The Pheromone Lab is a space for experimentation in the company. But it is also a space for exploration into itself. I was discussing with Olivier on how we could improve the engagement of people participating to this space.
So far, from Pheromone André Bélanger, Arnaud Blaszkowsky, Daniel Desrosiers, Karl Dubost, Jean-François Dumas, Rémy Giard, Benoit Goyette, Chrystian Guy, Céline Seeman, Sabine Séguin, Olivier Théreaux have published an article on the lab. But this conversation would not exist without the comments, people interacting with the content and having their own ideas about what is said here.
I have always encouraged a system where there is no distinction between comments and blog posts. In April 2006, I was proposing a system (French) that would get rid of comments altogether. Basically, everyone should have a space for publishing content and this is an aggregating system (ala Usenet) which would recreate the thread of the discussions across blogs. Google tried a bit with Google Buzz and Google Wave (Google killed Wave last week.). These systems even if they claim to be decentralized tried to recreate a new system more than building on top of existing systems. To gain traction, we have to put the decentralization of the discussions into WordPress, MovableType, Adium, MSN, Yahoo! Messenger, Flickr of this world to develop specific modules that will help leverage the existing infrastructure.
Initiatives behing Salmon protocol are very encouraging. StatusNet has implemented it. We need to see it implemented in more places.
Distributed implementations are key to the decentralization.
In the mean time, small steps strategy, we decided to put the comments on the home page at the same level than blog posts. Every comment is part of the discussion. If people take times to write something compelling on this blog, then should be given the same space than people working here.
5 opinions
I wasn’t sure at first how the mix of comments and entries would feel on the home page, but after using it for a few days I have to say it works for me beyond my original expectations. It makes me come back for more.
Granted, the design of the lab is still very “alpha” and we should keep working on it, but this social experiment is a nice success so far. I would be curious to know what is a “good” ratio of publishing rate of comments and entries to be engaging and pleasant to read.
C’est une très bonne initiative karl. Il y a effectivement beaucoup de pertinence dans certains commentaires, mais aussi publier les commentaires « à la une » du blog implique plus les personnes. Evidement cela témoigne aussi d’un respect vis à vis de ceux qui prennent de leur temps pour laisser quelques commentaires. Cependant j’aurais deux remarques à faire concernant l’interface. Les posts et les commentaires ont le même aspect, ce qui peut prêter parfois à confusion et rends la lecture quelque peut difficile. A mon avis, il serait pas mal de distinguer les posts des commentaires en ajoutant par exemple une couleur de fond très discrète (un gris très clair par exemple). La deuxième remarque concerne les commentaires, car je trouve qu’il faut fournir un effort pour savoir à quoi est relier le commentaire. Il serait peut être pas mal de mettre un titre directement en début de série des commentaires qui annonce le sujet comme par exemple : « Ce qu’ils disent de l’article ». Voilà j’aurais bien fait une petite maquette … mais je manque un peut de temps …
Bonne continuation
Oui c’est une discussion que nous avons autour des commentaires en ce moment. Je pense que Caleb va poster des croquis bientôt sur le lab et également mettre en avant certaines de nos discussions que nous avons dessinées au tableau.
Ça promet de belles choses :) (surtout le pirate)
[...] collaboration and innovation. Some of the interactions idea we are putting in place, such as giving comments first-class citizen status have had a fantastic impact already. The space is alive! Other ideas are not as mature, and [...]