Remove more self-publishing platforms from Awario News/Blog reach

[sdsantos]

What is the problem you are seeing? Please describe. Other self-publishing platforms are being categorised as News/Blogs on Awario, and have incorrect reach for individual posts. So far I've identified:

• dev.to
• Indie Hackers community forum: https://www.indiehackers.com
• ekşi sözlük: https://eksisozluk.com

(In the past we already removed medium and meetup)

How is this problem misaligned with goals of app mining? The incorrect Awario reach of self-published posts invalidates the news/blogs reach metric, that should translate the effort to reach out to more traditional media outlets.

What is the explicit recommendation you’re looking to propose? Automatically remove self-publishing platforms with incorrect reach from the Awario score. Ideally, without the need to create a new App Mining issue every time.

What is the dry run period (if any) Could be applied already to the current audit period.

Describe your long term considerations in proposing this change. Please include the ways you can predict this recommendation could go wrong and possible ways mitigate. It would keep the news/blogs awario reach focused on what it should measure.

[cuevasm]

Beat me to it, I generally support this, though people aren't getting an insane advantage from it and it's generally good folks are posting in these places. Unfortunately, I do think if we leave it available, someone will abuse it and force us to remove (sadly).

I was thinking about something where we could limit to one per month in places like this. So people are still incentivized to publish in these valuable places, but it can't be spammed for ridiculous Reach scores.

Update: I don't support removing for this period (just in general) or for some automatic thing, that feels like it starts to disregard community discourse and leaves our team in a decision making position that we don't want to be in. I prefer to continue taking these on a case by case basis and making sure everyone is alerted ahead of time.

[sdsantos]

@cuevasm these platforms are definitely nice for promoting apps. But a 50K reach is enough to skew all other news/blogs mentions. If anyone could do that once per month, it would turn the reach into another binary score.

[cuevasm]

I'm not seeing how that would make it binary. Everyone would have the opportunity to self-publish on a set of sites such as these and then the Reach they earn would be limited to one of them in a period. Their Reach scores would all be different and many wouldn't take advantage of it. If anything it gives more dedicated teams more of means to differentiate themselves.

I would agree about outright removing this site: https://eksisozluk.com/ as it seems to be 99% gibberish. I've reached to Awario as to why that even made the cut as a News/Blog in the first place.

[sdsantos]

Taking out the big whales like medium and eksisozluk out, it would level things a bit more. But the News/Blogs reach score would become a race to find the best self-publishing platforms with an incorrect reach score on Awario. That would become more fruitful than actually reaching out to news and blogs pitching products.

[friedger]

Just for clarification, platforms/sites are removed when Awario can't determine a realistic reach. "Publishing yourself" is not a criteria that would disqualify an article.

[cuevasm]

I think we're generally trying to remove sites that a) have unrealistic Reach numbers like Medium and/or b) can be abused because they are open to user-generated content or c) combinations of the two.

I generally think publishing yourself should disqualify something, though it currently does not under the rules. The idea is 'earned media' not 'owned content' and ultimately, when people find self-publishing channels that they can freely post on and garner News/Blog mentions, they end up getting abused.

[talhasch]

I want to clarifying that eksisozluk thing.

That entry belongs to a friend i recently met on a cryptocurrency event and introduced blockstack and mentioned my apps on it. A couple days later i noticed she posted lander on eksisozluk. Without my information. (she posted an entry about runkod also but awario deleted that somehow) Hereby that post is 100% organic.

Additionally, eksisozluk is not good place for self-publishing. You can't just signup and post content right away. They have a very long account verifying mechanism.

[cuevasm]

There haven't been any objections and the next period is coming up, based on this ticket, previous conversation, and the call before last, it sounds like most people are supportive of removing these self-publishing platforms.

Will proceed with the 3 found in this ticket:

• dev.to
• https://www.indiehackers.com
• https://eksisozluk.com

Reach from these sites will not be counted for the January run. (Treated the same as medium.com)

[joberding]

@cuevasm I do have an objection: There should be sufficient notice if a change is being made. It appears from your statement that you intend to apply this to the January App Mining period, which is based on December reach. This means that anyone who used these sites to promote during December will not have them counted toward reach for January App Mining. I used some of these sites for December reach because they were acceptable during December App Mining period. Changes to what qualifies for reach should be applied at the beginning of the next App Mining period.

[Neha03G]

Even I object to it. @cuevasm if you are proposing any change it should be communicated before the start of the review period. Rightly mentioned by @joberding just communicating your decision in the middle of the review period conveniently ignores all the efforts which has been put for the concerned review cycle adhering to the rules acceptable during that period. I would also like you to explain rest of us how you came to the conclusion that "based on this ticket, previous conversation, and the call before last, it sounds like most people are supportive of removing these self-publishing platforms." Going through the thread it doesn't seem we had consensus and the issue is still open. frequently changing the rules without giving any prior notice could be an exception but shouldn't be norm. Also, I request, if you make any decision which affects the scoring at least communicate that well in advance instead of a week before the results.

[friedger]

@joberding @Neha03G Do you think that the counts by Awario for

• dev.to
• https://www.indiehackers.com
• https://eksisozluk.com

reflect the correct number of views?

We had a long discussion about why it is good to remove medium posts and self-publishing platforms in general (https://github.com/blockstack/app-mining/issues/171) and it was agreed that it is good. Therefore, it only makes sense to remove these as well as quickly as possible.

I see rewards paid for publications on these platforms in previous months as a generous bonus.

[cuevasm]

This was proposed over a month ago and we've previously moved that fast for these obvious ones before and everyone was supportive (medium.com the most recent example). I think for the integrity of the score, clear exploits and errors that follow the same pattern we've previously discussed at length don't need to be dragged out each time. It only enables people to be one month ahead on the sites they use to essentially trick the system and for us never to catch up. This is clearly in the spirit of the score and I don't think we should be taking full cycles for such simple fixes that make scores stronger.

This is also why I've proposed this: https://github.com/blockstack/app-mining/issues/221

[Neha03G]

@friedger, definitely not. But do you think people who are buying press releases and articles in expensive publication reflects the correct number of views? @cuevasm I'm generally not in favour of changing any rules mid way when the apps are being reviewed by reviewers. As an independent developer, finding these sites, making relevant connections and getting it posted requires significant effort and takes time. I feel developers who themselves explore the web and try to adhere to the app mining rules should be encouraged rather than being demoralized. Further, press releases and purchased articles might not also have correct number of views since awario is still far from perfect in calculating that. Self publishing is more fair and democratic because it puts everyone with or without resources in the equal footing. At least it gives indie makers a chance to compete with teams with marketing budgets. I understand you personally feel spending money to buy articles is ok and acceptable but I fail to understand how they are more dignified as compared to individual posts spreading awareness about the app. Independent developers compensate their lack of resources by doing research, writing, making connection and somehow finding a way to get published where we get some views. Does everyone have resources to pay for press releases and get published in top tier publications? I know you are the decider here and we cannot do much beyond putting across our points. But the larger question is about what behaviour we want to encourage. Think about that.

[friedger]

@Neha03G it is not about expensive or cheap, it is about whether Awario can count the views for a publication. Platforms are much more difficult because users usually come to the site for a particular user/group/topic, however, Awario counts the sum of them all towards a post.

[Neha03G]

@Neha03G it is not about expensive or cheap, it is about whether Awario can count the views for a publication. Platforms are much more difficult because users usually come to the site for a particular user/group/topic, however, Awario counts the sum of them all towards a post.

Then aren't we handicapping hard work of the developers because of the limitation of the tool?

[friedger]

That is possible, but all the hard work is to the benefit of the app (and should not be to the benefit of the rewards).

[Neha03G]

That is possible, but all the hard work is to the benefit of the app (and should not be to the benefit of the rewards).

Then there wouldn't be need for an app mining program @friedger :-) . The world runs on incentives.

[friedger]

https://forum.blockstack.org/t/app-miner-call-1-10-recap/10147

It could happen sooner than later..

[Neha03G]

I guess we are diverted much and mixing up two issues @friedger and @cuevasm , let me try to untangle them from my end.

Where i agree with @joberding is , some websites were allowed last month. Say Dev.to was allowed last month. The audit results came out on say 15th of last month and if i am right in general the results were finalised on 20th. Now, if any website was considered not conforming to the policies then the facilitator or arbitrator should have communicated his decision before starting of the new app cycle. At least it could have given us an opportunity to increase our reach and compete. If changes were not made then, what was allowed last month should be considered to be allowed at least for this month, by not doing so don't you agree it amounts to a lost opportunity for us since nothing can be done now. Since monetary rewards are involved here, shouldn't the facilitators be a bit more responsible here? I know @friedger reward must not be much of a motivator for you but for some people these resources are important, precisely for the sake of the very apps we are building. We try hard to do whatever we could do with the limited resources we have.

Second point is about self publishing Vs paid publishing on which I have already shared my views. It is now on @cuevasm and blockstack ecosystem to decide if it is fair or not.

[cuevasm]

I'm not talking about taking away sites that are high effort for independent developers. These sites are the opposite, they are ones that make it easy to self publish a mention for yourself in a few minutes and get unrealistic Reach scores. It's not like I've proposed scrubbing sites anyone has had to build a relationship with or make time consuming content for.

[dantrevino]

A. We need to move faster in general. B.To me the whole point of the "News" score is that credible sources other than ourselves are talking about our apps. Just because you blog on someone else's centralized platform doesn't mean its any different than putting up a blog on your website, other than the obvious skewed counting.

+1 for removal in Jan.

[njordhov]

This was proposed over a month ago

Reading this issue again from the top @cuevasm "agree about outright removing this site: https://eksisozluk.com/" but appears to give a thumbs-up for miners to "publish in these valuable places" as long as they "can't be spammed for ridiculous Reach scores" preferring "to continue taking these on a case by case basis and making sure everyone is alerted ahead of time."

So the sudden decision now seems to contradict what was communicated to miners a month ago.

[njordhov]

To me the whole point of the "News" score is that credible sources other than ourselves are talking about our apps.

@dantrevino That's reasonable assuming that the point of the scores is to measure "app quality". But @cuevasm clarifies in #190 that it is rather about incentivizing marketing:

The point of this entire reviewer is to encourage apps to become more visible.

@friedger concludes it is not about real publications, but about real eye balls.