We've added share buttons

About This Message Board
1

OK, so we don’t put a lot of stock in being on the cutting edge of technology around here. Nonetheless, we were a little embarrassed to be the only media outlet on earth that didn’t have “share” buttons (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) on its pages. Now we do, thanks to Jerry. The red Share widget comes from AddThis, which provides it free in order to collect data, as described here:

http://www.addthis.com/privacy

Doesn’t sound all that nefarious, and the price is right, so we figure we’ll try it and see what happens. Pls advise if any problems.

2

Eh, where is it?

3

On the column archive pages.

4

Ah ok, I thought you were referring to the messageboard, hence the confusion. Thanks.

5

Note that this was tried on this board, and it wound up significantly slowing down people not in the U.S. or with cellular based connections. You may want to get in touch with xash for more info.

6

It’s on the Straight Dope front page as well.

7

Actually it’s appearing on all the column pages. :slight_smile:

8

Okay, as a test I’ve turned on the social network link option here on the board.

Listed are the vBulletin defaults. We can apparently add other links as we like.

So let’s see if this does adversely affect performance and take it from there.

9

Well, it’s not perceptibly slowing me down, but it is cluttering my screen.

10

Yeah, I don’t like this. What’s next, thumbs up/down to rate posts and crowd the screen a little more?

11

I don’t like this. We have enough illiterate morons finding us through Google these days, do we really need to sink yet closer to their level?

12

How do you want people to find this place?

13

Where’s the facebook button?

14

I give this post a thumbs up.

Behind the times? Nah, more like beyond the clutter.

15

:confused: I don’t see any Facebook button. Where’s all this clutter you are talking about?

16

Annoys me aesthetically. Would like registered users to have the option to turn it off in their user CP if possible.

17

There should be a Facebook button.

If I remember from when xash was working on implementing this, there was a single button at the top of each thread, and mousing over it would drop down the various “share” options. I think that would be visually less cluttering than the current version. Or the button could be at the bottom of the thread, to avoid the problem of people accidentally mousing over it when really they wanted to get to “Thread Tools” or whatever.

18

A small strip at the bottom of a column is hardly clutter.

I’m no fan of share links generally, but this is barely perceptible and I have no problem with it.

19

I should clarify my previous post; personally I don’t find the current implementation particularly cluttering. But for the people who do, I think the drop-down box might be nicer. Either way is OK with me, though.

20

I don’t see any button on the column pages or on the message board.