News Posts

[Godmil]

I've seen a few people commenting about this, and thought I should draw bigger attention to it...
There is typically a complete lack of information about items that appear in News posts.
Like the author will say that a new version of the program is out, and a list of the bugs fixed, and that it now has the MMU hack... But very rarely do they actually say what their program is, or does.

Have a read through the news page, and see how many programs you'd know what they were about, if you didn't already have insider knowledge.

I was wondering if a sticky in the News Zone board, or an addition to the "things we dont do" thread, could state that news posts should give a brief synopsis of program being mentioned (just one sentence would typically be enough).

Anyone else agree?

 

[Paradox]

i notice this too, often thered be something like "version 0.2 of xxx is out, grab it now from the archive!" and im like wth is it and gp32x is my homepage and i must see it about 100 times a day so its not due to lack of seeing stuff in the news and not know what they are...

 

[BradN]

Sounds reasonable.

 

[dosteridge]

I agree to an extent, as I tend to end up spending lots of time searching to find out what something is or means?

However, I asume that they do not wish to repeat themselves or appear patronising to others who do know, perhaps we could have some sort of "words & terms meanings section" for quick reference.

Good suggestion Godmil, im all for it

 

[Jarska333]

Would be a good practice, as some names aren't that self explanatory. SquidgeSnes is clear enough, but something like Frodo... :huh:

 

[Magnulus]

I'd be happy if there was a small blurb saying what the game was about. It's a news post, after all, and if you look at the news, they tend to tell you what it's about.

Often, they'll say things like "SquidgeSnes, the popular SNES emulator" which is a very quick and nice way of telling people what the heck it is.

 

[EvilDragon]

Well, that's a problem with the new system.
Now all News Posts here are in the news.

Before that, I or other mods did post the news. The bad side: It took longer. The good side: I usually wrote what it was all about...

 

[oqnet]

I'd be happy if there was a small blurb saying what the game was about. It's a news post, after all, and if you look at the news, they tend to tell you what it's about.

Often, they'll say things like "SquidgeSnes, the popular SNES emulator" which is a very quick and nice way of telling people what the heck it is.

oooo I'm sold.

 

[Godmil]

Well, that's a problem with the new system.

Yeah, it's tricky when people can make their own posts. I actually like the current system, it most likely results in more news (and more up to date news) than if you guys had to take care of everything yourselves. So I was thinking if we just as a community encouraged people who post news to be a bit more clear, maybe requesting edits in the news threads, or if the mods could maybe make some little changes to news posts where needed, then gradually it would be more common practice to give better information.

 

[Goity]

I agree, I had no idea what the pcengine emulator was for ages.

 

[Nickmon]

I agree, I had no idea what the pcengine emulator was for ages.

and it did not occor to do a google for 'pcengine' ??

 

[Gadget]

I agree, I had no idea what the pcengine emulator was for ages.

and it did not occor to do a google for 'pcengine' ??

Hehe, I think the problem is that we don't always go off to search in google to find out what everything is. More details would be a good thing, especially with home brew games. More screen shots and game play details will better 'sell' the games and make us want to play them. 95% of what I see released I don't bother with because the 'advertising' of the news article doesn't make me want to rush out and try it.

 

[Godmil]

and it did not occor to do a google for 'pcengine' ??

I think what he meant was that the News posts were going on about the new features in the Hu6280, but they didn't at any point mention that Hu6280 is a PCengine emulator.

 

[jdwrrzmm]

I agree. I have no idea what a lot of the news items are.

Littlegptracker V0.31a
Huh?

Cyclone Core Updated Again
All I can tell is that it has to do something with Genesis emulation and I'm not sure about that.

 

[jmetal88]

I agree. I have no idea what a lot of the news items are.

Littlegptracker V0.31a
Huh?

Cyclone Core Updated Again
All I can tell is that it has to do something with Genesis emulation and I'm not sure about that.

LittleGPTracker is an awesome audio sample sequencer. As for the cyclone core... well, I pretty much know as much about that as you do.

 

[Godmil]

LittleGPTracker is an awesome audio sample sequencer.

Really? I just pressumed it was something to do with viewing details of the gp2x's memory blocks... like some kinda low level development tool. Which I guess demonstrates my point A sequencer sounds kinda cool, I'll have to check it out now.

 

[Ravnos]

Well, that's a problem with the new system.

Yeah, it's tricky when people can make their own posts. I actually like the current system, it most likely results in more news (and more up to date news) than if you guys had to take care of everything yourselves. So I was thinking if we just as a community encouraged people who post news to be a bit more clear, maybe requesting edits in the news threads, or if the mods could maybe make some little changes to news posts where needed, then gradually it would be more common practice to give better information.

This might be a bit of extra work so I'm not expecting it to happen, I know ED and Hando are quite busy, but you could have a form for submitting news that requires certain information. Like:

Name of program and version (if applicable):
Description:
Changes:
URL of Screenshot (not required):
Download:

That could ensure that all the proper information is submitted.