News Department Feedback 2k13

[Martin]

News Department Action Plan 2k14
http://www.habbo.com/habbo-imaging/avatarimage?user=Bolt660&action=wav&direction=3&head_direction=3&gesture=sad&size=m&img_format=gif





Problems currently facing the News Department:


Staff number too low: The News Department isn't really an attractive place to work in right now, even from an outside point of view you can tell things have become stale, boring and unimaginative. New initiatives need to be introduced to get people interested in creative writing and reporting news for Habbox. Staff need to feel appreciated, understand the creative side of news and most importantly- have fun writing. Does the department still have minimums, and if so- why havent all the staff (and heads) been fired by now?


Writing Style: The style of writing has become very sloppy and the majority of articles look very similar to those on Habbo/other fansites. Simply stating facts is not enough and is extremely boring to read- articles need opinions, creative structures and a more debated view on things. Reporters should be actively seeking opinions on the matter to gain public interest and a sense of personalisation within their articles.


SPAG: Not spaghetti bolognese. The spelling and grammar in some articles lately has been poor. Just looking at the top article right now I've noticed several highly visible mistakes which indicates to me that it hasn't even been ran through a spellcheck. "It seems Habbo have got two addidtions to the Habbo Staff Family" Sounds like it was written by a two year old (no offence to the writer, he is just not receiving the corrections to improve that he so badly needs.). The head news reporters are responsible for this so idk if they are away or something but it's taking ages for corrections to be made and some of the articles i'm seeing on the FRONT PAGE of Habbox- The first thing people see when they visit our site is absolutley shocking. I've looked down the staff list (although theres basically no staff so it was a pointless excersise) and the majority of heads/reporters and trialists are hardly posting any articles- my staff used to post 5+ a week with ease. Quite a few people have moaned lately about the quality.


Images: The images lately haven't been all that great. I've seen blury, resized, messy images that really look bad and give out a crappy example. As mentioned before, these are on the front page of Habbox which means they need to look smart, professional, relevant and bold. They need to be the perfect compliment to the article and right now I'm seeing such poor quality images which then gives me the impression that Habbox is a poor quality fansite with poor quality staff.


Motivation: Are staff really being pushed enough to improve? How many PM's with guidelines for improvement are being offered? Something which I've always found special about the News Department is the ability for someone to grow and bloom into a great writer, and in the past one of the main comments I've received from staff within the department is how much they enjoy that chance to improve, get better and of course all of the compliments they then receive etc.


Comments: Lack of comments seems to have been an issue for ages. Are people actually reading the news anymore? and if so, why is nobody commenting? I have some ideas to improve this within the 'suggestions for improvement' section, however more really needs to be done to expand the COMMUNITY side of news again. If you watch News programmes on the TV you will notice reporters going out to local events, interacting with the community and making it a more united feel, rather than solid reporting of events. This is particularly important at Habbox as we really are a community driven fansite.


Personalisation: Reporters need to put a stamp on their work, and it needs to be unique. There is far too much plagiarism going on and rather than reading a re-wrote boring recital of the News from Habbo, I want to read an interesting, diverse and opinionated version of events. It makes it far more interesting to read, it makes the reader feel more involved and it is also a hell of a lot more enjoyable for whoever is writing it too. I really think that letting people take a different approach and style can be a factor for getting more staff into the department as it becomes more fun and less of a chore.


Section of News: Recently in your '12 days of Christmas' event, you asked the question 'How many News Sections are there?'. This was probbaly a poor question to ask, as having looked at all of these sections myself they are hardly ever updated anyway. The last 'Article' was written in MAY, the last 'Room Review' back in SEPTEMBER and the last Interview was last month. If you are going to have so many sections, then they really do need to be more frequently updated and PROMOTED.


Important news frequently missed: Quite often high profile News is being missed due to lack of staff/lack of staff morale. Even big Habbox events should be reported on the front page. Was the 12 days of Christmas fansite thing even reported on? That should have been a major news article, with a big discussion in the comments, but unfortunately I can't see anything.


Advertising and promotion: I never see news mentioned/advertised around Habbox anymore. I don't see many News related signatures- we used to have lovely ones linking to the latest article etc which was nice. Big articles relating to big events on Habbo should be publicised like crazy, get people reading again and they'll come back for more. More competitions linking to news needs to be done- competitions within articles themselves on the front page too- this used to happen but I haven't seen it in absolutely ages.

Whether news should remain on site or be forum based: This depends on how V7 (LOL) has been set up really and whether space has been included for News etc, so I guess a member of the wonderful limey brigade could comment on this. There seems to be a debate about where news should be and it's entire purpose etc so perhaps that could be discussed in this thread at greater detail?


Things I notice when viewing news as a member of the community:


https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3865423/lookssoprofessional.png

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3865423/imagescorrections.png

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3865423/idklol.png



Suggestions for improvement: (A lot have already been made in the problems section)

Push Applications: Encourage new (and old) faces to apply and return to the department. For this to happen the department needs to be a desirable place to work within, a strong friendly team and the ability to be creative, get involved with the community and make the News pages on Habbox look amazing!


Quality Control: Ensure that articles are checked properly. The News Manager is ultimately responsible for this and when there are such basic spelling errors, and quality errors on the main site it does give an incredibly bad impression overall. Send out regular feedback PMs highlighting both negative issues that can be worked on, but also positive things too which other reporters could take note of. Praise is always good for motivation and sharing ideas works wonders.


Staff Involvement: Get staff doing other things other than just writing News Articles about Habbo News. Get them being interative with the community, get them talking to people about the news and gathering opinions. Get staff running little News Based competitions and weekly promotions for news. Do a weekly '___ of the week' etc, or a roundup of that weeks important Habbo events in like a summarised, easy to read article.


Competitions: As mentioned before, do competitions on the main site, put them in an article and get people to answer via the comments. Once people START using the comments feature on the main site they may be more intended to use it in the future too, and once people see a high number of comments it gives a good impression that the community is still alive. These can be both creative and quiz type competitions, get people doing creative writing, christmas poems- all sorts!


Big featured articles: For big articles (major events on Habbo), Habbox promotions etc- do a special article and link to it in the community notice board. We used to have featured articles back in the day and it really worked well! The community notice board is perfect for linking to bigger articles that may caputure peoples interest and get them reading more news articles in the future.


Revamp of sections: These need looking into and evaluating. They can work really well if they are updated frequently, promoted well (advertised) and really made a fuss of. The interviews and room reviews especially can be very beneficial and provide a good link with people.


Interviews with Staff: Linking on from that, perhaps secure some little interesting interviews with staff and 'famous' Habbo people. People will love to read these and find out gossip etc. Make news less fact based and more a community thing where people can come for gossip, and to see what the general opinion on something is.


Images and article structure: Ensure staff are given the help they need to put good images on their articles. They should not be distorting the quality by resizing them and they should be to a set margin of size etc so that the front page looks good and gives off a good impression. I used to have guides on this set up and would remove images and put my own image on if I was not happy with a reporters image. There should be an image bank of premade ones to use too. Ensure all articles follow a similar structure, paragraph spacing, colours etc.



More ideas would be to; (and a summary)

Work with other departments/managers more efficiently to provide better results
Allow staff to be more flexible/creative and maybe more people will apply
Be more active in ensuring articles are of a good quality
Ensure that as much as possible is reported on
More links with the community
Article based Competitions/Prizes
More advertising/promotion/featured articles
Make the front page look amazing
Ensure the various News Sections are up to date and promoted well
More presence on Habbo itself
Report on Habbox stuff too so that its promoted on the front page (things like the return of the wengles show would have been a good one and provided a bit of interesting history etc, just little unique things like that which are unique to Habbox rather than generic news all the time.
Hire an active manager who has a passion for quality and community involvement and who is good at motivating staff



I truly believe that the News Department still has a purpose and there is so much that could be done to take it back into its prime. When you have a department with keen, active staff and the whole department feels like a 'family' then any results are achievable and it seems lately that the case with most areas of Habbox is that people have simply 'given up' and that passion seems to have been lost which is a shame. As a member of the community I want to see things stay fresh, things updated frequently and big events really pushed.



I have no idea what is planned for Christmas at Habbox because I've yet to see any advertising around the place etc and surely the annual Christmas Habbox period should be starting tomorrow? I hate how these days everything is left until the last minute and the community arent given a chance to prepare, get excited and motivated for stuff etc, it turns out to be a real damp squid! (idk if thats a saying or not LOL), but yeah shout out about the good stuff that Habbox does I guess!!

[Inseriousity.]

this is what I had in mind when I suggested an action plan btw! still not seen it!

Good suggestions there. :)

[Kardan]

Does Habbox even have a news manager?

[AgnesIO]

Ok, not going to pretend I have read all of the post, however I disagree with the need for opinions. Personally, nothing puts me off an article than one that says "personally, I think..." - particularly when the thought is uninformed. One thing that really annoys me about "cnet".

[BigtimeRyan]

Sorry I had a few issues in an article but I'm only a trialist news reporter and I've only been here less than two weeks. Obviously I'm going to make a couple of mistakes in my first article but thank you I have fixed one that I noticed..
The news tasks section in the news reporter forum is hardly ever used so we have to come up with our own ideas for news reports. I think we need to hire lots more news reporters and defiantly more editors. I'm pretty sure only one person in my department is able to edit other peoples articles and i'm sure it is frustrating for a lot of people.

Anyways apologises for my errors in the report and if I pass my news trial I hope I can help make the news department succeed again!



I agree there is a lack of personalisation in news reports and the news sections need to be used more. I'm going to do a news report on a fellow Habbo and I'm also currently planning a room review.

I think there should be a section in the forum available for everybody called 'News suggestions', where users can suggest an article to be written or even submit there own that can be posted!

Anyway the snapshot where the posts are distorted isn't our fault and I assumed it was just my browser. That seems like a problem with the site @xxmattgxx

As I'm pretty sure there hasn't been a new news manager hired I think @emily you should try to edit more. I have two news reports that haven't been edited yet.

[Martin]

Does Habbox even have a news manager?

Nope, although Samanfa is still in the News Department usergroup according to the staff list so I'm guessing she's looking after the department currently idk.


Ok, not going to pretend I have read all of the post, however I disagree with the need for opinions. Personally, nothing puts me off an article than one that says "personally, I think..." - particularly when the thought is uninformed. One thing that really annoys me about "cnet".

Yeah I would agree with that to an extent too, it can be over the top if done incorrectly, and I think if there's going to be opinions then there does need to be both sides to the argument too. So if for arguments sake there was something controversial reported I think its nice to have a mixture of positives and negatives so that it's a balanced and fair article really rather than being over the top and aimed at one view in particular. In terms of opinions I think its nice to get other peoples opinions (not just your own as this can become too 'me me me', and its just nice to get a general idea of what various members of the community think about something. It shouldn't be done over the top though and shouldn't take up much of the article at all and detract from the main point.

[Aiden]

http://static.someecards.com/someecards/usercards/MjAxMS05MmJkMzFkOTllNTU2Njlm.png

o,t; I agree with you. The news department is far from the best out there and has been like that ever since I joint Habbox (2 years in 3 weeks woo). I think they should just move to the forum or get more ideas to improve it (i dont even know if there is anything you can do now)!@!@!

- - - Updated - - -

http://www.tashload.com/Uploader/uploads//ItKQqOz.png

talking of errors hahaaa ;)

[Martin]

Sorry I had a few issues in an article but I'm only a trialist news reporter and I've only been here less than two weeks. Obviously I'm going to make a couple of mistakes in my first article but thank you I have fixed one that I noticed..
The news tasks section in the news reporter forum is hardly ever used so we have to come up with our own ideas for news reports. I think we need to hire lots more news reporters and defiantly more editors. I'm pretty sure only one person in my department is able to edit other peoples articles and i'm sure it is frustrating for a lot of people.

Anyways apologises for my errors in the report and if I pass my news trial I hope I can help make the news department succeed again!



I agree there is a lack of personalisation in news reports and the news sections need to be used more. I'm going to do a news report on a fellow Habbo and I'm also currently planning a room review.

I think there should be a section in the forum available for everybody called 'News suggestions', where users can suggest an article to be written or even submit there own that can be posted!

Anyway the snapshot where the posts are distorted isn't our fault and I assumed it was just my browser. That seems like a problem with the site @xxmattgxx


You have nothing to be sorry for, and you are perfectly correct in terms that you are on trial and these things easily happen. :P As with most things in life its a learning process and you pick things up as you go along and blossom into an amazing reporter etc with help and guidance, which you should be getting- hopefully you've had a feedback PM etc? :)

I think a lot of the time reporting news is about investigation and finding things out for yourself, rather than having it all given to you on a plate 100% of the time, going out and looking for things is part of the fun haha! :) it also then helps your articles to be more unique and allows us to report on a variety of things.


Keep on at it, I admire your determination and willingness to try and improve things and I wish you the best of luck during your trial! :D (and I look forwards to reading your room review!) :)

- - - Updated - - -


http://static.someecards.com/someecards/usercards/MjAxMS05MmJkMzFkOTllNTU2Njlm.png

o,t; I agree with you. The news department is far from the best out there and has been like that ever since I joint Habbox (2 years in 3 weeks woo). I think they should just move to the forum or get more ideas to improve it (i dont even know if there is anything you can do now)!@!@!

- - - Updated - - -

http://www.tashload.com/Uploader/uploads//ItKQqOz.png

talking of errors hahaaa ;)


It's actually correct. Feedback for THIS year, Action plan for the new year ;)

[BigtimeRyan]

I would absolutely hate it if news was moved to the forum! It defeats the whole point of it. Not everybody's going to want to go to the forum to read news reports and it's a lot nicer and easier to edit from the main site.

Yes the news department misses a lot of reports but we only have a couple of people in our department it's very difficult..

[Aiden]

I would absolutely hate it if news was moved to the forum! It defeats the whole point of it. Not everybody's going to want to go to the forum to read news reports and it's a lot nicer and easier to edit from the main site.

Yes the news department misses a lot of reports but we only have a couple of people in our department it's very difficult..

Honestly how many people do you think even read these news reports? It could be loads but I highly doubt it.

[BigtimeRyan]

Oh and
http://prntscr.com/2bdohe
;)

[Martin]

Oh and
http://prntscr.com/2bdohe
;)

Now that's just being picky omg. I am not going to spell check my posts on the forum now pfft!!! Articles should be though. :P

[Kardan]

Honestly how many people do you think even read these news reports? It could be loads but I highly doubt it.

Because news is on the homepage, I'm sure they'd tell you the hits for Habbox.com, and claim that every person that visits the site also reads the news :P

[sex]

whoever the news manager is doesn't seem to be putting in the effort, maybe demote them?????

[BigtimeRyan]

whoever the news manager is doesn't seem to be putting in the effort, maybe demote them?????

Well Samanfa was but she just got promoted so she isn't as active in News department.

[sex]

Well Samanfa was but she just got promoted so she isn't as active in News department.

swear she got promoted like 2 days ago

[Samantha]

I will write more soon, but I'll say that currently there is no News Manager, we have 2 AGMs looking over the department with experience in it. However, as sex; said, I was promoted 5 days ago and I've been getting sorted for the Christmas activities as Bolt660; they will be beginning soon. I didn't know there was an article unedited on the site, otherwise I would have either sorted it out myself or asked Emily; to take a look at it.

There are a few points that I don't agree with currently, or that I think you've just missed as they are available on the site etc. but I will go over them soon!

[Martin]

I will write more soon, but I'll say that currently there is no News Manager, we have 2 AGMs looking over the department with experience in it. However, as @sex (http://www.habboxforum.com/member.php?u=101389); said, I was promoted 5 days ago and I've been getting sorted for the Christmas activities as @Bolt660 (http://www.habboxforum.com/member.php?u=55726); they will be beginning soon. I didn't know there was an article unedited on the site, otherwise I would have either sorted it out myself or asked @Emily (http://www.habboxforum.com/member.php?u=112570); to take a look at it.

There are a few points that I don't agree with currently, or that I think you've just missed as they are available on the site etc. but I will go over them soon!

Should head reporters not be checking each article anyway though rather than being asked to? It's been up there a few days now.

Also there are problems with articles on the majority of pages, not just recent ones either which makes me wonder just how closely they are actually monitored and how much feedback is given to reporters. I know nobody is perfect and mistakes will happen, but basic layout/format/image errors/problems are easy to spot as soon as you post the article so I'm not sure why they haven't been picked up on.

Glad to hear Christmas is starting soon and hopefully we'll see lots of advertising for it soon to get everyone excited and into the Christmas spirit! :D

[Chippiewill]

Bolt660 for news manager 2k14

[Samantha]

Staff numbers too low

It seems the same with a few department now and not just the News Department, I've noticed recently that others such as Events perhaps have also struggled, but where they have gained more members News has not. When I returned a few months ago there were less members then there are now and that's saying something, applications do come in and if they're good enough for the trial they receive one, but usually as soon as you get an increase in members then others begin to resign. This can be pushed of course and I think whoever does take over needs to take example from lawrawrrr; as she brought Content from just a couple of staff to more than a handful in about a week. It can be done, but I believe that it can be done by a manager - like I said above, when I was manager we gained members and the same will happen under another member.

I will go over about how Bolt660; said ask members back - I believe you were witness to this as I sent a PM asking them to return or offering them trials t about 20 people, one of which was you and one of our current members -:Undertaker:-;. Although it only got about 3 returning that's better than nothing and at least we still have one who brings that unique feel to Habbox again and brought back his own article!

Writing style

I don't fully agree with this, not the sloppy part, but saying we look like other Habbo fansites - we don't as I would be ashamed if I worked at their fansites as their SPAG is horrible, they don't write enough (I think some of their latest Habbo reports were in July, when Sulake says content should be up to date) etc. Now I have noticed that reports have gone down, and that can also be from various reasons - the staffing is an issue here too and it most likely will be for a lot of problems we're currently facing. Writing style can be different for everyone and we need to show that more as again you said bring back the featured articles (although this was before my time, I know where you're coming from).

SPAG

Like I said, I've currently been settling in and I know recently (not completely sure when), Emily has been enduring exams so I don't blame her if her focus isn't currently on Habbox. Rest assured this will be quicker in the future as now I have been made more aware of it. Luckily it wasn't the worst report I've ever seen and easily resolved. I have noticed this previously though that SPAG has been appalling - when I wasn't in the department it got to the point where I'd just go on the site just to see if X mistake had been changed.

Images

I agree with you, I've been a little lenient with some (such as sizing etc.) however, then again some just take the biscuit and need to be sorted out. We do have rules in place for images, although we need to clamp down on them further.

Motivation

Every time I send a PM I use CC, I inform them how it needed changing, why etc. and more often than not I'll tell them I enjoyed reading the report (which I do). However, if they're not writing reports for whatever reason then the only thing I can do is PM them and tell them they need to write which isn't the most positive thing to say although it's needed.

Comments

Comments are now more based, or trying to be based on the forum - I know on some reports (most actually) we write, about sharing your thoughts or just discussing it on the forum thread here and linking to it. This is a start, but more could be done - I know competitions worked this way and a lot got a good few entries, but a lot also can't access the site for whatever reason. Comments could be improved or driven more though if that's what people wanted.

Personalisation

See writing style.

Section of news

Articles don't get written much, but there's not that many who would want to write them currently. We don't really allow people just to write one type of news, unless it's Habbo based, but I would consider it under a new manager and they could drive the need of articles and such more.

Important news

This is a definite flaw at the moment and I fully agree with you! I used the urgent tag to get reports done and that didn't even happen (this was only used when I couldn't write the report immediately myself) and this could be linked to the motivation they have. I know I have asked Emily for one to write reports that were needed, the secret reports more, but I do agree with this. This can and will be improved I'm sure as there are many ways to improve motivation. I honestly don't think the editor helps, it's appalling to use and when it just decides to break that's the end of that.

Advertising

I've advertised a bit, there's always room for improvement, but advertising has got members to return. We have a Habbox Today banner, it still has Ryan on, but it still does its job. Forum wise advertising hasn't been that high, but like I said it can be improved.

Site or forum

Warming to the idea of having it on both, but this would help hits most probably and actually get members talking about the site.

Competitions

I do these, hence I had the News Competitions section made. It hasn't been used yet, but forum competitions have been done and they have been done previously. Prizes can be sorted and reporters can do them if they wish. I actually have rules/guidelines for competitions as well like making sure it's ok, how to set it out etc.

Interviews etc.

Not sure if you read the interview with Ediootti last month? I was rather happy with that! We also did get an interview from a semi famous player, which can be pushed again as that made News take a break from the sale old department manager interviews.

I think that will do for now!

[Martin]

Staff numbers too low

It seems the same with a few department now and not just the News Department, I've noticed recently that others such as Events perhaps have also struggled, but where they have gained more members News has not. When I returned a few months ago there were less members then there are now and that's saying something, applications do come in and if they're good enough for the trial they receive one, but usually as soon as you get an increase in members then others begin to resign. This can be pushed of course and I think whoever does take over needs to take example from @lawrawrrr (http://www.habboxforum.com/member.php?u=61966); as she brought Content from just a couple of staff to more than a handful in about a week. It can be done, but I believe that it can be done by a manager - like I said above, when I was manager we gained members and the same will happen under another member.

I will go over about how @Bolt660 (http://www.habboxforum.com/member.php?u=55726); said ask members back - I believe you were witness to this as I sent a PM asking them to return or offering them trials t about 20 people, one of which was you and one of our current members @-:Undertaker:- (http://www.habboxforum.com/member.php?u=24233);. Although it only got about 3 returning that's better than nothing and at least we still have one who brings that unique feel to Habbox again and brought back his own article!

Writing style

I don't fully agree with this, not the sloppy part, but saying we look like other Habbo fansites - we don't as I would be ashamed if I worked at their fansites as their SPAG is horrible, they don't write enough (I think some of their latest Habbo reports were in July, when Sulake says content should be up to date) etc. Now I have noticed that reports have gone down, and that can also be from various reasons - the staffing is an issue here too and it most likely will be for a lot of problems we're currently facing. Writing style can be different for everyone and we need to show that more as again you said bring back the featured articles (although this was before my time, I know where you're coming from).

SPAG

Like I said, I've currently been settling in and I know recently (not completely sure when), Emily has been enduring exams so I don't blame her if her focus isn't currently on Habbox. Rest assured this will be quicker in the future as now I have been made more aware of it. Luckily it wasn't the worst report I've ever seen and easily resolved. I have noticed this previously though that SPAG has been appalling - when I wasn't in the department it got to the point where I'd just go on the site just to see if X mistake had been changed.

Images

I agree with you, I've been a little lenient with some (such as sizing etc.) however, then again some just take the biscuit and need to be sorted out. We do have rules in place for images, although we need to clamp down on them further.

Motivation

Every time I send a PM I use CC, I inform them how it needed changing, why etc. and more often than not I'll tell them I enjoyed reading the report (which I do). However, if they're not writing reports for whatever reason then the only thing I can do is PM them and tell them they need to write which isn't the most positive thing to say although it's needed.

Comments

Comments are now more based, or trying to be based on the forum - I know on some reports (most actually) we write, about sharing your thoughts or just discussing it on the forum thread here and linking to it. This is a start, but more could be done - I know competitions worked this way and a lot got a good few entries, but a lot also can't access the site for whatever reason. Comments could be improved or driven more though if that's what people wanted.

Personalisation

See writing style.

Section of news

Articles don't get written much, but there's not that many who would want to write them currently. We don't really allow people just to write one type of news, unless it's Habbo based, but I would consider it under a new manager and they could drive the need of articles and such more.

Important news

This is a definite flaw at the moment and I fully agree with you! I used the urgent tag to get reports done and that didn't even happen (this was only used when I couldn't write the report immediately myself) and this could be linked to the motivation they have. I know I have asked Emily for one to write reports that were needed, the secret reports more, but I do agree with this. This can and will be improved I'm sure as there are many ways to improve motivation. I honestly don't think the editor helps, it's appalling to use and when it just decides to break that's the end of that.

Advertising

I've advertised a bit, there's always room for improvement, but advertising has got members to return. We have a Habbox Today banner, it still has Ryan on, but it still does its job. Forum wise advertising hasn't been that high, but like I said it can be improved.

Site or forum

Warming to the idea of having it on both, but this would help hits most probably and actually get members talking about the site.

Competitions

I do these, hence I had the News Competitions section made. It hasn't been used yet, but forum competitions have been done and they have been done previously. Prizes can be sorted and reporters can do them if they wish. I actually have rules/guidelines for competitions as well like making sure it's ok, how to set it out etc.

Interviews etc.

Not sure if you read the interview with Ediootti last month? I was rather happy with that! We also did get an interview from a semi famous player, which can be pushed again as that made News take a break from the sale old department manager interviews.

I think that will do for now!


I'm glad you agree with a few of the points and can see where I'm coming from haha! :) Just a couple of things that I think need clearing up:




News being on both the site and forum: Would this basically be the same as the old RSS feed thing which copied articles posted on the main site to a section on the forum?
Was the 'Ediotti' interview heavily advertised? Was there a CNB made for it etc and a big of promotion? Getting a staff interview is quite a big thing and so driving people to that article should have been high priority. I don't believe that article asked for comments/opinions etc or had any other content than question/answer.
The Competitions thing is good. Do you do them in News Articles themselves too via that way? In terms of using the comment feature etc, or at least making sure the actual instructions etc are in the article? If so how recently? :P
Featured news articles and use of the CNB would be really beneficial in my view. We used to have like 'Hot News' articles which we would really make a fuss of.
I think the overall look of articles is something which needs looking at as I've noticed a lot of differences in terms of structure. Like I kinda like the red bolded part at the bottom of articles, but if you do that I think you need to stick to it, and some don't have it at all, or have a different colour etc and it looks weird.



Just looking at November very quickly (not reading these in detail):

http://prntscr.com/2bef8o - spacing issues (needs a space after the first line) and encourages people to comment on the forum which is good but not on the actual article.
http://prntscr.com/2befmk - the layout of the image looks extremely messy, its way too large and takes up the whole page- there should be a restriction on this. No bolding at all in the article.
http://prntscr.com/2befw0 - small spacing issue on the bottom article (probs due to site messing up but should be able to edit it.
http://prntscr.com/2beg8v - a little short and plain. I have to say though that the other rare value ones are lovely in terms of layout so thats already improved.
http://prntscr.com/2begld - this is a better layout although perhaps the image could be somewhere else
http://prntscr.com/2begsu - top article- no bolding, no red bolded section, links do not work within the article (even when u click them) image a bit boring
http://prntscr.com/2beh57 - general structure
http://prntscr.com/2beh7w - image should be in a better place, no bolding, no red, no opening paragraph in bold- inconsistent with other articles on the page.
http://prntscr.com/2behf7 - image looks like it was created on a toaster rather than a computer, no red
http://prntscr.com/2behoz - no image at all, little basic
http://prntscr.com/2behwr - spacing/images
http://prntscr.com/2bei3s - red or blue bolded base line
http://prntscr.com/2bekai - couple of little mistakes, 'subsribe' etc


Didn't really read much into them but they are just things which stand out in general.


and I know what you mean Sam, and I thought your idea of PMing previous staff to return was a good one and did work! Whilst I'm here I want to say well done and thankyou to -:Undertaker:-; as your Weekly Rare Values articles are always a super interesting read and it's clear you put a lot of time and effort into writing them! :) Something unique which other fansites don't do which is fab!

[Samantha]

Some stuff:

The interview was meant to be heavily advertised, but I don't know why it wasn't.
Competitions I do/did on both forum and site, but not both together at the same time.
The list of edits, some of those were sorted or supposedly sorted and the one without an image was notified and was meant to add one - she did it on 2 articles so Charlie told her to add the other one to get her used to it.

Sorry it's a quick reply currently.

[Chippiewill]

Writing Style: The style of writing has become very sloppy and the majority of articles look very similar to those on Habbo/other fansites. Simply stating facts is not enough and is extremely boring to read- articles need opinions, creative structures and a more debated view on things. Reporters should be actively seeking opinions on the matter to gain public interest and a sense of personalisation within their articles.

A massive part of achieving this needs to be a distinction between news and editorial. In a news article you should be stating the facts and presenting a non-biased form of the news. In editorial a news reporter would be much free-er to present their own opinion and use anecdotal stuff. Importantly, like a newspaper, this would not be on the front page unlike this article: http://habbox.com/#!/News/article/2033


Quality Control: Ensure that articles are checked properly. The News Manager is ultimately responsible for this and when there are such basic spelling errors, and quality errors on the main site it does give an incredibly bad impression overall. Send out regular feedback PMs highlighting both negative issues that can be worked on, but also positive things too which other reporters could take note of. Praise is always good for motivation and sharing ideas works wonders.
I personally believe that all articles (Even those written by the manager) should be reviewed before being published by senior staff, it would help quality control severely. I understand in special cases news needs publishing instantly however if it's not urgent then let it be reviewed first.

[lucaskf390]

You said good ideas, but the problems about public to read are:

News are added here later if you compare to other fan sites.

Habbox main page, in my opinion need to be changed, that disgn doesnt help the news space.

News don't have images of new furnis, these images are there: http://habbox.com/#!/Newrares2, these images could be in news too. Furni images bring people to the site and make them comment about the furni.

[Nuxty]

I think Sam, with the limited resources she has had, has done a pretty good job. You have to remember previous management left the department in a slight mess, it's fair to say management in news wasn't that great earlier this year. Sam was on the road to sorting it but she has now moved on to bigger things at Habbox. There are three simple things that need to happen within the news department in order to get things back on track.

1) Sorting a department manager
2) Recruiting a decent team, getting some of the old reporters back
3) Ensuring staff are well trained and are aware of what is expected in terms of writing and presentation

The other problems indentified should begin to ease after those key things happen. I know because I've done it twice! Good luck to the news department.

[Aiden]

I just think the news should be based in the forum. More people will see it that way! Habbox is so #2011.

[Reality]

To be honest I didn't read all of this I skipped he last three points; I do feel some valid points have been made! The department isn't really strong and isn't going anywhere! Something needs to happen with the department in the new year!!

[Mark]

Can we not just call it quits with News and Rare Values and keep it all forum based? In my opinion what undertaker does by just c+p the news article with source is sufficient and only a small minority actually use the habbox values.

[FlyingJesus]

Writing Style: The style of writing has become very sloppy and the majority of articles look very similar to those on Habbo/other fansites. Simply stating facts is not enough and is extremely boring to read- articles need opinions, creative structures and a more debated view on things. Reporters should be actively seeking opinions on the matter to gain public interest and a sense of personalisation within their articles.

I personally disagree with staff writing their opinions in news as their job is literally to just give the basic facts. Opinions can/should be added later in discussions about the article, hence the need for forum-based news threads as has been said for many months now :P Totally agree that the writing style has been pretty sloppy in recent times, especially with regards to overusing bold in the middle of sentences


Images: The images lately haven't been all that great. I've seen blury, resized, messy images that really look bad and give out a crappy example. As mentioned before, these are on the front page of Habbox which means they need to look smart, professional, relevant and bold. They need to be the perfect compliment to the article and right now I'm seeing such poor quality images which then gives me the impression that Habbox is a poor quality fansite with poor quality staff.

Absolutely agree, and they ought also to be in some sort of defined positioning rather than strewn all over the page


Motivation: Are staff really being pushed enough to improve? How many PM's with guidelines for improvement are being offered? Something which I've always found special about the News Department is the ability for someone to grow and bloom into a great writer, and in the past one of the main comments I've received from staff within the department is how much they enjoy that chance to improve, get better and of course all of the compliments they then receive etc.

Are there any staff to motivate at the moment? :P But yeah these are supposedly people who like to write, but as you say there's no push for them to improve on that


Comments: Lack of comments seems to have been an issue for ages. Are people actually reading the news anymore? and if so, why is nobody commenting? I have some ideas to improve this within the 'suggestions for improvement' section, however more really needs to be done to expand the COMMUNITY side of news again. If you watch News programmes on the TV you will notice reporters going out to local events, interacting with the community and making it a more united feel, rather than solid reporting of events. This is particularly important at Habbox as we really are a community driven fansite.

Getting the wider community involved is essential is all of the departments tbh. Not sure why the "READ MORE AND COMMENT" link is even still there, it's just a distraction from any potential for actual discussion and the lack of comments done through it makes the site look barren and unused


Advertising and promotion: I never see news mentioned/advertised around Habbox anymore. I don't see many News related signatures- we used to have lovely ones linking to the latest article etc which was nice. Big articles relating to big events on Habbo should be publicised like crazy, get people reading again and they'll come back for more. More competitions linking to news needs to be done- competitions within articles themselves on the front page too- this used to happen but I haven't seen it in absolutely ages.

Absolutely right. It's as though News is now its own separate little island with nothing to do with the rest of Habbox, and clearly that isn't working


Whether news should remain on site or be forum based: This depends on how V7 (LOL) has been set up really and whether space has been included for News etc, so I guess a member of the wonderful limey brigade could comment on this. There seems to be a debate about where news should be and it's entire purpose etc so perhaps that could be discussed in this thread at greater detail?

Don't worry V7 is coming soon


Staff Involvement: Get staff doing other things other than just writing News Articles about Habbo News. Get them being interative with the community, get them talking to people about the news and gathering opinions. Get staff running little News Based competitions and weekly promotions for news. Do a weekly '___ of the week' etc, or a roundup of that weeks important Habbo events in like a summarised, easy to read article.

YES PLEASE


Competitions: As mentioned before, do competitions on the main site, put them in an article and get people to answer via the comments. Once people START using the comments feature on the main site they may be more intended to use it in the future too, and once people see a high number of comments it gives a good impression that the community is still alive. These can be both creative and quiz type competitions, get people doing creative writing, christmas poems- all sorts!

Again yes please, I think nearly all of the current departments could use comps more to get people interested and involved


Interviews with Staff: Linking on from that, perhaps secure some little interesting interviews with staff and 'famous' Habbo people. People will love to read these and find out gossip etc. Make news less fact based and more a community thing where people can come for gossip, and to see what the general opinion on something is.

This would be nice to see, even if it's just managers talking about their current projects or whatever


I hate how these days everything is left until the last minute and the community arent given a chance to prepare, get excited and motivated for stuff etc, it turns out to be a real damp squid! (idk if thats a saying or not LOL), but yeah shout out about the good stuff that Habbox does I guess!!

Damp squib :P as in an explosive that won't set off. But yeah there's a lot that gets rushed at the moment with minimal advertising and no care taken in getting the community riled up

[Kardan]

I'm not entirely sure what's wrong with bolding random words in the middle of sentences. It certainly adds some depth to the articles, and makes it a brilliant read!!!11
http://www.habbox.com/assets/images//2012/09/02/Coktu.png
What do you think about the news department?
Let us know by clicking 'Read more & comment'

[lucaskf390]

Can we not just call it quits with News and Rare Values and keep it all forum based? In my opinion what undertaker does by just c+p the news article with source is sufficient and only a small minority actually use the habbox values.
Too easy to say to quit, what about work to improve what's there?

[Mark]

Too easy to say to quit, what about work to improve what's there?

You need to ask yourself whether that work will improve anything. Certainly for the rare values department it's highly unlikely as people use the marketplace

[OldLoveSong]

well said martin !

[Grig]

I had a drawn out debate with Samanfa over promoting news and the fact that for festive events, there were events created that had 0 relation to news and didn't promote news at all.

I've stated this problems extensively myself in previous threads and the fact that it's simply become way too much of a snooze fest in terms of articles. Many of them are not unique, and there are some talented writers like Dan, so it's a shame standards can't be maintained throughout. This is particularly the case when the department is not big AND you have a Head, which I disagree is needed for such few staff.

Forum integration is long overdue, if you can't get significant improvements of news comments and engagement on the main site, then that is a plausible choice.

There are less unique articles, apart from ones Dan does on trading every now and again and many less features, which are more interesting. That is essentially what papers such as the New York Times does, because unless you are first to break a story or get some unreleased furniture, then you need to focus on a longer feature. Take a big news story and focus it down, go to the backstory, get some analysis etc.

Obviously coherency and SPAG is another issue and I do not understand how a manager with a senior at hand cannot fix these efficiency, seeing as I know for a fact that these do not take a prolonged amount of time to do so. It either shows laziness or people simply being awol and not being on top quickly and efficiently.

It in my view is probably the weakest link at Habbox at the moment and hopefully things are done to rectify the situation, because at the end of the day this is plastered right on the homepage of www.habbox.com and with boring articles and errors, that does not reflect well on the professionalism of Habbox as a whole.

[Mr-Trainor]

Can we not just call it quits with News and Rare Values and keep it all forum based? In my opinion what undertaker does by just c+p the news article with source is sufficient and only a small minority actually use the habbox values.


You need to ask yourself whether that work will improve anything. Certainly for the rare values department it's highly unlikely as people use the marketplace
We had a survey recently and actually the results say the opposite. People do still use Habbox for Rare Values, and it holds a lot more information than Habbo's marketplace does. You might not use it, but a lot of people still do - even if it's not as many as it would have been prior to the merge.

Having said that, I have suggested plans to downsize the department and the Rare Values section on Habbox, should that need to happen, as opposed to just closing which would be a very bad decision in my opinion.

As for News, I think it needs a manager ASAP. I know it was mentioned that 2 AGMs are looking over the department, but that's not enough. You need someone who will be there and be able to focus solely on news. Obviously I'm sure you're planning to do that anyway, but I'm just saying it should be done as soon as possible :P.

[lawrawrrr]

I have some really strong opinions about News but I've spouted them so many times and noone listens to me :(

Unfortunately, I think that you can make the articles perfect, up to date and fantastic, and still people won't read them. It's just too easy to find news on this forum, let alone Habbo itself. The only things that make the department truly outstanding are the interviews with staff, which 90% of News Reporters don't and/or won't have the dedication and drive to get to, and the weekly or bigger ones, like when I did Day In The Life of, maze reviews, Undertaker's Rare Values thing etc.

But honestly, I feel like that department could really easily be merged into another role - or it at least needs to be taken in a different direction as at the moment, it kind of feels like a useless ship that's being sailed. Being (Assistant) News Manager last year really solidified that view for me and I just got so frustrated there was almost nothing I was able to do that would improve the department.

By all means, improve the quality of writing, but when you're struggling for staff (what, 2 staff and a few trialists at the moment?), and have been for a good few years, I don't think there's much you can actually achieve, without drastically changing it. I'd love to see when V7 comes out, and how things will change then, as it might really bring around a new opportunity for News. Sounds like the horrible "oh wait till then" excuse again, but I genuinely think that it would make a difference.

[Inseriousity.]

Merge it with content again lolol. The reason that failed was two managers unable to see eye to eye (oh and Matt undermining it and allowing a protest to form by putting it on a 'trial' which is almost like sticking a KICK ME sign on its back).

I think Laura's right, they could be award-winning masterpieces and it's unlikely to get noticed. I think the competitions/events thing can help and I was constantly pushing for that back when I was competitions manager! Ideally, it'd be linked to the department but I think the exposure and getting the name out there can be just as useful and is certainly better than nothing so I disagree with Grig on that point. I also tried to push for a more investigative approach but again like Laura says it's hard to find people with that drive to do that.

[Grig]

Merge it with content again lolol. The reason that failed was two managers unable to see eye to eye (oh and Matt undermining it and allowing a protest to form by putting it on a 'trial' which is almost like sticking a KICK ME sign on its back).

I think Laura's right, they could be award-winning masterpieces and it's unlikely to get noticed. I think the competitions/events thing can help and I was constantly pushing for that back when I was competitions manager! Ideally, it'd be linked to the department but I think the exposure and getting the name out there can be just as useful and is certainly better than nothing so I disagree with Grig on that point. I also tried to push for a more investigative approach but again like Laura says it's hard to find people with that drive to do that.

I never disagreed on exposure, so you can't disagree with me! The features stuff I added as one of the small ways forward (not the full focus) after an initial shake up.

[Inseriousity.]

Was refering to this:

"for festive events, there were events created that had 0 relation to news and didn't promote news at all."

Now perhaps advertising news in said events coulda been better I haven't been to them all but yes I don't think it necessarily has to link to the department to be good exposure if its done properly.

[lawrawrrr]

Merge it with content again lolol. The reason that failed was two managers unable to see eye to eye (oh and Matt undermining it and allowing a protest to form by putting it on a 'trial' which is almost like sticking a KICK ME sign on its back).

You couldn't merge News and Content if News stays like it is really, too different. I feel really power-hungry saying this, but with hefty experience managing and being staff for a considerable amount of time in both departments I really feel like I have a good way to get the two together and I'd like the chance to at least feel like I can put across an idea without getting it shot down straight away as is my general expectation when it comes to trying new things. I've been breaching it to a few people and have actually had some positive responses, so I might start formulating a proper plan for it later and see how that goes down.


I think Laura's right

I think that's the first time you've ever said that


, they could be award-winning masterpieces and it's unlikely to get noticed. I think the competitions/events thing can help and I was constantly pushing for that back when I was competitions manager! Ideally, it'd be linked to the department but I think the exposure and getting the name out there can be just as useful and is certainly better than nothing so I disagree with Grig on that point. I also tried to push for a more investigative approach but again like Laura says it's hard to find people with that drive to do that.

There are only 4 or 5 people I can think of, since I've been in News (so erm January 2010) who actually fit into that brief, and even less so who would be willing to do it on a regular basis. Thing is, people don't want to read Habbox news articles, so why would people want to write them? It's the same problem amongst other departments too - people see few attendees at Habbox Events, so they don't want to join the department, see only a few listeners and don't want to DJ at HxL etc etc. It would be fantastic if we could get a proper, good, journalistic team together, but it takes a) a lot of drive to be at that standard and b) time to get used to it. Which aren't really two qualities I've found the majority of Habbo players have!

- - - Updated - - -




Now perhaps advertising news in said events coulda been better I haven't been to them all but yes I don't think it necessarily has to link to the department to be good exposure if its done properly.

The problem I always found with this is what are you supposed to do?

OMG READ THIS ARTICLE ABOUT THIS CHANGE THAT YOU ACTUALLY ALREADY KNEW ABOUT

and THAT is why we need more different pieces, or to change the system. People don't want to be told things they already know!

[Inseriousity.]

If there was more of an articles-based approach it might be better so advertising dan's rare values piece to a room of traders is more likely to have an impact for example. threads on Habbo on the forum can create huge debate so if a news reporter was to dig a little deeper with their stories then perhaps that could evoke the same response.

[CrazyLemurs]

When she was News Manager and not AGM, Sam asked me if I'd like to return
My biggest problem is that I have to report Habbo news; this does not exist
There are few things we can report on that Habbo themselves (or other fansites) haven't already told people, and I feel I'd either be repeating the same information unnecessarily or pretending I've found out some amazing scandal
She wouldn't let me be real life news only so I had to say no
Although I can't see who can manage it atm

[lawrawrrr]

When she was News Manager and not AGM, Sam asked me if I'd like to return
My biggest problem is that I have to report Habbo news; this does not exist
There are few things we can report on that Habbo themselves (or other fansites) haven't already told people, and I feel I'd either be repeating the same information unnecessarily or pretending I've found out some amazing scandal
She wouldn't let me be real life news only so I had to say no
Although I can't see who can manage it atm

This is exactly why I feel like the News Department as it is cannot work.

Sam also asked me to return, and I thought about it, but I just... like my work being noticed and I guarantee that most News articles wouldn't. There are some things I'd really like to see done again or worked on but yeah. It's hard, I love that department, spent the most time in it and desperately don't want to see it fail but there's so little pathway for it right now :/

[Mark]

We had a survey recently and actually the results say the opposite. People do still use Habbox for Rare Values, and it holds a lot more information than Habbo's marketplace does. You might not use it, but a lot of people still do - even if it's not as many as it would have been prior to the merge.

Having said that, I have suggested plans to downsize the department and the Rare Values section on Habbox, should that need to happen, as opposed to just closing which would be a very bad decision in my opinion.

As for News, I think it needs a manager ASAP. I know it was mentioned that 2 AGMs are looking over the department, but that's not enough. You need someone who will be there and be able to focus solely on news. Obviously I'm sure you're planning to do that anyway, but I'm just saying it should be done as soon as possible :P.

Ah fair enough, didn't know those were the results of the survey. That being the case I think something does need to be done about News. I like Laura's idea of downsizing or merging.

[lawrawrrr]

If people are genuinely interested I could mock a plan together and put it across on here?

[Samantha]

If people are genuinely interested I could mock a plan together and put it across on here?

I'm somewhat interested, I spoke to you on Skype about how I put a report telling people that if they needed Advent help then to click this link and discuss it on the forum. I wasn't looking for comments on it, but I think it helped (and got some) with people agreeing to look etc.

That could be the step forward too, although I still believe that a lot of our reports (when I was a normal News Reporter I did ones mainly that weren't anywhere else) to ensure people knew what was happening. However, places like HFFM, HabbCrazy etc. are a lot worse than our News at its current state and I will admit that is saying something. I do agree a manager will be needed as it needs bringing back up, I attempted it, but there's only so much you can do which I tried doing (for example not leaving 6 days without a report etc.) I'm not saying I was perfect in the role, but a fresh face could work wonders.

[Lewis]

I stopped reading news as soon as the horrendous new version of the main site came (no offense). Before that, I loved reading news and well, I can't comment on the standard of current news.

Even though it doesn't really have anything to do with this thread but well, kind of does... Either bring the news to the forum or fix the laggy and horrible main site (maybe the lag is just me, but the old one never lagged) and I'll probably begin reading it.

[Mr-Trainor]

I stopped reading news as soon as the horrendous new version of the main site came (no offense). Before that, I loved reading news and well, I can't comment on the standard of current news.

Even though it doesn't really have anything to do with this thread but well, kind of does... Either bring the news to the forum or fix the laggy and horrible main site (maybe the lag is just me, but the old one never lagged) and I'll probably begin reading it.
It lags for me too sometimes, particularly with the snow as much as I love it :(.

[lawrawrrr]

Oh god I hate the main site more than anything and it does not help with News at all!

[Martin]

Oh god I hate the main site more than anything and it does not help with News at all!

Agreed, Joomla ftw!! :'(

I remember the cute little Habbox Today notices we used to do down the site for special events that were happening in departments etc, and each manager had to do one per week on set days etc (News was Thursdays I believe) and we had to make sure that colour hadn't already been used etc LOL SUCH FUN

[lawrawrrr]

Agreed, Joomla ftw!! :'(

I remember the cute little Habbox Today notices we used to do down the site for special events that were happening in departments etc, and each manager had to do one per week on set days etc (News was Thursdays I believe) and we had to make sure that colour hadn't already been used etc LOL SUCH FUN

omfg yes

that was only like in my first couple of weeks/months of being staff but i so remember it :')

but not joomla WORDPRESS FOR THE WIN BRING ON VERSION SEVENNNN

[Martin]

omfg yes

that was only like in my first couple of weeks/months of being staff but i so remember it :')

but not joomla WORDPRESS FOR THE WIN BRING ON VERSION SEVENNNN


I only like Joomla because the admin panel on the main site was the first thing I ever actually understood/was able to do techie wise LOL

aww yay! :D Yeah it's easy to remember haha, was like the main source of finding out whats coming up at Habbox which got people more excited about stuff and kind of prepared the community for whats to come. These days you're lucky if you hear about it before it begins and its just thrown at you without any hype.

[Martin]

The latest furniture on Habbo 'Santas workshop' includes that barrel thing you can buy and wear (to pretend to be a barrel)

I see no mention of this on the main site/news, and this is something I actually looked on Habbox.com for to see where I could get the barrel as I wanted it!! :P I ended up having to ask around, when having little things like that explained would be hugely beneficial and people might actually start reading stuff if its current.

Think you need an article on the new furni ASAP.

[Yawn]

never heard of it in my life

[Martin]

So many things seem to be going unreported at the moment.

New HC Club Furni

The Habbo advent calendar quests could be reported on....

There's even a completely new beta interface


A quick look in the Habbo section on the forum seems to throw up a LOT of things over the past month which have been missed etc.


Things like this need to be reported on in the quickest time possible to ensure that Habbox.com is up to date. People may not think so, but keeping Habbox.com up to date is extremely important because you're doing all these events to get people to the site, yet when they get there they're seeing stuff which is days out of date rather than what's actually currently happening on the hotel. For Habbo's number one fansite it does look bad when things like this aren't picked up on quickly- even if it means management stepping in and writing them or something.

[MKR&*42]

So many things seem to be going unreported at the moment.

New HC Club Furni

The Habbo advent calendar quests could be reported on....

There's even a completely new beta interface


A quick look in the Habbo section on the forum seems to throw up a LOT of things over the past month which have been missed etc.


Things like this need to be reported on in the quickest time possible to ensure that Habbox.com is up to date. People may not think so, but keeping Habbox.com up to date is extremely important because you're doing all these events to get people to the site, yet when they get there they're seeing stuff which is days out of date rather than what's actually currently happening on the hotel. For Habbo's number one fansite it does look bad when things like this aren't picked up on quickly- even if it means management stepping in and writing them or something.

Sam did an article on that and mentioned the help thread on the forum n all dat

[Martin]

Sam did an article on that and mentioned the help thread on the forum n all dat

Even so, that was a while ago like at the start of the month and its no longer on the front page, and this is something which is happening daily. Updates could be posted on the main site too, like quick overview of the past few days quests etc, couple of nice images- just to capture the kind of things that are actually going on at the moment. Linking to a thread on the forum is all okay, but it would be nice to have the content on the site too. Anything which throws up a chance to get new refreshing content onto the site should be a positive thing.

A lot of the time its the three articles on the front page that should reflect what's currently happening etc. Would be nice to see an article about the new userface as priority and the new club furni changes etc.

[Martin]

Just a quick update on where things are at:

I've seen a couple of improvements in the news department over the past couple of months, the main one being the introduction of the wonderful badge guides. Kudos to @lRhyss (http://www.habboxforum.com/member.php?u=74041); for doing these as they really are very informative, something unique and I can tell a lot of effort has been put into creating them! We haven't seen one for nearly 2 weeks but hopefully there will be more to come! The Rare Values weekly article is still going strong too and @-:Undertaker:- (http://www.habboxforum.com/member.php?u=24233); always does a wonderful job with these.

Things like this are wonderful because its something a little different to what News is used to, its more feature based and I think it has the potential to interest people a lot more than a standard article would. I think its a shame these haven't been given more promotion. Personally I think things like this could be mentioned on the forum possibly in the cnb or similar since its a regular permanent article which could become a solid read for people each week.

News can be VERY community based, its just not realised half the time and the interaction isn't there. More involvement with the community needs to be achieved in order for news to gain more readers. News Reporting itself can be very community driven, afterall it is news about the community for the community and I think the writing is more appealing when its done on a more personal level in which people will relate to.


Looking back on my original opinions of the standard of the articles, I would say there have been some minor improvements, but things are still a little sloppy sometimes. The images are often of a really bad quality which is not what we want to see on the main page of our fansite, there seems to be no consistency in styling, random things being bolded here and there, different colours being thrown in and the format just doesn't always sit well for me personally.

Still a LOT of things not being reported at all. This is particularly a shame as when big changes/events on the hotel aren't reported it makes Habbox News feel extremely outdated, and I think people only tend to support a service when its fully up to date and feels fresh. 24 hours used to be seen as horrific if an article was missed, so the fact things are being missed completely is a real shame. There was recently a long period (14th - 22nd) this month where nothing new was added to the front page. Considering we are supposed to be one of the main fansites, and considering news plays a huge part of the front page of Habbox.com you should treat it as an upmost priority to ensure it

a) Looks fanstastic, streamline and appealing to the eye whilst being readable and that images are catchy to draw attention
b) connects with the Habbo Community
c) Is Interactive, via opinions, quotes, competitions and fun stuff
d) Is bang up to date with the latest changes, events, promotions, competitions and goings ons in the hotel


You currently only have four staff, which seems incredibly low for a department like this, and when people are posting away etc you have hardly anyone remaining, I think there needs to be some sort of encouragement to drive people to want to be news reporters (hell I would jump at the chance to report news again if I wasn't in habbox prison), because people need to have a passion for it and be proud of seeing their work on the front page of such a prominent fansite. Back in 2010 the staff number was around the 10-16 mark which is obviously a lot higher and allows the workload to be spread evenly whilst ensuring everything is as up to date as possible. News Reporters need encouragement, need praise for the good things they do and its all about shaping them into becoming excellent writers and most importantly they need to enjoy it and understand the creativity of it all. The style of writing plays a huge part as to the entire perception of the news department and whether people will actually bother to come back and read more news.


The last room review was posted on the 27th September, I think more could potentially be done with this, get involved with the big players on habbo, promote their room, create links with Habbox and everyone wins! My reporters used to really enjoy writing up room reviews, and I think the thing that lets most creative things like this down is lack of advertising and alerting the community (but this is the case for most things at Habbox these days sadly) there seems to be no enthusiasm, no "oompf" anymore and yeah.

Real Life news and 'Articles' may as well be scrapped because I think right now the focus NEEDS to be on the Habbo news, as this is what is being missed out and is letting the entire department down. There is obviously a set minimum which needs to be achieved and I feel this should be punched into Habbo news until the flow is stable enough again to allow other things to take place. The sections definitely need looking into, because again they just look stale and old when nothing is posted in them for weeks/months/years.



I think the big question on peoples minds is; "Is the News Department really worthwhile anymore?" and that is something which could be answered in a lot of ways really. I've heard a lot of people say "Well it hasn't really been given chance" and I think this is right in some ways. There are a few suggestions in the first post of this thread, and I haven't seen that many of them put into action yet.


I take it people are able to register again to Habbox.com now in order to post comments on articles? I know last year there was a problem in that nobody new could sign up/ therefore post comments. I think something interactive like that needs to be available on the site and it's just not there. You want interaction, you want news themed competitions, you want good looking articles which are unique and different from the rest and if they are kept up to date then it makes the service far more viable and people might actually start using it and becoming interested in the main site again.


Personally I think news can survive, it just needs looking at more closely and there needs to be some passion put into it rather than it being neglected which really doesn't help things. What are everyone's thoughts?

[lRhyss]

Just a quick update on where things are at:

I've seen a couple of improvements in the news department over the past couple of months, the main one being the introduction of the wonderful badge guides. Kudos to @lRhyss (http://www.habboxforum.com/member.php?u=74041); for doing these as they really are very informative, something unique and I can tell a lot of effort has been put into creating them! We haven't seen one for nearly 2 weeks but hopefully there will be more to come! The Rare Values weekly article is still going strong too and @-:Undertaker:- (http://www.habboxforum.com/member.php?u=24233); always does a wonderful job with these.

Things like this are wonderful because its something a little different to what News is used to, its more feature based and I think it has the potential to interest people a lot more than a standard article would. I think its a shame these haven't been given more promotion. Personally I think things like this could be mentioned on the forum possibly in the cnb or similar since its a regular permanent article which could become a solid read for people each week.

News can be VERY community based, its just not realised half the time and the interaction isn't there. More involvement with the community needs to be achieved in order for news to gain more readers. News Reporting itself can be very community driven, afterall it is news about the community for the community and I think the writing is more appealing when its done on a more personal level in which people will relate to.


Looking back on my original opinions of the standard of the articles, I would say there have been some minor improvements, but things are still a little sloppy sometimes. The images are often of a really bad quality which is not what we want to see on the main page of our fansite, there seems to be no consistency in styling, random things being bolded here and there, different colours being thrown in and the format just doesn't always sit well for me personally.

Still a LOT of things not being reported at all. This is particularly a shame as when big changes/events on the hotel aren't reported it makes Habbox News feel extremely outdated, and I think people only tend to support a service when its fully up to date and feels fresh. 24 hours used to be seen as horrific if an article was missed, so the fact things are being missed completely is a real shame. There was recently a long period (14th - 22nd) this month where nothing new was added to the front page. Considering we are supposed to be one of the main fansites, and considering news plays a huge part of the front page of Habbox.com you should treat it as an upmost priority to ensure it

a) Looks fanstastic, streamline and appealing to the eye whilst being readable and that images are catchy to draw attention
b) connects with the Habbo Community
c) Is Interactive, via opinions, quotes, competitions and fun stuff
d) Is bang up to date with the latest changes, events, promotions, competitions and goings ons in the hotel


You currently only have four staff, which seems incredibly low for a department like this, and when people are posting away etc you have hardly anyone remaining, I think there needs to be some sort of encouragement to drive people to want to be news reporters (hell I would jump at the chance to report news again if I wasn't in habbox prison), because people need to have a passion for it and be proud of seeing their work on the front page of such a prominent fansite. Back in 2010 the staff number was around the 10-16 mark which is obviously a lot higher and allows the workload to be spread evenly whilst ensuring everything is as up to date as possible. News Reporters need encouragement, need praise for the good things they do and its all about shaping them into becoming excellent writers and most importantly they need to enjoy it and understand the creativity of it all. The style of writing plays a huge part as to the entire perception of the news department and whether people will actually bother to come back and read more news.


The last room review was posted on the 27th September, I think more could potentially be done with this, get involved with the big players on habbo, promote their room, create links with Habbox and everyone wins! My reporters used to really enjoy writing up room reviews, and I think the thing that lets most creative things like this down is lack of advertising and alerting the community (but this is the case for most things at Habbox these days sadly) there seems to be no enthusiasm, no "oompf" anymore and yeah.

Real Life news and 'Articles' may as well be scrapped because I think right now the focus NEEDS to be on the Habbo news, as this is what is being missed out and is letting the entire department down. There is obviously a set minimum which needs to be achieved and I feel this should be punched into Habbo news until the flow is stable enough again to allow other things to take place. The sections definitely need looking into, because again they just look stale and old when nothing is posted in them for weeks/months/years.



I think the big question on peoples minds is; "Is the News Department really worthwhile anymore?" and that is something which could be answered in a lot of ways really. I've heard a lot of people say "Well it hasn't really been given chance" and I think this is right in some ways. There are a few suggestions in the first post of this thread, and I haven't seen that many of them put into action yet.


I take it people are able to register again to Habbox.com now in order to post comments on articles? I know last year there was a problem in that nobody new could sign up/ therefore post comments. I think something interactive like that needs to be available on the site and it's just not there. You want interaction, you want news themed competitions, you want good looking articles which are unique and different from the rest and if they are kept up to date then it makes the service far more viable and people might actually start using it and becoming interested in the main site again.


Personally I think news can survive, it just needs looking at more closely and there needs to be some passion put into it rather than it being neglected which really doesn't help things. What are everyone's thoughts?

Yeah I've been buried under a pile of assignments to do and redo because my tutor got like 4 of the briefs wrong and things needed to be added/removed/changed :[

They'll be back next time a new badge is out, I promise :D

[e5]

Just a quick update on where things are at:

I've seen a couple of improvements in the news department over the past couple of months, the main one being the introduction of the wonderful badge guides

Introduction? :P

We used to have one but it was a flop, but rhyss' is alot better as it's shown in the front page but think it is more effective when posted on the forum

[Martin]

Introduction? :P

We used to have one but it was a flop, but rhyss' is alot better as it's shown in the front page but think it is more effective when posted on the forum

Introduction of a GOOD one then ;)

I think the thing which makes them stand out is the fact its been made more of a feature, with its own cute little banner, and it has a really good structure etc. Interactive things like this always seem really appealing to more people and they can be extremely useful. I think Rhyss has done an absolutely amazing job with them, just wish they were given more publicity and stuff as its little things like that which can stand out and get people interested in Habbox. xD

[FlyingJesus]

Not gonna reply to everything but some of these are rather important



News can be VERY community based, its just not realised half the time and the interaction isn't there. More involvement with the community needs to be achieved in order for news to gain more readers. News Reporting itself can be very community driven, afterall it is news about the community for the community and I think the writing is more appealing when its done on a more personal level in which people will relate to.

100% yes this has been a huge problem for years and management has clearly known but done nothing about it. It's absolutely ludicrous that we have this forum community that news has seemingly no desire to count as its readership or as a casual writing resource. The very simple fact is that no-one thinks to themselves "oh I wonder what's going on in the world today, best pop over to Habbox" but the news team don't seem willing to spend an extra 2 minutes putting their work somewhere that people will actually see it


You currently only have four staff, which seems incredibly low for a department like this, and when people are posting away etc you have hardly anyone remaining, I think there needs to be some sort of encouragement to drive people to want to be news reporters (hell I would jump at the chance to report news again if I wasn't in habbox prison), because people need to have a passion for it and be proud of seeing their work on the front page of such a prominent fansite. Back in 2010 the staff number was around the 10-16 mark which is obviously a lot higher and allows the workload to be spread evenly whilst ensuring everything is as up to date as possible. News Reporters need encouragement, need praise for the good things they do and its all about shaping them into becoming excellent writers and most importantly they need to enjoy it and understand the creativity of it all. The style of writing plays a huge part as to the entire perception of the news department and whether people will actually bother to come back and read more news.

I know Habbox is against having guest staff for some unknown reason but let's face it there are plenty of people around who wouldn't mind doing an article every now and then as long as they're not forced into it on a regular level and that ought to be picked up on by management. It would not only encourage but ensure community involvement, the number and variation of articles would be improved, and since the pitiful amount of staff we currently have aren't always even making themselves available to do the work they've signed up for there is literally nothing to lose and everything to gain


Real Life news and 'Articles' may as well be scrapped because I think right now the focus NEEDS to be on the Habbo news, as this is what is being missed out and is letting the entire department down. There is obviously a set minimum which needs to be achieved and I feel this should be punched into Habbo news until the flow is stable enough again to allow other things to take place. The sections definitely need looking into, because again they just look stale and old when nothing is posted in them for weeks/months/years.

Dividing news into sections when there's so little of it is daft and makes it look even more sparse. It's like when people set up a forum and have 50 sections but only 3 posts


I think the big question on peoples minds is; "Is the News Department really worthwhile anymore?" and that is something which could be answered in a lot of ways really. I've heard a lot of people say "Well it hasn't really been given chance" and I think this is right in some ways. There are a few suggestions in the first post of this thread, and I haven't seen that many of them put into action yet.

News and articles have in some way been around ever since I've been on the forum if not long before so it certainly has been given a chance :P lots needs to change if it's going to still be able to claim that it's worth keeping


I take it people are able to register again to Habbox.com now in order to post comments on articles? I know last year there was a problem in that nobody new could sign up/ therefore post comments. I think something interactive like that needs to be available on the site and it's just not there. You want interaction, you want news themed competitions, you want good looking articles which are unique and different from the rest and if they are kept up to date then it makes the service far more viable and people might actually start using it and becoming interested in the main site again.

The problem is that having separate site and forum accounts splits membership when we should be trying to interlink it all. Trying to force commenting in an area that doesn't require it when there's already a huge place here specifically for the purpose of discussion seems utterly pointless. I don't know why news managers find it so difficult to understand forum integration but it would be one of the most genuinely simple and effective things to do without being a burden to anyone. All that needs to do be done is post an article as they usually would and then have a thread like
http://i.imgur.com/inqOFG4.png
really boggles the mind how that is seen as difficult

[Inseriousity.]

The improvement in the department definitely fluctuates. One minute you think you've finally made some progress, some other issue will crop up you need to deal with. A lot of news is being missed but that is expected thanks to the small size of the team. It seems to be a cycle of replenishment rather than building a strong solid team which can be quite disheartening. Get new members, old ones leave so it balances out and you're back at square 1. It needs a manager who has the time and energy to put 110% effort into it to turn it around so that's why I had to leave. This seems to be a recurring problem across all departments though and perhaps a symptom of a wider Habbox problem that isn't being addressed properly by general management.

I agree with community involvement. The weekest link was one attempt at that (could be improved or replaced with a more 'open' weekly event), introducing more weekly articles, anything to get people involved and give news something to advertise. The 'big' idea I wanted to put in place was something like Habbo pollsters finding out opinions of regular Habbos, feeding back to management and campaigns directed around those issues, sorta like a Habbox campaigner (even more so now uservoice has gone).

Rhys' badge guides are definitely a good feature. Glad he joined the team.

[Martin]

Not gonna reply to everything but some of these are rather important




100% yes this has been a huge problem for years and management has clearly known but done nothing about it. It's absolutely ludicrous that we have this forum community that news has seemingly no desire to count as its readership or as a casual writing resource. The very simple fact is that no-one thinks to themselves "oh I wonder what's going on in the world today, best pop over to Habbox" but the news team don't seem willing to spend an extra 2 minutes putting their work somewhere that people will actually see it



I know Habbox is against having guest staff for some unknown reason but let's face it there are plenty of people around who wouldn't mind doing an article every now and then as long as they're not forced into it on a regular level and that ought to be picked up on by management. It would not only encourage but ensure community involvement, the number and variation of articles would be improved, and since the pitiful amount of staff we currently have aren't always even making themselves available to do the work they've signed up for there is literally nothing to lose and everything to gain



Dividing news into sections when there's so little of it is daft and makes it look even more sparse. It's like when people set up a forum and have 50 sections but only 3 posts



News and articles have in some way been around ever since I've been on the forum if not long before so it certainly has been given a chance :P lots needs to change if it's going to still be able to claim that it's worth keeping



The problem is that having separate site and forum accounts splits membership when we should be trying to interlink it all. Trying to force commenting in an area that doesn't require it when there's already a huge place here specifically for the purpose of discussion seems utterly pointless. I don't know why news managers find it so difficult to understand forum integration but it would be one of the most genuinely simple and effective things to do without being a burden to anyone. All that needs to do be done is post an article as they usually would and then have a thread like
http://i.imgur.com/inqOFG4.png
really boggles the mind how that is seen as difficult

Completely agree with everything you have said there :)

As for the last part, when I was first news manager in 2009 we had a system which would copy any news article posted into a special section on the forum under news.

Infact if you look at the online users in the past 24 hours list you will notice that a member called "53898" is always online, and this is infact an rss feed/robot of news that was posted on the main site.

http://www.habboxforum.com/member.php?u=53898



So I'm guessing the news/forum intergration thing would be similar to that, except news reporters would create a thread each time they create an article?

[Inseriousity.]

I was against 'guest staff' at events dept (the nature of that department means it'd be difficult to manage a set of guests/regular staff effectively) but I did suggest to skynus to scrap minimums in the news department. His response was that he'd consider it when staff were hitting their minimums which was the whole reason I suggested scrapping them in the first place! As for the forum, I would say that news in its current state is behind the forum so if news was put on the forum, it'd be more prudent to just scrap the news team altogether which would be a possible course of action if the big space could be accommodated for with something else.

[FlyingJesus]

I'm not against scrapping the news team :P as you say they're always behind the forum anyway and are really just an entertainment piece that no-one's entertained by, so if they're not willing to do anything about it then there's no reason to keep them around as a department. I got the old "articles" department shut down for the same reason; it was just a bunch of people who didn't want to lose their staff status but weren't doing anything to actually promote the site at all at the time, and it's just resources going to waste

Martin, definitely not a fan of the bot (as you get duplicate threads that way) but realistically if our reporters are going to call themselves that they should be getting to the news before anyone else gets a chance to post about it anyway. The fact that it's mostly just copied news from someone else rather than anything that the staff have had any involvement in themselves really serves to show more and more that they aren't doing the job they've been given

[Martin]

I think another nice touch in terms of personalisation and connecting with the reader would be to like take screenshots/images etc more if that makes sense? I know in the past things like videos have been tried and stuff which are quite fun and I know I own a Habbox News Youtube account which something similar could be utilised I guess!


I was feeling nostalgic so went looking through my news files (yes I'm sad) and found this (might be nice for some of the old timers LOL)
Judas; Faboosh; Shockwave.2CC;

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3865423/News/newsarticles3.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3865423/News/Newsarticles2.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3865423/News/newsbannertitle.png

I have literally hundreds of these as I made a different one for every week LOL
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3865423/News/reports%20banner%20date28march.png




I miss Joomla haha!

- - - Updated - - -


I'm not against scrapping the news team :P as you say they're always behind the forum anyway and are really just an entertainment piece that no-one's entertained by, so if they're not willing to do anything about it then there's no reason to keep them around as a department. I got the old "articles" department shut down for the same reason; it was just a bunch of people who didn't want to lose their staff status but weren't doing anything to actually promote the site at all at the time, and it's just resources going to waste

Martin, definitely not a fan of the bot (as you get duplicate threads that way) but realistically if our reporters are going to call themselves that they should be getting to the news before anyone else gets a chance to post about it anyway. The fact that it's mostly just copied news from someone else rather than anything that the staff have had any involvement in themselves really serves to show more and more that they aren't doing the job they've been given

Yeah that's the reason we removed it :P It was so annoying because the forum used to lag and then we would come back to like 20 of the same article that had been duplicated LOL It was the bane of my life :P It also basically just died out and wasn't really used much anymore and had become stale. Back then I would say it wasn't SO important to have forum intergration but these days you are right in that the two need to be linked somehow.

My original point of how things are advertised and put to the community covers this really, as I think half the time its just not done enough. Big articles and weekly articles especially really need to be thrown out there and talked about etc. I like your idea of making threads etc and I completely agree with you that news reporters need to get there first and be investigative. That's the whole point on reporting stuff, being a part of it, making it unique and in their own style rather than just stating facts and nothing else, it really makes for boring reading and doesn't really promote anyone to comment or discuss at all.

[Inseriousity.]

I don't really think it's anything to do with 'not willing to do anything about it.' The few members of the department actually do have the right attitude, it just needs to be aided by a strong manager capable of putting the time and effort in. I was unable to provide the latter so I had to step down. As I pointed out in my action plan feedback thread (still waiting for that), the problems with Habbox as a whole seem to be down to a lack of leadership. That then trickles down to the department managers who have to deal with as best they can with the fallout with naturally a bigger impact on small departments that already have a 'tough sell' (getting people to write in their spare time is like pulling teeth, hence my support for the 'guest staff' role in this situation).

I do not accept the premise that they write entertaining articles that entertain no-one so they should go, it would be a vast waste of potential to not utilise that concept and find things that do (I would say that the articles are probably not intended for cynical old grumpy sods like you anyway ;)). The horoscopes idea in my sig, for example, seemed to receive positive feedback even if that is not reflected on the site itself (the registration/commenting thing is a load of ****, think everyone can agree there). This article was advertised on the forum, dan's rare values weekly article is regularly advertised on the forum.

Here's the recent rare values weekly thread: http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=796531
It's an unfair assumption to assume the forum is being completely ignored just because you personally have no interest in the contents of said article so would've been unlikely to see it advertised.

[lRhyss]

Introduction of a GOOD one then ;)

I think the thing which makes them stand out is the fact its been made more of a feature, with its own cute little banner, and it has a really good structure etc. Interactive things like this always seem really appealing to more people and they can be extremely useful. I think Rhyss has done an absolutely amazing job with them, just wish they were given more publicity and stuff as its little things like that which can stand out and get people interested in Habbox. xD

Maybe the News team could either re-name it's self/start fresh as "Features Reporters" - Instead of posting all of the generic news to the main site and/or the forum (which users can just get form Habbo.com) why not only focus on things people want to hear? These can be anything from updates to the Sandbox Hotel, New badge additions/guides, The introduction of the Habbo Builder scheme (Updating on it, keeping a watch out on what they're doing to help with quests/rooms). We could even report on thing that are nothing to do with Habbo Updates, maybe something like "Weekly safety updates" Where someone would inform users of any new KNOWN scam sites that exist within the community, tips to avoid getting scammed and more.

The implementation of a "Scammers" database could be a good thing, not sure if it's against the Fansite way or not...

But what we could do is either do it as it's own report, or add it to a weekly update. Providing known scam games, rooms and Habbo's as long as the "accusing" is backed up with a VERY reliable amount of proof, provided by a RELIABLE source?

Another idea could be something along the lines of a Monthly/Weekly Forum competition ran by the Competitions Department alongside us News Reporters where a theme would be given for the week/month such as "Habbo Poem - Write a 10 line poem describing what you like most about your favourite Habbo Room" or "Conduct a funny and random interview with your Habbo Idle". The best entries would then be read and a winner would be picked. The winner would then receive a forum badge, credits, token or rep (or any combination of those) as well as having their article presented on the Habbox Front Page and maybe even a cheeky trial offer? That way maybe a staff influx would occur.

Again, I think this may have existed in the past, but, what about a weekly Habbox newsletter, written by ALL members of staff - Each staff member contributing something to be included (Best event this month, small room reviews, interviews, etc...) It could even be posted via the forum, that way more people would read it and possibly subscribe to it (Same way the Competitions Department has paid subscriptions)

[FlyingJesus]

Here's the recent rare values weekly thread: http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=796531
It's an unfair assumption to assume the forum is being completely ignored just because you personally have no interest in the contents of said article so would've been unlikely to see it advertised.

That's a good example of news being done as it should be - it's presented properly to the community at large and Dan obviously cares about his subject rather than just wanting to get his minimums. Unfortunately it's not being done by the others and we've had at least 2 managers who've said they'd get staff to do this sort of thing but have completely failed to do so. As you say, it's a leadership issue, and it's not at all helped by the clique at the top being reluctant to take chances on people who aren't their friends or take power from those who are

[Samantha]

I'm going to just jump in here, I have only skim read the recent replies so please inform me if it's been mentioned.

From when this first mainly came about I was very set against integrating on the forum, but over time it has helped sometimes when we've posted articles in news and rumour threads or directed members from the site to the forum. A couple of months ago too, I wanted to completely move it to the forum (I got told no, I did try though) as apparently Sulake wouldn't allow it. However, I know other fansites have separate forums for their news and redirects it from the main site - I kno duplication will be a problem, but I think it'd be nice to see or something similar.

A few managers have tried branching out to the community, telephrase mazes, weekest link etc. all help (however minimally, or whatever), but it'd be great to see it take a more community side too - interviews with members etc.

I'll discuss it more later, but some of the things brought up seems interesting.

I know a couple of people, including myself suggested more guides and similar sort of articles again.
FlyingJesus; 'least 2 managers who've said they'd get staff to do this sort of thing but have completely failed to do so.' I really hope you don't mean me in this, for the majority I did make staff do it/attempt to (you can go back in news and rumours a bit to see this). Admittedly, it was more in my first stint as NM not second, but I got rather annoyed if staff posted the threads informing members before we had an article (if they were news staff that is). However, I appreicate the comments and I agree to an extent.

[FlyingJesus]

Of course I mean you; you didn't do it

[Samantha]

Of course I mean you; you didn't do it

How didn't I, it's just like what Dan does by informing members of the article, linking it to them etc. I did do that, so I'm unsure where you're coming from.

[Kardan]

My personal opinion is that it's time to scrap the news department and just merge it with content. The two best things (Well, really the only things) in news are the badge guides, which technically is content, not news, and the rare value reports, which are quite clearly rare values related.

Having news articles go up on the main website a few days late seems pointless when everyone has already discussed it on the forum.

[FlyingJesus]

There is a total of 1 link to a forum thread on the entire first page of news. You did not implement it.

[Samantha]

There is a total of 1 link to a forum thread on the entire first page of news. You did not implement it.

Oh that, actually it was implemented when Zelda; was the manager (I remember after returning). It was made a rule when he was manager, and was kept (as something you should do if there's already a thread on it) when I was manager too. I did do it, bear in mind I don't write news as often now, but it was in my reports (last one I did http://habbox.com/#!/News/article/2052).

Looking back to then though, I've noticed that the amount of staff was low, but those who were writing reports did link.

[FlyingJesus]

It wasn't done when either of you were managers, otherwise I wouldn't have continued to discuss it. Tom even said that he never got around to actually doing it properly, and from your responses I can see that you somehow don't understand what it was that was meant to be done anyway despite it being an extremely simple premise. If it was a rule then everyone would have been fired without exception

[Inseriousity.]

Not really fair to go by the first page. Manager changes means some rules get left by the wayside and I was more focused on getting them to write anything (when I joined there hadn't been anything for weeks) and build up a team. I'm not that convinced that advertising the forum really has much impact anyway, it seems to work better advertising news from the forum rather than news to forum. Habbox has always had that problem where the forum is the community hub (imo it should be the hotel).

[FlyingJesus]

Yeah and advertising from forum to site doesn't get done either apart from Dan's rv report :P which Sam doesn't seem to understand

[lRhyss]

That's a good example of news being done as it should be - it's presented properly to the community at large and Dan obviously cares about his subject rather than just wanting to get his minimums. Unfortunately it's not being done by the others and we've had at least 2 managers who've said they'd get staff to do this sort of thing but have completely failed to do so. As you say, it's a leadership issue, and it's not at all helped by the clique at the top being reluctant to take chances on people who aren't their friends or take power from those who are

Maybe have it so the "Habbo News" thread is a thread where the WHOLE community can post news as long as the follow guidelines? Have it so News editors have to moderate the posts before they are viewable to the public. This way it truly is by the community for the community. :)

[Samantha]

It wasn't done when either of you were managers, otherwise I wouldn't have continued to discuss it. Tom even said that he never got around to actually doing it properly, and from your responses I can see that you somehow don't understand what it was that was meant to be done anyway despite it being an extremely simple premise. If it was a rule then everyone would have been fired without exception

Oh wasn't it?

I was manager from 13th October to 10th December 2013.

:Celery, Samanfa, Emily, TraidKelly, MasterNicoAngel and BigTimeRyan all linked to their articles (if there was a thread on the forum) throughout that time. The only ones who didn't were Descendable and -:Undertaker:- (who now posts it on the forum anyway).

They did link to the articles posted on the forum, so it was being done. Recently it hasn't as much, but I've seen Mike at least linking to them too. So I really don't know where you're getting it from as it was done.

[Inseriousity.]

That's more because there is still very little to advertise - the article in my sig was advertised on the forum though, rhys badge guides get posted on news and forum, dan's weekly article - and it's about building that portfolio up so that there are more opportunities to advertise. Naturally most people get a bit annoyed at someone posting a link to an article in a news thread that's already been up for 2-3 days so advertising habbo news seems futile unless it's y'know actual news, better to focus advertising on the more abstract articles.

[FlyingJesus]

Oh wasn't it?

I was manager from 13th October to 10th December 2013.

:Celery, Samanfa, Emily, TraidKelly, MasterNicoAngel and BigTimeRyan all linked to their articles (if there was a thread on the forum) throughout that time. The only ones who didn't were Descendable and -:Undertaker:- (who now posts it on the forum anyway).

They did link to the articles posted on the forum, so it was being done. Recently it hasn't as much, but I've seen Mike at least linking to them too. So I really don't know where you're getting it from as it was done.

What you're telling me is that your staff were so slow that discussions had already sprung up on absolutely everything that they reported on (since they never made new threads about their articles, one can assume that threads already existed every time) and instead of tackling this you just got them to post a link in the thread telling people that they could go read the news that they'd already read. Not only is that not forum integration working, but it's further proof that the news department is outdated and unnecessary. Also you literally at the end there say that it isn't being done then claim that one possibly two people doing it sometimes means it's been implemented fully and is a rule. The whole thing is a joke and I don't know why you're so unable to admit to what a flop it is

[Samantha]

What you're telling me is that your staff were so slow that discussions had already sprung up on absolutely everything that they reported on (since they never made new threads about their articles, one can assume that threads already existed every time) and instead of tackling this you just got them to post a link in the thread telling people that they could go read the news that they'd already read. Not only is that not forum integration working, but it's further proof that the news department is outdated and unnecessary. Also you literally at the end there say that it isn't being done then claim that one possibly two people doing it sometimes means it's been implemented fully and is a rule. The whole thing is a joke and I don't know why you're so unable to admit to what a flop it is


There is a total of 1 link to a forum thread on the entire first page of news. You did not implement it.

I think you need to decide whether you want linking to the forum or not, there have been a lot of articles posted before the news and rumours thread and you only need to go back into 2013 at some points to find that out. We linked for months and somehow that's not good enough? I'm sorry, but I can't help it if we can't integrate it more when I'm told we can't; I can't help it when we have been asking for guest commenting to increase that community feel since 2011 (and we were told we could have it... still waiting).

News is/was a good department, it can improve, more unique reports would be amazing as well as a variety of reports about actual news which is needed. However, like I said before I was against it being on the forum, but my opinion has changed and I agree it should be to an extent (got told no as I said too).

I've spoken to Matt about news and what happens next, and we will continue to do so until an idea that will work is done.

[FlyingJesus]

I think you need to decide whether you want linking to the forum or not

Yes if the reporters are going to actually be able to report news because they're not 2 days behind everyone else. If not, there's no point in the role at all


We linked for months and somehow that's not good enough? I'm sorry, but I can't help it if we can't integrate it more when I'm told we can't; I can't help it when we have been asking for guest commenting to increase that community feel since 2011 (and we were told we could have it... still waiting).

So you're finally admitting that you didn't do it, that's a step. Guest commenting wouldn't help at all since the idea is to bring the community together rather than splitting it apart, that's the entire point. On-site commenting as a whole needs to go so that discussions take place in one spot rather than fragmented around the place


News is/was a good department, it can improve, more unique reports would be amazing as well as a variety of reports about actual news which is needed. However, like I said before I was against it being on the forum, but my opinion has changed and I agree it should be to an extent (got told no as I said too).

Yet to give any proof that it's a good or worthwhile department. Of course it can improve, but you need to actually do something about it rather than just grasping desperately to a management role that you're not fulfilling and repeating yourself with empty words

[Samantha]

Yes if the reporters are going to actually be able to report news because they're not 2 days behind everyone else. If not, there's no point in the role at all



So you're finally admitting that you didn't do it, that's a step. Guest commenting wouldn't help at all since the idea is to bring the community together rather than splitting it apart, that's the entire point. On-site commenting as a whole needs to go so that discussions take place in one spot rather than fragmented around the place



Yet to give any proof that it's a good or worthwhile department. Of course it can improve, but you need to actually do something about it rather than just grasping desperately to a management role that you're not fulfilling and repeating yourself with empty words

1. I agree, timing is key in the department.
2. No, we did do it to a point threads were posted after the reports in some cases (more when I was normal staff/busier Habbo periods) and reports were linked to the forum. However, that was the only thing we did (I'll admit that as it is true), although that's not from lack of trying to get more sometimes.
3. I'm not even the AGM for News - that's Skynus and I'm more helping out and deciding what to do due to experience. However, if the department could be done elsewhere i.e. content, guides etc. I'm all for it and I've spoke to Matt about this as well.

[Martin]

I hate to bump old threads, but what exactly is going on with the News Department right now? Everything seems to have gone extremely quiet, and I'm worried we're going to have another V7 situation where it takes years before something is done. Surely it doesn't take months to make these changes?

Whilst time is ticking by, more and more people are being directed to visit out sites through advertising and quite frankly what they are being presented with is disgusting, outdated and embarrassing.



Are news articles not even being checked anymore? The last article written was on May 14th so nearly a WEEK AGO. I've just glanced over it and found several visible errors, even the bloody title has a spelling error that nobody has picked up on!



This thread highlighting problems within the department was created at the end of LAST YEAR, and things are still the same if not WORSE as they were before.


Important News is still being completely missed out

You have more staff, yet the results are not being seen

Nobody is checking articles for basic spelling mistakes, to help news reporters improve and grow and to keep the site looking professional

There doesn't seem to be much advertising or promotion of anything news related

There is a mix-match of styles and at times the front page looks absolutely awful

A lot of the articles are VERY fact based, with little or no opinion or personalisation put into them. Sure news is about writing the facts, but I find it is more interesting to read when a unique style has been used to write it, and a more investigative approach could be used.

Lack of Competitions or things to get people to the front page

Lack of big featured articles, which could spark discussion etc.


The subsections of news (Room Reviews, Interviews, Real Life etc) really need looking at and whether its worth wasting time doing these if a) they are not being advertised, and b) time could be spend keeping the front page up to date instead of being outdated by weeks. There has only been 1 room review in like 8 months despite there being a stickied thread advertising for people to submit their rooms on the forum.


There are (and were) a couple of reporters in that department who showed really promising work and whose articles were enjoyable to read, but I just feel like a whole bunch of other things and lack of direction is letting it down.



The most obvious reply to this will be "We are working on so and so" but hasn't this been the case for weeks/months now? We are advertising people to visit habbox.com on the client and when they get there, they're seeing stuff which could be written so much better, could be checked for quality, could be reporting on stuff that is actually happening at the time. Timing is a crucial factor in news and when stuff starts to get missed it sets out a very bad impression of a fansite.



I believe a News Team Leader was appointed around a month ago, so I'm guessing talks are still ongoing etc, but surely with staff and management who are capable of writing articles to keep at least the front page up to date things should have seen an improvement already? Or at the very least those articles that are written should be checked?!


Has the whole reporting news on the forum thing been dismissed altogether? Is News and Content Merging? (Again?!) I hope all of your news staff stay enthusiastic and are enjoying their time within the department because from an outside point of view things are looking very stale.


Basically I just want to know what's going on, why there is such a delay and whether we will see improvements any time soon?




--


but ye I haven't got time to go into too much detail, but read the first post and the replies in this thread and stuff!! :)

[lawrawrrr]

I hate to bump old threads, but what exactly is going on with the News Department right now? Everything seems to have gone extremely quiet, and I'm worried we're going to have another V7 situation where it takes years before something is done. Surely it doesn't take months to make these changes?

Whilst time is ticking by, more and more people are being directed to visit out sites through advertising and quite frankly what they are being presented with is disgusting, outdated and embarrassing.

Actually, due to MANY different proposals being made with MANY objections each time and unfortunate resignings ******* up all the plans, it HAS taken months. I am literally right now writing what I think should be the final plan up to Drew now and we'll discuss it.

Oh, like it has been for the last year then? ;)



Are news articles not even being checked anymore? The last article written was on May 14th so nearly a WEEK AGO. I've just glanced over it and found several visible errors, even the bloody title has a spelling error that nobody has picked up on!

This thread highlighting problems within the department was created at the end of LAST YEAR, and things are still the same if not WORSE as they were before.

I've been away since Thursday, limited before then too. They're not worse, they're the SAME problems.



Important News is still being completely missed out
I just can't see why this MATTERS as people don't READ the front page news on Habbox anyway, they get it from the Forum. THAT'S why we're changing it to what people WANT to read.


You have more staff, yet the results are not being seen
..no


Nobody is checking articles for basic spelling mistakes, to help news reporters improve and grow and to keep the site looking professional
So sorry for having a life.


There doesn't seem to be much advertising or promotion of anything news related
That's because there isn't much news related. I don't have the time to be running Habbo competitions, quests or anything, everything else the News dept offers (room reviews and interviews etc) have been offered to multiple people, just because noone's been in contact with you, doesn't mean it hasn't happened.


There is a mix-match of styles and at times the front page looks absolutely awful

A lot of the articles are VERY fact based, with little or no opinion or personalisation put into them. Sure news is about writing the facts, but I find it is more interesting to read when a unique style has been used to write it, and a more investigative approach could be used.

Lack of Competitions or things to get people to the front page

Lack of big featured articles, which could spark discussion etc.
I don't even know what to type. Yes, they don't match. I haven't had time to read through them, I honestly don't know what Drew's done but I think there was some confusion over the role responsibilites. Lack of competitions and featured articles come down to reporters I'm afraid, we wouldn't stop them, but neither can we force them.


The subsections of news (Room Reviews, Interviews, Real Life etc) really need looking at and whether its worth wasting time doing these if a) they are not being advertised, and b) time could be spend keeping the front page up to date instead of being outdated by weeks. There has only been 1 room review in like 8 months despite there being a stickied thread advertising for people to submit their rooms on the forum.

Already looked through this all, and it's in the new plan.


There are (and were) a couple of reporters in that department who showed really promising work and whose articles were enjoyable to read, but I just feel like a whole bunch of other things and lack of direction is letting it down.

And a lot of them chose to resign. Again, we can't force them to stay. Yes, if we could implement a new plan right now (well, 2 months ago when I first wrote it), that'd be fantastic but... we can't force people to join, and I don't think many people will whatever we do (yay pessimism)



The most obvious reply to this will be "We are working on so and so" but hasn't this been the case for weeks/months now? We are advertising people to visit habbox.com on the client and when they get there, they're seeing stuff which could be written so much better, could be checked for quality, could be reporting on stuff that is actually happening at the time. Timing is a crucial factor in news and when stuff starts to get missed it sets out a very bad impression of a fansite.

Like I said, due to a series of unfortunate circumstances & timings, and taking into consideration what people have said (despite popular belief), we've had to rework the plan many times. We had to wait almost 3 weeks for Sulake to reply to us, then staff... well... revolted against me, so I had a bit of a break and went right back to it. Got a News Team Leader and we've been discussing it since. We had to wait a week before I got a technical answer about something which formed the MAIN part of the plan, then recursion-chippiewillgate happened, and we got delayed again. For all you cynics out there, let me assure you that I constantly think about News and what we can do, and none of this is MY FAULT, and I'm fed up of being treated like it is.


I believe a News Team Leader was appointed around a month ago, so I'm guessing talks are still ongoing etc, but surely with staff and management who are capable of writing articles to keep at least the front page up to date things should have seen an improvement already? Or at the very least those articles that are written should be checked?!
I think I've explained this above.


Has the whole reporting news on the forum thing been dismissed altogether? Is News and Content Merging? (Again?!) I hope all of your news staff stay enthusiastic and are enjoying their time within the department because from an outside point of view things are looking very stale.
NEWS IS POSTED ON THE FORUM why does anyone think this is a good idea when non-news staff members constantly post things before we can get hold of them?

In the original plan, I was attempting a merge, but not in the way it was done before. Due to the manager at the time (Jacob)'s resignation, I've recently decided against this. That's why we had a News Team Leader, but I will be looking to merge this into the manager of the reformed department.


Basically I just want to know what's going on, why there is such a delay and whether we will see improvements any time soon?

Over the bank holiday weekend.

[dbgtz]

Why would you not check spelling mistakes. They're guaranteed to be there and it would only like someone a few minutes...

Not saying news should stick around, it's an awful department. One thing I never understood is why HxL never presented any news. Go on a lot of radio stations in the day and there will be news about once an hour or so. News should be merged with HxL.

[FlyingJesus]

As usual Laura goes on the attack and makes excuses for her complete lack of work rather than actually acknowledge (let alone sort out) the problems that have been facing her since before she even had this role, and attempts to defend the news team while in the very same post points out how useless and unnecessary they are

And the problems are worse, if you seriously think that going full weeks without any news being posted is "the same problem" that you inherited then you obviously didn't pay much attention when it was solely your department. If you have too much of a life (lol) to do your job then quit it and let someone take charge who will actually do something other than post themselves away and get angry at other people for your failures

[MKR&*42]

I only skim read Laura's post but that comment about "sorry for having a life" in conjunction with checking for spelling mistakes is completely out of order. That is an essential in any news department upon any fansite and you "having a life" does not give you automatic exemption from scanning a news article quickly for mistakes... that was such a low blow. I actually feel sorry for you Bolt660; as you raised a genuine point which was responded to with such appalling reasoning.

Announcement: *all managers - you are exempt from doing anything to improve your staff's performance because you have lives*

[FlyingJesus]

My favourite line was "Yes, if we could implement a new plan right now (well, 2 months ago when I first wrote it)" as though this is somehow not possible despite her being the Content AGM, and then going on to blame Recursion deleting a forum member (nothing to do with content) for holding things up and refusing to take any responsibility. You are not entitled to a role that you can't fulfil, and you aren't entitled to everyone's gratitude for doing sweet FA for 2 and a half months

[Brad]

And that, everyone, why I resigned the first time from news...

(I was the revolting one)

[Kardan]

Does this mean that "Sorry for having a life" is a valid argument now?

I imagine if a regular staff member was asked why they hadn't met their quota, and they replied with that, they'd be warned if not fired.

[lawrawrrr]

Why would you not check spelling mistakes. They're guaranteed to be there and it would only like someone a few minutes...

Not saying news should stick around, it's an awful department. One thing I never understood is why HxL never presented any news. Go on a lot of radio stations in the day and there will be news about once an hour or so. News should be merged with HxL.

I would check spelling mistakes, and now I'm back from being away, I will be reading them and updating in the next hour. News should NOT be merged with HxL, but I'd love someone to do a news show, definitely.


As usual Laura goes on the attack and makes excuses for her complete lack of work rather than actually acknowledge (let alone sort out) the problems that have been facing her since before she even had this role, and attempts to defend the news team while in the very same post points out how useless and unnecessary they are

And the problems are worse, if you seriously think that going full weeks without any news being posted is "the same problem" that you inherited then you obviously didn't pay much attention when it was solely your department. If you have too much of a life (lol) to do your job then quit it and let someone take charge who will actually do something other than post themselves away and get angry at other people for your failures

I think you find I acknowledged that there are a lot of issues. The actual problems are exactly the same as they have been, yes it's terrible they're still issues. There have been times in the past where it's been weeks without News, recently it's actually picked up, which is why i said it HAS been worse. The only reason I haven't resigned is because I've been involved in these plans, and I'm not sure who would be able to take over. I could just quit and it would stay exactly as it is, but without *anyone* ever looking at it (for now!). I know what I'm doing, and am working very hard. Sorry I don't publicly announce every single PM I send but I figure my time is better spent elsewhere. Drew's not posted away, I'm not angry at him. And they're not my personal failures (although I REALLY appreciate the nasty tone of your post there), and I know you'll just say it's all excuses, but who's the one with the inbox full of plan communications that have constantly been taking place over the last month? Oh yeah, that's me.


I only skim read Laura's post but that comment about "sorry for having a life" in conjunction with checking for spelling mistakes is completely out of order. That is an essential in any news department upon any fansite and you "having a life" does not give you automatic exemption from scanning a news article quickly for mistakes... that was such a low blow. I actually feel sorry for you @Bolt660 (http://www.habboxforum.com/member.php?u=55726); as you raised a genuine point which was responded to with such appalling reasoning.

Announcement: *all managers - you are exempt from doing anything to improve your staff's performance because you have lives*
I haven't really been on Habbox on my computer since Thursday. If I have, it's not been for very long. Therefore, can't read and/or edit news, which is why I explained (not made excuses, but explained) why there are mistakes. We can't expect any manager, or staff member to completely fulfil their role 100% of the time, that's why we allow them to post away. I took a break because I needed to, I physically couldn't do Habbox work on top of everything else. I wasn't just taking a break so I could hang out with friends or get drunk, I've actually been constantly working since then. I got a little bit angry & upset reading Martin's post and that's why I wrote that, but I can assure you, I wouldn't be making excuses if the scenario you painted was true. Yes, there are other people who could have filled in while I was away, and the genuine answer is, I have NO IDEA why they haven't and I'm not particularly enthralled by their attitude. I've already spoken to them about this.

I know half of you won't believe me but I don't really care any more. If you think it's that big a deal, please report it to Matt who'll deal with me properly. If you all think I'm terrible at my job (I'm doing the best I can in the circumstances), and think then I will do the honourable thing and resign. I genuinely think I'm doing OK at the moment, especially now I've sent off the new plan PM, once I've read and corrected the articles I haven't had a chance to yet, I'm pretty much up to date!

[Mr-Trainor]

So sorry for having a life.
That's got to be the most ridiculous thing I've read all day. How can you dismiss spelling/grammar checks as you did, and because of 'having a life'.. You're the Content AGM and I'd like to think that you want to maintain/create a high standard of content on Habbox, but if you're going to dismiss something as fundamental as reading over work to check for errors, then I really don't know what else to say.

[lawrawrrr]

My favourite line was "Yes, if we could implement a new plan right now (well, 2 months ago when I first wrote it)" as though this is somehow not possible despite her being the Content AGM, and then going on to blame Recursion deleting a forum member (nothing to do with content) for holding things up and refusing to take any responsibility. You are not entitled to a role that you can't fulfil, and you aren't entitled to everyone's gratitude for doing sweet FA for 2 and a half months

1) the plan 2 months ago was COMPLETELY different, I didn't do it then because I don't want to launch straight into a big development without asking the staff members

2) I don't care what Recursion did to Chippiewill, but there was a very major part of the plan that relied on the possibility of a feature that needed to be coded on the current and new website. As the Technical Manager, we had to ask him, it took a week to get a reply, after which he sent a VERY vague response, then flew off the handle with Will which has left us in the dark. I asked the Site Coders about it but they focused on other things. The new plan doesn't involve this.

3) You do realise my role isn't News Manager, it's content manager? Look at everything else I've done. I have done **** TONS in the last 3 months, thank you very much.


And that, everyone, why I resigned the first time from news...

(I was the revolting one)

I don't mean revolting as in disgusting, I mean, revolting against me. And you weren't the only one.


Does this mean that "Sorry for having a life" is a valid argument now?

I imagine if a regular staff member was asked why they hadn't met their quota, and they replied with that, they'd be warned if not fired.

Like I said, I wrote that in anger, I posted away because I HAD to. And if a regular staff member was posted away they wouldn't be asked. I posted away in the proper methods required and that's why I'm excused from doing much work over the last week.

- - - Updated - - -


That's got to be the most ridiculous thing I've read all day. How can you dismiss spelling/grammar checks as you did, and because of 'having a life'.. You're the Content AGM and I'd like to think that you want to maintain/create a high standard of content on Habbox, but if you're going to dismiss something as fundamental as reading over work to check for errors, then I really don't know what else to say.
I HAVE EXPLAINED THIS FOUR TIMES NOW I WROTE THAT IN ANGER AND DID NOT MEAN IT IN THE WAY WHICH EVERYONE HAS TAKEN IT

I began a NEW JOB five days ago and between that and wrapping up my two other jobs to hand over, I haven't even had time to be on Habbox.

Since when weren't AGMs allowed to post away!?!??!!?!?

[Martin]

Surely you're not the only person capable of editing mistakes in news articles, and there is someone who would be able to cover your responsibilities (or at least the news related ones) during the periods you are away?


I think the "I was posted away" "I was on limited activity" "I have a life" excuses are used far too much, and if they are affecting such basic important things then something is clearly very very wrong. It seems to be the AGMs get out clause when the going gets tough.


First impressions count, and people being directed to habbox.com WILL noticed the news articles, even if its the mis-spelt titles, or noticing that the news being reported on is old and non current, they WILL get an impression from this and its not a good one.



You say you were writing things in anger when saying "Sorry for having a life", but why should you be angry? This is the FEEDBACK forum and people are entitled to have feedback on various departments whether good or not, surely you can see where the problems are too and kind of see where people are coming from instead of being defensive on every point?


We ALL want what is best for Habbox, we all want to see it improve and most of us care deeply about how we are perceived. Putting hard work into it is what gets the results and I know you do work hard, but we really need to start seeing the results.




I look forwards to seeing a vast improvement at the weekend as promised.

[FlyingJesus]

I think you find I acknowledged that there are a lot of issues. The actual problems are exactly the same as they have been, yes it's terrible they're still issues. There have been times in the past where it's been weeks without News, recently it's actually picked up, which is why i said it HAS been worse.

2 posts (both just copied over from the Habbo site) is "picked up"? Whoa.


The only reason I haven't resigned is because I've been involved in these plans, and I'm not sure who would be able to take over. I could just quit and it would stay exactly as it is, but without *anyone* ever looking at it (for now!). I know what I'm doing

Read: "no-one could possibly do my job I am the only person in the world with the ability to implement nothing for 3 months". Your ego is hilarious


Sorry I don't publicly announce every single PM I send but I figure my time is better spent elsewhere.

Very true, it could be spent putting plans into action rather than just talking about them vaguely. If you're in charge, take charge


And they're not my personal failures (although I REALLY appreciate the nasty tone of your post there), and I know you'll just say it's all excuses, but who's the one with the inbox full of plan communications that have constantly been taking place over the last month? Oh yeah, that's me.

They are because it's your job and you aren't doing anything past the planning stage but seriously lmao @ talking about MY tone


I know half of you won't believe me but I don't really care any more

That much is obvious, and really all you needed to say. Cheers.

[lawrawrrr]

Surely you're not the only person capable of editing mistakes in news articles, and there is someone who would be able to cover your responsibilities (or at least the news related ones) during the periods you are away?
I'm not, and I don't know why they weren't done.


I think the "I was posted away" "I was on limited activity" "I have a life" excuses are used far too much, and if they are affecting such basic important things then something is clearly very very wrong. It seems to be the AGMs get out clause when the going gets tough.
I've only been away once as AGM, this time. I've been on limited a few times, but always done the bare minimum. It's not an excuse, I give warning and advance notice every single time. I've been doing so much work with other departments, Habbox-wide things etc., as well as formulating and chasing these plans up, it's not a get out clause, it's not an excuse because I have nothing to excuse myself FROM.


First impressions count, and people being directed to habbox.com WILL noticed the news articles, even if its the mis-spelt titles, or noticing that the news being reported on is old and non current, they WILL get an impression from this and its not a good one.


You say you were writing things in anger when saying "Sorry for having a life", but why should you be angry? This is the FEEDBACK forum and people are entitled to have feedback on various departments whether good or not, surely you can see where the problems are too and kind of see where people are coming from instead of being defensive on every point?
Because I've had a lot of baseless insults thrown at me by a variety of people throughout this process, when I only want the best of the department, and I've had enough of it. Feedback is 99% of the time negative, 20% of THAT not even constructive. Most of the time this may as well be called the "blame" subforum.


We ALL want what is best for Habbox, we all want to see it improve and most of us care deeply about how we are perceived. Putting hard work into it is what gets the results and I know you do work hard, but we really need to start seeing the results.
I look forwards to seeing a vast improvement at the weekend as promised.

I haven't promised improvements at the weekend. I promised changes, which I hope will LEAD to improvements. You have to understand I don't have a magic wand which I can wave and make thousands of people visit Habbox, to be willing to join the department and write for us, I can only do what I, and from what staff and Habbox members say, think can lead to this.

[Martin]

A good start would be to look at why so many people resign from events when given a trial and why so many people fail their trials etc.


Lack of motivation?
Lack of leadership?
Lack of praise/constructive critisism?
Lack of feeling part of a team?
Lack of organisation?
Lack of fun?
Lack of direction and guidance?



I'm sure there are other people that can check spelling errors and the quality of articles- there NEEDS to be. Feedback PMs offering advice need to be sent regularly, similarly those who do good work and set good examples need telling this frequently.

Are department reports still weekly? Are there Seniors sending out these type of PMs and monitoring the control of quality? It never used to be down to an AGM to do this..


There are some seriously deep rooted issues within the department and all I can hope is that this plan being introduced at the weekend is going to be ground breaking in making the department more appealing to be a part of.

- - - Updated - - -


I'm not, and I don't know why they weren't done.

Then you needa find out and make sure it doesn't happen too much in future surely? It shouldn't all be down to you.




and okay, I look forwards to seeing the changes at the weekend then. :P

[FlyingJesus]

That leaves 80% of feedback being constructive, that's pretty good tbh

[lawrawrrr]

2 posts (both just copied over from the Habbo site) is "picked up"? Whoa.
Like I said, I haven't had a chance to read them on the main site yet. I know for a fact (before you call me out here, they're all posted in a subforum, which I did scroll past checking on my phone one day) there's been more than that though.



Read: "no-one could possibly do my job I am the only person in the world with the ability to implement nothing for 3 months". Your ego is hilarious
Read again: I'm not sure who would be capable of taking over who has the proper footing in News and Content to understand where the plan has emerged from. Not sure who doesn't mean there is noone. Also, you know I've done more than that in 3 months, and we have been forming the plan which will be implemented soon. Oh, and it's only been a month.


Very true, it could be spent putting plans into action rather than just talking about them vaguely. If you're in charge, take charge
I am in charge. I have been messaging many people and forming the plans. I just don't talk about specifics in a public forum because I don't think it's anyone other than the staff+'s place to know what is happening before it gets announced


They are because it's your job and you aren't doing anything past the planning stage but seriously lmao @ talking about MY tone
People not wanting to join the department (for going on four years now) is MY fault? Having inactive reporters is MY fault? But seriously, I'm fed up of people saying I'm doing nothing when it's ​simply not true.


That much is obvious, and really all you needed to say. Cheers.
Don't care about your opinion. Not the job. I care very much about all of the departments I manage, as well as Habbox as a whole, and am putting effort in to better them.

[Kardan]

Small question to anyone that knows the answer:

How long can you have 'away' at one period of time? And how often can you go 'away'?

[MKR&*42]

Small question to anyone that knows the answer:

How long can you have 'away' at one period of time? And how often can you go 'away'?

3 weeks max in 1 period

dunno how it works if you like went away for 3 weeks, came back for a week and then did the three weeks again. Think it's down to manager's discretion etc etc

[lawrawrrr]

Small question to anyone that knows the answer:

How long can you have 'away' at one period of time? And how often can you go 'away'?
Three weeks, with a genuine excuse. Longer, if the GM or Staff AGM will permit it. There is a limit and I think it's something like 3 weeks every 2 months but don't hold me to that.

[Kardan]

3 weeks every 2 months, if true, seems an awful lot. That's like 37.5% of the time you can be away and get away with it.

Then of course, if you consider all this 'limited' business, that percentage can go up.

[lawrawrrr]

If someone's taking the piss and constantly posting away, we'd notice :P Have done recently actually in a couple of cases & confronted the staff member!

[Kardan]

Anyway, doing some research I've found that Laura became AGM on 4th March, it's now 20th May, so that's 11 weeks.

At the start of the 11 weeks, Laura was listed as away. Straight after she was away she was listed as 'Limited'.

Then Laura said she was away since Thursday, limited shortly before then too, and looking at her signature she's now limited until Monday.

What are the rules about going 'limited'?

[Lewis]

I agree from like a page back that you should be checking over spelling errors, but I think you said you were posted away, shouldn't the news team leader be the main one to be doing that anyway though? Who is the team leader? I can't remember.

[MKR&*42]

I agree from like a page back that you should be checking over spelling errors, but I think you said you were posted away, shouldn't the news team leader be the main one to be doing that as well? Who is the team leader anyway? I can't remember.

Think it is/was drewar i cant remmeber if they resigned

[FlyingJesus]

Like I said, I haven't had a chance to read them on the main site yet. I know for a fact (before you call me out here, they're all posted in a subforum, which I did scroll past checking on my phone one day) there's been more than that though.

2 posted - and despite what you seem to believe, what the public can see is rather important, not just what's hidden away waiting to be processed


Read again: I'm not sure who would be capable of taking over who has the proper footing in News and Content to understand where the plan has emerged from. Not sure who doesn't mean there is noone. Also, you know I've done more than that in 3 months, and we have been forming the plan which will be implemented soon. Oh, and it's only been a month.

To be fair at this point literally anything would be an improvement even closing the department because currently it's just a joke. You've been AGM since the 4th of March that is more than a month


I am in charge. I have been messaging many people and forming the plans. I just don't talk about specifics in a public forum because I don't think it's anyone other than the staff+'s place to know what is happening before it gets announced

I don't think anyone's suggesting that you post constant updates on all of your plans; what people want is for some of them to actually be put in place and not wait so long that something happens to put it all off


People not wanting to join the department (for going on four years now) is MY fault? Having inactive reporters is MY fault? But seriously, I'm fed up of people saying I'm doing nothing when it's ​simply not true.

No, making no changes is your fault. You seem to be of the impression that you're somehow owed a workforce as opposed to having been tasked with working with what actually exists


Don't care about your opinion. Not the job. I care very much about all of the departments I manage, as well as Habbox as a whole, and am putting effort in to better them.

You said "I don't care" in response to a quote from Intersocial about the constant "I've been away" excuses, nothing to do with my opinion. Do try to keep a track of what BS you're throwing and at whom you're throwing it

[lawrawrrr]

Anyway, doing some research I've found that Laura became AGM on 4th March, it's now 20th May, so that's 11 weeks.

At the start of the 11 weeks, Laura was listed as away. Straight after she was away she was listed as 'Limited'.

Then Laura said she was away since Thursday, limited shortly before then too, and looking at her signature she's now limited until Monday.

What are the rules about going 'limited'?

How do you have record of all of this :p I was away due to Students' Union elections when I first got promoted.

My signature is old, I was back yesterday.

I only post on limited instead of away because I still do work when I'm away, just a bit less.


I agree from like a page back that you should be checking over spelling errors, but I think you said you were posted away, shouldn't the news team leader be the main one to be doing that anyway though? Who is the team leader? I can't remember.

Drewar. Yes, he has done a couple.


2 posted - and despite what you seem to believe, what the public can see is rather important, not just what's hidden away waiting to be processed
You're taking what I say out of context! I understand that what's on the site is important. I do. 2 news reports maybe but the department post more than just that :)



To be fair at this point literally anything would be an improvement even closing the department because currently it's just a joke. You've been AGM since the 4th of March that is more than a month

Only started looking at news plans about a month ago, didn't do much at first to do with news



I don't think anyone's suggesting that you post constant updates on all of your plans; what people want is for some of them to actually be put in place and not wait so long that something happens to put it all off
All of these things have happened pretty much at the second they were ready to go out, I'm not putting it off or waiting at all. If people would reply to me quicker and not resign as soon as it's ready that'd be fantastic and I could get it out tomorrow!



No, making no changes is your fault. You seem to be of the impression that you're somehow owed a workforce as opposed to having been tasked with working with what actually exists
I'm not going to make changes without ensuring it is the best way forward for everyone and that the staff+ agree with it. That's not gonna benefit anyone.


You said "I don't care" in response to a quote from Intersocial about the constant "I've been away" excuses, nothing to do with my opinion. Do try to keep a track of what BS you're throwing and at whom you're throwing it

Yes, I don't care about people's opinions on the work that I do. As long as I know, and the relevant people know, it's OK... then it's OK.

[Kyle]

sick of the aggressive responses to feedback. bolt bumped thread cos he wanted to raise awareness and we hadn't heard anything. no big deal.

you used to be so calm and collected laura, now you're all over the place. I know you're working hard but having a few people skills costs nothing. reign it in pls!

[FlyingJesus]

Drink, drugs, and *REMOVED*

Edited by Bolt660 (Trialist Forum Moderator): Please do not avoid the filter, thanks!

[Inseriousity.]

calm and collected? lol since when. Laura's always been the aggressively defend-my-corner type. Personally, I'd prefer that over the 'I aim to please everyone' type.

Just out of curiousity but what was the idea that caused a revolt? Change naturally results in a little rebellion. A catchphrase I had as AGM was 'it's not up for discussion' because sometimes you need to push these things through. Radical change is needed rather than toning things down. I say this as a general thing about Habbox. So much is toned down to the point where it's not even worth the change so things are changed back to how it was and then management can hold their hands up and say 'oh well we tried' rather than y'know actually being creative and thinking of new ideas (still waiting for the action plan and I know it's because of this).

As for news specifically, I don't envy you at all. It is definitely a tough department but as its close to death, see it as liberating. It gives you the freedom and the opportunity to do practically anything with little danger of actually making things worse.

[James]

why not just hire a news manager?

[Rachel]

why not just hire a news manager?

One of the changes was to put News Team Leader instead of News Manager ( well if I am correct). News Team Leader has the same duties as the News Manager probably. I don't think this will happen anytime soon.

As for Laura, I personally think she has done brilliant work in all the roles she had so far including the AGM role. She is doing her best to improve the department itself. You might not be aware of what she is doing but I know and other Managers knows how much she does for the team and for Habbox overall. Get in her shoes before judging please!

[Samantha]

why not just hire a news manager?

There have been 3 managers in the last 6 or so months that have tried improve News to get it somewhat like what it was, but to no avail. I agree with Mike, News is an extremely tough department to manage especially with a lack of staff or no motivation to write - that's when even more pressure is put on the senior members of the department as the manager usually would like reports on that front page constantly, or as soon as news is available. The News Team Leader is virtually speaking the 'News Manager' to an extent as they have a lot of the same responsibilities, but it's not set in stone due to the many plans that have been thought of and nearly trialled through the last couple of months.

A lot of things have happened like Laura outlined - things occur such as resignations, lack of communication from either Sulake, management etc. and it gets delayed a lot. It happens in a lot of departments, but sometimes because they're doing better than News it doesn't show as much.

I PMed Drewar a couple of weeks ago about an article and that was dealt with. I'll take some of the blame for not checking News though as I saw one and I was annoyed just by how many mistakes there were in it! Unfortunately, I thought I'd PMed Drew again about it (looking back, I can't find it, so I guess I didn't), but the one I saw was edited anyway! The News should primarily be checked by the senior team in News which is Drew at the moment - but I know all 4 of the GM team can pitch in.

[Kardan]

Can someone explain what the difference between a news manager and a news team leader is then? By the sounds of it, all I can tell is that the news team leader doesn't have to check the work.

[Martin]

How many articles has the team leader posted himself since being appointed the role?


I'm guessing lots- to be a good role model and stuff?! :O

[The Don]

Do other fansites have news articles? If so are they more successful/popular than Habbox? No point having news articles if nobody reads them...

[MKR&*42]

Nearly every other fansite has news thats posted on a forum.

Only exceptions occur when it's unique content like ... "guide on how to get this badge" (primarily HabboQuests) which is usually posted on the fansite's homepage.

And for the fansites with news on forum, it's basically just copying + pasting news articles with tweaking some words here and there which is almost useless.

@The Don

how am I MEANT TO TAG YOU

[@]The Don[/@]

[The Don]

Nearly every other fansite has news thats posted on a forum.

Only exceptions occur when it's unique content like ... "guide on how to get this badge" (primarily HabboQuests) which is usually posted on the fansite's homepage.

And for the fansites with news on forum, it's basically just copying + pasting news articles with tweaking some words here and there which is almost useless.

@The Don

how am I MEANT TO TAG YOU

[@]The Don[/@]

Wouldn't it make sense to follow suit and start posting news on the forum rather than on the homepage? I've just had a quick look and couldn't see any comments on any of the articles from the front page. Doesn't seem like there's currently much interest in them. The front page should be full of content relating to Habbox, current events, original content created by staff at Habbox. Not much point in parroting the Habbo homepage and filling up Habbox's homepage with that.

[lawrawrrr]

News Team leader was appointed as the original plan was to "merge" a part of Content and News together, and Jacob was to oversee it all, the 'Leader' would take on a head role. Wouldn't be fair to appoint a manager then say, oops, demotion time bye x

[The Don]

News Team leader was appointed as the original plan was to "merge" a part of Content and News together, and Jacob was to oversee it all, the 'Leader' would take on a head role. Wouldn't be fair to appoint a manager then say, oops, demotion time bye x

How come the two sections are no longer merging together?

[lawrawrrr]

How come the two sections are no longer merging together?

I explained this earlier in the thread, due to management changes (so jake who had been working on the plan with me left) and Joe has other priorities, not focusing on the same things. Not saying it's a bad thing at all mind you!

Also, we had some feedback from both Content and News staff members which led me to reconsider. Elements from the original plan will be incorporated though, under the "News" (as it's currently known) banner.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Kyle]

i'll be content manager if u want

overseeing sounds easy

[The Don]

I explained this earlier in the thread, due to management changes (so jake who had been working on the plan with me left) and Joe has other priorities, not focusing on the same things. Not saying it's a bad thing at all mind you!

Also, we had some feedback from both Content and News staff members which led me to reconsider. Elements from the original plan will be incorporated though, under the "News" (as it's currently known) banner.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ah, haven't read the entire thread so I must have missed it. It would make sense to merge the two groups (from an outsiders perspective) because news articles is just another branch of content.

[lawrawrrr]

Ah, haven't read the entire thread so I must have missed it. It would make sense to merge the two groups (from an outsiders perspective) because news articles is just another branch of content.

It got merged before, unsuccessfully! Elements would work, yes, but they are different skill sets and not everyone good at one is good at the other, hence being generally sceptical about a full merge. I think I've found a balance though :)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Inseriousity.]

The first merge was more unsuccessful because of egotistic managers who didn't have compromise in their dictionaries. The staff moaned at first but they got on with it in the end. Also, it was called a 'trial', probably the worst thing to ever call something. Call a change a trial and you don't need to adapt. You were on the right track and you let yourself be derailed.

[FlyingJesus]

So if they're not merging and news for whatever reason isn't getting ditched is the News Leader role now essentially the same as Manager was before? Agree about merges being quite possible also, we've done it in the past (community and moderation dept becoming the forum dept way back when) and it's definitely egos that get in the way - that and the current style of manager management where it's apparently more important to keep people happy than do what's necessary for things to go forward

[Samantha]

The first merge was more unsuccessful because of egotistic managers who didn't have compromise in their dictionaries. The staff moaned at first but they got on with it in the end. Also, it was called a 'trial', probably the worst thing to ever call something. Call a change a trial and you don't need to adapt. You were on the right track and you let yourself be derailed.

Lmao, was that after a lot of the staff quit :(? I actually enjoyed the merge after it happened, especially being in both news and content at the time. It's a shame that some people didn't really get it.

[Inseriousity.]

There were a few resignations but that's to be expected at every radical change and quite frankly those very same people come rushing back eventually. I agree with Tom. Yes it helps if you can carry a team along with you and what you set out to achieve and I don't think you should ignore them completely. I think a huge flaw in the feedback forum for instance is that yes we can suggest ideas but it's managers who need to think of the factors that we don't have access to or knowledge of and then they need to lead. That's where the issue lies because there does seem to be a fear that if the boat is rocked too much, everything will go overboard when the reality is that staff are actually pretty used to change and adapting and while they may complain about being knocked around a lot (still going with the boat analogy here, bear with me lol), they tend to pick themselves up in the end and get on with it.

[FlyingJesus]

Quick say something about smooth sailing and a capable hand at the tiller

[despect]

I'm still not convinced about this 'News Leader' role, like others have said its basically the same as what News Manager was. I'm not sure how the role is any different to News Manager?

[lawrawrrr]

I'm still not convinced about this 'News Leader' role, like others have said its basically the same as what News Manager was. I'm not sure how the role is any different to News Manager?

It was because the role of news manager wasn't going to continue and I didn't think it was fair to give someone a role then demote them almost straight away!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Kardan]

So yes, it's exactly the same job role.

[Chug!]

Literally just wasted a good 20 minutes reading all this…


But, like others in the thread, I don't understand why news is still a thing on the main site, yes all for being the habbo fansite who does it for the longest and still tries to keep it up but it just isn't working. However, surely a few articles on the homepage wouldn't be that hard to do. Habbo doesn't have loads of news each day/week; so they'd be what, 4 articles a week? If that some weeks.

All other news should be on the forum anyway and if it's not got reporters to report on Real life situations then make it more of a general talk topic thing where people write the news from sites, (with a link to the site for copyright), and that be that. Then people can still communicate about such news & forum moderators can then check that it's actually being implemented well (As can Content & Agms if need be)??

[FlyingJesus]

The solution for news if it has to be kept on the site at all is pretty simple and I've been explaining it for god knows how long without it ever being put into practice (despite being told by more than one news manager that it would happen) and to my knowledge doesn't require waiting for v7 or having a huge team or even needing people who can write really.
Current problem: the community always gets to the news first and posts threads about it
Solution: don't see it as a problem and reward the community for being attentive
Current problem: not enough writers
Solution: stop needing them
Current problem: no-one comments on the on-site news so it looks totally dead
Solution: take away on-site commenting and bring it back to the community properly

The news is already here. We do not need writers, we just need someone who can copy and paste a link onto the site with a title to it.
http://i.imgur.com/UbvXVC6.png
Give credit to the thread creator (there's an incentive for people to keep posting the news as quickly as it comes out), remove on-site commenting PLEASE (it makes everything look unread and even if there are comments on the stories ever it's pointless as it may as well come from the forum, adding to the community), and give whoever's on this "news team" a really easy job increasing the number of stories on the site without having to write more than an opening sentence. If people really want to write there's nothing stopping them from doing extra stories on things that aren't being reported on through the forum, and then we have even more from whatever contributors want to step forward. It's ridiculously simple and there's never been a reason given for it not to be done except that management can't be bothered to change things

[Martin]

Just a heads up:

Someone has corrected the missed letter in the title on this article, but clearly hasn't been through and checked the rest as there are still mistakes.

http://habbox.com/#!/News/article/2130


and perhaps in the short term there could be some kind of guidelines on the format of articles and images etc to keep things looking good.

Yes- the future of News is very much in the balance and these big changes will determine its fate tbh, however I think even in the short term it would be nice to keep basic standards up so that we don't look like a total flop of a fansite.




also Drewar; have you wrote any articles in the last month in which you have been in the role that others could use as an example?

[Kyle]

basically bolt is saying that drewar hasn't done a lot

but maybe he's doing the fabled BEHIND THE SCENES lark

[Kardan]

Back off Bolt660;, Drewar really doesn't like feedback from what I gathered.

[Rachel]

I was wondering why are not applying for the News Department if you want all these to be done...

[Kardan]

I was wondering why are not applying for the News Department if you want all these to be done...

That argument is nearly as bad as saying 'Sorry for having a life'.

[David]

basically bolt is saying that drewar hasn't done a lot

but maybe he's doing the fabled BEHIND THE SCENES lark

or the "working on something big, you'll see it soon" excuse that inseriousity always used

[The Don]

I was wondering why are not applying for the News Department if you want all these to be done...

What terrible reasoning.

[Martin]

I was wondering why are not applying for the News Department if you want all these to be done...

In 2010 we had heaps of people applying, and a solid number of staff which enabled us to keep on top of quality as best as we could.



Part of being a news reporter is taking pride in your work, wanting the best for Habbox and wanting to ensure the quality is good. (or at least good of a basic standard).

Personally I would be very off put joining something in which I can see from the outside there is little or no enthusiasm for the basic quality to be of a reasonable standard.




Are you saying we should just leave things the way it is? Leave all the spelling and grammatical errors there, making articles painfully hard to read and displeasing on the eye to make V6 look even more outdated than it already is? Personally I think everyone should be getting behind the challenge and wanting the department to improve and I think you'll find that more people will apply once that's done and once people can see there is pride in the department and its worthwhile joining.

[Rachel]

That argument is nearly as bad as saying 'Sorry for having a life'.

This is getting old to be honest. If they want to see changes, why not apply for that particular position and improve it?
Laura and Drewar has lives and cannot be online 24/7 as I am sure their lives are more important then a fansite right?



Also regarding about mistakes, It is still readable and if there are mistakes it must be the smallest mistake.
I am not saying not to correct it either....but I won't be saying anything else in this thread.

[The Don]

This is getting old to be honest. If they want to see changes, why not apply for that particular position and improve it?
Laura and Drewar has lives and cannot be online 24/7 as I am sure their lives are more important then a fansite right?



Also regarding about mistakes, It is still readable and if there are mistakes it must be the smallest mistake.

It's their job, the job they volunteer to do. Simply because we don't work for Habbox doesn't mean we can't suggest improvements. What a stupid comment.

[Kardan]

This is getting old to be honest. If they want to see changes, why not apply for that particular position and improve it?
Laura and Drewar has lives and cannot be online 24/7 as I am sure their lives are more important then a fansite right?



Also regarding about mistakes, It is still readable and if there are mistakes it must be the smallest mistake.
I am not saying not to correct it either....but I won't be saying anything else in this thread.

The position of News Team Leader/Manager is not open, so your argument is void. We cannot apply and make the changes needed.

[FlyingJesus]

I was wondering why are not applying for the News Department if you want all these to be done...

Because the best solution that solves the problems at hand can be done without having lots of people in the news department and only really requires a manager to make the 5 minute changes:


The solution for news if it has to be kept on the site at all is pretty simple and I've been explaining it for god knows how long without it ever being put into practice (despite being told by more than one news manager that it would happen) and to my knowledge doesn't require waiting for v7 or having a huge team or even needing people who can write really.
Current problem: the community always gets to the news first and posts threads about it
Solution: don't see it as a problem and reward the community for being attentive
Current problem: not enough writers
Solution: stop needing them
Current problem: no-one comments on the on-site news so it looks totally dead
Solution: take away on-site commenting and bring it back to the community properly

The news is already here. We do not need writers, we just need someone who can copy and paste a link onto the site with a title to it.
http://i.imgur.com/UbvXVC6.png
Give credit to the thread creator (there's an incentive for people to keep posting the news as quickly as it comes out), remove on-site commenting PLEASE (it makes everything look unread and even if there are comments on the stories ever it's pointless as it may as well come from the forum, adding to the community), and give whoever's on this "news team" a really easy job increasing the number of stories on the site without having to write more than an opening sentence. If people really want to write there's nothing stopping them from doing extra stories on things that aren't being reported on through the forum, and then we have even more from whatever contributors want to step forward. It's ridiculously simple and there's never been a reason given for it not to be done except that management can't be bothered to change things

[Drewar]

also Drewar; have you wrote any articles in the last month in which you have been in the role that others could use as an example?

No I have not.

I know that this answer isn't what anyone is looking for, but: the department truly is in a state of transition right now, and there will be major changes coming over the next few days (I was told as early as this Friday).

It seems that one of the major issues is that there are articles being added to the site that haven't been properly proofread. I am going to be implementing a system so that authors will have to submit their work in the Staff forums to be proof read and approved by the senior staff before they go ahead and post it on the website. This should ensure that higher quality works are being put on the website, which is what I believe one of your main concerns is, Martin.

I do accept responsibility that I have not been doing as much with this role that I could have. Laura has graciously taken most of the heat from you guys about the department's progress over the last month, however I am equally as responsible for the lack of progress that has been made so far.

With that being said, I have read through all of your comments, and I am discussing them with Laura. We are working hard to implement changes ASAP (as I said, hopefully as early as this Friday), and hopefully the changes will help alleviate some of your concerns :)

Also, just a side note, if someone wants to contact me directly, it is usually best to reach me over PM.

Cheers!

[Samantha]

No I have not.

I know that this answer isn't what anyone is looking for, but: the department truly is in a state of transition right now, and there will be major changes coming over the next few days (I was told as early as this Friday).

It seems that one of the major issues is that there are articles being added to the site that haven't been properly proofread. I am going to be implementing a system so that authors will have to submit their work in the Staff forums to be proof read and approved by the senior staff before they go ahead and post it on the website. This should ensure that higher quality works are being put on the website, which is what I believe one of your main concerns is, Martin.

I do accept responsibility that I have not been doing as much with this role that I could have. Laura has graciously taken most of the heat from you guys about the department's progress over the last month, however I am equally as responsible for the lack of progress that has been made so far.

With that being said, I have read through all of your comments, and I am discussing them with Laura. We are working hard to implement changes ASAP (as I said, hopefully as early as this Friday), and hopefully the changes will help alleviate some of your concerns :)

Also, just a side note, if someone wants to contact me directly, it is usually best to reach me over PM.

Cheers!

So, making news even more delayed getting onto the site? When I was in News the ability of posting it to the site was so that if someone wasn't available with the authority straight away then it could be there earlier than it would be if it's posted elsewhere first. Also, to get news out there as quick as we could! Yes, some reports have errors in, but I don't agree that there should be submissions on the forum beforehand when it's simple to just edit it on the site. Not only that, but once it's edited, the reporter then may have to rewrite it all onto the editor due to how horrible it is [the editor].

I see it could be more simple to post them on the forum first, but if you really wanted to go about making sure they're perfect before publication then you can just get staff to post in the 'Unpublished' category until you've seen, edited and PMed them.

[Mr-Trainor]

So, making news even more delayed getting onto the site? When I was in News the ability of posting it to the site was so that if someone wasn't available with the authority straight away then it could be there earlier than it would be if it's posted elsewhere first. Also, to get news out there as quick as we could! Yes, some reports have errors in, but I don't agree that there should be submissions on the forum beforehand when it's simple to just edit it on the site. Not only that, but once it's edited, the reporter then may have to rewrite it all onto the editor due to how horrible it is [the editor].

I see it could be more simple to post them on the forum first, but if you really wanted to go about making sure they're perfect before publication then you can just get staff to post in the 'Unpublished' category until you've seen, edited and PMed them.
Yeah I thought that at first too :P. But if the aim of News will be more 'articles' than stuff like Habbo news, then it wouldn't be as essential to get it on the site asap. Having said that, if someone was online and read through it as soon as it was posted then it could be up within a few mins.

BUT, I don't think I really agree with it though - what's wrong with just making the staff themselves proofread them, whether it's before or after it's posted? Surely that's something which should happen anyway. And then a senior member of the department can still go through it when it's live on the site, which means news/articles won't be delayed when it comes to getting more stuff on to the site :).

[Martin]

Yeah I thought that at first too :P. But if the aim of News will be more 'articles' than stuff like Habbo news, then it wouldn't be as essential to get it on the site asap. Having said that, if someone was online and read through it as soon as it was posted then it could be up within a few mins.

BUT, I don't think I really agree with it though - what's wrong with just making the staff themselves proofread them, whether it's before or after it's posted? Surely that's something which should happen anyway. And then a senior member of the department can still go through it when it's live on the site, which means news/articles won't be delayed when it comes to getting more stuff on to the site :).


This is how it should be. Some recent articles clearly haven't even been proof read by the looks of them and that's worrying.


I'm sorry but if senior staff are having trouble looking over and correct mistakes now whilst they are live on the site, then preventing the posting of them until they are checked will just mean that we won't get any recent news until 2020/v7 is out.

One of the most important things about news is that its up to date and that things are posted asap so they are still relevant and worthwhile reading. I used to cry and hit my head against my desk if anything took longer than 24 hours to publish as it made me personally feel like a failure, because there really is no use in reporting news that is old and stale and that nobody gives a crap about. You need to be investigative, the content needs to be exciting and interesting and there needs to be other pushes to get people actually wanting to read them.



Delaying articles getting onto the site is definitely NOT what we want to do. We just need dedicated staff who are willing to actually read their staff's articles to ensure their department isn't lacking severely in quality and looking like something one of those tk fansites would come up with.

[FlyingJesus]

Or we could completely skip the need for both writers and proofreaders by using the resources we already have and have always had

[Drewar]

Once the proposed changes are implemented, perhaps you will see why the proof reading thing is not going to make much of a difference. Or perhaps everyone will continue to question my judgment and believe that they are better suited for the position. Either way, let's just see what the weekend brings, ok? :)

Cheers!

[Kardan]

Guys, I think we're all missing the real reason why the news department isn't working. I'm surprised nobody has mentioned it yet.

Version 7.

[The Don]

Or we could completely skip the need for both writers and proofreaders by using the resources we already have and have always had

Really don't understand why nobody who has the power to make change has commented on your suggestion which seems like a vast improvement to the current system.

[Kardan]

Really don't understand why nobody who has the power to make change has commented on your suggestion which seems like a vast improvement to the current system.

His posts are hidden in the feedback forum for manager+ usergroups.

[Chippiewill]

Well it's pretty obvious,

The news manager isn't going to concede that their job is worthless. The content AGM isn't going to implement it because it's pretty much tantamount to giving up. And matt isn't going to touch it with a barge pole because it'll look bad and because he probably doesn't want to undermine the managers whose job it is to make the changes.

[FlyingJesus]

Yeah it's just egos getting in the way as usual which is pretty daft since it would still need a token staff to oversee it, so you could have a manager who doesn't even have to do any work (which would suit most of our current managers perfectly)

[Chippiewill]

I volunteer as tribute.