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Discussion on: I feel like the quality of posts in Dev is deteriorating

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webbureaucrat profile image
webbureaucrat

If I may make a meta-recommendation: I think you should break this blog post out into a series of separate discussions. I say this because you've brought up a number of good points that merit in-depth discussions. A few of my own thoughts:

  • I wholeheartedly support the idea of blacklisting a tag.

  • I haven't noticed the plagiarized content. My initial thought is that we need a better reporting system to account for this kind of thing.

  • I do find video-posts annoying. It would be cool if videos were required to have some kind of "video" tag so that I know before I waste my time trying to read it.

  • On teasing content and redirecting--Honestly, while I don't engage in this practice myself, I think it's fair game. Maybe I'd rather read it on Dev.to, but if I see an article worth clicking on, it's probably also worth a second click. I'd rather have to click through than see quality blogs decide not to post to our Dev.to feeds anymore. A good compromise solution would be to allow users to create external-link-only posts that have visual indicators to leave the site, similar to Reddit.

  • I actually do like resource lists, even ones that don't have a lot of text to accompany them. If it's a category I happen to already be pretty familiar with, having a clutter-free list of links makes it easier to skim for the resources I'm not yet familiar with. This is especially helpful for very crowded categories like, "Linux distros" or "javascript frameworks." My point here is definitely not that context-free resource lists are better than ones with explanations, only that they have their place for some users in some situations.

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wannabehexagon profile image
ItsThatHexagonGuy

Thank you for your comment and your recommendations, after reading the other comments I feel like there is a grave necessity to identify the roots of the problems. I might just do series like you mentioned, where I can explain my findings to fellow authors.

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perpetual_education profile image
perpetual . education

if I see an article worth clicking on, it's probably also worth a second click

👍👍

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moopet profile image
Ben Sinclair

I posted my first (mostly) video-only article today, and I didn't use any particular way of indicating that, but I hope it was reasonably apparent from the heading.

I agree that in general I close posts immediately if I find they're just an embedded video or a link off to somewhere else.

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wannabehexagon profile image
ItsThatHexagonGuy

I don't think that video-based articles are a bad thing, just that most of the time it lacks context. I took a look at your post, and for example, it would make me actually want to watch the video if you described what the accessibility awards are. The clue is mostly in the name, and I'm not talking about anything shallow like that, maybe how someone could participate or why you think it's cool.