Forum:New news category

Forums: Index → War Room → New news category

While not common there is an issue with one section of news; Opinion blogs. For this reason I am proposing a new category, and plausibly a new section on the main page for these blogs. The main advantages of this is that we can promote more of these blogs, allowing for a bit more community input. News teams will judge the blogs, seen in recent changes or if a regular user sees it and forwards it, so not every blog gets though, but still more open. This also helps as it seems there is some division about opinion blogs being on the community news category, so this new section will allow for some clarity between the news. This is the main idea, if any users have any ideas regarding this then it is greatly appreciated if they are being put forward.

Crazy sam10 • Talk

+ http://i.imgur.com/KUDLq.png 02:10, October 3, 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

Basically, "Opinion Blogs" would be labeled as "Opinion: X is Y" or whatever. The user could then submit it to the front page by adding the category "Opinion Blogs" or what have you. Admins/News Team members could then scan over them, deem them appropriate or, for lack of a better word, worthy, and then leave them/remove them as need be. Of course limitations would have to be put up to reduce the amount of random flaming, but I think this could be a good way to get community members more involved with the wiki and blogging. http://i.imgur.com/KUDLq.png 02:14, October 3, 2012 (UTC)

Super Duper Strong Support Absolutely, yes pls this is a very quick, and excellent idea. Per nom, damac and per everyone else who is behind me in this discussion. --Bats a.k.a Rarity Filly  02:18, October 3, 2012 (UTC)

Support - I'm fully interested in this idea. Most opinion blogs that aren't done by very popular users get shuttered easily, and there really isn't any other place to express your opinions other than the dead Watercooler that barely anyone I know frequents. I'd more or so like to know how blogs are deemed "worthy" though. DarkMetroid567^Talk 02:23, October 3, 2012 (UTC)

Likely if the blog has a good bit of length, or covers something people can respond to, without being too bias.

Crazy sam10 • Talk

12:32, October 3, 2012 (UTC)

As well as not being to obscene http://i.imgur.com/KUDLq.png 16:19, October 3, 2012 (UTC)

Support - I'm support this, though as DarkMetroid brought up. How "will" the News Team Members/Admin scan, or grade to make a blog worthy for it to stay. I would like to see this implemented though a good trial run and if all goes well, it would be implemented. Argorrath _{おしゃべり}02:48, October 3, 2012 (UTC)

Very Strong Support - This would be a great way to make our wiki better. I'll make one of the first! YELLOWLUCARIO ^TALK  16:02, October 3, 2012 (UTC)

Comment - Why do we need another section we have about one opinion blog every 3 months and no one complains except CoaZ and Poketape (that I've seen). N7 TC 17:16, October 3, 2012 (UTC)

There are a few other users that dislike opinion blogs being in community news, and as stated, another section may make it so we can have more than 1 every 3 months.

Crazy sam10 • Talk

17:22, October 3, 2012 (UTC)

Support quality opinion blogs, oppose new section - They'll slot in fine, just change the title from Community news to Community news and opinion. However, I don't think we should be accepting opinion posts from every John and his dog. The opinion pieces need to be of high standard, they need to be extensive takes on whatever it is. To be honest I found Damac's to be far too short.

Also, I don't see how we can fit in another column for solely opinion pieces without narrowing the columns to an unreasonable point (And no, the 10px of room Wikia doled out to us doesn't count as enough room). Perhaps it can be given a section underneath, but that would further lengthen the page as well as give greater prominence to opinion over news. 222 ^talk 11:22, October 4, 2012 (UTC)

To be honest, this is more about getting the commmunity involved than anything else. Requiring extremely long and thought out Opinion blogs sounds good, but it then alienates a lot of the community who may have a good point(s) but are unwilling or unable to expand these ideas into massive essays. It seems silly to not accept a blog simply because it's not long enough or doesn't have perfect detail even if it makes a good point. http://i.imgur.com/KUDLq.png 11:33, October 4, 2012 (UTC)~

Also changing the name of the category doesn't really fix anything, as then they'll just be appearing in the same section anyway. Community news is for proper news that affects the community, such as Wikia updates and the weekly news which sums up game news and WR related articles. Opinion news isn't directly news per se, it's just a bit of fun where users can respond, as such it's far easier to keep them separate as opposed to trying to merge them in together.

Crazy sam10 • Talk

13:33, October 4, 2012 (UTC)

Support - This would encourage more users to share their thoughts and join in on the community. I support it. Magma-Man 00:57, October 6, 2012 (UTC)

Oppose - An opinion blog to me is just a well written normal blog, which can be written quite often, why add a unwarranted category to blogs deemed suitable by whoever. If the blog is a very well constructed opinion it will receive attention without the padding of putting it being put on the main page. Who is to say what deserves to go in this opinion blog category? I just don't like the idea of select opinions being on the main page. I was fine with the occasional one put in the community news, but I don't really want to see this become a thing. Redskin-26 23:34, October 5, 2012 (UTC)

Even if news members or admins scan them over to "deem" them worthy I still find that very unfair to those users who may find their blog worthy of the main page. Redskin-26 23:35, October 5, 2012 (UTC)

May I also remind you all of this slightly ancient forum Forum:Review Blogs even though my views now are completely different on the topic. Redskin-26 23:42, October 5, 2012 (UTC)

I disagree with you Redskin. Saying that we can't have featured opinion blogs is like saying Nazi Zombies Plus can't have featured creations. If the blog isn't well written or thought out the writer should be able to realize this and if it doesn't get featured a good user would be a good sport about it or maybe revise it a bit more to up the quality if he/she is that worried about it. Magma-Man 00:57, October 6, 2012 (UTC)

First off, your analogy is poor, I hardly understand what you mean. Secondly you still fail to see my main point, I don't want a select group of opinions being selected to represent the wiki, and did you even read the forum I linked? Lastly, it's a matter of opinion when it comes to deciding to whose opinion is front page worthy, and if a opinion blog is truly worth the attention for its quality it will be sought out on its own as most have been in the past. The front page is for news, not opinion and I'd like it to stay that way. Redskin-26 01:47, October 6, 2012 (UTC)

To further explain the analogy, NZP once a month features one of the user's creations (articles if you want) to be featured. Only one.

To it being a matter of opinion: Quality is what should be looked for. Not opinion. If it's well written and well-thought out it can go up.

To it representing the Wiki: Put a disclaimer by the section for the opinion blogs. Magma-Man 02:47, October 6, 2012 (UTC)

Your first point helps me argument, we could have tons of quality blogs supporting the same opinion, the fact is opinion is important, without the diversity it makes the wiki looks slanted towards that opinion and represents the wiki in that light. Redskin-26 02:53, October 6, 2012 (UTC)

Magma-man, what that seems to me is a featured article, not an opinion blog (imo) 13:34, October 7, 2012 (UTC)

Weak Support - Seems like a good idea, although i would like to see some guidelines first on how we would "rate" it. 13:34, October 7, 2012 (UTC)

Weak Support - I like the idea of the Opinion blogs having their own category (and thus not being under the News section) but, although I have not problem with it, I don't really see why they need their own section on the main page. Conqueror of all Zombies (talk) 01:26, October 11, 2012 (UTC)

Question - where on earth would we put another news category on the main page --KλT 11:42, October 11, 2012 (UTC)

I don't think we can, we'd have to group it with community news. That's not too big of a problem so long as we don't have a million people writing up opinion blogs at once.      11:47, October 11, 2012 (UTC)

I made this plan in exactly two seconds, but hear me out. This blank space here ==> http://i.imgur.com/EomKV.png could be filled with the foreign language template, and an "Opinion Blogs" template could then fill the space where the Foreign Language template currently is. It could show 1, maybe 2, blogs and it would have similar, if not equal exposure, to the normal news blogs and wouldn't have to fill the community category. http://i.imgur.com/KUDLq.png 19:29, October 11, 2012 (UTC)

Damac's spot is good, and looking at the news template we have at the moment, we could also split the Community News segment in half as that only tends to house weekly news.

Crazy sam10 • Talk

19:38, October 11, 2012 (UTC)

If nobody else has any opposition, we can go ahead and implement this new news category. Joe Copp 00:59, October 26, 2012 (UTC)

Before we do that let's just get a clear set of ground rules for what clarifies as a "proper" blog. http://i.imgur.com/KUDLq.png 01:05, October 26, 2012 (UTC)

 

 

Oppose- As per N7, there has only been roughly 3 opinion blogs. There isn't a big need for a whole new section on them. If there was, it wouldn't be updated regularly and would soon fall into disrepair (metaphorically). At least CoD news and Community News gets updated regularly. Reznov115^Talk

Proposition of Ground Rules

• Have a clear point. We don't want any absurd blogs that contradict themselves on the mainpage
• The blogs should go into a fair amount of detail about their topic. They don't have to be massive essays, but more than "Treyarch sucks" or "Type-95 is OP"
• Proper spelling and grammar would be preferred.
• At least one paragraph, or five sentences, in length.

Any objections/additions? http://i.imgur.com/KUDLq.png 01:05, October 26, 2012 (UTC)

Nope. Would these go on the news team page? Joe Copp 01:07, October 26, 2012 (UTC)

I believe the length limit should be a bit higher then that but that's just me. Other then that I support. Magma-Man 01:10, October 26, 2012 (UTC)

@Joe, you know, I haven't actually thought about where they would go. http://i.imgur.com/KUDLq.png 01:11, October 26, 2012 (UTC)

Comment - The length limit should be considerably higher. Otherwise, we could wait until we receive several submissions and combine them into a properly-sized blog post. I would hate to see 5 sentence blogs spamming up the section on the main page. 222 ^talk 07:08, October 26, 2012 (UTC)

The problem with that is that 5 sentences could be potentially quite moving, depending on the subject. Joe Copp 09:48, October 26, 2012 (UTC)

The length could be seen as a guideline. If the submission is 5 sentences but not all that informative then we likely won't deem it worthy. However per Joe, 5 sentences can quite easily sum up a point if well written.

Crazy sam10 • Talk

11:26, October 26, 2012 (UTC)

Per Sam. --MLGisNot4Me ^talk 11:46, October 26, 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. Are we ready to use these rules, then? Joe Copp 01:28, October 29, 2012 (UTC)

I'm fine with that. What I've been aiming at is that I don't want poor quality submissions tarnishing this Wiki's reputation for reliable content. If someone can turn five sentences into something you think is worth reading, go for it. 222 ^talk 07:00, October 30, 2012 (UTC)

I think we're done here. --MLGisNot4Me ^talk 10:50, October 30, 2012 (UTC)