Forum > Blogs > The Real Process of Updating the News: Please read and cut us some slack
The Real Process of Updating the News: Please read and cut us some slack
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Wed, 09 May 2012 06:53:46
+1
I consider myself the overseer of this place.  I have a unique role here, so I have some unique perspectives.

1) Every once in a while, you get someone complaining about posting news.  These usually fall into 2 camps.  The first is a heavy news poster (such as GG, though I'm thinking of Aspro mainly in this example) of stating mistakes in standards of posting news, such as duplicates or poor headlines.  Keep in mind that any comments like these are about the content and not personal to the poster.

The second is what gets GGs goat, and understandably.  That's when a criticism of a story gets misdirected at the poster.  Such as disliking a rumour because it's a rumour, or tabloidisms.  And for the record, don't worry about it Bear, this isn't just you.  It happens every once in a while and is largely a misunderstanding.  If there's anything to get here, it's to think for a minute before posting something that may be critical of our contributors.  They do a lot, so you can afford a little courtesy.

2) Headlines do have length limits.  I control the tools that allow the news to be posted.  I also recognize that they are far from perfect.  I've had ideas for a long time for making it better, and to my discredit, haven't made any strides in that area.  After some very long rough patches, I've neglected a lot of development here.  Posting news is more cumbersome than it needs to be, so even though I've failed to post much in the way of news, recognize the effort involved.  BTW GG, though I didn't mention it, I did increase the character limit on headlines a little over a month ago as you requested.

3) GG Weekly is the most active part of the site, by far.  There have been more comments posted to GG Weekly than all other parts of the site combined.  This little nook of the web has become its own unique and special creation of ours, and is driven by the contributions of GG and other prolific news posters.  You help make this place home.  Thank you.

---

Tell me to get back to rewriting this site so it's not horrible on mobile
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Wed, 09 May 2012 08:02:52
+1

Thanks for posting and clearing things up. I think we are all good , at least I hope so.

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Wed, 09 May 2012 09:05:15

I only got a few words of support from GG when people had a cry over that Halo joke post. Fuck you guys and your favouritism. Nyaa

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Wed, 09 May 2012 14:06:13
Yodariquo said:
I consider myself the overseer of this place.  I have a unique role here, so I have some unique perspectives.


1) Every once in a while, you get someone complaining about posting news.  These usually fall into 2 camps.  The first is a heavy news poster (such as GG, though I'm thinking of Aspro mainly in this example) of stating mistakes in standards of posting news, such as duplicates or poor headlines. ...



Historically that was the case, but I no longer worry about such things. I delete dupes as I see them, as hopefully people do with mine as well.

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Wed, 09 May 2012 15:41:21

Still catching up here, this blog was not for Bear or because of Bear.


Sorry I snapped at you on the new page Bear, I'm trying to explain why I can get crabby, Aspros's post about taking on too much is definitely true. On that day, also remember a builder smashed my bedroom wall down without telling me.


I've been meaning to write this blog for a year now and finally did it because it's easier to refer someone to a point here in the future than have to go through the whole pointless squabble again and again.


I also thought it would be interesting for you guys to see the reasons behind the way things are posted. I would love to see Aspros own methods too.

SteelAttack said:

I only logged in to show my full support to GG on this.

bugsonglass said:

GG you shouldn't feel the need to explain yourself.  Most people here understand the work and the time that is involved in going through this whole process on a day to day basis and we are all thankful, grateful and appreciative.  I hope you know that even if it goes unsaid much of the time.


Thanks guys.

Dvader said:
"Bear in mind"


I see what you did there! Nyaa

Damnit, I should of said "please try and understand" damn you, pun was not intended.

aspro said:

Pretty much.

Beyond the news though there is a broader point about indiviuals who voluntarily take on too much work in a community and get little feedback other than negative. It's called "Community Burnout" which Linus Torvalds wrote about a while back.  Here is the introduction, (it is of course not unique here to you, I've had it, I'm sure Yoda has felt it from time to time as well).

Hang around the free and open source software community for any length of time, and you can't help seeing examples of burnout. A colleague takes on too much, and suddenly they're working harder for fewer results.

They have a hard time concentrating on their work. They neglect their personal life. When challenged, they become defense and unusually hostile. Eventually, they withdraw -- and, sometimes, they don't come back.

Absolutely.

Yodariquo said:
I consider myself the overseer of this place.  I have a unique role here, so I have some unique perspectives.


1) Every once in a while, you get someone complaining about posting news.  These usually fall into 2 camps.  The first is a heavy news poster (such as GG, though I'm thinking of Aspro mainly in this example) of stating mistakes in standards of posting news, such as duplicates or poor headlines.  Keep in mind that any comments like these are about the content and not personal to the poster.


The second is what gets GGs goat, and understandably.  That's when a criticism of a story gets misdirected at the poster.  Such as disliking a rumour because it's a rumour, or tabloidisms.  And for the record, don't worry about it Bear, this isn't just you.  It happens every once in a while and is largely a misunderstanding.  If there's anything to get here, it's to think for a minute before posting something that may be critical of our contributors.  They do a lot, so you can afford a little courtesy.


2) Headlines do have length limits.  I control the tools that allow the news to be posted.  I also recognize that they are far from perfect.  I've had ideas for a long time for making it better, and to my discredit, haven't made any strides in that area.  After some very long rough patches, I've neglected a lot of development here.  Posting news is more cumbersome than it needs to be, so even though I've failed to post much in the way of news, recognize the effort involved.  BTW GG, though I didn't mention it, I did increase the character limit on headlines a little over a month ago as you requested.


3) GG Weekly is the most active part of the site, by far.  There have been more comments posted to GG Weekly than all other parts of the site combined.  This little nook of the web has become its own unique and special creation of ours, and is driven by the contributions of GG and other prolific news posters.  You help make this place home.  Thank you.

Thanks for increasing the limit Yoda.

It was a problem before when you posted and then later saw that a 3rd of your headlines were chopped off at the end and you have to go in and edit them individually.

The character limit is a problem depending on the source headline, usually with about 30% of links. It means chopping it in half and copying and pasting it in two parts to the headline and the subtitle. Then you have to copy/paste the link. So if you can imagine copy/pasting 3 bits between different tabs for each link - multiply that by 15-20 for the day it can get annoying. Maybe a shared character limit would be better, so you could have a longer headline that subtracts characters from the subtitle?

That way it's adaptable to the story, you can have a longer headline, a shorter subtitle and still come in under a character limit? That might be cool.

And thanks for your post too and for the site as a whole - it's cool 97% of the time in terms of being bug-free, working well and having cool people which is a lot better than most gaming forums.

Foolz said:

I only got a few words of support from GG when people had a cry over that Halo joke post. Fuck you guys and your favouritism. Nyaa

The last thing I missed saying is that:

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?

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Wed, 09 May 2012 16:00:44

ONE MORE THING

On rumour 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?

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