Someone asked me privately about where to place a pitch they’d like to post. I wanted to start a more public discussion to check my thinking. (This topic is in #supporters because I want the input from you all, dear Supporting Members. :)
What we have today
A while back, someone who isn’t a Supporting Member posted a self-promo item in Public and I immediately didn’t like that. I didn’t like non-supporting members getting the free ride of being seen. There was some discussion, and I wrote the following about who, what, and where for self-promo:
What am I thinking of adding?
I think we should also have a specific #Pitches category.
And posting there should be limited only to the Supporting Members.
@craigconstantine@members - As a little kiddo, I just loved classroom time for Show & Tell. Hope that is an internationally recognizeable phrase; but it was exciting to both observe and participate in. Time (a space) was set aside for disclosing what we were doing, dreaming of, making, or where we’d been (“secret” rock bridge down by the creek?). Pitching definitely is a well known phrase; and in the search for a cleaned up understanding of it - I found This Is Marketing by Seth Godwin which led me to all of you. YAY!https://www.inc.com/damon-brown/seth-godin-says-youre-trying-too-hard-to-sell.html
All the Culture guidelines above strike me as super healthy, including the addition of a specific category. I enjoy a natural unavoidable curiosity and interest in why each of you enthusiastic Podcasters is doing it and how it fits into your broader objectives. Also, I (maybe you too) need practice expressing a bit of this myself. Thank you again Craig for thinking clearly and carefully about how to best serve the community.
This raises a good point; I like the idea of a space that would be more than just a space for “hey buy this thing I made” or “hire me to…”.
My original idea in this topic, “Pitches”, works for the “buy my thing” posting… but doesn’t capture the fun and engagement of show-and-tell.
“Show & Tell” … we can’t have an “&” in a category name.
“Show and tell” then ? My concern with this, is that people may feel that what gets posted there should be a more-thought-out presentation of a thing. Show-and-tell in school, after all, meant preparing and then standing at the front of the class. On the other hand, if you’re going to pitch something (“but this”, “hire me”) here, we’d prefer that people put some time into crafting a nicer post.
…as an exercise, I went looking through our existing topics in #public to see which ones I felt should be moved into this new thing we’re discussing here.
And there really aren’t any. Well there are some, EthosFL is assembled for example, is a “show and tell” sort of topic. But that one is just fine in #public .
I definitely do not want to create structure unless we need it.
Maybe we just need a rule that says our Supporting Members may pitch (“I wrote a book, buy it!” “hire me to edit your show”) directly in #public — in addition to their already being encouraged to put their pitch-stuff in their #introductions and their show(s) in #podcasts .
(And the rule also means the regular members may not pitch their stuff in #public .)
@craigconstantine@members - For SURE, this discussion is giving me a much better orientation into how this Podcaster Community Discourse Platform actually works and how to use the structures already available here. Now I see three areas amenable to some degree of self-promotion &/or establishing the relevance of our “mission” in the greater world. If Public ends up requiring too much “policing,” then an adjustment could be made. The vast majority of us will surely self-regulate around our Akimbo education and sensibilities. YES … this feels better!
I’ve said (elsewhere, various places, etc) that I’m currently trying to slowly reach 100 paying Supporting Members. A big part of that—my choice of the number 100—is because the more Supporting Members we have, the noisier things are going to be. If the “exclusive” gang of people grows to a thousand… well, then it’s just too much for each of us to keep up with.
And I’m not particularly worried about the “policing” effort; Discourse has many and magical tools, and I expect to end up with some paid, community managers helping run things. No matter what rule(s) I make, someone can always put up the cash to jump into being a Supporting Member and then jump on the coffee table of our living room and scream for attention. [whereupon I’d summarily remove them and refund their money ]
So, zooming out…
My question of, “Should we create a new category for pitches or show-and-tell?” really turns upon whether that extra structure would help us. I now think the answer is we don’t need new structure for this. We can simply let the Supporting Members post whatever they like directly in Public .
…and someone (not a Supporting Member) just posted a huge “ask” in Public so this is all very timely. I’ve removed their post and privately explained to them.
I just looked at the outgoing-email logs and here’s a new wrinkle…
Discourse is so efficient, it emailed everyone about that user’s self-promo post. That means—regardless of what rules I put up in posts explaining our culture—literally anyone can walk up, make a free account… jump on our coffee table, self-promote… and it’ll email everyone before I can intervene.
That is not a sustainable situation. Even once we reach the point where I disable the ability to just instantly sign up (*footnote) , we’re always goign to have a lot more free-members than supporting-members… and the bigger this gets, the more “value” people are going to see in “jumping on the coffee table” and self-promoting.
I’m swinging back to sticking to the current rule… self-promo ONLY in the #introductions category, that at least forces someone to have a valid credit card before they can “jump on the coffee table”.
*footnote: One day, we’ll need to control how many random freebie people are here. At that point, I’ll make it so that you must get an invitation from an existing member. It’ll still be free to join, but you’ll need to know someone here already.
I’m really digging into this problem / issue today.
You may, or may not, remember seeing an “education panel” when you created your first two new topics. It appears to the right, in a yellow panel, when you are creating a topic.
By default Discourse displays the following…
Welcome to Podcaster Community — thanks for starting a new conversation!
Does the title sound interesting if you read it out loud? Is it a good summary?
Who would be interested in this? Why does it matter? What kind of responses do you want?
Include commonly used words in your topic so others can find it. To group your topic with related topics, select a category (or tag).
…it also explains what, by whom, and where self-promotion is permitted.
We know you’re excited to post here, but we have a strong culture, and clear rules. You’ll be happier here, in the long run, if you take the time to learn about how we do things.
So, another well-meaning person jumped on the coffee-table to introduce themselves including links to their shows…
In one sense, I know this is an unwinnable war. On the other hand, keeping this stuff under control is a hill I’m willing to fight for.
I’ve updated the “education panel” text as I mentioned in the previous post. Tomorrow [hopefully] I can figure out how to actually test it. (It requires being a use who has never posted… so I have fake up a new account just to try it.
Newbie/freebie people have to be able to post somewhere, and that somewhere is #public. That means I cannot ensure someone doesn’t waltz in jump on the coffee table and post. (There’s a lot that Discourse prevents—spam, pron, etc… but we do want new people to be able to say “Hello! I’m here, so excited, etc.”)
Originally, I had watching-first-post set to on, so everyone would, well, notice! But it’s too much—or it will be too much very soon. So I’ve turned it off. I’ve turned off the default—as described in my notifications-howto link above, you can absolutely turn it on for yourself with a few clicks. Boom! All the notifications you want… I’m simply no longer assuming you want all of them.
…and here are the final pieces of the finished puzzle.
A reversal of my stance on self-promotion
I was originally firmly in the camp of having no self-promotion. I’m switching camps. Self-promotion is allowed.
But what about coffee table jumpers?
People can signup, jump on the coffee-table (that’d be in Public ) and announce, “check out my book, podcast, youtube, whatever.” …and what happens? Nothing. Because now, the system doesn’t send notifications about new topics in Public. Their jumping on the coffee table in the living room doesn’t bother anyone.
Why exactly I changed camps is—I think—very interesting. Maybe I can write that up as a longer post at some point.
And there are other spaces that are reserved for the Supporting Members self-promotion which DO send notifications. A book mention in your posting in Introductions will draw the attention you wanted. Same with the #podcasts and #supporters categories. Our Supporting Members still have the privilege of having their stuff “seen more”.
Change to how our culture is explained
These two sections in the topic explaining our culture are new…
Small improvement to the help system
I’ve customized this “education panel” which is shown when someone begins their first posts:
]
so this is all very timely. I’ve removed their post and privately explained to them. 
That means—regardless of what rules I put up in posts explaining our culture—literally anyone can walk up, make a free account… jump on our coffee table, self-promote… and it’ll email everyone before I can intervene.
