| Hey everyone, I joined this club not as a way to show negativity towards the changes, but to ask you guys for help moving forward. I'm looking for ways to improve the news board now that the recent changes are in effect. First I'm going to say that the locking of news thread isn't going to be changed. It was agreed upon that it was beneficial to the majority of users to make that change and I stick by Kineta's post. It certainly wasn't done to annoy a sub-section of MAL. I understand that there are negatives to these changes, but there are also positives. Just to give an example people finally don't have to see this Fairy Tail thread always on the first page of the news board because people keep feeling the need to post "omg is it out yet" or have One Piece vs. Bleach vs. Naruto vs. Fairy Tail discussions. Weekly News Thread So the weekly news thread. I posted it for this first time today and to be honest it just felt lacking to me. I want it to be better. I feel it's the best idea so far (feel free to suggest something else) for putting together news that people want to post/know about, but aren't able to because the related news thread is locked. I understand going to each DB is difficult and tedious. It isn't really practical to ask people to go to each DB to find cast announcements, airing dates, PVs, etc. I wouldn't want to do it myself to be honest. For these reasons I want to improve upon the weekly news thread. In regards to PVs I told VioLink today in the weekly news thread that PVs won’t be posted to the weekly news thread. I retract that statement and apologize for saying it so bluntly. I understand why having the PVs be in two different places is a bit annoying for the staff and I feel like it makes things look a bit unorganized as well, but it isn't an issue we lose sleep over. It isn't a huge deal so I think having PVs on the weekly news thread would be fine and if it isn't ok with other staff members I'll try to convince them otherwise. but I don't really see much issue. It is way more of an issue having users being annoyed that they have to go to each different series discussion board just to find a PV. PVs are one of the most important things that makes a person decide if they want to watch a series or watch. I feel they should be easily accessible. Having them be on the weekly news thread would be even easier than going through recently posted in threads in the news board like before. Only problem I see with that is if a PV comes out Monday and the weekly thread comes out Sunday there is still that gap. I suggested something in my post in the weekly news thread that might help with this. Suggestion What if there was something made (say a club or a thread) where people can post announcements that they find during the week where news mods could see and then add to the weekly news thread. The current weekly news thread to be posted at the end of the week could be viewed the entire week and be constantly added onto by news mods once announcements came out either if the news mods found something to add themselves or a user found the announcement earlier. This would give people who want to be actively part of the news board community one place where they can quickly see everything announced for the current week and could contribute to it as much as they want. This also gives people who aren't as active, but still look at the news posts on the main panel page a place where they can see all the announcements (granted they would have to wait the full week for the weekly news thread to be posted). By "announcements" I don't mean things such as new anime announcements, those would still get their own news post. By "announcements" I mean new PVs, cast, staff, airing dates, things along those lines. Received Message I recently got this message from a user in this club http://puu.sh/5VPyR.png I'll try to explain why I think what I suggested would help tackle these points. Point 1: Other users would be able to post in this club/thread/whatever it will be so the people who want to contribute can. Point 2: I agree there isn't. I sort of touched upon what would be there ("new PVs, cast, staff, airing dates, things along those lines") but I feel like there should be a more formal guidelines about it somewhere. I'll see what I can do with this. Point 3: The user sort of answered this already and I agree with what he said "If this new thread is publicly visible, then I guess people who want the latest news could look on there for it. Which then solves this part of the issue too." Point 4: This one is difficult...would we want this new club/thread to be a place where people could discuss about the newly posted news among themselves and then when the weekly news thread is posted have those people who only look at that discuss the newly posted news among themselves? I'm not sure too many of the staff would agree for it to be like that. Maybe have that club/thread ONLY be for posting new announcements and then having the weekly news thread be for discussion? What do you guys think on that? Kineta's Post I’ll talk about Kineta’s post as well. As I said before I agree with the issues she brought up which is why the one month lock was needed. First issue was "Old news bumped with non-news discussion." This can’t happen anymore now that topics are locked after one month. Second issue was "Old news bumped with current news/Parallel Discussions." As for actually happening in the old news board posts for a series this can’t happen anymore now that topics are locked after one month. As for discussions being in two different places this won't really change nor do I think it ever will change unless the staff decided to go full Nazi and police everything. With just the current weekly news post there is still double discussions going on. Take the Psycho-Pass dub cast I posted about. That has a thread in the Psycho-Pass anime discussion board about the very same topic. It's going to happen whatever route we take and I don’t find it to be the biggest deal in the world. Third issue was "Newsworthy Bumps." With the locking of month old threads this won't be an issue. With the new club/thread users can post in there or send in a news submission for announcements like these if news mods haven’t already posted it themselves. Fourth issue was "Bumps without Discussion." News such as official site opening and OP/ED I don't really feel should be even be posted in the weekly news thread. If a user cares for a series enough to want to know about this kind of very small news then I feel heading to the related discussion forum would be best. Fifth issue was "Less-Moderated Discussion." If we have only one place (club/thread) where people are posting news it would be much easier to monitor that than many other news threads like how it was before. Topics that are less than a month old would still have to be monitored the same way they always were. Lastly Kineta's "In Conclusion." This part might be the only part I disagree with somewhat. I do agree that this was a necessary change. I don't fully agree with sending users to anime discussion threads for each upcoming anime series coming up. There are way too many of them to be doing that. Hopefully what I suggested would be a way where people could easily find all this news in one place. The active news board users will be able to see it posted in the club/thread and not as active users, but ones that would still care about these smaller announcements, would be able to see them in the weekly news post. Users who don’t care about these smaller announcements just don’t have to look at the weekly news post or go to the club/thread. It really is only one thread a week they would just have to not look at. I believe they can manage that for the sake of people who care about these smaller announcements. I personally am not interested in the DVD sales of anime so I tend to avoid those news posts, however, that doesn't mean that I feel they are unimportant to others. To Conclude I know it's a lot but I would like to hear what everyone has to say about what I said above. Like I said before, we didn't make the changes we made to annoy you guys. Hopefully you guys can help us out in trying to make the news board a better place for everyone which always has been and always will be the goal. I'll be gone with my family for the next couple days. So I most likely won’t be able to answer what you guys have to say until I get back. I'll probably be looking on my phone though so I'll see what people are saying. Just in case I don't get the chance to later Merry Christmas everyone. |
Wind_SrDec 23, 2013 1:41 AM
| “News travels fast in places where nothing much ever happens.” ― Charles Bukowski |
| As I said in the PM, I'd be okay with the club/thread idea, and think it certainly fixes a large part of the problem. As a matter of fact, before I found out that a weekly news thread was planned I was considering suggesting using this club for that purpose if nothing was done to rectify the issues (obviously I'm not suggesting it to be used for that now). The biggest problem I can see with having a club for it is how to let people find out that it exists. Clubs that don't have active discussions have a habit of disappearing from sight, and almost noone finds clubs by searching for them (as opposed to invites/seeing activity of it/seeing on anime or character pages). I do think a club (that is open for anyone to join) would be better than a thread if having one in the news discussion forum is not an option, though - having a thread for news that isn't in the news discussion forum just seems silly and counterintuitive. As for whether or not this place for posting news should be open for discussion... I honestly can see advantages and disadvantages to both sides that sort of even each other out. I'll leave that up to others to discuss. |
| There is no such thing as shit taste. Only idiots who think everyone should have the same taste as they do. |
kuuderes_shadow said: The biggest problem I can see with having a club for it is how to let people find out that it exists. Clubs that don't have active discussions have a habit of disappearing from sight, and almost noone finds clubs by searching for them (as opposed to invites/seeing activity of it/seeing on anime or character pages). I do think a club (that is open for anyone to join) would be better than a thread if having one in the news discussion forum is not an option, though - having a thread for news that isn't in the news discussion forum just seems silly and counterintuitive. The thread would mostly be in news board. I agree having it be else where would be silly. kuuderes_shadow said: As for whether or not this place for posting news should be open for discussion... I honestly can see advantages and disadvantages to both sides that sort of even each other out. I'll leave that up to others to discuss. What would most likely be the case is that the thread for posting news that will be going to the weekly news thread will be the thread for posting news and that's it. The weekly news thread will be where the discussion will happen. It's not 100% set in stone that that will be the case, but it seems the most logical. |
| “News travels fast in places where nothing much ever happens.” ― Charles Bukowski |
| To be honest, I kind of like the suggestion. My biggest problem is that PV's, seiyuu announcements, character designs, and the like aren't being posted under the new system. Honestly, if the situation doesn't change those things are going to be left out and I think those things are useful and interesting and I am obviously not alone here. The thread might get a little large, even unwieldy, but the most important thing here is visibility. If people see a discussion, they are more likely to contribute, and contribution has fallen off under the new system. Ideally, if the mods saw a PV, seiyuu announcement or whatever, then they would just post it themselves. Creating the club is a nice step, a big improvement from the status quo, but waiting on mod approval seems like an extra and somewhat unnecessary step. I think that some people, a select group of non-mods, should be allowed to post the news themselves. Either that or everyone should be allowed to post news but they can be subjected to punitive measures if they post something inappropriate, as per MAL's usual rules I guess. In the old system, all the news was posted quickly and it was a lot more visible to the community. The best compromise will restore most or all of that utility while also addressing the higher-ups concerns about necrobumping. That being said, even now, if the system works the way I think it does, it sounds like a big upgrade and a step in the right direction. |
| Check out the News Club for daily rankings, discussion on future CD and BD releases, manga and novels. New members are welcome! |
shigeru212 said: To be honest, I kind of like the suggestion. My biggest problem is that PV's, seiyuu announcements, character designs, and the like aren't being posted under the new system. Honestly, if the situation doesn't change those things are going to be left out and I think those things are useful and interesting and I am obviously not alone here. Well like I said in my post, PVs would be included and seiyuu announcements already were included. Character designs...eh I'm not too sure about that. I want to add more to the weekly news, but I don't want to over-due it and have it be a mess. It depends on the series I guess. shigeru212 said: The thread might get a little large, even unwieldy, but the most important thing here is visibility. If people see a discussion, they are more likely to contribute, and contribution has fallen off under the new system. Ideally, if the mods saw a PV, seiyuu announcement or whatever, then they would just post it themselves. Creating the club is a nice step, a big improvement from the status quo, but waiting on mod approval seems like an extra and somewhat unnecessary step. The thread would be more for anyone to be able to post news that they come across and look at what has already been posted. I doubt it would be used for discussion purposes so I don't think it would get too hectic. The weekly news post would be used for discussion. shigeru212 said: I think that some people, a select group of non-mods, should be allowed to post the news themselves. Either that or everyone should be allowed to post news but they can be subjected to punitive measures if they post something inappropriate, as per MAL's usual rules I guess. Sounds to me like you just want more news mods. The abilities you give these "select group of non-mods" are the same as news mods since that's all the extra access to the site that we have. As for everyone being able to post news that definitely won't be happening. You would be surprised how many spam/troll submissions to the news board there are. Having these people be able to post directly to the news board and end up on the front page of the site would not bring good results. We can't have nice things like that. shigeru212 said: In the old system, all the news was posted quickly and it was a lot more visible to the community. The best compromise will restore most or all of that utility while also addressing the higher-ups concerns about necrobumping. That being said, even now, if the system works the way I think it does, it sounds like a big upgrade and a step in the right direction. If this new thread ends up in the news board (which it most likely would) I feel it would be even more visible to the community then how it was previous to the changes. Why I think that is because the new thread, I'm assuming, would be on the first page of the news board almost always since a decent amount of news come out per day. Also a person could quickly scan the posts of that thread rather then go through multiple different news threads like a user would have to do in the past. |
Wind_SrDec 25, 2013 6:36 PM
| “News travels fast in places where nothing much ever happens.” ― Charles Bukowski |
Wind_Sr said: Sounds to me like you just want more news mods. The abilities you give these "select group of non-mods" are the same as news mods since that's all the extra access to the site that we have. As for everyone being able to post news that definitely won't be happening. You would be surprised how many spam/troll submissions to the news board there are. Having these people be able to post directly to the news board and end up on the front page of the site would not bring good results. We can't have nice things like that. I was talking about in this particular thread. I was not talking about news in general. However, it seems like anyone can post in this thread, so it shouldn't be a problem. I thought that anyone posting a news story in there would have to send their story to a mod to be approved and if they just posted it there the post would be deleted or something of that nature. Wind_Sr said: The thread would be more for anyone to be able to post news that they come across and look at what has already been posted. I doubt it would be used for discussion purposes so I don't think it would get too hectic. The weekly news post would be used for discussion. Honestly, I think that discussion should be allowed, even encouraged here. If a PV comes out on Tuesday, then I doubt people will want to wait until Sunday, when the weekly news thread is released, to discuss it. The information, much like episode discussions, is time sensitive. That's why I can see the thread getting kind of large. It would probably be best if the news in the thread was one color, like red or blue, so people could scan for new stories easily and pass over discussion, if they don't want to read it. There are MAL BBC codes for that if I'm not mistaken and I'm sure the regular posters could figure it out and help other people along. Like you said, people can quickly scan the posts of this thread and that makes it useful. However, the timely discussion of information is integral as well and it was one of the hallmarks of the old system. |
shigeru212Dec 26, 2013 1:18 AM
| Check out the News Club for daily rankings, discussion on future CD and BD releases, manga and novels. New members are welcome! |
| Just throwing out an idea that I haven't really thought through completely - how about using the weekly thread for posting the news stories as they come out in, and then at the end of the week they are gathered in the next week's thread. So for example, the current weekly news briefs thread covers the period from 15th-22nd of December. During the week from 23rd - 29th of December, any new information would be posted in THAT thread, perhaps in bold red font or something. Anything at the start of the thread could be discussed, as could any new information that gets posted in the thread as it goes along. Then at the end of the week, all new information posted in that thread gets collated to form the next week's thread. This would mean that things can get discussed for up to two weeks, can be discussed immediately, can be posted by anyone with no need to create a special club/thread just for that purpose,and is all still gathered in one place. Those who just want to look at the initial post for whom the news briefs thread idea works can use it for that purpose, and those who want their news asap can use the same thread as well, and both are able to discuss it. Of course, there would have to be enforcement to make sure that people only post in bold+red (or whatever is decided) if they are actually posting news. Just an idea. |
| There is no such thing as shit taste. Only idiots who think everyone should have the same taste as they do. |
kuuderes_shadow said: Just throwing out an idea that I haven't really thought through completely - how about using the weekly thread for posting the news stories as they come out in, and then at the end of the week they are gathered in the next week's thread. So for example, the current weekly news briefs thread covers the period from 15th-22nd of December. During the week from 23rd - 29th of December, any new information would be posted in THAT thread, perhaps in bold red font or something. Anything at the start of the thread could be discussed, as could any new information that gets posted in the thread as it goes along. Then at the end of the week, all new information posted in that thread gets collated to form the next week's thread. This would mean that things can get discussed for up to two weeks, can be discussed immediately, can be posted by anyone with no need to create a special club/thread just for that purpose,and is all still gathered in one place. Those who just want to look at the initial post for whom the news briefs thread idea works can use it for that purpose, and those who want their news asap can use the same thread as well, and both are able to discuss it. Of course, there would have to be enforcement to make sure that people only post in bold+red (or whatever is decided) if they are actually posting news. Just an idea. That plan seems to share elements with my plan. I was kind of worried that I was suggesting something that other club members might not approve of. However, it seems like you also support a plan that has three key elements: getting all the news out quickly, making it visible, and promoting discussion. |
| Check out the News Club for daily rankings, discussion on future CD and BD releases, manga and novels. New members are welcome! |
| The idea certainly sounds good in theory, but don't you think it would become a mess? I'm not saying it would or would not I'm just asking. In the example you gave people would be posting, in one thread, about: 1. discussing what happened between the 15th-22nd 2. news that comes up between 23rd-29th 3. discussing the new news from 23rd-29th (in a thread that started for the 15th-22nd) I get what you're saying that though. The title of the news post is "News Briefs for Dec 15 - 22" and when you click it you do indeed see the news from the 15th-22nd right there. From there people who want to post/read about new news from the 23nd-29th would do so in the 15th-22nd thread where people who only cared what happened between the 15th-22nd wouldn't care about discussions people are having in the 15- 22 thread and would just wait for the actual 23-29 thread to come out to find out what happened during then. I'm not discarding the idea though. I do like it. Like you said some of the news posted is time sensitive and no one would really want to wait a few days just to post about something. In the end having there be multiple discussions wouldn't really be an issue for me. In fact I would like that because it obviously means the news board is pretty active. I read through pretty much every recent post in news board so it doesn't really effect me. I'm just not so sure the other mods would be on board if they knew that was happening, hopefully they will though. I come home from vacation in 1-2 days so I will be able to discuss with them then. |
Wind_SrDec 26, 2013 8:12 PM
| “News travels fast in places where nothing much ever happens.” ― Charles Bukowski |
Wind_Sr said: The idea certainly sounds good in theory, but don't you think it would become a mess? I'm not saying it would or would not I'm just asking. In the example you gave people would be posting, in one thread, about: 1. discussing what happened between the 15th-22nd 2. news that comes up between 23rd-29th 3. discussing the new news from 23rd-29th (in a thread that started for the 15th-22nd) I get what you're saying that though. The title of the news post is "News Briefs for Dec 15 - 22" and when you click it you do indeed see the news from the 15th-22nd right there. From there people who want to post/read about new news from the 23nd-29th would do so in the 15th-22nd thread where people who only cared what happened between the 15th-22nd wouldn't care about discussions people are having in the 15- 22 thread and would just wait for the actual 23-29 thread to come out to find out what happened during then. I'm not discarding the idea though. I do like it. Like you said some of the news posted is time sensitive and no one would really want to wait a few days just to post about something. In the end having there be multiple discussions wouldn't really be an issue for me. In fact I would like that because it obviously means the news board is pretty active. I read through pretty much every recent post in news board so it doesn't really effect me. I'm just not so sure the other mods would be on board if they knew that was happening, hopefully they will though. I come home from vacation in 1-2 days so I will be able to discuss with them then. I do think it would be a bit of a mess, especially at first, but I think the title of thread should let people know that new news will be discussed there. Maybe something like news briefs for DEC xx to DEC xx + discussion for news DEC xx to DEC xx. The title could be something along those lines. Thanks for passing the message along to the other mods. You're the only mod who has been actively engaging with us. Of course we don't see eye to eye on everything but I think that we have had a productive discussion and I appreciate that. |
| Check out the News Club for daily rankings, discussion on future CD and BD releases, manga and novels. New members are welcome! |
Hahalollawl said: There are a few potential solutions. You could put a disclaimer that says something like "THIS IS NOT A COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF THE NEWS FOR THIS TIME PERIOD. RATHER, IT IS A PLACE FOR NEWS THAT DOES NOT HAVE ITS OWN THREAD". Or you could just put all of the news from that week into the weekly news thread, including news that has its own thread. Just copy and paste the original post from new threads in the news discussion forum into the weekly news thread, doesn't seem too hard right? Or a link to the news threads, so they don't take up too much space, and so that people discuss it in the right place. |
| There is no such thing as shit taste. Only idiots who think everyone should have the same taste as they do. |
| @Hahalollawl you're right I should have made some sort of reference towards that fact. I quickly added something in and I'll think about how I want to change what I wrote for next week, if I want to change it at all. Now about what said regarding the weekly news thread being pinned. I'm not sure if that's the way to go about it, however I was talking with another mod today about doing something similar to what you suggested. Not with the weekly news thread, but putting recent major announcements in one place and then pinning it. |
| “News travels fast in places where nothing much ever happens.” ― Charles Bukowski |
| Hello all. kuuderes_shadow said: Just throwing out an idea that I haven't really thought through completely - how about using the weekly thread for posting the news stories as they come out in, and then at the end of the week they are gathered in the next week's thread. So for example, the current weekly news briefs thread covers the period from 15th-22nd of December. During the week from 23rd - 29th of December, any new information would be posted in THAT thread, perhaps in bold red font or something. Anything at the start of the thread could be discussed, as could any new information that gets posted in the thread as it goes along. Then at the end of the week, all new information posted in that thread gets collated to form the next week's thread. This would mean that things can get discussed for up to two weeks, can be discussed immediately, can be posted by anyone with no need to create a special club/thread just for that purpose,and is all still gathered in one place. Those who just want to look at the initial post for whom the news briefs thread idea works can use it for that purpose, and those who want their news asap can use the same thread as well, and both are able to discuss it. Of course, there would have to be enforcement to make sure that people only post in bold+red (or whatever is decided) if they are actually posting news. Just an idea. I like this idea a lot. Occasionally I'll find some item but won't really have where to post it. Like this week we got the Fafner Exodus PV but the news thread about that show was already locked, so someone opened a new thread inside the Fafner Exodus page but nobody sees those because you need to specifically go to that page. Having a weekly news catchall thread where people can drop little items like that and then link to a new thread they opened is good. |
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