf expressed his message (by using someone’s direct name, therefore making it personal).

In your case, I disagree with your message as well. Because Jordan has been very active on Sphinn as of late and everyone else is dropping the ball. Some times David Wallace covers the homepage, other times Brian Chappell.

I disagree with the substance of your message, which I think is “Too much spam on the FP of Sphinn”.

In conclusion. The method you spoke (using Jordan ‘as an example’) was totally wrong and off base (like Graywolf and using Guy K. ‘as an example’) and I think an apology is in order. But as you can tell by the Desphinns on your sphinn post, most people don’t agree with your message.

It’s sorta been said but…

These are social voting sites, so they go front page because the community puts them there.

Jordan is the most active submitter- he puts a lot of time into finding good new content to submit, and getting it there first- he should be rewarded for that effort, not disparaged.

IMO, what he does, and Martin Bowling, and others – finding, vetting, and submitting blog posts – is a necessary and important function in the new world of online journalism- he doesn’t get paid for it- if he gets exposure and reputation from it, that’s his payment, and he deserves it.

Brian

@SeoTops – Ya, so on Digg, if you want to break a story from an authority domain like Arstechnica or Huffington Post you don’t have time to read it! Seriously, if the headline’s enticing you submit fast! You are racing with everyone else and one second can be the deal breaker. That’s just the name of the game there. Not the issue with Sphinn because the competition level isn’t there.

Now people Digg most anything Mrbabyman submits because they trust what he’s submitting is good. He rarely submits garbage. If you’ve been watching Digg recently, garbage has been front paging frequently but I blame that on the bannings and recommendation engine.

Like I said – social news has it’s faux pas but it’s the name of the game.

You may have been online for years but I advise you take a more active role in social news before you start bashing elements of it and role players of it. I appreciate your stature though. Thank you.

@ Jordan

Thanks for your comments, I do take part in social sites in the backround.

Thats why I am able to do all my experiments on them to see if the traffic is worthwhile for me to put my efforts into.

Plus I also have a social site so I know exactly how they work

Anyhow thanks for your insight, I do not think I am right its just an opinion and that is all anyone can have in the end. But I will say to Sphinn and all the other social sites that if they are classing themselves as user generated I would like to openly be able to express my opinion whether its liked or not.

I don’t think this was a personal attack on Jordan or meant to be perceived in any such way, as Rishil mentioned though, it was just the wrong example to use in this instance.

I don’t feel it was that necessary to pull the Sphinn submission from the site, as long as it didn’t get out of hand it was creating discussion at least…

I have noticed the trend, but what I thought was “Damn, that guy is good.” It looks like Jordan is just really good at being the first to submit and helps promote his brand. He submits quality content. The problem is that there isn’t enough ‘submitter competition’ on Sphinn. It won’t be that easy once there are more users.

Joshua Sciarrino wrote: ”
> In your case, I disagree with your message as well.
> Because Jordan has been very active on Sphinn as of
> late and everyone else is dropping the ball. Some
> times David Wallace covers the homepage, other times
> Brian Chappell.

> I disagree with the substance of your message, which
> I think is “Too much spam on the FP of Sphinn”.
”

I have an advantage in knowing SEOTops personally, and thus can better read his meaning, in that I know him to be a softly-spoken, thoughtful and considerate guy. If the rest of you only had that context, perhaps you too would be seeing his real meaning.

But here is what he’s really saying, just as Joshua (and others) have apparently unwittingly pointed out themselves: How can a site be called a good SOCIAL media site if it has turned into a one man show, at any point?

What the hell is up with Sphinn that it is getting so few quality submissions that one guy, no matter whom, can totally own the front page?

Joshua says that its because Jordan is effectively always there and fast on the submit (is he suggesting you don’t have any work to do, Jordan? ) and that everyone else has been “dropping the ball”. Well, are there that few quality submissions now? Isn’t that a noteworthy problem to highlight? Isn’t that precisely what SEOTops is trying to highlight?

This isn’t, and never was, any sort of criticism of Jordan. On the contrary, Jordan is a good submitter and member of Sphinn. That’s the point – he stands out alone in that from that front page right now, when he ought to be just one of hundreds if not thousands of equally great and committed users.

It is a criticism and alarm-call to Sphinn that the number of quality submitters has gone so low that just a handful of guys now stand out, and can appear to be the only active members some days.

Not a criticism of Jordan – more power to him. But instead a call for more like him, and a criticsm of Sphinn for its loss of the hundreds of equally committed folks it once had.

Totally agree with the post. User generation ends up degrading sites, as I’ve seen so many times. Same thing will happen with Google’s new idea, In my Opinion. Keep up the good posts.

I don’t even waste my time with Sphinn! Since there is was an exodus of Digg readers Mixx is almost a better deal.

I haven’t been reading Digg at all because it is the same uninteresting front pagers over and over again. Digg is bastardized from it’s original purpose and has sold out. Of course that is a dream for most as a business owner but I stay away now.

Do you think that it is the Sphinns that got the eight stories front page or the submitter?

It has to be the submitter, I feel being an active member of a social site should be rewarded, but not to the extent that spinn has with Jordan.

I’m with you. I am very new to Sphinn but I’ve been very surprised to see the stuff that gets a lot of Sphinns. Today there was a two-paragraph blog post that didn’t say much at all. Maybe there are Sphinn stars or something and I’m late to the game, but seems like the marketing community should be a little more savvy about what to market.

Well,I’ve been to Sphinn couple of times, but most of the time there page loads too slow. And seriously I don’t think that Sphinn community is comparable with Digg or Reddit, so probably that’s the reason that this happened.
Btw any one of you saw such stuff on Digg or Reddit ? And I am sure Mrbabyman can’t also make this happen.. haha!

Yes, i think there is much spam in social websites, even in the famous ones. they should be more aware of that spam and take serious action.

I’ve been getting annoyed with articles on Digg for awhile now. I’ve never heard of sphinn but I wouldn’t be surprised if it went the same way. A few selfish spammers spoiling it for the ‘real’ users, typical

Persistent posting and lots of followers who will sphinn what is posted. Any time you have people voting, popularity will certainly enter into it. Often you will see contests online where people vote on the best site, the best looking car, the best whatever. Do you think the best is the one that wins, or is it the one who can bring in the most votes? Constant posting builds a name and increases the number of followers who will sphinn the articles you want seen. Whether each is read/scanned or simply sphinned because someone asked, it’s a vote. If you’re allowing votes to determine the placement, that will happen.

Hi guys thanks for all the comments I have just left a follow up post to this http://www.seotops.com/sphinn-is-a-shambolic-sham_503/

Happy reading

nice blog.

These sites need to have a better system of controlling what gets posted. For example, have a voting system, enough negative votes and the article drops positive votes and it moves up.

A larger section of “Popular” articles perhaps as well. Allow the users to decide what’s hot.

I would of thought that sphinn would of had a better algorithm in place to stop this from happening? Sure it is a good thing that active members get rewarded, but this is just too much.

There are no power users on Sphinn. Once you get 23 votes you go page one – end of story.

You are right; quality of these sites using user content is going down day by day. There is no moderation, not administration of content. These kinds of sites are growing as spammer’s heaven.

Some one should put some kind of control on these sites to provide quality service to users.