Sythe News Bar

Lately I've been brainstorming some new ways that we can obtain new members, and make them stick around for longer. I was thinking that a big thing we could do is be provide more "content" for the users who visit the site, which would in turn make them stay longer, and have more of a reason to keep coming back to it. So I thought of something that people would like to see, and that they would probably actually use, and that is news.

We should have a segment on the site where people can view news articles that we write. It would look great if there was a side bar, or a bar near the top or bottom that the article "stubs" could be viewed on. I was thinking there would be a section for one general news article, and a section for one gaming article, and they could either rotate among current articles or we could make it a daily thing. With the proper journalism tactics being utilized it could keep people on the site for longer, because they have more to do.

I read yahoo news and ign news daily, and I love it. One thing they both do a really great job at is catching attention with article titles, and I think we could do something like that as well. It probably wouldn't take much coding either, and to make it simpler we could have all the articles written in thread form, and then from the side bar/top bar/bottom bar/whatever they could just be redirected to the thread on it.

All articles would be written by Sythe users so we don't have to worry about other websites getting mad about stealing their articles. There could either be a process where anyone can submit an article, which would then be reviewed and decided on whether or not it should be shown, or we could have a few journalists that go through an application process to be allowed to post articles.

Note: I've already spoken with Govind about it, and he says he's fine with it, but it'd need Richard's approval.

Thanks for reading!

 

In theory it sounds good but IGN etc have paid journalists. I doubt anyone on here would want to put in a lot of work creating professional articles.

 

I would do it for the fun of it, and I am sure we could find some others as well. Plus we don't necessarily need top of the line professionalism. We need articles that are informative, and look good.

 

Sounds like a good idea, sort of like a moving carousel or something?
(Like this example [off google] http://dbushell.com/images/portfolio/web-design-peerless-1.png) I think it'd be engaging, but I'm not sure there would be enough good content to make a member stay on the site exactly, what kind of articles did you have in mind?

I'm pretty sure some people would, enough people want to be OGV's so why not 'journalists'?

 

Just thought I would say that there is a huge difference between being an OGV and writing news articles. OGVs are more like researchers and they actually get to test out the methods submitted.

What are you going to write articles on? There isn't really all that much that goes on that is community related. While I like the idea, I just don't see it working for our community.

 

I'm fairly sure the idea of getting guides for free and having a shiny rank is the appeal of being OGV. There seems to be little to no incentive to write articles.

 

Gaming/News articles that would interest people the most. For example whenever something crazy happens in the news someone makes a thread about it on Sythe, so we would be choosing things like that to go in the general news box. As for the gaming box there is always something going on in the gaming world that we could write about.

 

Ah, so not just Sythe related, that's all I wanted to clear up ^^

I'm sure if this was implemented and successful, a rank could be on the horizon. I'd do it for free though, and I'm sure there are a lot of people who want to be recognised in the community would give it a go.

 

If this were to happen I believe that not everyone should get a crack at it. There are some good writers on Sythe but the majority of people on Sythe aren't quality writers.

 

Sounds like a blog. Plenty of forums have it, and with VB4 right around the corner, I understand that a blog is one of it's features. Look into that functionality and see if it fits.

 

I agree, which is why there would be either applications or an approval process.

This is a little less complex then a blog. It would most likely end up being an aesthetic change that provided redirects towards article threads.

 

This would be a double positive.

It would make it a much more interesting site to join/more appealing.

And it creates an opportunity for a journalist-type group, as I know there are plenty of literate users

Much support.

 

I agree that this would be an great idea to incorporate. However, wouldn't adding a Meebo tab serve this purpose and save energy at the same time? I know forums such as RuneHQ have adopted this sort of tool bar concept.

 

Anything that brings activity to the site that can't be found elsewhere (a more profound guide section, making those looking for guides be exposed to our market) or even articles, reviews etc. over news in recent games would be amazing.

Like said before, I don't think this will be very practical as they would have to be high quality to be worth anything. Maybe if we can offer some type of monetary incentive for writing a good guide / article / review, we can get high quality works that are worth reading. I think I'm getting ahead of myself though, as this is just an idea and has a lot of items to be worked out.

 

I feel like having some sort of group for it, like the OGV group, should be more than enough.

 

I completely support this. Maybe there could be a team of writers that try to bring new content to the site and create professional looking articles or reviews. I for one, would be willing to help if needed.

But I completely support this.

 

Support both ideas, this especially would prove to be a catalyst in the amount of content produced every day in my opinion.

 

Why try to make the site something it's obviously not? If people want news articles there are websites that can provide them and do it a lot better then we will be able to. I think we should try to improve what sythe is good at which is a great market place and community.

 

I don't think people will want to write and research articles for this website without pay, I mean that is literally a job. If someone could do that well they'd start their own site and simply get it popular here.

 

If we can set up a review system like that of pbnation's for games and bots, I think we could draw in quite a large number of members looking for reviews. Hopefully from those reviews people will write guides and ultimately increase in more activity.