Short Version:
—Would you like to have new color commentary back?
—Would you like to introduce commentary for significant Neopets events like: wars, plots, and major changes to how the site works?
—How many people should do the commentary?
—Who should write the commentary? Should we have an open call and vote on who we like best?
—Do you like my hat?
Joeno wrote:Third, news. As much as anything else, Sam's original blog entries on Neocolours were one of the things that kept it a site worth visiting to me, as it brought a certain attitude to the site that (in my opinion) is still present in our forums and what sets it apart: the critical eye to Neopets developments, a more 'mature' way of reporting things and the special feel that legal letters in large purple Comic Sans brings to a site.
I've been doing a few bits of work on this, but before I continue, I'd like to hear the vox populi on this topic.
The first point: What should be added as news items? New colours and revamps are obvious, with the opinions of those posting and/or some comments from the forums. I can see the colour predictions for pet days being possible as well, another popular thing from days past. But would we want more? I'd like to use it for major site announcements as well, which shouldn't be a problem either. But what more? I personally don't see the point in announcing every caption contest image, site spotlight winner, or new item, but one or two posts covering how a major plot plays out, or about other major events on Neopets would not seem problematic to me either. Of course, the question remains where to draw the line. Opinions are welcome.
Next, who will get to post? One of the main things when developing stuff for NC is that I want to keep it low maintenance, especially for myself, and keep it possible for others to maintain it if I wouldn't have the time. This would go for News as well - it will certainly be possible for others to write updates. First of all, how will these people be determined? Preferably, I'd like some people with some good writing skills, who can entertain people while making their point. Any suggestions on how to decide it? Perhaps something similar to WW can be done - those interested write an item on a new colour, the pieces are posted without names added to it, and then we use whatever system to decide who would be it. Or you could trust my judgement. Or we could use any other reasonable suggestion.
Second, what should be done with individual posts? Something like first come first serve, with the first to post getting to give his opinion on the whatever, or possibly just with people discussing who gets to write. Or it would be possible to have people edit news items to add their opinions, but an additional amount of trust would be required there from people being able to post news. Then again, comments would be welcome as well.
And coming to comments: I could write my own system for it. It'd be somewhat limited. I'd have to do some work on it. It would take time. I have a better solution - it would probably be possible to automatically generate new forum topics for each news item, so the handling of comments can be handled much easier. It would, however, mean that I'd have to actually start writing to the forum database, as well as requiring a new forum to be created. I'm not sure how much of a problem people would consider it to be.
