The Question of Cliff Hanger Articles

This problem seems to have gotten much worse over the last few weeks... If the entire article is posted here, its a good way to get blogs out there... but these cliff hangers are becoming much more frequent and something has got to be done, I'm just not sure what...

I'm all for promoting an external blog by linking to it in an article (or anywhere else for that matter), or even linking to other articles from one's blog in an article here. But I'm starting to think that articles that are "to be continued" should be removed from this site. One thing I might consider doing is clicking the link, then copy and paste the rest of the article as a comment.

Or you can edit the article and remove the link.

Kill them. Kill them all. Kill the children. Kill the women. Kill the elder. Leave nobody unkilled.

I tend to agree, but here's my problem with doing anything about it:

Although I would say their is a consensus or near consensus about eliminating those types of articles, I don't know if it is within mine, or our right do set some sort of policy.

I feel this because this is not a simple issue (though it appears to be one at first glance). The real issue at hand is the right to delete valid content written by people who for whatever reason chose not to post their full article. On top of that, we would effectively be prohibiting contributors from premium sites from contributing their articles to the site.

In doing so, we are effectively drawing a line as to who's content is acceptable or not, which raises two whole new issues. 1. Where should this line be drawn? Do we accept articles with little to no content? What about articles that are borderline innapropriate in their content? 2. Is it our right to determine this, or is this an issue that the founders have to take care of? In the end, they run the show. They're the "Owner" of the ArmchairGM "team". The users here make up the "GM" of the site. Generally, we call the shots, but there are certain situations where it's up to the owner to make the call.

For number 1, I tend to think that if the content is not appropriate, asking the author to change it is the solution. In the other cases, I say encourage the author to write more. But the problem I have with this simple of an answer is that there's not a lot of difference between a 1 paragraph blippy article that doesn't address any real significant topic very well, and a cliff hanger. Both are incomplete.

For the second one, I feel it is the founders call because we're setting the bar for being a real user. I worry that we'd become discriminatory if we tell people they can't post here unless their being disruptive. Even if the owners tell us that it's up to us, that's better than nothing. Not voting for these articles is not that great of a fix, because they keep popping up.

I realize this is a long post, but I have thought a lot about it, and felt I needed to get it all out there.

Well thought out and written, FP, and valid points all around. Maybe we should just institute a "no soliciting" policy, after all that is what they are doing.

If a solicitor rings my doorbell and I don't have a sign posted, that's on me. If, however, I have a posted sign and the solicitor chooses to ignore and rings the bell anyway, then I would be within my rights to tell them off if I opened the door.

What will get me to anyone's site is the content of their article. Paying up is my decision once I get there, but you have to give me a reason to go. Posting two sentences or two paragraphs won't do it, no matter how well written or interesting topic wise it appears.

If these solicitors are in fact legitmate, by that I mean they are selling their product instead of trying to make their next car payment, then do the right thing. Put a place on their site to enter a code, "Armchair" and let us see JUST that article, or a selected few, for free. Then let US decide, as individuals, whether it's worth it.

I would be curious to know how many Armchair users have signed up for Minsports site, my guess would be zero. The question then becomes why bother continuing?

I think we need to not comment on these articles, not vote on them and make it a community wide effort. Turn the ignoring of these articles into site culture. There are what 100 people who actually comment and vote on a regular basis, so if they ignore these articles they will shrivel up and die. It's the first rule of the internet, do not feed the trolls.

I usually add some sort of comment along th lines of "No votes for advertisements." A little something to remind others not to vote for it either.