Dallas Business and Marketing Blog

Given we just launched HatedOrLoved.com an online Social Network Community that will be coming out of Beta 1.0 into Beta 2.0 this weekend it may seem odd that I am about to extol the virtues of what is in essence a competitors site. Yet that doesn’t matter because I am going to do it anyway. This is also not going to be yet another of a thousand “Mixx is Better then Digg” posts but I must draw some contrast to Digg because the difference is so stark. Honestly I think the “better then Digg” thing is only stated so often due to the fact that Digg is the most successful site of its’ kind. Honestly I also feel that Mixx is better then Reddit, Propeller, Plime, etc, etc.

Why? Is it the features, the customization, the groups and other cool and new stuff Mixx offers that the others don’t? To me it isn’t that at all, those things are cool and unique but the real difference is the community and its tone, not to mention its’ pleasant lack of anger and hatred for anything commercial, republican or that might result in profit to an evil corporation.

I have self submitted very quality work to Digg and Plime and was descended upon by the masses with hatred, negative votes and malicious attacks of my other non self submissions just to punish me for the horrific sin of submitting something I wrote. The content was never judged, just the fact that I dared to submit something I created. At times I felt as though I had angered an entire legion of Star Trek Fantards by saying something bad about Mr. Spock. My experience at Mixx has been entirely different.

I finally took the leap and joined Mixx just barely a month ago. I started submitting a few items a week, I looked for cool stories and submitted them. I added people with cool submissions as friends and most friended me back, I added all the top Mixxers and most also added me back. I definitely have submitted some of my own content and almost all of it made popular. One of them even got me a “Top 10 Badge”. Oh yea that is cool too, not one Top 10 but two of them now grace my Mixx Profile along with a “Curmudgeon” badge for a day I spent nuking pure spam posts with negative votes.

Before I go on I must note that this same approach I am describing made me a target for attack at Digg and got be banned by Plime before I even got started.

What I must say I have gotten from Mixx that no similar site has offered me is “acceptance”. You see I have an illness a terrible disease that is more shunned in many social networks far more then lepers were in biblical times. You see I am an Internet Marketer and worse then that an SEO! Everyone knows that any time an SEO submits to Digg (even a story about kittens in Ohio that save a mouse) that it is pure spam and nothing more and must be voted down. On Plime the SEO must have his entire C-Block of IPs banned for life.

OK, OK relax my fellow Diggers I am trying to be satirical here. As for Plime well Plime is evil, no satire intended.

No it isn’t as bad as all that on Digg but I could never have been so accepted with say 2 of 10 submissions being my own on Digg. At Mixx on the other hand power Mixxers actually apparently examined my content, decided it was good solid content and not just voted for it, commented on it and welcomed me. No my friends that is not all, there is much more.

A fellow named Bruce (who goes by the handle Yoda on Mixx) invited myself and some others to over see a group called the “Hall of Fame” which features the greatest Mixx stories of all time. Yoda is a “Super Mixxer” and almost always listed as a top Mixxer of the day. He is the analog of a Power Digger and yet he not only accepts the Dark Side that SEO represents (pun intended) he even trusts me as a moderator on a group that features the best of the best.

Why? Why am I so accepted at Mixx? I believe that Mixx is devoid of one thing that infects many other communities. Mixx lacks what I call a “hate crime legislation mentality”. On Digg when someone submits an SEO piece or worse submits his own piece if it starts to get votes the attackers never read it, they don’t judge it based on its content only what they perceive as its intent. In other words they act as “thought police”.

The reality is I am not a bad guy, I don’t try to take over these networks for evil purposes and I do work hard to make sure when I submit something it is damn well worthy of being submitted. I then work the system just like others do and let it results land in what ever way the community wants it to. Simply because the content of my submissions, voting, comments, etc have been judged on Mixx rather then some false assigned view of my intent I have had a great first month and look forward to earning my Super Mixxer badge and making a ton more friends.

So that is what I learned about how to build a great community from the Mixx community. Banish “hate crime laws” from your community, insist that rules be followed but also that content, contributions and participation be judged for what they are not for the intent behind them. That difference in my opinion is a bigger part of why Mixx is what it is today then groups, lists and customization.

So that is the exact approach I plan on taking with my new Social Network and it would be my advice to anyone creating a new site that relies on a self policing community. Police away but police the quality and behavior, to hell with intent. Spammers will still be easy to spot and even easier to deal with and your community will grow because new people won’t be walking on egg shells afraid of the wrath of a few of your veterans.

So what has your experience at Digg been like compared to Mixx? Or vs. Propeller or say Reddit? Also what are you thought on “abolishing hate crime laws” online and insisting that the same rules be applied to all, regardless of their profession or the fact that they may actually benefit in some way by being an active member of a community?

Popularity: 23% [?]