The discussion revolves around implementing a “Next Message” feature, similar to TechCrunch’s approach, to increase engagement in Discourse forums. BCHK suggests this feature could have a positive impact by catching users’ attention and encouraging them to click on more stories. However, strager expresses concerns that it could block important content and proposes using data-driven suggestions to provide a “Smart” topic that is more likely to get a click.
codinghorror mentions that a similar feature was previously dropped from early Discourse versions due to being annoying, and that Suggested Topics already performs a similar function. omfg agrees with this sentiment, expressing dislike for sites that use such features in a way that comes across as presumptuous or annoying.
As you scroll down to the bottom of a TechCrunch story, a window opens up on the right hand side that slowly becomes more prominent as you scroll down.
I wonder if this could be used to a positive impact to increase people’s reading / participation in other similar, or highly valued topics in Discourse. It catches my attention - and I certainly click more on those stories provided, and it seems that a similar approach might be helpful in keeping people engaged in multiple conversations on your discourse forum.
Check out what I mean by clicking on the story below and scrolling to the bottom:
The buttons block pictures, text, and other content here.
If done right I could see this being a great feature (as long as it could be turned off) on many communities. Maybe do it a little smarter - instead of just a “next” story use data like recent search history, categories viewed, etc. to provide a “Smart” topic that would be more likely to get a click from the user.
We had this in very, very early versions of Discourse and dropped it because we found it annoying – and that was also before we added Suggested Topics which performs the same function.
The basic idea is that you want to give people agency, and that means a choice among reasonably likely things at the end of the current reading stream, rather than bugging them about one thing they may or may not like in a sliding pop-up.
I freaking hate those sites who not only do that, but reword the “feature” (what was “You may want …” became “Read this next”…). Because computers know better than people what you should read.