Highlighted Posts at webmasterworld.com

Who puts 'em there?

[vibgyor79]

At Webmasterworld.com homepage, we have a number of highlighted posts updated daily. Who puts them there? The moderators? What is the criterion for selection?

Or is it more high tech? Something on the lines of the Google News bot? (that scours the web for the most important news)

[Slade]

I don't know how a "bot" would identify a thread as important...

I expect it's done by Brett himself or one or more trusted board admins/mods.

[vibgyor79]

If Google can identify a news item as an important one, Brett can too :)

[pageoneresults]

Quoted from a post that Brett made in 2001...

"When I ask people why they lurk or don't participate more, the most often repeated feedback is that WebmasterWorld is so active they miss the important posts. So, in style, that is what the new homepage is there to accomplish - getting people involved and helping them to find the current quality content."

Those highlighted posts are selected by the powers at large. They are there as an intro into the WebmasterWorld Forums. I look at it as teaser copy. Bring the creme to the top so to say.

Its also used for many other things. News aggregators, etc. Its a great way to spotlight topics of interest that are truly newsworthy!

[rcjordan]

It's a custom "blog" of sorts. Moderators regularly suggest threads that they think are ahead of their time, thought-provoking, or will develop into some handy tidbit for the knowledgebase. Most of the regulars around here eventually migrate to the active list, but the front page gets a lot of pageviews, that's for sure. As a moderator, you can usually tell when one of the threads gets put on the front page just by the bump in activity.

[vibgyor79]

I have noticed FOO posts on the homepage too :)

I have joined many forums but I hardly visit any of them. That's because I don't get any notifications when somebody makes a post. You miss a number of important posts out there.

That's not a problem here thanks to the new post email notification.

One more question: The FROM address on those notifications display [e-mail]. Why is that? Why not [e-mail]?

[Brett_Tabke]

Ya, the homepage thing is all hand edited. There is an auto option for threads that meet a certain criteria, but I don't have it enabled.