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May 24, 2005
Is Any One Else Getting Bored? - Or: What Opera Bogglers (Perhaps) Should Avoid Writing About So Much - Any More
I really don't mean this to be mean (except in my own sinister little roundabout way), but I'm a bit bored with what (and how) people write about Opera. I mean no particular offense to anybody, but there really should only be so many times people can write
1) Why I use/like Opera
2) Why you should switch to Opera
3) Why Opera is better than IE, FireVole
4) I heart Opera
5) This good review of Opera is great
6) This crap review of Opera didn't know what it was talking about
7) Did you know about this feature in Opera?
8) This guy slagged off Opera, let's go flame him
9) Click on my affiliate links so I can get a free license
10) I like writing 3 line posts so I can get more clicks and win a phone
11) Opera 8 is out!! (like, a month ago dude)
12) IE has tabbed browsing, FireBadger has this feature, Netscape is out, they all stole Opera's features, ha-ha their security sucks, (I think I'm trying to say that we have news feeds for a reason)
I'm not saying people shouldn't write about these things, and I can't as of right now quite say what else Opera Bogglers should write about, but surely people can be more interesting that this yes/no? And I suppose what I mean to say also is that a little nuance wouldn't kill anyone - sure we all use Opera, but booster hats are a "sometimes" cookie. I think in general it's also a matter of doing better rather than more.
I think I really appreciate the posts about the more technical aspects of Opera, I know the new userjs.org is something I was glad to hear about, though I can't honestly say that that many things about it set my heart aflutter quite yet. But yes, knowledgable technical posts are always raising a kind of bar.
Also I suppose, just as there are news feeds, where news belongs, there is also the forums, where discussions occur. So what is Opera Boggling about? I think I know - perhaps, maybe - but I think it's a question each Boggler needs to ask himself each time he puts the word Opera in one of his posts.
What is nicely gratifying is that I don't think I've yet encountered a boggling community that has quite as many languages saying "I heart Opera" - it's especially nice that it's not just the english bogs that are getting hits. But yes, a "why I use Opera" post in japanese/polish/mandarin is still just that.
But I think volume is also doing a good thing, in that there's only so long that things stay on the latest page, which tends to help drown out the attention seekers, and perhaps encourages more frequent calls for an RSS feed. Also it seems a good time to introduce things like "most visited post in the last 24/48 hours", so that the better posts are more readily evident. Oh, and if you'll notice, even people who post super frequently aren't necessarily climbing the charts - after a while, people figure out that you post crap.
Posted by subtitles at May 24, 2005 9:38 AM | Opera Boggling