The articles section of the site is under designed, as such there is little archival way to look at past articles. The general look of the articles section equally does not distinguish in different ways that would appeal to someone looking at a newspaper site. While I realize these articles are done in such a way that presents volunteers. I feel that if Cursed is to offer up incentives for writing more often, that there needs to be better presentation of said information that is able to archived better to increase:
1. Search engine optimization
2. Just plain finding it
3. Future expansion into different aspects and articles
Other articles that are underused:
1. The fanfiction section is severely underused. Building up a submission contest system to place fanfiction works into the main area increases visibility and encouraging a sensation that people can "write well" and build up and learn how to write better. By establishing a means to do so, attracts readers to the site but also encourages more community participation.
2. Guides such as the Cube guides that are written in the forum are placed deeply within the forum, taking some of the guides can offer up a more "official way" to present information publicly.
3. Timeliness for some information is determinant based on the value of the information presented. Some information, such as lore articles and "history based articles" do not have the same time stamp that a financial article would have. Better search function and presentation would afford through archives to be used.
Thoughts?
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Articles and other content have been a focus of mine for some time now. Unfortunately, real life issues have forced site stuff to the back seat for the past while, which is why it's taken me a while to respond to this thread. Still, I'll do my best to address the concerns you've raised.
Archival is a technical issue. It's easy to filter through specific columns, as the recently added Columns section of the top bar does, but excluding those things (e.g. to list all articles except the Magic Market Index, Magic Street Journal, Archive Trap, and Spoiler Digest) is a bit trickier and currently out of our hands. I've spoken to the tech staff about this, and it's on our list of improvements to implement, but these things take time and there's quite a bit of backlog there. These kinds of things do get added, however, so more robust article displays aren't out of reach.
We're also looking into ways to broaden our content offerings. The endgame here is essentially for Magic players to be able to say, "I come to MTGS for the articles." Whether it's because they want the regular price tracking the Magic Market Index offers, because they want lore information from Archive Trap, or because they enjoy reading whatever we're able to put up in the future, Magic players and collectors should be able to count on MTGS to provide enjoyable published content. There are a number of issues to tackle, such as how to attract and retain writing talent, what kinds of content to focus on, and how to ensure our content is presented well both on desktop and mobile devices. It's a high priority for me and I'm dedicated to ensuring MTGS succeeds in this area. As such, I always welcome feedback and suggestions because at the end of the day, my audience is our users and the better dialogue we have with our users, the better our content delivery will be.
Personal writing is more Talore's thing than my thing, so I've let her know about the concerns you've raised. For what it's worth, I do think the idea of including fanfiction and other creative writing in our content offerings is worth exploring.
Guides, primers, and other such content are a bit tricky to handle in different ways due to forum software limitations. I don't want to say too much about the ideas I have for this, both because I'm not 100% sure what's technically feasible and because I'm not sure what the best way to proceed here is, but I will promise it's on my short list. The same is true for ways to improve how users can search and read different types of information.
I realize this may not be the most inspiring response, but I'd rather under-promise and over-perform than the other way around. The key takeaway is that feedback like this is important to us because it shows how user opinion stands in relation to our current plans. Feedback is the most valuable resource we have, so if there are any other questions, comments, or concerns, we'd very much like to hear them.
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1. Search engine optimization
2. Just plain finding it
3. Future expansion into different aspects and articles
Other articles that are underused:
1. The fanfiction section is severely underused. Building up a submission contest system to place fanfiction works into the main area increases visibility and encouraging a sensation that people can "write well" and build up and learn how to write better. By establishing a means to do so, attracts readers to the site but also encourages more community participation.
2. Guides such as the Cube guides that are written in the forum are placed deeply within the forum, taking some of the guides can offer up a more "official way" to present information publicly.
3. Timeliness for some information is determinant based on the value of the information presented. Some information, such as lore articles and "history based articles" do not have the same time stamp that a financial article would have. Better search function and presentation would afford through archives to be used.
Thoughts?
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<a href="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-lists/588020-unpowered-themed-enchantment-an-enchanted-evening">An Enchanted Evening Cube </a>
I realize this may not be the most inspiring response, but I'd rather under-promise and over-perform than the other way around. The key takeaway is that feedback like this is important to us because it shows how user opinion stands in relation to our current plans. Feedback is the most valuable resource we have, so if there are any other questions, comments, or concerns, we'd very much like to hear them.