Something's rotten on the vine

Here's my take: It's very easy to seed the vine - that button for the toolbar makes it almost a joke not to (if you're able) to drop any article and a short blurb onto the vine and let it run it's course.

If this was digg or even something like del.ic.us, that's more par for the course - mostly pointers to sites and random discussion (if any). On the other hand, if it was for a site like slashdot, one would make sure to only submit things that are going to generate a huge amount of discussion and/or arguments but that interest the top-level article moderators in the first place (that's the way it seems nowadays - it used to be a lot better).

Newsvine has the opportunity to allow anyone to seed articles, but I think from what's I've seen so far in the private beta, most people are playing this smart - they're seeding articles in hopes to create a meaningful discussion. As least that is how I would seed - I've yet to submit anything but I've seen a few pieces that initially come off interesting, but realize that if any discussion were to be had, it could definitely go down the road of posters attacking other posters (e.g. a typical slashdot discussion) and the like, even with this being a private beta. Save for maybe 5% of the seeded stuff, I think most of the posts that I've seen on the vine are worthwhile and do make for good points of discussion, but I myself just haven't found things to seed that don't already seem to be covered or that would not be a good discussion-worthy article.

I think that people are all watching to try to determine what to seed as to get discuss. "Look, Mac stories get front page all the time? Then I'll seed more!". That happens, and I think that's just growing pains more than a problem. People do need to seed a more diverse array of articles, and there's still a persistent problem that most seeds seem to be tech-based. There's 10-some categories on that top line up there, and I think people presently are really only seeding into two or three of them (US, World, and Tech), which means a story or related set of stories can be repeated many times in the seeds and result in the problem that the original post noted. By getting a more diverse list of seeds so no one single field dominates will definitely help to prevent copycat-ism and make Newsvine even that much better.

Of course, the only problem right now with topics that fall outside those 3 categories is that with the present audience of Newsvine (mostly techs) they're not going to generate a lot of discussion or upvotes, and thus may discourage seeders to avoid these in the future. Hopefully this will go away when Newsvine goes more public, but presently still an issue.

The reason I hold Newsvine in higher regard than Digg is the "real news" that is automatically added and voted on. If this site was 100% submissions, I wouldn't be here. I'd be reading Google News.

Fortunately, there are occasional interesting community submissions here.

So ... here's the beauty of Newsvine and any other type of web site ... if you don't like the content then don't click on the link. Further, if you're not interested in Apple ... don't click ... find something else to review. If you don't like Leo/Dvorak and the group ... don't click ...

Wait ... here's the bottom line ... you're free to CHOOSE!!!!!

I think this site was made for people who are bored out of their gourd. Don't take yourselves too seriously.

There's a huge difference between the herd-mentality that Newsvine promotes and the editorial policy of a real news service.

Consider how easy it would be for Apple to get employees to vote up their corporate news, or a political party to do the same. Then add to that the fact that popularism itself leads to dumbing down of culture to the lowest common denominator, and that sensationalist, inflamatory and divisive stories will always seem more 'newsworthy' than anything else, and the rotten-ness seems to go right to the core...

I think that the reason that Newsvine has more Technical articles may be because of its technical roots.

That said, I think that the articles, and especially, the comments are excellent.

I think that adding the votes will ensure that the interesting articles are read.

To be honest, although I originally signed up for Newsvine because of it is interactive, I have yet to seed anything or contribute my own articles. I realize this is the purpose of this place and maybe I am not the Newsvine target audience, rather I come here- click on what is interesting to me, leave a comment here and there, and go. My theory on your gripes is that I am not the only one who dies this in the relatively small and new "beta" community. The proactive users must have similar interests or are all from a similar camp. Things like all the Apple news gets front page coverage but it is voted in that way. For example, 200 people are logged in, and only 20 Apple fans rated articles that day when the other 180 are like me and simply click around- what do you think it going to make it onto the front page?

I say, stop crying, get participating, and if you don't like the ideas, news, or community here... go to where you do. I see no difference on how one bloggers opinion of a new iPod Nano is any less or more important on one bloggers opinion on Newsvine.

Okay I got a complaint now... I wish I could edit my comments to rid them of my terrible grammar.

Speed kills.