So it's been a while, updating the news. Like some have said it's a fairly thankless process, people are quick to point out when you've made an error on 1 story - even though you posted 15 other A-okay updates on the same day.
I've talked with other people about updating the news page and we share similar concerns. So I'd like to talk you through how I post the news and why things are the way they are. So the next time things appear hinky, please bear all this in mind so I don't have to repeat the same stuff again. Some of this applies to other people who update too, but I'm sure each person has their own process and quirks.
TO START WITH
Okay, so first off I hit gonintendo, they seem to report a lot of stuff and it's in a blog form so it's not easy just reading a list of updates, it takes a while to scroll through everything. This is why the bottom of the column updates are usually Nintendo stories, because I post it earlier in the day to get it out of the way.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE SITES
Then I hit up a couple of useful foreign language sites, because of this please note it when the headlines are not 100% right. I am either giving an educated guess based on things I can sort of read' or babelfish translating it. I only speak english so don't cut my nuts when I get it slightly off. Also note that because I do not speak foreign languages and because we all speak english here, posting a link to a spanish story (for instance) is of benefit to very few people here. So I sometimes have to link to translations done by other people on other forums or sites. This does not invalidate the news, but posting the original link would be of little use to most people here and the translation is much more useful.
MULTIPLATFORM SITES
I usually visit multiplatform sites towards the end of my updating session so you will see more stories on PC, PS3, Xbox stories near the top of the page once I am finished. Then I go onto NeoGaf to pick up the dregs of whatever I may have missed. I tend not to go to platform specific sites, so if you want really in depth coverage of Vita or whatever I cannot service you - I simply do not have the time. I post what I am immediately interested in and what I think will immediately interest others.
I only hit up one Japanese centric site, a lot of the Japanese stuff is in unreadable Kanji.
THERE IS RED ALL OVER THE PAGES
Nintendo stories are red, you may see a lot of red and complain about how it's all Nintendo. Please bear in mind that Nintendo platforms do not get a lot of multiplatform support. So there are many PC or Xbox and PS3 games that get posted with no colour. If you take the time and do the math, add up all the red stories of the day and then add up all the colourless stories and green and blue you will see more of a balance. I cannot paint a story blue because it's on PS3 when it's also coming to PC and 360 too.
I ONLY POST 30% OF WHAT I SEE
There is so much stuff daily and most of it is pointless or really uninteresting. Here, random story of the day I just spotted: League of Legends Varus gameplay trailer
I have no fricking idea what this is. Sure there may be someone who is really into League of Legends, I have no idea what it is, have never seen anyone here talking about it so I do not post the link. I do not have time to do everything.
CVG IS A TABLOID NEWSPAPER
That's their business, they like to stir up shit, they are a tabloid newspaper in gaming news terms. They always try to sensationalise everything but they are current and do update regularly and have the whole of the futurenetwork to draw upon. So they are a good source of gaming news if you can get past the sensationalism.
MAKING THINGS INTERESTING
On that note, sometimes there are quiet days on the news page, or not much interesting going on on the vgpress. We have times where there is not much to talk about. So in some news updates, I do sometimes sensationalise and mix things up, throw in a glib comment here and there to get someone to say something. Bear in mind that I'm not trying to piss you off or denegrate your favourite game or studio, I'm just trying to get some kind of discussion going on and sometimes you have to pluck a hair off someones back to wake them up. Despite some altercations I have had with some people here, I genuinely hold no animosity towards anyone at the moment - not even you, yes you know who you are.
BIG NEWS: BLACK HIGHLIGHTED STORIES
Now this one will annoy people, you see some things listed as big news others not. Usually I use the big story colouring when there is the first review of a game, or first announcement of a game. If a reviews embargo ends and there are more than several reviews on the same day I just highlight the first or the single best or most controversial. Otherwise I just use the big story colour to bring your attention to an interesting article or to get someones attention if there is a time critical sale or deal or news that I know someone will have a particular interest in. It's a way to make sure that for instance (X forumer) doesn't miss out on free download content or so that Canadian forumers know about some great game sale.
I LIKE READING RUMOURS
Some people are weird, they hate rumours, they hate being teased, they hate seeing it labelled as news. I love rumours, I want to know everything I want most rumours to be true and I like imagining what things could be like. When I post rumours I usually label them as RUMOR: or I put a question mark after it:
Report: New Xbox being manurfactured at the moment?
It may not say rumour but when there is a ? mark at the end please note that it's there to denote that the story is not a sure thing. A lot of rumours turn out to be true, so please don't go nuts when there are rumours posted in the news, it's usually the rumours that get people talking here the most.
THERE IS A CHARACTER LIMIT!
This makes the headlines quite annoying sometimes, things either have to be chopped down, re-worded or paraphrased to get a representative headline. Sometimes you have to bastardise a headline just to get something vaguely coherent up. This is not something I have control of, I do my best but sometimes you are forced to do a hack job just because the headline will not fit! Don't hate me for this.
DON'T SHOOT THE MESSENGER
Just because I post a story or editorial does not mean I agree with it. Remember this. I am here to deliver the news, not to filter and read and judge everything. If you do not like a particular story and have an issue with it, that is fine, but please do not shoot the messenger. Your issue is with the writer of the article or the content in it. Please leave me out of it.
"Shooting the messenger" is a metaphoric phrase used to describe the act of lashing out at the (blameless) bearer of bad news.
I DON'T HAVE TIME TO READ EVERYTHING BEFORE POSTING IT
This relates to shooting the messenger. When people do updates en masse they are trying to get through and post a whole lot of news in not much time. We do not have time to read the content of each and every article we post. There are a whole bunch of sites with a whole lot of links and we are just trying to process them and get them up as links for you to click on. When you have a problem with a story, please note that the updaters have not neccesarily looked behind the one line headline when we post it.
NEOGAF IS A VALID SOURCE
I know it's massive forum and that there can be a lot of trolling and system wars, but it is a gold mine of information. It is the single most important gaming forum on the internet. All the sites you know like Gamespot, IGN, Eurogamer, CVG etc get a lot of their stories from NeoGAF. When someone on GAF trawls up an unseen patent or finds concept art for a secret cancelled game, or translates some japanese business report - other sites take notice and post news based on what is said there. NeoGAF also has celebrity posters as I call them: real developers, real industry people, real analysts. They even have representatives of sites, for instance you know of the aussie website Vooks? There is a forumer there called VOOKS who writes for them and the same goes for other sites too.
I POST NEWS FOR YOU
I want people to stay in the loop, I post things that might interest my friends, I like suprising and entertaining people. I am not paid here, I do this as a kind of free service for people to read here. It's not always fun, it can be labourious, repetitive and woefully thankless. So when you do all this work for soooo long and for so little reward, when someone bites your head off (usually for one of the reasons mentioned above in the news updating process), you can snap. Others have too.
The next time you think I have made some sort of mistake, read this blog again and bring the issue to me in a nice, logical manner and I'll respond in kind. You'd probably be suprised at how fast I would be to alter a headline that was non-reflective or delete a story which is untrue. Bear in mind that everyone here can edit, post or delete stories. If you have a real problem then fix it yourself quietly instead of creating drama where it's not needed - the likelihood is that I haven't even had time to read the content of a story you take issue with! 
Or that the headline had to be a hack job to fit inside the character limit.
If you snap at me, I'm likely to do the same back, or just disappear.
I POST LINKS WHEN I SEE THEM
Recently I posted 4 articles which were editorials from various sites about why the Wii U was a better purchase this Christmas than PS4 and XB1. I received a short "LOL GG is a fanboy" equivalent response, which was then plus-ed by 3 people which means there are 4 people who think this. The reality is that I saw all 4 stories at the same time in one thread.
Wii U: what a difference a single game can make
As someone who is constantly reading and constantly looking for things to show you guys, I post what I see when I see it. So imagine you are me, you click a thread whilst reading GAF and the thread is about how Super Mario 3D world is changing peoples opinions on Wii U. In this single opening post are links to 4 articles about the subject. As someone who is constantly updating the news each day I post the stories one after the other.
They are posted one after the other because that is when I see them. Would it make sense to post 1 of them, wait till the next day and post another, wait another day or even a couple of hours then post another? That makes no sense. When I go to Eurogamer I post all the Eurogamer stories I see one after the other, as I am on the site at that time of day. When I am on CVG I post all the stories I see there one after the other as I am on the site. Then later in the day I usually do a 2nd run through where I return to said sites.
So logically when I am on GAF and see 4 articles in the same post, as a NEWS UPDATER it only makes sense for me to post them all as I see them, one after the other. It makes no sense NOT to. I explained why they were posted that way and posted a link to the thread where I saw them but no one replied or plus-ed my post. So I really don't appreciate the LULZ GG is a fanboy +1 treatment. Maybe you think this is an overeaction, but try updating the news everyday for years - LOOKING FOR INFORMATION FOR YOU GUYS TO KEEP YOU ENTERTAINED AND INFORMED and then getting shit for it.
And on the other hand, really do not ignore the dozens upon dozens upon dozens of stories I have posted about how the Wii U is weak, horrible, flatlining in sales or missing publisher support. And that's been posted continuously by me for about 2 years now. No one here has posted as much negative Nintendo news as me and I never seem to get recognition for that. Whether I agree with it or not, I post it.
I'm the one who posts that news regardless of whether it's negative or not. In fact the day before the 4 "Wii U is good" editorials I posted an analyst saying that it would sell like the Gamecube and just today I posted: Xbox One UK sales about to overtake Wii U total
So next time before jumping on the LULZ GG is a fanboy +1 train, stop and think about how the updating process is done and please stop being so silently glib. If you have something to say then say it.
Other things to note: Some stories are posted as a joke to make you laugh or attempt too for instance todays story: Tokyo Jungle should be a Z rated game for sexual content Wait...... isn't this a game about animals? "Kobayashi jokes that Tokyo Jungle should be a Z rated game because of the violence and sexual content."
IF YOU SEE A LOT OF REVIEWS OR UPDATES FOR A PARTICULAR GAME POSTED IT'S USUALLY FOR A REASON
For instance when I was posting Red Steel 2 reviews I was actually doing the review thread at NeoGAF and so doing double duty here; I thought I might as well post the same reviews I found for the benefit of both sites. It was fairly ardous so when I got criticised for it I snapped again. I also did the thread for the Crystal Bearers here and on GAF so I had to collect a lot of reviews and I did the news hype thread on GAF for Go Vacation so I had to have lots of stuff to post to keep the thread updated.
The other reason you might see lot of reviews posted is because a reviews embargo ends and all the reviews come out at once, or it's a big game that a lot of people are interested in, Mario this, Halo that. Or and yes I am guilty of this: I like to shout about little odd games because the big games get enough attention as it is. Maybe it gets on your nerves, but I feel like you have to shout about some games because otherwise they get stepped on and passed by like cracked leaves on the pavement.
Also, I like to annoy you guys. 
ON REVIEWS
The quotes are grabbed really quickly, usually by scrolling right down to the last paragraph and grabbing whatever is there. If you're lucky there is some one liner at the top of a review to crib. Reviews are rarely actually read before posting - bear that in mind. You click the link, smash and grab then leave.
Usually I'm pretty lazy and grab just the score.
WEEKEND UPDATING
Only a few blogs actually update with news at the weekend so most of it is barren and cleaning up the dregs from the weekdays , or picking up on rumours on GAF. About the only site I see update at the weekend is Gonintendo so don't be suprised when you see Nintendo news on Sundays or whatever.
SUPPORT IS NEEDED
Aspro's been a great posting partner, but both of us have dropped out at one point or the other. Without help it can be brutal to keep up. But, the more news you guys post means the less that we have to. And we can enjoy reading other peoples news and not have to spend so much time trawling for and posting news. I'm not saying that anyone has to start mass updating, but imagine if everyone posted 2 stories a day?
ON RUMOR POSTING
I said:When I post rumours I usually label them as RUMOR: or I put a question mark after it: Report: New Xbox being manurfactured at the moment? It may not say rumour but when there is a ? mark at the end please note that it's there to denote that the story is not a sure thing. A lot of rumours turn out to be true, so please don't go nuts when there are rumours posted in the news, it's usually the rumours that get people talking here the most.
Please don't freak out if the ? mark is not there on the headline of the rumour. Either:
- I've hit the key and it hasn't registered, it's a typo
- Or the character limit has cut it off the end
- Or I've forgotten
- Or I've been lazy because I have another 10 stories to post
- Or I thought people would click and read the article and decide for themselves on its validity
I didn't ever expect people to click on a story and get annoyed because they went through to a rumour. I thought they would just read the story and see that it was a rumour. But I've been mistaken a few times on this issue, which has just left me scratching my head.
Maybe a rumour tab to tick on the updates would help?
I thank you for that. I am somewhat biased towards Nintendo but I post everything regardless on other platforms and whether articles are critical of Nintendo or not.
That's why it's annoying. I can post a million non-tendo articles and nothing is said, then when a bunch of Nintendo stories appears because I am processing links off a page I get called out for it. It may appear a small thing for you but it's a big thing to me because I'm the one doing the bulk updating for hours each week.
I don't know how many times I've pointed out that I can't play 360 in my room because of crippling muscular back pain which manifested itself a few years into 360s life. I can barely play Wii U because of a shared tv, if it weren't for off tv play I would hardly play anything but portables. I can hardly even sleep most nights.
Ganging up on people can happen when people are posting instead of plusing or minusing something. You don't need anonymity for that, but you could perhaps argue that it makes it an easier behaviour to partake in?
For the record, I plused it because it was amusing (if only for highlighting all the articles bunched together as they were; not specifically because he implied you posted them all) and, like Arsene Wenger, I didn't even see your response because that's the nature of ggweekly (a lot of stuff gets missed; or at least I miss a lot of it).
I say that not to defend myself, but so that you know there wasn't even any banter involved in the plusing <3.
Feel better dude. I remember you had my back when Steel had a hissy fit over me posting a Halo troll story way back when I was posting news stories. So what can we take from this? Steel is a dick. A giant, engorged, hard as fuck dick.
I bet you say that to all boys.
I don't remember it being Steel.
Myself, I know there are fans of many things here, I don't press it that much unless there's some explicit understanding of mockery. Especially in one case, because it's not polite and there's no need for it I respect and trust that person and understand his love of (insert item of fandom). That's social awareness. If people want to rag on my Endless Ocean or Animal Crossing love so be it, but the implication of bias I do not appreciate even taken off hand and especially when I've made it clear I disapprove of it before. And not when I'm doing nothing differently, updating in the way I normally would, everyday.
I've ignored it many times but you can only poke a sleeping bear so much before he wakes up.
I could take it as: "Shit, well I guess I shouldn't do Nintendo updates anymore if people think I'm so biased?" That's what I could take away from it. I personally love this site because of the lack of restrictions on moderation on what you can and cannot post. If I suddenly feel like I can't be me, then it loses it's appeal.
I'm just saying, be aware of the updating process, not just on this recent issue but on all the rest of it. For instance on these sections:
I understand you guys were joking about and thanks for taking the time for explaining it. Hopefully you can see things from my perspective.
See? It wasn't me!
Can I still keep to be a giant, engorged dick, though?
I probably shouldn't speak at all since I'm unaware of the post(s) which caused the misunderstanding in the first place. I just want to say that since Mario World reviews, there has been a really big number of media coverage, reports, articles and opinion pieces not just from dedicated gamesites but from everywhere about how Mario is the best game out this moment and how the Wii U is the best and most sensible gaming purchase right now and this holiday season.
I guess they all suddenly felt guilty for writing it off and ignoring it and all of a sudden tried to overcompensate. This being a news site it was inevitable that all of that would filter through here. It's not a campaign for people buying Wii U's by any member of the vgpress. After all if the percentage of gamers who bought a U was the same as it is amongst the vgp members the console would have sold a hell of a lot more. So yes, a large number of vgp members are long time Nintendo fans, what unbiased gamer who has been around for longer than the last two generations isn't? Also for later members, it's worth remembering that the vgp came about after the mass exodus from gamespot which was caused by the scandal of the greatest game of all time receiving an 8.8 (for not having dolby surround sound) by the fat fuck whose name shall not be spoken here. And after a long time of shunning and disregard for Nintendo games and hardware.
Anyways, forgive me for kind of stating the obvious.
I guess the disconnect here is I don't see where we ridiculed you but I guess you feel that way so sorry. As others have stated 4 or 5 of the same story like that posted together in a row is funny.
Okay here.....you're not laughing at the stories or the content. You're not laughing at why the internet has collectively decided to write the same thing at the same time. You were laughing at a post, laughing at me for posting it. Get that? So as I said the message I take away from that is to be wary of posting Nintendo stories.
No one ever makes comment when I post tons of Sony of MS stories on one day.
If you don't understand why the stories are grouped like that then you need to imagine the posting process. I have no control over 11 different independent websites with regards as to the content or release date of said content. I try and post things when they are current, when they appear so if they all appear on the same day they will likely get posted on the same day. If they appear on the same page, they will get posted one after the other because this is the updating process.
But as I said, that's part of why I don't like the plus and previously the minus system. I had no idea who plused it or why as the very nature of the system doesn't allow for any reason or explanation. I cannot read your minds on what you were thinking when you did it. All I can see is my "friends" plusing a somewhat misguided attempt at lockeroom humour, whose only message was: GG is a fanboy LOL - look at him posting pro-nintendo stories.
That's why I'm saying in this blog in the opening post, take a moment to think before you just pile in on the plus train. Because from my perspective I am getting shit for posting in the same way as I always have.
I trust Aspro 100% if he says he didn't mean anything by it, I don't want to fall out with a great guy, I just cannot believe that after last time he had forgotten how I felt about the issue and he hasn't really apologised either. I love the guy apart from this (one) tiny issue. AllI can say is that if I cause offence mistakenly, if I didn't mean anything by it, I apologise and that's the end of the issue, hands up.
As I've explained I put a lot into getting new stories to this place each day, do you even realise that when I say I post stories for you I literally mean it? I post FIFA and Killzone news for Foolz, Sonic news for Dvader, Halo and Gears news for Archie, PC news for Edgecrusher, Harvest Moon news for Robio, I used to post Deadly Premonition links for Aspro, what few there were....
I don't give a crap about most of that stuff I am literally doing it for you. The other stuff there is some cross over with my interests and other peoples.
Exactly.
No one was laughing at why the internet has suddenly had a eureka-moment-180-turn on Wii U. It was because I posted the stories from the same page one after the other and that, to me is a logical approach of the updating process. You go to a page, see links and copy said links across. It makes no sense to go off the page, do something else then come back to it. I could take a lazy approach and post a single forum link, I could do that a lot for tons of news and content, but then the updates would be a pale shadow of what they are. I don't know if any of you actually use the news search function here, but we've built up a large referencable database of important news stories that is a great resource.
I didn't even post any Mario 3D World reviews.
Anyway I've exhaustively explained how I felt on the issue, there's no point me explaining it anymore either you get it or don't. Just be aware of the mindset of a bulk updater: you put a lot in, you get very little out - but at the same time you don't expect aggro for it either.
I chose you simply so I could call someone that with a certain degree of certainty.
GG, your misunderstanding on the reality of the situation is based on so many complex misinterpretations and contortioned imaginings of my intent and true feelings that I don't even know where to start. I'll just stay true to my promise from here on out and not comment on your valued contributions to the site (no sarcasm) so to avoid further confusion. These really are the last words I'll contribute to the topic.