Blogs: Your Opinions, Please
Allow us to pick your brains for a moment.
Allow us to pick your brains for a moment.
We (the news team) have been tossing around the idea of blogs for months now. After humming and hawing over it we (well, some of us more than others) decided the readers should at least get to weigh in on the matter.
For us, the community aspect of Tom’s is extremely important, particularly away from the forums. We love to hear your thoughts on the day to day events in the tech world and recently we’ve been trying to bring you guys closer to the news.
You may have noticed our efforts as of late: Tuan’s Question of the Day posts, which always get a massive response, Marcus’ active participation in the discussions and Jane’s “every article has to end with a question” style are just a few of our endeavors. Depending on the writer and the topic, our posts can be fairly opinionated, mostly because we like to encourage good vibes and friendly debates. What we want to know is if you’d like to see us take this further.
We were thinking something along the lines of weekly columns for each editor, published on different days (it’s early, so details are more vague than the predictions of a fraudulent clairvoyant). However, this isn’t something we want to pursue unless there’s a genuine interest. We’ll be lurking in the comments section to answer your questions over the coming days but it’s pretty straight forward. We want to hear what you think: Blogs, yay or nay?
Just to be clear, if you do want blogs, it'll be an addition to our news--nothing will be taken away.
Let us know and it shall be done (or not, obviously).
would be a nice side line to the normal info
For me, news is a non-biased reporting of fact. The writer at least making an effort to track down original sources and getting confirmation, denial, or even a no comment from all parties involved.
Most of what I've read in the "news" section of this site as been what the writer has read on some other site, which usually refers to what they read on yet another site. And then the writer making some smart alek response to the story.
Honestly though, semantics aside (and needless whining aside), if what you purpose means bringing more interesting tech news from around the world to the site, then I'm for it.
The idea of blogs is to diversify.
The blogs would likely be opinion-based columns on topics that aren't necessarily news but rather topics of interest. This would hopefully take the "blogginess" away from the news and keep it to the weekly columns for each reader.
Pfft what are you kidding me? Someone always has to bitch about something, just look at the top poster hes already started bitching.
IMO as far as the blog style is concerned I think that news-serving is a service you provide and should be objective. News should not be confused with subjective opinions. First give the facts and then state your opinion. Jane's posts for example sure motivate people to respond to news and makes news more digestible for wider audiences but only cover one side of the coin and I often feel compelled to respond playing the role of the devil's advocate.
One other thing is that often in the comments section I see few statements that really enlighten me, Prodigit80's comments for example and a handfull of others. I am an active member of many blogs but I come here and at xbit labs to see the news and the reason is I am fed up with fanboy comments and useless comments that are only posted to give the false impression of a community. Most comments are anticipated depending on the subject, Mac fanboys, PC fanboys, Linux fanboys, pirate comments, antipirate comments, republican comments, democratic comments, communist comments, american comments, european comments and the list can go on for ever... Moreover I come hear to read the opinions of the gurus, people I acknowledge as better at technology than myself.
You might think I am not very fond of free speech rights but this would be wrong, I guess that people (not excluding myself) lost their ability to discern when they really have sth to say that can add sth to what it is already known, and just want to be selfish and state their opinions...
The thumbs up and thumbs down on comments was a good move if people used them. I would also suggest putting sth like a poll with agree and disagree in subjective editor's opinions.
Sorry for the length of my comment and thanks opportunity you gave us to talk about recent site changes.
But, please don't pick my brain, that's just plain rude (and a bit graphic).
Thank you
Hi dedhorse -
News aggregation is a service. It's better to be able to get your news from few sources, rather than spending hours scouring across many websites. It's a service we can say we provide to avoid people having to spend time looking all over--that's what we do. Our job is two fold: bring the news to you so you don't have to go to it, and also provide you with exclusive stories as it arrives to us.
We report. To who else but you guys.
While you may have read something that we posted elsewhere, it doesn't mean the next person has, and in that case, we may have saved them time.
We're trying to improve our service, not diminish it. Often times, it requires trying new things, and new things don't always bode well with some. But that's what you call growing pains.
/ Tuan
I find "the question at the end of every article" just plainly stupid!
Noone really cares about the question, but the article,and noone cares about the answer neither.
I understand toms need to be funded, and gets a lot through advertising.
Ads only bring up when people are visiting them or at least seeing them.
So let's try people to reply to topics so pages will be loaded at least twice (once before the post, and once after the post).
The questions at the end of the topic really disgust me.
I mean, the day you can send an author that will either reply the answered question, or write us an article what you did with the feedback gained, (EG:went to MS,and gave them feedback; helped firefox to become more userfriendly through the comments posted on toms, etc...) I will start answering those ridiculous questions.
Often those questions makes me NOT answer to the topic!
It should be more than obvious users should be able to comment and make their own conclusions out of the article and write about them,not an artificial "yes we agree", or "I'll tell you what you asked even if noone ever will read the reply I write, and in no way is constructive in society".
I am very happy though that my voice about Win Vista was heard here, and many people started realizing that Vista is not what it promised to be (with it's speed and response issues).
As well as power saving issues, making users more power efficient aware (choosing the right pc).
I'm sure a lot of manufacturers like Asus take a peek here from time to time in their R&D phases of new products.(despite being Japs)
Toms is a great place to let a voice be heard,and has helped push the market a lot, making users aware of good buys, and thus efficiently raising the market quality of producs through user votes and information.
A lot of articles are crappy indeed. Some not even looking professional and degrading the integrity of toms (like those porn articles).
With regard to the question at the end of the post, I like it. I mostly read comments, rather than join in myself and it's interesting seeing what everyone thinks about the topic. I hate it when I see people bitching about the fact that there's a question every time there's a question! If you don't like it... just don't respond!