Hello again everyone!
So, time for another impromptu poll. But, let me put this up front here, that this one may not end in an immediate change as there are levels to this that are out of our, the moderation team, control. Much of this has to do with the fact that what our regular users want oftentimes might differ from what guest users who get here from search engine results want or expect. But, at least this poll will give us an idea of how people perceive the topic at hand and we can use it when discussing it further with HAVA and the moderation team.
We've seen more and more criticisms of the site being overrun with opinion pieces that detract from actual news. It popped up in our last poll and it pops up almost anytime we inform people about a policy change on the site. While criticisms are easy to see, we wanted to ask two questions to see if we can't narrow down the issue people have regarding opinion pieces on N4G.
We highly suggest feedback in the comments section, but please do your best to name make it about your fellow users and instead stick to the topic at hand. Let's respect each other's opinions even though we may disagree or perceive a bias in it.
Question A: What type of opinion pieces do you think are making it hard to get news on N4G or detract from actual news?
Select all that apply:
1. Top # Lists
2. Opinions on rumors
3. Opinions on hot news items
4. Opinions on old games or game concepts
Question B: What is your biggest problem with opinion pieces on N4G?
Select all that apply
1. Too many opinion pieces about the same subject
2. Clickbait or misleading titles and information in opinion pieces
3. People discuss the opinion pieces more than the actual news
4. They fuel console war discussions
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Please feel free to expand on your thoughts in the comments. But, our usual guidelines on comments apply here, so let's try our best to keep it civil, please.
WTMG's Oliver Shellding: "What rankles me the most is Cotton titles can be fun: I made a point to look and try Cotton Reboot! for myself, and the hyper cuteness and palette saturation work so well in 2D, with the devs working in a space they know best. But here, in this throwback to the unsteady days of 3D, the decision to not rework the shortcomings that were known over twenty years ago is astonishing. Maybe it was too difficult to incorporate, maybe it made the game too easy, I couldn’t tell you. What I can say is Rainbow Cotton is the magical girl wrapped version of a Cybertruck. Quirky and odd, the novelty wears off when you can’t control it and it ultimately crashes and burns, killing you with design flaws that the creators were well aware of."
WTMG's Leo Faria: "I’m not going to tell you that Endless Ocean Luminous is a must-have for Switch owners, or a particularly cheap title for what it offers. You need the proper mindset to enjoy it properly. If what you want is a relaxing, exploratory game, and if you’re into collectionism and task-completion, without having to actually resort to any complex mechanics or hardships, this will be a perfect fit. If not, you may find this game to be quite boring, possibly a bit pretentious. Thankfully, I sided with the former. After a stressful day at work, playing this game for half an hour at a time felt like the perfect way to relax and forget about any kind of issue."
Helldivers 2 now boasts twice as many PC players as PS5, emphasizing PC gaming’s increasing appeal.
A, None of that is important.
B all the the above + moderation that allows articles to say one thing then flagging/banning someone as trolling for saying the same things that were in the articles. As well as moderation that allows opinion articles they agree with while blocking opinion articles they disagree with.
Question A: What type of opinion pieces do you think are making it hard to get news on N4G or detract from actual news?
1 & 3
Question B: What is your biggest problem with opinion pieces on N4G?
2 / 3 / 4
I've said it once and I'll say it again, I don't understand how most of these opinion pieces get by, ones that start console war discussions or top whatever lists but other articles that talk about big political scandals within the industry or even things that you probably could say belongs on Filmwatch BUT is about video games, get wiped out the second they land. At the end of the day, especially with places like Filmwatch which is basically dead, as long as they are video game related in any way it should be okay.
This is NEWS for GAMERS remember...not "Top 10 List Galore"
I think they're fine seeing that there's separate sections for it
i would like to see less clickbait though, and less 10 page lazy articles where you have to click to new pages for 3 lines of text
also, maybe this wouldn't be as much of a problem if you didn't allow trolls so easily,maybe have a wait period before new accounts can commen, so many faceless, no profile pic trolls here that clog up the comments,
why? because they can make a new account in 10 minutes
edit, never mind, i guess there isn't a separate section, just 20 minutes ago there is a post from thegamer.com in the news section with the title "pokemon will always be a handheld series"
maybe keep the news for news, and ban/suspend people that either fail to comply, and people that approve stories in the wrong sections
I think the opinion chains are stupid. It’s not rumor or news.
For example:
Article 1. Article on stupid twitter post
Article 2. Response to article on stupid twitter post
Article 3: opinion on the “controversy” involving both sides of stupid twitter post.
Nobody cares about the stupid twitter post.