Disqu-nnected

The other day, in a back and forth I was having with the notorious CowDung over at the dumping ground for all griping about Patch, Hale, Disqus, 3.0 etc, “A Note to Our Readers about Changes on Patch”, he made the following comment:

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CowDung • 3 days ago
Actually, I seem to get more from visiting Disqus than I do from visiting Patch...

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At the time I didn’t think much about the comment, other than it being one of a number of complaints many have had of late. After thinking about it for awhile and monitoring my own attempts to try to stay connected to others I know and what’s currently being discussed, I have to agree.

Patch, itself, has basically become useless in that regard. Unless I want to navigate back and forth between the above mentioned article, a few others of a similar nature or check the comment counts (which tend to be inaccurate, due to lag times I think) on some of the “contributions” produced by myself and others I know that reside in that purgatory known as the “Bulletin Board”, I have no easy way of keeping track of what’s going on. Obviously the same goes for everyone else around here, as overall activity, once again, seems slowly to be grinding to a halt.

As much of a pessimist as I am by nature, in the case of the changes to Patch that have occurred with the release of 3.0, I’ve tried to remain optimistic. I’ve tried to offer advice to other users where applicable. I’ve offered up information regarding Disqus widgets that might actually achieve some of the integration of Disqus and Patch that, currently, is sorely missing. I’ve even tried to be understanding about how the unfortunate timing of Disqus making changes shortly after Patch started using them has made things even worse for people struggling to learn a new system.

And then, after doing that and, again, trying to retain some of the community that was a big part of this place for 2 good years, I get Disq-usted and Disq-ouraged by its present state. And then it’s time to bitch - again.

So CD is absolutely right. If one wants to attempt to keep track of things, one is spending more time on the Disqus site than they are on Patch. In fact, if one wants to keep track of what people they’re following are doing, what conversations they’re involved in and, even, involve themselves in the conversation, they can do so without ever hitting the Patch site.

Which means they’re not registering as eyeball counts and they’re not viewing or clicking through the ads that are Patch’s only revenue stream. They’re not viewing the content Patch is paying editors and others to produce. They’re not viewing the “contributions” of other users. In fact, I didn’t even have to go on the Patch site to find CD’s comment from the other day.

All of which causes one to wonder WTF Hale-Patch is thinking. Which, in turn, brings me back to this, again...

“Patch is run by professional editors and salespeople”

- not, apparently, by people who really understand how to make the revenue model they’ve invested in work as it should.