I saw this and thought cool but alas I don't actually see any entropia times so not cool. I think it would be great to have some sort of digital news site/paper for the entropia univers. It could include 1 good story from each planet and interviews with players who reach the top 10 for different things. There could also be articles about or helpful to new players. And of course it could all be hosted/linked here in entropia planets with an ad run in game regarding the news site/paper. Not sure but I suppose that might bring new forum members or even some old forum members back to participate. Though I suppose noone has the time to operate such a project or even read it do they????
Looks like the links haven't been updated when changing the URL structure. All EntropiaTimes issues are still available on the wiki: http://www.entropiaplanets.com/wiki/EntropiaTimes EntropiaTimes was quite a succes but was discontinued when EP staff member MS9 and former EP co-owner/founder Lykke left EP as they got recruited by Planet Cyrene. But if enough manpower could be gathered... who knows...
Looked over 2 of those issues, notice they were high in graphics which takes a bit more work to put each issue out then is needed. Having a few screencaps as graphics and placing then sporadically in each issue while keeping most of it as text only would be quicker to get each issue out. As for manpower how many members of the forums and for that matter players in game would be willing to write articles on a freelance basis. You could have at least 20 writers with only a few of them in each issue. Along with that is the possibility of using forum posts themselves if it was an entropia planets publication. Then everyone who posted to the forums could be a potential freelance writer. Going that route it would be very important to mention each person whose writing went into a forum based article.
problem is that you get a lot of interest initially and then after a while you find the same few core people trying to keep things going. These people did and continue to do a great job but they have real lives and virtual lives too and things like this just eats up what little time they have. The only way to keep a thing like this going is to keep people motivated to contribute....if you can do that then you stand a chance
Having been a core contributor for an online magazine in the past I agree that a core set of writers (for 50k music mag I think the core was 5 of us) usually ends up being the focus. However with only 1 issue having us scrambling for more articles, every issue had several non core writers. So it can work. Not something that I think could work based on the current forum activity (based on my recent perceptions and that could be wrong perception). of course we had a strong music community as a foundation and at the time I had already been teaching musicians to use blogging tools and work on motivating their fans to write about them too when 50k music mag was started. I don't know enough about the current game community and forum community to say rather a similar aproach would work
At this time there are just a hand full of people in the universe who write articles on any of the well known EU related websites or forums (don't know about the Polish, Russian and Spanish forums). Here there are George, Admin, Tass and myself who have written some articles and in the past both Lykke and MS9, but as Tass said they left the forum to do other stuff EU related. PCF has a few people as well and that's basically it, all the other stories that get released are by people working for one of the planet partners. I agree that with more people willing to write articles we could make a new Entropia Times, but I also think that we should not release something that is not as good as the last one EP did (mostly MS9 and Lykke) and to be honest, that would be difficult to achieve, as the ones we did release were VERY good. But if there are people willing to share their thought on EU with a nice article, I'm sure we could give them a spot on the front page, just contact any of the staff members and I'm sure something can be arranged and with enough people that can write a nice story/article, a new Entropia Times might be a step closer. There are some people writing pretty good forum posts, that could go on the front page of the forum without any trouble, it is just a question of asking us about it and getting your stuff published as a front page article (if it is any good of course ).
with that information I can say even if a few more people volunteered it would not be worth while. Though with a forum structure it would be nice of some few people once in a blue moon wrote articles as forum threads. This could then in about 20 years or less lead to a new entropia times.
Uh, doesn't MS9 have her own new site now that plays the same role? Perhaps she's 'hiring' if you are interested. (still looking for an article that that former planet partner/freelancer/whatever the heck that she was that explains the roles that planet partners/pp employees/etc. are allowed to do/not do, etc. as MA has been mum on the issue for over a year as Kim locked some Ask mindark thread on ef about it way back when indicating he'd reopen it with the answers to the many questions after talking with his supervisors about it, etc. , but then never reopened it -- why are there still globals from Neverdie, etc. as well as various 'personal assets' from various planet partners still circulating after they became pp if there is some sort of restriction on that sort of thing - seems there's quite a bit of a new angle that could be had investigating that sort of thing especially if the 'news' is actually unbiased and is coming from someone with personal experience that has lived on the other side of the fence previously)
I would not use forum posts as an article in a magazine, I mean why would people read the magazine if it had stuff in it that they have already seen, I know I wouldn't. IF we would do a magazine again, I think it should have breaking news in it and stuff people did not know yet, like the 4 we did. But it might be a good idea to get people to write a front page article and slowly build the amount of people that do that and maybe then we can make a new magazine.
She has a news blog of some sorts, but as I understand from one of her posts is rethinking the organization to see how she will move on.
Hey MM, you are correct ... I launched MindStarMedia.com last August, and while I announced that I would be compensating anyone who contributed to the content of the site, that too seemed not to be a strong enough motivation for someone to give up a bit of their time now and then. A lot has transpired since last August, and I've done my best to keep content flowing as much as possible, but without additional help, it's going to be slow-going I'm afraid. It's not the concept or vision that I had in mind when I created this site, and wanted it to be a vital EU news service, but I'm going back to the drawing board now for 2013 and developing a new road map with where I go from here. Just for the record ... I AM keeping MSM active. The content may not come as quickly as in the past, but it will come, and I will continue to publish the universe and planet updates as in the past. I'm just working on a new direction and how I can make this work better. For a site concept like MSM, the news needs to be flowing consistently to keep everyone updated, and while there were a few who exhibited an enthusiasm about it and wanted to write, follow-through is another thing. Also, there were commitments of support by key individuals, but only one followed through, so that too makes it a challenge, because it would be difficult for me to completely fund everything on my own. Aside from what I'm doing now, the EntropiaTimes project was my absolute favorite, and it was Lykke's brilliant idea and design that initiated everything. I was excited when she invited me to work with her on the project, and with each issue, we were virtually connected at the hip to meet our deadlines, but loved every minute of it. We used to say it was like giving birth every quarter. I wouldn't mind contributing something here at EP now and then if Peter and the gang are amenable to it. I have the flexibility to do that and not locked in on any other forum environment, so their call. And hello to you too Net ... it's nice having a new and active member bringing fresh perspectives.
Fresh perspectives oh no not me that would require thinking. On the other hand research is my specialty so taking other peoples perspectives (def nothing new here) and throwing into the forums to see what if anything sticks now that I can do very little thinking involved.
I used to work on The Calypso Post Magazine... I had articles in TCP issues 4, 5, 6 and 7. I took time out on issue 8 though and it was then more or less written by one person. Graphically it was actually heavier than ET as we had a guy who's enthusiasm was exclusively DTP (not writing) he did some great stuff. ET wanted a different more minimal style I think. Anyhow yeh I had a sort of open dialog with Lykke about joing ET but I never came up with anything (still haven't) if I ever get my rear in gear and start writing though, I'll be sure to hollah. Wistrel PS incidentally is TCP in the wiki here? I'm not sure its even being hosted by CRT now (my entropedia links are OOD at least)? I would hate to see the issues vanish. edit: http://www.entropiaplanets.com/wiki/The_Calypso_Post good job :D
oh haha I totally forgotten this one: http://www.entropiaplanets.com/wiki/Entropia_Exposed I remember sitting on the kitchen floor crying with laughter over that one! Ah those guys were great. There was a "missing article" (or was it 2?) I seem to remember that we were going to include in TCP 9 as an Entropia Exposed pull out section. hmmm... I wonder what happened to that. Wistrel
