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Give and get support around quitting

Jennifer-Quit
Member

Beware

Some very old blogs are waking up and reappearing.  Be sure to look at the date created to decide if you want to comment or not.

26 Replies
Jennifer-Quit
Member

There is a lot to learn by reading the old blogs.  I am so happy that they were able to be moved over to the new platform.  And I am so happy that you are with us Michelle Diane!

YoungAtHeart
Member

If you are interested, you can also click on an avatar to get to anyone's homepage, then click on "Content" and you can get to all of the blogs they have written.

So glad you are back at it!

Nancy

Mandolinrain
Member

Oh gosh, I saw n old blog just the other day. It was in the discussions I think, and since it was near the top I assumed it was new and didn't pay any attention to the date. It was not until AFTER I replied to it that I re-read it and then noticed it was not a recent post at all. It's funny you bring this up because I was actually thinking about blogging about this myself. Thank you for doing this because I am really watching the dates now.

CommunityAdmin
Community Manager
Community Manager

Feeling tightness in my chest after quitting, how long will it last?   (not sure on exact date, probably 2008/2009)

When does the cravings go away June 2017

/blogs/wendysuelopez-blog/2012/07/27/high-blood-pressure-after-quitting July 2012

Sinus troubles after quitting? (not sure on exact date, probably 2008/2009)

/blogs/Carenda-blog/2009/07/24/nicotine-patchwill-you-go-through-withdrawal-after-the-final-step-dow... July 2009

https://excommunity.becomeanex.org/community/expert-advice/blog/2017/08/02/chantix-vs-wellbutrin  Aug 2017

Here are some of the most popularly viewed posts on the site. Posts that bring people to the community from other sites and search engines.  Some of them are old others are more recent.  Never underestimate the power of older content. Even commenting on old content could get a former quitter re-engaged and quitting again. 

Mark
EX Community Manager

EX Community Admin Team
Sootie
Member

Mark‌  Agree------BUT, it can also be confusing as Jennifer-Quit‌ has pointed out...........

Sometimes what happens is I get notified that someone "liked" my comment on a particular blog and I have not even commented on anything and don't recognize the blog. When I click in......takes me awhile to realize what is happening. Just confusing but no big deal. Sometimes.....it's really cool to just see a comment I made 5 or 6 years ago!

CommunityAdmin
Community Manager
Community Manager

Agree that it can be confusing. Just trying to help bring attention to the positive aspects too that may not be apparent. 

Mark

EX Community Admin Team
Giulia
Member

I've been notified  Mark because I follow you, of comments you've recently made on blogs of years gone by.  (quite a few of late, I suppose trying to bring things back to life)  And when I go to them I see that they're several years old because I KNOW to look at the date it was created and the last comment before yours.  (People who DON'T know to look, however, think it's current.)  Generally, if it was YEARS ago, I don't respond.  I don't underestimate the content of older blogs.  That, thank goodness, is why we have bookmarks and our own material that has been brought over from the last platform.  But I DO think that it's very confusing when people start commenting on "blogs gone by" where the author is no longer an active participant.  If this is all about search engines, I certainly "get it."  But I would much rather have those searches lead to the BEST of EX, or to current members' content.  We've been saying the same thing for years.  And there are no new topics of which I'm aware.  Why not point people to the most active and current blogs on the topic where active members are more likely to respond?  (Simply because they're not the most popular?  Perhaps if more people were pointed to them, they WOULD become the most popular, which is what I suppose you're trying to do by commenting on old blogs and bringing them up to the surface.)  WE can certainly direct them (and DO) to the older blogs of significance.  Perhaps the active members here should be the ones influencing the direction of searches?  I know, it's all about  everything else but that.  I know one of the reasons Jive was chosen was because it has miles of analytic gathering ability.  But why not point people to what's ACTIVE on the site?  I'd better just shut up now.  

I do have a question, though.  "We've temporarily moved them over to the community because this is considered popular content.  At a later date we'll move the content in it's original form.  For the time being we've just consolidated the whole discussion into this document so that it can still be accessed"     What  does that mean?  When I go to the first reference link you provided (Feeling tightness in my chest after quitting, how long will it last? ) and go to her page and click on her content, nothing shows up.  If she was a member of the community, and posted a bog  and there were attendant comments - why isn't it already a part of the community just as all the rest of our blogs have become after the site transmogrified?  Why did you have to move it  specially into the community because it's considered popular content?   I thought all our blogs and content was automatically moved during the transition?  Never mind.  I don't really need an answer to that.  

But every time a piece of what "was" in this community that made is special, the "natural" rhythm of the community - changes because of search engines and technological statistical monitoring needs, (for the purpose of generating income from corporations who want to cut down their employee medical costs) - the less it remains a unique entity.  And as I and others have stated (in one way or another)  since the platform changed - that bit by bit erosion will, in my opinion only, eventually lead you to a greater constituency, shall I put it, but one of lesser depth and value.  I know you want to have it both ways - but I'm just not sure that's going to end up being possible in the long run.  Hope I'm wrong.

CommunityAdmin
Community Manager
Community Manager

Giulia wrote:

I've been notified  Mark because I follow you, of comments you've recently made on blogs of years gone by.  (quite a few of late, I suppose trying to bring things back to life)

A variety of reasons, actually. In some cases new members are looking for information relevant to them. In lower traffic areas such as "chewing tobacco" content may be hidden due to the recency of activity. Helping that content resurface so that information is more accessible is important. We want members to come to EX and start their quit journey. The end goal to quit tobacco and nicotine in whatever form they're absorbing it.

Giulia wrote:

 And when I go to them I see that they're several years old because I KNOW to look at the date it was created and the last comment before yours.  (People who DON'T know to look, however, think it's current.)  Generally, if it was YEARS ago, I don't respond. 

Certainly there is no expectation that you do.

Giulia wrote:

That, thank goodness, is why we have bookmarks and our own material that has been brought over from the last platform.  But I DO think that it's very confusing when people start commenting on "blogs gone by" where the author is no longer an active participant.

The author is not necessarily the only audience. There are lurkers and often other participants who have participated in discussions.  Sadly there are also posts from the past that were never responded to because they were hidden in the Elgg groups. Fortunately visibility to group content has improved and those members receive a notification when their post is responded to no matter how long ago.

Giulia wrote:

If this is all about search engines, I certainly "get it."  But I would much rather have those searches lead to the BEST of EX, or to current members' content. 

Certainly to some degree it is about search engine traffic. We certainly want new members (current smokers) to join and quit.  Just by participation and posts current members content shows up in search engine results.  Some of the Best of EX content is prioritized in search results because of activity on those posts but also from cross-linking when you mention those Best of EX‌ posts in your replies to new members. That being said, as I am made aware of new sub-sets of people looking for quitting support I try to help surface things that are relevant to them so that when they're looking for a site to help them quit, they find EX.

Giulia wrote:

We've been saying the same thing for years.  And there are no new topics of which I'm aware.  Why not point people to the most active and current blogs on the topic where active members are more likely to respond?  (Simply because they're not the most popular? 

We do. This is why we have the most recent content cycling through on the home page and the Best of EX‌ there in its own widget. Nothing to do with popularity at all.

Giulia wrote:

Perhaps if more people were pointed to them, they WOULD become the most popular, which is what I suppose you're trying to do by commenting on old blogs and bringing them up to the surface.) 

The ones I mentioned have organically become the most popular.  Apparently those topics are what people are searching on search engines. A couple of them for a long long time. I had no influence over those topics surfacing.  They also likely lead to people joining the site. Which is a good thing. Other posts are popular other than those top 6. And they become that way through cross-posting when you mention them in posts and also when they are active and continually show up on the home page(another reason Discussions are the way to go).

Giulia wrote:

WE can certainly direct them (and DO) to the older blogs of significance.  Perhaps the active members here should be the ones influencing the direction of searches? 

Yes, you do and please keep it up. You all doing so has the greatest impact. But there are some things that can't be seen member and thus needs help from the community manager.  Say for example people searched "tabacco" frequently and got 0 search results. I could then help ensure that when people searched "tabacco", that results for "tobacco" came up.

Giulia wrote:

I know, it's all about  everything else but that.  

Quite the contrary, see above.

Giulia wrote:
I know one of the reasons Jive was chosen was because it has miles of analytic gathering ability.  But why not point people to what's ACTIVE on the site?  I'd better just shut up now.  

Most of the bigger community platforms have rich analytics gathering. It help assist community managers and the rest of the team make evidenced based decisions and also identify what works and what doesn't. It also assists when something is wrong, solve the issue.

Sadly, in the past, there was areas of the community where questions were hidden and never got answered. I believe everyone deserves a response especially if they're coming asking for help.  Responses to old posts is a small drop in the bucket compared to new posts that are created.  Nearly all of the new content created receives a response and I believe the average number of responses currently is around 12 per post. That's fantastic! Though there is drastic improvements with Jive, there is still rare occasions where things go unanswered for an extended period of time and I may intervene and may mention some of the experienced members who I know to have prior posts on the topic.  If it's an old old post I generally don't @mention anyone other than the author of the post and sometimes some of the other members who have participated.

Surprisingly we have a handful of members who come back to EX. Some of which never got on the community or were active years ago (some of which were last active 7-9 year ago). It's wonderful to see these members come back and restart their quit journey. In some cases I can see what likely triggered their return (a comment or @mention on something they participated in) and other cases I have no idea what prompted them to come back. Either way, it's AWESOME!

Giulia wrote:

I do have a question, though.  "We've temporarily moved them over to the community because this is considered popular content.  At a later date we'll move the content in it's original form.  For the time being we've just consolidated the whole discussion into this document so that it can still be accessed"     What  does that mean?  When I go to the first reference link you provided (Feeling tightness in my chest after quitting, how long will it last? ) and go to her page and click on her content, nothing shows up.  If she was a member of the community, and posted a blog  and there were attendant comments - why isn't it already a part of the community just as all the rest of our blogs have become after the site transmogrified?  Why did you have to move it  specially into the community because it's considered popular content?   I thought all our blogs and content was automatically moved during the transition?  Never mind.  I don't really need an answer to that.  

The Message Board posts, Private Messages and Forum posts were not brought over in January 2017.  The private messages and message board posts couldn't be brought over because we wouldn't have been able to maintain their original date. Certainly we didn't want tons of messages showing up the day they were imported. So we've delayed until they can fix the issue so that they can be imported based on their original date of creation.  The Forum Posts were all created before 2013. Because we wanted to get the site moved over to Jive we decided we would wait to import the forum posts when we would import the private messages and message board posts. There were a couple that were drawing a lot of traffic from Google and Bing and we wanted to ensure that that traffic continued. As such I copied those posts and put them up on the site as documents so that the links to that content wouldn't break resulting in fewer people finding us. The intent was to only have those two posts up temporarily and then be replaced with the actual content once the forum posts were migrated. That import has taken a little longer than expected. As to why the author's content page is blank, it could be that all their posts were done in the forums. Since no forums were migrated their content tab would be blank until that content is imported. As you mention everything else was migrated into Jive aside from Forum Posts, Private Messages and Message board posts. Hopefully that makes sense.

Giulia wrote:

But every time a piece of what "was" in this community that made is special, the "natural" rhythm of the community - changes because of search engines and technological statistical monitoring needs, (for the purpose of generating income from corporations who want to cut down their employee medical costs) - the less it remains a unique entity.  And as I and others have stated (in one way or another)  since the platform changed - that bit by bit erosion will, in my opinion only, eventually lead you to a greater constituency, shall I put it, but one of lesser depth and value.  I know you want to have it both ways - but I'm just not sure that's going to end up being possible in the long run.  Hope I'm wrong.

I'm not quite understanding fully what you've written above. However, I'm going to attempt to answer and hopefully answer what you were attempting to convey, in the process. The intent of the community is still to help people quit and remain quit. We haven't strayed from that. We see the richness in how that has developed, largely organically, in the last decade. We value it and work to maintain it. All of our members use the site at no cost to them. The number of people who are sponsored by their employer or health plan provider is small in comparison. However, with any site, there is some sponsorship with outside influence in order to keep the lights on but I'm proud to say that we're still operating largely to the original intent of the site...To help people quit and stay quit. The passion toward this goal, behind the scenes(myself included), is inspiring. 

Mark
EX Community Manager

EX Community Admin Team
CommunityAdmin
Community Manager
Community Manager

elvan
Member

I have bookmarked some of these and referred people to them so they are not going there directly in that case...not sure about some of them but the topics are really interesting.  I think the concern is that if someone does not see the date of the original post and they write a long and heartfelt response to someone no one knows...that they might be waiting for a response that never comes.  We all want to help people and we also all know that there are a lot of older blogs that offered great comfort to US...well at least to ME.  I think sharing them by putting a bookmark in a person's blog is a good idea.  It seems as though I remember a blog about chewing or maybe I remember some really graphic and disturbing images that were posted by ? Thomas3.20.2010‌ showing results from chewing.  There is so much content on the site that I don't think anyone can keep up with all of it.  We may very well be plagiarizing something we read early in our quits, I know that I have quoted unknown sources.

Ellen