This site's longest tradition has been the reportage of RPG news. It started with Eric Noah's 3rd Edition News, moved into d20 news, and evolved into general RPG news.
There have been periods when the news waxed and waned - droughts where there was nothing interesting to report, booms when big releases were forthcoming. Periods where all the news was "PDF #7896 has been released by Publisher Y", and periods where it was all "Holy crap, there's a new edition of D&D coming!"
It's quite a bit of work, and after a decade it's worth evaluating its worth. Certainly ten years ago, a news item would result in a thread here on the forums. These days, it never does - although a thread might pop up citing the same news item or thread from somewhere else entirely. The latter happens with frequent regularity, and happened again today - which reminded me - and I never hear the news page referenced here on the forums (at least, not that I particularly recall in the last few years).
The evidence appears to suggest that the news page has pretty much gone by the wayside. Once it was the main feature of the site, but the forums have grown from 5,000 to 100,000 members over the last decade.
This may be due to my not reporting all WotC news these days - this is due to their move to DDI, and being pretty much a deluge of small items rather than occasional big items. I just don't see the point in replicating their D&D home page index when it's just a click away. I still report what I see as "big" news, but not every new Dragon article (even Eric Noah in his heyday only reported on Dragon once a month, in one news item - now it's spread over the month, reporting individually on each article seems kinda pointless).
That's okay. I don't mind; but it does take up a portion of my day, and I could spend that time devoting efforts to other aspects of EN World. I've no particular emotional investment in the news page other than that it's our tradition, but it could be used to simply be an EN-World-Only page with site updates and EN Publishing updates.
So here's a poll. If you use and value the news page let me know; equally, if you never use it, then it's important that I know this too. One of the weaknesses of EN World is probably the lack of user-usage information which can be used in the site's evolution, and it may well be time to lose the news page.
I won't make a decision necessarily according to the poll results, but it'll weight heavily in my decision. Don't worry about causing offence or anything like that (that, of course, does NOT mean "you may be rude on EN World" because the usual rules will apply); I'm not emotionally invested in it at all. It's a tradition, and it's work, and if people like it I'm happy to continue do it if it has a use - but if people don't then I can save myself an hour or two a day (which adds up, believe me!)
There's nothing wrong with accepting that EN World has evolved from a news reporting site into a community site. Sites grow and change; and information like this helps me measure that change and adjust resources as necessary.
I'll leave this up for a week or so to catch as many regulars as possible.
There have been periods when the news waxed and waned - droughts where there was nothing interesting to report, booms when big releases were forthcoming. Periods where all the news was "PDF #7896 has been released by Publisher Y", and periods where it was all "Holy crap, there's a new edition of D&D coming!"
It's quite a bit of work, and after a decade it's worth evaluating its worth. Certainly ten years ago, a news item would result in a thread here on the forums. These days, it never does - although a thread might pop up citing the same news item or thread from somewhere else entirely. The latter happens with frequent regularity, and happened again today - which reminded me - and I never hear the news page referenced here on the forums (at least, not that I particularly recall in the last few years).
The evidence appears to suggest that the news page has pretty much gone by the wayside. Once it was the main feature of the site, but the forums have grown from 5,000 to 100,000 members over the last decade.
This may be due to my not reporting all WotC news these days - this is due to their move to DDI, and being pretty much a deluge of small items rather than occasional big items. I just don't see the point in replicating their D&D home page index when it's just a click away. I still report what I see as "big" news, but not every new Dragon article (even Eric Noah in his heyday only reported on Dragon once a month, in one news item - now it's spread over the month, reporting individually on each article seems kinda pointless).
That's okay. I don't mind; but it does take up a portion of my day, and I could spend that time devoting efforts to other aspects of EN World. I've no particular emotional investment in the news page other than that it's our tradition, but it could be used to simply be an EN-World-Only page with site updates and EN Publishing updates.
So here's a poll. If you use and value the news page let me know; equally, if you never use it, then it's important that I know this too. One of the weaknesses of EN World is probably the lack of user-usage information which can be used in the site's evolution, and it may well be time to lose the news page.
I won't make a decision necessarily according to the poll results, but it'll weight heavily in my decision. Don't worry about causing offence or anything like that (that, of course, does NOT mean "you may be rude on EN World" because the usual rules will apply); I'm not emotionally invested in it at all. It's a tradition, and it's work, and if people like it I'm happy to continue do it if it has a use - but if people don't then I can save myself an hour or two a day (which adds up, believe me!)
There's nothing wrong with accepting that EN World has evolved from a news reporting site into a community site. Sites grow and change; and information like this helps me measure that change and adjust resources as necessary.
I'll leave this up for a week or so to catch as many regulars as possible.
Last edited:
