News Categories

[Prof.Wizard]

I find the current news categories rather cumbersome and non-working.
The topic categories are: Elsewhere, Computer News, Third Party News, Site News, and Update. Let's discuss...

What is Elsewhere for example? What type of category is this? If it is a news-article done by another site then it is a Third Party News. Which is the difference?!

What about Computer News? I thought all news submitted had to do with computers, with the small exceptions of cellular phones (ie. WAP technology) and maybe X-Box/PS2 news...

Third Party News? Almost all news submitted are things we've seen in other sites (X-bit Labs, The Register, etc.) so I find it quite natural.

Site News? Well, Handruin (and the high-priest council) post site changes in this (Feedback) forum. Personally, I have never seen anyone submitting a new with this designation... Why is it there anyway?

Update? Update to what?! Links for download files...? nah... we can see it by ourselves... and Coug is always there to write in a forum post.


OK, here's what I propose, 4 categories:
3rd-Party Article
When there is a news release by another site with information regarding a product, service, bug, roadmap, etc. Anything computer-related.
Review
When there is a link to a particularly interesting review which SF member subjectively should see.
Other
When there is a link to news that regard an IT entry, but not 100% computer-related, like WAP, GPRS, UMTS, and/or gaming platforms (X-Box, PS2, etc.).
SF Article
Well, this is a special category which came into my mind when I first saw the article-writing abilities of Liam. It would be cool to see more SF members (if able) write small computer-related articles and host them to SF. I understand that most of us haven't got the technical preparation and experience to do what Liam did, but even 5-6 paragraph tries will be an added blessing. It's time to start producing our own work here guys!!

 

[Handruin]

A quick Clarification, the items you see listed are topics and sub topics. This is how it is setup right now:

Elsewhere (Category Name)
-Computer News (Unspecific Computer news)
-Third party Articles (Not sure of the definition on this sub topic)

Site News (Category Name)
-Update (Intention was to inform people when the site has had work done to it)

I like your suggestion to reorganize the news, if we do change the categories, we should also go through the existing news articles and classify where they belong because once we remove the old categories, the existing news may have issues.

From your list I think 3rd-party Article is fine.

I think Review should be SF specific so that future reads will see reviews from us.

Other is very broad, and should be reserved for something 100% not computer related.

I think SF Article would be better suited as just Article and use everything else as 3rd-Party Article. I agree it would be nice to see in-house work on the front page. I also see the work Groltz put into his project as a nice example that other reads could benefit from on the front page, or in a separate section for SF. Maybe something like a Projects section?

 

[Prof.Wizard]

Ditto.

I knew about the topic, sub-topic thing, but since there wasn't any hierarchical difference I claimed them all as 5 iso-groups.

Well, Other to NOT-computer related news. OK, cellular phones, electronics equipment, gaming platforms? I think all go under the umbrella of this category, right? I don't expect 100% OT news to find their way to the frontpage EVER!

Doug, I disagree somehow to these three:
3rd-Party Article, SF Article, Review...

The reason I asked for them is to (1) boost the in-house production of potential IT-articles by members of SF and (2) to distinguish once an for all a news release (about a new product for example) found in another site, from a well-articulated and extended article (a "review"), again found in another site.

Let me insist on these 4 categories for a while.
Let's see what other members have to say.

Again, for me:
SF Article
Example: Our member LiamC has benchmarked the following mobos and posts/comments his results... blah blah...
3rd-Party Article
Example: AMD releases Hammer! The Chinese site "Kung-Fu"... blah blah...
Review
Example: X-Bit Labs has done an interesting review benchmarking the latest products by... blah blah...
Other
Example: British Telecom to offer a new WAP portal for EU cellular phone subscribers featuring... blah blah...

 

[Groltz]

What I would like to see you guys hash out is where news items taken from other parts of the web should be placed. As I see it, if it has to do with computers and is considered news, it would go into the "Computer News" section. Regardless of where it came from.

If it isn't news, but a modding article or something like the "Evil Tips and Tricks for the PC" article I posted, it would then go into the "3rd Party Articles" category. I guess this would also include reviews culled from other web sites.

Also, (This is to Doug) What was that code you told me about last night for being able to create an FTP linked word without the "http://" getting stuck in the front of it?

How 'bout it?

 

[Clocker]

Right now I don't think there is enough news to warrant having ANY 'categories'. It just adds unneeded complication until to new articles are so numerous that we need some categorization system.

C

 

[Prof.Wizard]

Right now I don't think there is enough news to warrant having ANY 'categories'.

Eh?!
Right the opposite.

 

[Clocker]

JMO

 

[Prof.Wizard]

JMO 2