Timewaster's Guide Archive
General => Suggestions Box => Topic started by: stacer on October 19, 2004, 09:52:28 PM
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I've added a bio blurb at the end of my just-submitted review, patterned after EUOL's. We had a class on reviewing in my publishing class yesterday and the guest reviewer and my teacher (a former reviewer and editor at the Horn Book) said that reviews are one of the best ways to get your name out there, even if the reviews are only occasional. I suggest that we have a bio blurb at the bottom of every review. Here's what I put for mine (since my reviews only occur occasionally, I didn't put anything about when to look for them):
Stacer, aka Stacy Whitman, is a graduate student at the Center for the Study of Children's Literature at Simmons College in Boston, MA. A former editor for Houghton Mifflin Co., she currently interns at the Horn Book Magazine and Guide. She can be reached at norroway @ gmail.com.
Such bio information is standard fare on any such site, and it seems to me that we really ought to put a face, so to speak, to our reviewers. It lends a bit more legitimacy to the review, even if (as we've discussed before) we're not really looking to do much with the site. Depending on the subject, bios could reflect whatever the relevant background of the reviewer is.
What do you guys think? At any rate, I'd like to have my bio info on anything I've reviewed.
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Well that's what the staff page is for stacy. Problem is that we never update it since only Fell, EUOL, or Tage have the ability to do so. The reason we add EUOL's bio at the end is to help him promote himself and his book.
Such bio information is standard fare on any such site
as I said, it is on a staff page. Bio's regularly only follow reivews/articles on guest reviewers. Trust me, I read a lot of websites, and I have yet to see a regualr staff member's bio on any of thier articles.
If you want to place your bio at the end it's fine by me, but you need to get SE's approval, which I'm sure he'll be fine with. But I still think it's a better idea to have a redone staff page and features.
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I actually like the idea of a mini-bio at the end of each review.
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Well I have several ideas on this, well at least how to implement it. We can discuss it more in the approaite board once it gets created.
Though it should be an across the board thing, If we do it for one we should do it for all. I personaly don't care if anything about me is listed, I'm not doing things for the site in the hopes of useing it to get a job.
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At the least, it could post a link. But yeah, bios are good.
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Ok, while I don't want to start another thread about this until I get some replies on my other two threads, I'm just going to let you know I have several ideas for this that I think everyone will like. I'm going to have a todo list that I'll post sometime that will let you know what I'm planning on talking about and adding ect.
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A link to the staff page would be good, too. But I think an actual recognition on the page of that person's name is an important thing. Perhaps you and I are reading different kinds of web pages, Sprig, because I see that sort of thing on the pages I frequent--and get highly annoyed when I don't know anything about the author of a piece. What is the provenance of this piece? Why should I trust this person? It turns me off. But I'm coming from a journalistic and academic background, and the credentials matter to me. I just want to know that somebody knows what they're talking about--so credentials for a movie reviewer, say, will be someone who knows movies well, not necessarily someone who has a film degree--i.e., on a gaming review, so-and-so has been gaming for X years, or has reviewed a number of games for TWG and/or another place, or whatever.
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again, I don't think the adverage reader cares. I know when I goto a site and read an article or reveiw I don't. I think that you do, as you said, because of your acidemic background, but no one's comming here for those purposes. And, I can tell you this with certainty, NO gamer cares how long someone has been playing games, if we posted stuff like that people would think we were morons or actualy proud of the fact, like it's our highest achement.
And I'll just state what I've said in every post, I don't care if you do it, it's not my call, but it should be done for all or none. And frankly, most of us have pretty lame backgrounds here.
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See, I want one just to say this:
"JamPaladin is the residant Australian from Australia. He has been playing games since before he can remember (Yesterday) and is always right."
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I think people, even gamers care. They have trusted reviewers. BUt nto many of them care enough to follow a link about it. ON thought, an included bio would be better.
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Spriggan, people care about how long Tycho has been playing, so why would anyone else be different? People like to know where reviewers are coming from. If SE trashes a Star Wars book i'll ignore the review, because I know what SE thinks of the EU. Etc. By putting bios on, we let the readers build name recognition up.