Truemors
My questions/ comments/ suggestions have already been touched on above but I thought that I would explain my perspective here.
For the most part, I'm referring to actual news stories here and not videos, pictures etc.
- From what I can gather, the ethos of NewsPublic is to report the
news by (a) 'highlighting' from external news sites, (b) including your
own perspective and thoughts on the story, and (c) linking back to the original story. Now, far be it from me
to be shy, but I must admit that I have trouble going to people's
articles to tell them that they're not doing a good job. I think that
it's important to do so, and I can see how it can easily be done with the
flagging system, but I find it difficult.
For example, the other day, I saw a piece that I thought
needed some work (it was only a quote from a newspaper and had no
comment or extra information). However, I also knew that this member had posted previous 'good stuff' so I didn't feel confident in telling him/ her that I thought his/ her
post fell short. I also thought that it might be impertinent for me to
do so. Within this, I realised that it's all subjective, so an
article that I think is lacking might be fine in someone else's view.
My suggestion is that some sort of guide/ system/ scale is
available to those of us who cannot use the flags so that we have a
basis for questioning the relevance or usefulness of other people's
articles. Guides are available around the site but I think they could
go further, with, for example, a set of criteria we could use to
establish the 'NewsPublic-ness' of articles.
- I wonder what the NewsPublic policy is in drawing attention to
articles and comments which are purposely inflammatory and aggressive.
I know that there will always be elements of conflict on a site like
this, but I frequently see articles and comments which are posted with
the seemingly only intention of inflaming other users. I know that this
kind of behaviour is discouraged on other discussion sites and I think
that it would contribute to the strength of NewsPublic if there was
something users felt they could do about it here. Again, some sort of
guide or scale would be useful.
For both of these issues, it's just occurred to me that even a set of stock sentences would be useful. I know that they come with the flags but this pertains to non-flaggers obviously. For example, 'Could you include your own opinion on this piece?' or 'Could you explain to us why you think this is 'news'?' etc.
Of course, the last thing we want is for everyone to be trigger-happy with criticism, but I can't help but thing that we wranglers might not be doing all we can at the moment.
Thanks, all. :)
at 12:51 on August 30th, 2007
these are some great questions...i'm on my way out for the a little vacation i think Kaitlin will come by and clear up some of the confusion.
at 13:07 on August 30th, 2007
In reply to #1 Ryan Nadel at 12:51 on August 30th, 2007
Thanks, Ryan. And have a lovely vacation!
at 14:09 on August 30th, 2007
Hi generaldecay,
You raise some great points here. I'll try to address them best I can.
1. Flagging stories: I understand your desire not to "butt-in" on someone's story in order to flag it. As a Wrangler, you have a Good Stuff flag, so you can use that as you see fit, obviously. When it comes to stories you feel need changes--if you don't feel comfortable commenting on someone else's story, or you're unsure of whether your feeling is right or not, simply send an email to one of the staff with a link to the story and let us investigate.
Staff on NowPublic who can handle this are: Ryan Nadel, Brian A Kennedy, Victoria Revay, jordan or Kaitlin. We all have crowns next to our names, and can be messaged through our member pages.
It is largely a subjective thing in many ways (so a scale or particular guide might fall short), but your gut tends to be right. If something feels out of place, missing, spam-like or otherwise off, it probably is. As for us giving more guidance, we're always here to answer questions or address issues. Other places you may want to check out in this regard are (you know about some of these, I know, but this is for other people as well):
News Values - These should help define for you a bit better what kinds of stories we're looking for--highlighted stories are only a part of the puzzle), and what makes news newsworthy...you can refer other people to this page to help them make their stories better.
J-Tips - These were developed by our Actual News Guy to help define what kinds of practices we can and should pursue. Useful for referring people to if they aren't quite getting the hang of things.
Highlight - The guide to this tool (which is in progress) is meant to help you make good highlights, as well as just learning what highlight can do.
The Wrangler guide - Defines your role and helps outline your responsibilities.
and, of course, the Flagging Guide.
Taken together, these are a good starting point. Observing behaviours of other Wranglers is also a good place to find some help or pointers. You guys are largely defining your role by playing it, which is cool but is an ongoing and sometimes frustrating process. Please feel free to discuss your ongoing practices and struggles here or via email to one of us, and we'll do our best to address them. Your patience is appreciated as we all discuss issues and determine our own best practices.
Ultimately, you guys are the Wranglers, so you'll create your own best methods. If everyone chats in here about our experiences, then we'll all learn from your great work going forward (as we already have).
"Stock sentences" don't always work, but if anyone wants some templates to work from, send me an email and we'll chat about it further.
2. Flaming: We try to catch inflammatory or otherwise abusive posts and comments as they come, but if you see them, please send one of the staff a link as soon as you do. We'll do our best to determine whether that person is violating our Terms of Service, and whether or not their account should be blocked or terminated. We recommend you pass this off to us, as getting embroiled with someone who likes to abuse the site can be a very frustrating process.
at 02:02 on August 31st, 2007
Thank you, Kaitlin.
I shall return to the fray and see if I get on any better. :)