Timewaster's Guide Archive
General => Suggestions Box => Topic started by: EUOL on November 13, 2003, 06:43:25 PM
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Okay, so, I've decided I should probably be proactive and revise the staff page so that it gives more credit to those who do a ton of work (Read: SE) and removes those who have disappeared into the ether (Read: Kid Kilowatt.)
So, I've got a few questions. First off, Fell, is there anything you would like to see done to the staff page?
Second, who amongst us is actively using the TWG as a resume feature? They should probably take precedence over the more casual writers, such as myself.
Third, who's not on there that wants to be?
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That reminds me, I should probably put TWG on my resume for when I apply to game companies and such. So I'd like to be kept on there. :)
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To be perfectly honest, I'd like to take over the Movies section, if no one objects. Movies happen to be a passion of mine, and I think I'd have more modivation to submit reviews if I had a title.
What do you guys think of that?
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I object on the basis that my objection will annoy MoD!
(that was a joke, btw, I have no objection)
I've just landed a new job, so I'm not doing anything on a resume. Some day in the future I might. So let me think on this. I'll write up a new bio so I can be something more than mysterious for head hunters.
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I won't object as long as I can tell MoD something that's been on my mind for a while. MoTivation. No D. (I've seen you use the word quite a bit, so I thought you might want to know how to spell it.) ;)
And if I had any time to spare, I'd like to start writing movie and book reviews myself. I plan on taking next semester off, and may be able to contribute a little when I'm not doing the school-full-time-work-full-time thing. As it is now, my posts have increased directly proportionately to my stress level: I am avoiding my homework.
By the way, SE, I've been meaning to say congrats on the new job.
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thanks!
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Hey, thanks stacer.
MoTivation /me tries to remember
And drat. I was hoping your increased activity was a more permanent (sp?) thing.
Saint, I'm getting better at telling when you're joking. I actually laughed before I read your parenthetical comment. /me feels proud of herself
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Since we're giving props to SE, I'd like to note that the 'advice' thread is one of the most amusing things I've read in a goodly time. I wonder if there's some way we can take the 'best of' those and post them on the main page as a kind of occasional feature.
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Okay, so truthfully my increased activity is permanent, but began as a function of my homework avoidance. But I won't be doing much beyond the forum till the semester is over.
And I second that idea on the "Advice," EUOL.
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While we're giving props to me, it should be noted that it wouldn't be half so amusing if it weren't for the freakish problems you all appear to have. But thanks. Let's wait till we have a lot more before we move selections of it to an article or anythign though.
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Woo! Don't scare me like that. I'm glad. It's nice to have another girl that frequents the board.
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No offence MoD, but I think that before you get a title you should actualy write some articles. It's not fair to those that have been writeing articles and don't have an offical position. Also I just don't think anyone should be in a deparment position without haveing ever done any articles, and proveing they can write more then one article every few months.
I thought we were going to move SE to RPG section head and 42 to movie head. But I don't know if 42 still has any intrest in doing that anymore.
In the end it's Fell's decision and I'll go along with whatever he decides.
Also if we're adding/removeing stuff, do you think we can move to a more professional layout. Right now that page isn't very well orginized. I'm thinking more like an actual magazine's staff layout.
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I never write any articles anymore, but my bio is in gross need of updating.
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It seems like MOD was asking to take on some responibility for our little community and expressing her interest in helping out. Perhaps putting a requirement in for editors to write articles is a good idea, but I wouldnt discount someone immediately if they havent written an article either. The job title should have some sort of Job description attached to it, if someone asks to fill a vacent positiion, you just need to ask if they can do the required work. Its not like your paying them so you dont lose a thing if they dont work out.
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I disagree. You lose time and maybe get frustrated. I think I agree with spriggan, and that dept heads should have contributed in the past. Maybe not articles, but contributed more than just showing up on the forums.
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/me shrugs
Well that's cool. I just don't think I'll have any moTivation to submit any articles without a title. I do better when I feel like I have a responsibility. Writing until someone deigns to give me a title feels like I am trying to win a contest where the rules are undefined.
Perhaps Fell and/or Sprig could suggest a number of articles that I should submit (I'm thinking 2?), and then they could be judge my worthiness based on that?
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If you want to be in the movie dept, then I'd write movie reviews. But do what ever you feel like. It dosen't even have to be a review, but another type of article.
I'm not saying you don't have to skill or ablility to do the job MoD. But TWG is something that people use for refrence, and because of that all the dept heads should do things for the site. It would diminish the value of TWG for everyone that wants to use it as a resume thing (even if you don't) if random people have random positions and others never do theirs.
As for dept heads haveing required article submissions, we tried this when TWG first started up. We use to have days assigned to different deparments, but the weekly requirements was too much for most of us.
Heck you can see the old article explaining the day system here (http://www.timewastersguide.com/view.php?id=205)
I wouldn't object to doing required monthly articles about your deparment (perfeably non review articles), but weekly is just too much a requirement for many of us. Maybe we can have a deparment head (or editor) then one or two assistant deparment heads for the more popular areas. Then if each of them wrote an article a month we could have one every other week.
Also why I'm thinking non-review articles is because we get a lot of reviews for some deparments, and are lacking other content on the site. But it shouldn't be a requirement. It may seam hypocritical, but I'm the VG and TOC head. I cannot see myself writeing a VG article that would be original and people would care about. But there's lots people could come up with for RPG, Table top, CCG and other deparments. But I could come up with reviews for either of my deparment once or twice a month.
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We're back to that:
I agree, we need non-review content in addition to our review content. Writing an article that was non-review would make you a very valuable resource.
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You see MoD, i have written 13 articles to date. All reviews. Although one of them is the staff pick 1. (I worked this out by doing 2 searches and doing a poke around manually. 9 results for Entropy, one is the staff pick. 4 results for Charlie82, one is the staff pick. And my Tyranids review didn't have my name on it or something, but i know i wrote it. Incidentially, Fell, could you change all my articles so they are under my Entropy nickname?). You have written... none. Not being nasty or anything, but it has to be asked why someone with no articles to their name would get chosen over people with multiple articles. Not very fair is it? BTW, not nominating myself for film department head here, i suck at analysing films.
And you are not the only one with problems forcing themselves to write articles. I've said it before, and i'll say it again, chocolate is nice. Wait, thats not it. No, i meant to say that our real problem is that we, by the nature of the site, attract people who don't want to do real work. So all of the staff and regulars are basically lazy bums. :P
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ok, I think I got all your name changes done (includeing your Tyranids article).
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I'm still waiting for Fell to add his thoughts. Sprig made a suggestion for the staff page layout today at the gym, and I think it was a pretty good one. I think I'll make it look more like a magazine staff page, with names and titles, then have links from those names to the specific bios. That will allow for a more professional, easy-to-read feel for those of you who use this on resumes, but will still allow for flavorful text regarding bios.
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I understand what everyone is saying. And Entropy, if we are counting staff picks, then I've written two.
All I'm trying to say is this: I don't see any point in writing a whole lot of articles with no guarantees. All anyone is saying is "Write articles if you want to be on the staff."
What I'm trying to say is, "I don't want to write articles if I'm not going to get to be a member of the staff."
The last review in the movies section was posted Sept 27 by Jeffe. Slant and he seem to be the major posters. If they want to be the Head of the Department, that's perfect. If they don't, then what's wrong with me? Besides the fact that I haven't written a full length article yet?
Like I said before, I'm willing to go through some sort of trial basis, or application process. But writing two articles and being judged on that is perferable to me to writting 13 and hoping that someone finally gets around to noticing me.
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I didn't count the staff picks article.
And we are trying to say that we need guarantees ourselves - we want active department heads who will wrote commonly. Kid kilowatt wrote an article a month, pretty much. Having someone who is unproved in the reviewing field as a department head is simply a risk that, for the people using the site as a bio, not worth it.
And you are a member of staff if you are a regular writer by default. I am a staff member, yet i have no position.
Again, not being nasty or anything here, just pointing that out.
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Sorry guys, this is the first chance I've had all day to read the forum, or I would have chimed in earlier.
I agree that we need to update both the staff page and the staff, and I'm trying to decide how we can best separate staff and contributors. JamPaladin, for example, writes a copious amount of reviews, and yet might have no interest in being on the staff page--or maybe he does. We need to figure out who's official and who's not, and who's willing to do little odd jobs around the site (Spriggan, for example, reads the submitted VG reviews before I even get to them, and is very good about communicating with both me and the authors about which ones are good, and how to fix the rest).
Ideally, this is the type of thing that would be decided in an actual face-to-face meeting, but obviously that's not going to work.
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We could coordinate a real-time online meeting. IRC or AIM or something.
Maybe we should actually give the dept heads soem defined responsibiltiy. Like what sprig does.
I try to read the RPG submissions as soon as I see them, and make at least formatting corrections. I could definitely be more active about communicating suggested changes.
Most importantly, though, we should acknowledge that Dept heads need to be fair. I can't reject a review just because i hate Vampire, etc. etc. Even if you disagree with the review, if it's well reasoned and written, yadda yadda...
Jeffe and JP both need to be on a contributer/staff list though. They both do a lot.
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Yeah, thanks. I'd like to be on the staff page, but It's not terribly important, so feel free to shove me down the bottom or something. I'm not really anything other than a "Contributor" - I write and submit stuff, but I have no real conection or responsibility on the site. What I'm working on now is ideas for non-review articles, as well as some more reviews.
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We can't let that guy escape.
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Id like to be on the staff page too....
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I think anyone who's written more then one or two articles should be on the staff page. I'm not that familiar with the publishing industry or their positions/titles. But I do feel there's a difference between a regular contrbuter/writer and an editor. As I stated in my first post we use to try and do lots of things, but the lack of interest in TWG from others, lack of time, shortage of people willing to do things all kept us from realy changeing TWG how we had wanted. Now we've got lots of enthusiasm for TWG and doing articles, no small part to SE and Jeffe, so we should try and include everyone in the fairest way possible. I still think this could be done with the larger/more popular deparments havening an assist. dept. head. Of course that should not be so the Dept head can brush off all his duties, or that the Assist don't do anything and has his name up on the staff page. But so that they can get all the articles done they need. Maybe set monthly theams on what their articles (not reviews) are about, and maybe even list a call for non-review articels for the comming month with the topic being X. Great now I'm just rambling.
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with a department head and an assistant head (and since I'm RPG head, I'd pick Jeffe as my assistant, not only are we both local, making it easier to coordinate things, but the other best candidate is JP, who just said he wasn't interested in being in a "position") you can make sure you have at least an article in your dept submitted every other week. Between Jeffe and I particularly, we' make sure there is at least one RPG article a week.
if there is an assistant dept head, then the responsibilities and things that need to get done should INCREASE. I'm not saying double in every account, but with more manpower, you can do more.
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Hey, really good ideas. Does this mean that Jeffe will be Movie's Dept Head? Just wondering who I should kiss up too ;)
I've offered before, and I will offer again. I graduated in English with an emphasis in Editing, and I have a passable knowledge of html. So if anyone needs/wants help in that area, I am available.
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I don't think that's what he's bucking for
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Okay, since you guys are discussing magazines, I'll chime in to tell you how it worked at my magazine as far as staff goes. We were "entirely staff-written," which means that the editors and the writers were usually one and the same, but we had "special correspondents" who were also listed on the masthead as part of the staff, who wrote occasional pieces. So, as the editor, I both edited others' works and wrote my own departments. Now, this is not always the case for every magazine. If you'd like to see an example of a current masthead (in which I'm now listed as a Special Correspondent, because I write occasional pieces now that I'm no longer an editor), go to http://www.eamagazine.com and click on Staff. There is no direct link to it, sorry.
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I like the idea of tacking 'editor' onto the end of the department heads. It sounds better profesionaly. "Movie Department Editor." Of course, that would imply that we're giving them editorial power.
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well, we kinda do have it. We can make edits to articles and suggestions.
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SE, I also have a bunch of RPG articles I'm working on. With me in addition to you and Jeffe, I think at least one article a week is pretty much guarenteed.
While I don't want any big positions, if you want to call me an "RPG Department Writer" or something and expect X number of articles that's fine - in fact, having a little bit of pressure makes me work better. Or whatever. Basically, I don't care about my official status, but if you want me to write soemthing in particular, I'm more than happy.
I also like Spriggan's idea about non-review articles. I had an idea this morning which I'm still thinking about, but the main thing stopping me from writing them is a lack of ideas/topics to write on.
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Well we could start an article pool, we did it on a University paper I was on...
Everyone contributes at least 5 ideas a month in the various depts even if they're just plain silly, and then you pick out the best ones and go with em. (if its really slow you go back to the file and pull out and older one and dust it off.
RPG's are just chocked full of ideas, Do an article on grump older gamers, dice fetishes, or mini painting. Go hang out at a con for a day as a reporter and write down what you see. Or try and interview an industry great, Gary Gygax,Marc Miller, Monte Cook or Robin Laws.
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/me sits back and lets his staff do the work.
(just kidding!)
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I'm assuming that EUOL is the Lord o' Books, and I have a question about a submission. I didn't want to start a whole new thread just to ask.
I recently read (or reread in some cases) all of the Earthsea books and was thinking instead of doing a big review on each of them, doing kind of an overview, using the specific criticisms you emply in your reviews and a much shorter 'review' section for each. I could do it in two parts, because there's a definite division (chronological and stylistic) between the first three and the last three. Does that sound ok?
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First three and last one (Tehanu, right?)? or last three? I thought there were only 4 total.
BTW, Kije, have you ever read LeGuin's speech about the reasons why she changed the last one so drastically? I'm not sure of the ref right now but can give you it later. She said that the reason is that she realized that with the first three she was writing in a kind of honorary-man mode--that even though she had changed around the race of all the good guys, they were still all guys. Very interesting.
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She wrote a collection of stories called Tales of Earthsea, and another novel called The Other Wind. I saw the gender thing, definitely, although The Tombs of Atuan (one of her earlier works) was mostly about Tenar (female,) not Ged (male.) But I suppose that can be debated. But the last books are written differently. Very different plotwise and stylewise. Maybe the gender thing demanded/precipitated those other changes, I don't know. I'm very interested in reading that speech if you remember where it is.
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careful, mention LeGuin and EUOL starts to rant. I know she's one of the author's he can't stand (Mercadies Lacky is the other).
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again, just because an editor/dept head doesn't like an author or game or whatever, does NOT mean he should not accept a well-written review on the subject. I think EUOL knows that.
Kije, I already did a review of an entire series: so I don't see why there would be any problem doing it again. Even breaking it up (I also did an article just to explain the next 4-6 reviews i was going to do: Forgotten Realms, Kalamar, Kalamr Player's guide, Silver Marches, and Pekal Gazeteer were meant to be read all together -- I think that I did the same with City of the Spider Queen and STar Wars Tempest Feud). We're not really in the habit of rejecting content just because it looks a little different than the other content.
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I wasn't suggesting the EUOL would try and block a review of one of thier books. He just use to like ranting about them.
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Woah, wait a sec. Who said I don't like LeGuin? You're right about Lackey, Sprig--can't stand her. LeGuin, however, is pretty good. You must be thinking of someone esle.
And, I think doing Earthsea in two chunks is a good idea, Kije. Go for it.
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I for one would be interested, because I dont know if I should bother, or where to start.
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Saint: I looked for your Earthsea stuff and couldn't find it. I think that I might not be getting how to find stuff on the site, though. When I look in the books section, it lists only 12 reviews in the database and one article. Is this correct? Have there only been 12 book reviews in TWG history? Or do I find the others a different way?
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Kije: I think you misred SE's post. He said he'd reviewed a series, similar to what you'd done, to point out that it was a fine method of reviewing. He wasn't saying that he'd done Earthsea specifically.
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exactly. I haven't read earthsea since I was a teen.
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I, for some reason, thought SE had mentioned he had reviewed Earthsea as well.
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strange.
btw, I get it now.