40

Given the "problem" raised here: But I don't wanna share

The problem is, and others seem to uphold my opinion on this, I don't want to share my answers. What I do want to share are other people's answers. Currently the only way to do that is by copying the link under each one. But this is friction, because I have to copy the link, open twitter, compose a tweet (probably back and forth switching to the originating post tab regularly) and then click submit over there, and since I normally keep twitter closed during the day, that's even more friction.

However, if you were to take the current answer bar, as illustrated in the linked question above, and then put that under either the highest rated (when one is more than 10 over the other, for example) or under the accepted answer that has more than 10 upvotes) and it's in my favorite tags and has some length to it1, I'm probably much more likely to actually tweet or facebook or whatever that particular answer.

You've already got the code to share. It shows up under my answers right now. I'm only asking you to stop showing it under my answers, and instead show it under other people's answers.

1 I am trying to figure out what are the likely cues to look at, so I found four that made sense to me when I would probably share them, if they were presented sometimes and not others.

tl;dr:

I don't want to share my answers, I want to share someone else's. Make it easier to share answers and remind me to share them please.

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6
  • Note: the accepted answer threshhold could be just 7 or something, it doesn't have to be 10, I'm only suggesting an idea, not providing an implementation. I would personally drive it off a db value for each site or something. I'm sure the current one isn't hard-coded either.
    – jcolebrand
    Jun 19, 2012 at 18:26
  • Also note: meta.dba.stackexchange.com/questions/730/…
    – jcolebrand
    Jun 20, 2012 at 20:49
  • 3
    A wild Jeff has hijacked your question
    – Ben Brocka
    Jun 21, 2012 at 0:08
  • Yes, this was just being discussed. And so long as the team edits the screen as you indicated, I'm desirous to mark yours as the answer.
    – jcolebrand
    Jun 21, 2012 at 0:08
  • Should we edit this a bit to reflect the current state of no-sharing-buttons-at-all?
    – Ben Brocka
    Jun 28, 2012 at 13:02
  • @BenBrocka the linked Q says that it isn't enabled anymore. I can't imagine that we need to tell people, surely they can see it themselves?
    – jcolebrand
    Jun 28, 2012 at 17:07

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
19

The link in the post menu has been renamed to "share", and we've added the social media sharing icons/functionality to the popup like the other answers suggested.

This will be enabled with our next deploy.

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4
  • 1
    OMG WHERE YOU PUT THE LINK LINK. No seriously that's great, and thanks for changing the link to 'share' as well
    – Ben Brocka
    Jul 24, 2012 at 2:16
  • Incredibly minor quibble: the text still says "link," not "share," on election pages.
    – Pops
    Jul 25, 2012 at 19:38
  • @PopularDemand yeah, that's never had the popup behavior.
    – Rebecca Chernoff
    Jul 25, 2012 at 19:43
  • Fair enough. While I'm on the topic, comments there don't seem to have permalink dates.
    – Pops
    Jul 25, 2012 at 19:44
44

How about something like this:

enter image description here

No inverting anything, no thresholds or maybe it's there or maybe it's not, no flashing bars upon posting your question. Just add sharing functionality into the link button quietly and elegantly.

You could even change the text 'link' to 'share', but I didn't want to suggest that because changing a word that's a link would probably cause a lot flood of "OMG WHERE YOU PUT THE 'LINK' LINK" Meta questions.

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16
  • 1
    So the difference is to encourage sharing, and not just make it easier to share. Otherwise I agree with you. In fact, I desperately encourage them to add this for us ;-) Especially if they don't do the thing I suggested
    – jcolebrand
    Jun 19, 2012 at 19:03
  • 2
    @jcolebrand I think the encouraging is part of the problem...it's either too annoying or it's too invisible. I bet if you just make it more convenient it'll get more use than the old "encouragement bar", and I don't like the idea of special share buttons only for "good" posts because of the apparent endorsement that gives to them (beyond upvotes which are already there)
    – Ben Brocka
    Jun 19, 2012 at 19:06
  • That is a good point, and something I hadn't considered. But I'm telling you now, if they had made the share feature for answers that weren't my own, I would've been using it (or done what you suggested, but the other is more "in my face" while still being at my discretion, what you describe is more for power users)
    – jcolebrand
    Jun 19, 2012 at 19:07
  • 2
    @jcolebrand I just don't see a way to encourage without being "in your face" and I'm not sure encouragement is required beyond discoverability; it is pretty hard to find the 'link' link right now and it's not named share. I wouldn't want to stick unhidden share buttons on all posts and only showing them on some posts (not counting the question) doesn't feel logical
    – Ben Brocka
    Jun 19, 2012 at 19:15
  • Well they're only showing it on "self" posts right now anyways, so why not keep up what they're doing and see if it changes anything?
    – jcolebrand
    Jun 19, 2012 at 19:21
  • You do realize I agree with you, right? I'm trying to help them brainstorm other ways to use a feature they're already unsure about that has had engineering time invested.
    – jcolebrand
    Jun 19, 2012 at 19:22
  • 2
    Meta is great at making people argue even when they agree with eachother
    – Ben Brocka
    Jun 19, 2012 at 19:25
  • 1
    Not that this is a bad idea per say, but to put some numbers out there: the old "always in everyone's face" question share buttons were used about 0.4% of the time (where "used" is "shared and at least one person clicked the shared link") on new questions. I strongly suspect putting the share buttons in a popup is equivalent to removing them.
    – Kevin Montrose
    Jun 19, 2012 at 23:53
  • @KevinMontrose what about the link link? I suspect that's used a lot more...I use it multiple times a day (granted mostly intra network, but also to share on twitter)
    – Ben Brocka
    Jun 20, 2012 at 0:08
  • @Ben - I don't have exact analytics on how many people click the link link, but a fair number of /a/{aid} links are shared (and we only generate them there). Total shares of any form on the network are about 10x the share button usage. People seem to really prefer any method to the share buttons.
    – Kevin Montrose
    Jun 20, 2012 at 0:11
  • @KevinMontrose it's pretty easy to ignore the Question ones, and the one on answers was just annoying not really helpful
    – Ben Brocka
    Jun 20, 2012 at 0:13
  • 3
    @kevin IIIIIIIIIIIII LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIKE IT!
    – Jeff Atwood
    Jun 20, 2012 at 23:12
  • 1
    @KevinMontrose see my comments elsewhere, but I have users noticing the removal of it so ... I think putting it on the link dialog (as Jeff modified my question) is a good forward move.
    – jcolebrand
    Jun 21, 2012 at 0:07
  • 1
    I just dawned on me that social media sharing beats my long time request for searching questions I voted on - I could categorize them (off-site) in any way I'd like ("Stellar Xslt questions") and even combine posts from different SE places ("IIS-related from SO and SF").
    – Filburt
    Jun 21, 2012 at 10:10
  • 3
    I love this feature request !!! Bring it on !!!
    – RolandoMySQLDBA
    Jun 27, 2012 at 21:02
14

Stealing the share bar used in beta sites, I have userscriptified this:

Add Share buttons to the "link" box

I may add more buttons if I feel bored (I'll need to dig up icons and all, though)

enter link description here

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2
  • 1
    Send via e-mail, that kind of reminds me of the time I was in Niagara Falls .... NIAGRA FALLS .. Slowwwwly I turned ...
    – Tim Post
    Jun 29, 2012 at 16:19
  • 1
    Just saw the clip. Hilarious! :D
    – Manishearth
    Jun 29, 2012 at 16:38

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