The Future of Oppo

"jminer" (jminer)
11/16/2020 at 11:45 • Filed to: None

Greetings fellow Opponauts!

( Being lazy and reposting this from last with an updated screenshot below) Hopefully we can stick together, but if not - good luck to everyone. It’s been fucking awesome!

Man this has been a fucking week, I don’t think I’ve had this much stress, fear and hope in this short a stretch before.

We all know Oppo on Kinja is dying, and it makes us all feel things we’d rather not feel. This place has been a part of my life for 5 years and it’s been awesome.

As many of you know we’ve been working on a few different life rafts the biggest two are the Oppo Tribe on DriveTribe and what’s come to be known as the Hyphen.

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Both are a part of what Oppo will become with the Hyphen being more conversational and feeling more like home, but DriveTribe helping to connect us to a larger audience and bring others into the Oppo fold. The management at DriveTribe has also been extremely welcoming and engaging so far.

Even though it’s less than week old we’ve also got solid growth and engagement. The topic creation and commenting rate are above what we’ve seen on Oppo most of this year. It really does feel pretty nice over there.

Many have (rightfully) asked what the long term plans for Oppo and the Hyphen are. While these things aren’t concrete, I wrote down the thoughts of me and the others helping build it and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

There is still on occasional login/registration issue over at the Hyphen. If you’re having trouble disable your ad-blocker and trying again in a few minutes does it 9/10 times.

Thank you for everything Oppo - it’s been an amazing time here and I really hope we can keep it going.

Also for an image and update here’s traffic and user count on the Hyphen as of now. We’re up to 305 users and counting.

Friday’s screenshot:

Saturday 1640 PST Screenshot:

Monday 0830 PST

DISCUSSION (46)

Chariotoflove > jminer
11/13/2020 at 13:23

Everyone remember that we are no longer talking about choosing one over the other. We’re envisioning DT and The Hyphen coexisting and synergizing!

jminer > Chariotoflove
11/13/2020 at 13:29

Very much so! I didn’t say it, but I think the same for the Facebook group too!

Also discord - but that’s a very different beast. Great for quick conversations or asking questions, but it’s no oppo replacement.

Sovande > Chariotoflove
11/13/2020 at 13:29

I don’t think that will work. I think it will just lead to two divergent sites.

CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > Sovande
11/13/2020 at 13:32

Like I said earlier, checking two different sites isn’t a big deal for me or for most. Looking at it from DT’s side, do you think they want Oppo’s....Opponess? Every shitpost, dog and perlatics post?

I’d love to see it as a platform for our best and brightest to share their stuff.

ttyymmnn > Sovande
11/13/2020 at 13:32

My plan is to hang out at Hyphen and make my long-form aviation posts to both places.

jminer > Sovande
11/13/2020 at 13:34

That’s possible, but they’re so different. Most of us probably check 3 or 4 news sites and socials feeds every day anyway. I don’t see what the problem is for folks to be on both. Many will have a preference one way or another and each is suited to a slightly different form of content.

HoustonRunner > Chariotoflove
11/13/2020 at 13:36

Kinja'd!!!

HoustonRunner > jminer
11/13/2020 at 13:38

Oppo is literally my only social network. (I don’t count LinkedIn, I do that only for work.) I’ll follow, support, and provide giant red Suburban content when possible.

Kinja'd!!!

jminer > HoustonRunner
11/13/2020 at 13:39

I do love his W impersonation. This recent(ish) revisit made me laugh so hard.

Sovande > jminer
11/13/2020 at 13:41

Fair enough, I just think starting with two sites is just kicking the can down the road until someone decides running two is repetitive, expensive and kinda silly and shuts one of them down, or until they fully div erge into two different sites. I could be wrong!

HoustonRunner > jminer
11/13/2020 at 13:41

It has extra meaning to me because I’m in consulting, I like to think that a fair bit of what I do is strategery.

jminer > HoustonRunner
11/13/2020 at 13:43

It is the same for me. I’m on DriveTribe and giving it a solid go, but admittedly I don’t love it, some do though. Maybe my phone is too cheap as it is very slow on mobile.

Your g iant red suburban content is always appreciated!

Chariotoflove > ttyymmnn
11/13/2020 at 13:44

That makes the most sense to me too.

Sovande > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever
11/13/2020 at 13:46

I don’t know that I would even consider what DT wants. If they want the blog, they should get it warts and all, not some cleaned up version .

Drive Tribe seems like a great place for Oppo to be another blog under the Drive Tribe label. It relegates it to a sub-heading.

Chariotoflove > Sovande
11/13/2020 at 13:48

This makes a lot of intuitive sense at first. However, once I got into the actually experience of both sites, my opinion changed. I now look at the relationship as roughly analogous to the original relationship between the FP and Oppo when they were linked, except that we all have authorship (conditionally) on the DT page.

I really think it may be more clear when one starts using both for a couple of days. I could be wrong too!

VincentMalamute-Kim > HoustonRunner
11/13/2020 at 13:48

Nice. You do strategery without covfefe?

Jb boin > Sovande
11/13/2020 at 13:50

I can be used like Jalopnik was/is to Oppo .

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Sovande
11/13/2020 at 13:57

Think of the hyphen as our home, and DT as our public relations arm.

Sovande > Jb boin
11/13/2020 at 13:58

For what purpose? I don’t understand the value of editorializing the posts and only choosing the “good” content for the Drive Tribe posts (if I am understanding the relationship between the two correctly) . Seems like a way to recreate the Jalopnik/Oppo relationship for no reason other than because it happened before?

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > jminer
11/13/2020 at 13:59

Alec Baldwin did a great job, and we’ll see about Jim Carrey, but neither can hold a candle to this.

Sovande > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
11/13/2020 at 14:01

PR for what? Is the plan for the folks who have led the charge for these new spots (and many thanks to all who have, yourself included) to monetize the blog?

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Sovande
11/13/2020 at 14:07

Attracting new like-minded members to counteract natural attrition from an online community like this.

Starting with donations for now; any monetization would be to cover the costs of hosting the site.

Poor_Sh > jminer
11/13/2020 at 14:21

Cut off one head and two will replace it. Hail Hyphen! (And DT)

Sovande > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
11/13/2020 at 14:21

Gotcha.

jminer > Poor_Sh
11/13/2020 at 14:23

I like all the call backs to Captain America - although not sure how I feel about being the head of the evil organization bent on world domination which is also worse than the nazi’s ...

jminer > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
11/13/2020 at 14:32

Not even close. I don’t love carr ey’s biden, but I’ve never reall y been a big carrey fan.

VincentMalamute-Kim > Sovande
11/13/2020 at 14:33

I’m with you. DT seems fine to me and I’m fearful that only a few people running a site can’t last. I was waiting to see how things shake out and it’s Hyphen. I’ll go over and make an account.

Poor_Sh > jminer
11/13/2020 at 14:36

Kinja'd!!!

Better?

jminer > Poor_Sh
11/13/2020 at 14:39

Yup - I’ll take F uturama references over Nazi ones 100% of the time!

Sovande > VincentMalamute-Kim
11/13/2020 at 14:44

My concern is that once things like pageviews and money and editing get involved then the interest for me is lost. It will quickly become a place where a core group of writers are highlighted and the content will reflect those editorial views. That’s all fine, it’s just not the experience I am looking for. Once you push DT down the road of becoming a “ platform for our best and brightest to share their stuff” I think you lose the interesting, free-form appeal that is Oppo .

VincentMalamute-Kim > Sovande
11/13/2020 at 14:49

We will all get to see what happens and who was right . May take a few years.

My bird IS the word > Sovande
11/13/2020 at 15:02

When I joined oppo, it operated more like jalopnik’ s sub blog. Although then if you bothered to write quality content they woulf promote it to the FP

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > jminer
11/13/2020 at 15:04

Well all super villains need a secret base so you better start collecting (mandatory) donations. I’m thinking something like this

Kinja'd!!!

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > jminer
11/13/2020 at 15:06

Yeah, we’ll see if it gets better, but his “loooser” line from the last opening was just perfect, and only he could do it.

Sovande > My bird IS the word
11/13/2020 at 15:23

Right, and that relationship no longer exists. I am unsure of the what is driving the desire to replicate that “sub blog” mind set. Let it be what it is as opposed to a place for the occasional “good enough” content to be used to make a parent site better. Just have it stand on it’s own to feet. It will either do great or fall on it’s face.

Nom De Plume > jminer
11/13/2020 at 15:27

Time to begin a rigid program of reeducation that removes latent angry feelings force fed into innocent people by those controlling the narrative on Kinja.

Kinja'd!!!

jminer > Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available
11/13/2020 at 15:37

I’m ok with this!

My bird IS the word > Sovande
11/13/2020 at 15:55

I just dont feel like producing amazing content when its just immediately going to disappear though.

Sovande > My bird IS the word
11/13/2020 at 16:33

That's a really good point that I hadn't even considered.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > jminer
11/14/2020 at 21:08

100k - woo!

jminer > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
11/14/2020 at 21:11

We’re getting crawled by bots too which is likely good news for search engine results eventually

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > jminer
11/14/2020 at 21:23

Huh... Causing any issues so far?

jminer > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
11/14/2020 at 21:30

Nope - things are humming along pretty well at the moment

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > jminer
11/14/2020 at 21:42

Great to hear! You are an OPPO legend at this point.

Any luck on the finding a place to live front?

jminer > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
11/14/2020 at 22:09

Not yet. Got a showing tomorrow and like 5 or 6 calls out waiting for folks to call me back.

JGrabowMSt > jminer
11/16/2020 at 11:58

New site looks good, if you need or want a mirror just in case , I might be able to handle that.