News Update: Sports Page

[Mrs.McCall]

I don't think this is a fantastic idea. Many of the reports are not at the quality that perhaps they should be and I feel that maybe the department should focus more on quality reporting than quantity reporting.

I'm not saying it's awful but some of the reports posted could perhaps do with improving and I feel a sports page isn't really needed. We had one before and it wasn't popular because sports is such a wide variety it'll end up extremely sparce and would require 3/4 sports dedicated reporters in order to be needed.

Just my 2 cents :)

[Pyroka]

The Sports section is obviously a risk, with what happened last time it was on Habbox. However the News Team is almost double in size as to what it was back when the Sports section last existed, and I may be wrong but, the department is soon to grow bigger because of this addition. Quite a few News Reporters have been asking for this, with Alex3213 wanting to cover the Golf (I think, something like that), and I wanted to do a bit of football. I even remember one of the General Managers saying they wouldn't mind posting the odd article when the Sports section is back either. I personally am going to try and post 2 articles per week in the section, along with 2 in both Habbo & Entertainment as to not neglect other parts of the news coverage Habbox has.

Obviously HxSS is on right now so alot of us reporters are busy participating in that, so initial judgement of the Sports section being a bad idea is quite premature. Obviously it's a new News Manager whose never dealt with the Sports section concept before, we could be in for a new take on it. Plus, I'm pretty sure the other 10 or so News Reporters would have a bit of say in how they want the Sports section to be like too.

Thanks for your opinions though Joey! :)

[Mrs.McCall]

I can see the merits of it but when a decision is made like this you have to consider the long term longevity of the section because there's nothing more embarassing than having a section go dead. Sports news is very rare, unless there's a major competition, to generate mass interest. I understand that there is clearly a demand in the department from what you have said but would it not have been a smarter move to have reporters slowly post more sports news and then, if demand was there, start the category.

I understand huge events like HxSS suck up a LOT of reporter time and perhaps it is a bit premature but Bolt wanted opinion so I figured I'd throw mine in.

[Amberr]

I think Sports news could be good, it's something different I guess and if the reporters enjoy it and it pleases some people then I don't see any harm in it... If news reporters are into sports then i'm sure some of their readers might be too. Also i think saying that articles lack quality isn't really fair.

[Pyroka]

Yeah I completely agree, and it's happened before when I was a News Reporter under Adzeh's reign. However, that was then and this is now. When you look at the size of the news team, and how little Habbo post in terms of articles compared to back in 2006/7/8, the Sports section will be used by News Reporters, for either their main reporting section or for when they're one short of the minimum article limit. Regarding your comment on Sports News being very rare, we just have to look at sites like http://www.skysports.com/ with their news section. Another idea could be to post the results of Football matches on Habbox. I mean, why should users need to navigate to different sites when they can just get their fix here?

It's this sort of innovation which, in my opinion, is why Bolt wanted to bring back the Sports section. He's never done it, the reporters are itching to get their hands on something new, and the general public are going to be the ones who'll benefit in the long term. Regarding your suggestion on slowly introducing Sports news, the problem in that is that there is no other place for Sports on Habbox.com right now, so trialling it like that would've been impossible. I understand that the decision to introduce a Sports section had alot to do with the Entertainment section, as the two are both independent from Habbox's main news section, Habbo. The Entertainment section is almost never left without a post per day, so with that in consideration, the Sports section should *hopefully* go the same way.

If at first it doesn't go to plan, I assume the News section will see one or two dedicated Sports News reporters! Which is never a bad sight, seeing new blood in the department is always a refreshing change. With you being an experienced former News Manager, I think I say for everyone that the input and feedback is greatly appreciated.

And on my own personal note to this news, I think that the comments system will come into its own and reflect how many users find the Sports News a necessary section for Habbox.

[Martin]

I can kinda see where you are coming from, but I think it's unfair to judge something before it's really had chance to start. I don't think 'Starting' the category at a specific time makes much difference really, since it's still very new, and the announcement was made just to make people aware of what's happening.

As Ryan has said, there are quite a few reporters keen on writing such news, and there are also other reasons behind this:



We have a fairly large team at the moment, with reporters that have different styles of reporting and different tastes.




Habbo News isn't as frequent as it once was. The international side of things disappeared, leaving us just reporting from one hotel. This means the Habbo output itself has decreased slightly, meaning less articles became available.




Our entertainment section also started off fairly slow, but over time it's becoming more frequently updated, we have reporters putting in so much effort into this section which is lovely to see, and various weekly columns have started to develop there.




Staff Interviews section is doing fine now, so that's nothing to worry about.




I've had a few people say that they would be interested in seeing sports news on the site. It's been long debated whether we should have the section, and general management was in agreement to it.


Not everyone may be into entertainment news, and sports news may appeal to some people. We like to ensure we are offering something for everyone, and it's just something extra we can work on really.

With a lack of articles, and spare time on reporters hands, I felt it would be nice to try out sports, and see how it goes really.

As a manager, I like to keep reporters happy and doing what they do best. Trying out new things (may not be completely new, but it is for me), is always going to be risky, but overall I don't think it's a huge concern for the department.

Whilst you say quality is low on articles, this is something we are forever working on, and it's something which will always crop up from time to time. News is a department which sees reporters come and go, and getting them to that perfect quality always takes time. I'm really happy with every single one of my reporters at the moment and they all do a really hard job in keeping their articles to a good quality. Compared with some sites our news isn't too bad in my view, but it's something we will continue to improve on.


Your feedback is appreciated though, and it's always good to hear suggestions on things. In this case I think its simply a case of seeing how it turns out, and not writing it off after just one article.

[Nuxty]

Well I have to agree with Martin on this one. Entertainment was exactly the same during it's launch and eventually got more and more recognition. I think that the section will be fine as we now have enough reporters to ensure that each section has the right amount of attention. Habbo being our first priority.

Onto the quality side of things, all of the reporters including myself have now all been on the team for atleast three months or over or we have worked in the department in the past. We are all aware of the standards the site has of the department and we are also aware of what our readers are interested in.

I can understand your concern about the section but it is very early yet and it is something that didn't work in the past but we must give it a chance to kick off before we jump in with judgements! I know for a fact news management plan the sections and really do look into if things are work having etc. So I am sure it will all be fine!

[Mathew]

I've never read a Habbox News article - BBC can give me real-life news along with Sports... and Habbo give me the news articles when I log in.
I've just never really seen a point to getting news second-hand which may have been changed (by mistake) by a Habbox reporter, or possibly been made bias at some point along the way.

A wish you the best of luck with a Sports category - I suppose you have to try it before you rule it out... but it does seem a very large task considering the amount of sports, matches, fixtures, etc.... not to mention we are supposedly an international fansite --- so how do you decide what to cover? Skiing? Basketball? Rugby? Baseball? American football? :)

[Nixt]

At Mathew, we recognise that not everyone wants to use Habbox as their resource for News, however the fact is that there are people that do and indeed will read the sports news. As Martin has said it is not something we expect to pick up immediately and we are not expecting it to be an instant hit, but with proper dedication and enthusiasm it will lift off as did the entertainment section.

It's also worth noting that with the up and coming v6 (I know we keep falling back on it) the interactivity Habbox.com will offer will make the news more prominent if that is what users choose and I feel this will in itself improve the popularity of all the news from Habbo through to Sports.

Whilst I understand your points, Joey, regarding the fact that there is "nothing more embarrassing than a section going dead" - I am inclined to disagree. I am not saying a section going dead is anything to be happy about, because of course it isn't, but it also isn't the end of the world and if you are not willing to try anything for fear of embarrassment then the Department (and this goes for any department) will never progress and never improve.

I think both Pyroka and Martin have summed up everything else I would have said pretty well.

[AgnesIO]

I sort of agree with Joey here.

I read a news article the other day (first time I went on habbox.com in months), and the standard of the news report on top, so everyone could see it easily, wasn't very good.

When I read a news report I don't really want/expect to see 'I think the changes do this, that and the other' as that is being bias. It also reads quite badly for anyone who has ever read a news paper in their lives :L

[Nixt]

Equally what you have to do is remember that our News Articles are designed to appeal to the wider Habbo community and not necessarily your average reader of a daily Newspaper (except maybe The Sun).

In addition I am sure Martin would be more than happy for you to PM him with any issues you have with articles and he can then address them.

[Martin]

When writing articles, we have to remember that our userbase varies a lot. The majority of our readers are quite young, and it's sometimes best to put them in more of an informal tone, rather than going straight out for a newspaper column. I know even Habbo news can be a little mature sometimes, and we feel that summarising it, whilst adding out own spin to it makes it more personalised and allows the reader to interact more.

This has proved to be worthwhile in the past, with some articles a few months ago reaching 100+ comments. Quality will always dip up and down, but I think it's a bit unfair to generalise this and make such comments- when reporters work extremely hard to improve.

If you do have problems with articles, I always love to hear about them, and dropping me a PM usually does the trick. Just like you would report a bad infraction, reporting a 'bad News article' will get it sorted for you.

As I mentioned before, we're always trying to improve quality, and this is something which will be a lot easier on V6. We have some very big structural changes coming and these should improve the look of articles anyway.


I think the topic of this thread has taken a slightly different direction now, but It's all good, as feedback is always good.


Sports news will be given a chance. Yes, there are many, many topics that could be wrote about, but this is down to what reporters want to write, and what we think may interest some people. It would be impossible to cover everything. This section would be particularly useful in big sporting events mostly, events where there's lots of televised viewing etc, such as major tournaments/olympics etc.

I don't think we can really always determine whether a section will be worthwhile or not until it's actually given a while. As Garion said, most of our visitors to the site are primarily from Habbo, and as I understand- not many forum members actually use the site much. The Forum is quite mature in my view, and this doesn't always mean that the visitors to our site will be, and it's important that the content is varied, and not too cloned.


Looking back at older articles on the site, and looking at other sites, in comparison I don't think it's that bad at the moment, but I can see that improvements need to be made.

A recent site poll sort of confirmed this:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3865423/newspoll.png

Whilst polls like this can't always be taken as true fact, quite a few people voted there, and 70% of people saying articles look good or better is not too bad. Personally I would like to see the figure at 85%+ but this is again something which we can work on. Articles back from april/may etc were doing really well and as I mentioned earlier, comments were hitting very high numbers. There will always be dips, but we're going to work super hard now to get things back on form.

[Alex3213]

When writing articles, we have to remember that our userbase varies a lot. The majority of our readers are quite young, and it's sometimes best to put them in more of an informal tone, rather than going straight out for a newspaper column. I know even Habbo news can be a little mature sometimes, and we feel that summarising it, whilst adding out own spin to it makes it more personalised and allows the reader to interact more.

This has proved to be worthwhile in the past, with some articles a few months ago reaching 100+ comments. Quality will always dip up and down, but I think it's a bit unfair to generalise this and make such comments- when reporters work extremely hard to improve.

If you do have problems with articles, I always love to hear about them, and dropping me a PM usually does the trick. Just like you would report a bad infraction, reporting a 'bad News article' will get it sorted for you.

As I mentioned before, we're always trying to improve quality, and this is something which will be a lot easier on V6. We have some very big structural changes coming and these should improve the look of articles anyway.


I think the topic of this thread has taken a slightly different direction now, but It's all good, as feedback is always good.


Sports news will be given a chance. Yes, there are many, many topics that could be wrote about, but this is down to what reporters want to write, and what we think may interest some people. It would be impossible to cover everything. This section would be particularly useful in big sporting events mostly, events where there's lots of televised viewing etc, such as major tournaments/olympics etc.

I don't think we can really always determine whether a section will be worthwhile or not until it's actually given a while. As Garion said, most of our visitors to the site are primarily from Habbo, and as I understand- not many forum members actually use the site much. The Forum is quite mature in my view, and this doesn't always mean that the visitors to our site will be, and it's important that the content is varied, and not too cloned.


Looking back at older articles on the site, and looking at other sites, in comparison I don't think it's that bad at the moment, but I can see that improvements need to be made.

A recent site poll sort of confirmed this:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3865423/newspoll.png

Whilst polls like this can't always be taken as true fact, quite a few people voted there, and 70% of people saying articles look good or better is not too bad. Personally I would like to see the figure at 85%+ but this is again something which we can work on. Articles back from april/may etc were doing really well and as I mentioned earlier, comments were hitting very high numbers. There will always be dips, but we're going to work super hard now to get things back on form.

This is exactly why my style of writing is far more opinionated. Although we can't really have a target audience due to the range aging from around 11 to 20 in some cases, more people do read the articles at a far younger age. Another reason for this is because we obviously want our writing to be different to Habbo's (or BBC's, Sky's etc)- writing the same facts in a different word order just makes us write the obvious. However, when we change the articles so that an opinion and reason is formed, even if it is bias as you say, it makes it unique. What I plan to do in the upcoming weeks for Habbo articles is take comments from Habbox Forum and then quote them so then it's not just myself or the News Reporter giving the opinion but from a wide range of people.

I think the Sports is actually an alright idea. With a few new seasons coming up we can just take the bits which we find "important" and write them on a wider scale. I'm looking forward to writing about the U.S. Open and I know that others are ready to write about other Sports too. You don't know until you try, even if you say that you have, we've got to remember that Habbo produce far less articles nowadays and it's unlikely to go "dead". The Entertainment was "dead" when it began, now there are normally a couple of articles everyday. Habbo is obviously the first priority because that's what the fansite is about, Habbo but a variation of topics isn't going to harm anyone and I can only see positive things for this new section.

[AgnesIO]

It is good to see all of you are happy to improve the news reports.

Just in reply to one of the points, I used to read the news reports when I was younger and I always prefered ones that were more formal, maiking them seem more mature.. although this might be just me, as I am a fairly academic person, therefore meaning I tend to prefer reading intelligent stories etc, that's sticks to the facts.

As I said, I think adding an opinion in will probably "force" the young readers to believe whatever the reporters opinion is. Afterall younger users tend to look up to habbox staff (well love hx staff haha).

I will reply in better detail, with a few ideas on how to improve, later when I am not on my phone :)

[Alex3213]

It is good to see all of you are happy to improve the news reports.

Just in reply to one of the points, I used to read the news reports when I was younger and I always prefered ones that were more formal, maiking them seem more mature.. although this might be just me, as I am a fairly academic person, therefore meaning I tend to prefer reading intelligent stories etc, that's sticks to the facts.

As I said, I think adding an opinion in will probably "force" the young readers to believe whatever the reporters opinion is. Afterall younger users tend to look up to habbox staff (well love hx staff haha).

I will reply in better detail, with a few ideas on how to improve, later when I am not on my phone :)

You get +rep for this post because you make a very valid point. I think if I do what I said I was going to do (opinions from Habboxforum) it would still show the opinions but would also inform the reader that there are two different sides to the story.

[Mrs.McCall]

I think perhaps the way I worded things was harsher than what was intended. In my opinion the quality can always improve, that was the same when I was manager and every News Manager before but I do feel that, at the moment, (which is no doubt factor to the larger team) the quality isn't on par of what it has been in previous years. I think that there should really be more focus on that. But that's a managerial decision that perhaps I shouldn't really discuss since I no longer know how the department is ran.

People have mentioned the Entertainment section and I can see how that's a case in point and it's great to see that being more beefed up. In regards to what I said about sports going dead and there's "nothing more embarassing" I understand that these kind of things need to be tried for the sake of development but I always find a better and more successful strategy is to introduce new sections slowly to build more buzz.

I also think that it would've been a smarter move to wait for a bigger sports event to kick start the category but, hey, it's done now so I wish you the best of luck and I hope it's a success.

In terms of opinion based reports this is something that the News department has been plagued with since I was even a trialist. The issue you've got is that people feel that News reports are often a re-hash of information because there isn't an substance there. I understand that and the difficult News has, is they can't show bias and that means that the uniqueness comes in style and that's something very difficult to adapt to when you're a new reporter. New reporters haven't had chance to adopt a style or a unique take so that can result in reports lacking any "oomph" which is a shame but given more time, an more opportunity for a style to adapt, I think the reports will improve.

Everyone knows my first love on Habbox will always be News and I am sorry if anyone was offended by what I originally wrote. I do think there's vast room for improvement and perhaps News Management could help reporters with their style and wording a bit more and I do stand by my opinion that a Sports section could prove difficult to implement but I have been proven wrong a billion times before and I really hope I am. Good luck with it :)

[Inseriousity.]

Out of all the news managers I've had, I'd say martin was probably one of the best although yum999 will always have a special place ofc for giving me the first chance so I think if there was ever a manager who could make something work, martin would be the man for the job.

For the Sports category, I agree but that's because I have no interest in it myself. However, as pointed out by Mathew, there are sooooooo many sporting events going on that I don't think there'll be a lack of things to report on. Also pointed out by Mathew, the BBC/Habbo already do news we cover so it's a hard department to generate any interest in. I think nowadays there's a general pussyfooting around certain things, managers walking on eggshells and avoiding decisions just because it 'didn't work in the past'. Maybe these things just need a new perspective. If it works, hooray. If it doesn't, those eggshells are going to hit us in the face but at least we had the guts to give it a go!

I notice you used the word 'plagued' and that has negative connotations for me. Are you not a fan of the opinionated articles? Personally, I prefer them. The bias in articles is normally what makes them more interesting especially if it's really obvious, which is why I have a love-hate relationship with the Daily Mail :P

It's good to see feedback for the news department, they always moan about never having any so I think other people with a say should give their opinions too :D

[Mrs.McCall]

Ohh no I am a fan of opinion but I know it is frowned upon or at least we were always told we weren't allowed to give opinion.

[Mrs.McCall]

In fact you know what, I completely retract what I've said. I was too quick to judge, you're right and everything considered why the hell not?

Nothing says that a new section on the website won't work. What's the harm in trying!

[Meanies]

If people wanted to read sporting news, surely they'd go to a professional site like the bbc or whatever other sites there are, rather than habbox which will draw information from their articles anyway. might as well just have a feed from one of them

[Grig]

Personally I was on the frontline of fighting for this section and getting it approved. It has potential, like anything would. However, it needs promotion and what not as I know that people would go straight for the Beeb or CNN if they want sports etc. This is what I also felt was needed for entertainment news. We are best known for Habbo news and that's great. We do get views from all our sections, and enough to continue doing them. It would be nicer of course if more people commented, but that can always be done with competitions and other such incentives.

As for concerns for reporters, they are a nice bunch who are talented. You say that, but a few of them have worked in news in past years under past management. I admit, some people still are a work in progress but there are feedback and reports for that reason. However, I do feel and I blame myself too for not sending out enough of these to reporters. It would be useful when the hit counter gets fixed so Martin and co. can see the popularity of sections in general.

As for a larger team, that was myself trying to push for more people getting hired, as in the past articles simply were not done. Also, before you say, no, we weren't jeopardizing quality for quantity, we were simply hiring those who were fit for the job. I know past news managers had a stricter criteria, as I've noticed from people such as BritishTea, but at points the team consisted of 1/2 members, and that's funny to even say now but it was reality back then.

As for opinions, I like them, I have always said do an opinion but try and do it in a one liner in the 'read more' sections as it gives an insight into a reporters view. Reporters were also encouraged to take other views too so as not to be overly biased. This way news becomes more interesting to read and gives us points. Also, some humor is also a nice touch I liked to add.

Anyway these are my two cents from what I know :).