Hey, guys and gals. As you all know, the newspaper was cooking up a gigantic change a few months ago which was made public back in early September. Many of us on the newspaper staff felt that the change, turning the newspaper into a blog, would be a good idea as we would then be able to release articles individually which meant that they would be released more quickly. However, as it turns out, a lot of people didn't like how the newspaper was like this and so there were complaints about many things such as how the blog was messy, confusing, etc. Now, we're just taking a tally or vote as to what exactly went wrong or what you didn't like about the blog, and we hope to come up with something better in the near future. So please vote and voice in your opinion!

Sleepy just didn't like the whole blog format in general, it didn't work for the style of a newspaper and it just looked messy.

Also, it would be good to ask one other thing of you guys, though we're not sure exactly how this might go into a poll question. At least, I'm not.

If we were to organize a system outside of the blogs, which one would you be most open to? The old system? A WordPress blog? A Drupal system? Something else? And would you prefer a daily updated one or articles that came all in a month?

I liked it better than the normal paper thing, but maybe if you could hide the blog entry and it could like a little popup that says New when a new article comes out, but after you click it it doesn't say new anymore, so you can just hide it.

I don't know if I'm allowed to say my actual opinion outside of the newspaper team forums, so I'll just say I recommend wordpress.

I just want to read articles.

Messy and unorganised
Don't like the idea of articles being released individually
The old format was better

It's a NEWSPAPER, not Sal's Official Blog Articles

My highlights was reading the Quotes of the Month. I haven't been reading the new blog, but if you keep those in there I'm happy. If not.

Basically a blog is, and always will be, messy. The one thing I liked about it was the possibility to comment on the article. Specially with articles that obviously contain a strong (personal) feeling it would be nice to have a link to a forum thread. Tip does the same thing: One article with a forum topic to comment. Not that 'we' should copy the Tip-it Times, but it would be nice to comment.

I didn't like the fact that the Blog was pinned, but in some ways it was good in that format. Releasing an article as soon as they're done meant that they could be up to date (if it was based on a current topic) and it was nice to be able to comment on the latest article. Holding back articles so they can all come out at the same time is impractical when it's people doing it in their spare times, in my opinion.

I definitely preferred the old format. There was nothing wrong with it, other than the lack of ability to comment. I also preferred the articles to be released together, as one whole newspaper; I don't mind the wait as long as it isn't a ridiculous wait. In fact, the wait gave me anticipation and something to look forward to. The newspaper blog looked messy and it wasn't really a newspaper, it was merely a blog of articles.

ummm i didnt read the blog so i voted for all of them lol.

I agree with those 2.

i think this format was just a waste of time for you guys. everybody well mostly everybody loved the old format and i think u should try to revert it back if u have enough time for it

Thanks for the opinions guys, we're pretty much stuck before we get you all to push our tank out of the mud puddle. We had some people try to get the blog pinned to the top, but I think it was much too unorganized anyway. A blog did not have sufficient ways of getting around which our newspaper needs.

Bro every time an article is released there could be a Newspaper Comments thread!!!!
so we can comment

The newspaper writers can't fulfill the demand that the old format requires.

How do you guys think we can release smaller amounts of articles, yet make it clean?

Would it be complicated to start a new forum subsection for the paper? That is, one in which it could be published and we could comment on it, but only certain members (i.e. newspaper staff) could start topics in there. Each new topic would be a new article, and then we could reply without having to start a new thing like a wordpress blog or something like that. It would be entirely self-contained within the site instead of off-site which would lose visitors.

I'm seeing something like a subsection for the paper itself, then sub-subsections for graphics, comics, quotes, interviews, etc. Perhaps?



That's pretty much what the news announcements turn into; it's terribly messy.

Containing it in the site isn't an issue.

That still doesn't answer the rest of it -- is that viable or not? Whether it's on-site (runescape.salmoneus.net) or off-site (wordpress), the main thing is that it should be neat, fairly easy to navigate, and possible to reply to specific articles. Can you address the suggestion instead of going after a specific that may or may not be an issue?

Wordpress isn't off site and that isn't my job yet.

We're asking you what you want.

Wordpress can be made organized, and we can also use drupal and other things.

Our main goal is to fit everything into a CMS.

Want:



Suggestion:



Clear enough, sir?

I liked the old newspaper better TBH. What you could do, is give the writers access to the site, so they could upload their articles manually. That way, we will be able to see the articles as they come out, and not wait so long to see a completed newspaper... I don't mind

~Vincent

Although I do realize that the blog gives the reader more articles that are released on an individual basis, I like the newspaper more. (Although the same can be said of the blog format), one could sit down and read through it all at once and I enjoyed that.

I suggest keeping the newspaper format and just working harder to get more issues out quicker :-)

Secondly (and I'm not part of the Newspaper staff so I'm making an assumption here), I suggest the Newspaper management make stricter due dates for articles. Or make due dates in the first place. As a member of the team, they should coincide.

Personally I like Wiltingplant's suggestion to keep it confined within the Newspaper forum itself, or I believe it was Agent or man's suggestion to be given a separate url on the site, although I think that may be a bandwidth problem.

As a blog, it's messy, unorganized, and was in the way of everything ("Oh you can just shut up and favorite everything" attitude really pissed me off, sorry I like to read new users blogs as well or older members who start blogs.)

It wasn't I who suggested that. The reason (AFAIK, and it's reasonable) the newspaper was on it's own server was to spread the bandwidth out. Instead of the whole site running on one server by one host, the site and community were on a dedicated server while the newspaper and podcast were on a separate server (they may have even been split up) with a different hosting company.

Using a blog system to release articles one at a time isn't a newspaper anymore. A newspaper is a collaboration of articles on different topics released all at once. I agree with Eval Raz - make stricter deadlines like an actual newspaper. The old newspaper website was designed to somewhat look like a newspaper. The blog just looked like any other blog in the community. I didn't care either way for commenting within the articles themselves. The paper's announcement thread is suitable for those discussions. If you must use a blog for quicker page development and system organization, at least dress it up to look like a newspaper and release articles together like a newspaper.

One thing I don't understand is why you stopped releasing articles all together until a new system is in place? Those articles you were planning on releasing are just getting old. Which means the first release of the next new system will begin with outdated material once again. Keep the current blog newspaper rolling with articles you're producing now and then start releasing them on the next new system when it's ready.

The same goes for me, and for being organized? I don't mind the layout at all, everyone has a different layout and if they don't like a simple layout like the one the newspaper has... it's to bad for them.