Replacing "song news" with something fresher?

[Manhattan Glutton]

On a note completely unrelated to "news" (thanks Spud for working on that piece), I think a twitter feed might be cool for other reasons. Fostering community involvement, social media, and all that jazz. Just throwing it out there - I don't have a huge preference either way.

[JonPorobil]

However, the mechanism for posting new news would be one that more people could safely access and understand.

What's confusing about this?

What if your email to songnews@songfight.org gets filtered as spam? What if Spud is indisposed and you have something you want posted quickly because it's about something that's not going to be relevant for very long? What if someone else is going to handle those emails? How exactly does the content get from the email onto the songfight.org homepage? My guess is that it involves logging in to a server on the Song Fight! hosting account to edit the home page file. If that is the case, do you have access to do that? Do you know HTML/PHP well enough to do that? If someone gave you access to do that, what else would you have access to do that you don't really need to do and probably shouldn't have access to do? etc. etc. etc.

Why is it important that the people who submit news be able to know most of this information? The process for users is very simple: 1.) Send an e-mail to fightmaster. 2.) Fightmaster posts it.

I'll address your concerns one at a time:
What if your e-mail gets filtered as spam? - Does this ever happen to songs? I assume that Fightmaster already has a system in place to catch mistakes like this.
What if Spud is indisposed? - Your suggestion for a Twitter widget would control @Songfight, which is also controlled by just one person, so you've got the exact same problem.
What if someone else is going to handle those e-mails? - Why would they? That's Spud's job, and he hasn't asked for help.
How exactly does the content get from the e-mail onto the homepage? - Fightmaster puts it there manually. Any more detail is irrelevant to the person submitting the news item.
Do you have access to do that? - Again, why would I need access? Again, that's Spud's job, and he never asked for help.

In short, the current submission process is exactly the same as the process for submitting entries to fights. Why is it not sufficient for submitting news?

Sorry if I'm sounding antagonistic about this, but it seems to me that you guys invented a problem where there was none, then proposed a solution that doesn't actually address the concerns you brought up in the first place, which makes it sound to me like you just want to have a Twitter feed on the page for the sake of having a Twitter feed.

[Spud]

So, I recently wrote something to import into sfjukebox.org the songfight.org artist profile data from the files where it has been stored previously. Is the profile data submitted via this new form going to be stored in the same way?

no guarantees, but for now, probably.

[Spud]

Jon, I treat the fights and the songs submitted somewhat more "seriously" than the news. If a person sends me a damned m4a file without their band name anywhere, I usually figure out a way to get it posted. If someone sends me news in a format that's difficult for me to parse, it's easy to look the other way because it's not as important. There seems to be a new ethic growing here that the whole site should somehow be more "professional", and I am not opposed to streamlining the news submission process. In the end, it will make life easier on me.

[Lunkhead]

Jon, you're totally missing my point, probably on purpose. The point is that sending the email (while easy) doesn't result in automatic posting of the email to the homepage. There are manual steps that Spud must take to get the content there. They are steps that he can take because he has special access and knowledge. Using a Twitter profile widget addresses the "special knowledge" somewhat because millions and millions of people (apparently none of whom use these boards...?) know how to tweet, even people who don't know how to write HTML. All you have to do is enter text in a textarea and click a button. Special access would still be required, to use the official account, but giving that access out would not be nearly as risky as giving people the special access that is required now (to the code on the server). Therefore, potentially more people could have that access, since they wouldn't be able to do much damage (like accidentally removing all the files on the server or otherwise breaking code etc.) with it. More people with the access and know-how to post the news could mean more posting of submitted news, which could mean more people submitting news, resulting in old news getting pushed out of the way by newer news.

If you still don't get it, I'm just not going to invest any more time in trying to explain myself. I feel like I've spelled it out over and over again. Whatever.

[JonPorobil]

Jon, you're totally missing my point, probably on purpose. The point is that sending the email (while easy) doesn't result in automatic posting of the email to the homepage. There are manual steps that Spud must take to get the content there. They are steps that he can take because he has special access and knowledge. Using a Twitter profile widget addresses the "special knowledge" somewhat because millions and millions of people (apparently none of whom use these boards...?) know how to tweet, even people who don't know how to write HTML. All you have to do is enter text in a textarea and click a button. Special access would still be required, to use the official account, but giving that access out would not be nearly as risky as giving people the special access that is required now (to the code on the server). Therefore, potentially more people could have that access, since they wouldn't be able to do much damage (like accidentally removing all the files on the server or otherwise breaking code etc.) with it. More people with the access and know-how to post the news could mean more posting of submitted news, which could mean more people submitting news, resulting in old news getting pushed out of the way by newer news.

If you still don't get it, I'm just not going to invest any more time in trying to explain myself. I feel like I've spelled it out over and over again. Whatever.

All of your ideas assume that Spud wants people other than himself to be able to update the site. Spud himself has never confirmed that that's something he wants. Even his new solution, the universal submission form that he linked to above, doesn't allow other people to access or change the front page (even a small section of the front page). In fact, his new suggestion still doesn't fix what you think is the problem - that Spud needs to manually update the front page manually after he gets it.

The fact that Spud's new solution doesn't fix the issue that you've identified as "the problem" indicates to me that he's not really interested in delegating front-page duties at this time. If he were, then someone else would have been given access, permission, and instruction to do so.

Spud, maybe you want to weigh in? Am I attributing too much to you?

[Lunkhead]

OMG

Seriously, this is making me wonder why I bother suggesting anything. Allow me to correct my mistake, and edit my initial post to just say "Status quo, rah rah rah!"

[Spud]

Wow. How did this get so out of control? I think there are just too many straw men in this thread. Brand new news posting system coming soon.

[Billy's Little Trip]

OMG

Seriously, this is making me wonder why I bother suggesting anything. Allow me to correct my mistake, and edit my initial post to just say "Status quo, rah rah rah!"

OMG! I totally know how you feel. I keep calling up Obama and insisting on clothing optional grocery stores because it will make the frozen food section SO much more interesting. He acts like I suggested a borrowing freeze from China or something.


....it's like, it's a grocery store......who cares? *hands to side, palms up* ...am I right?

[jast]

For the sake of completeness, I'd like to mention that I really don't care. I never actually had any complaints. I think Spud's idea with the submission page is great, even though I personally don't think it's terribly important, and I'd be happy to help moderate submissions if there is any need.