8 posts tagged “this is good”
There are a lot of things that you can do to participate in Vox as a community member, and some of the most engaging are the daily prompts and the spotlight area for [this is good]. It's quite fun to see what the Question of the Day and Vox Hunt will be every day - this is something that I personally enjoy checking out each morning. I also look forward to every time [this is good] is updated (about 3 times a week, usually Monday, Wednesday and Friday), so I can click through and see what great content around Vox is being featured.
Voxers always have something to say, and the goal of QotD and Vox Hunt are to get you thinking and writing even when you log in and aren't feeling inspired. If the day's QotD or Vox Hunt doesn't move you, you can click the arrows to read through and answer previous prompts. The posts and photo featured in [this is good] can inspire you or help you make a new friend.
Where does this content come from? We get suggestions from you, our members, and these are looked at by the community team to add their own suggestions and pull it all together. Vox has a great deal of spotlight-worthy content, and we really love that our community helps us as the "eyes and ears" to point out the great things they see!
So how can you give us your ideas? The Home page of Vox has "suggest" and "submit" links in each of the prompt and feature boxes. Click on that link, and it will create a new private message addressed to the community team. For the QotD and Vox Hunt prompts, put your idea in the form of a question or statement that people would answer. Keep in mind Vox has an international audience and the questions should be open-ended (not "yes" or "no"). For [this is good], include a link to the item you are suggesting, and the reason why. Tip: If you want to have a record of all of the ideas you submitted, make sure you click the "Send me a copy via email"!
How else can you be part of the community? There are a lot of ways, really, but here are a few ideas:
- Add relevant tags to your posts and items. This makes it easier for people to find them. See All About Tags
- Explore the answers for Vox Hunt and QotD from other members. You might find some great people to add to your neighborhood. See Exploring Vox Blogs
- Join groups and add your posts to them. This is a great way to share content related to specific topics. See Adding Content to Groups
And of course, check out the Question of the Day and Vox Hunt to answer them as often as you'd like!
Have you shared suggestions for our community content yet? Share some of your ideas in the comments, and you just might inspire your friends to participate too!
-- Kristine & the Vox help team
It may be vacation season around here, but that doesn't mean we're slowing down. That's right, it's already time for another release.
Soup Up Your Profile!
Up until now, you could only add plain text to the "Biography" section of your profile. Look again and you'll see that you can now add links, plus you can also bold, italicize, underline or indent the text.
Search Your Neighbors List
We've made it a little easier to find a specific friend's or neighbor's blog using your Neighbors page (located at http://yourvoxname.vox.com/profile/neighbors/). Look for the search box we
just added, and type in the person's name or blog name. For instance,
typing in "Lilia" will show you all the Lilias in your neighborhood.
Relative Time Stamps
Everything's relative, now even time stamps! What are relative time stamps, you ask? It's the difference between a post shown as written on "Jun 13, 2007 at 10:10 AM" versus being written "12 minutes ago".
When you're browsing through your neighborhood page or a list of search results, we're hoping that these relative time stamps will make it easier to get an idea of how fresh a post is. We'll show these relative time stamps in measures of minutes, hours, days or weeks. You'll see stamps like "3 minutes ago", "2 weeks ago", or "a moment ago" in the case of posts that are just seconds old.
[this is good] Moves Back Home
To celebrate its move back home, why not nominate a great post or photo to be featured there? Nominate posts or photos by clicking on the "suggest this is good" link.
-- Krissy
P.S. Don't forget: Last week we told you about the new neighborhood digest emails. Everyone will automatically get their first weekly email digest tonight (they're delivered on Thursdays at midnight, local time). To change your settings, click on the Account tab, then on Notifications.
Did you know that you can send in your own suggestions for the Question of the Day, the Vox Hunt prompt, and the [this is good] box?
Many
of you already knew that, but it seemed like a good time to remind you
all (especially since the [this is good] suggestion mechanism was
accidentally turned off for a few days after our last release). Just look for the suggest link:
Your suggestion will be sent via a private message to an actual human member of Team Vox. We review all your suggestions, then select and schedule them with several goals in mind, including variety, entertainment, appeal, appropriateness (is that a word?) and more.
We love to watch and see which QotDs, Vox Hunts and [this is good] features really strike a nerve with the community, and we hear you when a certain day's post doesn't speak to you. The best way to influence the subjects we cover is to send in your suggestions! Plus you'll get a full day of Vox fame with your name & blog linked in the prompt.
A special note for the Vox Hunt suggestions: we're trying to include a prompt each week for videos, books and audio. So please feel free to make some suggestions with those subjects in mind!
As much as we'd love to, we simply won't be able to use every suggestion. Often several people send in the same suggestion, and some just don't seem appropriate to Vox. Truth be told, a lot of us on Team Vox have a slightly, um, different sense of humor, but since Vox is a place for everyone (including your dear mother or that one cranky cousin of yours), sometimes we've got to filter out suggestions that made us think or made us laugh.
We'll leave you with a just a few QotD suggestions that just didn't make the cut:
- If you could save only ONE family member at the last minute, who would it be?
- What form of death most terrifies you?
- If you had the opportunity to "make money" in exchange "sexual favors" would you do it?
- Tell us what ads by Google are at the bottom of YOUR Vox page?
Of course there's nothing stopping you from discussing these with your Vox neighborhood!
- Krissy
"Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well." -- Voltaire
The [this is good] box (or the [tig] box, as I like to call it) is the place where we highlight neat things found on Vox. It's our way of saying, hey we thought this was interesting and maybe you'll like it too. We try to feature all types of things: quick and funny, deep and sentimental, bizarre, relatable, or just plain adorable. It's updated three times each week and you can view it on the Explore page.
Now we've got a little secret to tell you: the [tig] box is magically powered by a Vox blog! Mena even recently made the [this is good] blog its own personalized theme. Check it out at http://thisisgood.vox.com. (Note that comments are turned off because we want you to comment on the things that are highlighted!)
You know what this means? You can add the [tig] box as a neighbor, and read it right in your Neighborhood or VoxWatch, as soon as it's updated! And to suggest something for the [tig] box, you can follow the "Suggest" link in the [tig] box, or just send a message to the [tig] blog - it does the same thing.
Even though the [tig] box/blog is maintained by Team Vox, we want to remind you that [this is good] belongs to everyone. When you're exploring Vox and see something you like, take two seconds to tell the author "[this is good]" in the comments. It's just two clicks and you're done, but the person who gets your virtual thumbs-up will feel really good. You know it's true -- it always feels good to get a little acknowledgement or appreciation.
So here's a challenge: After you add the [tig] blog to your neighborhood, go out and leave a "[this is good]" on someone's blog, maybe even a stranger's. Who knows, you might make someone's day and make a new friend in the process.-- Krissy
We're starting to notice a trend: Voxers doing the [this is good] gesture in real life. There are those who say that our own clamhead started it, but regardless of who did it first, it seems to be catching on...
Tomorrow's Vox Hunt prompt will be "Show us your [this is good] gesture", so get your cameras ready!
--Krissy
Last week the This Is Good box moved to the Explore page. We hope you're checking in with it! If you missed anything, you can use the arrows to read past entries.
The This Is Good box (or "TIG box" as we like to call it) highlights neat things found on Vox. We update it three times each week with links to interesting, funny, or compelling posts and photos. Hopefully it gives you a quick window into what's happening around the community, and it can be nice way to discover someone or something new. By clicking through to read the links, you might find that you want to add some new neighbors to your Neighborhood!
Did you know that you can suggest posts and photos for the TIG box? Just click on the "suggest this is good" link at the bottom of the box. That will open up a private message where you can add links to photos and posts that you particularly enjoyed and that the rest of the Vox community should check out.
Next time you're reading a great post or you see a great photo, don't forget to suggest it for the TIG box!
--Krissy
As part of last week's release, the Vox home page got a bit of a facelift. Our goal is to use the home page to highlight interesting and fun posts plus give you a snapshot of what's going on in your neighborhood.
As part of the redesign, we moved recent comments. We've heard your feedback and we're looking into a way to sprinkle recent comments back into the home page (we miss them too!) In the meantime, please check your Recent Activity in the Reader to keep track of comments.
One of the biggest changes to the Vox home page is the new [this is good] box where we highlight neat things found on Vox.
Every few days we'll highlight a handful of posts and a photo. The
purpose is to give Vox visitors an idea of what goes on around Vox, and
Vox users can click through the links and possibly find some new
friends or just leave a comment or a friendly [this is good].
So far we've been highlighting employees and friends of Six Apart, but we want to highlight posts and photos from any Vox user. If you have post or photo you'd like to nominate, just email the link to thisisgood at sixapartdotcom. Please let us know if the link is from your own blog, or from someone else's. Or you can just tag your post or photo with "tig" and we'll find it.
If you have posts or photos that you definitely don't want highlighted in the [this is good] box on the home page, you have two options. You can post it privately to friends and/or family or, if you want to keep your post or photo public, you can check this box on the compose page:
If we see that box checked on one of your posts or photos, we'll know that you don't want it linked from the home page.
So, what's good on Vox? Tell us!
