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Tormentor667

Rejected Doom News

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Hey guys,
I have little question concerning the news system and I absolutely don't know why my news item has been rejected:

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=39564

Dittohead said:

Lets stay away from the self-promotion, here. Even Doomworld staff aren't allowed to post about their own projects; especially ones that have already been released.

First at all, Austerity 02 has been released yesterday for the first time so I think it's okay to write a news item about it. Second, why isn't it allowed to inform the community about a new release by yourself? (Self Promotion?) ... SargeBaldy wrote about his Speedmapping session and it was posted as well by him?! Or do other people have to submit news from your proect which wouldn't make much sense!? :P

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It is self-promotion because it is something you created. Like what's already been said, Doomworld staff aren't allowed to post about their own projects; for instance, Mordeth never posts on Doomworld that he has updated the Mordeth TC site. Doing so would essentially be a conflict of interest. In other words, yes, someone else would have to update about it.

Speedmapping is a bit different, because it is an event, not a WAD release/project/whatever. It's more of a community service.

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Isn't it enough that the news are already regulated? So clearly self-promoting news without any value are eliminated anyway. What's so bad about an announcement of a project's completion? Isn't that 'news' regardless of who submits it?

Now, I fully agree that news about a site update are worthless and should be rejected. But this obviously isn't the case here, is it?

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This is something I actually thought as well... as it in return makes not much sense if I start to look now for someone submitting my news :) You know?! Oh... btw, Graf Zahl, do you have some spare time left? *g*

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I'd agree, were it not for the fact that we already have a system in place to announce completed projects, and it happens almost every Sunday.

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Bucket said:

I'd agree, were it not for the fact that we already have a system in place to announce completed projects, and it happens almost every Sunday.

Then hundreds of news items wouldn't even be necessary that have already been posted here :)

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Graf Zahl said:
Isn't it enough that the news are already regulated? So clearly self-promoting news without any value are eliminated anyway. What's so bad about an announcement of a project's completion? Isn't that 'news' regardless of who submits it?

It's news, but not news for the front page unless the news admins decide that. Less news on the front page allows people that don't visit every day to catch what the staff considers relatively juicy news. People that visit more regularly can catch minor news and update announcemnts on the forums (rejected news, wads and mods, general, source ports, etc.)

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Is it really worth it to create a thread about this? PM/email is the answer ;) ;)

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Yeah um Torm, its not like you're releasing kdizd here. Just an update to a wad that, in total has taken you about 2 or 3 months to make. Not really newsworthy. If it was a large portion of t/nc would also have its own article on the front page.

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Chain Mail said:

It's news, but not news for the front page unless the news admins decide that. Less news on the front page allows people that don't visit every day to catch what the staff considers relatively juicy news. People that visit more regularly can catch minor news and update announcemnts on the forums (rejected news, wads and mods, general, source ports, etc.)



And the nonsense that is accepted is? Sorry but the priorities for selecting news appear to be a bit odd.

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News isn't "HEY HEY LOOK AT MY WAD the author of this wad is highly anticipated possibly wad of the year"

if doomworld ran news like that on the front page it'd be a ego wasteland. End of story.

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Kaiser said:

Is it really worth it to create a thread about this? PM/email is the answer ;) ;)

I dunno, it has served to publicise a rule that perhaps wasn't widely understood.

As for the decision, personally, I don't see anything wrong with the news item.

Conflict of interest? Well, it's not as if Torm is going to get rich from posting this news item, get any insider advantage or even gain any control over Doomworld so I don't really see that as an issue. It's still just a suggested item that the DW staff can (and did) veto. So, I'd say that, even though it is written by Torm, it's not a conflict of interest because Torm doesn't actually get the say over whether it becomes front page news or not (at least that's how I understand the system). If the DW staff allow an item to run, I don't see why an item like this is any different from Torm e-mailing DW about his project completion and a DW newsy posting it for him.

As for the possibility of floods of such announcements, I don't really see it happening but even if such announcements did become more common - so what? The Doomworld front page would be a bit more lively than having the same story sitting stagnating for a few weeks on end and some people might even like to get a front page "heads up" about various releases.

As Graf said, submitted news is already regulated so anything entirely inappropriate can be dropped, but I really don't see much wrong with this item. There have certainly been far less newsworthy items in the past. But hey, I don't make or enforce the rules.

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We assume this rule does not apply to major project releases. Is in fact this correct? :P

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Quasar said:

We assume this rule does not apply to major project releases. Is in fact this correct? :P


Yes.

On topic: The front page news is for items of community interest and general projects for the most part. Keep in mind the original reason this was rejected. Had this been a bigger release, it may have been considered differently. However, posting the news yourself about your own release doesn't help, either.

We can't post news from every single release that happens. But, we do have forums where users can show off their own individual work if they wish to express it to the community. I suggest continue doing that.

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In a certain way I have to agree with Zahl and Enjay, especially what concerns the choice of "worthy and not worthy news items"... I mean... there was no progress to the Mordeth TC in form of screenshots or useful news in the past months or even years and though we have 2 news items about that project in the past 10 days...

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A quick look down the last few news items offers up these...

Carmack gets an award.
Mordeth not finished.
Mordeth Ten.
The Doomguys face has been projected on to a wall.
Doomworld isn't dead.
A Bollywood movie with a name that sounds like Doom has been made, but has nothing to do with Doom.
Virgin America allows you to play Doom on their in flight entertainment system.

Now, whilst I don't mind any of these being reported. They are interesting enough and at least provided something to read, to me an announcement about a good looking mapset that I can actually download and play is more important.

May I ask, what exactly constitutes a "bigger release" anyway? What are the criteria that define a "bigger release"? How much "bigger" does it have to be to be newsworthy?

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Tormentor667 said:

In a certain way I have to agree with Zahl and Enjay, especially what concerns the choice of "worthy and not worthy news items"... I mean... there was no progress to the Mordeth TC in form of screenshots or useful news in the past months or even years and though we have 2 news items about that project in the past 10 days...


Mordeth is community lore and it's bearance on the community is that of special interest. 10 years is such a long time that it's mostly regarded as a humorous announcement. The first time it was posted, it was done by a Doomworld staffer. The second time was a community submission in which the staffer who authorized it didn't notice that it was posted a few days prior.

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Enjay said:

Conflict of interest? Well, it's not as if Torm is going to get rich from posting this news item, get any insider advantage or even gain any control over Doomworld so I don't really see that as an issue. It's still just a suggested item that the DW staff can (and did) veto. So, I'd say that, even though it is written by Torm, it's not a conflict of interest because Torm doesn't actually get the say over whether it becomes front page news or not (at least that's how I understand the system). If the DW staff allow an item to run, I don't see why an item like this is any different from Torm e-mailing DW about his project completion and a DW newsy posting it for him.

Regular users are now able to do something that only staff members could do: post news. This means they should also abide by the rules that also affect the staff, the one in question being that they not post news to the front page (nor attempt to do so) about projects in which they are the primary contributor.

E-mailing news about your own project's release or whatever involves an intermediary: a Doomworld staffer, who is unlikely to be involved with the project, posts the news. There is no conflict of interest there. The same applies with what you just did: post news about someone else's project being released.

Regardless, Enjay's news post has just been transferred and everyone ought to be happy now. Right?

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Bloodshedder said:

Regular users are now able to do something that only staff members could do: post news. This means they should also abide by the rules that also affect the staff, the one in question being that they not post news to the front page (nor attempt to do so) about projects in which they are the primary contributor.


My point being that it isn't quite the same because although I (or anyone else) can make a news post submission, it still has to get the OK from a DW staffer and doesn't go directly to the front page without vetting (nor should it). So, even if a person submits something about their own project, the post still has to go through a staffer to get approval for the front page. The staffer, as you poiinted out, is unlikely to be involved with the project so the conflict is removed. If the staffer thought the story was shameless self promotion with no news value then, presumably, the story wouldn't make the front page. So the intermediary is still involved, just like with the e-mailing system, but the new system is slicker and quicker. Unless I've picked it up wrong?

Bloodshedder said:

Regardless, Enjay's news post has just been transferred and everyone ought to be happy now. Right?

Well I am. Just as long as we all know what the rules are, we can all do our best to comply when submitting and it's all good. :) Thanks for transferring the story to the front page.

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Personally I think that a seperate news-article should be reserved for community or team projects; TNC and the forums are adequate for your average release. If everyone (hell, anyone who has made a significant contribution to the community) got a front page article for every project they did TNC would be obsolete.

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Enjay said:

So the intermediary is still involved, just like with the e-mailing system, but the new system is slicker and quicker.

The intermediary is still involved, but it is mostly indirect: the own words of the poster are transferred to the front page, and their name is attached directly to the submission. This is never done with e-mailed submissions. Those are done in the staffer's own words, with the staffer's name on the item, and perhaps a mention in the item itself about who sent the news in.

Also note what I said earlier in parentheses: people shouldn't attempt to have their own news items posted about their own projects. It's in the staff's best interest to cut down on postings that may be rejected because of this rule by pointing this out: it saves us time.

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Enjay said:

The Doomworld front page would be a bit more lively than having the same story sitting stagnating for a few weeks on end and some people might even like to get a front page "heads up" about various releases.

To make wads & mods rather useless other than to compare memento mori with requiem or something like that, I guss. "Hey, lets all post every upload and update to our projects as news so it shows up on the front page".

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I always figured the way to tell people your project was finished/updated was to submit it to the archives and see it in newstuff, and maybe make a thread about it.

Also, will this be the thread where all the rejected news posts get put so we can read them for shits and giggles and so prospective news posters can see what kinds of news not to submit?

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GGG said:

Also, will this be the thread where all the rejected news posts get put so we can read them for shits and giggles and so prospective news posters can see what kinds of news not to submit?


I think it's a good idea to give some hints about what kind of news is inappropriate. But this thread probably isn't the proper place. For that I think a closed thread in the News Submissions forum would be better (or Post Hell... ;))

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I agree that an ATTN thread in News Submissions is the proper place for it.

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Bloodshedder said:

The intermediary is still involved, but it is mostly indirect:...

OK, thanks for the clarification of the position and how the system works.

Bloodshedder said:

Also note what I said earlier in parentheses: people shouldn't attempt to have their own news items posted about their own projects. It's in the staff's best interest to cut down on postings that may be rejected because of this rule by pointing this out: it saves us time.

Fair enough. :)

Chain Mail said:

To make wads & mods rather useless other than to compare memento mori with requiem or something like that, I guss. "Hey, lets all post every upload and update to our projects as news so it shows up on the front page".

I don't think that "The news page having a lot of news will make another thread less important" is really a strong argument. I mean - so what?

Also, to answer the other point - let's face it, there is already a top story on the front page. If something that is deemed to be really important comes along, it gets the lead story position - thereby making it stand out from the crowd if people were really worried about big stories getting lost.

Personally, I wouldn't really mind a lot of projects getting reported on the front page - even if many of them were small. I get a newspaper every day and read news websites daily too. Both are full of news items - some big some small - and they change on a daily basis. That's why I come back on a daily basis - they have dynamic, interesting, ever changing front pages. Why should a large number of items on the Doomworld front page be a problem? To me it would be the sign of an active and healthy community.

In recent months the front page has been a stagnant, useless place which would quite often not change from day to day - or even for more extended periods. News items could hang around for weeks and many of them really were no-news items that were far less important (IMO) than even a single level release. I think a frequently updated front page of even small bits of news - provided they were actually news - would be great.

I also don't think such a system would make /newstuff chronicles obsolete. Why should it? /newstuff would serve as the "official" review thread and the summing up of the week's releases. So what if people already know about them? Hell, I not only know about movies before I read reviews of them, I've quite often seen them. I still like to read the review and compare my opinions to that of the reviewer. And let's not forget, some people - for whatever reason - do not upload to /newstuff.

However, if a line is to be drawn, then we need to know where. Which is why I asked earlier what the criteria are for a "bigger" project. Let's not forget that "bigger" projects don't exactly come along that often. Personally, I'd say a 3 level quality map set by Tormentor, with additional textures and other resources is certainly big enough (and it would seem that it is). Do we only want to have reports on "bigger" projects and then have a stagnant news page again or do we want a lively front page keeping up to date with what is actually going on in the community? Surely a "buzzy" front page with lots of items would have a much better "feel good factor" than the stale front page of recent moths which, I believe, has been a great contributor to the growing "Oh gno teh community is dying" attitude of late.

I also believe that the opportunity for smaller, but still worthwhile, news items to get a bit of front page time would contribute a valuable bit of community spirit. Even if your project is only featured for a few days, it's pretty cool to have your project on the front page of the community's leading website for a while. It's a chance to get your 15 minutes of fame. :) Also, it's a a chance for the little guy who isn't making a huge project - who may never be involved in a huge project -, but is still putting his heart and soul in to his work, to get a bit of high profile recognition that he may deserve but, otherwise, not get.

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Enjay said:
I don't think that "The news page having a lot of news will make another thread less important" is really a strong argument. I mean - so what?

It's annoying for anyone not visiting every day, plus it scatters discussion about wads even more (adding a third place over the chronicles and wads & mods). Not to mentiona that the people that visit every day pretty much also browse the forums, so they don't need every tidbit on the front page.

Why should a large number of items on the Doomworld front page be a problem? To me it would be the sign of an active and healthy community.

In this case it would just be a bigger flow of news for more or less the same people. More an illusion of activity than the substance. That's clear by the contents, anyway.

In recent months the front page has been a stagnant, useless place which would quite often not change from day to day - or even for more extended periods.

There's a new system up to allow more news, so talking about the news stagnation during the old admin only news method is pointless. The news wouldn't stagnate if nonexceptional uploads were not to be considered news.

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