Weekend Discussion - November 28, 2020

Weekend Discussion - November 28, 2020

It's time for Weekend Discussion - Cortex Style! Please take a look at these highlights from the past week of posts on our new Shacknews platform.

the man with the briefcase

Shacknews Cortex has been out in the wild for a little over three weeks, and we have seen some pretty awesome things posted. Here's a list of some of the best user-generated articles posted to Cortex this week!


User reviews:

Pets:

Recipes:

Other fun stuff:

Shantynews:


There you have it, Shacknews. Your Weekend Discussion for November 14, 2020. Please consider subscribing to Shacknews Mercury to support our site for as little as $1/month. Here is a photo of Lola to brighten your day.

Lola is the best dog.
Lola is the best dog.

What are you up to this weekend? Let us know in the Shacknews Chatty comment thread below!

From The Chatty
  • reply
    November 28, 2020 9:30 AM

    Weekend Discussion return! Please take a look at this week's highlighted content from Shacknews Cortex.

    Read more: Weekend Discussion - November 28, 2020

    • reply
      November 28, 2020 9:34 AM

      How are Cortex articles doing compared to front page stuff? Is there any traffic coming from search or is it all chatty?

      Cortex is awesome!

      • reply
        November 28, 2020 9:45 AM

        It’s pretty early to compare traffic to the front page, as we haven’t even had a full month really.

        There have been some SEO wins already. My Cortex article on the GPU Song is the first result in google search when you look for keyword “GPU Song.”

        https://i.imgur.com/tr0sTXR.jpg

        https://www.shacknews.com/cortex/article/195/i-love-this-gpu-song-from-astros-playroom-on-ps5

        The other interesting thing happening is that almost every article continues to get pageviews even after the Chatty thread expires, so there are people using the Feed to read stuff as well as people discovering articles from Google.

        Bean’s No Bean Chili recipe is the most-viewed Cortex article since launch.

        https://www.shacknews.com/cortex/article/104/beans-texas-chili-with-no-beans

        Based on the early reception, it also seems like Shantynews could rival Shacknews news coverage in terms of traffic. Shacknews gets a lot of our traffic from guides, but people seem to be clicking on Shantynews articles.

        Once we have a full month to look at, I might make a more detailed post. So far, it seems like Cortex is adding pageviews to the site with no cannibalization of Chatty or the front page. If anything, there have been more Chatty threads.

        • reply
          November 28, 2020 9:47 AM

          Awesome!
          I ❤ Shantynews

          Shantynews hoodies for next year!

        • reply
          November 28, 2020 9:51 AM

          [deleted]

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          November 28, 2020 9:58 AM

          shantynews is hilarious, keep it up!

        • reply
          November 28, 2020 10:02 AM

          [deleted]

        • reply
          November 28, 2020 12:13 PM

          I'm still adding to the Viva La Dirt League and Cartoonist Kayfabe Cortex posts. I have two Kayfabe's to watch and determine whether to add right now! I was toying with the idea of doing a Jim Jeffries or Some More News compile, but that'd just be all the I Don't Know About That eps and most of the Some More, so that's not very good filtering.
          Maybe I should go back and find those Drybar Comedy eps that tickled me so in the early Lockdown Era.

        • reply
          November 28, 2020 12:14 PM

          Is there a way to save posts? It would be cool to save something like the chili recipe.

          • reply
            November 28, 2020 12:18 PM

            There is no bookmark function in Cortex, but the tag in LOL could serve as a replacement to that for now. Also, you could bookmark articles in your browser :)

        • reply
          November 28, 2020 2:11 PM

          The other interesting thing happening is that almost every article continues to get pageviews even after the Chatty thread expires...

          So that leads me to a question I was going to ask.

          Say someone finds an old article and wants to talk about it. They might think they are supposed to reply in the Cortex thread, but that won't work because there aren't notifications of replies to expired threads. So if they want to discuss an old Cortex post they need to make a new thread with a link to the Cortex post.

          It would be nice if some day we could just get notifications of replies in expired threads, that way it keeps that Cortex topic all together, and people in the future can see all the discussion and join in.

          • reply
            November 28, 2020 2:33 PM

            I've been posting fresh posts with the new content added, then the link to the cortex article. But then yeah, any discussion is going to take place at the new link, and not at the Cortex attached thread.

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              November 28, 2020 3:23 PM

              I kind of think this is a pretty big deal, and also it won't be easy to fix.

          • reply
            November 28, 2020 2:44 PM

            Apps will give notifications about replies to expired threads, but yeah that's a valid point.

            • reply
              November 29, 2020 10:50 AM

              They no longer do on account of some changes made to the API Server. Like, you won't get a notification about this. :\

          • reply
            November 28, 2020 3:00 PM

            You know it would be cool if posting a link to a Cortex post in the Chatty automatically added a link to that comment under the Cortext post so if there is discussion after the original post it's still discoverable.

    • reply
      November 28, 2020 2:19 PM

      hi Lola!

Hello, Meet Lola