Have I missed something?

[Grig]

I'm just curious, seeing as I don't visit that often anymore and when I went onto the staff list right now it said:

Content Designers
Content Staff (Graphics)
Content Staff (Writers)

So are these three all one department now?

I don't see why you are changing the title 'News Reporter' to 'Content Staff (Writers)', because these people solely report on news, rather than write content in the general sense of the word :P.

[David]

news is content, they write the news?
content "designers" were writers too

[Samantha]

I dont think we can say much on the matter at the moment. More will come clear.

---------- Post added 21-04-2013 at 12:35 PM ----------

I tried to PM you Grig, but you have too many of them. News and Content are different styles of writing.

[Grig]

And if these so called writers have to write more than news, it'll be silly. There should be more of a focus, not more of a centralization, taking away from what news needs.

I could be very wrong, but that's how it seems.

[Samantha]

And if these so called writers have to write more than news, it'll be silly. There should be more of a focus, not more of a centralization, taking away from what news needs.

I could be very wrong, but that's how it seems.

Again I can't say much, I just suggest looking at the reports for news this month, see of theynhave decreased or increased for you.

[Grig]

Again I can't say much, I just suggest looking at the reports for news this month, see of theynhave decreased or increased for you.

From the first few pages, it looks like no normal staff doing anything and mainly you writing all the news reports. What's your point with that Sam :P? Apart from the fact that it's not looking too good.

[David]

Again I can't say much, I just suggest looking at the reports for news this month, see of theynhave decreased or increased for you.

why cant you say anything
are news on strike

[Samantha]

why cant you say anything
are news on strike

No, nothing has been announced xD.

[xxMATTGxx]

why cant you say anything
are news on strike

Only people on strike are management/bertie

[David]

Only people on strike are management/bertie

so Samanfa; can't get fired or told off if she tells us whats going on with the merge? sounds good

[xxMATTGxx]

so Samanfa; can't get fired or told off if she tells us whats going on with the merge? sounds good

I didn't specify which management! Ooo I do love a good game.

[Samantha]

why cant you say anything
are news on strike


so Samanfa; can't get fired or told off if she tells us whats going on with the merge? sounds good

Oo this is a good game, as im not management xxMATTGxx;.

[David]

I didn't specify which management! Ooo I do love a good game.

do you mean Skynus;?, he's too busy working at habboheart to fire anyone

[Samantha]

why cant you say anything
are news on strike


so Samanfa; can't get fired or told off if she tells us whats going on with the merge? sounds good


do you mean Skynus;?, he's too busy working at habboheart to fire anyone

Aww, I remember that.

For the record, I'm not on strike, just annoyed.

---------- Post added 21-04-2013 at 01:08 PM ----------


why cant you say anything
are news on strike


so Samanfa; can't get fired or told off if she tells us whats going on with the merge? sounds good

How do I get multi quote off

---------- Post added 21-04-2013 at 01:09 PM ----------

Fixed it, so am I allowed to say anything Matt?

[GoldenMerc]

do you mean @Skynus (http://www.habboxforum.com/member.php?u=66909);?, he's too busy working at habboheart to fire anyone

hah

samanfa best watch her back now grig's back...
never the less not sure why they changed it all, like graphics to content graphics etc

[David]

hah

samanfa best watch her back now grig's back...
never the less not sure why they changed it all, like graphics to content graphics etc

they changed it cause the 3 departments were dying or dead, the graphic department was stranded without any hope of a new manager and mett merged them

according to skynus 2 weeks ago

[Tom]

do you mean Skynus;?, he's too busy working at habboheart to fire anyone

Why are you so rude, LMAO.

Also, Samanfa;, please stop indirectly ******** and just send me a PM already, goodness me.

[Samantha]

they changed it cause the 3 departments were dying or dead, the graphic department was stranded without any hope of a new manager and mett merged them

according to skynus 2 weeks ago

Nah, news had about 8-10 staff and we're doing fine, content only had me in for weeks then jake came back and graphics had about 3 in.

[Samantha]

Why are you so rude, LMAO.

Also, Samanfa;, please stop indirectly ******** and just send me a PM already, goodness me.

About what? I'm not in the slightest, as the manager you should be able to tell what's wrong from the senior forum.

---------- Post added 21-04-2013 at 01:15 PM ----------

Can someone merge those posts please.

[Grig]

Hold on a second, was someone on drugs when doing this? You're going to have so many problems if this becomes one large department. You'll also have a manager who would know very little about certain departments, won't be able to dedicate all the time to focus on specific areas because it's too big.

I also think news wasn't that bad, it just needed some issues sorted such as posting quicker and the removal of real life etc. Then why make it suffer by merging it... If I were a news reporter and wanted to work for news, I would not want to work for Wiki or the site content and I can tell you this, many of the best news reporters we had here would never have agreed to working on these areas, so why make them?

Just because if like David said, one department suffers, doesn't mean that others have to go down with it.

[Meanies]

don't worry everyone it'll be unmerged soon *hopes and prays*

If anything I think the departments have gotten worse since the merge because not everyone wants to do what they are now required to do. Apparently I now have to post news reports which isn't what I joined content for.. and so risk being fired by not doing so. Not heard of one person in the dept who thinks its a good idea

[David]

don't worry everyone it'll be unmerged soon *hopes and prays*

If anything I think the departments have gotten worse since the merge because not everyone wants to do what they are now required to do. Apparently I now have to post news reports which isn't what I joined content for.. and so risk being fired by not doing so. Not heard of one person in the dept who thinks its a good idea

lol whos idea was that? do graphic people have to do news as well

[Samantha]

I don't think it's the greatest idea, however, I don't mind doing both as I was in both of the departments before hand, I, however, do like the fact that if I now wanted, I feel I could join more departments, but I'm not fussed.

---------- Post added 21-04-2013 at 01:21 PM ----------


lol whos idea was that? do graphic people have to do news as well

I don't believe so and vice versa.

[xxMATTGxx]

Unmerging may never happen. Depends on a reply to a text. No point doing anything if it's going to be a waste of time altogether. Just have to wait and see.

[Grig]

Unmerging may never happen. Depends on a reply to a text. No point doing anything if it's going to be a waste of time altogether. Just have to wait and see.

Was this Jin's idea then?

[Tom]

they changed it cause the 3 departments were dying or dead, the graphic department was stranded without any hope of a new manager and mett merged them

according to skynus 2 weeks ago

Things change.


About what? I'm not in the slightest, as the manager you should be able to tell what's wrong from the senior forum.

---------- Post added 21-04-2013 at 01:15 PM ----------

Can someone merge those posts please.

Don't you worry, I have read over all the forums and I have read every comment and processed every comment.


Hold on a second, was someone on drugs when doing this? You're going to have so many problems if this becomes one large department. You'll also have a manager who would know very little about certain departments, won't be able to dedicate all the time to focus on specific areas because it's too big.

I also think news wasn't that bad, it just needed some issues sorted such as posting quicker and the removal of real life etc. Then why make it suffer by merging it... If I were a news reporter and wanted to work for news, I would not want to work for Wiki or the site content and I can tell you this, many of the best news reporters we had here would never have agreed to working on these areas, so why make them?

Just because if like David said, one department suffers, doesn't mean that others have to go down with it.

There was a whole thread on all of those comments. Reading it you may get a better insight on the decision made and the reasons.

[xxMATTGxx]

Was this Jin's idea then?

It was but the text isn't about the actual department itself.

[David]

It was but the text isn't about the actual department itself.

is habbox closing

http://i1325.photobucket.com/albums/u632/TrueBloodMashUps/Paric%20Shippers/AbandonSHIP_v3_zps63f76729.gif

[xxMATTGxx]

is habbox closing

I don't even know the proper answer to that question. I have no idea.

[Samantha]

Things change.



Don't you worry, I have read over all the forums and I have read every comment and processed every comment.



There was a whole thread on all of those comments. Reading it you may get a better insight on the decision made and the reasons.

Good, honestly though I wasn't ********.

xxMATTGxx; talking about depts, get a rvm or give me and luke mod perms in hrvr pls and ty.

Yeah, we'll wait and see.

[Mr-Trainor]

lol whos idea was that? do graphic people have to do news as well
That's compeltely different :P.

is habbox closing

http://i1325.photobucket.com/albums/u632/TrueBloodMashUps/Paric%20Shippers/AbandonSHIP_v3_zps63f76729.gif
:O.

Good, honestly though I wasn't ********.

@xxMATTGxx (http://www.habboxforum.com/member.php?u=1020); talking about depts, get a rvm or give me and luke mod perms in hrvr pls and ty.

Yeah, we'll wait and see.
Yes, HRVRs should have mod perms anyway seeing as we basically do what ARVMs used to :P.

[Grig]

pasta; basically sums it up perfectly. People don't apply for news/ content to do both.

Besides, making it centralized means that one single manager can't focus on news or graphics and improve it. You will have one manager, who is clearly loving this, making most of the decisions to things he does not have a clue about. When did that ever sound like a good idea to anybody?

I don't know what 'reasons' you found, but clearly they were poor reasons with this level of dissatisfaction and the fact that people are not motivated and want to resign, from what I can tell.

[David]

pasta; basically sums it up perfectly. People don't apply for news/ content to do both.

Besides, making it centralized means that one single manager can't focus on news or graphics and improve it. You will have one manager, who is clearly loving this, making most of the decisions to things he does not have a clue about. When did that ever sound like a good idea to anybody?

I don't know what 'reasons' you found, but clearly they were poor reasons with this level of dissatisfaction and the fact that people are not motivated and want to resign, from what I can tell.

theres still a news manager? and skynus knows what hes doing with graphic department (which isnt hard work to maintain)

[Nick]

Tom has been in Graphics management before aswell and there is still a new manager (as dave said :P)so i don't see what the fuss is all about lol :P

[David]

Tom has been in Graphics management before aswell and there is still a new manager so i don't see what the fuss is all about lol :P

nick for graphic manager

[Grig]

theres still a news manager? and skynus knows what hes doing with graphic department (which isnt hard work to maintain)

My main concern is news, which is a department that has always been close to my heart. Yes, there still is a news manager, but there's no sense in keeping one if it has been merged with content- think about it. How do you have a news manager and no news department anymore, at least in writing. Also, if these news people are forced to write wiki, then it's a 'writers department' not a news department.

This would then make news suffer and go down the gutter.

Also, OK I understand merging content and graphics. But why bring news into the mix :S.

[Nick]

nick for graphic manager

wont happen lolol

[Martin]

stupid idea :P

(normally I end up writing too much and people get annoyed so I will just summarise it in 2 words :()

[David]

wont happen lolol
Skynus; make it happen

[lawrawrrr]

i can't even put into words how i feel about this 'decision'

needless to say it won't work, the 3 DO NOT work together, they are COMPLETELY different and it just seems like it's easier to merge all departments when you lose a manager

lol rv lost manager too lets just merge everything and have all staff do everything

[CaptainAce]

i can't even put into words how i feel about this 'decision'

needless to say it won't work, the 3 DO NOT work together, they are COMPLETELY different and it just seems like it's easier to merge all departments when you lose a manager

lol rv lost manager too lets just merge everything and have all staff do everything

Don't be giving them ideas.

[xxMATTGxx]

Already text Jin the idea, going to be sweet.

This is a joke btw

[Foregetfuhl]

When I found out I didn't understand why News has been merged, understood content and graphics but news was a bit like what o.O

What is happening with RV's now anyway that Will's gone?

And xxMATTGxx is Habbox actually thinking about being closed?

[Samantha]

When I found out I didn't understand why News has been merged, understood content and graphics but news was a bit like what o.O

What is happening with RV's now anyway that Will's gone?

And xxMATTGxx is Habbox actually thinking about being closed?

Yeah after being in the situation it's more obvious now that they're different departments and they should stay like that, although I don't mind either way.

Rare Values I have no idea, it's just me and Luke just doing what we can at the moment, I can't see it closing or anything like that as apparently, the survey came back mainly positive.

[Kardan]

I'm not too fussed by the merge. In my eyes, the news team are simply writing content that is current, and the content team are simply writing historical content. Might do the news team some good to stop bolding things and approach things from a different direction. I can understand that some people would only want to work on news etc. but I can barely see a lot of news posted on the site as it is, and having numerous reports means that reporters barely post anything anyways. There's nothing stopping a news reporter writing up content in their spare time whilst news is dead (instead of having a few minutes a week actually doing anything) and then simply hand it over to someone more experienced for feedback/proof reading.

[AgnesIO]

Er is no one else intrigued about Matt's response to Hx closing? :L

Or is that a poor joke? :P

[Mr-Trainor]

Er is no one else intrigued about Matt's response to Hx closing? :L

Or is that a poor joke? :P
I don't think it was a joke, but I'm guessing the reply was good news xxMATTGxx; - I'm sure he said he'd do RVM tonight unless the news was bad, and he's done RVM so it must have been good :P.

[Samantha]

I don't think it was a joke, but I'm guessing the reply was good news xxMATTGxx; - I'm sure he said he'd do RVM tonight unless the news was bad, and he's done RVM so it must have been good :P.

He didn't get a reply as far as I know :P.

[xxMATTGxx]

I don't think it was a joke, but I'm guessing the reply was good news xxMATTGxx; - I'm sure he said he'd do RVM tonight unless the news was bad, and he's done RVM so it must have been good :P.

Sadly I am still waiting for a reply but went ahead with the RVR Management change.

[Mr-Trainor]

Sadly I am still waiting for a reply but went ahead with the RVR Management change.
Oh :(. So is this text potentially going to lead to the closure of Habbox?

[AgnesIO]

Oh :(. So is this text potentially going to lead to the closure of Habbox?

If it doesn't, I continue to disbelieve Hx is making a loss.

Really cannot see why anyone who isn't close to Hx would continue funding it, as Jin apparently does.

[xxMATTGxx]

Oh :(. So is this text potentially going to lead to the closure of Habbox?

I just want confirmation at the end of the day. Then we can start looking into VIP and everything else.

[AgnesIO]

I just want confirmation at the end of the day. Then we can start looking into VIP and everything else.

Just out of interest, Matt, where has the doubt come from in the first place (that Hx could close)?

[xxMATTGxx]

Just out of interest, Matt, where has the doubt come from in the first place (that Hx could close)?

Was related to what Jin said in a text. I won't say the exact contents :P

[Kardan]

Best sell my VIP before Habbox closes then :P

[AgnesIO]

Was related to what Jin said in a text. I won't say the exact contents :P

No problem, I wouldn't expect you to reveal a private message!

Interesting though, if it does go someone should just take the forum bit and let it slowly die (or merge with hffm and make a mega mega fansite :L)

Wait, sorry, getting ahead of myself..

[Mr-Trainor]

Ah ok. Well yeah I'd say that rather than just closing it tomorrow, at least try using the methods that could potentially increase the funds for the site i.e. selling VIP :P.

[xxMATTGxx]

I should really keep my mouth shut. As I don't know what the hell is happening for sure. But at the end of the day me and Recursion just want some sort of confirmation that everything will continue.

Not trying to scare people etc. But if we are okay then we can start doing VIP etc etc.

[AgnesIO]

Ah ok. Well yeah I'd say that rather than just closing it tomorrow, at least try using the methods that could potentially increase the funds for the site i.e. selling VIP :P.

NA close it tomorrow for the lulz

APRIL FOOLS HAHAHA (god imagine if this conversation had occurred three weeks earlier lol)


I should really keep my mouth shut. As I don't know what the hell is happening for sure. But at the end of the day me and Recursion just want some sort of confirmation that everything will continue.

I think people generally prefer transparency, to be honest.

Interesting stuff for sure, though.

[Mark]

Habbox PLC here we come, on topic the newly worded roles seems fine to me, although I can see it proving unclear to new members

[AgnesIO]

Habbox PLC here we come, on topic the newly worded roles seems fine to me, although I can see it proving unclear to new members

A good point, and one I haven't actually discussed in this thread.

Am I missing something, or does it really matter what we call habbo fansite news writers (assuming the name isn't offensive, which it isn't.)

[Mark]

A good point, and one I haven't actually discussed in this thread.

Am I missing something, or does it really matter what we call habbo fansite news writers (assuming the name isn't offensive, which it isn't.)

I don't think it really does. The only scenario i can think of when it becoming unclear is when someone wants to apply for a News Reporters role and can only find Content Staff

[xxMATTGxx]

Good news, we can carry on as normal.

Bad news, Bertie has gone missing.

[AgnesIO]

Good news, we can carry on as normal.

Bad news, Bertie has gone missing.

The VIP enquiries begin :L

[Nick]

Good news, we can carry on as normal.



Thank god for that.

[lawrawrrr]

From a content perspective I once again want to highlight how it doesn't make sense because writing news and writing content is a COMPLETELY different set of skills and most people don't have both. I suppose on a fansite like this it's not the end of the world as a lot of our ex-news reporters were content staff too at some point but it's something that could prove a little detrimental: some people will be better at news and the wiki/history pages will suffer, and vice versa.

But yeah. Not the end of the world.

[Kardan]

From a content perspective I once again want to highlight how it doesn't make sense because writing news and writing content is a COMPLETELY different set of skills and most people don't have both. I suppose on a fansite like this it's not the end of the world as a lot of our ex-news reporters were content staff too at some point but it's something that could prove a little detrimental: some people will be better at news and the wiki/history pages will suffer, and vice versa.

But yeah. Not the end of the world.

Surely writing content pages for Habbox.com and writing information pages on the wiki is different as well? And it's probably to be expected that there will be certain people better at news, and certain people better at the wiki etc. But who knows, people might be able to learn whilst doing some work for the other side of things, and maybe perhaps we'll have a better content team as a result. Surely more staff is a good thing :)

[lawrawrrr]

Surely writing content pages for Habbox.com and writing information pages on the wiki is different as well? And it's probably to be expected that there will be certain people better at news, and certain people better at the wiki etc. But who knows, people might be able to learn whilst doing some work for the other side of things, and maybe perhaps we'll have a better content team as a result. Surely more staff is a good thing :)


Not really, most of the things I was working on wiki/site-wise were exactly the same: it's a factual manner of writing. Yeah, doing guides and a history page are more different but at the end of the day they still pretty much have the same set of skills, whereas News is COMPLETELY different. I've had a lot of experience writing both but I'm not going to bore everyone with the differences unless you're terribly interested.

More staff is a good thing......... this merge has actually decreased staff though. Sam, for example, was staff in two departments, Jan in two, I don't know about the others but I'm sure there were more, so it's worked like this..

Content had 1 staff (I believe)
News had about 10 (ish, lets just use this as an example)
Graphics had about 5 (same thing)

so that's a total of 16 right?

But by merging them, Sam who was Content AND news means there are now only 15 total staff, Jan takes away another, and so on. And by having one manager managing both News and Content that means that the workload will probably be smaller than if someone was working in two departments - because it usually works out that someone is expected to spend 'x' amount of hours in Content and 'y' amount of hours in News, whereas now you're expected to do 'z' amount of hours in the Writer department of Content - and it doesn't necessarily follow that x+y=z. I'd actually argue that x+y almost definitely DOESN'T = z as you can't expect someone to put in the amount of work that two departments would traditionally ask of you.

It also doesn't take into account those people who might be outraged or annoyed by the decision and will subsequently leave.

Also, saying it'll be better... learning wiki writing skills will not make your news better. TRUST ME. I've been through that so many times. Once again a boring story.

[AgnesIO]

Not really, most of the things I was working on wiki/site-wise were exactly the same: it's a factual manner of writing. Yeah, doing guides and a history page are more different but at the end of the day they still pretty much have the same set of skills, whereas News is COMPLETELY different. I've had a lot of experience writing both but I'm not going to bore everyone with the differences unless you're terribly interested.

More staff is a good thing......... this merge has actually decreased staff though. Sam, for example, was staff in two departments, Jan in two, I don't know about the others but I'm sure there were more, so it's worked like this..

Content had 1 staff (I believe)
News had about 10 (ish, lets just use this as an example)
Graphics had about 5 (same thing)

so that's a total of 16 right?

But by merging them, Sam who was Content AND news means there are now only 15 total staff, Jan takes away another, and so on. And by having one manager managing both News and Content that means that the workload will probably be smaller than if someone was working in two departments - because it usually works out that someone is expected to spend 'x' amount of hours in Content and 'y' amount of hours in News, whereas now you're expected to do 'z' amount of hours in the Writer department of Content - and it doesn't necessarily follow that x+y=z. I'd actually argue that x+y almost definitely DOESN'T = z as you can't expect someone to put in the amount of work that two departments would traditionally ask of you.

It also doesn't take into account those people who might be outraged or annoyed by the decision and will subsequently leave.

Also, saying it'll be better... learning wiki writing skills will not make your news better. TRUST ME. I've been through that so many times. Once again a boring story.

Sorry but news is also supposed to be factual - the fact news reporters cram the articles with opinions that no one wants is a different matter.

You cannot tell me that these teenage volunteers genuinely have majorly different skill sets in either content or news..

[lawrawrrr]

Sorry but news is also supposed to be factual - the fact news reporters cram the articles with opinions that no one wants is a different matter.

You cannot tell me that these teenage volunteers genuinely have majorly different skill sets in either content or news..

I actually can, I noticed it during my time as News Manager and senior, a lot of people who applied after being in the content department found it extremely difficult to write in the right style.


I know news is meant to be factual, that's kind of my job to realise that, but there's a difference between writing factual accounts from a third-person perspective (content style) and writing more opinionated news stories with an exciting and interesting 'spin', which is how good news is written. It's just so different in so so so many ways. You don't put ALL the information in a news story, not in the same way you do with wiki pages or something.

[Kardan]

Not really, most of the things I was working on wiki/site-wise were exactly the same: it's a factual manner of writing. Yeah, doing guides and a history page are more different but at the end of the day they still pretty much have the same set of skills, whereas News is COMPLETELY different. I've had a lot of experience writing both but I'm not going to bore everyone with the differences unless you're terribly interested.

More staff is a good thing......... this merge has actually decreased staff though. Sam, for example, was staff in two departments, Jan in two, I don't know about the others but I'm sure there were more, so it's worked like this..

Content had 1 staff (I believe)
News had about 10 (ish, lets just use this as an example)
Graphics had about 5 (same thing)

so that's a total of 16 right?

But by merging them, Sam who was Content AND news means there are now only 15 total staff, Jan takes away another, and so on. And by having one manager managing both News and Content that means that the workload will probably be smaller than if someone was working in two departments - because it usually works out that someone is expected to spend 'x' amount of hours in Content and 'y' amount of hours in News, whereas now you're expected to do 'z' amount of hours in the Writer department of Content - and it doesn't necessarily follow that x+y=z. I'd actually argue that x+y almost definitely DOESN'T = z as you can't expect someone to put in the amount of work that two departments would traditionally ask of you.

It also doesn't take into account those people who might be outraged or annoyed by the decision and will subsequently leave.

Also, saying it'll be better... learning wiki writing skills will not make your news better. TRUST ME. I've been through that so many times. Once again a boring story.

You're doing the Maths wrong. There's still the same amount of staff.

You could be right in saying that workload is decreased, but in my eyes, news barely did any work, I can browse through the articles right now, and the only one that put in a considerable amount of work was Samanfa, everyone else probably does 1 article every 2 weeks or something? If news gets their workload decreased, there won't be any news.

So basically, you're saying that you would prefer the content team to have one singular person, and keep 10 (using your example) people doing one article between them every X weeks. It makes sense to merge them, especially considering there is SO much content that needs doing.

In my eyes, the only people that will get less work done is whoever has been promoted to manager (since they need to manage), and the singular content staff. But the decrease in one content staff's time is easily outweighed by the new work being done by the 10+ news staff.

[Samantha]

Not really, most of the things I was working on wiki/site-wise were exactly the same: it's a factual manner of writing. Yeah, doing guides and a history page are more different but at the end of the day they still pretty much have the same set of skills, whereas News is COMPLETELY different. I've had a lot of experience writing both but I'm not going to bore everyone with the differences unless you're terribly interested.

More staff is a good thing......... this merge has actually decreased staff though. Sam, for example, was staff in two departments, Jan in two, I don't know about the others but I'm sure there were more, so it's worked like this..

Content had 1 staff (I believe)
News had about 10 (ish, lets just use this as an example)
Graphics had about 5 (same thing)

so that's a total of 16 right?

But by merging them, Sam who was Content AND news means there are now only 15 total staff, Jan takes away another, and so on. And by having one manager managing both News and Content that means that the workload will probably be smaller than if someone was working in two departments - because it usually works out that someone is expected to spend 'x' amount of hours in Content and 'y' amount of hours in News, whereas now you're expected to do 'z' amount of hours in the Writer department of Content - and it doesn't necessarily follow that x+y=z. I'd actually argue that x+y almost definitely DOESN'T = z as you can't expect someone to put in the amount of work that two departments would traditionally ask of you.

It also doesn't take into account those people who might be outraged or annoyed by the decision and will subsequently leave.

Also, saying it'll be better... learning wiki writing skills will not make your news better. TRUST ME. I've been through that so many times. Once again a boring story.

You sound so like me, I remember saying that we're losing 2 members of staff due to merging and really, they might have lost more than that when some people are doing more than is expected of them and sometimes due to not doing one side of the department they're getting warned, and could face dismissal etc. if you get what I mean. I agree with you - I also asked Inkwell; about it as before I was picked as Rare Values Manager, I was also expected to do all the news senior work whilst runeaddict99; was away, of course I had Jan, but she's had her own things to sort, and on top of that all the Rare Values work alongside Luke - yes, I can do it, but that's only due to me being in both of the departments before, you're right in saying that Laura as sometimes you can't expect a person to know both writing styles, or get better with experience likewise you can't expect them to do the minimum of both departments. As the minimums have been jumbled together so it's even more than before and even more than I was expected to do whilst in Content too.

Like I said though, I don't really have an opinion on whether the merge is good or bad, you just have to see how it pans out.

---------- Post added 22-04-2013 at 02:57 PM ----------


You're doing the Maths wrong. There's still the same amount of staff.

You could be right in saying that workload is decreased, but in my eyes, news barely did any work, I can browse through the articles right now, and the only one that put in a considerable amount of work was Samanfa, everyone else probably does 1 article every 2 weeks or something? If news gets their workload decreased, there won't be any news.

So basically, you're saying that you would prefer the content team to have one singular person, and keep 10 (using your example) people doing one article between them every X weeks. It makes sense to merge them, especially considering there is SO much content that needs doing.

In my eyes, the only people that will get less work done is whoever has been promoted to manager (since they need to manage), and the singular content staff. But the decrease in one content staff's time is easily outweighed by the new work being done by the 10+ news staff.

The workload hasn't decreased, it's increased.

[lawrawrrr]

You're doing the Maths wrong. There's still the same amount of staff.

You could be right in saying that workload is decreased, but in my eyes, news barely did any work, I can browse through the articles right now, and the only one that put in a considerable amount of work was Samanfa, everyone else probably does 1 article every 2 weeks or something? If news gets their workload decreased, there won't be any news.

So basically, you're saying that you would prefer the content team to have one singular person, and keep 10 (using your example) people doing one article between them every X weeks. It makes sense to merge them, especially considering there is SO much content that needs doing.

In my eyes, the only people that will get less work done is whoever has been promoted to manager (since they need to manage), and the singular content staff. But the decrease in one content staff's time is easily outweighed by the new work being done by the 10+ news staff.

No I'm not - the staff count HAS decreased because people working in two departments are now only working in one. Please feel free to point out exactly where I'm going wrong but I don't see it...

News did barely any work? The problem there is that until VERY recently (congrats Inkwell;) there were very few staff. As for "If news gets their workload decreased, there won't be any news".... that's exactly my problem. News reporters who, apparently as you say do barely anything (not my opinion here, just saying), they'll be dedicating that little time they spend between the old News and Content departments - therefore less news will be written!!

And I never said that; it would be better if the Content department had more staff, but due to a lot of reasons; for example, disillusionment with the department, being fed up of being lied to, motivation by higher-up staff... people leave, don't come back and don't bother to apply. That was the case since I was staff anyway. To be honest, if someone said "come work on this new site, it's coming out soon!!!" and some people joined a time later and then left and STILL no new site appeared months down the line, is that motivation for you to join said department? No.

It doesn't make sense because it doesn't follow that good news writers will be good at content and vice versa.

The 10+ news staff you say? The ones you just said do no work and clearly haven't been motivated by their manager if they're outputting what you've said? If the managers are the same people what makes you think they'll put in any more work than they do? So effectively it's the same output. Except a few people are being overworked for the sake of 'streamlining' aka not having the patience to train a new manager or anything. It's kind of what I expected in a little way though, the entirety of Habbox is losing a lot of it's coherency and a lot of people are disillusioned with staff and the departments.

But yeah it doesn't matter too much about Sam seeing as she was in both departments anyway.


***note here - anything mean to anyone in this post, i didn't mean, i was either using you as an example or as a metaphor or going off kardan's notes (such as the news output) which i actually have no idea about - if you have a problem with anything I've written please feel free to correct me or defend yourself but i didn't mean to offend anyone***

[Kardan]

No I'm not - the staff count HAS decreased because people working in two departments are now only working in one. Please feel free to point out exactly where I'm going wrong but I don't see it...

News did barely any work? The problem there is that until VERY recently (congrats Inkwell;) there were very few staff. As for "If news gets their workload decreased, there won't be any news".... that's exactly my problem. News reporters who, apparently as you say do barely anything (not my opinion here, just saying), they'll be dedicating that little time they spend between the old News and Content departments - therefore less news will be written!!

And I never said that; it would be better if the Content department had more staff, but due to a lot of reasons; for example, disillusionment with the department, being fed up of being lied to, motivation by higher-up staff... people leave, don't come back and don't bother to apply. That was the case since I was staff anyway. To be honest, if someone said "come work on this new site, it's coming out soon!!!" and some people joined a time later and then left and STILL no new site appeared months down the line, is that motivation for you to join said department? No.

It doesn't make sense because it doesn't follow that good news writers will be good at content and vice versa.

The 10+ news staff you say? The ones you just said do no work and clearly haven't been motivated by their manager if they're outputting what you've said? If the managers are the same people what makes you think they'll put in any more work than they do? So effectively it's the same output. Except a few people are being overworked for the sake of 'streamlining' aka not having the patience to train a new manager or anything. It's kind of what I expected in a little way though, the entirety of Habbox is losing a lot of it's coherency and a lot of people are disillusioned with staff and the departments.

But yeah it doesn't matter too much about Sam seeing as she was in both departments anyway.


***note here - anything mean to anyone in this post, i didn't mean, i was either using you as an example or as a metaphor or going off kardan's notes (such as the news output) which i actually have no idea about - if you have a problem with anything I've written please feel free to correct me or defend yourself but i didn't mean to offend anyone***

Well, if nobody has left, then the staff number is exactly the same :P Amount of work in hours in each department might change, but the amount of staff members is the same :P

And quite frankly, it sounds like there's many more problems that you've mentioned other than the merge (which hasn't even been given time to see how it works), so perhaps sorting out these other issues before slating a merge might work? :P

And you say that the news people might do even less work now that they also have to do content work, and fair enough, that could be true. But it could also be true that they might do some more work, who knows, we'll just have to wait and see :)

Personally I think it's good for both departments. News reporters don't do enough work, so can now put extra time into content. Content team doesn't have enough people for the workload, now gets extra people. Of course time will tell, but there's no need to slate the merge when it's not been given time to work, and there's many other issues within the department :P

I do think news is lacking though, lemme get some figures :P

---------- Post added 22-04-2013 at 03:16 PM ----------


You sound so like me, I remember saying that we're losing 2 members of staff due to merging and really, they might have lost more than that when some people are doing more than is expected of them and sometimes due to not doing one side of the department they're getting warned, and could face dismissal etc. if you get what I mean. I agree with you - I also asked Inkwell; about it as before I was picked as Rare Values Manager, I was also expected to do all the news senior work whilst runeaddict99; was away, of course I had Jan, but she's had her own things to sort, and on top of that all the Rare Values work alongside Luke - yes, I can do it, but that's only due to me being in both of the departments before, you're right in saying that Laura as sometimes you can't expect a person to know both writing styles, or get better with experience likewise you can't expect them to do the minimum of both departments. As the minimums have been jumbled together so it's even more than before and even more than I was expected to do whilst in Content too.

Like I said though, I don't really have an opinion on whether the merge is good or bad, you just have to see how it pans out.

---------- Post added 22-04-2013 at 02:57 PM ----------



The workload hasn't decreased, it's increased.

You're right, I used the wrong word. I meant the time spent doing the work for each department has decreased :P

---------- Post added 22-04-2013 at 03:21 PM ----------

Jeez, how many people are/were even in the news team? Because I only see news reports by the same 3 people... If the news team has 3 people, and the content team had 1 person - what is the issue with a merge? I'm sure the manager can control 4 people. It's not the HxL department that has, what, 54 staff?

[lawrawrrr]

Well, if nobody has left, then the staff number is exactly the same :P Amount of work in hours in each department might change, but the amount of staff members is the same :P

not true!!! staff have decreased because there's one department not 3! yeah, it's the same staff but in workman hours it's less.


And quite frankly, it sounds like there's many more problems that you've mentioned other than the merge (which hasn't even been given time to see how it works), so perhaps sorting out these other issues before slating a merge might work? :P

Actually news was improving before the merge, it's other departments that were decreasing. Also I've never said it won't work I just said it was a bad idea because news/content aren't the same!


And you say that the news people might do even less work now that they also have to do content work, and fair enough, that could be true. But it could also be true that they might do some more work, who knows, we'll just have to wait and see :)

It's funny how you're so happy to **** them off when they do no work but jump to an optimistic future. I really do hope they do do more work but if people are so disillusioned with news then it's hardly likely they'll do any more work there, yeah they might do more content so it's a win for the content department, not for news - at a time when the latter was flourishing, staff-wise, content have effectively (if my hypothetical situation pans out) stolen all of Jan's hard work to get those people in the departments.


Personally I think it's good for both departments. News reporters don't do enough work, so can now put extra time into content. Content team doesn't have enough people for the workload, now gets extra people. Of course time will tell, but there's no need to slate the merge when it's not been given time to work, and there's many other issues within the department :P

Like I just said above, the News reporters will be giving time to content but news will get literally nothing back; jesus christ I know they want to shut the department just do it already it's probably less painless than this 'merge' (which we might as well just call 'staff shift'

I'm going to slate the merge if I jolly well want to thank you very much because the very basis from what it's set up on it basically doomed for failure.



I do think news is lacking though, lemme get some figures :P

Jeez, how many people are/were even in the news team? Because I only see news reports by the same 3 people... If the news team has 3 people, and the content team had 1 person - what is the issue with a merge? I'm sure the manager can control 4 people. It's not the HxL department that has, what, 54 staff?

BECAUSE ALL THE PEOPLE IN HXL DO THE SAME BLOODY JOB

NEWS AND CONTENT ARE EXTREMELY DIFFERENT STYLES AND THEREFORE REQUIRE PEOPLE WITH DIFFERENT REFINED SKILLS TO MANAGE

IT'S NOT ABOUT THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE IT'S ABOUT THE QUALITY AND ACTUAL OUTPUT OF THE WORK

AND YES I WROTE IN CAPITALS BECAUSE I'VE SAID THIS A COUPLE OF TIMES AND IT DOESN'T SEEM TO BE GETTING ACROSS

---


BTW I really appreciate the sarcastic patronising emoticons :p

---------- Post added 22-04-2013 at 03:30 PM ----------

Also it's possible there are more in the News team (which I believe there are) but they're away - it's exam season, it's pretty normal to have a lull in activity and especially a high in staff posting away around this time.

[Samantha]

Well, if nobody has left, then the staff number is exactly the same :P Amount of work in hours in each department might change, but the amount of staff members is the same :P

And quite frankly, it sounds like there's many more problems that you've mentioned other than the merge (which hasn't even been given time to see how it works), so perhaps sorting out these other issues before slating a merge might work? :P

And you say that the news people might do even less work now that they also have to do content work, and fair enough, that could be true. But it could also be true that they might do some more work, who knows, we'll just have to wait and see :)

Personally I think it's good for both departments. News reporters don't do enough work, so can now put extra time into content. Content team doesn't have enough people for the workload, now gets extra people. Of course time will tell, but there's no need to slate the merge when it's not been given time to work, and there's many other issues within the department :P

I do think news is lacking though, lemme get some figures :P

---------- Post added 22-04-2013 at 03:16 PM ----------



You're right, I used the wrong word. I meant the time spent doing the work for each department has decreased :P

---------- Post added 22-04-2013 at 03:21 PM ----------

Jeez, how many people are/were even in the news team? Because I only see news reports by the same 3 people... If the news team has 3 people, and the content team had 1 person - what is the issue with a merge? I'm sure the manager can control 4 people. It's not the HxL department that has, what, 54 staff?

Actually I do more work now than I did before, but that's just because of the lack of work some others may not do.

Also before the merge we also had a few more people in news and in content there was just me and then Pasta came back about a week prior to the merge.

Looking at the statistics for the amount of news reports done since I resigned on the 31st January this year, they have decreased, but only recently (since the merge began) however, this is probably not the reason why as many have been away.

[Kardan]

not true!!! staff have decreased because there's one department not 3! yeah, it's the same staff but in workman hours it's less.





This was my point, staff numbers are the same, work hours have decreased.

[Samantha]

This was my point, staff numbers are the same, work hours have decreased.

They haven't decreased though have they? As we're required to do over twice as much as before?

[lawrawrrr]

This was my point, staff numbers are the same, work hours have decreased.

Well technically if you think about it there were 16 staff in my original scenario, now there's only 14 or so... go figure



There might have been originally only 14 UNIQUE staff but in total there were 16 staff doing 16 jobs, now there's 14 doing not 16 jobs


And if you keep picking up on this you're being really pedantic because you know exactly what I mean.

[Kardan]

They haven't decreased though have they? As we're required to do over twice as much as before?


Well technically if you think about it there were 16 staff in my original scenario, now there's only 14 or so... go figure



There might have been originally only 14 UNIQUE staff but in total there were 16 staff doing 16 jobs, now there's 14 doing not 16 jobs


And if you keep picking up on this you're being really pedantic because you know exactly what I mean.

You two are contradicting each other here then. Samanfa says before you had to do 1 hour per department, so now everyone needs to do 2 hours (News+content). Laura says that each person only put 1 hour in, and still only needs to put 1 hour in. Which one is correct?

---------- Post added 22-04-2013 at 03:52 PM ----------

And just so we're clear, there's the same amount of staff:

http://s10.postimg.org/wwjg8k5jt/venn.png

Work hours is different, because it depends if staff are required to do a certain amount of work hours per person, or a certain amount of work hours per job role.

[Samantha]

You two are contradicting each other here then. Samanfa says before you had to do 1 hour per department, so now everyone needs to do 2 hours (News+content). Laura says that each person only put 1 hour in, and still only needs to put 1 hour in. Which one is correct?

Do you mean 'Samanfa say' as I know I didn't say it was only an hour.

I believe that we're meant to squeeze our minimums (which I reiterate is over 2 times as much as it was before the merge) into the week, so Laura is correct in saying that as we still only have the same amount of time and that won't ever change - however, I do beyond what is expected of me on a weekly basis therefore it feels like more to me as I don't want to let the department down due to others not pulling their weight or not doing their minimums, if they don't that is.

---------- Post added 22-04-2013 at 03:57 PM ----------


You two are contradicting each other here then. Samanfa says before you had to do 1 hour per department, so now everyone needs to do 2 hours (News+content). Laura says that each person only put 1 hour in, and still only needs to put 1 hour in. Which one is correct?

---------- Post added 22-04-2013 at 03:52 PM ----------

And just so we're clear, there's the same amount of staff:

http://s10.postimg.org/wwjg8k5jt/venn.png

Work hours is different, because it depends if staff are required to do a certain amount of work hours per person, or a certain amount of work hours per job role.

Those statistics aren't correct though are they?

Really it would be:

10 in news, deduct one for me being in both.
2 in content, deduct one for me being in both.

That makes 9 on news, 1 on content, 1 in both.

Before it was 10 + 2 = 12.
Now it's 9 + 1 + 1 = 11.

So there is one less person?

I didn't include Jan in this due to graphics being the other part of content.

---------- Post added 22-04-2013 at 03:57 PM ----------


You two are contradicting each other here then. Samanfa says before you had to do 1 hour per department, so now everyone needs to do 2 hours (News+content). Laura says that each person only put 1 hour in, and still only needs to put 1 hour in. Which one is correct?

---------- Post added 22-04-2013 at 03:52 PM ----------

And just so we're clear, there's the same amount of staff:

http://s10.postimg.org/wwjg8k5jt/venn.png

Work hours is different, because it depends if staff are required to do a certain amount of work hours per person, or a certain amount of work hours per job role.

Those statistics aren't correct though are they?

Really it would be:

10 in news, deduct one for me being in both.
2 in content, deduct one for me being in both.

That makes 9 on news, 1 on content, 1 in both.

Before it was 10 + 2 = 12.
Now it's 9 + 1 + 1 = 11.

So there is one less person?

I didn't include Jan in this due to graphics being the other part of content.

[Kardan]

Do you mean 'Samanfa say' as I know I didn't say it was only an hour.

I believe that we're meant to squeeze our minimums (which I reiterate is over 2 times as much as it was before the merge) into the week, so Laura is correct in saying that as we still only have the same amount of time and that won't ever change - however, I do beyond what is expected of me on a weekly basis therefore it feels like more to me as I don't want to let the department down due to others not pulling their weight or not doing their minimums, if they don't that is.

---------- Post added 22-04-2013 at 03:57 PM ----------



Those statistics aren't correct though are they?

Really it would be:

10 in news, deduct one for me being in both.
2 in content, deduct one for me being in both.

That makes 9 on news, 1 on content, 1 in both.

Before it was 10 + 2 = 12.
Now it's 9 + 1 + 1 = 11.

So there is one less person?

I didn't include Jan in this due to graphics being the other part of content.

---------- Post added 22-04-2013 at 03:57 PM ----------



Those statistics aren't correct though are they?

Really it would be:

10 in news, deduct one for me being in both.
2 in content, deduct one for me being in both.

That makes 9 on news, 1 on content, 1 in both.

Before it was 10 + 2 = 12.
Now it's 9 + 1 + 1 = 11.

So there is one less person?

I didn't include Jan in this due to graphics being the other part of content.

The numbers are examples since I don't know the correct numbers (from what I've read/seen on this thread it would be 2 in News, 2 in both, 1 in content or something like that), but it's just to try and get over some of the confusion.

Assuming the numbers are correct, the 10 in news wouldn't go down because you're in both, since you are counted in the green '2' figure. Overall, there's 12 for news - 10 doing just news, and 2 doing news and content. Like-wise for content. There's 7 people doing content, 5 doing just content, 2 doing news and content.

And don't worry Sam, I'm not having a go at you, if you didn't work in the news department, there would literally be one article a week.

It's the work hours that's causing the confusion here. You say that you had a minimum work time before the merge, let's call this 1 hour. Now you say that has doubled since the merge, so 2 hours.

So using my numbers as an example:

Pre-Merge (1 hour min)

News: 10 hours
News and Content: 2 hours (so 1 hour for each)
Content: 5 hours

So overall, news gets 11 hours, content gets 6 hours.

Post-Merge (2 hour min)

News and Content: 34 hours.
So that's 17 hours for news, 17 hours for content.

So really, if these minimums are in place, there's more work hours produced from the merge. Of course, I doubt anyone other than Samanfa probably has put more than the minimum in news, I mean, it doesn't take 1 hour to write an article? Of course, I don't know how long this minimum is spread across, I'd assume a week?

---------- Post added 22-04-2013 at 04:15 PM ----------

Now, if we take what Laura said, that the one hour work time for before is now split into two, because each person has two workloads:

Before Merge (1 hour min)

News: 10 hours
News and content: 2 hours (1 hour each)
Content: 5 hours

So news gets 11, content gets 6

Post-Merge (Each person needs to work 1 hour, so assume they do 30 mins per department)

News: 8 hours 30 min
Content 8 hours 30 min

So content goes up, news goes down.

So it all depends on whether Samanfa is right (the minimum work time has been doubled inline with the doubling of work requirements) or if Laura is right (the minimum work time has remained in same, but in reality has halved because the work requirements have doubled).

Either way, content hours goes up due to the lack of staff in that department.

[Samantha]

The numbers are examples since I don't know the correct numbers (from what I've read/seen on this thread it would be 2 in News, 2 in both, 1 in content or something like that), but it's just to try and get over some of the confusion.

Assuming the numbers are correct, the 10 in news wouldn't go down because you're in both, since you are counted in the green '2' figure. Overall, there's 12 for news - 10 doing just news, and 2 doing news and content. Like-wise for content. There's 7 people doing content, 5 doing just content, 2 doing news and content.

And don't worry Sam, I'm not having a go at you, if you didn't work in the news department, there would literally be one article a week.

It's the work hours that's causing the confusion here. You say that you had a minimum work time before the merge, let's call this 1 hour. Now you say that has doubled since the merge, so 2 hours.

So using my numbers as an example:

Pre-Merge (1 hour min)

News: 10 hours
News and Content: 2 hours (so 1 hour for each)
Content: 5 hours

So overall, news gets 11 hours, content gets 6 hours.

Post-Merge (2 hour min)

News and Content: 34 hours.
So that's 17 hours for news, 17 hours for content.

So really, if these minimums are in place, there's more work hours produced from the merge. Of course, I doubt anyone other than Samanfa probably has put more than the minimum in news, I mean, it doesn't take 1 hour to write an article? Of course, I don't know how long this minimum is spread across, I'd assume a week?

To be honest it seems like you're complimenting me for actually doing work in news instead of having a go at me.

Before the news minimum was 2 reports a week.
Content didn't have a set minimum, but it was mainly aimed at 5 worthy edits per week, so doing pages to a high quality, spagging, stuff like that as opposed to categorising.

After the merge the minimum is still the same as it was before, but it's just bunched together so we're expected to do the work news did per week and the work content did per week, so our workload has increased dramatically instead of coming to a balance. This could be wrong though, I'm not too sure, but that's what I've always known the minimums to be. Plus seniors have added more with making sure others are doing work etc.

[Kardan]

To be honest it seems like you're complimenting me for actually doing work in news instead of having a go at me.

Before the news minimum was 2 reports a week.
Content didn't have a set minimum, but it was mainly aimed at 5 worthy edits per week, so doing pages to a high quality, spagging, stuff like that as opposed to categorising.

After the merge the minimum is still the same as it was before, but it's just bunched together so we're expected to do the work news did per week and the work content did per week, so our workload has increased dramatically instead of coming to a balance. This could be wrong though, I'm not too sure, but that's what I've always known the minimums to be. Plus seniors have added more with making sure others are doing work etc.

In that case, it sounds like you're agreeing with Laura. So news work hours will decrease because of the merge, but content work hours will increase, which I think isn't too bad, content is more important than news.

[Samantha]

In that case, it sounds like you're agreeing with Laura. So news work hours will decrease because of the merge, but content work hours will increase, which I think isn't too bad, content is more important than news.

If we didn't have the Wiki then would it still be more important?

[Grig]

I actually can, I noticed it during my time as News Manager and senior, a lot of people who applied after being in the content department found it extremely difficult to write in the right style.


I know news is meant to be factual, that's kind of my job to realise that, but there's a difference between writing factual accounts from a third-person perspective (content style) and writing more opinionated news stories with an exciting and interesting 'spin', which is how good news is written. It's just so different in so so so many ways. You don't put ALL the information in a news story, not in the same way you do with wiki pages or something.


This really sums it up for the writing style issue. I am about to do a Master's of Journalism degree (and did a Bachelor degree in the same field) and I can tell you that news has its own unique writing style and people writing it need to be quick and the the point, not wishy-washy everywhere. It has key points, opinions and analysis- whilst Wiki is more descriptive, which is why I always liked news more. News Reporters here learn from the help of managers and seniors on what a great news story really is. If you have a manager, who knows nothing about news reporting, a senior that can edit reports but know little about that very same thing- it defeats the point. You will have news reports suffer in quality and new reporters not get the correct direction and guidance that they need to truly be great.

I was a staff at news, content and graphics. But honestly, I hated graphics, content was OK for me but yet again didn't like it that much and loved news. If I were forced to do content and news at the same time, I wouldn't have been here. Also, the point of "oh many people did both news and content" is very wrong. Nowadays loads have done it from the recent batch, but not in the past. Great people in the department- take Adzeh (Adam), Martin, Charlie, Harry etc. never did content and had no desire of doing content (I might be wrong for one of them there) and I know for a fact that those people wouldn't have stayed that long and done the good they have towards the department had they been forced to do content.

Which is why this is the most absurd (in nice terms) idea that I've seen on Habbox for a while.

[Kardan]

If we didn't have the Wiki then would it still be more important?

Yes if Habbox were on Version 7. But from what I understand, new content won't be put onto the site until V7 is released, so if the wiki didn't exist and Habbox were on V6, then news would be more important, since what content is there to do on Habbox V6 other than editing old content?


This really sums it up for the writing style issue. I am am about to do a Master's of Journalism degree (and did a Bachelor degree in the same field) and I can tell you that news has its own unique writing style and people writing it need to be quick and the the point, not wishy-washy everywhere. It has key points, opinions and analysis- whilst Wiki is more descriptive, which is why I always liked news more. News Reporters here learn from the help of managers and seniors on what a great news story really is. If you have a manager, who knows nothing about news reporting, a senior that can edit reports but know little about that very same thing- it defeats the point. You will have news reports suffer in quality and new reporters not get the correct direction and guidance that they need to truly be great.

I was a staff at news, content and graphics. But honestly, I hated graphics, content was OK for me but yet again didn't like it that much and loved news. If I were forced to do content and news at the same time, I wouldn't have been here. Also, the point of "oh many people did both news and content" is very wrong. Nowadays loads have done it from the recent batch, but not in the past. Great people in the department- take Adzeh (Adam), Martin, Charlie, Harry etc. never did content and had no desire of doing content (I might be wrong for one of them there) and I know for a fact that those people wouldn't have stayed that long and done the good they have towards the department had they been forced to do content.

Which is why this is the most absurd (in nice terms) idea I've seen on Habbox for a while.

I think an important thing to remember is that Habbox is just a Habbo fansite, not a University newspaper or national broadsheet. It's written by mostly teenagers, so the news articles aren't going to be perfect :P

[Grig]

Yes if Habbox were on Version 7. But from what I understand, new content won't be put onto the site until V7 is released, so if the wiki didn't exist and Habbox were on V6, then news would be more important, since what content is there to do on Habbox V6 other than editing old content?



I think an important thing to remember is that Habbox is just a Habbo fansite, not a University newspaper or national broadsheet. It's written by mostly teenagers, so the news articles aren't going to be perfect :P

I knew someone would bring this up. I say this because Habbox more or less tries to incorporate at least minor elements from journalism into articles. Yet, these elements are very important and make news articles 100% better and they are at the same time completely different to wiki content.

[Zelda]

This was my point, staff numbers are the same, work hours have decreased.


staff numbers have decreased though as nearly all the people in news (including one senior) resigned due to the merge????

------------------------------

tbh talking from the news side here we have suffered quite badly due to the merge. I completely feel like I wouln't want to do content work myself either and would probably have resigned if I was a normal staff, especially after resigning from content recently before due to hating it after about a month.

I can't see any real benefit in the merge at all myself, if staff had wanted to do content work they would have applied for it anyway, so it just seems pointless now. As laura said we had a massive pickup in staff just before and we were actually improving quite a lot, and the news survey results really supported these beliefs with very positive results, but now the staff have just plummeted again to worse then when I was a head just after Laura resigned.

will say more if anyone wants me to talk on anything in particular lmao

[Kardan]

staff numbers have decreased though as nearly all the people in news (including one senior) resigned due to the merge????

Who resigned? Because the merge happened last week right? And the only people that have posted news articles in the last month were yourself, Samanfa and runeaddict, and you're all still here aren't you? So all the people that left weren't posting any news anyway?

[Zelda]

Who resigned? Because the merge happened last week right? And the only people that have posted news articles in the last month were yourself, Samanfa and runeaddict, and you're all still here aren't you? So all the people that left weren't posting any news anyway?

merge was about 3/4 weeks ago now which is when they all resigned, it just wasn't public knowledge till recently.

[Kardan]

merge was about 3/4 weeks ago now which is when they all resigned, it just wasn't public knowledge till recently.

Ahh, that makes more sense. Who resigned, because I can't find the thread in announcements :P

[Zelda]

Ahh, that makes more sense. Who resigned, because I can't find the thread in announcements :P

was told not to announce it cause of it not being announced but Ill try to remember this as well as possible lmao

.Cymru. (Senior)
Catchy
LiquidLuck.
Dragga
Shedim

also with two of the 4 left not currently doing any work they probably planning on resigning as well from what I gather from them currently.

[AgnesIO]

merge was about 3/4 weeks ago now which is when they all resigned, it just wasn't public knowledge till recently.

Think resigning is a bit stupid.

Really don't see the issue here - is it not pretty much a cosmetic change?

[xxMATTGxx]

was told not to announce it cause of it not being announced but Ill try to remember this as well as possible lmao

.Cymru. (Senior)
Catchy
LiquidLuck.
Dragga
Shedim

also with two of the 4 left not currently doing any work they probably planning on resigning as well from what I gather from them currently.

I think he meant the people resigning announcements and not the actual announcement about News/Content.

[Zelda]

Think resigning is a bit stupid.

Really don't see the issue here - is it not pretty much a cosmetic change?

not rly, more like a large increase in minimum including having to do other types of work they don't want to do (main reason they resigned from what they said)

[xxMATTGxx]

Not having a go at anyone but decided to just look into something for the hell of it. Just looked at one person from the list who decided to resign and they only made 5 articles within their 1 month and 15 days in the department. Isn't that a bit low or is that just me?

[Grig]

What I am shocked about is that this has happened 3/4 weeks ago- there have been no announcements, no reasonable explanations (apart from Tom saying go look at some thread that I can't for the life of me find) and massive disapproval of this, especially when news was starting to improve.

No, resigning isn't radical when you signed up for news, someone then tells you to do more work for a department you don't like and are not interested in.

Matt, that one person isn't the big issue here, so no idea what you are contributing with that analogy.

[xxMATTGxx]

What I am shocked about is that this has happened 3/4 weeks ago- there have been no announcements, no reasonable explanations (apart from Tom saying go look at some thread that I can't for the life of me find) and massive disapproval of this, especially when news was starting to improve.

No, resigning isn't radical when you signed up for news, someone then tells you to do more work for a department you don't like and are not interested in.

Matt, that one person isn't the big issue here, so no idea what you are contributing with that analogy.

Then you also missed the post where I said unmerging the said departments wouldn't be an issue. I was just waiting for confirmation that Habbox wouldn't be closing.

[GommeInc]

In a way News, Page Content and Graphic Designers are all part of a much larger Content Department in the same way as Forum Moderators, Competitions and Events Staff are part of a much larger Community Department, but to fully merge them and expect people who couldn't care less about Habbo news to write about it when they are content designers is a bit silly, there are clear differences between the two - one requiring staff to be constantly active and up to date with current happenings and the other takes their time creating pages to make them more appealing. Some skills are interchangeable, but the aims are different.

A merger only makes sense as part of one department with a broad name if they keep their titles. Content Designer, News Reporter and Graphic Designer. A Content Manager doesn't have to be a reporter or a designer by trade to be in that position. A Manager takes a step back and makes sure everything is working right and looks good. A Tesco Store Manager doesn't have to be a fishmonger, butcher, delicatessen, cleaner, cashier, shelf stacker, lorry driver and customer service operative in the same respects :P

[Grig]

Then you also missed the post where I said unmerging the said departments wouldn't be an issue. I was just waiting for confirmation that Habbox wouldn't be closing.

I thought you were joking about the closing part :O, mainly because I don't think anyone reasonable would consider it. Habbox does have potential!

Oh, OK, then I look forward to future developments.

[AgnesIO]

Not having a go at anyone but decided to just look into something for the hell of it. Just looked at one person from the list who decided to resign and they only made 5 articles within their 1 month and 15 days in the department. Isn't that a bit low or is that just me?

Should have fired them rather than letting them resign.

Could someone enlighten me with what the old minimum was, and what the new minimum is in relation to articles?

[xxMATTGxx]

I thought you were joking about the closing part :O, mainly because I don't think anyone reasonable would consider it. Habbox does have potential!

Oh, OK, then I look forward to future developments.

It was a possibility due to some replies I got from Jin which made me and Tom unsure what they really did mean. This all started from the stop.habbox.com feedback thread but yeah I wasn't joking. It was quite unclear until today.

[Samantha]

xxMATTGxx; I believe I know who you mean, but they were away for 3 weeks properly, took a 4th week off (got warned I believe) then resigned.

[Zelda]

I think what Sam said was happening assuming that's who I think it is too.
Marketing;

old minimum was 2 reports a week (at least 1 habbo and must be first)
new minimum is 2 reports a week (same as before) and then 5 big wiki edits (or more to contribute to it) which is like writing pages etc.

[AgnesIO]

I think what Sam said was happening assuming that's who I think it is too.
@Marketing (http://www.habboxforum.com/member.php?u=36885);

old minimum was 2 reports a week (at least 1 habbo and must be first)
new minimum is 2 reports a week (same as before) and then 5 big wiki edits (or more to contribute to it) which is like writing pages etc.

Would be interested to see what other departments commitments are. I think 20-30 mins an article is there (I write essays at 1500 words an hour, and the news articles are 250 words, right? So give extra time).

Each department should have similar time commitments.

[Zelda]

Would be interested to see what other departments commitments are. I think 20-30 mins an article is there (I write essays at 1500 words an hour, and the news articles are 250 words, right? So give extra time).

Each department should have similar time commitments.

Oddly enough most people seem to take like closer to an hour for their articles really. I can't actually explain why myself as i only take about 15-20 mins myself. The min before was pretty standard taking it at an hour each though compared to most departments, but yea it's basically gone up drastically now, no idea how long big wiki edits take to do as I was only main site staff when I was in content though.

[Samantha]

Would be interested to see what other departments commitments are. I think 20-30 mins an article is there (I write essays at 1500 words an hour, and the news articles are 250 words, right? So give extra time).

Each department should have similar time commitments.

Articles have to be 180 words or more, usually it depends how long it takes and sometimes it can take more time to edit them rather than write them lmao :P.

[Zelda]

Yea what Sam said is true as well, especially due to a lot of tab switching to write down stuff in PM everytime you edit something really lmao. Obviously we can unpublish if it's too bad though.

[Grig]

Good quality articles, much like good quality essays do not take as little time as you say.

2 is fine for a minimum, 3 is also OK and was the norm for a while when Martin and I lowered it from 4! But people started struggling, so I believe it was lowered- not sure.

People posting away right when they start their trial is an issue that needs to be sorted, maybe have a system that you can't take more than 2 weeks leave during your trial or something like that.

[Zelda]

Good quality articles, much like good quality essays do not take as little time as you say.

2 is fine for a minimum, 3 is also OK and was the norm for a while when Martin and I lowered it from 4! But people started struggling, so I believe it was lowered- not sure.

People posting away right when they start their trial is an issue that needs to be sorted, maybe have a system that you can't take more than 2 weeks leave during your trial or something like that.

tbh I would implement that if it was happening but I don't think it's ever happened with any trialists I've had so far lmao. But ye I have considered 3 before recently but with the pickup in staff we were having it was actually fine with just 2 really.

[Meanies]

Would be interested to see what other departments commitments are. I think 20-30 mins an article is there (I write essays at 1500 words an hour, and the news articles are 250 words, right? So give extra time).

Each department should have similar time commitments.

I can't talk about news requirements as I still believe I should only be writing content and not news reports, but the minimums for the content side of it is very uncertain. The changes I've been making are very substantial. For example changing a page like http://habboxwiki.com/Music into a page like http://habboxwiki.com/Explore_Habbo. That would easily take 2-3 hours and I still have information to source until the page is complete. Yet this would be classed as 1 edit, whilst somebody else could do a little spelling and grammar on a page taking maybe 5 minutes and would have made the same contribution.

Overall I've just been really put off by the merge. I was asked to come back and join the team and did. But since the merge I have been thinking about quitting unless things change.

[Grig]

tbh I would implement that if it was happening but I don't think it's ever happened with any trialists I've had so far lmao. But ye I have considered 3 before recently but with the pickup in staff we were having it was actually fine with just 2 really.

Oh I swear I can recall a few cases like that in the past or maybe Samanfa; can, but maybe my memory is fading :P.

[Zelda]

I can't talk about news requirements as I still believe I should only be writing content and not news reports, but the minimums for the content side of it is very uncertain. The changes I've been making are very substantial. For example changing a page like http://habboxwiki.com/Music into a page like http://habboxwiki.com/Explore_Habbo. That would easily take 2-3 hours and I still have information to source until the page is complete. Yet this would be classed as 1 edit, whilst somebody else could do a little spelling and grammar on a page taking maybe 5 minutes and would have made the same contribution.

I was talking to tom about this earlier and spag does actually take a lower amount then 1 edit, varying from small amounts to like 0.5 of an edit depending on how much is actually done, and I'm probably assuming that if the page is large enough it's going to be more then 1 edit? It is pretty much uncertain though I do agree.

[Meanies]

I was talking to tom about this earlier and spag does actually take a lower amount then 1 edit, varying from small amounts to like 0.5 of an edit depending on how much is actually done, and I'm probably assuming that if the page is large enough it's going to be more then 1 edit? It is pretty much uncertain though I do agree.

I said something along the lines of this a while ago to Tom and you might have noticed in my updates that most of the time I put in brackets the change in file size just to show how much effort was put into it. He said that he was thinking of making us post a word count (or something similar) of the changes we made. Something like this I think should be used as part of the minimums, maybe require us to have made 5,000kb of changes or something reasonable like that.

[Samantha]

Oh I swear I can recall a few cases like that in the past or maybe Samanfa; can, but maybe my memory is fading :P.

Perhaps a couple, but some of them resigned during their trial too.
pasta; if I was doing the amount of work you do I would assume that when you add over 20,000 characters to a page it's classed as more than one.
Inkwell; Skynus;

---------- Post added 22-04-2013 at 09:01 PM ----------


I said something along the lines of this a while ago to Tom and you might have noticed in my updates that most of the time I put in brackets the change in file size just to show how much effort was put into it. He said that he was thinking of making us post a word count (or something similar) of the changes we made. Something like this I think should be used as part of the minimums, maybe require us to have made 5,000kb of changes or something reasonable like that.

A word count wouldn't be as efficient as the character count - as you'd have to get the word count yourself plus find out which words were and weren't there previously. A character count is fine imo, like your 20,000+ ones.

[Zelda]

Character count does seem like a good idea, and seems like a pretty good place to start working out how much the mins really are. For spagging could always list the things you change, don't have to be formal like we do in news pms just list sort of stuff you've done so we know. I think it's a way forward really cause atm it's so ambiguous and like I know people will be missing mins sometimes atm cause they are completely unaware of the values of everything. A thread would be really good too probably for that sort of thing.

---------- Post added 22-04-2013 at 09:05 PM ----------

And yes I would assume 20k characters is more then 1 edit easily lmao

[Samantha]

Character count does seem like a good idea, and seems like a pretty good place to start working out how much the mins really are. For spagging could always list the things you change, don't have to be formal like we do in news pms just list sort of stuff you've done so we know. I think it's a way forward really cause atm it's so ambiguous and like I know people will be missing mins sometimes atm cause they are completely unaware of the values of everything. A thread would be really good too probably for that sort of thing.

---------- Post added 22-04-2013 at 09:05 PM ----------

And yes I would assume 20k characters is more then 1 edit easily lmao

You don't need us to list them.

Go on Habboxwiki.com > find the page you want > check history and see the preview of before one of us changed it and after :P.

[Zelda]

You don't need us to list them.

Go on Habboxwiki.com > find the page you want > check history and see the preview of before one of us changed it and after :P.

will that tell you just the changes or give you massive lists of the whole thing? cause playing a game of spot the difference on large pages would be stupid.

But ye if it does that that's perfect and even better for the idea! (pls bare with me know not much about wiki still :P )

[Samantha]

will that tell you just the changes or give you massive lists of the whole thing? cause playing a game of spot the difference on large pages would be stupid.

But ye if it does that that's perfect and even better for the idea! (pls bare with me know not much about wiki still :P )

This was my edit for the Golden Plasma Gate, the first side is what it was before, the second part is what I changed it to.

http://snag.gy/qlBMn.jpg

[Zelda]

This was my edit for the Golden Plasma Gate, the first side is what it was before, the second part is what I changed it to.

http://snag.gy/qlBMn.jpg

oo that's good then, where did you find that on it though ;o ( no need for listing changes when spagging now obv LMAO )

Edit: o i see if you go on view history --> compare selected revisions ye that's good

[Samantha]

oo that's good then, where did you find that on it though ;o ( no need for listing changes when spagging now obv LMAO )

Go on a page.
Click 'View History'
Click 'Prev' it will show you the edit before and the newest one.

[Meanies]

oo that's good then, where did you find that on it though ;o ( no need for listing changes when spagging now obv LMAO )

Go onto any page, click View History up the top and then select the versions you want to compare :P Most of the time it'll be the two most recent edits you want to compare anyway and those are already selected for you, then just hit the button and it'll show you the differences

[AgnesIO]

Oddly enough most people seem to take like closer to an hour for their articles really. I can't actually explain why myself as i only take about 15-20 mins myself. The min before was pretty standard taking it at an hour each though compared to most departments, but yea it's basically gone up drastically now, no idea how long big wiki edits take to do as I was only main site staff when I was in content though.


Articles have to be 180 words or more, usually it depends how long it takes and sometimes it can take more time to edit them rather than write them lmao :P.

I guess as long as all of the articles are perfect it isn't too much of an issue how many write, as long as they don't take the piss. Surely the answer is to hire more staff? :L


Good quality articles, much like good quality essays do not take as little time as you say.

2 is fine for a minimum, 3 is also OK and was the norm for a while when Martin and I lowered it from 4! But people started struggling, so I believe it was lowered- not sure.

People posting away right when they start their trial is an issue that needs to be sorted, maybe have a system that you can't take more than 2 weeks leave during your trial or something like that.

I don't mean to burst the bloon, but the essays I write are A grade standard... just saying :L

[Zelda]

I do plan to hire more staff straight away Skynus allows me to basically, as I've got a bunch of applications currently a lot of which I would accept.

IF we were to unmerge though I'm assuming quite a lot of people would return from what they've said to me anyway so that would fix that prblem lmao

[God]

I do plan to hire more staff straight away Skynus allows me to basically, as I've got a bunch of applications currently a lot of which I would accept.

IF we were to unmerge though I'm assuming quite a lot of people would return from what they've said to me anyway so that would fix that prblem lmao


That is true, I would come back.

To be honest, I wanted to move over to Graphics once the merge occurred because I like to make graphics and I didn't want to do Content work as it is much different to writing Room Reviews [News]. The reason I left was because I had sent my App. in to be switched over to graphics and never got a definite response back stating I was moving over or not. When I had gotten my monthly reports a few days later, all the comments stated that they were going to miss me from news. So I thought for the longest time I was going to be moved over. Few weeks later I get a response saying I wasn't going to get into the GFX dept. as my work I showed them was not good enough. Well one of the Graphics I sent was the one below which is my current signature. So when I decided to leave the dept. all together I wrote my resignation thread and everyone said goodbye, but I got a really rude message from Skynus; and have been harassed by both skynus Inkwell; ever since I left.

[Zelda]

That is awfully melodramatic and completely exagerated tbh. but if you want to discuss it all this is not even the place and you got a reply within about a day that it wasn't good enough actually.

[Samantha]

That is true, I would come back.

To be honest, I wanted to move over to Graphics once the merge occurred because I like to make graphics and I didn't want to do Content work as it is much different to writing Room Reviews [News]. The reason I left was because I had sent my App. in to be switched over to graphics and never got a definite response back stating I was moving over or not. When I had gotten my monthly reports a few days later, all the comments stated that they were going to miss me from news. So I thought for the longest time I was going to be moved over. Few weeks later I get a response saying I wasn't going to get into the GFX dept. as my work I showed them was not good enough. Well one of the Graphics I sent was the one below which is my current signature. So when I decided to leave the dept. all together I wrote my resignation thread and everyone said goodbye, but I got a really rude message from Skynus; and have been harassed by both skynus Inkwell; ever since I left.

I very much doubt some of that's true.

[David]

skynus is an unreasonably angry and mentally disturbed man, i wouldnt put it past him to abuse people for resigning








http://icap.me/i/PTdXRoZcgs.png

[God]

skynus is an unreasonably angry and mentally disturbed man, i wouldnt put it past him to abuse people for resigning
http://icap.me/i/PTdXRoZcgs.png

If you would like to see the messages I received from him just ask. They were very Rude.

ON TOPIC. I was never a real fan of the merger, just ask Shoned.

[Tom]

That is true, I would come back.

To be honest, I wanted to move over to Graphics once the merge occurred because I like to make graphics and I didn't want to do Content work as it is much different to writing Room Reviews [News]. The reason I left was because I had sent my App. in to be switched over to graphics and never got a definite response back stating I was moving over or not. When I had gotten my monthly reports a few days later, all the comments stated that they were going to miss me from news. So I thought for the longest time I was going to be moved over. Few weeks later I get a response saying I wasn't going to get into the GFX dept. as my work I showed them was not good enough. Well one of the Graphics I sent was the one below which is my current signature. So when I decided to leave the dept. all together I wrote my resignation thread and everyone said goodbye, but I got a really rude message from Skynus; and have been harassed by both skynus Inkwell; ever since I left.

Goodness me, DRAAAAAAAMAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

If the truth is rude, then so be it - but honestly, who posts away because they didn't get a reply to a PM then moans and says they're resigning because they still didn't get a reply?

Now, let's not take this off-topic -- you know how to private message myself, Jan or a member of General Management.

[AgnesIO]

If you would like to see the messages I received from him just ask. They were very Rude.

ON TOPIC. I was never a real fan of the merger, just ask Shoned.

Sure, let's see.

[David]

lol just read them, im on toms side.
heard the staff didnt say goodbye in a nice way to your thread either

[xxMATTGxx]

To be honest, from what I read you made it sound like you were an amazing News Reporter but in fact only did a very small amount of articles. Fair enough if you wasn't a fan of the merge but don't make it into something that it isn't.

[Aaron]

I do plan to hire more staff straight away Skynus allows me to basically, as I've got a bunch of applications currently a lot of which I would accept.

IF we were to unmerge though I'm assuming quite a lot of people would return from what they've said to me anyway so that would fix that prblem lmao

This reply caught my eye.

So you're not allowed to get new staff members without his permission? Surely your managerial title stands for something..

[xxMATTGxx]

This reply caught my eye.

So you're not allowed to get new staff members without his permission? Surely your managerial title stands for something..

Her post doesn't say that. She means Tom let's her hire people in the department.

[Tom]

This reply caught my eye.

So you're not allowed to get new staff members without his permission? Surely your managerial title stands for something..


Her post doesn't say that. She means Tom let's her hire people in the department.

I don't restrict her from hiring anyone, but I have 'strongly advised' not to due to some things in the air which are most likely going to happen, so it would just be a waste of time right now.

[Chippiewill]

This reply caught my eye.

So you're not allowed to get new staff members without his permission? Surely your managerial title stands for something..


Her post doesn't say that. She means Tom let's her hire people in the department.

To be perfectly frank they should be having discussions about it before doing it, it's not about permission, it's about common courtesy.

[God]

This reply caught my eye.

So you're not allowed to get new staff members without his permission? Surely your managerial title stands for something..


Her post doesn't say that. She means Tom let's her hire people in the department.

So basicaly your saying the same thing as aaron. Janice cant do anything without Tom's permission....

[xxMATTGxx]

So basicaly your saying the same thing as aaron. Janice cant do anything without Tom's permission....

No I never said that. Tom doesn't control the news side of the department in that sense.

---------- Post added 22-04-2013 at 10:56 PM ----------


To be perfectly frank they should be having discussions about it before doing it, it's not about permission, it's about common courtesy.

This is about control/permission and not communication by the looks of it.

[Meanies]

So basicaly your saying the same thing as aaron. Janice cant do anything without Tom's permission....

Essentially if the merge was completed properly, Tom would be the manager and Jan would be the assistant, of which case Tom would have greater authority than she would. I think though that the reason for Tom saying not to hire anyone at the minute is purely because of the uncertainty of the merge and the reception it has had thus far.

[xxMATTGxx]

I posted on page 10 that unmerging wouldn't be an issue. Maybe take the hint :P

[Aaron]

Her post doesn't say that. She means Tom let's her hire people in the department.


I don't restrict her from hiring anyone, but I have 'strongly advised' not to due to some things in the air which are most likely going to happen, so it would just be a waste of time right now.


To be perfectly frank they should be having discussions about it before doing it, it's not about permission, it's about common courtesy.


So basicaly your saying the same thing as aaron. Janice cant do anything without Tom's permission....


Wow don't I feel popular (4 quotes haha!) :P I also rarely reply to Habbox Feedback, just usually watch.

Well once she has the discretion to hire more news staff without any problems, if not that's when you'll see managers resign because of losing that sense of authority/power.

[xxMATTGxx]

Wow don't I feel popular (4 quotes haha!) :P I also rarely reply to Habbox Feedback, just usually watch.

Well once she has the discretion to hire more news staff without any problems, if not that's when you'll see managers resign because of losing that sense of authority/power.

No one is actually stopping her, don't worry. Just doing it right this minute might be a bad idea as they would be hired into a merged department which will most likely be unmerged before the week is out.

[Samantha]

I posted on page 10 that unmerging wouldn't be an issue. Maybe take the hint :P

I thought one AGM didn't want to unmerge?

[Meanies]

I thought one AGM didn't want to unmerge?

One AGM vs the GM and the majority of Habbox?

[xxMATTGxx]

I thought one AGM didn't want to unmerge?

Both managers were told to give it until the end of April and if it wasn't working out we would go from there. So technically we are right on track!

[Aaron]

No one is actually stopping her, don't worry. Just doing it right this minute might be a bad idea as they would be hired into a merged department which will most likely be unmerged before the week is out.

Oh well that's good then I guess, it'll be interesting to see how it all pans out. This'll be an interesting thread to keep my eye on.

[Zelda]

Ye that is what I meant basically if you took that wrong ;p not rly any point in hiring when it could revert in a week anyway

[AgnesIO]

K I read the PM conversation. The result (in my eyes)?

Skynus - you were rude, and in fairness, unprofessional. Not what I would expect from a manager.
Dragga - your ego about your News Report abilities is causing my monitor to explode.

Basically, Skynus (assuming the PM's were not edited) you might need to take your own advice about growing up. Not supporting Dragga either though.

[Kardan]

K I read the PM conversation. The result (in my eyes)?

Skynus - you were rude, and in fairness, unprofessional. Not what I would expect from a manager.
Dragga - your ego about your News Report abilities is causing my monitor to explode.

Basically, Skynus (assuming the PM's were not edited) you might need to take your own advice about growing up. Not supporting Dragga either though.

Inb4 dragga gets fired for sharing private content.

[Samantha]

Inb4 dragga gets fired for sharing private content.

I don't think anything is private at Habbox anymore.

[xxMATTGxx]

Inb4 dragga gets fired for sharing private content.

Fired and shoved onto the DNHL then thrown into jail with the key thrown away.

[AgnesIO]

Inb4 dragga gets fired for sharing private content.

Technically I see no harm in him forwarding a private message - particularly when there is a point to be proved.

No private user information was shared so..

[Samantha]

Tom was rude in the PM, although not correct about some information due to not knowing about news. However, Tyler was big headed and I've edited most of his reports for grammar errors so only me or another senior know if he's a good writer.

Although I'm not sure why this was brought out to the public, Tom is always rude to me I get on with it, aren't you Skynus; :P?

[Tom]

K I read the PM conversation. The result (in my eyes)?

Skynus - you were rude, and in fairness, unprofessional. Not what I would expect from a manager.
Dragga - your ego about your News Report abilities is causing my monitor to explode.

Basically, Skynus (assuming the PM's were not edited) you might need to take your own advice about growing up. Not supporting Dragga either though.

I have no idea what he sent you, but I did actually apologise in advance at the end of the PM as I was incredibly agitated with some things that day and that was just the cherry on the cake. Obviously, nobody can be nice all the time and control themselves.

With that said, all of the things I said were the honest truth and is exactly what should have been said - not a nice 'you've done this but don't worry I'm not mad' approach because for a month he basically just complained and did practically nothing, if anything at all. I don't like people being arrogant either, especially when none of the arrogance is true.

I guess this is a kind of public apology - but I still spoke my mind, just like most people at Habbox do.


Tom was rude in the PM, although not correct about some information due to not knowing about news. However, Tyler was big headed and I've edited most of his reports for grammar errors so only me or another senior know if he's a good writer.

Although I'm not sure why this was brought out to the public, Tom is always rude to me I get on with it, aren't you Skynus; :P?

You make it seem like I'm such a bad person :( I do it to you because you can take it ;)

[Inseriousity.]

I thought one AGM didn't want to unmerge?

I've been on the fence the whole time. Personally, I think the merge could've worked. It was change and people are resistant to change but the whole transition was just done wrong, placing the department in a state of limbo and not able to rejuvinate itself. Both general management and department management are to blame for that. Applications should've been opened because it was only with new arrivals that the success of this department could be accurately measured. As newbies to the department, their opinion on the merge and what work they did would not have been about how it was different to what came before but based on the merge's own merits. They could've easily been asked to choose a department if the merge had been reversed.

The department management have had their fighting spirit eroded so I took the helm. I am not convinced by this idea that the writing styles are different. I've also worked in both departments before and found no transition difficult at all. If content is about throwing the kitchen sink in then imo that should change because the similarity between both is that they are to both instruct and entertain and that style is consistent in both news and content.

On the other hand, the lack of fighting spirit should be an indicator that it was never going to be championed from the rooftops so when asked, I told Matt we should unmerge.

[Recursion]

Off topic award goes to.........

[xxMATTGxx]

Off topic award goes to.........

Bertie!

[Meanies]

Bertie!

but who will claim the award when he's missing!!

[Adam]

Just close Habbox and all problems will disappear.

[Nick]

but who will claim the award when he's missing!!

I will!!!

[Samantha]

I've been on the fence the whole time. Personally, I think the merge could've worked. It was change and people are resistant to change but the whole transition was just done wrong, placing the department in a state of limbo and not able to rejuvinate itself. Both general management and department management are to blame for that. Applications should've been opened because it was only with new arrivals that the success of this department could be accurately measured. As newbies to the department, their opinion on the merge and what work they did would not have been about how it was different to what came before but based on the merge's own merits. They could've easily been asked to choose a department if the merge had been reversed.

The department management have had their fighting spirit eroded so I took the helm. I am not convinced by this idea that the writing styles are different. I've also worked in both departments before and found no transition difficult at all. If content is about throwing the kitchen sink in then imo that should change because the similarity between both is that they are to both instruct and entertain and that style is consistent in both news and content.

On the other hand, the lack of fighting spirit should be an indicator that it was never going to be championed from the rooftops so when asked, I told Matt we should unmerge.

Some of the notable differences include:

- Content is not personal to the readers, hence why we have to substitute words like your, you etc. for player, character and so on.
- News is more recent therefore we can use the present, past or future tense as we wish whereas we need to speak in the past tense for Content.
- We can't be repetitive in News, we can in Content.

Others can be found, although the two above should be easy to transition, some do find it difficult.

[Tom]

Some of the notable differences include:

- Content is not personal to the readers, hence why we have to substitute words like your, you etc. for player, character and so on.
- News is more recent therefore we can use the present, past or future tense as we wish whereas we need to speak in the past tense for Content.
- We can't be repetitive in News, we can in Content.

Others can be found, although the two above should be easy to transition, some do find it difficult.

This is rubbish tbh. Don't you learn about tenses, when to use you, you're, your etc. in primary school at age 7/8? If they can't make a transition so simple I would question why they are in the department in the first place.

[Samantha]

This is rubbish tbh. Don't you learn about tenses, when to use you, you're, your etc. in primary school at age 7/8? If they can't make a transition so simple I would question why they are in the department in the first place.

It's not rubbish - I think I remember someone resigning because they couldn't write like news or like content, I didn't say I agreed with them as I know the transition and yeah I still make some of the mistakes I highlighted in my post, but it's not hard to change like you said. They are different writing styles though, mainly with those, but others, facts and opinions, history etc. I don't believe you were calling my post rubbish were you? As those differences are correct.

[Inseriousity.]

If they are correct then they shouldn't be was my argument. Content shouldn't be cold, indifferent and seperate from the reader which seems to be the common theme here. It still needs to capture the reader's attention and it needs to keep them engaged. Everyone writes differently, that is to be expected. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that people can be nurtured and honed to adapt to a way that works for Habbox whether that's working for news, content or a merged department of the two.

[Adam]

Can you not discuss this in your staff forums please? You're making Habbox Forum a horrible place to be.

[Samantha]

If they are correct then they shouldn't be was my argument. Content shouldn't be cold, indifferent and seperate from the reader which seems to be the common theme here. It still needs to capture the reader's attention and it needs to keep them engaged. Everyone writes differently, that is to be expected. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that people can be nurtured and honed to adapt to a way that works for Habbox whether that's working for news, content or a merged department of the two.

It won't work though as surely a Wiki doesn't need to be involving the reader at every chance, it has the facts in, similar to news reports, but they are different. Also Content is about what happened and having the evidence to back that up, new can be rumours too, as well as guides and such - content can be guides too, but in a different sense and probably not on the Wiki.

Like I said though, I don't mind, I'm not allowed to show my true opinions publicly so I think hardly any of us will.

[Alkaz]

This would have been a really good idea if it had been / is being implemented.

[Samantha]

This would have been a really good idea if it had been / is being implemented.

Wanna bet :P? I honestly don't mind the merge now were in it, although there are differences. I just like writing though, for both sides.

[AlexJRiley]

Fired and shoved onto the DNHL then thrown into jail with the key thrown away.

Please... dear god please!

[Chippiewill]

If they are correct then they shouldn't be was my argument. Content shouldn't be cold, indifferent and seperate from the reader which seems to be the common theme here. It still needs to capture the reader's attention and it needs to keep them engaged.
Go read any page on Wikipedia, absolutely ZERO of them will refer to the reader at any time. It's how wiki content should be written and it's how I enforced it.

Frankly though it's not just writing styles, in the Content department I didn't care if people didn't do work on a week to week basis as long as they did their share in the long-run. This isn't viable with News, news is all about being on the ball, doing some investigative journalism and being regular and consistent. The processes in researching and creating content are entirely different.

[Inseriousity.]

There are ways of engaging people without the use of the pronouns 'you' etc. Cold indifference makes Habbox look clinical and out-of-touch with the market we are attracting: younger teenagers. If we are being frank, perhaps it was the lack of attention to people not doing work that has allowed the department to implode from the inside. If you don't care, your staff won't care. Say, for the sake of debate, that this is true also, it still isn't really an argument against a merge as it could easily be accomodated within that framework.

[Zelda]

Mike I think the point you are missing is that if people were interested in doing any content work they would have applied for content already, and a lot of news reporters will have no interest in content, often quote, "Finding the wiki pointless". Tbh it's the biggest flaw of the merge really.

[AgnesIO]

Mike I think the point you are missing is that if people were interested in doing any content work they would have applied for content already, and a lot of news reporters will have no interest in content, often quote, "Finding the wiki pointless". Tbh it's the biggest flaw of the merge really.

It can't have actually merged though? You are still News Manager... - surely you should be Assistant Content Manager (News)? Like how AGM's are done.

Just call the staff; Content (News) and Content (whatever the other side is) - a partial merge is a good idea to me. Gives you guys the benefit of having both departments - news MUST do news stuff, and the wiki people MUST do wiki - but let them help in the other depts in they wish to? Can't see any problems with that at all?

[Grig]

It can't have actually merged though? You are still News Manager... - surely you should be Assistant Content Manager (News)? Like how AGM's are done.

Just call the staff; Content (News) and Content (whatever the other side is) - a partial merge is a good idea to me. Gives you guys the benefit of having both departments - news MUST do news stuff, and the wiki people MUST do wiki - but let them help in the other depts in they wish to? Can't see any problems with that at all?

Why try to derail news, when the foundation wasn't broken, it just needed a few revamps here and there, but putting it as one department is certainly a step in the wrong direction.

So far I haven't seen positive reasons for a merge, but rather one or two saying good idea etc.

[Samantha]

It can't have actually merged though? You are still News Manager... - surely you should be Assistant Content Manager (News)? Like how AGM's are done.

Just call the staff; Content (News) and Content (whatever the other side is) - a partial merge is a good idea to me. Gives you guys the benefit of having both departments - news MUST do news stuff, and the wiki people MUST do wiki - but let them help in the other depts in they wish to? Can't see any problems with that at all?

We spoke about that, but why have news, content and graphics sides to content, there would be no point to the merge then as it'd just be the same with 3 departments.

[AgnesIO]

Why try to derail news, when the foundation wasn't broken, it just needed a few revamps here and there, but putting it as one department is certainly a step in the wrong direction.

So far I haven't seen positive reasons for a merge, but rather one or two saying good idea etc.

Were we waiting for V7 for these revamps? At least someone actually have the initiative to instigate change - whether you disagree with it or not.

[xxMATTGxx]

Were we waiting for V7 for these revamps? At least someone actually have the initiative to instigate change - whether you disagree with it or not.

The only reason to ever wait for V7 if the actual changes require coding to be done. If it doesn't then there is no reason to wait.

[AgnesIO]

We spoke about that, but why have news, content and graphics sides to content, there would be no point to the merge then as it'd just be the same with 3 departments.

Because;

News is content.
Graphics are content.
Wiki is content.

They belong with each other. Certainly wiki and graphics - I would have said it is beneficial. Surely it makes it easier to create really great content if they are all interconnected?

---------- Post added 23-04-2013 at 06:40 PM ----------


The only reason to ever wait for V7 if the actual changes require coding to be done. If it doesn't then there is no reason to wait.

I know :L I was just expecting someone to eventually state that it was all coming in V7 lol

[Samantha]

Because;

News is content.
Graphics are content.
Wiki is content.

They belong with each other. Certainly wiki and graphics - I would have said it is beneficial. Surely it makes it easier to create really great content if they are all interconnected?

---------- Post added 23-04-2013 at 06:40 PM ----------



I know :L I was just expecting someone to eventually state that it was all coming in V7 lol

If we're having 3 sides to content then there's no point in the merge, even the managers said that before it even went through, that's why they decided on two sides; if you're just going to have content (news) content whatever and content (graphics) then they can just stay separate and have managers that actually know what they're doing and staff who don't think they'd be forced to do other jobs than what they applied for.

[AgnesIO]

If we're having 3 sides to content then there's no point in the merge, even the managers said that before it even went through, that's why they decided on two sides; if you're just going to have content (news) content whatever and content (graphics) then they can just stay separate and have managers that actually know what they're doing and staff who don't think they'd be forced to do other jobs than what they applied for.

I still think we are going too far with all this knowledge stuff. As a general rule, the people on Habbox are all amateurs - they have no professional background, or superior knowledge. Not saying we need professionals, but you guys are making it sound like managers are exclusive academics lol

I don't think they should be forced to do so - but I can see (certainly for wiki and graphics) the benefit of the two departments working together is obvious.

[Samantha]

I still think we are going too far with all this knowledge stuff. As a general rule, the people on Habbox are all amateurs - they have no professional background, or superior knowledge. Not saying we need professionals, but you guys are making it sound like managers are exclusive academics lol

I don't think they should be forced to do so - but I can see (certainly for wiki and graphics) the benefit of the two departments working together is obvious.

How is it obvious? Working on the Wiki for near enough a year now I have never needed the graphics department? You're calling it Wiki yet it's content, we only need graphics for pages that we couldn't update for ages or the pages we had to rewrite for no reason.

[Chippiewill]

There are ways of engaging people without the use of the pronouns 'you' etc. Cold indifference makes Habbox look clinical and out-of-touch with the market we are attracting: younger teenagers. If we are being frank, perhaps it was the lack of attention to people not doing work that has allowed the department to implode from the inside. If you don't care, your staff won't care. Say, for the sake of debate, that this is true also, it still isn't really an argument against a merge as it could easily be accomodated within that framework.

Even if you are correct it is frankly inconsequential. Most people who do content design don't want to do news, most people who do news don't want to do content. There is literally ZERO purpose in pissing everyone off because it *could* work.

[Adam]

Please people won't somebody think of the children and take your bickering to your hidden forums it's all getting too emotional!

[Zelda]

then how would people like laura and grig contribute to this????

[MKR&*42]

It was a silly idea to merge all the depts. I vaguely understood why content + news, but not graphics.

As said before, content & news require different writing styles and completely different jobs - if someone had wanted to be a content designer and a news reporter, they would have applied for both.

Bad decisions one after another.

[AgnesIO]

How is it obvious? Working on the Wiki for near enough a year now I have never needed the graphics department? You're calling it Wiki yet it's content, we only need graphics for pages that we couldn't update for ages or the pages we had to rewrite for no reason.

What exactly do the graphics department do then?

[Kardan]

What exactly do the graphics department do then?

I asked this and got told that basically they make the banner whenever Habbox does one of their big competitions, (Christmas/Summer Spectacular), so I asked 'Surely that means they have like, 3 jobs a year?' and got told 'Pretty much'. And considering no new content gets put on the site because of no V7, there's nothing to do on there either.

[AgnesIO]

I asked this and got told that basically they make the banner whenever Habbox does one of their big competitions, (Christmas/Summer Spectacular), so I asked 'Surely that means they have like, 3 jobs a year?' and got told 'Pretty much'. And considering no new content gets put on the site because of no V7, there's nothing to do on there either.

Basically the right to a user title then lol (surely the graphics dept should design these, but wasn't there a competition to design the last ones? :L)

[Samantha]

What exactly do the graphics department do then?

They design user bars no one wants, Chris; joking.

Anyway, they design whatever a department manager asks them to (if they can be bothered to), so say report images, or banners for events as Kardan; said.

[AgnesIO]

They design user bars no one wants, @Chris (http://www.habboxforum.com/member.php?u=55895); joking.

Anyway, they design whatever a department manager asks them to (if they can be bothered to), so say report images, or banners for events as @Kardan (http://www.habboxforum.com/member.php?u=3428); said.

WHat's wrong with the userbars? :L

When you say "if they can be bothered to", do you mean the designers be bothered to design it, or the department managers bothering to ask them?

If people want better userbars, maybe they could do that. Apologies though, I presumed they actually played a role in content (as one would expect given their role) - apparently not lol..

[David]

What exactly do the graphics department do then?

all the bad sigs your seeing around, easter eggwhatever and the like

---------- Post added 23-04-2013 at 08:12 PM ----------


If people want better userbars, maybe they could do that. Apologies though, I presumed they actually played a role in content (as one would expect given their role) - apparently not lol..

http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=768420
http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=768421&highlight=userbar
http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=768984&highlight=userbar
http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=769462&highlight=userbar

[Samantha]

WHat's wrong with the userbars? :L

When you say "if they can be bothered to", do you mean the designers be bothered to design it, or the department managers bothering to ask them?

If people want better userbars, maybe they could do that. Apologies though, I presumed they actually played a role in content (as one would expect given their role) - apparently not lol..

Basically, what David; said about the userbars - probably both, think though near a holiday there will be so many graphics split between three of them as they don't even have a manager, kinda :P.

[AgnesIO]

all the bad sigs your seeing around, easter eggwhatever and the like

---------- Post added 23-04-2013 at 08:12 PM ----------



http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=768420
http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=768421&highlight=userbar
http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=768984&highlight=userbar
http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=769462&highlight=userbar

Well yeah, but I assumed the current ones were a result of popular opinion?

[sex]

Can you not discuss this in your staff forums please? You're making Habbox Forum a horrible place to be.

all your posts seem to do this lol

anyways, why bother keep open a failing department, it just adds more mess and unneeded work for management. news has been dying for years and people keep trying to saying its not (always news staff). they have had enough chances to revive it over the year bu the fact of the matter is no one read's your articles barely.....anyone who does is because they are trying to win vip for posting comments.

[David]

all your posts seem to do this lol

anyways, why bother keep open a failing department, it just adds more mess and unneeded work for management. news has been dying for years and people keep trying to saying its not (always news staff). they have had enough chances to revive it over the year bu the fact of the matter is no one read's your articles barely.....anyone who does is because they are trying to win vip for posting comments.

wasnt there just a thread about the vip, and they scrapped it because only 1 person was commenting? something like that

---------- Post added 23-04-2013 at 10:11 PM ----------


Well yeah, but I assumed the current ones were a result of popular opinion?

yeah, but you said they could do new userbars which they already did was my point. no one liked them

[Samantha]

all your posts seem to do this lol

anyways, why bother keep open a failing department, it just adds more mess and unneeded work for management. news has been dying for years and people keep trying to saying its not (always news staff). they have had enough chances to revive it over the year bu the fact of the matter is no one read's your articles barely.....anyone who does is because they are trying to win vip for posting comments.

Sigh, news reporters say it isn't dying because they witness it, they know what goes on behind the scene, they have had surveys giving answers and frankly, before the merge news was doing better than it has done for months/years - people were starting to take an interest and they were more involved, yes they were involved with gaining VIP, but some have continued commenting without the hope for it (as it hasn't been done in a couple of months due to various factors).

Why keep open a failing department? It wasn't news that was failing it was content, there was only me at one point and just before the merge there was me and pasta; it wasn't news in the slightest - Inkwell; had a lot of ideas for news, and she followed through with a few of them, but now can't go through with the rest until she hears the final result of the merge. I would say go in news for a bit, well no, not now, but before the merge, and see where it's got to now - even you would see the decline in it over the month period that we've been merged; it's explainable why it has, due to news having the majority of staff pre-merge, but saying news is dying isn't true for some; we can't see the hits counter, but what's to say those who visit Habbox for rare values, the radio, jobs etc. don't read news while they're on the site? It's a default for the widgets so they can read it, thus getting hits up more.
Catchy; even had an image showing him how many times his page had been viewed and I don't think it was a bad number in the slightest - really, news could do with bringing back what people want and incorporating the forum more, that's true, but when we do that we get told not to or people get annoyed - that's why I've been telling those reading the reports to comment on the news report and join in the discussion on Habbox Forum, it's also why I link to the article in threads and giving a bit of what to expect.

Sorry, if this sounds like a rant I don't mean it to be, but news wasn't the dying department before the merge, since Janice has become management she has literally turned it around and it was nice to see a fresh face with new ideas - the thing I don't agree on is saying news is dying when statistics such as comments on news reports and the members in the department says otherwise.

[AgnesIO]

wasnt there just a thread about the vip, and they scrapped it because only 1 person was commenting? something like that

---------- Post added 23-04-2013 at 10:11 PM ----------



yeah, but you said they could do new userbars which they already did was my point. no one liked them

I was just trying to think of a reason why the graphics department has a point ;l

[Samantha]

I was just trying to think of a reason why the graphics department has a point ;l

The point I see is - management need graphics, but they can't make it public so they literally can't ask the members to make the graphics therefore they have the graphics team or they can ask someone to make it for them.

[David]

there isnt much of one, they dont need a graphic manager and they dont need 4 people to sit around and do nothing.

1 or 2 people with management on skype for whenever they need work done would be enough, or even keep the private forum where department managers can post requests directly instead of a middleman-lets-take-10-weeks-to-do-a-task-system currently (like ive suggested many times before - a manager isnt needed to run graphics - the department managers should crack the whip and monitor their own requests.)

[Kyle]

from my own experience graphics staff don't seem to get given a lot of work because if staff want a banner they'll generally design it themselves.

[FlyingJesus]

Graphics as a department isn't totally necessary since most of the time there's nothing to be done, and I'm pretty sure it would be easy enough to whip up a couple of members who want to help out on the odd occasion that a picture needs to be tweaked, especially as a lot of graphic types do things on request anyway. Definitely agree that there's no need for any management to the team since it's literally just a case of "can one of you do X" "sure" "cheers" without any quotas and such to sort out.

News I thought was about to undergo a fairly radical change which would have dragged it out of the graveyard and into the community, but I'm guessing that's on hold while the merge mess is being sorted out - the proposals could technically go ahead whatever the outcome (merge or unmerge) but I can see why they'd want to hold out until it's certain what's going on

[Mr-Trainor]

I was under the impression that the graphics department always has a lot to do, and always have been? Unless that was back a few years ago and it's just nowadays that they don't get much?

[Samantha]

I was under the impression that the graphics department always has a lot to do, and always have been? Unless that was back a few years ago and it's just nowadays that they don't get much?

I think it might have been due to managers not getting graphics on time or anything so they just gave up :P?

[Kardan]

I was under the impression that the graphics department always has a lot to do, and always have been? Unless that was back a few years ago and it's just nowadays that they don't get much?

What demand is there for graphics? The main source of graphics I can think of is content for Habbox.com, but of course that doesn't exist because of no version 7...

I guess graphics might need to be made for the actual design of V7? Maybe the designers are doing that themselves, or maybe V7 isn't even at that stage where they need images...

[FlyingJesus]

No site updates and no current big event or anything, can't see why it would be assumed that the graphics team has a lot (or anything) to do :P

[Nick]

What demand is there for graphics? The main source of graphics I can think of is content for Habbox.com, but of course that doesn't exist because of no version 7...

I guess graphics might need to be made for the actual design of V7? Maybe the designers are doing that themselves, or maybe V7 isn't even at that stage where they need images...

That has already been done i think but i returned after things like that had been requested but i guess they might request new ones since they re designed the site. We don't really do much habbox.com graphics, only if content designers were to request new banners for pages and that was pretty much it. We only really do banner/signatures for the forum.