The Elder Scrolls Wiki talk:News Team


 * Applications to the News Team should be made here, by using the button below.

Blood Reaper
{| class="collapsible collapsed" width="100%" style="border:2px solid white; background:#000000; -moz-border-radius:12px;" ! Nomination for User:Blood Reaper. Unsuccessful.

Blood Reaper (talk) 13:53, June 4, 2012 (UTC)

The main reason I would like to join the news team is to inform everyone about news on TES. As you know I've created many news blogs for the wiki. Most of the day ( every hour ) I look at Bethesda's tweet wall on any new information for Skyrim so I won't be late on creating news blog if I do join the team. English is my first language and strongest so I won't have any trouble when it comes to creating news blogs. I must admit though, that I sometimes don't double check my blogs, but I eventually look over it and fix grammer and errors. My main strong point is that I had a long experience with creating these types of blogs. To be exact, I've created around 45 news blogs and at least 70 blogs in total. The only side issue is how to correctly format news blogs ( might have to discuss it with me).

Here's an example of my news work - Baby named Dovahkiin

Here's two examples of what I can do without copying and pasting - Mysteries of TES I | Mysteries of TES II

Reply to Jimeee

I do see your points here Jimee and that's why I'm planning to actual check over my blogs and change my style a lot more. I act casual because It didn't seem neccessary at the time. I asked a couple of other admins back then about my blog and they said you can use your own style of blogs so I don't really think of it. I CAN write professional but I choose not to. If I do join the team I'll change the way I do things. Simple as that.

P.S. My mediocrity on TES Lore isn't exactly my strong point.

Oppose
Just a few points why I oppose. This is nothing personal and don't feel bad if it sounds a little harsh. Jimeee (talk) 15:15, June 4, 2012 (UTC)
 * By your own admission you say overlook grammar and spelling errors - this is a basic requirement of news reporting that is absolutely required if we want to be seen by new readers as a professional news source.
 * Your style of writing is far too casual to be considered "official" news. Examples in your past blogs include things like: "CLICK ME BRO! IM THE BETA SIGN UP" and "Sooo ENJOY!". This style of writing is not professional and is not what we want on the front page.
 * The articles you posted also show that your style of writing is too casual and relaxed in tone, but they also don't link to any other articles and they're not referenced in any way whatsoever.
 * In addition, you have not done any basic fact checking for the Mysteries of TES I article as you posted two images about the Akavir - both of which are non-canon, but you've mentioned later "There's only one actual picture portraying one of the Akaviri which are the Tsaesci (snake men)." Basic fact checking and providing references is very important for our official news and examples like this are not acceptable.
 * Although you are quick in posting new updates that occur and you've written many news blogs, this alone doesn't qualify anyone to be responsible for our news output. In the coming months our news section will be very busy and we need people who at the very least pass our four main criteria. We need to provide potential new readers with a professional, accurate news feed that they can rely on and come back to. Anything less and we will simply lose readers and the wiki suffers.

Your inability to follow the instructions given to you when applying here, I think demonstrates why I oppose this nomination. It's clearly stated that you should leave a link to your userpage in the heading, something you have failed to do. Your lack of knowledge of wiki formatting, point 3 of our criteria, is also worrying. If you had any real knowledge of it, you would be aware of the fact that you should reply to a comment made by someone else by writing underneath it, and indenting by using a : at the start of the line. The fact that you seemingly don't know this, after having 'edited' here for around 11 months, and being a member of Wikia's community council, worries me greatly. The unnecessary use of bolding in a title does not exactly fill me with confidence, either.

Something I myself want to see in news team members would be the willingness to follow instructions handed to you by a superior member of staff. By your own admission, you don't respect authority. There was a time when you would often show me a poor attitude towards your superiors when you were a member of our IRC channel staff. This is another point I'd like to make: The pivotal word in my last sentence was were. Given the fact that you could not handle op, or even halfop status on our IRC channel well causes me to wonder whether it is a good idea to grant you the authority of being this wiki's "face to the public," and allowing your 'news' posts to be published on the main page.

Your previous tendency to simply copy and paste entire news articles from sources, claim them as your own and simply leave a backlink with no explanation at the bottom of your blog is not something I ever admired, and still do not. I do not see any examples of your use of proper reference tags in many of your 'news' blogs, either. I recall one occasion on which I asked you to stop doing this, and yes, you did make some effort, but your reaction to my request of you was not exactly polite; Which caused me to become aggravated. I do not particularly want to be annoyed by the responses of staff members to polite requests of them, and I doubt Timeoin or any of the rest of the community does either.

I know from personal experience, and from reading your blogs that your grammar is quite often not up to scratch. You claim that you save your excellence in the English language for formal occasions, but I never see this demonstrated in your news blogs - Blogs which hold, in fact, the purpose of representing the wiki and its community to the whole outside world. If this is not a formal situation then, I ask you, what is?

This leaves us with one thing you do well; Actively seek information. Good job, you have the time to monitor the Bethesda twitter feed often. You'll need to do quite a lot more than just that, though, to get yourself on the News Team, and become the wiki's "face to the public."

I'd like to mention that Bethesda's official twitter feed is also not the only place you could be searching for information.

Thank you, and I hope you read and understand everything I have said here. 01:36, June 5, 2012 (UTC)

Comments

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Senjai
{| class="collapsible collapsed" width="100%" style="border:2px solid white; background:#000000; -moz-border-radius:12px;" ! Nomination for User:Senjai. Unsuccessful.

Application annulled. I don't want to be part of an organization attempting to blindly attempts to blend intrinsic motivations into a totalitarian hierarchy. Senjai (talk) 23:06, August 9, 2012 (UTC)

Support
I support Senjai. He is polite, experienced, and exceedingly handsome. Handsome personality, I mean. That's why he should be allowed on the news team. Commander Faol (talk) 01:08, August 5, 2012 (UTC)

Brynden Bloodraven Cauthon 01:21, August 5, 2012 (UTC)

01:26, August 5, 2012 (UTC)

I support this, dude knows his Elder Scrolls and, from what I've seen, has a professional writing style that I think will really help us to improve our overall image.  HaLo2FrEeEk  Here I am! 01:49, August 5, 2012 (UTC)

Senjai would be a very good "news potion". He is an excellent writer and I'm sure that he'll work hard to find news. 01:58, August 5, 2012 (UTC)

I see no reason to deny his request, he knows what he is doing and i know he can get the job done. Cheatcodechamp (talk) 18:36, August 6, 2012 (UTC)

Don't see why not. — Gleek obsessed 08:22, August 7, 2012 (UTC)

Rosenrot87 (talk) 17:29, August 7, 2012 (UTC)

I'm adding my support here, but, like Deyvid, I would like to see a News blog or something of the sort. Senjai is eloquent in his writing, but not perfect (but then, who of us is?). He has been pleasant to work with and very helpful with what he as done. GramsJ (talk) 00:47, August 8, 2012 (UTC)

Neutral
You can talk the talk. Get up and show us your walk. Write a competent News blog, and I will vote. This may be a great place to start: -- 02:26, August 5, 2012 (UTC)

Oppose
I can't vote yes without having any news articles to base my decision on, and since it has be three days since you were asked to show one, I have to vote no. 05:13, August 8, 2012 (UTC)

I have to agree with Jay. News blogs need to be written hours, if not minutes, after the story first airs on bethblog or another news site. We have a reputation to uphold. Regardless of the length of the article or the time required to write it. I, myself, had to watch an interview, read a long article, and throw together a top notch blog (cooking up interesting prose, proofreading, and editing images) at record speed. Check it out User blog:Deyvid Petteys/Elder Scrolls Online...On Your Xbox?. -- 05:22, August 8, 2012 (UTC)

Comments

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The Milkman
{| class="collapsible collapsed" width="100%" style="border:2px solid white; background:#000000; -moz-border-radius:12px;" ! Nomination for User:The Milkman. Successful. '''Welcome to the News Team! :)'''

Hello, I am the Milkman. I am well-versed in the English language and the proper use of grammar. I strive to make the pages here as neat as possible, and strive for great aesthetic quality as well as general readability. I am capable of relaying any information we find in an entertaining manner, as well as being able to provide my opinion. I won't get the two mixed up ;)

For more information, you can read my past blogs here.

[http://brutallegend.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:The_Milkman/Br%C3%BCtal_Legend_Art_Book! This] is a news blog I wrote on Brutal Legend Wiki, where I am a Bureacrat.

--The Milkman | I always deliver. 02:13, August 28, 2012 (UTC)

Support
The Milkman has made some extremely well written and highly popular blogs, these blogs are, in my opinion, well above the usual blog quality of 90% of blogs on this wiki, furthermore, all his blogs to date have been highly informative, very clear, and very sound. I see no way that this editor can be anything other then a asset to this wiki as a whole. I feel as he would be most effective running a opinion section to breaking TES News, although if he were to run any type of news he would do well at it.Mask2697 (talk) 02:25, August 28, 2012 (UTC)

Agreed — Gleek obsessed 02:24, August 28, 2012 (UTC)

I support The Milkman to be part of the News Team. He is already an experienced writer of high traffic blogs, though they may not be news blogs, I know he will be able to transfer those blogging skills to the News section. — TombRaiser  SPEAK!  02:28, August 28, 2012 (UTC)

He is the only one qualified to bring us both ice-cold refreshing milk and well written news posts. Aleksandr the Great (talk) 02:46, August 28, 2012 (UTC)

His blogs are well written and draw a lot of attention. 03:48, August 28, 2012 (UTC)

I've enjoyed reading his blogs, his writing style has the quality of making you want to keep reading, which is rarely found in any written format in the last several years. 04:05, August 28, 2012 (UTC)

The blogs are well written, but I see some room for improvement. Nothing big though: Image placement should be inline. Some in Coming Attractions for instance, the image gets ignored by the blog parser on the main page, which results in three linebreaks. Those linebreaks should be avoided in the future. ~ Flightmare (talk) 10:27, August 28, 2012 (UTC)

Don't see why not. There is stuff to work on, but that can follow in time. 15:19, August 28, 2012 (UTC)

Out of all people, expect me not to say yes? :P some of the best blogs out there and can easily handle high activity. Yes, yes and yes. Why so serious? 15:42, August 28, 2012 (UTC)

I've been following his blogs on other wikis, as well, and he easily maintains the same high quality. I'd just suggest more thorough spellchecking for something more official. Ygrain (talk) 15:52, August 30, 2012 (UTC)

Neutral
Not of the mind to write a full critique now, but I will make some general style recommendations. First, ensure the tone of your writing circulates around the subject of the text, not the reader of it. Just like with articles, the reader's identity should only be implied. Try to avoid using "you" and "I". Instead, talk about the subjects in an indirect way. I cannot stress enough how imperative tone is to professionalism.

Another issue appears to be image placement. As Flightmare pinpointed, images must be in-line. Quotes longer than two sentences should be placed the way images are. The quote template looks messy on blogs and should be reserves for articles. Use the "" tags instead. Additionally, you must add thumbnail parameters to your images. No hidden, alt text, as seems to be your current style. The caption must be in the thumbnail for optimal readability; also, it's house style. As far as writing style and mood goes, I still feel that the voice is cliche and gimmicky rather than journalistic. Practice makes perfect. I would like to see an Elder Scrolls blog without speculations or original research before I make a yay or nay. Hope you find these comments illuminating.

Another minor, less imperative tidbit: contractions, as a house rule, are to be avoided. Cannot versus can't. Do not versus don't. As with numbers, contractions should be written out in formal letter and essay format, excluding o'clock, as is commonly dictated by writing etiquette. -- 10:35, August 28, 2012 (UTC)

Comment
Wanted to respond to Flightmare's and Deyvid's criticisms:

1. How would I make it inline? I will need to know how to to avoid those nasty linebreaks.

2. I always keep "you" and "I" out of content articles, so that should not be much of a problem. Is it bad form to use them at all in news posts? I believe I have seen some news rticles with the word "you" in it.

3. So, should I simply use the {{Quote| template in the future, but surrounded by blockquote tags?

4. I will stick to thumbnails for any future blog posts. I do not really like them, so I typically just set the images to |250|right]] for aesthetic quality on my blogs and other wikis. Understandably however, I can see how making them clearly visible is important for news posts.

5. Not entirely sure what you mean by gimmicky here, though. If you want me to maintain a more nuetral tone for news posts (I don't know how many opinion-based news articles you want) I can keep that seperate from the entertainment-style of my usual blog posts.

6. I'll I will try to avoid them in the future for any blog posts.

--The Milkman | I always deliver. 11:31, August 28, 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) Just use the align right that is used in articles.
 * N/A
 * 1) You can use the format I did in my last news blog. Simply "Your quote"
 * Jimeee {{sup|(talk)}} 12:21, August 28, 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Hopefully I'll be able to figure it out. --The Milkman | I always deliver. 23:57, August 28, 2012 (UTC)
 * By inline I mean inline in the source, not in the end result. Those are two different things. Remove the line breaks above and below the image. Thumbnails will fix a lot of the graphical issues when it comes to readability. These elements are styled by default and will float instead of appearing inline (end result). ~ Flightmare {{sup|(talk)}} 09:30, August 29, 2012 (UTC)


 * Oh, I think I see what you mean. I usually do that to keep the source code more organised. I'll keep it together.


 * Also, Ygrain I probably do, though I do thoroughly check for spelling errors in source mode. However, I think of a lot of perceived typos may actaully be me using British English (Organise as opposed to Organize) and archaic English (Actour instead of actor, titbit instead of tidbit).


 * --The Milkman | I always deliver. 21:18, August 30, 2012 (UTC)


 * }

I'm Vaughan, I'm very touchy about spelling mistakes! I spend most of my internet life on this wiki as not much else interests me. Several of my blog posts have got very popular, including my Second Great War post and my Marriage blog also.

I'd like to become a part of the news team because I have a large knowledge of Elder Scrolls Lore and can keep up to date with regular announcements. I'd be an asset to the team as I can write unbiased (or if needed, biased) blogs and posts on everything new about TES. I'm particularly excited about The Elder Scrolls Online, as it will provide the news team a lot of interesting new topics, including who becomes emperor, winning factions and most importantly the lead up to the release as we learn more information.

Here is an example of a popular blog post of mine on the wiki: The Second Great War?!

I hope you consider my application.

- VaughanTES (talk) 21:36, December 13, 2012 (UTC)