Mygaming low on content

Avatar said:
Yeah, it's tricky. It seems to me to be more of a case of the very few writers for MyG being spread too thin to produce enough content. Maybe crowdsourcing this sucker is the way to go? There are a few of us who get too verbose in the forums anyway, and some of us would looooooooove a soapbox more visible than the blogging feature. I, for one, would gladly write a short piece every month or so, on hardware in general or whatever game I'm playing. I don't think it's far fetched..
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This is exactly the point I am trying to make. You will find people in the community will be all to happy and willing to help where needed. I for one wouldn't think twice about it, it's a given. But this is fundamentally what I think would have to happen. The bottom line is, the site and maintaining it has become a chore and a hobby and thus we are getting copied content without any originality (what there is, is very sparse).

Just out of curiousity, what journalists are there that write their own content for MyGaming?
 
As everyone has said, there are quite a few of us here on the forums that wouldn't think twice about helping out with creating content for the site. I for one would gladly put my hand up. But, I know that my "articles" would not be received well or quite up to standard for a quality site. I wish I had actual writing talent or journalistic qualities, but I'm an Afrikaans speaking gamer trying to convey my message and ideas via a second language. This will have a big impact on the quality of articles I write, and it will have the same effect on any of the rest of us. Lets face it, there are only a handful of us that can realistically rise us to the challenge to creating an interesting, readable article worthy of front page status.

While I completely support the notion of getting the community involved in creating content, should the burden be too big for the limited staff at MyGaming, it will be a difficult and time consuming process to vet any content us lowly forum dwellers come up with.
 
MetalSoup said:
All the writers are on strike because you were so mean to them. "whistling:
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Haha I'm the nicest person here. Even my title says so. :D

But I'm very paranoid that they are thinking of closing down MyGaming. When you spoke to Jan, did it sound like everything is okay?
[MENTION=289]Jan[/MENTION], please mate, reassure us. We need this place. It's like home for many of us.
 
DieGrootHammer said:
Lets face it, there are only a handful of us that can realistically rise us to the challenge to creating an interesting, readable article worthy of front page status.
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While I disagree about your perception of your writing/communicating skills, this is true, and the biggest hurdle in the crowdsourcing idea. The only solution I can think of is either a huge amount of editing work, or a huge amount of curator work, both of which requires an extra pair of hands that I don't think is currently available.

Solitude said:
Haha I'm the nicest person here. Even my title says so. :D

But I'm very paranoid that they are thinking of closing down MyGaming. When you spoke to Jan, did it sound like everything is okay?
[MENTION=289]Jan[/MENTION], please mate, reassure us. We need this place. It's like home for many of us.
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Yes, this, please this!

EDIT: I don't want to go back to MyBB, it's dark, and the corridors are weird and filled with people fighting over theisms, and all the turns leads back to off topic and it's scary and I like it here :(
 
[Ed: Posted in response to Jan's announcement thread]

Thanks Jan,

Can we expect to see any more original content coming from MyGaming writers or journalists in the future, and what are the plans to address duplicate content that has been simply copied and pasted from other sites?


Could there be any possibility of incorporating us (the community) into the site in the hopes to attract more visitors, and what are the plans to grow the site and or community in the future (if any)?
 
Just to let you all know that I have been reading (most of) this thread, and there are some good ideas in here.

I can't promise anything, but I can say that we have seen your complaints. Unfortunately I can't say much more than we have taken them to heart and appreciate the feedback and suggestions.

Changing how the news site runs is not a quick or easy process, but to give you an idea of how things are working right now, I (finally) put together an announcement of what's been happening on the editorial side.

Here it is - MyGaming editorial changes since April 2015

Solitude said:
But I'm very paranoid that they are thinking of closing down MyGaming. When you spoke to Jan, did it sound like everything is okay?
[MENTION=289]Jan[/MENTION], please mate, reassure us. We need this place. It's like home for many of us.
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We don't want to close down MyGaming. The community here is amazing, and I for one will fight to keep the forum going for as long as there is a community here.
 
Jan said:
Just to let you all know that I have been reading (most of) this thread, and there are some good ideas in here.

I can't promise anything, but I can say that we have seen your complaints. Unfortunately I can't say much more than we have taken them to heart and appreciate the feedback and suggestions.

Changing how the news site runs is not a quick or easy process, but to give you an idea of how things are working right now, I (finally) put together an announcement of what's been happening on the editorial side.

Here it is - MyGaming editorial changes since April 2015



We don't want to close down MyGaming. The community here is amazing, and I for one will fight to keep the forum going for as long as there is a community here.
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Yay! Thank you very much for reassuring us. :D
 
[MENTION=289]Jan[/MENTION] - thank you for taking the time to address us and read our concerns. Though you haven't really answered anything, I understand there's talks and meetings will probably need to take place prior to action. I trust that you are our voice in this ever concerning matter. And I trust that you would fight to keep it going.


[MENTION=20]Solitude[/MENTION] - reassurance isn't exactly something we need, we need a change, the people are demanding it.
 
[MENTION=4071]BeoTeK[/MENTION]
I get that but the reassurance is something that I personally needed. :) Also I think that Clockwork Media or whatever they are called got a bit of a wakeup call with this. Assuming they actually saw it since it often feel that they just ignore the forum completely. So hopefully this will spur on their content creation and make them realise that we aren't happy with a substandard service. We want the best... or at least see some effort.

As for [MENTION=289]Jan[/MENTION], I think the most important thing now is... Where's my delivery of my Superbru parcel and my Headphones parcel? :p
 
Solitude said:
[MENTION=4071]BeoTeK[/MENTION]
I get that but the reassurance is something that I personally needed. :) Also I think that Clockwork Media or whatever they are called got a bit of a wakeup call with this. Assuming they actually saw it since it often feel that they just ignore the forum completely. So hopefully this will spur on their content creation and make them realise that we aren't happy with a substandard service. We want the best... or at least see some effort.
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With Tinman at the helm, I can't imagine them not keeping an eye on the forum.. He'd know that the pulse of the place runs through here.
 
Also [MENTION=289]Jan[/MENTION], while we have your attention. [MENTION=14824]Donisia[/MENTION] can't wait anymore for that Secret Santa information. It's driving her nuts. :)

*disclaimer*
This may or may not be true.
 
BeoTeK said:
[MENTION=289]Jan[/MENTION] - thank you for taking the time to address us and read our concerns. Though you haven't really answered anything, I understand there's talks and meetings will probably need to take place prior to action. I trust that you are our voice in this ever concerning matter. And I trust that you would fight to keep it going.
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My pleasure. Sorry I was so slow to respond. Yes I will fight to keep MyGaming going. I am also not your only voice in this, though of course I am the one who knows the community best at the office.

BeoTeK said:
Can we expect to see any more original content coming from MyGaming writers or journalists in the future, and what are the plans to address duplicate content that has been simply copied and pasted from other sites?
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Anything to do with editorial direction and content on the front page is up to Clockwork. They are only allowed to copy stories from MyBroadband, and places with permissive licenses such as The Conversation. Jeremy Proome provides some content that he writes for MenStuff to MyGaming for republication.

Of course Clockwork may enter into republication agreements with other news outlets if they wish, but to the best of my knowledge that hasn't happened.

BeoTeK said:
Could there be any possibility of incorporating us (the community) into the site in the hopes to attract more visitors, and what are the plans to grow the site and or community in the future (if any)?
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Yes there could be such a possibility. Don't take that as a promise, though, it's just an idea.

I can't be specific about our plans, except to say that there are plans. Specific to the forum, we will continue to run competitions and such to help drive activity and visitors.
 
Just my 2cents, if i look at gaming sites/blogs that i tend to follow there are 2 types i like to distinguish between.

1. News
2. Opinion

Now News sites like rockpaper/ign/kotaku is like news24 to me, it's just news and the draw for those sites generally seem to be all about "getting the exclusive scoop" or getting news out first. I tend to think it is a bit of a losing battle to try to compete with these sort of sites on the mainstream news articles. Unfortunately it doesn't seem SA generate that much gaming specific news locally to try and be a "news" site . This is why MyBB is faring better , since their news are politics/business/IT with a large % of it being local news (you won't find the same sort of news on international news sites).

So even if MyGaming increased the amount of "news" articles, it would still probably be a bit of a waste, since it will never match international sites.

So the next in line is then #2 Opinion, where i think is where things gets more interesting and unique.

Youtubers like TotalBiscuit/AngryJoe/JimSterling and bloggers like Keen&Graev are examples of this . Their respective reviews/opinions/thoughts on Fallout 4 (as an example) will most likely only be out next week or next month even (because they are actually playing it like the rest of us) , but trust me everyone will be tuning in to hear what their thoughts are, even if it's a month from now.

I believe what made the days when people like Taryn was around interesting; was because she did have an opinion (some might call it "being biased") , it did cause a stir at times as i don't think everyone agreed , which would result in alot of forum debating, which in turn spurned more opinions...and isn't that what draws people to a site (especially a forum) ?

This is why i rather read a forum thread from a user stating their review/opinion on something, than going to the front page and reading a re-posted review roundup without any opinion added to it ...i mean we all know Metacritic, why would i read the scores copied from there on this site and not over there? I would however read an opinion of the scores or a personal review/impressions of the scores or the game itself here ....

...you know , the difference between saying "IGN: 95% [quote IGN here]" vs. "While IGN is scoring at 95%, I/we thought their review ignored the glaring frame rate issues we've experienced and also noticed other players reporting all over the web, so we would give it a 70%" . It's a subtle difference which is more likely to spark some forum debate and at least encourage me to actually read it .

So far the articles i've seen on here lately all seems to be "meta-articles" , basically grabbing opinions from other sources and slapping them together without adding anything to it.

Even some of the smaller gaming sites like MassivelyOverpowered and MMORPG.com , i'd go as far as saying that while they do have alot of a news articles (and even quoting other sites) , their main content is opinion pieces from authors that actually have opinions because they follow the industry....and it doesn't need to be "reviews" , just an opinion on the state of MMOs , or Strategy Gaming or whatever...those kind of "articles" .

Obviously i don't say, scrap news articles, it's always good, but i think the absence of a "Editorial pieces" or "Opinion pieces" be it from the community/bloggers/external companies is probably the main reason why news articles on here are getting ignored or being seen as just re-posts from other places (because it's the only content we see).
 
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