The Not Adding Value Discussion

[Daktari JG]

Over the last few months or so I have had a number of posts removed for "not adding value".
The reason mainly being that I linked to an article and didn't sufficiently add in some sort of commentary or further description about said article to stimulate discussion . I have tried to improve upon that somewhat as requested.
However I think that the article is the value and perhaps others agree with me, or not.
Personally speaking I would much rather see an article that says something like:
five zoo born bongos released into the wild. Rather than have the article deleted because the poster failed to add enough commentary to add value to it.
One of the main reasons I come to this and sites like it is that it filters in the type of news that I want to read about. The clearinghouse is the value, to me.
In contrast I constantly read posts similar to
Mary was introduced to Joseph at X zoo. Which is fine but it doesn't even mention what species is being brought up.
Anyhoo that's my point and I would like to see if enough posters agree with me to change the policy or not. thanks

 

[Simon Hampel]

Our policy here is pretty simple:

We do expect posts to add value - either by summarising the content being linked to or quoting/paraphrasing a part of the content to give context.

Linked content does sometimes disappear - and without at least a summary of the content being linked to, there is a real possibility that your post becomes completely meaningless if the link does stop working in the future.​

It's not just about the link disappearing - it's also about not requiring people to click on a link to find out what the information is. I should be able to glance at a post and get a quick feeling for the context and content - just one sentence is all it takes.

It's also about not directing people away from this site - we should be able to have a discussion without needing to go and visit another site.

Moving forward there are two strategies which will help here somewhat:

First, the next version of the forum software does what we call "URL unfurling" - meaning that when you paste a URL into a post, it will retrieve some information from the header of the web page you are linking to and display that in place of the link - for example:



... or even:



It's not as ideal as actually quoting the text - and it doesn't always work (not all websites respond with usable information), but it's better than nothing.

Secondly - I do intend to build a system which allows us to link to news in a more structured manner - essentially, it will ask you for a title, a description, a link, and if relevant an associated zoo - and then will format it in a nice way and create a searchable database of zoo and animal conservation news.

Australia's Whirlpool broadband discussion forums have a nice "broadband news roundup" feature on their website which I like for having a quick glance at news. It's simply a title (with link) and a one line description of the content.



I'd like to build something like that - but that's a little way off yet - got to get the new site operational first.

In the meantime - I do expect posts to add value.