Thread: Feedback Wanted: Twins Daily Writer's Club

Originally Posted by Fire Dan Gladden

I like what you guys are trying to establish. I also believe that the negativity is driving some people away from writing more extensively. A couple of suggestions:

1) Create a seperate forum strictly for individuals that want to have their writing critiqued (or to help critique others). Access to the forum could be made by request to admin, and monitored by admin. Anybody crosses the line, they get banned from the forum. That way only people interested in being critiqued from a journalistic point of view would be involved. The understanding is that comments in there are more of a clinical nature.

2) Push more member articles to the front page. I enjoyed the article about the guy and his annual pack of cards. You might see more in-depth writing from members if the "carrot" was a little more pub.

3) You could create a "Blogger of the Week". Every week pick somebody who has been blogging semi-regularly, ask them a few canned questions to show people what they are all about, and put in on the front page. Again, would give individuals more publicity and a louder voice.

4) A "Question of the Day" thread would give your regular debaters something to, well, debate about on a regular basis.

Thanks guys and keep up the great work!

#1 - I'm not sure exactly how to make that work, but the point is taken. Though I really believe that if done right, criticism is welcomed.
#2 - Agree. That would be part of our goal of this club.
#3 - Good idea
#4 - Another good idea, but I would put it on the forums.

Originally Posted by rocketpig

but some kind of contest could be a lot of fun.

Just make sure you have the legal terms etc all laid out, Twinsdaily is becoming large enough were you could jam yourselves up if you don't do the due diligence.

Internet and contests are a huge legal pain in the ass at times.

Originally Posted by SpiritofVodkaDave

Just make sure you have the legal terms etc all laid out, Twinsdaily is becoming large enough were you could jam yourselves up if you don't do the due diligence.

Internet and contests are a huge legal pain in the ass at times.

Mmm, good point.

Originally Posted by thrylos98

See, I think that you might be a perfect example of people who John is targeting with this.

So:

What it will take for you, to write more? Like a blog

Speaking for myself, the Twins organization has burnt me the hell out this year!

(and I was both simultaneously really busy and really lazy, if that makes sense)

I like John's general idea as well as the contest idea. I can see how already highly productive bloggers might take some issue, though. To address Jim's concern, I would think other blog posts about Cedar Rapids or whatever could be welcomed as part of the two posts requirement.

I think thats a great idea - but I don't know about writing two a week. Quality over quantity I think. I know part of the point is to add content often, but I don't know that I can come up with 2 unique topics or perspectives a week.

Maybe I should start writing more. People on this site could really use my intelligence and overall baseball knowledge in a platform that they can read-it, and re-read... a few times if necessary. I didn't think the blogs were read very much (since I only read sporadic front-page interesting blogs since I'm a blog snob). I did develop a blog I was going to post, but I was way too long for my liking with too many stupid facts and not enough snark. Speaking of that, I think my first blog is going to be 10 reasons I hate this site (all in fun of course for John, Seth and the people that don't know me yet).

So . . . what became of this?

I should further elaborate . . . I generally find back and forth discussions more appealing . . . so the forums are a much better place for that. If I knew that people read blog posts (I "view" many as well!) and they generated more comments, then I would certainly blog more. And it isn't content-based. I am sure that if I posted a blog and a discussion thread with the exact same text, The latter would be out-commented upon 10 to 1 at least.

Originally Posted by shanewahl

So . . . what became of this?

I should further elaborate . . . I generally find back and forth discussions more appealing . . . so the forums are a much better place for that. If I knew that people read blog posts (I "view" many as well!) and they generated more comments, then I would certainly blog more. And it isn't content-based. I am sure that if I posted a blog and a discussion thread with the exact same text, The latter would be out-commented upon 10 to 1 at least.

Well, it depends. If your blog is promoted to the front page, it will certainly garner more interest than a forum post would... Articles generally have 1,000-3,000 reads before they rotate off the front page and go into the archives. You definitely won't get that with a forum thread. As a blog, it's hard to say how many comments you'll get... I was looking last night and several of the blogs had healthy conversations going in them.

All in all, we want to improve in this department. But given each of our individual workloads, it's not something that's going to happen overnight.