Is there such a thing as bad publicity?

Patrick McElhaney

Sep 14, 2011 14:25

Wow, that question just went viral. There's no such thing as bad publicity, right?

Matt Rockwell

Sep 14, 2011 14:38

@PatrickMcElhaney @CharlesBoyung - I am guessing that this is a joke. There is no way I can even possibly imagine that he is being serious here.

Yup just read the text on the cube, def a joke

@PeterOfTheCorn - Thanks for the chuckle

But this is an awful question, let's be serious on this site, please.

colmcq

great PR for the forum

Peter Of The Corn

I'm glad to help. Maybe later I'll make a more serious version of it.

Matt Rockwell

@colmcq good point

Roger Attrill

Sep 14, 2011 14:54

That question has topped the highest number of tweets/day involving ux.stackexchange.com for the last month - topsy.com/ux.stackexchange.com/questions/11229/…

Charles Boyung

@PatrickMcElhaney There is such a thing as bad publicity. That sort of question definitely should get removed from the site. Not just closed, but deleted as well.

Matt Rockwell

@RogerAttrill haha wow

Charles Boyung

@PatrickMcElhaney Any other serious SE site would have closed, locked and deleted that question the first time a mod saw it.

Patrick McElhaney

@CharlesBoyung Sending all these people to a 404 page would be bad publicity.

Matt Rockwell

@PatrickMcElhaney agreed

Charles Boyung

Sep 14, 2011 14:57

@PatrickMcElhaney Wouldn't have been a problem had the mods deleted it when they saw it, as they should have. Wouldn't have gotten the reach it has.

@PatrickMcElhaney At the very least, you need to close and lock the question, so it doesn't keep moving up the list, hurting the actual serious and useful questions.

Patrick McElhaney

@CharlesBoyung In what way is this hurting serious questions?

Roger Attrill

Hard to say if the fallout after 'the buzz' is going to be good or bad. IMO the good effect is likely to be longer lasting in terms of awareness and number of users, no?

Matt Rockwell

@RogerAttrill I def think so

Charles Boyung

@PatrickMcElhaney If it keeps getting more votes, it drops the serious questions lower when you look at the top questions on the site. The effect of that is that people looking at the top questions don't think the site is serious enough to continue to visit.

SO stopped allowing these sort of joke questions for that exact reason.

Patrick McElhaney

I just bumped a few particularly good questions to the top. We now have one joke question surrounded by several serious ones.

Matt Rockwell

Sep 14, 2011 15:02

@CharlesBoyung It's already down about 7 slots

Charles Boyung

@PatrickMcElhaney Allowing it to stay open also states that we promote this sort of thing on the site. Which we definitely should not be doing.

Roger Attrill

@Charles - possible solution: maybe get the publicity - then delete it when no-one's gonna notice

Charles Boyung

@RogerAttrill At that point, it's too late. You people really don't get viral marketing, do you?

Roger Attrill

it's all coming from twitter so one the buzz dies down it's going to die down real quick

Matt Rockwell

WOW it got over 400 hits in 10 minutes

Roger Attrill

Sep 14, 2011 15:03

@Charles - nope - not been a part of viral marketing before :-)

Charles Boyung

For all of you - go read the SO blog sometime. They have explained several times why joke questions should not be kept open (or kept at all) on the SE sites.

Peter Of The Corn

Actually, @Charles, some joke questions have had official sanction

read blog.stackoverflow.com/2008/11/stack-overflow-is-you

Charles Boyung

And locking it isn't going to stop the traffic that you people seem to think is the only value this question provides.

@PeterOfTheCorn 3 year old blog post - SE has change A LOT since then.

If a question provides no value to the site other than driving some traffic (that isn't really interested in UX anyways) to it, then the question is inappropriate for the site. It's pretty simple.

Patrick McElhaney

@CharlesBoyung Locking the question will prevent people from participating. We don't just want traffic. We want some of those people to join the community. Answering a joke question gives people an opportunity to dip their toes in the water.

Charles Boyung

@PatrickMcElhaney Sorry, but you are flat out wrong.

Matt Rockwell

Sep 14, 2011 15:08

@CharlesBoyung Ironically I came across this one yesterday which was closed on Sunday after over 2 years meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/555/…

Charles Boyung

What do you think the stack exchange company admins would do if they came out and saw the question? They'd close it as inappropriate for the site.

Matt Rockwell

On a serious note though, what is funny about this question is that it is satirical. The example basically does the opposite of every major usability principle

Charles Boyung

@MattRockwell The meta site has completely different rules than SO itself. And again, the rules for all sites have been made more clear and more serious in the past two years.

Matt Rockwell

So to that effect, a sarcastic way of stating some factts

Patrick McElhaney

Yes, and Roger's satirical answer is actually chock full of good information.

Peter Of The Corn

Sep 14, 2011 15:13

@CharlesBoyung I don't know about that. I've been active on SO for the last few months, and honestly, there are plenty of joke questions around that have been pretty well received. And, AFAICT, they never generated this sort of contention.

But if you want a more official opinion on this, you should ask about it on meta.

Roger Attrill

I just approved an edit on an answer - someone registered a few minutes ago and converted an incorrectly formatted bullet point answer to proper markdown format. If we get more active users like this, and because of this, it's a good thing. We just cannot tell at the moment what the overall impact is going to be...

3

Charles Boyung

@PeterOfTheCorn Joke questions are explicitly discouraged on SO - I don't know what you're seeing. You want something official, here you go: blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/04/joke-questions-please-refrain

Patrick McElhaney

Stack Overflow Blog: Stack Overflow: Where We Hate Fun

Posted by Jeff Atwood on January 4th, 2010

I noticed that the Stack Overflow question Strangest language feature has been closed and reopened several times now. The text of the question is brief:

What is in your opinion the most surprising, weird, strange or really “WTF” language feature you have encountered?

I agree this is not exactly an ideal question for Stack Overflow, per the FAQ:

Avoid asking questions that are subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion. This is not a discussion board, this is a place for questions that can be answered! …

Matt Rockwell

@CharlesBoyung - But Jeff's example question on that link are nothing like this one, they are about irrevalant topics like co-worker sex changes

Charles Boyung

@PatrickMcElhaney And this question only meets the second of Jeff's criteria in that blog post. And then, only barely. Notice that 28 people upvoted the comment about this guy trolling.

Roger Attrill

Sep 14, 2011 15:22

@Charles I don't think this cube question was actually deceptive - it counts as fun surely, at least according to Jeffs post there

Charles Boyung

@MattRockwell You said the key word there yourself - "example". There are tons of examples of questions just like this that have been closed and deleted on SO

@RogerAttrill Not deceptive? Really? There are several answers there from people (especially your "new users") that sure appear to think this is a serious question.

Peter Of The Corn

A world without fun is like a world without waffles and ponies. And what kind of monster would want that?

Roger Attrill

@Charles - hmmm... unconviced. could be satirical bandwagonitis - especially since nearly all the twitter messages mentioned trolling before the link...

@Peter - and billy goats

Charles Boyung

@RogerAttrill And every single person comes to the site via twitter, right? And people actually read the full messages on twitter, too? Not a chance.

@PeterOfTheCorn There are literally MILLIONS of sites on the internet where you can post stupid garbage like this and "have fun". Don't sully a useful, serious site with it.

Matt Rockwell

At 140 character I would hope to god they can read that much

Charles Boyung

Sep 14, 2011 15:26

@MattRockwell Studies have shown that no, they don't

Roger Attrill

@Charles - Can't hope to verify the figures myself - but relating to that question - and to the 'new users' - well maybe actually today, yes, pretty much

@Charles - oh help - what studies now!?

:-)

Charles Boyung

@RogerAttrill I'd have to go and dig them up

Roger Attrill

wow - busy here!

Matt Rockwell

@CharlesBoyung Id be interested in them

They would actaully help me with a project I am working on

Charles Boyung

@MattRockwell I'll see if I can find it. Probably wouldn't be able to until tonight because I'm nowhere near the computer where that internet history would be located.

I just remember it had something to do with how many people the average user follows, so they do a lot of skimming. Links stand out so if it's a user they know usually provides good links, they will just click on it.

Matt Rockwell

Sep 14, 2011 15:33

I know a lot of people were clicking links on there yesterday haha. Twitter was all over the news with a deceptive headline

Roger Attrill

@Charles I can see that actually. Nobody is going to have amazing things to say and describe in detail on twitter so it's the links that show the content - hence why twitter show the expanded t.co link instead of useless bit.ly links that don't give a clue to the destination

colmcq

@charles: no one is agreeing with you

Charles Boyung

@PatrickMcElhaney It's got three downvotes from non-mods. That's more than most questions get that you guys close down as inappropriate. If there is no reason other than traffic that you have for keeping it open, then it should be closed.

@colmcq Just shows that lots of people can be wrong.

colmcq

@charles never get a job in marketing

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