News Department Feedback 2k13

[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! 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!! 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you're doing all these events to get people to the site, yet when they get there they're seeing stuff which is days out of date rather than what's actually currently happening on the hotel.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; 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:-; 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; 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:-; 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

[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?

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