IN ninth episode of the StopGame podcast, dedicated to the site itself StopGame.ru, The discussion participants also touched upon the topic of blogs. Moreover, Leonid Davydov pproposed an initiative to bloggers in the spirit: “If you have ideas for improving blogs, then you are welcome”. Why not, I thought, after which and started writing this articles. Here I will share my own experience of blogging, and believe me, I have accumulated quite a bit of it. In the end, it’s already my fortyth blog. Make yourself comfortable and bring a saucepan with youat tea and a mug of dumplings, because we are starting!
About the nature of the “sump”.
What is a “sump” within blogs?? This is the purgatory into which all new publications fall (except for someI eat from the authors, hthen they were withdrawn moderators in the “top”directly). You see, when any user clicks on the subtle word "BLOGS" at the top of the screen, they are taken to "thep", and to be more precise – V section "BEST", whichohm singingare all topics, ratio of likes and dislikes which equals or exceeds value in tenb advantages. To go to the “sump”, you need to click on the “ALL” section, but most users either don’t know about itet, or Byjust doesn’t look rightAndthere’s no point in going there. And here we have a contradiction: bloggers publish in one place, and most readers go somewhere else. In other words, to reach readers, you need likes, which require views from these same readers! It’s a vicious circle, don’t you think?? Recently, the situation has grown from simply unpleasant to catastrophic. If dabout redesign five hundred views per week in the "sump"were considered not the bestbetter indicatorem, now two hundred is the norm. Add to the above the fact that only a small part of readers even somehow evaluate blogs, be it pros or cons, and you will get a very killer formula for scaring away bloggers.
Such a depressing picture really makes you think about the death of blogs.
Ways to solve the problem:
ABOUTcombine “top” and “sump” into single and indivisible blogs, so as not to separate bloggers and audience.
Significantly reduce the threshold for entering the top. For example, up to a ratio of likes and dislikes of five pluses.
Separate likes and dislikes, but this measure has two serious drawbacks. Firstly, the difficulties of technical implementation. Secondly, it is far from certain that at the current stage this measure will have a tangible effect.
Add the ability to subscribe to further publications specificallys userto her, to receive notifications when new blogs are released. Yes, just like YouTube. You can even make it in the shape of a bell.
WITHmake blog links more visible. I strongly doubt that placing it between “CHEATS” and “STREAMS” particularly contributes to the influx of readers.
ABOUT criticism of the concept "Friday mower".
I publish on blogs StopGame for more than three years, however I have still nno not the slightest idea why such “Friday mowers” are distributed according to the principle. That’s it! There’s not even a guess! The whole point is the absence of any clear rules and pre-agreed conditions for this competition. Determination of the winner – This entirely the prerogative of the author struggling with sleep StopGame, responsiblyth for the Friday issue of Infact. Because of this, the “Friday mower”, as a measure to stimulate activity on blogs, does not work properly, but this turned out to be not enough! Instead of changing the competition itself, making the process of selecting finalists clearer and more transparent, the editors StopGame decided to simply abolish the cash reward. Definitely, the whole problem lay precisely in the fact of the presence of a monetary reward, and not in the poor organization of the event. However, to my pleasant surprise, commentators on YouTube, so such an unpopular decision was canceled. But this does not mean that these plans have been completely abandoned. Not long ago, the form for issuing “Friday mowers” was changed —now “mowers” are sent only to Steam-a wallet from which it is almost impossible to withdraw money. I guess uhThis measure is aimed at reducing the significance of the award itself, so that next time its cancellation would cause less negativity. Most likely, the next step will be to replace the “mower” with direct distribution of video games, after which this incentive measure will also be abandoned. Maybe I’m just paranoid, however, in the same podcast, Mr. Davydov absolutely did not hide his intention to abolish the practice of issuing “Friday mowers”. The final conclusions are yours.
Ways to solve the problem:
ABOUTrefuse to issue “Friday mowers”. If you don’t want to allocate money to usremedies, then you don’t have to force yourself. After all, we work on passion. However, I can’t help but point out the obvious irony, because the site’s authors quite calmly collect donations on streams. But this is of course different.
Ucommemorate other worthy works published during the week. It is not necessary to display them on the main page or reward them with money, but you can simply indicate the very fact of the presence of suitable work, leaving a couple of links in order to generate additional traffic.
Prescribe clear conditions for the competition, outlining selection and evaluation criteria. To be honest, this decision suggested itself from the very beginning of the competition. Usually a blog on a general topic and a review are selected, but sometimes the ratio changes: two reviews or two blogs on a general topic. Sometimes “Infact” even goes on vacation, missing a whole week. I would like more clarity on this issue.
On the ethics of treating bloggers.
It was worth it YouTube-direction StopGame begin to actively develop, reaching new heights (absolutely deserved, in my opinion, because the guys have been making really good content for so many years without proper return), so the “best audience,” as if by magic, turned into “toxic burden". Every time another author StopGame begins to speak disparagingly about us, I feel really offended. Fen’s words were especially saddening, nwho called bloggerV “a toxic community that drives away all newcomers”. Certainly same, newcomers leave the site not because of low views, a huge wave of problems that have not been solved for years, almost fullWow absenceI any opportunity to get statistics on published blogs and the presence of other alternatives offered by your competitors (the same DTF, for example), but because of us. Ideal scapegoats. But… maybe stop treating us like that? Please. We are only enthusiasts and amateurs sharing our creativity in conditions of almost complete ignorance of our problems. For how many years have we been promised that blog problems would be solved after the redesign?? And we endured. We waited. We hoped for the best, unconditionally trusting our favorite authors. And then there was a redesign, but everything became only worse. The new blog editor was presented as much more convenient, but this is not entirely true. You see, it remains pretty much the same, but part of its functiononala broken! For example, justifying text just doesn’t work. Moreover, immediately after releaseuska blog, I have to proofread the text, because when it is published, some spaces disappear for no apparent reason. I’ll probably tactfully keep silent about such minor things as problems with image resolution and center alignment.
This art should have had Loginov’s signature, but it was cut off by the editor. I don’t know how to fix this.
Ways to resolving the problem:
Pplease stop cheating problems of blogs on “toxicity of the community”. Something tells me that with our departure there won’t be any community left on blogs at all principle.
In the same podcast, cons were mentioned flying into new topics. Like, “toxic bloggers” are trying to get rid of newcomers. It’s just that we all suffer from this. Throughout the three years that I have been here, there have been a couple of blog users who regularly downvote every appearanceemerging topic. At first I thought that I was just imagining things, but all doubts were dispelled when I personally witnessed this process several times. Within a few seconds, these guys downvote every topic without even opening them. The funny thing is that after the redesign there are three of them. If and talk about toxicity on blogs, That its origins obviously embedded in the activities of these persons, no matter how absurd it may seem.
Nget in touch with us. There aren’t that many of us left, to be honest. On StopGame there is no loyalty program, and most changes are made without taking into account our opinion. For example, changing the rating system. Now it makes absolutely no sense. She’s out of troubleturned back V rudimentary. It is especially ironic that the created “rating inflation” equated writing blogs with writing comments. In a couple of hours of discussion The Last of Us: Part II I got more ratings, than writing eight blogs. However, this is the least of our problems, but it would be nice of you if youmoreover consulted with your community.
I invite you all to take part in a discussion of the current state of blogs, their problems and ways to overcome the current crisis situation. I especially welcometsya authors StopGame, who are always ready to listen here. Thank you for your attention!
Best comments
Throughout the three years that I have been here, there have been a couple of blog users who regularly downvote every topic that appears.
And eight years ago it was the https://triumph-casino.uk/bonus/ same. A couple of minuses arrived on the blog immediately after publication. During this time, even purely technically, a person would not be able to familiarize himself with the contents of the blog. I don’t think that these are the same people, otherwise it becomes somehow completely uneasy. There was even a thought that some kind of system does this automatically, but this doesn’t happen, although it happens often, but not every time and not with every blog.
In general, in my opinion, in order to do something, you need to set an initial goal. What the administration wants to see in blogs: A freewheeling garbage dump, where any more or less sane content is acceptable, but no one cares about anyone. An elite party that will disturb incompetent newcomers with dirt for any mistake (and in the opinion of the newcomers themselves, their mother tells them every day that they are talented). Maybe a platform for feedback with users or even a forge cheap literary blacks personnel. It cannot be everything at the same time and nothing will grow out of it on its own.
In any case, we need a group of people officially supervising blogs. Not just mods cleaning out the Augean stables, but people with their finger on the pulse. Otherwise everything will work out on its own. Then don’t complain.
And then with the mowers it will be clearer.
I re-read your blog and what can I say?.
It’s all very bad but let’s face it. There are not enough views and advantages for blogs in SG, not only because there is a division into best/all, but because not so many people visit SG in general, each news has 2 or 3 comments, and the most discussed ones even get 100, but mostly the same people sit there and comment. There aren’t enough people, you know, and for the most part this is not a functional problem, but a problem of the site as a whole, which no one will solve yet. User-generated content is fading away, you can read what they write every other time, mostly there are only advertisements for YouTube channels.
Yes, even when you leave from 10-11 they will still downvote you and send you back, as for example with the yara article, yesterday it was 11 today 8. Wonderful.
I also think that subscribers would help, and I also said that the work of others should have been mentioned and not just the kasar winners, like the same people. But who am I to be listened to, I won’t be surprised if my words are generally laughed at as inconvenient.
Namely, I have a suspicion that nothing is changing because it is inconvenient for SG himself, now SG is like a student at an agricultural institute – the main thing is to finish his studies, and then it will be like that. It will be like everyone leaves, people like rona19 or that guy who wrote about Igrosmi and TLoU2 will remain, and that’s all? This is such fresh blood?
You can propose, you can do a bunch of things, but one thing on paper is different in reality, we would honestly say we can’t because – 1. 2. 3. It would be clear that things don’t always work out the way you want.
Instead of talking about the “toxic audience”.
Correctly, the user needs an easy-going, patient person who will say what is needed:
“Ivanushka, bunny, here’s a pie for you, thanks for the cottage cheese”©.
And yes, if “toxic” people are sitting here and driving away newcomers, let those who said this show screenshots or give at least one example when a successful and talented user was kicked out of SG due to “toxicity”. Or tried to drive away.
Well, on DTF there is a layer of people who came to the site simply to hate the editors and content.
There are also a constant couple of people who, for the sake of fun, drown the minuses of the topic. But they were simply hammered, because 3 minuses with stable 200-300 pluses for materials is a fart in a puddle. Let the kids have fun.
But for SG this is a problem, although I would say that the problem is more likely to be 200 views of blogs on a site that has almost two million subscribers on YouTube, and the team itself is known to almost every gamer in the CIS.
Yes, even when you leave from 10-11 they will still downvote you and send you back, as for example with the yara article, yesterday it was 11 today 8. Wonderful.
As an option, you can freeze the Rating after being included in the Best for the day.
Like, you can only put (+). I have never seen that the Best contained texts worthy of a minus.
I can clarify a couple of points myself.
1. The leapfrog with the “mowers” is caused precisely by the difficulties during transfers to different countries and to different payment systems. Steam is much simpler in this regard and is guaranteed to accept money from us, so it was chosen as a compromise option – so that there would be a reward and the treasurer wouldn’t go crazy.
2. Redesign is more of a process that is still in full swing. Some pretty important features are currently being developed and will hopefully be on the site soon. But other people are doing them, quite far from the author’s staff.
And it’s probably better to write suggestions for improving the site not in comments to the blog, but through the feedback form. They may not be noticed here.
For how many years have we been promised that blog problems would be solved after the redesign?? And we endured. We waited. We hoped for the best, unconditionally trusting our favorite authors. And then there was a redesign, but everything only got worse.
It reads like a family. It even lifts your spirits. Nowadays it’s really difficult to get into the Best, many authors languish without attention. But I wouldn’t say the problem is that serious.
Let’s call it fierce competition for attention. If you want to be in the Best, write better than those who regularly get there. Study their style, form your own, train. There must always be a goal. Why even get into the Best?? Who will appreciate our creativity? Etc.d.
StopGame is primarily a news portal and everything is fine with it. News comes out regularly, the YouTube channel pleases with good reviews, and staff writers don’t waste their time either.
We’re not climbing a tower here, we’re just living and enjoying life, no matter what it is.
Yes, I would like them to be gentler with the redesign, to remove features after asking the audience’s opinion, and not just with the left toe of the right foot because I wanted to. Would you share weekly updates?, so that we know more about the life of the site, and not have to deal with changes after the fact.
There are a lot of things I would like to change. Work is in full swing, StopGame does not stand still. Someone leaves – someone passes. We don’t want to write reviews – someone else will write them. Blogs are dying out, scoundrels are minus? Is it possible for a rating to lower a really good blog?? If the author is new – yes. If someone like you – no. This blog will be featured in the Best, I can already see comments about green grass and other attributes of the wonderful past. But the train is moving forward, the final station will not be soon. Hang in there, I’m with you 😉
Damn, I don’t know about everyone else, but I started writing blogs for the sake of the “mower”, he was the main motivator. Yes, in general, I still do 🙂
I explain it to myself this way:
1) Money, it’s money in Africa too. Who would refuse them?? Moreover, they ask you to simply write something interesting
2) Receiving a “mower” ensures a mention and the feelings from such encouragement are incredible. When I first found out that I had won, I was extremely delighted and I didn’t even believe it when they told me.
I don’t agree that this is a real competition… It’s just that the author chooses, according to his subjective-objective opinion, which blog is better for the week. And make certain criteria? Well that’s it. And voting among blog participants cannot be arranged, since many will like more for topics that interest them, even if one blog is worse than another
Hello, my name is Jakie, who is actually Jackie, but mistyped and ended up adopting himself. On the set, God forbid, 7 years.
I want to share the first thesis about the strange positioning of blogs for novice authors and readers. But honestly, I still consider the problem of the “sump” to be less critical than the problem of spam and my mother’s PR people attacking with 10-30 posts a day. This is not a complaint against Cortez and others that they don’t clean everything so quickly (although sometimes yes, half a day goes by without cleaning). This open disregard for a problem that has never gotten better over the years is the key reason why I have become a rare guest on these resources, although it seemed a year ago that I was actively trying to solve the problem criticized by Lenya – a low entry threshold. I tried to evaluate all at least somewhat non-spam posts, give advice, praise, in general, keep a person on the site by saying “nothing, you’ll learn, the main thing is try.”!». But due to the abundance of this “garbage”, finding a normal publication in the trash became some kind of thankless job and, having decided to rest, I stupidly gave up.
Do you want to make your blogs more attractive?? Solve this problem. It doesn’t matter how it will be, like DTF with the publication disappearing at -10, pre-moderation before publication or more moderators. The main thing is not only to solve the problem of a small influx of users, but also of outflow!
_____
I’ll speak for myself about Friday mowers: this is the least of the problems and not a problem at all. It’s nice to receive a tangible coin somewhere, although it would be nicer to get it wherever it’s convenient and convenient for us, but I perfectly understand the possible problems that this will cause.
__
I sincerely love the local blog. Even if he is not stable even for just good work, but here I saw a lot of diligent guys, I saw phenomenal works, I saw real PEOPLE in the works, and not watered-down essays that match the unspoken standards of quality. DTF is not as friendly to young bloggers as SG was. I hope it will.
If real changes come to blogs, I would love to go and communicate much more than now, but as long as I open “blogs”, I don’t see any changes in a day and when I go into the “sump” I see a bunch of garbage, I understand why.
But for SG this is a problem, although I would say that the problem is more likely to be 200 views of blogs on a site that has almost two million subscribers on YouTube, and the team itself is known to almost every gamer in the CIS.
If you look at the Best, there are at least 500 views for a blog that was published 3 weeks ago – it also depends on the topic.
Less than half a day has passed, and this post already has 500 views. Readers are interested in all sorts of hot topics, such as showdowns and criticism of the work of the site/editorial staff. And the news consistently gets 10k views.
The problem is that the majority do not read, but listen and watch. Visuals are king these days.
After all, if Loev has already started saying this, it means that everything is heading towards the fact that the audience and the editors will increasingly be on opposite sides of the barricades.
Or we just become old and dissatisfied gamers, to whom give warmth, attention and Loev in the comments. By the way, this is an idea!
We need to ask that they add the ability to call people using hashtags, like in Telega. I wanted to discuss something with Loev – I added a hashtag/sign (#Loev) at the beginning of the message and voila, a discussion begins.
Having finally freed myself from the shackles of the worker-peasant yoke, I will write a broader and more detailed feedback (Since we are all crying into each other’s vests here). I’ve been on SG since 2015, as a non-constantly active user and blogger since 2016. Came like many old people, admiring the Machinima translation. And I’ve been here for so long that the locals called me old. Perhaps some of you were wondering why this guy writes so persistently about movies on a site that is actually about gaming?. The answer here was and still remains the same – thanks to you I am still here. Nowhere before or since have I seen such a passionate community that advocates for quality content. No mowers motivate you to write like your comments and support. SG blogs have become a home for me, where I will always be welcome. You can argue with me as much as you like, but here’s what I’m saying: stopgame’s editors are its brain, and blogs are its heart. And this heart is very broken now. I continue to write here for the exact reason that I feel at home here, I feel comfortable talking to you through blogs and feel comfortable learning from you. SG moved to YouTube, but this does not mean that SG blogs are dying. They’re dying, BUT IT’S NOT THE SAME. Perhaps blogs need a qualitative shake-up, a transition to a new level, options for reaching which were expressed by Diml. In the end, thanks to SG, I met a girl who eventually became my wife. So how can you not love it all?? I love you all, I am grateful for everything, but what I see now makes me extremely sad. If earlier the editorial office and blogs were a single whole, give or take, now we live in a split. And the podcast only confirms this – they simply don’t hear us, or don’t want to hear us. Therefore, I would like a banal thing – communication between the authorities and the community. The second blog cuts to the quick, but we don’t see anyone from the editorial office here. Maybe I’m not exactly a local top blogger, like Dimla, but I spent a lot of peace of mind on blogs, and therefore, I think we deserve at least some kind of answer, because I’m not the only one. I love stopgame, and I wish it nothing but prosperity, but the problem is brewing. As my literature teacher used to say, everyone goes crazy differently. And here a united front pushes the idea that something needs to change. Dear SG editors, I am grateful to you for the years of quality content, and therefore I ask you to treat us the same way we treat you – with reverent love and understanding. After all, we also deliver the same content, albeit for a much smaller audience. In short, I love you all, I’ll kill a hare in the field with a shovel. In the end, I would like to remind half of the editorial staff of SG – you yourself come from blogs. And such an attitude on your part is a banal disrespect for the site that raised you. Just my opinion, but you forgot your father’s face.
P.S.: Khan Kungur can say whatever he wants, but blogs about cinema have a place in SG, which is confirmed by me and many other bloggers who have set out on the difficult path of film blogging in SG. People are interested in this and are ready to read about it.
Cortez came in in a black Spanish uniform, then you sat down on my chair and told me your thoughts, I also decided to share what I was thinking about.
And if about activity in blogs, then let me ask you what makes you write blogs on this site and/or comment on them?
Hmm, no particular reason really. There is someone here to discuss games with, there are good authors, an opportunity to learn something new. No, I understand that DTF has even more educational content and active users, but StopGame somehow attracts me more.
There is no motivation. I just write because I can. And why look for it if it’s so good?.
There are not enough views and advantages for blogs on SG, not only because there is a division into the best/all, but because not so many people visit SG at all, each news has 2 or 3 comments, and the most discussed ones even get 100, but mostly the same people sit and comment there. There aren’t enough people, you know, and for the most part this is not a functional problem, but a problem of the site as a whole, which no one will solve yet. User-generated content is fading away, you can read what they write every other time, mostly there are only advertisements for YouTube channels.
I wanted to point out one point, as a reader of blogs. I have been registered here since 2017, although I have been watching and reading since about 2013 and I show little activity and do not comment due to a broken rating system. I am writing this in the hope that I understood correctly and now cons cannot be sent to a ban. How can you express your opinion and have a discussion in the comments, knowing that if you don’t agree with your point of view, you may be downvoted and you will not be able to use your account?? Every time I wrote a comment, I had to think, “This way I won’t trigger people to downvote me for my opinion.”?“I can understand the ban for swearing, incitement and spam advertising, but for the fact that you did not please active readers, it simply kills the desire to write something, it’s easier to pass in silence. Now they are complaining about the rudimentary nature of the rating system, but such a system is better than a ban for a subjective opinion. Considering the Internet and how most people use it, namely for emotional release, the rating should not affect the life of the user, because he can be downvoted simply because he did not guess someone right at a particular moment due to some personal problems of another user. I’m not even talking about discussing any controversial games and topics where you will definitely get a ton of negative comments, simply because of popular anger for a specific position. A user’s rating can serve as a marker for other users, but this should not automatically deprive him of some opportunities.
You know, I’ve been on the site of the year since 2010. In 16, we already buried blogs, because in the form in which they existed, they were not relevant. Go to a separate section, and click on the buttons in it.
And you know what has changed since ’16, not a thing. Yes, they put a new design here, but it’s still a 2010 format, with a separate sump (those who sit on blogs are separated from other site users by a separate tab). Here, the authors of the site no longer write blogs (only when necessary), they do not take part in discussions and blogs are remembered only in the infact, although everyone who has been on the site for a relatively long time remembers that some of the authors came from blogs.
And what I want to tell you is that you write suggestions on how best to do this or that, but no one needs them, it has worked like this since 2010 and will continue to work. This is the 5th leg of stopgame with its own community, with its own traditions and rules. The same people are sitting here who still remember that there are blogs here. If you want to develop as an author, write to DTF, there your article will be on the main page and you will receive feedback from people, while here on SG, the article will gather dust with 3 comments.
And my proposal sounds like this, since no one has converted the site into a feed, kill blogs, the editors of the site don’t need them anyway, they only force people to waste time on designing a blog that will be viewed by 100 people. Yes, and you will save 1000. There will be a website only based on your original content, and ok (what’s the point of muttering).