Why post your address?

What about reshares that include a commentary, a point of view?

I think those are valuable.

Might be some automatic thing with the settings, but you have a point +Julian Bond There are a lot of picture posters and spammers here now. Some of them may be entertaining but at some point if we don't do anything, the place is going to turn into a mess.

+David Rooke You think that's my address? It's close but not that close. Chrome's wifi location is only approximate. But yes, I do deliberately geo-locate posts when I can.

+Jonathan Schofield Agreed. Add value, don't just mindlessly copy links from the biggest influencers. Of course there's a discussion to be had about where to add that value given the state of the platforms; In the comments of the original article, or as a new post.

Yes, that set of choices feels pretty awkward, especially given that comments don't have workable URIs, and that reshares don't provide a link to the original post (unless you add one by hand). Weird decisions I can't see the merit of right now.

+Jonathan Schofield What's strange is that a lot of these were done in Buzz and worked there. I'm not sure if the Plus team just haven't written the code yet, or they've been deliberately dropped. Maybe it's just a development schedule thing.

Truth be told, I only find out about Scoble's posts when someone else re-shares them but it's because I'm not in the tech industry. I used to be (somewhat) but I've no interest in going back. Fair play, though, considering that most people I run into here, and on Buzz, are techies.

I do think the warning you've given is probably the best way to keep your circles sane.

Ok .dont get uptight!

If I wanted kitty pictures,I'd go to http://fuckyeahdementia.com
Damn. That's another 15 minutes wasted! ;)

ok you just made me block you! byebye

+Julian Bond +Jonathan Schofield On the issue of re-sharing there seems to be a lot of room for innovation. Like I shouldn't get see re-shares from other friends if I'm already taking a feed from the original author or if I've already read the content. Yes, URIs for comments would help too. Perhaps, the content just says "this has been re-shared by 5 of your friends" and "Fred said blah and Sue said Foo". There also needs to be clear distinction between friend views and content views. So, you can view a feed timeline by your friends or by content they've shared/posted/commented. So, far it seems that the friend feed is the one being used but a content feed would mean more compact feeds and less repetition.

There is a URL for every post. If you click on the timestamp beside the post it takes you to a specific page for that thread.

+Josh Sarz I had it in my head that Buzz comments also had a url on comments but I just looked and it doesn't.

I love invites too. Especially the FB ones.

+Josh Sarz What you describe doesn't work for me in Safari and Firefox – the timestamp is not hyperlinked. Can you make video and post?

+Josh Sarz Ah! We were talking about comments not posts. Yes there's a URI for posts but none for comments.

Scoble?... Google where are you..

It's quite handy when I want to follow posts and the activity for that post is a little high, I just open it in another window and refresh it after a while.

+Josh Sarz I was referring to the fact that reshares have no link to the originating post [1]. +Daniel Harris, In case you haven't seen it, +Robert Scoble wrote a very good post at the weekend on the whole noise issue [2] (which then stirred up a pot kettle black spat with +Kevin Rose).

[1] https://plus.google.com/103363186582409589918/posts/hFtJqpQokKX
[2] https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts/HKcsYKSN27A

+Robert Scoble Of course! But I'm suffering from the same thing you complained of, and that's noise from repeated shares of the same thing. I also have this sneaking suspicion that the underlying cause is the same thing that drives Klout, Peerindex obsession. Make yourself apparently more interesting by re-sharing lots of posts from the most influential people.

But perhaps I'm just being harsh here. The flow of a story from original to influencer and down through ever smaller bubbles of followers is just a reflection of many other media.

It's just that I personally don't want to follow people who post a lot of links but don't add any value.

The internet game of "hey look at this" is common and worthwhile. You can even call people who do a lot of it, "Filters", "Curators" or "Miners" or something. In the end though, its all about the value add. And there's precious little added value in just pointing at things.

I don't follow Scoble. I just read what he rights when others repost it :)

ouch

This started as just a bit of monday morning coffee time musing and a stake in the ground about how I manage my following lists to try and cope with the noise. Funny to see it turn into a fairly heated discussion about the merits of sharing links.

+Cheryl Fehlberg and +Oluseyi Ibikunle AdeOnojobi: circles are a solution to who you want to hear, but they are not a solution to what you want to hear – at least, not as currently conceived.

The only "one strike and you are out" for me is when someone misrepresents me, for instance by tagging me in some unrelated picture just to get a "topic" picture displayed on my facebook profile along with 100 other facebook profiles. But Google+ does not allow this kind of identity abuse ... yet, and that's a good thing.

Cheryl, just like real life? Hmm, kind of in the 'spirit' of real life. But a long way short of the reality. We make loads of intuitive decisions about who to tell what or how in our interpersonal relationships. But G+ doesn't yet provide us with mechanisms beyond the who.

+Jonathan Schofield +Cheryl Fehlberg I think you have to decide what you want to hear or read. The folks at Google are smart, if they can figure that out, I won't have to use sparks or any search engine again.

Thank you for the advice re Scobie re-posts, maybe the request to re-post confuses some. Religion and politics which involve the sometimes deadly power of belief often cause controversy and even death as in Oslo for example. I feel it's going to be a huge learning experience for us all in how to live peacefully together with so many differing beliefs involved. Maybe we all need a training course before we venture here, so much yet to learn.

Why would I want to follow a smug self-important twit? With 20 million G+ users surely I can find better and more interesting people to interact with. Block away, amigo.

+Catch Friday I had a look at Branchout. Decided it wasn't terribly useful for me. What I didn't do was allow it to spam all my friends with an invite. It's only been a handful of people but I've found that there's a good match between being somebody I don't want to follow and telling it to send invites.

This whole discussion about sharing and the value of viral pointing at links/content is getting interesting and making me think. "Hey, look at this" is a very common internet game and it does have value. But I also know there are people out there who are irritating because that's the only thing they do. And more, in that they don't add any commentary as to why they think it's interesting or what they think about it. And what they point at, and so what turns up in my streams, is already quite mainstream and I've seen it several times already. Eventually I reach the conclusion that the person doing it is simply boring and not adding anything to my streams.

I'm also curious about the social conventions that are building up about reciprocal following. You follow me so it's polite to follow back? And it's an insult to not follow you or to stop following you?

As technical as this discuss can get. Is it not simply information sharing? It's human nature to share. At a tech level the discussion is informed. At consumer level its a cute cat! They forward to share.

As Catch Friday mentioned, replying is spam to those somebody doesn't know!

Your post just got Scobled.

+Michael Elliot Don't I just know it! Mildly amused by the vitriolic tone of some of the posts.

As a matter of fact, no most people who follow me don't read scoble right now and yes they work in tech - just German tech. The problem is not the resharing, that is something which expresses a thank you / you did something good to the author and at the same time says "i am sharing this with you because I do believe it is interesting for you because I found it interesting".

It might also be because I share it to add my point of view based on the fact what I found in there - that is where in blogging the link comes in handy, which does not work here.

(I do add as well where I got it from because if I shared roberts link to your post, robert vanishes. )

Is the current system a good solution? No and they should have taken a clue on how twitter and facebook does this. It does take up too much space and it does not give you the chance to say "already seen this and muted it". Lot's of work to do.

With 10+ Million users on Google+ - I know not all of my followers even know who Robert Scoble is, so yes I will share. I also have circles with people in several other countries who are not tech related, even though I am my communication with G+ is extremely mixed, so anything of value as +Jonathan Schofield mentions, I will share.

i dont want to be your friend anyway.
edit: well played :P

I like the "Re-Sharing more than you post" mention. I hate when people do this, unless they are adding significant content in the header.

Why not call it an anti-social policy and just exit this space. God made us all different and created us for relationships, which are two-way streets. Oh, the things we do in the name of progress and tolerance.

I just discovered you through Scoble and honestly...not a good first impression. Kind of a bad vibe if you ask me. Was expecting to see a profile full of interesting posts and lots of people following you. After preliminary review of your content, if I circled you today, you would probably be put in the "Lame" circle.

I've had quite a lot of push back from people both here and on the Scoble share basically saying "you're an idiot with a big ego". I have to confess that the OP probably was a bit troll-ish and not terribly well written. But there's another thing that +Wug Fresh may have missed. I post a lot more comments than original posts. And there's no easy way for people to see or find them. Even I can't really go back and find them. The Buzz tab has a sub-tab for "Comments" (and also for "Likes"), but the Plus tab doesn't. And there's no native Plus search, so no way to search for commenter:julian.bond [1]

This is not really about me, but more that Plus makes it quite hard at the moment to quickly see what a person is about. The quick follow popups show a face and a name but an awful lot of people have nothing in their Intro, so that's all you get. Actually trying to go further and see what they're really about takes quite a bit of effort.

[1]FWIW https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#buzz/search/author%3Ajulian.bond+OR+commenter%3Ajulian.bond

That's fair. No worries man, I won't pass judgment. I appreciate your response.

To add to you statement though... you basically gave a pretty good justification for reshare's. Until they enable the ability to aggregate all of you comments, sometimes forking a fast pace conversation via a reshare and providing your own insightful commentary, is a nice method... then people looking at your account will see it.

Yup, all kinds of issues being surfaced in these discussions. It's not just Google trying to work out what strategies work best, but us as well.

Agreed, Julian, on "quickly see what a person is about".

I like the idea of there being some basic stats on our Profile pages [1]. Among other things, that would help minions like me distinguish those 'celebrity' tech commentators that genuinely engage with their audience (that's why I like +Robert Scoble) from those who crow about G+ being great for engagement, and then don't engage.

[1] https://plus.google.com/103363186582409589918/posts/aDoTkQLxr1Z

This was my idea: https://plus.google.com/u/0/113329792100896065459/posts/gvjpYujZsq2

+Jonathan Schofield "Miami Tom asked why he should bother following people who won't follow him back."

That's a classic! And that's right at the heart of my comment above of the social etiquette involved in asymmetric follows like the Plus and Twitter model as opposed to the symmetric friend model of Facebook and Linkedin.

Whew!

LOL, I'm gonna start referring to these types of post as, "post from the town crier..."

I want to re-share this but I'm scared now.

I may be in the tech industry, but I'm also a mom and the author of several children's picture books, and I'm pretty sure a good number of my followers have never even heard of +Robert Scoble. That said, they're following me - if they want his posts, they can follow him - so I'm good with this rule. :) I might share one once, though, with the Luddites, if it's especially relevant. Maybe it'll get him a few more followers.

Personally I didn't find your original post egotistical - just a cry for sanity in a (social media) realm of people thinking you owe them something because you're 'connected' with them.

+Julian Bond said "I'm also curious about the social conventions that are building up about reciprocal following. You follow me so it's polite to follow back? And it's an insult to not follow you or to stop following you?"

Curious, no. Annoyed, yes. I haven't yet found it on G+ but that expectation is rife on Twitter (in the desperation to have the highest number of followers). I don't consider myself particularly egotistical, but I don't follow-back unless the follower actually makes an effort to engage with me (at least in a non-abusive manner).

On Facebook that behaviour mainly manifests in younger members, as if the number of 'friends' you have makes you more popular (it doesn't). Not sure of the demographic of the behaviour on Twitter, but the behaviour is certainly entrenched.

I tend to overshare things I find interesting, whether they are from high profile folks or folks whose links otherwise wouldn't get noticed. I stopped sharing links from Mashable, Techcrunch, etc. on Twitter because I was seeing the same links shared over and over again.

However, what I think Google+ allows that something like Twitter doesn't is the ability to add value & context. I couldn't do that on Twitter without frying my "grammar maven" nerves as I edited vowels out of headlines. Now, I have the nearly unlimited ability to say "hey, go read this link and here's why it's fantastic" (or, go read this link, but here's why I think this person is off base.)

What would be AWESOME is if the folks from Google would find a way to aggregate those and put them all together. If several of the people I follow share the same Robert Scoble link, they should be collapsed together instead of showing up in my stream multiple times.

Don't have time to read the threads resulting from this original post, so I'm sorry if these point have been made already, but how about two general rules of thumb:
1) Make an effort to provide content of your own, writing, pictures, whatever. Give something of yourself. I have to say I'm not doing as much of that as I might, just yet...
2) Share what you are passionate about. Be selective about what you want to pass on. And don't try too hard to be competitive about what you reshare, 'Hey look, I follow this guy, aren't I cool?'.

This post was brought to my attention by, guess who, Robert Scoble.