I think the technical problems Rod has had with his site today may not have helped either.The Digg audience is certainly open source and LAMP in particular.
I think that article can still make it to the front, perhaps with some re-working. I think the technical porblems with the site may have been more of a factor than anything, and I hate to see a good article not get a good chance to succeed.
To resubmit it later it will need to change enough to avoid getting buried as a dup. Lot's of time, and as you say the hostIP DB will get better so... Did Babe Ruth hit a home run every at bat?
As a side note it appears that Google has notice ERT's popularity. We were getting 75-100 hits a day from them. Over the last two weeks that has climbed to the 200-250 range and to day we are over 300. Virtually every page on the site appears to be benefiting.
Where we were top-10 now we come up number one. Where we were page two or 3 we are now page one. We are also seeing some increased Yahoo search traffic. For the first 10 days of the month we are already up to 19,000 page views. Since I started using the GA and promoting on June 14th (27 days) we have had over 38,000 pages, for 29,000 visitors.
Now consider we have 5 active authors plus support content from Batalf's site. We have but 30 pieces of content on the site. Yet we have had a huge impact already. 250 different external referrers have hit our pages; we have been bookmarked on Deli close to 1000 times; and on our key word phrases we are top-10 in the SERPs.
The changes that Matt is about to bring in give us an opportunity to move ahead. If there is anybody at this point who cannot understand that with 20 active authors we will serve 100,000 to 150,000 pages a month ... do the arithmetic. Every "expert" I have ever met says they just want to help. For most that is nonsense! They do it for their ego. There is only a handful who do it because they care about helping. Some of them are here... certainly the authors and the people who have stuck it out trying to keep things moving ahead with site related work.
Now they (sorry we; I'm one of heroes too) need some help. Any of you who actually do it it because you care are just waiting te see how you can help. Let Matt know. This is a learning center. If you don't knwo how to do what needs to be done you will learn on the job. But I think we need some of the egos too. So heroes please stop reading. The rest of this is for those who need ego incentive, added to the universe that revolves around their "expert" personification.
<bad_attitude>
Since ERT started 10 months ago 126,000+ content pages have been delivered. That means on average each of the active authors has given help to 21,000 people. You will have to agree that the content is worth an A and and at the current EE trend of 500 points for every question, I guess that makes their contribution worth about 42,000,000 points each.
Of course on top of that they still find time to answer a few of the easy and redundant crap that shows up in forum threads on ordinary sites with forum formats. They still find time to take on task on the ERT sites to improve things, Build quality threads and content, and help the fledgling community get started.
That's because they are good; better than you I bet. They have demonstrated just how good they are, and how important their words are to the rest of the world. I think you ego driven hacks are holding back because you know in your hearts that you can't cut it. Is that you. Nothing but ego, nonsense, and bluster hiding behind an "expert" label, and a ranking gained by giving answers that are available straight off Google? Are you afraid to expose your weakness by trying a new way of helping? You can run, but you an't hide. The days of "experts" and "gurus" responding to queries on stark sterile forums is fading.
If you can't produce for the mass market you are a dinosaur and the days of glory are coming to a close. You will just be lumped in with the Googledroids who can't do anything else. If you really have something more than rudimentary quiz skills. If you actually deserve some egoboo then you better get off you ass; quit masterbating while you look at how many points you have; and get yourself together.
Nobody gives a shit how many question you have answered. On a bad day an ERT Mentor reaches more people than you do in a month. And not with the splink crap from Google or the cut and paste job from another source; but with quality content that has been peer reviewed, and in many cases voted to the front page of competitive sites.
If you want in on the real game then:
- Start by taking on some of the tasks that Matt has to offer.
- Get involved in topics where other Mentors are developing content; you might learn something
- Quit procratinating about writing down what you know; there are plenty of people to help get it to presentation quality. As long as you have good ideas to put on a page, the page will get done well through the ERT collaborative process.
- Watch for your chance at long lasting fame by being one of the ERT2 widget wizards who puts the Round Table on The Web after publish the requirements and turn everyone loose to get creative.
</bad_attitude>
One last thing: If you still don't understand what it means to be a real Mentor; I am sorry but there is no cure for stupidity.
Cd&
