Front Page - raising a few of the requirements.

It's about time that a form of QUALITY CONTROL is put in place. I must say that a lot of blogs which turn up on the front page are not really that deserving and sometimes can be outright offensive (too much negativity and whinging really). And please don't pull out the FREEDOM OF SPEECH stuff cos it only gives it a bitter taste.

If you really want to have high quality blogs on the front page, you can set the bar higher by pooling the blogs qualified or marked for front page and screen them further for quality.

Good Luck !



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In response to: Msg #147281

Ha ! Good one Jon ! 😱

I'll take that as a compliment. Reply to this

Definitely for the best.................it keeps the standard high, allows more publicity for the better Travelblog writers and I'm sure will encourage other writers to up their efforts to get on the front page.

Very happy about the extra blogs on the front page..........it always seems I add my entries the same time as 8 other people and they disappear off the front page within an hour or two!

Hopefully my blogs aren't the ones that are negative and offend! Reply to this

Just out of sheer interest here, how many people will have been bumped off? I mean, what percentage of people who were eligible are now not?

Hope this makes sense. Reply to this

We still have the Blogger of the Week to allow new bloggers to be recognise new talent. The tab for this still exists, as does the thread on forums.. In the case of good quality bloggers, they are often nominated for Blogger of the Week and then eventually get enough recommends to be on the front page. This change will still allow that, but will potentially just make the Blogger of the Week tab contain different blogs to the Front Page (some days recently, they are exactly the same).

• For newer bloggers who are chasing the Front page, there are other ways to attract those recommends:
• Recommend bloggers yourself. Most of us look who has recommended them and check out their blogs,
• Post on the forums. People check out bloggers who crop up in conversation
• Nominate other bloggers for Blogger of the Week or on the Blog Treasure Hunt
• Post enough blogs, photos or forum posts to get an award

Hopefully along with blog quality, this change will also encourage more community.
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We appreciate the effort to improve the quality of blogs on the front page. One comment would be that quantity doesn't always get you quality (ie: word count). Many of our favorite blogs are less than 500 words and they are great because they are short and to the point without much rambling. Too many words can dilute the quality as much as too few words. As you say, it's all subjective anyways. This is just our preference, others may have plenty of spare time to read long-winded blogs though. Perhaps a cap on the maximum number of words might also be an improvement?

J&K Reply to this

Speaking of the Blogger of the Week, and how it can promote those who have not yet appeared on the Front Page, here is the nomination thread for it. Nominate bloggers or add a second or third nomination to the ones already nominated.

This is a sure way to make your opinion count, because the number of nominations and popularity count when choosing a winner, when there is more than one good one to choose from. As well as that, the blogger may not have been noticed at all, if it wasnt for you.

If the ones you nominate are of Front Page quality in your opinion, dont forget to add your recommend, because as Cessna152 describes above, getting from 0 to even 3 nominations, let alone 5 can be quite a hurdle to cross no matter how good a blogger you are. And, I can confirm that Cessna152 is an excellent blogger whom we did not notice, until he one day appeared on the forums. There are plenty of others we(regulars, TravelBlog staff...) will also give our own recommends to too, once we discover them.

Those who feel they should be promoted by becomming a Blogger of the Week can feel free to nominate themselves. If somebody seconds your self nomination, we can consider it to be a valid nomination.

Nominate a Blogger to be next week's Blogger of the Week.

As for the Front Page and the points about who and what should be on it, this creates some of the most lengthy and frequent topics of discussion on TravelBlog. A conclusion has never been reached as to what is the perfect solution. The one in existance, which is essentially democratic, as it allows all bloggers an equal right to vote(recommend) may not be perfect, but it is the one that works best for most. Like any democratic system, those who are elected have generally had to make their presence felt somehow, so the more you appear on the forums, recommend others, comment on their blogs... the more chance you have of receiving more votes. It is not all about quality. Unless you are lucky, it takes both quality and interpersonal skills. Reply to this

I see you have recommended 4 bloggers Kaleb, and those are excellent and popular choices you have made. Keep up with the finding good ones and recommending them. Everybody likes to receive recommends, even those who have more than enough to get on the Front Page. Keep helping us out by finding and recommending bloggers you like. 😊

Re: Your post above
Yes, I know, the details of this topic could be discussed forever, and generally are here on TravelBlog. I have seen it happening for years, literally. I say, we get on with blogging and reading, and when anybody and not just TravelBlog staff find a good blog, then blow its trumpet on the forums. Start a discussion about it. I know from experience that most/all bloggers like when one of their blogs receives such attention. It may not be the same as being a Featured Blog, but it does put a blog in the spotlight. And, we can always highlight a good discussion about a blog, so the discussion about that particular blog can get some Front Page attention. Reply to this

system administrators or moderators should pick and choose high quality RANDOM blogs to appear on the front page

Let us not forget that this is a prime function of Blogger of the Week. These nominees are by definition unknown, random bloggers that someone (mostly moderators if you look at the thread, but others of the Travelblog community as well) have vetted for quality. The name may be misleading - while only one blogger each week is chosen, they retain the "Blogger of the Week" status permanently, and all their entries appear on a front page tab. Many (most) do eventually go on to becoming Featured bloggers.

Don't forget there is more than one category on the front page and to check out those tabs as well! The "Most Recent" blogs are where many of us discover new and wonderful talent - both written and photographic. Then, as others have said, being an active participant in recommending bloggers you discover helps to share their chronicles with all of us.

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I feel and believe that the best solution is the one we have at the present time.

If improvement is really sought after, then some changes have to be made, right ?

I believe relying heavily on your computer algorithms to automate selection of featured blogs is simply not gonna cut it for quality assurance.

Your computer program can compute numbers (i.e blogger's rating, number of recommendations, word count, number of photos etc.) and other selection specification/constraints but it can't determine the quality of the content of the blog.

Once the "Blogger of the Week" and other trusted bloggers become featured bloggers, they can just simply try to meet the required "numbers" and their blogs will automatically get featured on the front page regardless of the quality of the CONTENT, right ?

What if a trusted blogger wants to use Travelblog as a medium to spread certain ideology, hate and propaganda. Just wondering how you deal with this matter.

Cheers ! 😉

P.S Also, I'm not suggesting that all new blogs have to be read/screened (Are you kidding ? It's a mammoth task !). I'm merely focusing on the featured blogs.

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