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Are you using hashtags on Bluesky? This usually helps you reach more people. I don’t use Mastodon, so I’m not too familiar with their network. I receive a decent amount of traffic from Bluesky though and have managed to gain some new members from promoting on there.

I’m currently listening to no one to call by kj thomas [MEDIA=spotify]track:6proeWA8IcQ6HejXOQD5HK[/MEDIA]

Welcome aboard!

Reddit is introducing some new features for posts that should make it easier to know if your post meets a subreddit’s rules and if it’s for the appropriate community, according to a blog post. The new Rules Check will flag a potential issue as you’re writing the post. As shown in a GIF of the mobile app, you’ll see a red notification badge above your keyboard on a little magic wand icon, and if you tap that, the app will display a pop-up showing rules that your post might be breaking. This feature will be tested first on iOS and Android. If your post is removed for breaking the rules, Reddit will show a prompt suggesting that you try instead to post it to a different subreddit. The new Community Suggestions feature will offer recommendations on which subreddit a post might be a fit for. And the Clear Community Info tool you might see before posting will let you know a subreddit’s specific posting requirements. Reddit is also offering insights on your posts, including “views, upvotes, shares, and more,” per the blog post. Source: https://www.theverge.com/news/625038/reddit-posts-features-rules-check-subreddit-recommendations

Chatbots from companies like OpenAI and Google appear to be sucking up much-needed traffic to websites and massively screwing publishers over in the process. As Forbes reports, new data from the content licensing platform TollBit shows that AI chatbots send a whopping 96 percent less traffic to publishers' websites than traditional search engines — even as companies like OpenAI and Perplexity promise tangible gains to media companies that partner with them. When looking at metrics for 160 news and blogging publishers, TollBit found that AI companies' bots scraped those sites an average of two million times during the fourth quarter of 2024. Each page was scraped around seven times on average — a click-stealing scheme, if you will, that results in zero ad revenue for the publishers involved, since bot clicks don't generate any money for advertisers. "We are seeing an influx of bots that are hammering these sites every time a user asks a question," explained Toshit Panigrahi, TollBit's CEO, in an interview with Forbes. "The amount of demand for publisher content is nontrivial." Though chatbots do include links to original source sites when spitting out answers to questions that would otherwise be posed to a traditional search engine, these AI services also summarize the information scraped from those sites. As such, there's no reason for users to visit the links because the answer is already right there. Some publishers, like the textbook marketplace-turned-edtech company Chegg, are already feeling — and fighting — the financial burn from its work being repurposed as AI results. In a newly filed lawsuit, Chegg alleges that Google has "profoundly" harmed the publisher's ad revenue by including its content in the search giant's AI Overview feature. During a recent earnings call, Chegg CEO Nathan Schultz admitted that the damage to the publisher's bottom line is so severe, the company is considering going private or being acquired. "Unfortunately, traffic is being blocked from ever coming to Chegg," Schultz said during the call, "because of Google’s AIO and their use of Chegg’s content to keep visitors on their own platform." Along with hiring Goldman Sachs to conduct a "strategic review" of just how many hundreds of millions of dollars the company has lost, Chegg also retained the Susman Godfrey law firm for its suit against Google — and according to Ian Crosby, a partner at that practice, Google's AI Overviews are a "threat to the internet." Source: https://futurism.com/openai-google-hurting-publishers

I don’t see over-engagement as desperation at all , I see it as a sign that the owner is passionate about their project and genuinely enjoys being part of the community. When a forum owner is actively contributing and leading by example, it sets the tone for the whole community. That kind of involvement can actually motivate other members to step up and participate more because they see the owner isn’t just managing from the sidelines, they’re right there in the trenches with everyone else. At the end of the day, a forum is a reflection of its leadership. If the owner is having fun and engaging with the content, that energy becomes contagious.

In order to expand your audience, you’ll have to tap into the market and see where else your audience is hanging out at. This includes social media, other forums and blogs. You’ll have to engage with these users and try to attract them to your forum. Partnering up with related forums and offering exclusive deals could also work.

This is why it’s important that your DKIM email authentication is set up correctly, so your emails aren’t set to spam. If it’s not properly set up, the forum will have an issue with all emails being set to spam.

You can also set up a client side meta redirect, but it’s not the same as a server side 301. It doesn’t pass over the same value of a server side 301. But it will still point your old domain to the new one. <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url=https://newsite.com"> The meta code needs to be placed in your main file.

Google has become so integral to online navigation that its name became a verb, meaning "to find things on the Internet." Soon, Google might just tell you what's on the Internet instead of showing you. The company has announced an expansion of its AI search features, powered by Gemini 2.0. Everyone will soon see more AI Overviews at the top of the results page, but Google is also testing a more substantial change in the form of AI Mode. This version of Google won't show you the 10 blue links at all—Gemini completely takes over the results in AI Mode. This marks the debut of Gemini 2.0 in Google search. Google announced the first Gemini 2.0 models in December 2024, beginning with the streamlined Gemini 2.0 Flash. The heavier versions of Gemini 2.0 are still in testing, but Google says it has tuned AI Overviews with this model to offer help with harder questions in the areas of math, coding, and multimodal queries. With this update, you will begin seeing AI Overviews on more results pages, and minors with Google accounts will see AI results for the first time. In fact, even logged out users will see AI Overviews soon. This is a big change, but it's only the start of Google's plans for AI search. Gemini 2.0 also powers the new AI Mode for search. It's launching as an opt-in feature via Google's Search Labs, offering a totally new alternative to search as we know it. This custom version of the Gemini large language model (LLM) skips the standard web links that have been part of every Google search thus far. The model uses "advanced reasoning, thinking, and multimodal capabilities" to build a response to your search, which can include web summaries, Knowledge Graph content, and shopping data. It's essentially a bigger, more complex AI Overview. As Google has previously pointed out, many searches are questions rather than a string of keywords. For those kinds of queries, an AI response could theoreticallyprovide an answer more quickly than a list of 10 blue links. However, that relies on the AI response being useful and accurate, something that often still eludes generative AI systems like Gemini. Google insists this is not the end of web search, saying that helping people discover content online "remains central" to its approach. Indeed, the examples Google shows include links and citations from around the web similar to AI Overviews. However, you can't just scroll down in AI Mode to see organic results. Instead, AI Mode is designed to operate in a conversational way, allowing you to refine your search or ask follow-up questions. If this sounds like something you absolutely do not want, you can safely ignore it for now. The experimental feature is only available for Google One AI Premium subscribers, who pay $20 per month for access to Google's best LLMs. This could be an indication that generating these search pages is extremely costly even for a company that gives away so much AI processing for free. Still, Google's AI efforts move fast, and you could find yourself confronted with AI Mode soon. It only took a few months for the Search Generative Experience to graduate from Labs as AI Overviews. Google notes that it still has a lot of work to do before AI Mode is ready for prime time—it's a dramatic departure for a core part of the Google experience, after all. Google says the AI-only searches might not always be able to offer a good rundown. In those instances, it will fall back to showing you traditional links to websites that can answer your questions. AI Mode may also appear to take on a persona or form an opinion like a chatbot while it's still in development. The feedback from the public test will help Google address AI Mode's shortcomings and make rapid changes to the experience. If you want to check out AI Mode, you can join the waitlist in Search Labs. If not, it's probably only a matter of time before you have no choice. No one was exactly clamoring for AI Overviews, but that hasn't stopped Google from pushing it to ever more searches. Source: https://arstechnica.com/google/2025/03/google-is-expanding-ai-overviews-and-testing-ai-only-search-results/

Did this money come out of your bank account or a different card? I would have filed a charge back and got my money back through my bank. A bank generally refunds scam transactions as they’re customer first and they side with their customer over anyone else. It usually takes 7-31 days for them to refund you though.

I’d rather go to the beach and drink a few beers while relaxing by the ocean. I’ve never been near mountains. I don’t think I’d want to be close to snakes and coyotes nor bears.😅

I’d like to request 50 posts for Virtualpetlist along with 5 threads. Thank you!

Same here. It was a great place to advertise forums as well. https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/05/kevin-rose-and-alexis-ohanian-acquire-digg/ So why now? It’s a combination of reasons, according to Rose, who says that the existing social media landscape has become toxic, messy, and riddled with misinformation — and AI is well-placed to address that. Just the “out of the box stuff” is “insane,” Rose observes, noting there are “Google endpoints already where I don’t even have to mess with a model at all, where I can get sub 200 millisecond response times on any comment under about 300 characters and rated across 20 plus different vectors of of sentiment, so violence, toxicity, hate speech — you name it. Like, that just wasn’t possible five years ago.” More broadly, says Rose, “We’re at this other inflection point around AI and what it can do. And when you think about these big shifts, they require you to go and step back and revisit first principles and think about how you might change [a business] from the ground up, and that’s what Alexis and I and Justin [Mezzell],” who is a longtime collaborator of Rose and now Digg’s CEO, will be doing, he said. Ohanian echoes Rose’s sentiments in a press release about the new Digg. “Online communities thrive when there’s a balance between technology and human judgment,” he said. “We’re bringing Digg back to ensure that balance exists. Kevin and I are here to build something better than what social platforms are offering today. AI should handle the grunt work in the background while humans focus on what they do best: building real connections.” Ohanian, for his part, has dipped in and out of Reddit over time. He first left the company in 2009 before returning as its chairman in 2014 and then stepped down from the boardaltogether in 2020. Both Rose and Ohanian have invested in other companies through the years, both as individuals and through institutional funds. Just this week, Ohanian joined Frank McCourt’s bid to buy TikTok’s U.S. business. Their parallel paths as investors have now converged, with True Ventures, where Rose as a general partner, and Ohanian’s venture firm Seven Seven Six, both investing in Digg. While Mezzell, a veteran product designer, will lead the company’s day-to-day operations, Rose will serve as Digg’s chairperson and adviser, and Ohanian will sit on the board. A new version of the Digg platform is launching soon. Invites will be rolled out in the coming weeks. In the meantime, noted Rose, there is now a landing page that allows people to input their email. “Then there will be kind of a first come, first served [system] for user name picking and things of that nature,” says Rose. “We’re not spammers,” he continues. “We’re not going to sign you up to some crazy weekly digest or some s—. If you just go over there and input it in your credentials — your email — then we’ll just let you know when it’s live, and you can come grab a user name, kick the tires, tell us where we’re messing up, and and we promise to fast follow and fix all that stuff.” Even then, says Rose, don’t expect too much straightaway. Turnarounds take time. “Where we’re really going is, a year, year and a half from now, is when you come to Digg, it’s going to be very much more like the leap that happened to Figma, where it’s free form, it’s dynamic, it’s an interface that is unlike any other that you’ve seen,” says Rose. “It’s not your old-school forums.”

I’ve been reading a lot more books lately, especially some that were written by Benjamin Smith and Proust. I plan on reading at least 30-35 new books this year.

I don’t. I have close to 2,000 friends on facebook though. But they’re mainly all my friends and family members. Congratulations on hitting the 5k limit!

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Digg – once known as “the homepage of the internet” – is making a come-back, after being bought by its co-founder Kevin Rose in partnership with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. It’s an interesting move given that Reddit was a competitor who pretty much inherited that “homepage of the web” accolade. Also ‘interesting’ is the pair’s belief that most moderation can be done by AI … [HEADING=1]A quick guide to Digg[/HEADING] For those not old enough to have used it, Digg was essentially a social news site. Both editors and users could post links, and users would then upvote them (“digg”) or downvote them (“bury”). A key feature was that other sites could embed those digg buttons, allowing users to vote on links even without visiting the site itself. Digg was so influential that even larger sites could find themselves unable to cope with the traffic resulting from a link making it to the top of the homepage. The site was essentially killed by a combination of an unpopular update, widespread manipulation, and the growing popularity of Facebook – whose Like and Share buttons proved more popular. In 2012, the company was broken up and sold for parts. [HEADING=1]Digg is returning[/HEADING] The New York Times reports that Digg co-founder has bought the domain and other assets, and is planning to relaunch it with the assistance of Alexis Ohanian. [HEADING=1]Most moderation will be done by AI[/HEADING] It’s not known how much they paid, nor is it entirely clear what the USP will be, but The Vergereports that – unlike Reddit – they believe human moderators are largely unnecessary. [HEADING=1]You can sign up for early access[/HEADING] The domain is live, and you can register your email address to be given early access once it relaunches. What’s your view? Do you think there’s a place for a revamped Digg, or has that time come and gone? Source: https://9to5mac.com/2025/03/05/digg-is-returning-thanks-to-digg-and-reddit-co-founders-kevin-rose-and-alexis-ohanian/

Rey invited me.

Google continues to lose ground among younger generations, with 61% of Gen Z and 53% of Millennials using AI tools instead of Google or other traditional search engines. That’s according to a new Vox Media survey. Why we care. We continue to see early signs that Google search may be starting to slip – from Google’s market share dropping below 90% for the first time since 2015 to other surveys indicating searchers are frustrated with search quality. Things are changing rapidly – from the rise of AI answer engines and generative engine optimization, to the growth of social platforms for discovery (e.g., TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest). Many brands and marketers are still adjusting to these shifts. By the numbers. When it comes to Google Search: 76% said that more than a quarter of Google Search shopping results appear to “be sponsored or promoted.” Only 14% described these sponsored or promoted results as “very helpful.” 42% said Google and search engines are becoming less useful. 55% said they get information from their community more than online search platforms. 52% said they use AI chatbots or alternative platforms (e.g., TikTok) for information instead of Google. 66% said the quality of information is deteriorating, making it difficult to find reliable sources. What they’re saying. According to a Verge slideshow summarizing the survey’s findings: “Legacy tech (e.g. Google) and social platforms are rapidly losing ground as trust and authenticity fades, with more people flocking to AI chatbots, niche communities, and platforms like TikTok. This signals a massive shift and opens the door for disruptive entrants that can offer more authentic, trusted experiences.” About the data. Vox Media partnered with Two Cents Insights to conduct the survey, collecting responses from more than 2,000 U.S. adults in December. Survey: https://www.theverge.com/press-room/617654/internet-community-future-research Source: https://searchengineland.com/google-search-less-useful-survey-452700

Welcome to the community! [mention=576]Collectreport[/mention]

The Qualities of an Authentic Leader in Online Communities: Why They Matter Leadership isn’t just about holding a position or having a title. It’s about the way you engage with others and the qualities you embody. In an online community, whether it’s a forum, a social group, or any collaborative platform, authentic leadership plays a crucial role in building trust, fostering engagement, and maintaining a positive atmosphere. 1. Owning Mistakes and Being Accountable An authentic leader isn’t afraid to admit when they’ve made a mistake. They embrace accountability, acknowledge their errors, and learn from them. This honesty helps build trust and shows that they’re human, just like everyone else. In an online community, if something goes wrong — whether it’s a technical issue, a policy mistake, or something more personal, being transparent about it and taking responsibility helps maintain credibility. Everyone makes mistakes, but how you handle them can define your leadership. 2. Open to Others’ Ideas Authentic leaders are always willing to listen. They recognize that great ideas don’t come from one person; they can come from anywhere within the community. Being receptive to others’ input is what makes a leader approachable and relatable. In any online community, open dialogue is key. Members want to feel heard, and when leaders create space for new ideas — whether it’s about community rules, features, or even content — it boosts engagement and helps the community evolve. 3. Making the Tough Decisions An authentic leader understands that sometimes, making the best decision means disappointing people. It’s not about being popular, but about doing what’s best for the community. A strong leader is willing to make difficult calls when necessary. In an online community, this might mean enforcing rules that some members disagree with, removing problematic content, or even making changes that don’t sit well with everyone. It’s important to balance community desires with what’s best for the group’s overall health. 4. Giving Credit Where It’s Due An authentic leader never takes credit for others’ work. They recognize and celebrate the contributions of all members, showing appreciation where it’s earned. In an online community, whether someone creates great content, offers helpful advice, or contributes to the growth of the group, giving public recognition fosters a sense of belonging and motivates continued involvement. Acknowledging others’ efforts is a simple yet powerful tool for creating an inclusive environment. The Best Thing About an Authentic Leader: The best thing about an authentic leader is the trust they build. People are more likely to engage, contribute, and stick around in communities where they feel their leader is honest, open, and fair. Trust doesn’t strengthen the leaders role; it strengthens the entire community. How do you think these traits of authentic leadership translate to online communities? Whether it’s a forum, a social media group, or any other platform, how do leaders make a difference in fostering a healthy, engaging space? Do you feel like authentic leadership is essential for community growth, or do you think other qualities come into play more? For more leadership qualities regarding authenticity, Benjamin Smith touched based on a lot of these things in one of his books “ “Leadership Discover the Qualities of Leaders and How to Use Them in Your Own Life for Ultimate Success”

I’ve seen some forums using AI chatbots to respond to user topics, and I think that’s a disconnected way to build an online community. It sets a bad precedent for the community as well. I believe this method won’t help the community in the long run and could alienate the entire forum-building process, especially since it removes the human element that makes communities thrive.

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Welcome aboard!