Feed to comment on articles on the main site

[SWard]

If articles from the main site were posted to the forum officially so we could comment on them

This is something we are technically able to do but it duplicates content which isn't good for the main site.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

This is something we are technically able to do but it duplicates content which isn't good for the main site.

That's a real shame. There's usually quite a lot of comments on the Disqus and it would be very good for the forums.

Would it duplicate content if it was just a titled thread with a link to the main site article, that we could then comment in?

 

[Brian Boru]

it duplicates content which isn't good for the main site

I was an active member of the now sadly defunct excellent Windows Secrets tech forum—their main vehicle was a free & paid newsletter. They used to post each newsletter article title in a forum dedicated to that. Members who had read it, or clicked the link to read it, could then comment in the thread.

So maybe don't post the full PCG article, just the title and a link to the article.

Btw if your concern is that duplicate content will harm PCG's search ranking with Google, that's not true. There is a ton of unavoidable duplicate content on legit sites—an obvious example being ecommerce, where many retailers sell the same product with probably the same descriptions, specs etc. Another would be accessories which work with multiple products.

Google has stated duplicate content doesn't hurt site/domain rankings, but it could dilute certain pages you want to rank by sharing their 'clout' with the duplicate page. A simple solution to this is to tag any links to duplicate content with UGC and/or NOFOLLOW attributes.

If there's a different reason why this "isn't good for the main site", I'd love to hear it if it's not confidential. I've owned & run small ecommerce operations for 22 years, and was interested in SEO for a long time, so I'm curious about any new wrinkles

 

[Zloth]

What about just the game and hardware reviews? Games get all sorts of news later. People can post their own reactions, help questions, news about patches/mods - those topics could stay lively for a long time to come. Reviewers could even pop in themselves if they see a patch that alters their review.

I'm not sure if users should be able to start new threads or not. That'd be great for finding diamonds-in-the-rough, but you all know what threads will be started again and again and again. Though I guess those are going to get posted anyway, so maybe that's no real loss?

 

[Colif]

Posting comments on articles from front page is purpose really,
Users can currently post news in https://forums.pcgamer.com/forums/game-industry-news.16/ so just having the PC Gamers news/articles/reviews section comments only would make more sense.

I don't have a problem with users posting News threads if they put accurate links in the news that links back to source of news, not to somewhere else. No affiliated links.

 

[Brian Boru]

just having the PC Gamers news/articles/reviews section comments only

I agree, member threads already have multiple forums for them.

 

[DXCHASE]

I wouldnt mind this, i have made 1 or 2 topics based on articles written by PCG and coming here right after reading them, like i would love to discuss how PC Gaming IS more expensive to get into and it DOES suck.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Completely agree, I wasnt meaning that every tiny piece should have a thread. There are so many articles coming through stuff would get lost. Game and hardware reviews and certain opinion pieces are what I was thinking. Like the one DXChase mentioned or the one on open world games from a few days ago.

I guess if it comes down to it is it O.K for us to post links to main site articles that interest us to the forums and start the discussion ourselves?

 

[Brian Boru]

is it O.K for us to post links to main site articles that interest us to the forums and start the discussion ourselves?

It must be, cos I haven't been banned yet after doing a few—but shh, let's keep that between ourselves.

Game and hardware reviews and certain opinion pieces

Yep, agree.

so many articles coming through stuff would get lost

Right, we'd end up with 80-90% of articles uncommented on, which as you say would bury the potentially topical stuff.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

It must be, cos I haven't been banned yet after doing a few—but shh, let's keep that between ourselves.

Thats the part I'm confused about. I think it would get more attention if it were to come from 'official' sources, and I never imagined whole articles needed to be posted on the forum anyway. I worded that part badly in the beginning, looking back.

I meant an article stub or synopsis, titled with a link to the main page. Comments below that type thing.

 

[Colif]

It must be, cos I haven't been banned yet after doing a few—but shh, let's keep that between ourselves.

looks for the button, where did they put it...

So who chooses what articles/reviews/news is to have a stub then? It might seem a lot but I think having everything get a comment post in here would be only way it would go forward or it would just stop happening once initial interest died down.

Way they do it on other Future forums is they just post the header of the Article and a link - https://forums.tomsguide.com/threads/how-to-buy-a-dumb-tv-—-and-why-youd-want-to.491565/
and it appears to be automatic or straight forward on their end. An Admin user posts them all.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

looks for the button, where did they put it...

So who chooses what articles/reviews/news is to have a stub then? It might seem a lot but I think having everything get a comment post in here would be only way it would go forward or it would just stop happening once initial interest died down.

Could work like Zloth suggested if it was automatically done for reviews?

 

[Colif]

I would think auto is easy, selective would be more complicated.

 

[CParsons]

I would think auto is easy, selective would be more complicated.

This is pretty much it. An RSS feed can be set up to pump them all in automatically, but being selective about which articles make it to the forums is more difficult.

 

[CParsons]

Google has stated duplicate content doesn't hurt site/domain rankings, but it could dilute certain pages you want to rank by sharing their 'clout' with the duplicate page. A simple solution to this is to tag any links to duplicate content with UGC and/or NOFOLLOW attributes.

While Google says there is no penalty for duplicate content, it has been proven over a period of time that some of the content we publish, the forums headline will actually rank higher than the actual blog content and that's not desired at all. There are options to address that, as you are aware, but for now posting links to the blogs and discussing them as @Kaamos_Llama suggested would be preferred. Like all things, though, could change later on down the road.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

....for now posting links to the blogs and discussing them as @Kaamos_Llama suggested would be preferred. Like all things, though, could change later on down the road.

Sounds like a good start

 

[Brian Boru]

for now posting links to the blogs and discussing them as @Kaamos_Llama suggested would be preferred

Cool, thanks for the explanation—makes sense the headlines could rank higher.

Do you want admin to post the links to blogs, or should mods and/or members do so as they see an article of interest?

 

[CParsons]

Do you want admin to post the links to blogs, or should mods and/or members do so as they see an article of interest?

I encourage everyone to share and discuss articles of interest.

 

[CParsons]

Just a little bit of an update here. I have now added a PCG Article prefix for those who are sharing PCG Articles in the forum. Previously, folks were stating in the forum title that it was a PCG Article. Example:



I've gone back and edited all the existing ones so they now look like this:



Going forward, the prefix is available to all and preferred instead of adding 'PCG Article' in the title since it's cleaner and prefixes are clickable, so anyone can find all the PCG Articles in any forum with just a click on the prefix.