Frontsite News Survey

[Shlup]

I put effort into using my brain and have a suggestion to improve the frontsite:

The news right now looks like a wall of text. There should be a nice divider between every article 'cause right now it just looks too much like one big things.

And I still think you should make a thread for each news item. It would take, what, two extra minutes per article? SS a couple of lackeys to do it. If they start to slack, fire them and hire more.

Personally, I would like to see a news feed at the top of the forums. Like the five newest articles listed. Small though. But I wouldn't know where to put them 'cause I don't see the ads, so it might be an awful thing to the ad-viewing member.

ETA: Shiny thought it was off the table 'cause you're mean, Tav. Meeeeaaaaaan!

[Tavrobel]

The disdainful nature of your posts. Oh, and with the rubah thing, I thought she did it all because she contributed to it once and linked to it in #eoff. My b, Baloki.

... ohh.

I don't know if you are forgiven. You might have to offer a furry sacrifice. And it should be wrapped in orange.

[Shiny]

The news right now looks like a wall of text. There should be a nice divider between every article 'cause right now it just looks too much like one big things.

And I still think you should make a thread for each news item. It would take, what, two extra minutes per article? SS a couple of lackeys to do it. If they start to slack, fire them and hire more.

Personally, I would like to see a news feed at the top of the forums. Like the five newest articles listed. Small though. But I wouldn't know where to put them 'cause I don't see the ads, so it might be an awful thing to the ad-viewing member.

Hm, I think something like the set up Loony BoB has for OMG My Game is ideal. Basically what you described above in some way.

I don't know if you are forgiven. You might have to offer a furry sacrifice. And it should be wrapped in orange.

He can't have the baby seal!

[Shlup]

People keep mentioning OMGMG as though it should be copied. Maybe it should, but I still refuse to go there to check.

[Tavrobel]

People keep mentioning OMGMG as though it should be copied. Maybe it should, but I still refuse to go there to check.

Well, it's one of the example models that we have for people being able to comment on the news. It would seem that based on the people so far, they suggested that it might be more interesting (for those who care about FF news) if they could comment on the news. At OMGMG, all of the news was handled by all of the users, though it could be set to only being approved users. What we learned from OMGMG was that having people be able to comment on what would otherwise be static information is good for generating activity.

Unfortunately, OMGMG failed primarily due to its userbase: generally, they were disgruntled EoFFer looking for something new (therefore, not a lot). The inability to define itself and its limited users led to its own collapse. But what we can learn is that commenting is good. We can adapt that to EoFF. In this case, the SS are still in charge of the news, but people can still comment. Those who care will continue to care, those who won't, simply won't. But if we assume that growth is based on encouraging discussion about ongoing activites, then it could be said that allowing comments is a good thing. Why join a forum if the benefit is null? Joining could allow commenting.

So, that brings us to wanting to add a commenting system. Many newfangled FF sites have them; the problem is, is that they are new, and the other is incorporating such a model into the current structure. vB tends to suck with that. We've visited this idea in the last news module hack that Baloki suggested.

In review: I flipped out on you, and you responded, being shocked that you were trying to be helpful, though poorly disguised as ire. After a certain point, we concluded that hacks are good, but should be approved by the owners, and are made obsolete at new vB versions. This suggestion also occurred at a time when vB seemed to have a new version every three minutes.

This is no longer true. vB has been stable for quite some time. We could revisit the idea now, but it would also need the support and implementation of said news module by an Admin. Since it affects the forums (slightly), it would still need the approval of Forum Staff and a willing Admin. That is all assuming that the news-commenting hack is still available, and updated for the current version of vB that we are using. We also have to figure out if said Admin actually has the proper access to do so; based on the recent resignations, I would have to doubt it.

[Raistlin]

People keep mentioning OMGMG as though it should be copied. Maybe it should, but I still refuse to go there to check.

Hahaha, agreed completely.

[Shlup]

Okay, I caved an looked at OMGMG, and I like their little background thing for the news posts. Steal it and make it the right colors plz.

I do like commenting, but I think the New having its own forum, rather than have each article go into the proper forum by topic, was still a deal-breaker that we were unable to find a compromise for. If I remember correctly.

[Loony BoB]

omgmygame has blog entries rather than news updates, which is why people went there to read things - they were personalised and therefore far more interesting. If we got blogs set up for all users and then targeted the best bloggers to provide updates for the frontsite, we might be onto something.

This would be a lot of work. I dare say if we were able to have some quality communication between ourselves and the owners of this website, they might actually invest in the idea and assist us in making it happen. They've stated many times early on in the past that they were willing to invest if we were willing to show the value of it (eg. PS3 prize and PayPal payments to site contributers).

[Aerith's Knight]

They've stated many times early on in the past that they were willing to invest if we were willing to show the value of it (eg. PS3 prize and PayPal payments to site contributers).

It's a trap!

[Loony BoB]

The basics of what I'm trying to say: I think they will pay for the vB Blogs feature if you ask them nicely and give them the reasons behind it. I suggest starting with this. Actually, it's more of a forums thing, though, so maybe us forums staffers will ask about that. What the site staff do with it, though, should be something along the lines of encouraging people to blog, finding out who provides the better blogs and then finding a good way to get those bloggers to update directly to the frontsite. Not sure how that part would work. Have fun with it if we get it sorted, though!

[Baloki]

I have loads of ideas but unfortunatly I'm having some connection issues atm so can't just do them as I normally would :/

[Tavrobel]

Okay, I caved an looked at OMGMG, and I like their little background thing for the news posts. Steal it and make it the right colors plz.

I do like commenting, but I think the New having its own forum, rather than have each article go into the proper forum by topic, was still a deal-breaker that we were unable to find a compromise for. If I remember correctly.

Yes. This was one of the prominent problems of the hack that we discussed way back when. An idea could be that we could move the news articles from the news forum or copy them, but redundancy is redundant.

Every idea for the frontsite more or less hinges on a hack or the owners approving it. Problem is, I'm not a business major, and I can't generate revenue values for internet viewing. Any argument most of us could make would be qualitative, not quantitative. In which case, we just plain need a lot of people to start freaking out and getting pissed off.

Why, that's right up my alley.

[Old Manus]

ITT Tavrobel assumes adminstrative control of Eyes On Final Fantasy PLC

[Tavrobel]

Ever since I started linking images in articles, has anyone noticed if the frontsite loads significantly slower than before?

[Aerith's Knight]

Not for me, or it could be I don't notice a 30 ms delay.