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Vague Topic Information by Staff should Stop
staff_Jim
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Posted: Monday, February 24, 2014 - 05:11 AM UTC

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Didn't change last time we had a thread on this. Still the same silly news "headlines". Page views sell advertising, and advertising pays the bills. Why this site can't stand solely on it's own due to content is?



Exactly.

[rant mode]
I offered some time ago to help out the news team in order to get more accurate news, I got out eventually when I realised that what was expected of me was not to get more accurate news or find exclusive information that really interest modellers but to churn out pseudo news at high speed to beat other websites to the punch and generate more ad revenue.

That is sad but more a reflexion on modern economy and contemporary society than on Armorama, just following the times I guess.
[/rant mode]

On a positive note, critical postings are not deleted/removed, so at least here you can voice your opinion. You can thank Armorama for this.

Cheers,

Christophe



Hi Christophe,
I am not sure how you ever got this idea that we are trying to push a bunch of news stories to gain more ad revenues. Since 90% of ad revenues on this site are fixed payments (not based on clicks), your claim we are trying to farm clicks is really off base. The news department exists to get news to readers. What you were asked to do as a staffer was post at least 4-5 news stories a month. How is that rushed?

Also if you had ended up researching and published detailed news stories we would have welcomed that as well.

Jim
Kelley
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Posted: Monday, February 24, 2014 - 05:14 AM UTC

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It's really quite simple: Manufacturer, Scale, Subject. Just put those items in the titles of your news threads.

Yes, it's repetitive and a little dull, but it's informative which is the whole point (or what should be the point).

Just give us the facts so that we, your loyal readers, can decide if we want to know more. Don't make us hunt around or turn over stones to discover the 2 or 3 releases that we find interesting out of the perhaps dozen or so that you might announce in a given day.

A two sentence post that so-and-so has reviewed such-and-such with a link to the review is not ever going to earn a Pulitzer Prize. All the thread title needs to do is to tell us what the product is.

As Joe Friday said: "Just the facts, mam..."

If it's something that we're interested in, we'll read the review. If it's not, we'll skip it and spend our time here looking at something that we are interested in.

As it is right now, I'm like many of the others posting here - I've given up bothering to open news and reviews threads with nonsensical, "whimsical" and uninformative titles. If the intent is to inform and advertise new releases, then the current method is, as far as I'm concerned, ineffective and counter-productive.

And, yes, this topic has been raised SEVERAL times in the past. That should tell the site managers something if they care to listen.


Bingo!
staff_Jim
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Posted: Monday, February 24, 2014 - 05:24 AM UTC


Yes every newspaper, magazine and online publication should adopt this form of bland title management to suit those who prefer to get all the information in 128 characters. Oh wait... they aren't doing it that way. And neither shall we.

Jim
pseudorealityx
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Posted: Monday, February 24, 2014 - 07:02 AM UTC

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:D

Yes every newspaper, magazine and online publication should adopt this form of bland title management to suit those who prefer to get all the information in 128 characters. Oh wait... they aren't doing it that way. And neither shall we.

Jim



That's nonsense.

Nobody wants "all" the information in the title. How is having a scale or manufacturer "all" of the information?
AlanL
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Posted: Monday, February 24, 2014 - 07:38 AM UTC

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Also, please keep in mind that many of your more frequent users likely use the "Latest Posts" button instead of clicking on each tab. That doesn't provide the additional information that the staff members are harping about.

Like others, at this point, I just ignore ALL the news and reviews titles.



Hi Jesse,

I don't see anyone harping on about anything other than those complaining about the info in the forum post, which they are entitled to do.

Al
SgtRam
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Posted: Monday, February 24, 2014 - 08:20 AM UTC

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IN ARMOR/AFV | EDITOR: KEVIN BRANT Ausf.B Coming Soon
News in from MiniArt has some details on the Pz.III Ausf.B that is coming soon.
>> READ MORE



Just for peoples information, the post that started all this, if you look on the What's new, it has all the information you need, well other then the scale, but I will talk to Jim about that.

Tiger_213
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Posted: Monday, February 24, 2014 - 08:48 AM UTC

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:D

Yes every newspaper, magazine and online publication should adopt this form of bland title management to suit those who prefer to get all the information in 128 characters. Oh wait... they aren't doing it that way. And neither shall we.

Jim



That's nonsense.

Nobody wants "all" the information in the title. How is having a scale or manufacturer "all" of the information?



I don't know, considering just a few days ago people were talking about MiniArt's Aust. B panzer II being announced, and just yesterday? Or maybe two days ago it was announced here on Armorama's news section. That wasn't 'pushed' out as quickly as it could have been, and anyone interested in a II Aust. B would probably read that just to see who else might be making one, or if Armorama got new information on the subject that wasn't in the unofficial post from a few days before. (I'm referring to Andrew's comment on Kevin's "Aust. B competing soon")

Still siding with the staff's current system if that's somehow unclear.
BigfootV
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Posted: Monday, February 24, 2014 - 09:20 AM UTC
Hello everyone,

I would like to point something out here. This was a case of having a dual post for the same news subject.
On Feb. 11th was the first posting and then re-posted again on Feb. 22nd. The only difference was the wording. The first post was Pz. III B and D, second was Pz. III B. Was this misleading or vague, nope, just a simple mistake, nothing more nothing less.

That's my opinion.
Keep up the good work.

See ya in the funnies..........
SdAufKla
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Posted: Monday, February 24, 2014 - 11:00 AM UTC

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IN ARMOR/AFV | EDITOR: KEVIN BRANT Ausf.B Coming Soon
News in from MiniArt has some details on the Pz.III Ausf.B that is coming soon.
>> READ MORE



Just for peoples information, the post that started all this, if you look on the What's new, it has all the information you need, well other then the scale, but I will talk to Jim about that.




As for myself, I'm talking specifically about the thread TITLES. The title of the thread in question was a very non-descriptive "Ausf. B Coming Soon."

You could have just as easily written "New MiniArt 1/35 Pz. III Ausf. B" after the little yellow "NEWS" box, and everyone would have known exactly what the thread was about.

I think that's also what the original poster who started this thread was talking about - the vague thread TITLE and not the content of the first post in the thread.

I'm not trying to bust anyone's balls here, just provide some feedback from a regular visitor and contributor.

I find vague thread titles annoying no matter who writes them, but for announcing "/news," it's particularly irritating. There's way too much internet and too little time to poke around all the nooks and crannies looking for useful information. For me, nondescript thread titles are a disincentive to read more, not an enticement to search further.

(And this doesn't just apply to the "official" posters here. I don't waste my time opening other threads with titles that don't describe what they're really about.)

However, as Jim, the publisher, has made clear his intention to continue in this editorial direction, I don't see any point in additional comment.

I just wanted to be clear about what I was criticizing - nondescript thread TITLES and not thread CONTENT (which is generally good).
Konigwolf
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Posted: Monday, February 24, 2014 - 12:17 PM UTC
@ Kevin THIS (see below) is the problem.
The image below shows my point.



Jim Starkweather maybe onto the issue on the previous page.

"Regarding putting the brand/maker in the title. There is a technical reason that this isn't happening currently. A majority of our news readers find these items via the main news page or homepage, not the forums. So the main news page and the homepage already INCLUDE the maker of the kit.

I will see about adding the maker to the forum & what's new posts automatically.

Jim"
SgtRam
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Posted: Monday, February 24, 2014 - 12:30 PM UTC
Andrew

I know how it is displayed, and understand your frustration, but that is how the news in done on this site. With one click you will see a brief summary with more explanation. Unfortunately the title is limited to a set number of characters.

Just looking at what other printed and online magazines do, and if you think our title are vague, have a look at them. If you do not want spend two seconds to click to get more information, then it would be your loss, as you may be missing out on information that you might be interested in.

As Jim, the publisher, has stated, we will continue with the scheme of titles that are being used, and I for one, and happy to have the support of the publisher.

And just think of the number of posts you could have read in the amount of time you have spend trolling this one post.
Robbd01
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Posted: Monday, February 24, 2014 - 12:45 PM UTC
Hey it worked. I clicked on this vague topic.....
Ok back to modeling.
SdAufKla
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Posted: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - 02:45 AM UTC

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Andrew

...

And just think of the number of posts you could have read in the amount of time you have spend trolling this one post.



I can't believe that you just characterized the original poster as a "troll" for his constructive criticism.

That attitude says a lot to me.
SgtRam
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Posted: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - 03:39 AM UTC

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Andrew

...

And just think of the number of posts you could have read in the amount of time you have spend trolling this one post.



I can't believe that you just characterized the original poster as a "troll" for his constructive criticism.

That attitude says a lot to me.



In my opinion, the way the original post was written, was not constructive, it was a borderline insult to the Staff here. And if you re-read my post, I did not characterize the poster, but his actions. There is a difference.

This issue has been hashed out many times, and when we recieive contructive advise, we look into it. As there were some suggestions made in this post, and I have spoken to the publisher briefly and we are looking into what can be done.

I beleive at this time, there has been enough said, and we will carry one.
CMOT
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Posted: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - 04:11 AM UTC
Mike Kevin did not accuse anyone of being a troll as he said Trolling. I read that as how long it takes to read all of the posts here.

When this topic was raised again I took a look through the latest news titles to see if I observed a major issue, I saw 3 news stories with titles that provided limited information, and of those three only 1 did not provide enough information to tell me what I was going to look at; in all cases one click told me all I needed to know about whether I wished to continue or not. So as I see this the arguement is that some members do not have enough time in their lives to click a news story.
pseudorealityx
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Posted: Wednesday, February 26, 2014 - 04:32 AM UTC
One of the more recent topics...

"2014 Preview"


Seriously?
exer
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Posted: Wednesday, February 26, 2014 - 04:54 AM UTC

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As for the titles, we have moved away from the more entertaining vague titles that was experimented with, to something more informative, but as I have mentioned before, I am not going to give away the story in the news title.



Why not? What's the big secret?
CMOT
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Posted: Wednesday, February 26, 2014 - 05:15 AM UTC
Because Pat that is the instruction that has been given them. At the risk of repeating myself, We do make mistakes and get it wrong but on the whole they do strike the right balance. We made big mistakes when we first tried to follow the publishers instruction of about 18 months ago due to me misunderstanding the instruction given.
jimbrae
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Posted: Wednesday, February 26, 2014 - 05:39 AM UTC
I'd forgotten what a truly nasty thread this actually was.

It's also good for me to remenber why I gave up on being a staff member. Nothing was ever more satisfying than the ill-founded (and frequently ill-informed) criticism which was always part of the deal.

It's also nice when the Staff (who are unpaid volunteers) are reminded how wonderful other sites are. Yes, we all know that a certain other Site's Owner/Operator is close to Sainthood - but it still doesn't change the Traffic Numbers - something that advertisers tend to consider firsta mongst anything. Does anyone imagine that HBO would exist without advertisers? Thought not...
spoons
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Posted: Wednesday, February 26, 2014 - 07:06 AM UTC
Funny how the members can post good subject headers in the forum maybe we should jump on the band wagon, next post header 'tank'
SgtRam
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Posted: Wednesday, February 26, 2014 - 07:23 AM UTC

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Funny how the members can post good subject headers in the forum maybe we should jump on the band wagon, next post header 'tank'



Unfortunately the news title are not written for the forums, they are written for the News tab, What's New, Homepage, and RSS feed. It was a courtesy to have then included in the forum posts.

Would people prefer not to have them in the forum and have to go else where to find the news, like alot of other sites do.

We are working to include the scale and maker with in the Forum titles to make things a little easier.

But I am at the point now to think no matter what is done, someone will complain and start a flame thread, we can't please everyone.
easyco69
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Posted: Wednesday, February 26, 2014 - 07:33 AM UTC

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As the topic says I'm getting sick wasting my time checking out posts about something I'm not interested in because the Armorama staffer who posted it was either phishing for more views or just ignorant.

Eg, there has been a few threads of late where the staffer has just posted Ausf X coming soon or ausf x that. Given the wide range of german vehicles that used ausf lettering to have to go into a thread to actually find something basic that should be in the Topic is basically is phishing for page views. If I'm not interested in the item I'm not going to follow the link (even if I did have to go the thread to check out the panzer type being posted about).



You whine like a lil school girl.
staff_Jim
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Posted: Wednesday, February 26, 2014 - 08:30 AM UTC
Guys...
This is getting a bit silly. Click, don't click. Read, don't read. The titles are not perfect, but they are what they are. If you think all these guys went to journalism school and suddenly have become expert blog or news writers, well... I would love to live in that fantasy world as well.

Simple solution for those who think they can do better. Volunteer to write news articles and do it better. No one is stopping you.

Let's be crystal clear here. Do I think "2014 Preview" is a good news title. No, but again it's not *every* title that is like that and most are perfectly fine. There is no system where everything pleases everyone. We just do the best we can.

Cheers,
Jim
18Bravo
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Posted: Thursday, February 27, 2014 - 08:09 AM UTC
I think calling people "whiners" is a bit brave in the privacy of your basement, and doesn't add much to the solution.
A while back I brought up the fact that a majority of the Russo-Soviet forum was filled with "How to.." threads that hadn't been visited in ages. I was met with similar derision by some.
In the comfort of my home, yeah, it may only take "2 seconds" to move on. However, for many months at a time (like now for instance) I am not in the privacy of my own home. I may be on the Syrian border, with my internet provider actually
in Syria. Slow? Try glacial.
I may be in the Philippines, on a pay by the minute site that caters to the unfortunate (foreign) rubes who find themselves in some Godforsaken place with no internet in their grass hut.Think those computers are fast? Yeah, because those folks don't REALLY want to make money, they want us to hurry up and move on.
Or maybe I'm in the USO in Seoul, with 30 muldoons waiting on three computers.
With limited time in my day, you know, the ones where I had to run two or maybe even three combat missions, my few minutes of relaxation was wasted waiting for a new page to load up. (or scroll down, as in the case of the Russo-Soviet page) Now maybe this never affects you, or at least you think it doesn't, but I've gone back later on and found threads that I could have contributed some really cool stuff if I hadn't my time wasted. Sometimes those opportunities are lost, and I'm certainly not putting my ass back on the line for the sake of a few silly photos.
Food for thought, that's all I'm sayin'.

Edit:
By the way Jim, my biggest issue right now is clicking on News stories, and not seeing the original post, just the follow ons. Do you know what is causing that?
firstcircle
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Posted: Thursday, February 27, 2014 - 12:03 PM UTC
Cruise the news stories on the News tab. Why read the news stories via the forum thread? That's for discussing the news item.

Now I know though why my braille kit reviews get so many hits - it's just people clicking them from the forum or the front page where it doesn't tell them it's 1/72; one second later they click away in disgust at the wasted seconds of their life. Or sometimes they post the message "I so want one of those in 1/35 scale". I hate that.