October 2, 2002

  • BLOGRINGS 2.0: GROUP BLOGS


    We’re revamping Blogrings so that they umm… actually do something.


    Actually, they have more than served their purpose: to provide an easy way for people with similar interests to find each other.  They’ve been wildly popular – most people belong to as many blogrings as they can (three for Classic members, six for Premies).


    There are blogrings to discuss writing, blogrings for groups of friends… even blogrings for anime lovers.  I remember one of the earliest blogrings, created by Xanga Artist-in-Residence Alice:



    • Artist to Artist - For anyone interested in art in all its forms…especially for artists wishing to share their work and discuss aspects of the creative process.

    But a blogring like this just begs to let people post to their blogrings.  So for example, Alice and other artists could post art questions to a group blog… and other blogring members could post their comments.


    We’re talking group blog action here, people!  Monsur’s been talking about this ever since he first programmed blogrings over a year-and-a-half ago… and we’re finally gonna do it. 


    Ever notice in xTools how the upper right corner has a publishing toggle with only one toggle:



    Publish to:


    We’re juicing up that toggle so that you can post to your blogrings too.   So Alice can post to her Artist blogring… or I can create a “Xanga News” group blog along with Marc, Dan, and Monsur… and we can all post to that.  Or you can create a blogring with your friends, and hash out y’all’s weekend plans.


    We haven’t hammered out all the issues that come out of this.  Here are a few that come to mind:



    • Group blogs sound suspiciously like message boards… which have notorious problems with trolls and flamers.

      • How do we avoid the sort abuse problems that are common to message boards?
      • How can we add self-policing mechanisms to group blogs so that abuse is less of a problem?  (e.g. blocking, IP logging, etc.)

    • As a group gets larger, it tends to fall apart

      • Should we impose limits on the size of a group?
      • Add filtering mechanisms to the group blog posts and comments?
      • Only let certain people post to the group blog?

    • Will there be a Group Premium?

      • There will definitely be a free Group Classic… but should there also be a Group Premium?
      • If so, how will it be different from Group Classic?

    • How would group subscriptions work?

      • Can you subscribe to a whole group?
      • Would that subscribe you to the group blog, or to the blogs of all the members of that group?
      • If the two are different, should we have a Groups I Read that’s separate from your Sites I Read?

    We’ll wrestle with these spec questions and others… but thought I’d throw this out there to you and get your thoughts.


    How’s this sound to you?  Any blogring or Group features you’re especially dying for?

Comments (23)

  • It sounds absolutely wicked.  Even though I’m subscribed to six blogrings, I’ve always kinda wondered what the point to them was.  I think I found/was found by only two of my forty or so subbers through a blogring.

    This would definately give it more purpose, and I’m lookin’ forward to it. 

    No suggestions, as I’m horribly bad at figuring out anything about large groups of people.

  • That sounds good…I’d like it broken down to just rings, as groups MIGHT overwhelm one with reading, if it was a big group. Also, a way to keep certain people from reading/commenting would be good too…

  • This sounds great! Would there be away to make that Group Blog private? So only invited members to that blogring could view it and comment on it? Possible where invites are sent out by the creator of that blogring. Perhaps only premium users can create private blogrings. It would also be nice if the blogring creator could view who has visited the site… I don’t really NEED that, but it’s an interesting idea maybe… or maybe I just need to go to sleep.. *shrugs*

  • I agree with Moniet.

  • that sounds like a fantastic idea…….i suspect it could get quite large though….hmmm……some of the rings have huge amounts of subscribers……i thought originally that toggle switch was going to be so that we could have multiple blogs and choose which one we were going to post to??

    well either way, i like the idea…it might be kinda fun….although if it’s a lot of work, i’d say skip it…because most of us already talk to some of the others in our blog rings…so we discuss stuff through email or comments….so adding this feature would be just that, a nice addition, but not a necessity

  • This sounds like a great idea…I like Texie suggestion of allowing Premium users to create ‘by invitation only’ blogrings…If you could do that, it’d be ‘purr’fect!  Thanks for your (plural) hard work at Xanga…I’ve recently gone Premium to show my support!   Spot

  • Oops…scratch out ‘blogrings’ and substitute ‘group blogs’…  Spot

  • Well, I’m glad you all are keeping busy always improving on the already much satisfying xanga thing that you guys created just for me (yes, delusional even in the early a.m.!).

    I never did catch on to the whole blogrings thing. Maybe I just didn’t know how to use it? I belong to ONE and I never hear from them (except for one or two who I was already hearing from even before I joined the ring).

  • I love the idea. Sort of like what Muse is doing with ArtExchange, but simplified.  Now, these blog rings that members can post to –they will be sites created new, won’t they? And who creates them — xanga or members? I mean the creator of the blog ring is not going to suddenly have members posting to their own sites, will they? Surely not. Another question. Will the old blog rings be history when this new system is installed? Will those interested create a whole new set of blogrings in their place? or will the old blog rings be transformed to fit into the new system?

    It sounds like a wonderful idea. When will this happen? I can’t wait for all the details.
    Hey… and thanks for the pub, John 

  • So, when you post to the blogring, where does the post actually “live”?

    Definitely need that “invitation only” option..

    An “ignore” feature might be useful too

  • I recently joined Live Journal, which has “communities,” ie group blogs. They can be public or private. Each community is owned by the person who created it and the owner has the right to block obnoxious posters. The private groups will come up in a search and you can read them, but you have to ask permission to join.

    I like the system very much and have been hoping that xanga would start something similar. One thing that allows the LJ communities to work well is a search engine that lets you search by interests. It brings up communities first, if there are any on your search topic, then members who’ve listed that topic as one of their interests.

  • “Juicing up that toggle”? Dude…..I love it when you talk like that.

    This sounds like a cool idea. I’ll be interested to see how it evolves.

  • I’d like my toggle to say: “Publish to: New York Times” .  Can that be arranged?!

  • sounds kewl.  can’t wait :)

  • …great idea! Long thought blogrings needed more action oriented avenues. MuSe

  • Why don’t you give the founder of the blogring the power to allow people in or not.  People could join by permission only, for example, so that if, for example, it is a family group, they don’t have to let anyone in.  You wouldn’t have to limit it to a specific number, the owners could.  This the main reason blog rings are not useful for me.  They are too inclusive.

  • i think whoever creates it should have admin/moderator power over the blogring, and should be allowed to extend his/her power to members of the blogring as well. that way, if things get out of hand, it is nobody’s fault but his/her own.

  • Thank GOD. I’ve been hoping for this figure for a year-and-a-half now. Woo!

  • I’m a wee bit confuzzled.  How would this be different from, say, a yahoo group or something like that?

    I like the idea, just trying to wrap my brain around what is new and different about it. 

    cg

  • sounds like a great idea. i like the idea of creator as moderator. maybe having options for the creator to assign another moderator or two as well.

  • I agree more with prometheus – have the blog ring/group blog originator/ ringleader have the control to allow/ not allow block/unblock subscribers – have them do the policing on the group blog. Don’t make this so much a premium vs classic thing like so many other features are. Other than that I think it is an excellent idea and I think you should run with it. Features I’d like to see on such a group blog would be to include a “groups I read” link like the SIR link, increase the number of groups one can sub to, perhaps even make it unlimited like subbing to individual blogs is currently rather than have a limit.

    My only question is would it affect current blog rings or will this just be in effect for new blogrings? Personally I would like to see it in effect for all of them.

  • Fantastic idea!!!

    I’ve often thought it would be cool for a site to combine the features of a blog with those of a messageboard,because that way it’d be easier to have conversations with the group.I’d be inclined to make this a separate feature to the current Blogrings,because both have their merits,and some people will always prefer one to the other.

    I would make a “Groups I Read” list in addition to,or as a sub-section in,the current SIR;it’d make it simpler for people to check their Sites/Groups (in the same way that I think it’d be handy for us to be able to divide our SIR list into Friends/Classmates/Work Colleagues/Family,or whatever sub-headings we wanted).

    And I’d give a lot of options to the creator of the ring – let them decide whether to assign a limit to the number of possible members,or to invite people/okay requests to join made via a special module.(EZboard has a system where a board owner can choose to make people apply via a clickable option to post there.The owner can look at the people who request access and choose whether or not to grant it.Having this would prevent Group owners being deluged with emails asking if they can join).

    As to Classic and Premium…how about making the Group Site flexible to receive both types of post?I don’t even know if that’s possible of course;just throwing it out here.

  • Great idea.  More community for the community.  I love it.  My eProps are for Monsur

    But you know…from the comments I’m reading here, it sounds like they want you to create another version of Yahoo Groups, originally known as eGroups, which was originally known as ONElist.   Ahhhh…I’m feeling a little nostalgic.   Anyway…this feature could be the very thing that sets Xanga way over the top!  Be careful or you’ll have more new members than your swift little servers can handle. 

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