The City Scoop-June 29, 2007 Discussion & Feedback
By
13th_Stranger,
Posted on: 2007-06-29 24:14 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
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pssst Lady A, yer from Freedom, which means yer excluded from anythin I (rose, or any otha freedomite) has ta say in a negative tone.
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o.O
Oh heck no!
That smacks of elitism and other... erm... stuff!
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pssst Lady A, yer from Freedom, which means yer excluded from anythin I (rose, or any otha freedomite) has ta say in a negative tone.
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o.O
Oh heck no!
That smacks of elitism and other... erm... stuff!
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lady A-- j- is right, your column has not been mentioned bcause its meant for comedic relief.. we get that we really do-- which is why i don't come down on you saying my scrapper horoscope has been horribly, horribly WRONG!!!
"I don't wonda what Rose is like in RL, I just imagine she is a catgurl an' wish I could cyb0r wit her. "
- the legendary J-man
Silence!!! I kill you!
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pssst Lady A, yer from Freedom, which means yer excluded from anythin I (rose, or any otha freedomite) has ta say in a negative tone.
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o.O
Oh heck no!
That smacks of elitism and other... erm... stuff!
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lady A-- j- is right, your column has not been mentioned bcause its meant for comedic relief.. we get that we really do-- which is why i don't come down on you saying my scrapper horoscope has been horribly, horribly WRONG!!!
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O.O
Meep! _rose_ is gonna hunt me in pvp!
But seriously (for a moment anyway), since I'm part of the Scoop, I do feel some of the... not happy feeling is directed at me. I can honestly say that, at no time, was excluding anyone was mentioned. Well, ok, maybe except for this one series we're working on about SG's where we didn't want the guest writer to turn it into a recruitment article. But that's it.
Also, consider City Scoop "in beta". We've got plans and stuff. Also, in the interest of presenting every side of an article, Turg volunteered to be our guinea pig. What about Eric the Red as a counter?
OK to the people pissed I interviewed Styker. Shove off. I and me alone choose who goes in there. I had heard about him to some degree. I did not really know his rep and he was a replacement to one of the four I originally chose for the server.
I tried to back my coverage balanced by goin got each server and asking for folks to point me in a direction. Last week that got me a whole two people that filled out everything. So I am going back to picking folks at random, without really doing any research on them and doing themes.
The others on the Scoop team bust thier butts much much harder then I do to come up with quality articles for you. If you have a gripe that SOMETHING is not getting in the paper. Get off your butt and write it.
Shadowy Presence - Absolutely, positively worse than playing a Kheldian... --Myrmydon
Erm... not very diplomatic, perhaps, but still true.
We can strive all we want to choose the best players, the most representative people for each server. But the thing about people who contribute to the community is that they're busy people. They may not always have the time for, or see the value in, an interview.
So availability trumps suitability at least if we want to fill column space. Maybe in the future if we can't get the best people, we'll just interview nobody at all. That would seem to be less controversial. What do you think, Teldon?
I'm so terribly amused by this whole drama.
Ask for feedback, get feedback, tell people to "shove off," cause you don't care what they think.
Keep up the good work all -- more drama!!
Oh I still have people still wanting their's done on pinnacle, but I do try to branch out.
Shadowy Presence - Absolutely, positively worse than playing a Kheldian... --Myrmydon
No I am just saying I do not care what others think of my selection process. If anything Styrker was one of the better and more insightful onterviews that got done. To me it showed that there was a person on the pther side of the moniter.
Some folks only crack the door a bit for these interviews, some open it. I feel he did.
Shadowy Presence - Absolutely, positively worse than playing a Kheldian... --Myrmydon
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So availability trumps suitability at least if we want to fill column space. Maybe in the future if we can't get the best people, we'll just interview nobody at all. That would seem to be less controversial. What do you think, Teldon?
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Can you really call those segments interviews? The most disappointing thing about the Stryker segment was that you actually had a subject that had some level of controversy surrounding him and he gets the same stock questions that everyone else received. It wasn't an interview it was questionnaire answering.
I know you can't quantify something such as reputation or fame but it has been acknowledged that at least some of the editorial staff knew of his reputation. I've heard of him and I rarely read anything outside of Freedom. I'm sure the many Champion forumites would have like to have seen more than the same questions presented to every other player.
If providing a quality product is really the goal here, a subject like Stryker should have been treated with more than stock questions. As a potential reader, I felt I was cheated out of what could have been a far more interesting read.
Teldon sez:
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I had heard about him to some degree. I did not really know his rep and he was a replacement to one of the four I originally chose for the server.
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Lemur sez:
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I just find it funny that people seem to think we didn't know Lord Stryker's rep before we ran the interview.
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just goes to show lemur making up more stuff
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Can you really call those segments interviews? The most disappointing thing about the Stryker segment was that you actually had a subject that had some level of controversy surrounding him and he gets the same stock questions that everyone else received. It wasn't an interview it was questionnaire answering. ... As a potential reader, I felt I was cheated out of what could have been a far more interesting read.
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That is a very valid observation. I think it's much more useful as feedback than "so-and-so is a loser." Maybe someone is a loser, but if they can still be made interesting to read about. This wasn't done.
Lemme try to dig up some of the old interviews I did on Pinnacle for cpmparison. I was able to customize people's interviews there alot more then I do now.
Thing was when I was doing BtM there I had unlimited space to work with. I only have so much to work with in the scoop.
It all comes down to quality vs quanity. Right now I am not sure what people really want and when we did the poll back with the first few issues this was one of the more popular segments so we decided to do 4 a week.
Another thing is when on Pinnacle it was easier to customize and add things becuase I, to some extent, knew the players I was talking too. Between work, school, The Scoop, The PvPEC, playing the game and trying to have some sense of a social life it gets hard to go further then I already do.
Shadowy Presence - Absolutely, positively worse than playing a Kheldian... --Myrmydon
Would it be better to do two thorough interviews a week, of people that represent their servers well, than four assembly-line interviews?
I mean no offense, Teldon... just trying to kick around some possibilities, somewhere that readers can offer their input.
Perhaps one subject per week and really explore a bit. I'd rather ready one really good and in depth interview than 4 'stock' interviews. Maybe I'm in the minority.
One person would make it a lot easier on Teldon as well. He wouldn't have to find 4 people each week who are willing to respond and he'd have time to find out more about a potential interviewee.
There are 11 US Servers so each month could feature someone from a different Server with month number 12 being a Dev or Community Rep interview.
There are also a couple of players who are going to be on "Who wants to be a Super Hero?" and I think getting an interview with one of them (or both) would rock. I mean, not only do they play this game but they love the Genre enough to try out for the show.
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There are also a couple of players who are going to be on "Who wants to be a Super Hero?" and I think getting an interview with one of them (or both) would rock. I mean, not only do they play this game but they love the Genre enough to try out for the show.
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We've been pursuing that idea for a month or so now. 
"Null is as much an argument "for removing the cottage rule" as the moon being round is for buying tennis shoes." -Memphis Bill
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OK to the people pissed I interviewed Styker. Shove off. I and me alone choose who goes in there. I had heard about him to some degree. I did not really know his rep and he was a replacement to one of the four I originally chose for the server.
I tried to back my coverage balanced by goin got each server and asking for folks to point me in a direction. Last week that got me a whole two people that filled out everything. So I am going back to picking folks at random, without really doing any research on them and doing themes.
The others on the Scoop team bust thier butts much much harder then I do to come up with quality articles for you. If you have a gripe that SOMETHING is not getting in the paper. Get off your butt and write it.
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ya know-- i saw this last nite b4 i went to bed.. and i was just like o.0 then i went into the .... and really didn't know what to say that i could help with his feelings of being i dunno, drowned in negativness. then i had an epithany (lol - those don't happen a lot --- so watch out) ....
look - there is a limited number of "famous" people on servers-- i had 5 people yell out 5 of the same name to me almost at the same time when i was on lol, protector- that tells me - well this person has done something. make a list. send your questionierre to all of them- if they have forum accounts. if not track them down- and do the interview one on one. ask em if they want to participate- if they do- great if not- fine. give em a couple of weeks to respond (i am sure that most people could complete your questions in less then a day) this will give you ample material to choose from- and if you want to go futher- then go further with them.. contact them in game- be like can you elaborate on #4? you know - its really not that hard to get people to talk to you and let you know what their opinions are-- its just the patience in the response. i really don't think that picking people at random is the answer here
"I don't wonda what Rose is like in RL, I just imagine she is a catgurl an' wish I could cyb0r wit her. "
- the legendary J-man
Silence!!! I kill you!
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Also, in the interest of presenting every side of an article, Turg volunteered to be our guinea pig. What about Eric the Red as a counter?
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Is Erik the Great even still around? I thought he got banz00r'd years ago.
*finds his guinea pig suit from college. Yes, I have one, I was poor in college, I had to find some way of supplementing my income. I was young, I was foolish...*
@TURGENEV - Freedom Server / IRON / B.A.N.E / HORDE
Turg Fiction: Ghost in the Machine Acts III & IV coming 2012!
Turg Fiction: IX is now LIVE on Architect Entertainment!
Can I just say... "So what they interviewed so-and-so?"
OK, so Stryker has a rep with some people. *shrug* I'm on that server, and every other one, and had no idea who he was anyway. It's a look at other players, period. That's how I've been seeing it. If I'd been on a few teams doing really well with, say, my Earth/FF troller, and a few minutes later Turg or Rose asked who to interview, they might come back with that character's name even though nobody else has a clue who it is or who plays it.
No matter what criteria they use for interviews - board people, shout a name in broadcast, pick randomly from a /search - someone's going to gripe. "Nobody knows them." "They're EEEEEEvil!" something.
*shrug* Don't like it, skip that interview.
Ideally, Memphis_Bill, that is what Behind the Mask is. It's just a look at players, nothing more. It was never intended to be a look at famous players, or a popularity contest.
What we need to do, I think, is make it clear what Behind the Mask is really for. Many people have got the idea that it's a reward for their fame or for their contributions, and so reasonably, in my opinion they object.
That's because we didn't make it clear why we picked certain people, or how.
Thing is Bill....if people don't like it and the attitude....they skip the Scoop. Are you doing this for the purpose of building the Community or for yourself?
So far the attitude from several of you has been 'tough cookies'. Not terribly professional or great for building.
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Thing is Bill....if people don't like it and the attitude....they skip the Scoop. Are you doing this for the purpose of building the Community or for yourself?
So far the attitude from several of you has been 'tough cookies'. Not terribly professional or great for building.
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The wording of this post makes it sound like Memphis_Bill works for the Scoop. I think he wrote an article in a previous issue (one of the State of the Archetypes, IIRC), but he is not (as of this moment) on the staff.
Regarding the attitude: Every person who posts in these threads has a chance to improve the quality. Individuals' responses to criticism are a product not only of the content but of the tone of that criticism - that's true not just of the Scoop but of forum life in general. If everyone can keep that in mind, Scoop folks included, we should be able to improve the atmosphere.
- Protea
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
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Thing is Bill....if people don't like it and the attitude....they skip the Scoop. Are you doing this for the purpose of building the Community or for yourself?
So far the attitude from several of you has been 'tough cookies'. Not terribly professional or great for building.
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The wording of this post makes it sound like Memphis_Bill works for the Scoop. I think he wrote an article in a previous issue (one of the State of the Archetypes, IIRC), but he is not (as of this moment) on the staff.
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I was asked to write a "state of the AT" piece for Kheldians, that's it. From my understanding, they pick people who seem to have a grasp on the "overall feel" of the AT - not hard numbers people or mechanics people, for instance. I have thrown ideas their way, and turned down an offer to join them as it's not something I feel I can devote time and energy to consistently.
So, no, I don't work for (or volunteer on a regular basis for) the city scoop, and have no vested interest or "insider" status at the scoop. All I put out in these threads are my POV.
As far as the quoted quote - I don't see an *attitude* in the scoop's interviews, other than any coming from the person interviewed. I stated exactly how I see the BtM series - "These are your fellow players." I could run a list of people I think are worth interviewing as "famous" or "notable," and some would be known from the forums, others would have people going "Who?" Someone else would have a different list all together. I'd point at Valkyrierising, for instance, not because she's a friend, but because she has a good grasp on mechanics and gameplay, and has a tendancy to end up in leadership positions on team or in some SGs. I'd point at a stalker I knew on Pinnacle named "Peek-a-boo" to see what someone who can blend RP and PvP like she could is like. I could continue listing, and - as I said - get a mix of "Who?" and "WTH are you suggesting them for?" and "Yeah, get them!"
FWIW, I think the Scoop should have a sticky (and, frankly, its own little section so we don't have to dig through digests) stating who's doing what, their intent for the sections (a "meet the section" in a way,) how they're picking people (for instance,) and even a bit of a blurb on each person involved in the Scoop itself relating *to* the effort.
Looking back, I wasn't clear enough about the 'attitude'.
Attitudes in the articles in general seem to be fine. I don't think anyone has an issue with that.
The attitude I was referring to was that in the comments by various Scoop members. Marcian_Tobay has been diplomatic and professional....asking for input and getting it in a respectful manner. Others have been more adversarial in their approach.
'Shove off' is hardly a reply that will endear a poster to anyone. Getting in the reader's face and saying 'if you don't like what I'm doing then do something about it' is very 'play ground' and shouldn't be tied to this endeavor in any capacity. While that isn't exactly what is being said (in some cases) it is the impression I have gotten from some contributors posting here. This print medium doesn't convey tone well so a reader attaches his own. Why not chose the words in such a way as to avoid negative connotations being attached to the post.
Which would encourage you to be more constructive in your reply;
'How can we make this better? / Would you like to contribute?'
or
'If you don't like the way we are doing it, write it yourself' ?
The former is encouraging participation while the latter is confrontational and smacks vaguely of bullying in an effort to get the other party to 'back down'.
Again, this is merely my opinion but matbe it will encourage people to think before they snap off a post and therefore improve the Forum's Community enviornment a little bit. Maybe not.... maybe it will put some backs up and result in some more snapping.
In any event, merely my opinion.
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'Shove off' is hardly a reply that will endear a poster to anyone.
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I think that some of the emotional responses in this thread were overflow from a different thread that, for all the reasons you'd expect, got locked. Not saying it was appropriate, just trying to give some context.
- Protea
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
pssst Lady A, yer from Freedom, which means yer excluded from anythin I (rose, or any otha freedomite) has ta say in a negative tone.