Blog this Post icon / Function?

[sharrison]

I'm currently running another blog s/w and considering moving to VB Blog but it doesn't seem to have a "Blog this Post" option in postbit.

Is this intentional , can it be added easily ? Will it be added ?

Regards
SH

[Freddie Bingham]

What is the purpose of "Blog this Post". Is it starting a new blog entry with the post as a quote within?

[Lizard King]

It starts a new blog entry with the post content. I find it pretty useless.

[Reeve of Shinra]

Yeah thats basically it...

Sometimes people write up a really long post and feel that they want to add it to thier blog as well. Copy / Paste works for me but some people like the idea of submitting the post to both the thread and the blog at the same time.

If the feature is added, maybe it can automatically link back to the post or thread?

[Tigratrus]

It's also quite useful for many of our members that use it to collect useful posts for later reference, ity allows them to collect a kind of IDEA file culled from the forums. Very handy. It's kind of a scrapbook function... It copies the post into the blog with a link back to the post under a category specified by the member.

James

[Onimua]

It starts a new blog entry with the post content. I find it pretty useless.
I agree, to an extent.

I think this really perhaps would be a blog, but rather a kind of personal bookmarking system for posts, and could be called "Bookmark this post" instead. I don't see a reason why you would have a post, and then a blog with that same post, and have two sources to discuss the same thing. If you want to refer to something later, especially since it's more for your own personal use, it'd be better left out of the blog but probably in vBulletin where you can bookmark posts.

[hornstar6969]

Would this count as duplicate content? and be bad for seo?

[Lizard King]

Of course it is duplicate content and bad for seo.

[Freddie Bingham]

In terms of using the blog as a scrapbook, why not subscribe to the thread and stick it in a subscription folder? If you want to keep track of specific threads, that is what that system is for!

.. but if that is what you want to do, then more power to you. We can add a "Blog this Post" icon in 1.2 that will setup a quote and a link to the post in a new blog entry waiting to submit for you. That is a trivial thing to do from a coding perspective and I can see some usefulness if you wish to comment on the post but take it in a different direction than the thread or introduce a more personal slant on the issue.

[Lizard King]

In terms of using the blog as a scrapbook, why not subscribe to the thread and stick it in a subscription folder? If you want to keep track of specific threads, that is what that system is for!

.. but if that is what you want to do, then more power to you. We can add a "Blog this Post" icon in 1.2 that will setup a quote and a link to the post in a new blog entry waiting to submit for you. That is a trivial thing to do from a coding perspective and I can see some usefulness if you wish to comment on the post but take it in a different direction than the thread or introduce a more personal slant on the issue.
Freddie if you plan to integrate that is it possible you to allow admins to turn that on/off . As i said i see no use in a system like that so i don't want to use any resource for that.

[Tigratrus]

Subscribing to a thread doesn't actually accomplish the same thing.

An example for a member: Take a thread that is 30 pages long and growing. A member reads a particular post that describes a solution to a problem that they can see will apply to them when they get to that stage in their project. By clicking a single button they can take a snaphot and save that for use later WITH a link to the context it came from.

An example for an Admin: We use it to grab posts that are great endorsements of our site. By selecting a catagory of "Member Testimonials" we quickly and easily build a collection of member testimonials that are linked back to the thread in which they occured to show not only a quote, but the context in which they were used.

There are many ways that a Blogging system *can* be used in addition to simply creating a Blog. I understand the objection to duplicate content, but to me the functionality and the improvement in the experience for the member competely trumps the SEO ramifications. What makes a vBulletin Blogging system uniquely different from, and potentially more attractive than, a system like Blogger or Wordpress (which have and probably always will have a hefty edge in BLOG functionality) is the opportunities that it presents to interact with the FORUM. If you insist on keeping it simply a Blogging system and ignoring the potential synergy of interaction with the Forum, then what's the point?

I'd like to emphasize that different people have different priorities. Different sites have different focuses and different needs. I do somewhat resent the out of hand dismissal of something as "useless" simply because it's a feature that is designed for, and quite useful in, a forum model different from your own. IMO diversity/flexibility is a critical element in the design of a sucessful blogging system for vBulletin.

::tosses in 2 copper coins::

James and Susan

[Tigratrus]

Freddie if you plan to integrate that is it possible you to allow admins to turn that on/off . As i said i see no use in a system like that so i don't want to use any resource for that.

If you'd read though the thread on Forum/Blog integration (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=241504) I think you'll see that I specifically stated that these should be OPTIONAL features. They should be easily turned off for those admins that don't like them or intend to use them, much like a great deal of vBulletin itself eh? There's a reason there are so many optional features in vBulletin, and I'm guessing it's because there are many different types of forums and "One Size Fits ALL" isn't a winning design strategy.

By including *optional* features you increase your ability to appeal to a wider market, as I'm sure you understand.

Basically: If you don't like it, don't use it. But please don't keep others from getting the features *YOU* don't need because THEY might just possibly have different needs.

[Freddie Bingham]

An example for an Admin: We use it to grab posts that are great endorsements of our site. By selecting a catagory of "Member Testimonials" we quickly and easily build a collection of member testimonials that are linked back to the thread in which they occured to show not only a quote, but the context in which they were used.Yes, that does sound beneficial when put in that context.


I'd like to emphasize that different people have different priorities. Different sites have different focuses and different needs. I do somewhat resent the out of hand dismissal of something as "useless" simply because it's a feature that is designed for, and quite useful in, a forum model different from your own. IMO diversity/flexibility is a critical element in the design of a sucessful blogging system for vBulletin. I wasn't being dismissive of your suggestions, I just thought that you were going at using this as a bookmark for your own needs. I did put it on the todo list and you'll see the functionality in the next major release.

[Tigratrus]

Thanks Freddie...

I was more responding to Lizard King and the others that are looking at it from a purely SEO position. As has been said on the other thread, the Blogs are a new thing, I think it's a mistake to get locked into the "A Blog is a Blog, A Forum is a Forum and never the twain shall meet" mindset that many people seem to exihibit. The Blogs can be MORE than a blog, and the synergy that can be created between Forums and Blogs is really what I (and others) see as the selling point to a Blog system developed by Jelsoft, I mean, who's in a better position make them work together?

I'm sure there are other ways that the two can interact, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in exploring that, which I frankly find quite baffling.

In any case, I truly appreciate your willingness to listen to suggestions and have the highest hopes for the next release! Jelsoft's dev and support teams are second to none in our experience. Well, Morgan (photoplog) is pretty dang good too, but you guys have him outnumbered;).

James and Susan

[Lizard King]

I am not only looking at only from a SEO perspective. Your request depends on your site and my depend on my sites. I have no intension of using that functionality in any vb blog i have. Because i find your request useless. I understand you need a function like that on your site and i respect that. What my request is i don't want to spend any single resource from my server for a function like this because as i said it is useless for me. Forum posts shall be discussed at forum , Blog post shall be discussed at blogs. Thats why if there will be a function like this included in future releases it shall be controlled by admins. However SEO perspective is also important. If your users blog lots of your threads then search engines can drop your rankings so bad .

[Grover]

What makes a vBulletin Blogging system uniquely different from, and potentially more attractive than, a system like Blogger or Wordpress (which have and probably always will have a hefty edge in BLOG functionality) is the opportunities that it presents to interact with the FORUM. If you insist on keeping it simply a Blogging system and ignoring the potential synergy of interaction with the Forum, then what's the point?

I hear myself talk ;) :


Exactly my thoughts. I often stated in many suggestions-threads that I miss real integration of functionality in vBulletin in general. It's not only the Blog, it's the Calendar (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1398582&postcount=20) as well for example and many other things. Gladly, we have seen some integrated functionality added to vB recently, like the Reported Posts that go to a forum in your Staf Zone (instead of only going to your external email).

In what way does vBulletin stand apart from all other Blog services (Wordpress, Blogger and all the rest of it) that have been available for a very long time now? Exactly, the fact that it is a vBulletin product that integrates with the forum. Well... it has the potential to integrate anyway.

But in the current state... why would someone dish their Wordpress blog and use the vBulletin Blog one? Not because of the features of vBulletin Blog, because Wordpress has more. Not because of the way you can customize the layout of your Blog, because it's not possible with vBlog at the moment. But all those things will be possible in a future vBulletin Blog version. When we have arrived at that point, the KEY thing that will set vBlog apart from all the external Blog services is tight integration with the forum.

The only integration we see at this point in vBulletin is links. We see a link in the navbar, we see a link in the postbit and we see a link in the user's profile. Real integration is so much more in my view, like you have explained very clearly in your suggestions.


I'm sure there are other ways that the two can interact, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in exploring that, which I frankly find quite baffling.

I am very interested in exploring/brainstorming about a more tight integration between the Blog and Forum. For starters, I suggested (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1385558&postcount=18) a blog-link inside the Forum Memberlist. There isn't any Blogfield/indication inside the Member List Field Options in the ACP at the moment.

Although such a field would be usefull, it's still 'just' a link. To be quite honest, I can't think of any ways at the moment (apart from your suggestions) that would integrate the Blogs more tightly with the forum. Let me think about it further : hopefully more people realize the benefits of the KEY benefit of vBlog above Wordpress and all the others : integration.

[Jah-Hools]

Subscribing to a thread doesn't actually accomplish the same thing.

An example for a member: Take a thread that is 30 pages long and growing. A member reads a particular post that describes a solution to a problem that they can see will apply to them when they get to that stage in their project. By clicking a single button they can take a snaphot and save that for use later WITH a link to the context it came from.


You could call this function "Scrapbook" and it could be accessible by every one (or not)

It would be absolutely FANTASTIC for the technical tips / discussion based forum I run..

The members would love it!

:)

[Jamie Edwards]

What if someone merely wants to do their own commentary on a post or something in 'their space'?

[Tigratrus]

The nice thing is that it works equally well for both cases. The point is that there are as many different ways of using vBulletin as there are different communities, the option to do things like this should be built in so that it can be turned on for the communities that would benefit from it, and left off for the communities that won't.

Personally we find it a very handy tool for any number of things. I use mine for several things; grabbing testimonials (as mentioned above), I also have a different category that I use for dropping in posts that give me a good idea for an article that way my co-admin and I can comment on what slant to take etc, I have a different category that I use for posts that give me ideas for site improvements etc etc...

The thing is that it's:

1. Fast. I don't have to worry about copy/pasting something into something else and then making sure the right people get a copy of it.
2. I automatically get a link back to the context so I don't have to hunt and peck later to try and find what it was that triggered my thought process.
3. Immediately shareable, I can define access for a specific membergroup so that I can do something like flag particular posts that I want mods to take a look at, and it shows up in a list for them, then they can just post a comment to give me updates etc.

The uses of such a system is limited mostly by the creativity of the admin and staff, and it's a shame to see some folks slam the door on such functionality just because *they* don't see a use for it.

I'm sure there are folks that don't see a use for any number of optional features in vBulletin itself, but I'm sure glad they are there anyway!

James and Susan

[Reeve of Shinra]

Ideally, there would be an official vbulletin Content Management System which would allow for the displaying of vbulletin powered content at different points on the site.

[Toucan42]

I am 110% in favor of a "Blog This" functionality

[sharrison]

I was never notifed of response to my post figured nobody else was interested, glad to see it's getting some air. As to whether some people think it's pointless or not is pretty irrelevant no? What I want and what somebody else wants are two entirely different things, as long as the option can be turned on/off then the point is moot. Who cares whether xyz thinks it's useless, I don't and would like the option to have it implemented. Sometimes something from a forum post is also something my members would like in their blog. Simple as that. vblogetin has this feature and it's been instantly used by members.

[Freddie Bingham]

I've just noticed that this feature is missing from 2.0.0.

Now, believe me I did implement this feature. The code to handle it is still in there, just not being used. The icon to activate this is missing from postbit. Somewhere along the way, the template change got lost. Look for this to appear in 2.0.1.

You can look for $postinfo in the blog_post.php to see that I am speaking the truth. Send a $postid into blog_post.php and it is supposed to load up the post in a quote. Now I just have to recreate the template that handles the quoted post. You can also see that blogpost.gif is in the images directory :/

Occasionally, phrase/template changes get lost in the constant shuffle of posting changes back to the shared resource.

[Shelby]

I looked over it, and yeah it's in there. It's a shame you're being pulled in so many directions, features or bugs like this might have been caught sooner. Thanks for adding this btw.

[Freddie Bingham]

I only noticed this because someone reported a bug caused by another product that was related to this.

[Wayne Luke]

Would this count as duplicate content? and be bad for seo?
Duplicate content within your site will hurt your SEO...

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/06/duplicate-content-due-to-scrapers.html

[Tigratrus]

@ Freddie: Dang... And here I thought you'd seen my mention that it was missing here:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1667996&postcount=17 ;).

Thanks for getting that part in Freddie, even if part of it got lost in the shuffle! And I'm sure a lot of other folks would agree with us in saying we *really* appreciate the extra effort you've been putting into the Blog the last few days :).

@Wayne:

I'd read that article more closely, duplicate content like that won't really *hurt* your SEO so much as possibly cause Google to bring up the wrong page (which it *never* did for us, if you searched for it you always got the original source, and this function should include a link to the original content), that article's not talking about a penalty for having content duplicated elsewhere on your site. Besides, if you use it to collect testimonials and or as a "scrapbook" kind of thing it doesn't have to even be visible to guests, you just set it to be a private entry. Which avoids the issue altogether. For reference, a better article about duplicate content can be found here: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66359, this sort of duplication is hardly malicious SE manipulation and is quite unlikely to affect your search results, esp if the quote links back to the original content.

In any case it's a VERY helpful feature, as I think many people have mentioned.

James and Susan