Starting a good discussion?

I was surprised to see one of my own discussions on altruism in the Top Discussions, especially since it hadn't gotten a lot of responses. I've only had one discussion end up there, and I'm a pretty new member, so you can disregard my advice if you want. I'll still explain what I did, though. In my case, I was actually setting out to create a Top Discussion! I browsed over the Top Discussions for that day and the past few days, and noticed that a lot of them were about things like morality, and what "small acts of kindness" people had done, what they'd done that was good or bad, etc. A lot of them involved altruism/kindness/good deeds to some degree, so I decided to create a discussion about altruism itself. Because the question was both long and involved (it was a complex question) and something that people were likely to have strong opinions about, the few answers it got were several paragraphs long. Because there were only 3 answers at the time, but each answer was very long, I suspect that the length of the original discussion and the length of the answers may have something to do with how "interesting" the discussion is considered to be. I guess my advice is: - Keep an eye on the sorts of things people seem to like discussing - Try to create a (polite) discussion about that type of topic that people are likely to have a strong opinion about. - Preferably, it should be the sort of opinion that takes several paragraphs of text to explain. In order to encourage people to explain further (and write more), write "hooks" into your discussion, such as "...and why do you believe this to be so?"

Never had my topic highlighted as a top one but I think if you discuss a current event that eveyone seems to be talking about and type it out to be a very long discussion then you might get it to the top as you may have noticed, long discussions are what seems to make anything (money or as a top) at all.

I feel that a discussion that gets to be a top discussion depends a lot on the mood of the other Lotters at the time of it being started. It may be a really good, interesting topic but if the mood of the Lotters at that particular time is inclined towards discussing something else more trivial then that's just tough luck. I have been in the top with topics I did not consider particularly worthy of being there and then others that I thought would be interesting were a downright flop. Depends on who is about and their mood when you post. I suggest you just carry on posting whatever you feel is owrthy, responding on as many discussions as you can to make yourself noticed and who knows that when you least ecpect it yours will be there! Good luck and happy Lotting!

When I was very active here in mylot, there was a time when two of my discussion is on today's top and one or more from hot topics. I am not very good on making interesting discussion but I can say that I am very good on making friends here. All you need to do is to answer discussions of your friends, be visible to them, let them now that you are interested on their discussion and in the long run they will notice you. That is the only secret here in mylot if you want to have a lot of response or want to be on today's top. You must take note though that the number of response is not quite relative on making it on top. In my experience I think it is the frequency my post or topic is responded too. This is based on my observation only OK, that when you post a topic and say every 1 second somebody answer to your topic then you may land in today's top or hot. So I say you answer some of your friends discussion for starter.

we can never tell if our discussions here on mylot would be something that to be considered as the top discussions for the day cause there are tons and tons of discussions being started by fellow mylot users. but one thing for sure is if your discussions would attract almost everyones attention and the topic is very interesting then probably that would be a sure hit

Hey gvannorman, I think it would be nice if you also participated in other group discussions. Try to rate also their topics if you think it's positive or not. Through this, they might recognized you more. Have FUN in MyLotting! :)