Truemors
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I see Swan's thread above also talks about this, but I would like to ask a further question.
My remit as a NP 'Wrangler' has always been a little confusing for me, and I've asked questions about it in the past (if you go back far enough). But I'm confused about something now that I thought I had straight. I recently came back to NP after a hiatus of a few months, and I see that enforcement of the 'add your own take' policy is no longer happening. Is it the case now that contributors don't have to add their own commentary to highlights, and are fine with just quoting from the original piece? I see lots of GS ticks on highlights which have no commentary from the contributor, when before there would have been a wrench.
Is it just that NP has become too busy and wranglers and editors no longer have the time to track down and comment on each piece that is missing personal commentary? This is understandable, of course, but if the policy has changed, that's a different matter.
Thanks. :)
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (10)
at 04:45 on June 10th, 2008
Good question. I often see that too, and when I do, I try to comment.
Material that's just highlighted, without personal commentary, to me is simply an awkward version of an RSS feed. We all know how to get news excerpts delivered to us, no big deal.
If someone highlights something quickly that's breaking news, that's understandable--as long as it's updated later with commentary. But to just basically copy and paste (even if it's in a highlight box, that's all it is) and sling things at the screen doesn't, to me, measure up.
at 06:55 on July 15th, 2008
It's getting harder and harder to compete with the cut n' paste contributors when original stories take up a good bit of time and research, and are valued by NP as equal in story points.
How can the original writer make any headway when Wranglers, Editors, and Super Editors don't even follow the original guidelines for flagging stories?
The Top Story today, this one, and here again, all within a few hours....
All touching stories one and all but.....
at 07:33 on July 15th, 2008
Yep. Entire copyrighted stories are being posted in Highlight boxes, and they often get lots of GS from Guest Editors and staff Editors. I'm also tired of duplicate stories--for example, how many stories about Miss Universe must we see on the front page? It would seem the staff Editors would be able to catch duplicates and keep them off the front page--because they do control the front page, totally, and they do control, especially so, the top 5--and also add a note saying that a story is a duplicate.
If you post an original story, you get 5 points (supposedly). If you post a highlight, 5 points. If you post a highlight with good original commentary, 5 points. If you post photos to the NP developing stock image collection, check out the points--a lot more. Ditto for videos. Check out the points difference.
The point system, like the front page, is also weird. My 24 hour analysis showed that the NP system gave me, personally, several HUNDRED less points than what I'd contributed (more than 700 points less than what the posted points table indicated). However, I saw that other contributors, who'd contributed less during the time I surveyed, had much higher point totals than what they posted! Wazzup with that? Is the system "weighted" to give more points to certain contributors based on "hat" or other not-listed criteria?
So--if you write original commentary to go with a brief highlight (i.e. an excerpt), or write original stories, you're going to invest more time and work than just slapping in a long highlight--or even just plain copying and pasting and hoping you won't get caught. And your "reward" will be far less in terms of points and making it to the top 5.
Better to post a highlight of a hot breaking news story before anyone else does--and make sure that you're scrupulous about yelling if someone a few minutes slower gets more attention!--and also make sure it's something that can gather in LOTS of photos. Then the staff will flag it "News Wanted," because then they can gather in lots of free photos for the stock image collection.
That's the formula: hot, sexy news that can pull in lots of free photos for NP's later sale or use. Doesn't matter if what your "original commentary" is almost gibberish (and I do *not* mean ESL here, folks)--just copy and paste, type anything at all (if anything) and voila! It's a sure hit if it's going to be a springboard for getting lots of free photos and videos.
I've also noticed how good material, including original writing, will make it into the top 5, and then magically, mysteriously, disappear quickly--before the end of the "news cycle"--i.e. the hours of the cycle that staff have said NP uses. Many of us are paying a great deal of attention to what actually goes on, and it's often very....puzzling.
One of the key things to making anything work is a set of consistent standards, applied openly, and fairly, across the board. It's discouraging to members to see duplicates get GS flagged--sometimes a day or two after the original story by another member--and go up. It's discouraging to see multiple sets of standards. It's discouraging to see posters "punished", supposedly subtly, for speaking out or disagreeing with staff. Some members are talking about the "second coming" effect--displease staff and you can wind up with an exclusive interview, with video, of the Second Coming, and your story *will* disappear off the front page and will not get a GS flag from staff.
Lots of topics under discussion, eh, Cao? Another topic that gets a lot of play in the Newsroom and private discussions--why staff won't reply to some direct questions. Ignoring questions and concerns from the people whose free, free, free work propels your salary and your eventual profits isn't the way to go, long-term.
Make no mistake, though--there's a very good chance the investors and creators of NP will make a boatload of money at some point. Like most of these start-ups, this venture will get sold--and the selling point will be the ability to purchase a huge stock image library, royalty-free, that can later be resold, over and over, as packages or single-use item. If you want to make real money, own a stock image company.
There's gold in them there hills of stock images we're building up, folks. So what does NP intend to give back to the people who are building those mountains of gold? And what formula will NP use to determine who gets what, if anything at all is ever shared? Will any formula be based on the new, and inaccurate, points system? Will you get more for longevity, or the cyber-hat?
And what criteria has been used in the past to determine which NP contributors have already been paid?
at 07:37 on July 15th, 2008
You know PEP, I don't even mind duplicate stories if they are written from a differing angle or perspective... I was really interested in the Vancouver fire yesterday...there were three good stories started...and all got lots of comments which updated the reportage...but you had to read all the comments to get the full story....One piece on the effect the power outage had on the Internet was very interesting and could have been developed...an opportunity lost I feel...
at 07:45 on July 15th, 2008
Yep, you spoke the key words "written from a differing angle or perspective"...but lots of highlights of the same thing, another type of fish!
at 08:01 on July 15th, 2008
Ya know, Cao, after almost a year here, I'm not sure that staff gets it that there is a community here of people who actually care about what happens here, who really roll up their sleeves and get into things. Trying to make things better.
at 15:51 on July 15th, 2008
Hi
Thanks, everyone, for all your comments. We're concerned, as you are, to encourage good content on NowPublic.
I will aim to address some of the points here:
Adding your own perspective: As far as the Highlight tool goes, the intention behind it, as we've said previously, is that it is used to "clip" an excerpt from a news story a member finds interesting and for that to be a starting point for their own story, experience or point of view. It adds little value if a member Highlights a whole news story.
We say in our flagging guide that we will not "good stuff" a story if it is a pure Highlight from a third party. If staff give a "good stuff" flag to an item that is purely highlighted from a third party news source (ie, not their own blog), I would like to know about it (and I note the examples of this posted above - thank you). We can't control what members "good stuff", though clearly we can aim to set a good example. The Highlight guidelines have been reiterated many a time, though the Newsroom - and the section on Highlight as part of it - is in need of a simplification, so I think we can be clearer about the rules - and we will be. In addition, we will soon be publishing FAQs that will hopefully answer a few key questions about NowPublic operates - in one place.
Duplication of stories: As we are not prescriptive in what we allow members to post, people can and do post stories that others have already published on the site. Sometimes this can be a good thing, since members may have a different angle or perspective to add. However, without this, a duplicate posting adds little or no value. For now, when we find these stories, we comment to the effect that a member has already posted on the same subject, and link back to the first article. Members of the community are encouraged to do the same.
We are taking other steps to address this. We are currently overhauling our story creation process. As part of this, members will be prompted if it appears that a story similar to theirs has already been posted on the site and asked if they wish to continue. This won't prevent duplicates altogether, but we hope that it will have a positive impact on the content on the site.
Member ranking points: The points assigned to various actions on the site can be found here. We're aware of the original story/highlight issue and are considering what action to take. One concern, however, is that some members post (as a Highlight) original material from their own blogs, and we would not want to penalise that.
Finally, on the Vancouver fire story - we had one main article which rounded up what we knew about what had happened, and was the focal point for comments. We got some great comments, I think, in particular from people sharing their own situation, or exchanging information. This story linked to the one that was started later on the internet outages, which emerged as a significant problem for businesses. As I mention, we are overhauling the story creation process - one key aim of that is to allow users to build stories their way, rather than being restricted to the format that we currently have. So this will hopefully allow members to incorporate information, comments, photos etc into their stories in more dynamic and prominent ways if they want to. This should be rolling out in the next couple of months.
Thanks again for all your comments.
at 03:39 on July 16th, 2008
Thank you Rachel for your comments. We know this is a process and you have our support! :)
at 09:54 on July 16th, 2008
I much prefer Rob Walker's method of posting News Budgets and Events , to staff starting a story with a highlight and expecting others to contribute to that staff's popularity in lieu of their own.
http://www.nowpublic.com/forum/191178
You should make more of an effort to let contributers know about this. As I've gotten some good stories from Rob's posts that I didn't find on my usual news sites. Maybe Rob could post a link to it on front page. Or maybe a permanent link on the front page so Rob doesn't have to and save him time.
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