negative news.

[beth]

i've been debating posting this thread for a few months now because i don't want to piss off an entire department, but i decided that upon checking habbox.com this morning i'd just go for it.

why do most of the articles the news staff write off their own backs (not the rewrites of habbo news) so negative and usually whiney? i have no desire to read someone whinging and yet when i looked at habbox earlier there were 3 articles picking flaws with habbo.

i understand that there ARE negative attitudes towards habbo, but it's frankly boring to read negative things constantly. did the real news articles get scrapped also? i used to enjoy (i can't remember who it was a few years ago) but tv round-ups for the week, music news etc.

that said, the standard of writing in the news HAS improved so kudos. but yeah man, can we have some positive sides once in a while?

[Nuxty]

i've been debating posting this thread for a few months now because i don't want to piss off an entire department, but i decided that upon checking habbox.com this morning i'd just go for it.

why do most of the articles the news staff write off their own backs (not the rewrites of habbo news) so negative and usually whiney? i have no desire to read someone whinging and yet when i looked at habbox earlier there were 3 articles picking flaws with habbo.

i understand that there ARE negative attitudes towards habbo, but it's frankly boring to read negative things constantly. did the real news articles get scrapped also? i used to enjoy (i can't remember who it was a few years ago) but tv round-ups for the week, music news etc.

that said, the standard of writing in the news HAS improved so kudos. but yeah man, can we have some positive sides once in a while?

I've been reading some of the recent articles and I can see what you mean. :P

I wouldn't say we intend on writing negative articles, it's just the way things come across at times. There are however positives. I always tried to encourage positive news when I was a manager, but negative stuff is good too! A mix of the two usually goes down a treat. I am sure Martin will look at this for you so I don't want to really say too much, but in my opinion I guess it's just the writers feelings being revealed at times.

[beth]

I've been reading some of the recent articles and I can see what you mean. :P

I wouldn't say we intend on writing negative articles, it's just the way things come across at times. There are however positives. I always tried to encourage positive news when I was a manager, but negative stuff is good too! A mix of the two usually goes down a treat. I am sure Martin will look at this for you so I don't want to really say too much, but in my opinion I guess it's just the writers feelings being revealed at times.

hiya charlie good to see you back babe x

i mean they are fully entitled to their opinions but as a news reporter surely there should be some kind of LIMIT. maybe?

[Richie]

Habbox in general is a negative place so I'm not surprised it has rubbed off into different departments, obviously the website isn't meant to be that way but it has just formed into that. It turned me into an arse online which is why i tend to pop on now and then rather than pop on every second day.

[iJess]

i couldn't agree more haha ;)
*cough warren

[MKR&*42]

[@]Publicised[/@] Heyarrr,

I expect that we write a lot of negative news due to it being such a 'popular' or 'really talked about' issue. E.g. People hating maintenance is always a big thing, d/c's (even though that hasn't been wrote about) is a big issue, the trading being messed up ages ago (when people lost furni) was a huge issue etc. etc.

I admit, there are some positive aspects about Habbo and I/We won't ALWAYS write about negative stuff :P I'll do an article on 'the good side of Habbo' if you're that annoyed? (There was a thread on it somewhere). But yeah, there have been quite a few negative articles lately - mainly because people tend to be rather interested in negative news (everyone loves a good ***** and moan ;) )

But yeah, I'll expect there'll be some more positive news soon - with soapbox and what not ^_^

[@]iJess[/@] Shush, you barely even read articles jess LOL and you were an ex-news reporter ;)

[Nuxty]

hiya charlie good to see you back babe x

i mean they are fully entitled to their opinions but as a news reporter surely there should be some kind of LIMIT. maybe?

heya bethie! :D xx

Well yeah, I mean there should be a limit as the aim of the department isn't to hate on Habbo. You have to remember we're a habbo fansite which means we're meant to support them. I do see where you're coming from m'dear and hopefully this is something that management will act on and change within the department.

[xxMATTGxx]

Saying negative comments about certain aspects of Habbo is quite good and one of the reporters was actually contacted by a member of Sulake Staff who deals with research and then takes it all back to management. Of course there should also be positive opinions and news so a good amount all round should be ideal.

[Nuxty]

Saying negative comments about certain aspects of Habbo is quite good and one of the reporters was actually contacted by a member of Sulake Staff who deals with research and then takes it all back to management. Of course there should also be positive opinions and news so a good amount all round should be ideal.

[@]@xxMATTGxx[/@] - Nailed it in one. :P

I think they actually appreciate the criticism at times!

[GoldenMerc]

Have to agree, isn't the only thing going downhill in Habbox.

[beth]

[@]@xxMATTGxx[/@] that's lovely. but at the moment the news homepage looks petulant and whiney.

[xxMATTGxx]

[@]@xxMATTGxx[/@] that's lovely. but at the moment the news homepage looks petulant and whiney.

That's where the "good amount" comes in for the positive news and opinions Beth. But I'm sure Martin and Charlie will be able to get the reporters to do that.

[MKR&*42]

[@]@xxMATTGxx[/@] that's lovely. but at the moment the news homepage looks petulant and whiney.

Is your issue more of the fact that you'd rather have the articles to be alternating? I can see what you mean with the last 4 or so articles being very negative on Sulake and it could put people off reading more articles because it appears to be slating Sulake. So, I think your point is not that there shouldn't be loads of negative articles on Sulake/Habbo but that you'd rather have a balance? So it would go Negative>Positive>Neutral (idk how you can define neutral though).

I think (if that's your real point) then that wouldn't be such a bad thing to do - it would indeed make Habbox news seem less whiney and what not, but would still allow the opportunity for criticism and negativity in some articles? ^_^

[CrazyLemurs]

I'm sorry you think we're always being negative, but recently some reporters, including myself, feel that Habbo has become worse. I don't see a large problem in having a few negative articles, when previously we have been keen to promote Habbo & Sulake.

Real Life has been changed recently, and as a department the focus is turning more to Habbo News.
Of course, things like a weekly entertainment round-up are being discussed, and we hope that these can be done.
If you have suggestions for the department, Martin (Bolt660) and MattG would be happy to hear them (I think xD).

[beth]

Is your issue more of the fact that you'd rather have the articles to be alternating? I can see what you mean with the last 4 or so articles being very negative on Sulake and it could put people off reading more articles because it appears to be slating Sulake. So, I think your point is not that there shouldn't be loads of negative articles on Sulake/Habbo but that you'd rather have a balance? So it would go Negative>Positive>Neutral (idk how you can define neutral though).

I think (if that's your real point) then that wouldn't be such a bad thing to do - it would indeed make Habbox news seem less whiney and what not, but would still allow the opportunity for criticism and negativity in some articles? ^_^

this is exactly what i propose. i think negativity is fine in small doses, it does become boring to read negative points all the time. i think a system should be in place where its checked that not every single article posted is opinionated and negative. yr articles aren't BAD, i'm just saying with them all posted in one big slot it looks petulant.

[@]@CrazyLemurs[/@] that may be so in yr opinion but you are a reporter, not a critique and you should surely be covering all bases,

[scottish]

didnt read any post in here

but first time i've ever looked at news and i see an article moaning about maintenance

wtf?

If there was no maintenance there would be no updates, lol...

Runescape has a weekly maintenance, WoW has maintenance alot aswell, every game has maintenance...

If there was no maintenance/updates then they'd be publishing news crying about lack of updates.

Most updates i've seen say down for 15+ minutes and results in actually being down for about 5, so i don't see how its an issue


But yeah I see what you mean.

I also think it's stupid someone who created their account in 2010 is talking about 'when Habbo was first released into the world'.

[Accipiter]

Correlation to the real news tbf, no one ever cares about whats going right, because we're a nation of moaners.

[sophiethenerd]

I was actually thinking about posting this thread lol.
It just gives the impression we are being really negative about habbo, and if sulake see it they might get not like us very much D:

[Grig]

I think also, reporters are forgetting that it isn't only about featured news stories that should be churned out. You can get an equal amount of interest in spot news stories.

But back to Bethie's point. Now I never read Habbox news anymore, so went to have a quick glance now. I must say I was shocked with the amount of bias in the reporting, it's become like an anti-Habbo propaganda tool. Articles such as 'Grr! Maintenance Madness!' should really not be there, they do not present Sulake's side for maintenance and I doubt the reporter really has behind the scenes evidence of such things.

A NEWS REPORTER NEEDS TO BE NEUTRAL. I have highlighted and capitalized this point because the neutrality from these articles are gone completely. You need to present a wide array of perspectives, tell me why the maintenance break or Sulake is pushing for cash, don't just moan about it.

I'm happy you posted this thread [@]@Publicised[/@] because news should never be like this. Such bias would never have happened back when I was at news, so I don't get the major shift here.

[Nuxty]

I think also, reporters are forgetting that it isn't only about featured news stories that should be churned out. You can get an equal amount of interest in spot news stories.

But back to Bethie's point. Now I never read Habbox news anymore, so went to have a quick glance now. I must say I was shocked with the amount of bias in the reporting, it's become like an anti-Habbo propaganda tool. Articles such as 'Grr! Maintenance Madness!' should really not be there, they do not present Sulake's side for maintenance and I doubt the reporter really has behind the scenes evidence of such things.

A NEWS REPORTER NEEDS TO BE NEUTRAL. I have highlighted and capitalized this point because the neutrality from these articles are gone completely. You need to present a wide array of perspectives, tell me why the maintenance break or Sulake is pushing for cash, don't just moan about it.

I'm happy you posted this thread [@]@Publicised[/@] because news should never be like this. Such bias would never have happened back when I was at news, so I don't get the major shift here.

Yes and no. If we were neutral then we'd have to be 'Yes Sir, Yes Miss' to everything.

I'll basically say this. This year the department has changed teams more times than it ever has before. We've gone through 4 managers and things have been a little shaky since I departed in September (I'm not trying to say OMG it failed since I left or anything), Arthur and Chantelle took over and they did their absolute best sadly time was not on their side. They're both in crucial stages of education, Martin is back in control now and he has a great amount of experience and will get the department back onto the right track. I don't think it is fair to say 'Such biased would never have happened back when I was at news' - News has changed and if you ask me it has changed for the better. We used to basically praise Habbo completely by just rewriting what they had already published, that was something that I removed and God am I glad I did! You don't see tabloid reporters or journalists sitting on the fence do you? News and Journalism is all about giving your own views and opinions, writing freely. It's something I've always promoted and will continue to as a Senior in the department.

There should be no talk of having a "balance" between Good>Neutral>Bad because news doesn't work like that. You can't think oh my, let's write something positive before we write something negative. If a reporter finds something bad to report on then they should be able to do it! Habbo has gone through a lot of changes recently and a lot of people don't like that. The department reflects upon opinion, it speaks the truth.

As [@]@CrazyLemurs[/@] said, we're sorry if you feel we're negative. We will try and produce more positive articles but we can't help but write what we're feeling because then we'd just be producing a page full of lies in my opinion. The department is about opinions and as a senior I will try and push for more positive opinions to come out of articles but if a person isn't feeling it then they're just not feeling it!

Sorry if none of that made any sense, just doing an essay so I like kaboomed this out quickly!

[Martin]

I don't think the odd negative article does any harm, and I would say there is often a lot of negativity about certain decisions Habbo make or things they change etc. We do want reporters to reflect the publics opinion and general concensus, however I do agree that they should balance it out a bit more and try to show the positive aspects of things too.

I have only been back a couple of days so I'm still getting used to current reporters writing styles, however I will certainly highlight this at the weekend and ensure that a balance is reached between positive and negative feelings towards things. I do agree that the homepage is looking very negative at the moment and it's something I've not really experienced as a manager before since the last time I was manager everyone was a bit 'too' happy and we were always way too nice to sulake. :P

I will work with the team in combatting this and I'm sure from this thread they will take your opinions and act upon them in future articles and things will be a bit more jolly! However, I think that negative points can be raised, but need to be toned down considerably.

[beth]

[@]@Nuxty[/@] no-one's talking about forcing reporters to be happy or portray positivity when they don't feel it, i am talking about perhaps looking at when you post articles. if someones just posted an article moaning about maintenance then is it appropriate to post an article straight after moaning about sulake and fansites and then is it appropriate to post an article being against vip.

like the vip article, you've presented it in a negative aspect, what about the positives of that FOR a vip member? the new clothes, the new effects, WOW look at those nice furry boots. there are positives.

ALSO cause my point got kinda hidden in the negative thing, did you scrap r/l reporters? i liked them.

[Martin]

[@]@Nuxty[/@] no-one's talking about forcing reporters to be happy or portray positivity when they don't feel it, i am talking about perhaps looking at when you post articles. if someones just posted an article moaning about maintenance then is it appropriate to post an article straight after moaning about sulake and fansites and then is it appropriate to post an article being against vip.

like the vip article, you've presented it in a negative aspect, what about the positives of that FOR a vip member? the new clothes, the new effects, WOW look at those nice furry boots. there are positives.

ALSO cause my point got kinda hidden in the negative thing, did you scrap r/l reporters? i liked them.

I believe general management/previous news management had plans to remove most of the r/l aspect however I have no plans to remove it and if anything will be working on getting more unique content up on the site that will spark debates etc and get more hits. Only things which apply to our generic target audience though and ye more on that soon.

As I said, I will work with the team to achieve a more balanced view on things and encourage a different style of writing for such articles where a negative aspect needs to be presented.

[Grig]

Yes and no. If we were neutral then we'd have to be 'Yes Sir, Yes Miss' to everything.

I'll basically say this. This year the department has changed teams more times than it ever has before. We've gone through 4 managers and things have been a little shaky since I departed in September (I'm not trying to say OMG it failed since I left or anything), Arthur and Chantelle took over and they did their absolute best sadly time was not on their side. They're both in crucial stages of education, Martin is back in control now and he has a great amount of experience and will get the department back onto the right track. I don't think it is fair to say 'Such biased would never have happened back when I was at news' - News has changed and if you ask me it has changed for the better. We used to basically praise Habbo completely by just rewriting what they had already published, that was something that I removed and God am I glad I did! You don't see tabloid reporters or journalists sitting on the fence do you? News and Journalism is all about giving your own views and opinions, writing freely. It's something I've always promoted and will continue to as a Senior in the department.

There should be no talk of having a "balance" between Good>Neutral>Bad because news doesn't work like that. You can't think oh my, let's write something positive before we write something negative. If a reporter finds something bad to report on then they should be able to do it! Habbo has gone through a lot of changes recently and a lot of people don't like that. The department reflects upon opinion, it speaks the truth.

As [@]@CrazyLemurs[/@] said, we're sorry if you feel we're negative. We will try and produce more positive articles but we can't help but write what we're feeling because then we'd just be producing a page full of lies in my opinion. The department is about opinions and as a senior I will try and push for more positive opinions to come out of articles but if a person isn't feeling it then they're just not feeling it!

Sorry if none of that made any sense, just doing an essay so I like kaboomed this out quickly!

Then you seem to be having the stance of tabloid papers that are rubbish such as the Daily Mail. We didn't always have articles praising Habbo. I remember there were quite a few articles that had the negative view, then had Habbo's perspective on it. Then in the read more section one could ask what do you think... and let the reader decide themselves, at the moment it seems like a sway towards way too one-sided reporting. You shall not be producing pages full of lies if for example, you find out why Sulake does something at at least post their stance. These articles seem way too much as editorials, where the opinion of a single person is mimicked rather than an actual news report, where the reporter goes into a broader perspective- beyond boarders if you will.

Fact it these articles are going to one extreme. There is no need to do so, you can easily write a critical article without bias if all the elements of good journalism are followed. But then again, this is a Habbo fansite and obviously no one here is trained as a news reporter, hence no one would know the elements of good fair journalism- I wouldn't blame you for it. Giving your opinion is more of an editorial, not a news piece. Then you may feel free to re-name the whole department to the 'Editorial News Department'.

[Nuxty]

[@]@Nuxty[/@] no-one's talking about forcing reporters to be happy or portray positivity when they don't feel it, i am talking about perhaps looking at when you post articles. if someones just posted an article moaning about maintenance then is it appropriate to post an article straight after moaning about sulake and fansites and then is it appropriate to post an article being against vip.

like the vip article, you've presented it in a negative aspect, what about the positives of that FOR a vip member? the new clothes, the new effects, WOW look at those nice furry boots. there are positives.

ALSO cause my point got kinda hidden in the negative thing, did you scrap r/l reporters? i liked them.

If r/l news had gone, I would've cried and never have returned. When I was a News Reporter that's all I ever used to do was r/l! Tis amazing ain't it!

I understand what you mean Bethie. What I get from this is that you'd like to see more of like a pros and cons type of thing, showing the good as well as the bad? x

[beth]

If r/l news had gone, I would've cried and never have returned. When I was a News Reporter that's all I ever used to do was r/l! Tis amazing ain't it!

I understand what you mean Bethie. What I get from this is that you'd like to see more of like a pros and cons type of thing, showing the good as well as the bad? x

definitely. for instance they say something like for paying 25c you get almost 2.5x more colours/clothes, could be sold as a perk rather than a negative for none-vip. x

[Grig]

definitely. for instance they say something like for paying 25c you get almost 2.5x more colours/clothes, could be sold as a perk rather than a negative for none-vip. x

That's more balanced and neutral reporting here, but that is what is missing from many of the recent articles that I can see on the homepage.

[Martin]

I've made a discussion between the team and we will work on methods of introducing both positive and negative opinions on things to provide a fair stance on things from both points of view. We will also ensure that from now on there is a balance of styles on the front page to prevent us looking like the dooms department rather than the news department.

Not much else I can do at this point other than promise that it is being looked at and will improve from here on. Thanks for the feedback, it really helps! :)

and bethie you are gonna love some of the real life ideas we are coming up with and will introduce to the site soon. Something unique to Habbox and something which should hopefully get a few people interested and coming back for more etc. xD

[Inseriousity.]

The fact that you didn't read news before this thread is proof of why the 'neutral' reporting style is completely bogus. Neutrality is boring. It's as simple as that. With the neutral reports, you dont even need to read it, you can just go directly to Habbo.

News reporters have recently been asked to be more investigative and they're new to the whole thing and haven't quite learned yet that 'investigation' does not necessarily mean a negative outcome. I'm sure this thread will have alerted their attention to that. :)

[-:Undertaker:-]

The fact that you didn't read news before this thread is proof of why the 'neutral' reporting style is completely bogus. Neutrality is boring. It's as simple as that. With the neutral reports, you dont even need to read it, you can just go directly to Habbo.

News reporters have recently been asked to be more investigative and they're new to the whole thing and haven't quite learned yet that 'investigation' does not necessarily mean a negative outcome. I'm sure this thread will have alerted their attention to that. :)

This, otherwise what would be the point in writing Habbo articles when we could all just read them ourselves on the Habbo website?

[Martin]

This, otherwise what would be the point in writing Habbo articles when we could all just read them ourselves on the Habbo website?

Yup, originality and uniqueness is the key and reporters need to display their investigation skills, find out things for themselves and report on stuff that isn't always reported by Habbo. Things that are done by Habbo but not always picked up on and things which occur on the hotel etc. They are reporters after all and should report on what they witness and give opinions and stuff. As Mike said a bit more of a balance needs to be achieved but I'm pleased that we're not just reporting on the 'safe' news that Habbo themselves would post and are offering something a bit different that could spark discussion.

[HotelUser]

I've read over the thread and I'm not going to quote anyone directly but I am going to make a reply which has to do with one of Sulake's fansite rules. If you're not familiar with this particular fansite rule it's the one which states that we as a fansite are not allowed to post about unreleased Habbo content. I'm not entirely sure how to best phrase this so I'll just say it and then justify what I am saying. Sulake has directly crippled our News team by imposing what are quite arguably very unfair limitations upon Habbox.

So first off I'll give some background. In April we came to the conclusion that the reason News wasn't experiencing more attention from viewers was because what we were doing was essentially taking whatever Sulake posted in the official Habbo.com news feed and rephrasing it. Now as you will probably already know Sulake doesn't frequently just post news on Habbo.com/community and outright mention, "we're adding these new rares to the client, here's detailed photos". No no, they wait until the furniture is already added into the client and then they make up a ridiculously childish scenario like "entering the dreaded Hell Hound Labyrinth" (no joke, I just found that in an article here http://www.habbo.com/community). So there we are in April or so, and for the most part we were only really posting the exact same news Sulake was themselves so we only ever seemed to promote Habbo, and never really reported on more interesting news like upcoming furniture and features to Habbo.

During this time we made sure to create extra emphasis on the importance of news reporters investigating situations and using their own incentive to find interesting articles to report on. This started working and there was a clear increase in the interest of news at this time, which was satisfactory to us especially when we allowed news reporters to report on upcoming furniture additions to the game itself.

You might also be aware that posting unreleased information about Habbo violates the fansite way. However, HabboTimes and Puhekupla have been doing this for years, and we were especially convinced that it was fine for us to do this when Puhekupla was featured on the Sulake website in early May (http://www.sulake.com/blog/entries/2011-05-09_Volter.html). So with Danube's guidance on how Sulake add Rares to the client I created a script for Habbox which automatically detected new rare additions, displayed them on the Habbox.com website and notified our news reporters as so they could do a news article on it. This worked beautifully for several months and even upto recently this continued to progress well because we could finally compete with HabboTimes and Puhekupla (because we had insights on rare release information, which is really part of the magic formula if you want to run a successful Habbo news firm these days). So to summarize the above all was well for Habbox News at this point because A) We had reporters starting to investigate things for themselves, after having banned reporters from using the RSS feed for their news source which they were more or less all dependent on and B) We could finally compete with HabboTimes and Puhekupla because we too had the ability to report on unreleased Habbo information.

It was after all this that Sulake did something so stupid (possibly even more stupid than banning fansites from selling VIP, and even more stupid than banning users for saying "Habbox" ingame). To make this as crystal clear as I can I have never seen the company treat us as a fansite more unfairly since we opened than I have here, because they prohibited Habbox from posting about unreleased rares and features, and as hard to believe as it is (and to tell you the truth if I was someone else reading these words I wouldn't believe them), but they also told us that they weren't going to stop HabboTimes and Puhekupla from posting unreleased rares.

Their reason? According to Sulake HabboTimes and Puhekupla aren't English fansites. If this was true I probably would still think their decision was unfair, but not as unfair as it actually is because unless I can't tell the difference between English and other languages, this http://puhekupla.com/en/home and puhekupla itself, is an English fansite. HabboTimes as well up until (I think) Augustish, as that's when I first noticed they removed their English section of the website (unless I just can't locate it).

Where does that leave us now with News? Well, to put it in the best way I can, there's a lot of links in our own news forum (http://www.habboxforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=40) that go to Puhekupla instead of Habbox because we're not allowed to report on the biggest segment of Habbo news, and Puhekupla for reasons beyond me, is. Sulake has not done us any favours here and as you can see I'm very annoyed at their decision, because it's quite clearly hurt our News team to an extent. However, Habbox is still lucky to have a team of really good writers, who are still encouraged to not use the RSS feed, and to do their own research to find Habbo News. I can see what you mean about how we have an abundance of "negative news" lately over positive news, but one of the reasons this is more visible at the moment is because we're not allowed to post the sort of news we were posting in the past due to this clause brought up by Sulake. I think we're in a situation right now that's similar to any other news site for real world news, more often than not it's negative news they're reporting.

I was honestly thinking of creating another petition of sorts for users to sign to allow us to post about unreleased rares, but again I'm not even sure we're allowed to do that because the last time we did for the Volter font, it was demanded by Sulake that we take the petition down. I can say though that recently the initiative for reporters to go out and investigate to find things to report on has been good. You might think a few topics on Habbox.com are negative but a lot of them are very good reads. Habbox News isn't going anywhere, we may have hit a road block in recent times, however we are doing everything we can do to make sure we post news about anything we're allowed to post news on, and in the future I suppose we can always hope that Sulake makes an effort to restore a fairness to their fansite rule which imposes this limitation upon us.

[Grig]

Cheers for the reply Dave, +rep. I can't believe Habbo disallowed Habbox from posting furniture releases. They make the job impossible now, I remember they used to send exclusive information to fansites in news pack e-mails years ago. Now it's close to impossible without connections or what not.

As for the rss feed, I fully agree it was useless- made the job too easy and simply allowed reporters to re-phrase. Re-phrasing articles never did us any justice, after Habbo posted news on their site. That's why real life news rarely did justice, unless it was tech or something where a specialist reporter who was into the tech stuff did a report on the latest gadgets from his own knowledge etc. That is not to say I still 100% agree on how those articles of late were phrased.