CuriousMitch

1 - I agree, with volume comes a reduction is usefulness. I no longer view planetlotus unless someone tweets with a link. I don't have the time to go through all the new content to search for something relevant to me. Just because a lot of people click on a link doesn't make it important or relevant. Like RSS feeds, there is a point where there is too much noise to make it worth reading.

2 - I too apprecaite first & foremost the qual
ity traffic pl drives to my site. I wonder if pl should look into breaking out its aggregates by keyword (social bookmark-style) to allow for more focused content for its audience.

3 - I definitely agree the content is very wide spread and you really have to sift through the mess. One of the things I don't like about PL bloggers is the all of the bloggers feel they need to re-communicate the same topic. A year or two ago you may have had 2 or 3 people comment on something and actually add an interesting perspective - now you get 10-20 people blogging about news and adding no value.

4 - Well the big issue is that there is nothing better. I tried following Twitter. I stuck it out for a while, but the sheer number of noise messages made the signals get totally lost.

Now short of having your own aggregator of Domino blogs (I use NetVibes for mine!) there is nothing else which can keep a list of all of the interesting stuff. I would much rather have one place to go for ann my Domino news and info, rather than hunt it all down myself.

Now if there was a way in which we can filter out the necessary wheat from the chaff (I don't care what car you're buying, what your kid had for breakfast, how far you ran, or what your pets are up to), but I do care if you talk about BlackBerry, Servers, development and other stuff. There is a score mechanism as to whether your post contacts any key words. But there is nothing, that I can see, to filter out those which don't match.

Quite frankly, there is nothing better. So I will keep on using it until that "better" comes along. It still does exactly what I need it to do, and it does it pretty efficiently. Even with all the recent outages.

5 - In a fit of self-referential irony, this post will make the top blogs of the day in 2 to 5 hours.

6 - Yancy changed my rss feed about 6 months ago to one that only picks up articles with the category Lotus for this reason ( not that there are many non lotus posts in my work blog )

It is good to see what people are doing more generally but this is a secondary consideration when I look at PL through the day.

As much as I like what Yancy has done there is too much noise and it is loosing its usefulness. I don't think that personal lists are the answer - I might as well just go back to an RSS reader

Sean

7 - Sure, there are more people listed but at the same time some great information is added by many. Yourself included.
It would be nice if everyone checked Pl before posting about the latest version or fix but that's not really the issue as some, myself included, plan to post some items during normal business hours, which of course by then others have posted about it. Usually Asia/Europe as they are online before the US.
do we need the hot blog piece? Probably not, should the top 2-3 posts be listed on top, yes because sometimes it's the only way to find them.

8 - Keith,

How often do you go back on PlanetLotus and look for old content using the search feature? Just curious.

9 - @3 - I noticed that as well, and I do a bit of self-censoring. If I attend an on-line meeting or press conference, and someone else blogs it, I will not. Unless I have some point to make. Even so, I may just comment on someone else's blog.

@8 - I use it quite a bit. It's one of the best features as my memory isn't as good as it once was.

10 - Although I can't speak for Yancy, I had the impression that this is exactly why he created LotusJournal.com: a place where authors can submit content for publication, and it's reviewed by (at present) 42 "editors" to ensure that, at least on that site, the noise is dialed down because content is only published if it's well-written and likely to be useful to the audience. Sadly, only 3 articles have been submitted so far, and only 1 has received enough votes to be published (though the other two are receiving high votes, just not enough editors have weighed in). So it hasn't taken off yet as the new go-to place for solid content with no noise...

So if you'd like to see that change, there are a couple things you can do:
1. Next time you blog technical content, submit it to LotusJournal as well. It might take a few days for it to get published, but once it is, people will know that it's not just you that thinks the content is useful: at least a dozen bloggers have already read it and deemed it useful (as opposed to just having clicked on an attention-grabbing title, not knowing whether the content itself would be worthwhile).
2. If you're an editor on that site and have been neglecting to vote on pending articles, go vote. The more that people start seeing solid content coming from there, the more likely it is that they'll consider posting something of their own. And the best news (in my opinion) is that, while this will attract the ASWs, their content will be reviewed as well... just because someone's an ASW doesn't mean that they don't also have useful information to convey. So everybody wins.

In order to minimize hypocrisy, I'm going to cross-post a recent article right now. I don't know if it'll get enough votes to be published... but that's the whole point, right?

11 - planetlotus may have to take some ideas from digg.com. Let hits\votes keep the better stories higher. and raise the exposure of filtering, sorting, and search features on the site.

13 - One person's noise is another's angelic hymn leading them to answers that would have been lost in obscurity and never found at all.
I think most of us regulars are savvy enough to identify the fallacious leading subjects from some posters.
Heck, if I smell subject BS, I'll hit the site directly without a click through just so that it won't add to the hot score.
I still think PL is the best we have.

14 - @Bruce probably a few times a week I search on items I want to post or am looking for, I can't remember who wrote what.
I check PL 2-3 times a day for updates to see what's going on in other parts of the world(real or Lotus/ibm).

15 - @Keith - this is a good thing (searching PL). I am just curious as to how many people use the search feature. I for one use it a lot.

16 - @13 Exactly what I was going to say! Sometimes noise to me one day is angelic hymn weeks later.

17 - @3: That is exactly why I hardly ever blog about new releases or things everyone else blog about. To have 30 postings about 8.5.1 being released does not add any value. But if someone added their personal thoughts or some analysis, then it is valueable to me.

18 - Personally, I don't really mind the "repeat posts" on releases as many bloggers have readers outside of PlanetLotus and they want to inform them.

What bugs me (a lot more then it should) is the tabloid based ASW headline posts with zero useful content that keep coming up by some bloggers. I have NO IDEA why it bugs me so much, but it really does.

Nobody is innocent of this, but some people do it all.the.time.

And as others said here. PL is the best we have, and it would be very hard to beat it.

19 - Ok. Nothing is perfect, but the question that arises is "How would you feel * now * if there wasn't Planet Lotus website?"

20 - A few responses here

First I believe Planet Lotus is more then "the best we have" it is a tremendous resource and I am glad we have it. I also totally agree that a topic that does not seem of interest one day can save you hours the next.

As for duplicate content, that is really not an issue for me, each blogger can and should decide individually what they want to post. For me the decision usually is do I have any personal comments or to add to a topic in which case I tend to blog, if not and I just want to share a link or release announcment I have moved most of that type of activity to Twitter.

Tim - thanks for reminding me about Lotus Journal I have subscribed to the pending feed and will make a better effort to be active in voting for submissions there.

Paul I think you hit the nail on the head that is exactly how I feel, I don't mind the occasional ASW headline, but it seems to have gotten worse lately.

21 - yesolanetlotus hasjumped the shark

22 - @13 Exactly what I was going to say! Sometimes noise to me one day is angelic hymn weeks later.