I feel we need to have a serious discussion about the quality of news, both Call of Duty and Community related, on the Wiki. There seems to have been a significant drop in quality of News Blogs, which I feel has likely led to our decreasing viewership and userbase.
On the community side, and I don't mean to single out Deathman here, but look at the most recent community blog User blog:Deathmanstratos/CoDWiki News - February 2, 2014. The only part of the blog that provides any information is the Call of Duty-related section. The whole blog is littered with improper grammar and in-jokes and the Community and Other News sections barely have any purpose being there considering they don't actually seem to report any news. I'm not against having fun, having a bullet point that says "Redskin-26 and Tubw understand my hype behind TTGL now." or "I'm addicted to Dark Souls since I got it for like, five dollars." is fine, but there should be actual news mixed in there with it. The "messy, dumb, grammatically incorrect" version of the weekly news was funny and cool the first couple times it was done, and when it was done by N7 exclusively. Since this is what we've been getting more and more consistently, I think it needs to be said that we need some kind of quality control.
On the game news side of things, I feel the blogs need to be better written and written more frequently. This part of the problem stems from many things, including News Team fatigue, Laziness, desire to get it over quickly, and honestly just lack of care. Once again, i'm not trying to single anyone out but I'm going to use Argo's recent Achievements blog as an example. User blog:Argorrath/Call of Duty: Ghosts Onslaught achievements revealed. The introductory sentence feels improperly written and hard to read, the image is thrown in there and since it's not centered it just feels like it was kinda dropped in, and then the news blog just ends. A little stinger with some kind of message for the community, even a little reminder of when the DLC will release, goes a long way. A more personal complaint of mine is that there's also no Game related header for the Ghosts news blogs, despite us having one for BO, MW3, and BOII. Finally, there's no proper source, something I feel ALL News Team members really need to start doing again. I feel like we need to pay much better attention to the quality of our news blogs, and make them look less messy and like effort was put into them.
My final point, which I've already mentioned, is that our news frequency has dropped DRAMATICALLY. Just to represent what I'm talking about here [charlieintel.com] ran 41 Call of Duty related news articles in the month of January alone. We ran a grand total of 8. I know we aren't Charlieintel, we don't have an actual staff like they do and we don't have similar connections that they have. But there was a time when we used to report every bit of Call of Duty news we could, often citing Charlieintel and other websites, even twitter as our source. We used to be a real source for Call of Duty news for a lot of people, and I feel that's fading.
I'm open to suggestions and discussion as to how to improve the quality of our news team in all regards. http://i.imgur.com/KUDLq.png 22:20, February 3, 2014 (UTC)
Discussion
My blog barely had anything because I could barely find anything, and was never told to go off wiki and look. As in, Weekly news looks bad because, like you said, we don't seem to make that many blogs on much of anything anymore, and I had nothing to go on really. Aside that, I agree with what you're saying, we could try to be a bit less lazy, or start working out more blogs than just the really big stuff (Which would require a larger news team though) http://i.imgur.com/GhKJh.pngP90Deathmanhttp://i.imgur.com/uceaHlB.png22:26, February 3, 2014 (UTC)
- Per Deathman. I also though we could hire some more people to do the news -- or at least, the CoD News. http://i.imgur.com/TLfINDf.gif This username better work http://i.imgur.com/TLfINDf.gif 22:34, February 3, 2014 (UTC)
- I wouldn't mind doing anything for the news team. I don't know if I match the criteria for joining (if there is any) but I'd like to help out.
Kylet357 · talk 01:04, February 4, 2014 (UTC) - Same here, I always check my news feed in the morning and wouldn't mind writing the daily news bulletins. Digitized since 95 Pcthomas2 02:11, March 11, 2014 (UTC)
- I wouldn't mind doing anything for the news team. I don't know if I match the criteria for joining (if there is any) but I'd like to help out.
Yeah we need more professionalism. I agree with everything you've mentioned here. It is more than possible to be humorous, lighthearted and professional at the same time. Stuff like asking the community for their thoughts, or a source, or a couple of sentences summarizing something go a very long way and we should be striving to do just that. There isn't any reason not to.
We could also get a few more users on board to help with the CoD news. That wouldn't hurt. 
23:30, February 3, 2014 (UTC)
Since we're not starting out with votes any more, the comment templates aren't really needed. But anyway, I think one issue with the amount of news we have is based on how we get hold of it. I think that other sites are able to get hold of news before us much faster. It can be quite hard for us to actually get news on Call of Duty as we can end up very busy that we can't follow the news site to be fully up to date. I know some of us follow the Twitter page, but most news doesn't flow tough there fast. It would be helpful if we were on some kind of Activision mailing list so any news gets forwarded straight to us, instead of having to look, however getting that might be quite tricky (generally tricky, nothing hidden in that sentence).
23:46, February 3, 2014 (UTC)
- The Wiki's Gmail account actually is on the Activision mailing list, as we get press releases from them. Also I don't think speed is exactly a problem. Though being first is always great, and gets us a ton of viewership, telling the same story Charlieintel or MP1st covered, on this wiki, and sourcing them goes a long way for Users who know about us, but not those other sites. http://i.imgur.com/KUDLq.png 00:04, February 4, 2014 (UTC)
- Well the main issue with speed is if we're not first, it can be very hard to resupply the news without making it seem like it's copied. Also, id we're not there in the first day, delivering news late can also be a bit of an impact on quality. Also, it might be helpful if we had the mailing list given out to some personal users e-mail address, because I'm not sure how often we use the gmail account, nor do I know that many people that know the password (I have it saved in case no on remembers it). 00:10, February 4, 2014 (UTC)
- I don't think we should really worry about seeming like we've "copied" news. As long as we get the blog up on the day that the story is reported on other sites we should be fine. Speaking from personal experience, I used to get all my news from the Wiki because I was a casual fan and didn't realize Call of Duty based news sites existed. I feel like we shoudl strive to report the news, wether we're first or not. http://i.imgur.com/KUDLq.png 18:56, February 4, 2014 (UTC)
- Well the main issue with speed is if we're not first, it can be very hard to resupply the news without making it seem like it's copied. Also, id we're not there in the first day, delivering news late can also be a bit of an impact on quality. Also, it might be helpful if we had the mailing list given out to some personal users e-mail address, because I'm not sure how often we use the gmail account, nor do I know that many people that know the password (I have it saved in case no on remembers it). 00:10, February 4, 2014 (UTC)
Honestly, anyone of the news team is open to proofread and fix anything wrong with the blog. 
Argorrath おしゃべり
23:57, February 3, 2014 (UTC)
- I think the issue is that news team members "can" do that, but the issue from before of un-professionalism still persists. http://i.imgur.com/4XBy83R.pngAntiScootaTwotalk 03:29, February 5, 2014 (UTC)
I want to make it clear that, although I mention Deathman and Argo by name, I am not calling them out. I'm using their blogs as examples for what the News Team as a whole can improve. http://i.imgur.com/KUDLq.png 00:02, February 4, 2014 (UTC)
- (Aimed at everyone that's used it so far) You know that in the discussion phase everything is going to be a comment or question? Seems a bit pointless to keep using the templates. 00:06, February 4, 2014 (UTC)
I'm wondering at this point if it would be best if we just ended the Weekly News altogether. We only get a trickle of Call of Duty information, and it is very sporadic: some weeks we get a ton of information, other weeks, we get barely any, leading to not much to write about in the Weekly News (and writers improvising with gifs and in-jokes). On the other hand, even after several War Room discussions about it, our Weekly News is now consitently late because most users have either moved on from the COD Wiki, or are too busy in their lives to do anything about it. MetlTalk 02:19, February 5, 2014 (UTC)
- For one, I don't feel that the weekly news has fallen enough for it to be considered no longer needed, granted users may of not had much to work with, but at least they're putting work in. Furthermore I don't understand your statement about users moving on from the wiki since our entire weekly news team is active. Callofduty4 made a slip up with his news being late due to a miscommunication, but aside from that we've had very minimal late times, not enough for it to be considered consistent. I don't believe the standing of the weekly news should enter into this as even if some users feel the end product is lacking, we are still putting effort and time into creating these news blogs, and there's no reason to get rid of them. 04:54, February 7, 2014 (UTC)
For the last point about comparing our news to Charlieintel, there isn't much we can do about it. They always get news out first, and the few articles we do put up are almost word for word of articles they already made, just citing them. I'm not saying the solution is that we should have copied all 80 articles they posted, but because they are a dedicated news website with links that we don't have, not many users will come here first for news. I'd personally stay with what we have been doing, only posting "game related" articles such as updates and stuff relating to future games. Unless if we get more links to Activision/IW/3arc/whoever, our news will never be as complete as other sites. http://i.imgur.com/4XBy83R.pngAntiScootaTwotalk 03:29, February 5, 2014 (UTC)
- The thing is, there was a time when it was. http://i.imgur.com/KUDLq.png 03:41, February 5, 2014 (UTC)
A quick question, what's stopping someone from editing a news blog if there is numerous (accidental) spelling/grammar errors or it appears sloppily written? Is there a rule against that? Conqueror of all Zombies (talk) 01:36, February 6, 2014 (UTC)
- I don't think so, but sometimes it might have been intentional. I would feel uncomfortable with changing someone's wording on the off chance that they were going for a specific meaning, having completely changed that because I labeled it "inadequate". The problem then is that the intentionally poorly written articles are allowed to remain, and in my opinion have happened too many times. Joe Copp 16:20, February 25, 2014 (UTC)
I'd just like to point out about how I'm sorry I've kinda stopped doing as many news stories as I used to. I've been hella busy with college work recently and with Ghosts being the worst game ever made I've kind of gone off of call of doot doot. However hopefully with the news of the next COD, and with me finishing College in June I will be able to do more news and stuff. thanks bye 
N7 TC 10:50, February 7, 2014 (UTC)
At the risk of looking arrogant, I'd like to share this blog I made a while back. What I did was summarize the article into slightly different and simpler wording and emphasized quotes I felt were important to the overall theme of the article. I kinda think I did a good job.
I'm not saying that we need to do that every time, because no doubt about it, that's a lot of work. But adding summaries of articles, where we sum up the main points it makes, is incredibly helpful for a news blog. I really can't emphasise it enough. For big news, like new map packs, or initial insights into unreleased/unannounced/unseen games, we really should be putting effort in to make really great news blogs. Everyone who is on the news team is 100% capable of doing that, so more substance in news blogs is something we should be striving for. 01:51, February 9, 2014 (UTC)
- I agree with this. You can read through one of our current weekly news blogs in about 15 seconds because there's barely any content. Some summaries of the linked articles would be good for holding readers' attention. Joe Copp 17:57, February 11, 2014 (UTC)
So is there anything here that needs to be changed, or a new rule to be penned into the conduct of the news team? A new clause might be sufficient. Joe Copp 16:00, March 5, 2014 (UTC)
Proposal
Alright, so after reading through this again I've come up with some suggestions/a proposal for new rules/stipulations for the news team.
- A line be added to the top of Call of Duty Wiki:News Team that reads: "Professionalism and quality journalism is encouraged for all news blogs." (It's really hard to quantify this sort of thing; as long as it's in writing, it can be self-policed)
- News Team members would be encouraged to edit and make changes to news blogs to ensure some sort of quality control. Spelling and grammar comes first, but actual informational content is of the utmost importance as well.
I also agree it may be necessary to add one or two people to the news team in order to bolster our ability to cover up and coming CoD-related news (especially since COD:LEAK is no more), but I think that's better saved for another forum. Joe Copp 15:30, March 10, 2014 (UTC)