Chawlk

1. Drawar
2. Fenxy
3. Decaflon
4. Two Credits
5. Wriging
6. Loose Suits
7. Chixe
8. Dud3s
9. Wing Colors

 

Wait a second, I thought the reason why Featured was taken off was because no one was maintaining it. Rather, no one knew how to maintain it. The way I understood it then and now is that no one except the triad had any power to showcase anything and the role of community leaders was to bring up our communities as best we could.

The way I still understand it at least was without even a way to participate in the community on 9rules, there was no need for community leaders. There is only so much some of us could do with our blogs, but there was so much more that we could do on the site if we have the ability to.

The way I understand it, thats where the notes came in. Users now had some measure of what they wanted, but there is still no control over quality. I'm not saying the notes were bad, it's just that there is so much "what (something) do you like/do/think?" posts to make any sense and people quickly lose the point entirely.

I have ideas on how to make the community I like thrive but these are my ideas, not the triad who implement what they think is right. What I can do is go with the flow and voice out what I disagree. If I don't like it, tough. If I do, that's good.

But as long as the principles of 9rules don't change, I'll always be happy to be here. I wish I could have more, I really do. But like I said, I'm not in control of 9rules. And I'd be stuffed if I'm going to haul my ass off and start creating something new because I don't like what I see.

No Kami, there were Community Leaders that were making Featured articles (it was a separate blog they had access to) but it was A LOT of work combing through member articles to featured them. A LOT. And there was a lot of off-topic posts in there too (which made it a drag in the larger communities). That was on the old site. With the launch of Ali no, community leaders didn't have the power because we need a more customized backend. We'll have moderators on Chawlk though.

Notes took over Featured as far as placement on the community pages. If you look at the pages now, member content is at the top (auto-featured), member listing of entries on the left then notes listing on the right. Back in the day it used to be just member listing of entries and Featured (replaced by Notes). I'm not sure if you were a member then though. We encouraged members to use Notes to link to their own articles to draw traffic to their sites (in a quality way...we don't have a problem with anyone doing that as long as people can have a discussion and not spam us). For members their words could have shown in multiple areas.

Let me chime in and try to kill the confusion. We are taking suggestions what could be done with the new 9rules in Clique 44, but at launch it's going to be the way the old 9rules was, just member content. We know the starting point and we will grow from there.

@Ryan: Again, I understand if you and others joined because you saw blogger X in the network, but we have never pimped any of our members over others because of their status. Well-known in the end only means a pat on the back for a second then we gotta move on.

I would never claim that we got to where we are without our members, that's idiotic. However, I definitely can't say that one member made us bigger than another.

And if you want me to be honest about the devil's advocate thing, to me that's just an excuse people use to say how they feel without coming off "strong". I wasn't upset, but I will get passionate on someone when it is led to believe that because a blogger that is popular to you leaves 9rules loses its message, when in reality every site we add only helps to power it. If 9rules becomes less of a site because a favorite site of your's leaves, then that is the perception you built up and we can't change that, but again we never tried to build the perception that blogger X is on our network, come join us.

First off: on this devil's advocate business, I said that because, as I also clearly stated in the first post, I believe 9rules can retain it's top-notch status. But I also wanted to discuss something as I saw as a possible barrier. I don't have a problem with voicing my opinion, whether it comes across as too strong or not. You can re-read the F*** Bush or the Fag threads if you have any doubt. Scrivs - you should also know this from our private messages about Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD. Also, there's no hidden agenda. With me, you can pretty much always take me at face value.

I think you're oversimplifying also. You and I both know we're not talking about a specific blogger; we're talking about numerous established bloggers who are no longer affiliated with the 9rules network. I've also never implied that said bloggers were catered to or treated differently. From my own experiences as a member, you've always treated everyone equally.

I would be surprised if you came out and said that the loss of any member was detrimental to 9rules, because this is your brand. But I also think it's impossible to deny the fact that the better known members helped bring 9rules to the forefront.

When you have a collection of members who, regardless of 9rules, are widely known and respected as leaders in their specific niches, the eliteness of their reputations can only help build the esteem of your site. 9rules, as it's own site, has always been cutting edge; I'm in no way implying that this site road anyone's coattails to popularity. I'm saying that having higher profile members helped.

At the same time, there are sites in my feed reader from people I only know about from 9rules. There are definitely talented members here, but the name recognition isn't there like it used to be.

It all comes down to marketing 101. Today, every time you hear a Mazda commercial, you're hearing Patrick Dempsey's, of Grey's Anatomy fame, voice. You never see his face, but I'm sure he's getting paid a pretty penny to be the official voice of Mazda. Why? Because he's a name and a brand. Eva Longoria just signed a multi-million dollar deal with Loreal for hair color. Why are they paying her millions of dollars? Because she's a name and a brand.

To say that 9rules hasn't lost anything with the departure of higher profile members, or members with name and brand recognition, is a stretch. Mazda and Loreal are no better or worse products without spokespeople, but they certainly have an easier time getting their foot in the door with a familiar name, face or voice peddling their goods. Same here.

Will 9rules continue to do well? Absolutely, and I'll be here giving support as long as I am welcome (though I reserve the right to disagree w/ the triad and speak my mind). But would re-establishing the site as a member-driven mecca be sped along by members with name recognition? Of course.

When you have a collection of members who, regardless of 9rules, are widely known and respected as leaders in their specific niches, the eliteness of their reputations can only help build the esteem of your site.

And:

To say that 9rules hasn't lost anything with the departure of higher profile members, or members with name and brand recognition, is a stretch.

Well as far as things that can be measured are concerned, we have more registered users now, more traffic, and more advertising revenue than when those higher profile members were still 9rules members. There has, and will probably always be, no correlation between "who is a member of 9rules" and quantitative success metrics. If the argument is that bigger, more higher-profile bloggers have more traffic, and more visitors to their sites click on their 9rules leaf and make it over here, then let me throw out there that we get more referrer hits from our newest and most humblest of members than we have ever had from the more "well-known" ones. I know it doesn't make sense, but it's completely true.

Now if we're talking about losing unmeasurable things like overall reputation, brand image.... um.... man I can't think of any other nebulous terms, then there's no good answer to that because those things are extremely difficult to measure. Like Tyme said, we're doing this for our current members, the ones that evangelize 9rules and love the community. We do things on 9rules for the people that come and visit 9rules, and with the current changes we're trying to make the site better for the people who have been coming here for a long time. If new visitors want to visit, that's great, if old visitors want to make the trip back to this site, that's great too, but we're just focused on creating the best site for the people who want 9rules to be the best site.

It all comes down to marketing 101. Today, every time you hear a Mazda commercial, you're hearing Patrick Dempsey's, of Grey's Anatomy fame, voice. You never see his face, but I'm sure he's getting paid a pretty penny to be the official voice of Mazda. Why? Because he's a name and a brand. Eva Longoria just signed a multi-million dollar deal with Loreal for hair color. Why are they paying her millions of dollars? Because she's a name and a brand.

Although I'm an idiot I'm no fool. I understand that when any site writes about us it informs their readers and they check us out. But in your example you hear that commercial once you don't remember it, you hear it again and again then yeah maybe. Our members usually don't talk about us again and again. If we paid members to pimp us out none stop then yeah maybe bigger sites would hold more appeal, but as the case is they put a leaf up and continue to go about their business.

If you don't think Eva is a great actress does it matter? Not at all because you just want her associated with your brand and she has mass appeal. If we don't think you write great content, but have mass appeal will we bring you on? Hell no.

Do we have some surprise new members that have great content and a decent sized following to announce when we relaunch? Maybe...

I haven't read this whole thread (yet) but this seems like an excellent idea.

Damn yo we got Rich's approval. World domination here we come!

I'll sell you a framed print of that for $150.

Rain check, rain check my man.

I think it is a good and positive move!

I think this is great. Well, I guess I have a few reservations. I remember when it was just 9rules the blog network. I enjoyed checking out the few blogs that were here. I'm glad it will be returning to that state.

How will you find new blogs (not that there are any lack of them). Last time I checked it was based on active my.9r users.

9rules/chawlk FTW