The site needs better front page organization

Originally Posted by Drithius
The problem isn't the number of days, the problem is filtering through all the random junk to find something of interest to you.

CATEGORIES.

Why is that so hard for people to understand?

I don't think it's so hard to understand. But I, and several others here apparently don't see the need for it.

EDIT: I'm a bit undecided about whether I am opposed to it or not.

pibbur

Well, tags / categories could indeed help. And yes, better front page organization would be great, too. I really need to get back to all that, but RL work is keeping me too busy most of the time.

Thanks, Arhu. The simplicity of the site layout is all well and good but the sheer variety of news posts (and their relative importance to one another) works against finding what you want quickly and efficiently.

Categories:
Problem:

• Most topics can be assigned to more than one category
• There is no user group that can agree on one set on categories
• Categories must be overlap-free to work efficiently (very hard to achieve in CRPG news)
• Categories are only easy to use, if you have just a few.

Tags:
Work better, but are a lot of work for the news-poster, if he misses a tag and you filter for it -> news is gone for you.

Both concepts will create a lot of useless discussions:
Which tags should be assigned? Which categories should be used?
After 2 years we have too many categories and way to many tags, because everybody has different tastes.
Believe me I'm a developer for information systems. I've seen a lot of failed category/tag systems that got out of control after a few years.

PS:
@Drithius
I don't like your tone at all when you speak of the RPGwatch news (crap, turd, shit,…). The RPGWatch news are diverse, interesting and better than ever.
I suggest the RPGCodex for you - one news bit per day is easy to navigate.

My tone? I answer respect with respect and I do the precise opposite when its warranted.

Noone has the same interests as another person. And asking that there be tools set up for proper navigation of an increasingly "diverse" compendium of news is hardly ludicrously unreasonable to the point that it warrants some of the foolish posts already made in this thread.

As for the categories (and as stated previously), I think Review and Sales categories would slice off probably 2/3 of new posts… And, personally, I'd like a Kickstarter category as well. I don't see the subjectivity involved in those - especially the first two.

You want

• Sales
• Reviews
• Kickstarter

the next one wants to categorize by sub-genre:

• CRPG
• Adventure
• Strategy

the next one wants to categorize by news-poster:

• Couchpotato
• Aubrielle
• Myrthos
• Aries100

the next one wants to categorize by source:

• press
• youtube
• game-sites
• TV

the next one wants to categorize by article type:

• video
• essay
• short info
• blog

Get it? - There is no 'best' category system that everyone agrees on.

You're grasping at straws.

• Sales
• Reviews
• Kickstarter

Many news posts don't fit in these three categories at all - Matt Chat - for example.

You want a filter that filters away what Drithius don't like. Just admit it.

Precisely! I want to edit out all the junk I have no interest in! Why is that a problem? And you know something? I don't like a lot of items not covered by those three filters but they're harder to filter out - more eclectic. But those filters named above are simple, unambiguous, and easy to assign randomnews01 into. (BTW, I *want* Kickstarter information - I want to disseminate it from all the other fluff - but others may not - OMG different tools for different people, UNACCEPTABLE!).

You want to categorize Matt Chat (which I like… most of the time), JRPGs, blogs, vlogs, and Aunt Sally - be my guest, but therein you enter the grey area in which you wrote about above.

And I never intimated that those three above filters are the only possible categories. If you feel there's something just as simple and appropriate to be added to the list, please do chip in. And don't simply spout off random things such as "essay".

The problem is that everybody has a totally different idea what he wants to filter out.
I for example would never use a filter on Sales, Reviews, Kickstarter because I want to see all of this on one page. I would prefer a filter on the genre.
Genre definition/classification is not an easy task as well.

And again the newsbits that are searched by our editors with a lot of work are not 'junk'. I can't stand it when volunteers that offer their free-time are criticized for their work in a disrespectful manner.

Again, keep it simple. genres aren't simple.

And regarding semantics, everyone appreciates the time Couch puts into the site of his own volition, but I'm not going to apologize for speaking my mind. The newsbits that I don't care for can go into the junkrefuse pile, aka filtered out. And others may feel the same way about a completely different set of news items.

…anyway, I'm going to screw around in Grimrock for a bit. Aside from the work involved in implementing such a task, I don't see where this angst against providing site tools is coming from. It would make for a far less jumbled news listing and allow for easier access to more pertinent topics.

Angst?

It would be a lot of work to revamp the site for you, then to tag every single news post with the right tags for you, as HiddenX said. And so far, you're the only one that really wants this, from what I can see.

If you don't like our news, you can always start researching and submitting newsbits yourself, or find another site that fits your tastes. Or start one of your own.

We have categories for news: Announcements, Editorial, Industry News, Interview, Media, Miscellaneous, Mod News, Patches, Preview, Review.
One of these is selected for every news post we make and is currently only used to filter through news for a given game.

Ideally categories are unique and a news post can be assigned to only one. Suppose we add Kickstarter as a category, the news post is about this Kickstarter game but it is also an interview. Now what?
So we select multiple categories? Or perhaps just 2?

An example. Should all Divinity: Original Sin posts be labelled as Kickstarter? Or only when they refer to a Kickstarter update? And not when it is an interview with Swen? That is also applicable to Bedlam, which is currently still running on Kickstarter? So only Kickstarter updates for that game are labeled as Kickstarter and other news on the game not?
different news posters will categorise differently. The same news poster will categorise differently as well, depending on the content. This isn't that black and white.

Suppose we expose the categories, how does that help you filtering? Where should they be displayed?

I'm sorry, did you say something? re: Aubrielle.

Myrthos, I understand the ambiguity in certain situations; that's why I've been advocating the categories to remain simple. And I'm not sure if you're serious about a discussion, so I'll just say you guys can do whatever you want. If you think the news spam is all well and good and it's not worth the hassle to streamline, I'm not going to bang my head against a virtual brick wall to change your mind.

I'll simply continue to ignore the news feed.

While I understand Drithius' point of view, I do not believe it is warranted to categorise the newsposts.

Simply enough, like others have said, there are a maximum of 30 newsposts on the front page.
It takes less than 30 seconds to scan through them.

It is not as if we're talking about a database of accounts payable information that needs to be categorised financially using GL codes or from a procurement perspective using CPV codes (http://www.tendersdirect.co.uk/sector/cpv/CPVCodes.pdf).

I think the Couch already has enough work finding all these newsposts and asking him to do more is unreasonable.
However, if he is happy to categorise them himself, then that's fine.

I would simply suggest adding a prefix to each newspost such that it's easy and simple to differentiate.

For example :
Interview - Lords of Xulima
Review - Dragon Age
Sales - 50% off GOG sale on Baldur's Gate
Kickstarter - Bedlam almost funded; 5 days and $5k to go

Originally Posted by Pladio
I would simply suggest adding a prefix to each newspost such that it's easy and simple to differentiate.

For example :
Interview - Lords of Xulima
Review - Dragon Age
Sales - 50% off GOG sale on Baldur's Gate
Kickstarter - Bedlam almost funded; 5 days and $5k to go

I have no problem doing that and I do on certain news-bits.

The problem with labeling every news-bit like that though is the front-page would then be a mess as I always have to edit titles just to make them fit.

That's why I can't wait for the site revamp as it will double the space given to news-bits, and I wouldn't have to worry about making the titles fit anymore.

Anyway I'm reminded of the saying,"The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence". Sometimes members have no idea what it takes to run a website.

I know, which is why I said if you don't mind doing this kind of thing …

My earlier post was about all the blah, blah headings that aren't crpgs, so I agree that it might be harder to make categories. When Corwin and Dhruin did news they didn't have hours of time to post, so we got RPG-focused newsbits. The rest of the stuff was posted by users in the forums, not as newsbits. For instance, I'm not sure if any of these games are crpgs:

Hero-U, Child of Light, Outland 17, Bedlam, Serpent in the Staglands, Heroes VII definitely isn't a crpg, Carribean, Starpoint Gemini, Hyper Light Drifter, Celestial Tear, SW:TOR, JA:Flashback, Lords of the Fallen, 3030 Deathwar, Fable Legends, Agarest War Zero, Graywalkers.

Back when Corwin and Dhruin posted, anything that wasn't specifically pc and specifically crpg, was left off the news. I knew that a post on the front page was about crpgs. Other folks would post about hybrids and non-crpgs in the general gaming forum.

My desire would be for CP to post the non-pc, non-crpg stuff as a forum member in the forum he thinks is most appropriate. Why? So I don't start reading 30 articles only to get down half a page and realize the game isn't a crpg.

What I do now is go to RPGCodex and see what games they're discussing. Then I come here and read the threads about similar games, as I can't abide the Codex for very long It's tedious but at least I miss reading about Barbie's fun house on the news page because I thought this was an RPG site.

My hope is that someone will start up a news site/forum someday that is strictly focused on crpgs. Maybe they'll call it RPGDot or something

Actually, we got news that Dhruin felt was worth posting.
Now you get news that Couch thinks is worth posting about. Nothing has really changed in the behaviour towards posting news.

I think it would be a good idea if there were other RPG news site, so why not work together with people who think the same and create one

Then I pity you crpgnut as half of those are RPG's and some have RPG elements. It must be nice to have a narrow minded view of what games to play.

So I have an idea why don't you join our site, and then help to fix it. As it's easy to complain when something is not to your liking. So join us and help the site.

Also I need to say this I am not Corwin, Dhruin, or Gorath. I have different tastes in what I play, and how I post. It's not going to change any time soon.

Oh and by the way I do post games on the forum also.