The site needs better front page organization
- Thread starter Drithius
- Start date
I'm posting on the Codex the same way as here and most of the non-troll-Codexians like it or are at least used to my style. The trolls call me passive aggressive and give normally up after just a few posts, because they can't handle someone who they can't rile up (see for example the classic thread: RPG Codex vs. HiddenX).
Drithius
Magic & Loss
I was perfectly civil in my first three posts. After being greeted with little but hostility, you can bet your ass I turned up the heat in my remarks because I got sick of the attitudes. Hidden, if you truly think there's something out of line with my first post, I won't even bother trying to have a "big-people" conversation with you.
If that's your idea of a "big-people" conversation I'm happy that you avoid conversation with me, because that's more like Kindergarden for me.
Be prepared that I defend RPGWatch and its original ideas and the people that actually work for it, whenever I see a need for it.
Be prepared that I defend RPGWatch and its original ideas and the people that actually work for it, whenever I see a need for it.
This site is run by volunteers, who's only payment is whatever satisfaction they get from what they do. It is a hobby we do in our spare time and as such there is little need to be told that we do it in the wrong way. Especially as for some it is a big time sink.
We aren't a company and you aren't customers. We don't need to reach a customer satisfaction level and improve ourselves based on the feedback we get. Our visitors are people that can benefit from what we do. Or they simply don't.
I'm not against suggestions and as I mentioned we already have categories, which in the future might be used to filter news. However I don't think that for someone who spends a lot of time as a staff member on RPGWatch his efforts should be downgraded to a level that uses terminology such as fluff news, unrelated shit, turd, crap, etc..
I read from your posts that there is nothing positive to be found for you on RPGWatch and it only gives you aggravation. If you mean well and want to be constructive, you have a very strange way of expressing yourself.
We aren't a company and you aren't customers. We don't need to reach a customer satisfaction level and improve ourselves based on the feedback we get. Our visitors are people that can benefit from what we do. Or they simply don't.
I'm not against suggestions and as I mentioned we already have categories, which in the future might be used to filter news. However I don't think that for someone who spends a lot of time as a staff member on RPGWatch his efforts should be downgraded to a level that uses terminology such as fluff news, unrelated shit, turd, crap, etc..
I read from your posts that there is nothing positive to be found for you on RPGWatch and it only gives you aggravation. If you mean well and want to be constructive, you have a very strange way of expressing yourself.
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2006
- Messages
- 11,223
Guys, please stop bickering. Can we get back on track and stick to the thread title?
OK, how about this:
OK, how about this:
- We could add Kickstarter and Sales to news categories, as proposed.
Kickstarter could be everything related to the funding campaign for a game, up until the campaign is over — successful or not. It could also be called "Fundraiser" or so, but I guess Kickstarter is almost synonymous.
- Implement simple news filters for users: Let them a) filter by news type and b) select games they don't want to read news about.
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2006
- Messages
- 3,488
Drithius
Magic & Loss
Sounds great, Arhu, thanks. Is it too much a bother to add a "review" category? When new games get released, the hot topics are often a redundant mess of review batch 1… review batch 3… review batch 5…
Someone also suggested in another thread that the hot topic news posts be extended in length (from 5 to possibly 10?). How's that work for the layout/design?
Someone also suggested in another thread that the hot topic news posts be extended in length (from 5 to possibly 10?). How's that work for the layout/design?
Sales and Crowdfunding are two arbitrary categories out of many.
AAA games & Indie games would be another pair.
They don't work well for news posts, because they are not overlap-free.
So only a tag system with multiple tags per news entry can work. And even tag systems work only if the tags are well thought out and not too many.
I don't need any of this.
AAA games & Indie games would be another pair.
They don't work well for news posts, because they are not overlap-free.
So only a tag system with multiple tags per news entry can work. And even tag systems work only if the tags are well thought out and not too many.
I don't need any of this.
Drithius
Magic & Loss
Well, some people do. But there's so much hostility in this thread that they likely don't want to become embroiled in it.
Kostas
Dormant Watcher
I'd certainly welcome a way to filter the frontpage. Much like the nut I mainly use codex now to glimpse at what interests me.
I've concluded that my "issue" can simply be put in terms of taste. Dhuin's and Gorath's overlapped with mine much more closer than Couch's does.
Since this is all frontend work for Arhu and Myrthos though can't do much else but hope they find time and willingness to implement a solution.
I've concluded that my "issue" can simply be put in terms of taste. Dhuin's and Gorath's overlapped with mine much more closer than Couch's does.
Since this is all frontend work for Arhu and Myrthos though can't do much else but hope they find time and willingness to implement a solution.
It is not one-time-only frontend work -> every news-post needs to be categorized or better tagged with multiple tags to make this work. That is additional work for the news-poster for each and every news post.
Good categorizing/tagging needs time. And if something showing up that you don't like you'll moan about it again.
Your problem is not the filtering. Your problem is that your tastes differ with our main news poster's taste and you guys are not tolerant enough to read maybe 10 more rows/day in 35 seconds.
On the other hand thoughtful categorizing/tagging needs more than 35 seconds per entry!
Good categorizing/tagging needs time. And if something showing up that you don't like you'll moan about it again.
Your problem is not the filtering. Your problem is that your tastes differ with our main news poster's taste and you guys are not tolerant enough to read maybe 10 more rows/day in 35 seconds.
On the other hand thoughtful categorizing/tagging needs more than 35 seconds per entry!
- Joined
- October 18, 2006
- Messages
- 3,201
Really don't get what the issue is. Thanks to the bolded headlines, it's very easy and convenient to quickly skim and scan the headlines "vertically" for anything that might catch one's interest. Going from top to bottom through the bolded lines should take even a slow reader under one minute.
Also, I personally like the broad scope and think that Couchpotato is doing a great job.
Sure, there may only be a handful of news items on the front page that I have a personal interest in at any given time but on a peripheral level it's also interesting to see what else is "hot".
It helps to broaden one's own perspective for the "big picture" with regard to gaming and the games industry. Of course I also visit a number of other general gaming news sites daily like Blue's News and German Gamestar for example.
Anyway, as far as I am concerned I'd say don't change a running system. At least not too much. I've always liked the general style where you have the clickable headlines at the top and the news stories down below. The only thing that should be addressed some time maybe would be to "hide" the Flash videos in the newsbits behind a 'read more' link. The direct embedding comes with a fairly bad performance hit even on my somewhat high end rig.
Just my .2c
Also, I personally like the broad scope and think that Couchpotato is doing a great job.
Sure, there may only be a handful of news items on the front page that I have a personal interest in at any given time but on a peripheral level it's also interesting to see what else is "hot".
It helps to broaden one's own perspective for the "big picture" with regard to gaming and the games industry. Of course I also visit a number of other general gaming news sites daily like Blue's News and German Gamestar for example.
Anyway, as far as I am concerned I'd say don't change a running system. At least not too much. I've always liked the general style where you have the clickable headlines at the top and the news stories down below. The only thing that should be addressed some time maybe would be to "hide" the Flash videos in the newsbits behind a 'read more' link. The direct embedding comes with a fairly bad performance hit even on my somewhat high end rig.
Just my .2c
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2006
- Messages
- 3,201
It's already in there:
So all we'd have to implement is an unobtrusive way to let people filter by those categories. We had something like that back at RPGDot, IIRC.Myrthos said:
The latter two sound more like games types to me, not like news types. I would differentiate between those. For games I hope to have something in place eventually where all users can tag and categorize to their hearts' content (yes, the CRPG AnalyzerHiddenX said:
), but for news I think we can make use of what we have.News categories are already in place (see above). "Sales" sounds like a non-overlapping category to me. The only outlier might be "Crowdfunding" but I believe putting everything up to the campaign's end in there would work well enough. The category has been collectively named and identified quite early after Kickstarters became commonplace.
So, no actual additional work for news posters, since as Myrthos said the category has to be filled out anyway, and some simple options for readers.
If and when games tagging is available, we can start thinking about adding filters for those too, but that, my friends, is a story best be told another time ...
Last edited:
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2006
- Messages
- 3,488
With his selection of news a news poster wants to send messages to his readers.
He wants to confront them with interesting indie-titles, cool reviews, fascinating gaming history, new crowdfunding campaigns etc.
Reading at least the title and decide wether a news-bit is interesting for me or not is the respect I can give the news-poster.
Making a comment - give feedback is a reward I can give him for his work.
Giving the users tools to shut down parts of the news doesn't feel right for me. It's like an ignore list for the news-editors.
If I don't want to see the majority of news-posts of a site I would change the news-site.
He wants to confront them with interesting indie-titles, cool reviews, fascinating gaming history, new crowdfunding campaigns etc.
Reading at least the title and decide wether a news-bit is interesting for me or not is the respect I can give the news-poster.
Making a comment - give feedback is a reward I can give him for his work.
Giving the users tools to shut down parts of the news doesn't feel right for me. It's like an ignore list for the news-editors.
If I don't want to see the majority of news-posts of a site I would change the news-site.
Gloo
Sentinel
Maybe because as sakichop said, most people here can invest 15 to 30 seconds in browsing through an easy to read list of news headlines, in order to see if there's something interesting ? It's become an enjoyable routine for me and I suppose that's the same for many others who do not complain to change something that's not broken at all… As the saying goes in France : "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien" which translates to "Let well alone", I think ?
Gloo
Sentinel
That won't work but Couchpotato will have to ! In order to spare a few people (only a couple as it seems) a few seconds of their precious time, he'll have to waste the double of his own, thinking as each newsbit fit in the correct category !
I think I can see what Drithius is after but here that seems to me like a waste of time and energy.
Include filtering and sorting options in the main news feed?
Sort by: Recent, Hot topix / Trending (most comments / clicks within a set timeframe),
Filter by: AAA, Kicktstarter / Indie?, General gaming, Reviews, Previews, Interviews, Polls, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Turnbased, RTWP, etc
Sort by: Recent, Hot topix / Trending (most comments / clicks within a set timeframe),
Filter by: AAA, Kicktstarter / Indie?, General gaming, Reviews, Previews, Interviews, Polls, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Turnbased, RTWP, etc