N4G has its share of problems that would take an entire blog post to write out. Stuff like how easy it is to lose a bubble, but how nearly impossible it is to gain one, or the seemingly random nature at which some comments are incorrectly flagged in some fashion. Today is a day I noticed a problem I'm sure many of you have noticed a lot already.
That being that there are submissions that fail the most basic of site rules being allowed to pass through the approval process filled with flaws, some even being approved by a single mod. You can tell it's a mod since only one person approved the story and there is a big number 10 beside the approval.
Today I noticed a submission where the title was completely wrong. It was for a game called Rogue Star but the submission said Rogue Galaxy. Naturally, since there are many fans of the Level 5 PS2 JRPG Rogue Galaxy, there were people who thought that we'd be hearing some news about Rogue Galaxy only to be met with disappointment to find out that Rogue Star is just an iOS game with no relation to Rogue Galaxy at all. This story made it through the approval process without one single person mentioning that misleading title, and it wasn't fixed until AFTER it was approved and I myself actually read the article to see that it had nothing to do with Rogue Galaxy and then reported the incorrect title myself.
Just now I saw another submission that passed through that was literally someone's blog. Admittedly, it was the blog of a game designer so I suppose there is a relation, but the blog was essentially a "my day at work" thing and not exactly riveting gaming news. In the posting guidelines, blogs are specifically mentioned as something to be avoided and yet a blog made it through. Are people not actually reading these things?
I know first hand that there is a "boosting" issue on this site, and that's to be expected and can't always be prevented right away, but I mean come on people. How many times are there complaints about the kind of content that makes it through on this site? Too many to count. It will keep happening if you don't have some kind of standard for approving stories. These kinds of things merely add to the already many problems on this site and if you're not prepared to at least help be a part of the solution, then you shouldn't really complain about the problems.
We've seen the spam getting worse too. And I don't mean the bots that post in the comment section. I mean the submissions that have "like our facebook page" in the description. This is supposed to be News 4 Gamers, not Adspace 4 Companies or Blogs 4 Anyone.
Duuro says: "I think the idea behind the movement is cool, but on the other hand, the execution and clear limitation of the platform somewhat undermine the whole thing."
"The Wakefield-based (the UK) indie games publisher and developer Team 17 and indie games developer Ernestas Norvaišas, are today very proud and excited to announce that the full version (v1.0) of their train-led city builder “Sweet Transit”, is now available for PC via Steam and EGS." - Jonas Ek, TGG.
Review - If you are a fan of intrigue in your stories then The Mildew Children on Xbox will be well up your street.
The site has some problems. Most of which are caused by particular users (the ones who create multiple accounts to spam report submissions, artificially inflate/deflate bubble counts, spam approve submissions and just generally ruin things for legitimate users) called douches. They've always been part of the site. The only way for you deal with them is with an effort on your part. This is a good start but you need to call them out every time you see the offending behavior.
As for advise on getting bubbles back, sleep with a Mod.
I recommend Smokey. He's not fussy.
People care more about getting their score up by blindly approving submissions left and right, opposed to filtering submissions to ensure legitimate quality. It's a shame, really.
LostDjinn: LOL! When it comes to my bubbles, the only time it bothers me if I lose them is why, not that I lost it. It's fine to gain or lose bubbles, but it's ridiculous how easily one can lose them and for the most inappropriate reasons. I've seen legitimate, on topic posts get flagged as Spam. That's just ridiculous. And this blog is more about people not paying attention to what they approve so that the kind of stuff that gets through is the kind of stuff we always see people complaining about. You don't like flamebait? Why approve it? You don't like 2 line articles and blogs? Report them. But when you see a mod approve a story that has a mistake in the title, then you know there's definitely something wrong.
Valenka: I don't even know why people care about their score. I certainly don't and I've been here for about 7 years, maybe more.
DragonKnight,
Regarding this comment:
"I've seen legitimate, on topic posts get flagged as Spam."
Without going into detail, there are some users who continually create new accounts who have been banned. When that happens, when we address the situation, often times those comments made by those accounts are flagged as spam.
Lately?
At any rate, the main reason is that those who tried to complain about standards are banned from reporting bad news articles, point blank and period.
...and this is the result.