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Mike Hensdill / AP
Children dance at a Cinderella ball in North Carolina, a man herds hundreds of sheep through a snowy field in Switzerland, protesters lob firebombs at police in Greece and more.
The Week in Picture vote on Facebook
The Week in Pictures, TWIP, was one of the first regularly occurring msnbc.com editorial products that successfully used interactivity. Back in the late 1990s, we included a vote page using a simple interface that allowed people to vote for their favorite image. It was an uncomplicated idea that was executed well, and our users engaged with it by the thousands.
As good as that has been, we’ve always wanted to have more give-and-take with the TWIP audience. So we enabled users to “email us” and “email this” several years ago. The buttons are still in the top-right of every TWIP slideshow. Because of those two things, we’ve been aware of and participated in a rich conversation with a few TWIP audience members each week. However, that conversation is stiflingly limited by its one-on-one email nature.
It is surprisingly difficult to create a space where a public conversation can happen around TWIP. The challenges are that you need a robust, scalable system that is easy to use on both the editing and audience side. You shouldn’t need to read a manual in order to use it.
We’ve also discovered through our experience in PhotoBlog that commenting and community is tricky. We’ve learned the hard way that anonymous commenting is practically useless. It allows the outrageous few to hijack what would otherwise be thoughtful conversation, creating a wasteland of radical political agendas, hate speech and personal attacks. That’s difficult to watch when it’s sometimes directed at the subject of a photograph or the photographer. Because of these challenges, we left TWIP out of msnbc.com social networking efforts. That felt like the right choice three years ago, but it doesn’t anymore. It’s time for TWIP to join the conversation.
In order to foster an honest, respectfully engaged community, you either create an entirely new system and hope people will sign up, or you take your idea to an existing community that already works. That is why we’ve moved the TWIP vote to Facebook. The slideshow we produce is just the jumping off point. When you “Like” our page you not only get to vote. You can share your vote with your Facebook friends. You can also comment on the whole slideshow or individual pictures. If you don't want to share your choice or express your opinion then you can simply vote. Our goal is to create an engaging place where you can share what you like or don’t like about pictures. Join us. Tell us what you think.
Leave a Comment:
Very unhappy with this decision. I enjoy voting weekly, but will no longer have that option. As I do not want or care to have a facebook account. I'm tired of feeling bullied by everything getting connected to facebook.
I already told you....I despise Facebook and wil NOT use it. So what did you do? You just referred me back tothis blog.
Screw you, and Facebook.
This is lame. I voted every week for years and then today I click the vote link and it went to a blocked page. Congrats on making a horrid decision.
Likewise, I have enjoyed the pictures and the voting, seeing what it reflects about people's opinions, but I will not join in voting on Facebook. Horrible decision, and I sincerely hope you reverse it. If people want to post to Facebook, that is their business, but I will not advertise your site on there. Honestly, the vast majority of the pics are not that good. Some weeks there is not a single really good shot. Never have I seen more than 3 good shots a week, and it has been those that keep me coming back. Maybe it is time to just give up your site as a lost cause and continue to look at the ones on BBC, daily and weekly, which are much better and more dramatic on average.
I am also very disappointed with the decision to change the voting process of The Week in Pictures. I have been voting every week for years. Now I don't have that option because I do not have a Face-book account and do not plan on signing up in the future. Why would you change the voting process after all this time?
Has anyone noticed the lack of voting? Usually by Saturday morning there are hundreds, sometimes thousands of votes. I will no longer enjoy the voting I have done for years because I do not not will not have a Facebook account. I feel disenfranchised. Lucky for me there are other sites on which I can enjoy great photography.
i totally agree with the posters above! not everybody wants to join facebook! you are leaving out a huge chunk of the population that doesn't do facebook! oh and thanks for treating me like a three year old! i wanted to yell and i should be able to use UPPER case letters if I choose to!!!! i think you are going to lose more people than you imagined!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'll add one more vote. I'm not on Facebook and have no desire to go there. So now you're restricting your comments and input to the lemmings who do only what they're peer-pressured into. Your loss.
Totally disgusted with MSNBC....first the numerous pop-ups and now this...ruining the glorious This Week in Pictures with this Facebook link. I'm deleting MSNBC from my favorites and will stick to NPR for news from now on.
So with my morning coffee, I look forward to Fridays with MSNBC. It is the highlight of my morning~on~line~newspaper~reading. Not anymore...I should not need to access Facebook simply to cast my vote for my favorite photo. You just lost a loyal fan...
There are thousands of folks who live and breath Facebook, some of them my friends who literally share every moment and thing they do on the Internet. I am NOT One of those folks and join the majority of fans who hate being forced to go to Facebook to vote and/or comment. I hate it when friends on facebook post all their activities like MSNBC is trying to get us to do here. I quickly delete them as friends. It would appear from the very low number of votes most of your loyal fans have not followed youto FB. You may well pickup a bunch of FB followers in weeks to come but you will your most loyal fans like myself behind.
I agree with all the postings about voting and Facebook. I too will miss voting for my favorite photo. Not a great fan of Facebook and I hope that MSNBC actually reads these posts and returns to the former voting format.
HELP! Can anyone suggest a good homepage besides MSN. I am ready for a change! I will check back frequently for your suggestions.
Almost anyplace can be a new home page. I have a professional forum I use as my leaping off point for my daily activities. Just make it something that makes your heart sing....perhaps a great museum or a favorite city newspaper or even weather....we all love the weather.
Good luck with whatever you choose - sometimes I rotate my interests - you may try that too.
How's this working out for you Mr. Hood? How about rethinking your goof.
I do not now, nor will I ever, have a facebook account. I prefer real news, not shopping updates or who made what for dinner.
The change to the voting is the worst! I hate it! And now MSNBC will lose a voter who has been voting for the last 5 years, as I do not have a FaceBook account, faceBook is Stupid.
I agree with all of the above. I do not want to "share" all my thoughts with my "friends". It is not their business what i think about every little thing in the world. Nor do I want to know what they think about every little thing. i joined facebook under pressure and rarely go to my page and am distressed that MSNBC.com wants to link all of my activity to my facebook page.
Just lost another loyal fan. Looking for another homepage.
I do not have a Facebook account and I do not plan on ever getting one. I really enjoyed looking at the photographs every week and then being able to vote. Now, I am being excluded from doing so in the future. I strongly encourage MSNBC to rethink this decision. Hopefully, MSNBC actually reads these comments and they can see how strongly the community is coming out against this decision.
While I do have a Facebook account, I rarely use it, and I refuse to use it for things that force me to log in, such as voting for TWIP. I've enjoyed voting for more than ten years, but I won't be voting if I need to log in to FB to do it.
I consider Facebook to be, at best, extremely annoying. The site insists you log on to view practically anything, and even on pages that you can see while logged off, after a few minutes the page fades out and a "Log in to continue" box shows up. When that happens, I leave. As long as some of my family members use FB to stay in touch I'll keep my account, but if they stop, you can bet I'll be leaving Facebook.
I've enjoyed WIP for years, and now I can only look, not vote. I do not have, nor do I want a
Facebook account and I am saddened that so much of todays voting, opinions, comments, etc. requires going through FB. Bad decision MSN.
I cannot believe that I have to have a Facebook account to vote on pics of the week. Seems like Facebook is taking over everything. Voting on the pics of the week was one mere little pleasure I looked forward to, not anymore. I had a Facebook account for a minute; resulted in a Family feud. My Family members as of today are still not speaking to one another and I blame Facebook. I also think it's a bad idea for children to have a Facebook account.
Sure hope in the future that msn news goes back to the original way of voting. Until then, I'm outta here! Bad idea MSN!
Guess what? I hate this decision because it disenfranchises me. I'm not going to join facebook, and I'm probably not going to look at the Week in Pictures anymore, much as I love the photography. And for those who are still bothering to vote -- what's the point in posting as-you-go voting results? That's going to affect the way people vote every time, so you'll no longer get a fair result. Stupid decisions in every respect.
I have been voting for years... now that has come to a sudden stop thanks to this decision to move the voting process to Facebook. How disappointing. I am saddened. Facebook is blocked at my place of employment, so even if I wanted to use your new method of voting, I couldn't. Please change it back!
It sucks. This is forcing people to join a certain group in order to have voting rights.
Change it back.