News GalNet - postponing Community Submissions

[Raiko]

We will eventually be bringing this back. Ultimately the amount of time that it took to review submissions, and give feedback, didn't quite match up to the number of articles that we were able to publish. We didn't want it to continue being a frustrating experience for those submitting storylines. We don't have a date for when it will be coming back, but we will be bringing it back in the future. We think players being able to tell their story is important, and we love how many of you do this in lots of different ways across other platforms. We'll review the process and let you know when we've come up with a more efficient and effective way of making these work. Sorry if the first post wasn't clear enough!

Is there no way that at least some of Galnet could be community moderated? I'm sure that you could find a few forum members for each article type who could ease the FD team's workload.

The old public thread was much better than the frustrating hidden posts after the change - sometimes with absolutely zero feedback.

I'm not sure that I'd still be playing this game if it weren't for community created content, whether it be the Buckyball Run, the battle for Ross 128 or Harry Potter killing Ed on a live stream, it all makes the galaxy come to life at least as much as the Thargoid story, or whatever.

 

[Apos]

Is there no way that at least some of Galnet could be community moderated? I'm sure that you could find a few forum members for each article type who could ease the FD team's workload.

The old public thread was much better than the frustrating hidden posts after the change - sometimes with absolutely zero feedback.

I'm not sure that I'd still be playing this game if it weren't for community created content, whether it be the Buckyball Run, the battle for Ross 128 or Harry Potter killing Ed on a live stream, it all makes the galaxy come to life at least as much as the Thargoid story, or whatever.

There could be a reddit style column. That's practically the community moderating itself on what is interesting and what isn't.

Make it so that reaching a treshold of upvotes notifies FD to take something into consideration of making it canonnical could also work.

 

[drew]

We will eventually be bringing this back. Ultimately the amount of time that it took to review submissions, and give feedback, didn't quite match up to the number of articles that we were able to publish. We didn't want it to continue being a frustrating experience for those submitting storylines. We don't have a date for when it will be coming back, but we will be bringing it back in the future. We think players being able to tell their story is important, and we love how many of you do this in lots of different ways across other platforms. We'll review the process and let you know when we've come up with a more efficient and effective way of making these work. Sorry if the first post wasn't clear enough!

Many thanks Ed. Look forward to hearing about the new process in time.

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[aymerix]

excellent news Ed.

 

[Mangal Oemie]

We will eventually be bringing this back. Ultimately the amount of time that it took to review submissions, and give feedback, didn't quite match up to the number of articles that we were able to publish. We didn't want it to continue being a frustrating experience for those submitting storylines. We don't have a date for when it will be coming back, but we will be bringing it back in the future. We think players being able to tell their story is important, and we love how many of you do this in lots of different ways across other platforms. We'll review the process and let you know when we've come up with a more efficient and effective way of making these work. Sorry if the first post wasn't clear enough!

I honestly don't mean offense, but the frustration of not getting through to you guys at all is growing....

1) you didn't review, you just rejected
2) no feedback was ever given
3) you didn't publish any player content for months
4) if you were going to improve the process, maybe start with that?
5) "We think players being able to tell their story is important, and we love how many of you do this in lots of different ways across other platforms." This needs more than words, or the occasional mention of "we had stories for Emperor's Dawn but the community decided otherwise"
6) why do we need other platforms, when Galnet is in the game? the other platforms, even your own forums, dont reach the player community in the same degree
7) a more efficient process would be welcome, but I am not holding my breath - especially since this is under no ETA, no guarantees
8) apologies accepted, but we wish you'd engage with us, learn to understand the frustration, and address the feeling that FD is opposed to player groups creating and accomplishing things in the game. Have you looked at the Galmap recently, in Allegiance colors? Seen that Ross 128 for the moment is still green? Which we tried to tell you repeatedly? Including on your live streams? Not something news worthy? You also have missed the Lave war, which involved multiple player groups.

We understand you have a story line worked out. But you're increasingly operating on a parallel universe of your own, rather than the actual galaxy in the game.

 

[Rubbernuke]

You are the one who can't engage in an adult manner if you think people are obliged to collaborate with you to minimise the slander you would throw at their side, while also downplaying the core outcome (aka, the liberation of Leesti) in order to satisfy your appetite for making random articles.

Go get a grip.

By the way, I love how your article also proves that Ian didn't even proof read, since he couldn't even be bothered fixing the most obvious typo of getting the name of the watch company wrong the second time. All that mattered is growing some trust by playing his game well enough and, boom, you are now able to defy the rules.

But, once again, due to how a position of responsibility works. It's Ian's burden that he let this happen, not yours.

'Think people are obliged to collaborate with you'? They PMed me with an idea and we worked on it together, and had a great time. I did the same namechecking Canonn, with a story about the Thargoids. Again, we all had a laugh about it when people spotted it.

'Downplaying the core outcome'- the story was not directly about Leestis gov change, that was its background since GalNet articles need a place. I could have set it anywhere, but thought a namecheck might give Leesti some visibility since you were struggling to get one published.

Judging by your attitude and the outcome, I think its you that needs to get a grip. If 150 words about a Leesti gov change, Mahon and his choice watch offend you / the Diplomatic Corps who seem to own copyright on everything Alliance or green then god help us all.

 

[Alex Ringess]

Thanks Ed for responding and clarify. It was important to do, because an increasing number of Cmdrs plan to stop playing or have stopped playing during the last weeks for many reason (I mentionned a few on the twitter thread, I hope you remember), but mostly because they have the feeling the game goes worst and worst in many points.

I'm not here to giving you salt. I just want to push that to your attention. You have to know that the players I told on my tweet comments and now are the kind of players who was/are closely involved in emergent gameplay and/or stotytelling.

I realy hope you'll find a way to have a deeper knowledge of your playerbase, even if they are not mostly streamers.

...you're increasingly operating on a parallel universe of your own, rather than the actual galaxy in the game.

This.

 

[Apos]

'Think people are obliged to collaborate with you'? They PMed me with an idea and we worked on it together, and had a great time. I did the same namechecking Canonn, with a story about the Thargoids. Again, we all had a laugh about it when people spotted it.

'Downplaying the core outcome'- the story was not directly about Leestis gov change, that was its background since GalNet articles need a place. I could have set it anywhere, but thought a namecheck might give Leesti some visibility since you were struggling to get one published.

Judging by your attitude and the outcome, I think its you that needs to get a grip. If 150 words about a Leesti gov change, Mahon and his choice watch offend you / the Diplomatic Corps who seem to own copyright on everything Alliance or green then god help us all.

So you even think you did us a favour.

Why should people have to PM you when you are the one who wants to hop on their achievements and create something out of their efforts?

Maybe you should stop thinking about yourself too high? No, the AEDC doesn't want to own everything green, however the AEDC does want to own their own actions. And you seem to think that such a notion is preposterous.

You are so intoxicated in your own delusion of enriching the game that you fail to understand how you corrupted the achievements of others.

 

[_Flin_]

Judging by your attitude and the outcome, I think its you that needs to get a grip. If 150 words about a Leesti gov change, Mahon and his choice watch offend you / the Diplomatic Corps who seem to own copyright on everything Alliance or green then god help us all.

Well, the point is that you wrote a story based on our actions. It was belittling the Alliance and published.
And we posted submissions for various items again and again and again, and hardly any were published.

Well, and the whole "publish news items" is a joke when you actually can't. We tried to tell a story of our sector of space. Guess what. We stopped that. After having news item after news item rejected without comment or anything.

When only special friends can publish anything, then it's worth nothing.

Good that it is officially gone.

 

[Alex Ringess]

Are you sure, guys, that this is the right place to talk about all of that ?

 

[Apos]

Are you sure, guys, that this is the right place to talk about all of that ?

Technically, yes and no just as much. It is related to Galnet and its downward spiral.

 

[Alex Ringess]

Technically, yes and no just as much. It is related to Galnet and its downward spiral.

Yes, I saw that, but I feel that it could turn quickly on flamewar ^^

 

[Apos]

Yes, I saw that, but I feel that it could turn quickly on flamewar ^^

Soon.^TM

OK, maybe not, I'm kinda done. Sometimes those who benefited most from a problematic system have it the hardest to understand why, especially since everyone functions with what they perceive as best intentions at the time.

 

[CMDR Texas Stu]

We will eventually be bringing this back. Ultimately the amount of time that it took to review submissions, and give feedback, didn't quite match up to the number of articles that we were able to publish. We didn't want it to continue being a frustrating experience for those submitting storylines. We don't have a date for when it will be coming back, but we will be bringing it back in the future. We think players being able to tell their story is important, and we love how many of you do this in lots of different ways across other platforms. We'll review the process and let you know when we've come up with a more efficient and effective way of making these work. Sorry if the first post wasn't clear enough!

Possibly such as a futuristic 'bulletin board' in a station perhaps? Or maybe a data entry location within a station?

 

[Tyrit Shadowstalker]

Hi everyone,

EDIT: We will eventually be bringing this back. Ultimately the amount of time that it took to review submissions, and give feedback, didn't quite match up to the number of articles that we were able to publish. We didn't want it to continue being a frustrating experience for those submitting storylines. We don't have a date for when it will be coming back, but we will be bringing it back in the future. We think players being able to tell their story is important, and we love how many of you do this in lots of different ways across other platforms. We'll review the process and let you know when we've come up with a more efficient and effective way of making these work. Sorry if the first post wasn't clear enough!

Good to hear, personally would like to see a hybrid of the two, instead of a mega-thread, each submission being it's own thread, but visible for all the forum to see and comment on, suggest changes etc. As I stated during the initial roll out of the new system, I did not feel the black box of no one outside the system seeing the submissions, especially the person submitting it, ultimately degraded the process because the people writing and submitting galnet articles could no longer be sure if what they were working on was a common thread of though among other submissions or if it was a wholly new idea.

Additionally it meant that more experienced galnet writers could not make suggestions to less experienced writers, and kinda made things a bit more daunting, especially with the inability to edit a submission until galnet submissions decided it was going to go live. I don't necessarily know if other people felt this way, but I know I certainly did and I feel the quality of my submissions both suffered and I became less likely to even bother submitting a galnet article because I wasn't getting feedback from other writers as to whether it was even a good idea.

hopefully whatever new system that is put in place adresses these concerns of mine.

 

[Moritasgus]

FDev seems to be struggling under the weight of CG/Galnet/PMF submissions and this is obviously the latest blow.
Firstly i think a few people need to get a bit of perspective and remember that this is just a game... No matter which pretend virtual faction you support.
Perceived favouritism or not none of this is important so lets all calm down and take a deep breath.

Most of these community driven features have become unworkable for staff who seem to have to do it as an addition to their main job so its understandable that its not dealt with in the same way as for example the in game support is. Until FD commit proper resources to it and bring back the 'virtual gamesmater' that Michael Brooks seemed to play then it's probably better to suspend it and save any more heartache.

Hopefully it comes back but recriminations and blaming of staff members is unlikely to help the cause.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Well, the point is that you wrote a story based on our actions. It was belittling the Alliance and published.
And we posted submissions for various items again and again and again, and hardly any were published.

Well, and the whole "publish news items" is a joke when you actually can't. We tried to tell a story of our sector of space. Guess what. We stopped that. After having news item after news item rejected without comment or anything.

When only special friends can publish anything, then it's worth nothing.

Good that it is officially gone.

There was a whole community set up to help people get stories published, if you had trouble you should have dropped in so we could help. I had a rejection rate of about 70% so I would not exactly say I was 'the anointed one', its a matter of learning what format FD wants. I can remember getting frustrated too when lots of my stories were rejected but I kept at it.

So you even think you did us a favour.

Why should people have to PM you when you are the one who wants to hop on their achievements and create something out of their efforts?

Perhaps you would have preferred my other idea that I almost did about the Alliance destablising a legitimate government to suit its own agenda in Leesti?

No, the AEDC doesn't want to own everything green, however the AEDC does want to own their own actions. And you seem to think that such a notion is preposterous.

You are so intoxicated in your own delusion of enriching the game that you fail to understand how you corrupted the achievements of others.

I'm truly sorry I griefed the Alliance and AEDC with words.

Perhaps you should have asked for help writing and increased your chances? Like I said above a whole community was set up to help with this. If I understand what Ed is saying, it could be under the new system stories might have more dev time so they can help edit stuff a bit as well. Maybe it fits in the automated PG news templates.

From experience BGS stories don't get published often- I submitted a story about Utopia getting 100% bubble flips in Powerplay (2 years of work), it never got in game which was a bit annoying but I moved on. I would have loved it if an Alliance writer (or anyone) came along and wrote about how democracy was being cleansed on Antals orders and replaced with dictatorships to suit his rule. Does it take away 'ownership'? No, it simply makes the events more three-dimensional. And I don't think ownership of events is preposterous, I simply thought getting a reference to it at all would be fun while I poke fun at Mahon. From an outside perspective Leesti was a colourful gov change.

If people can't write about opposing opinions or use events without being attacked then whats the point though? It means negative propaganda could never be written about any action. That does mean that the opposite side would need to be published too, which is probably where this angst came from to begin with.

Anyway, I'm glad GalNet submissions will be back someday.

 

[_Flin_]

You either allow some loss of control and leverage the creative powers of the community (see the API ... How the tools needed the most get created and make the game so much better!), or you do it all by yourself and end up in more work than you can possible do.

The creative power of the community scales with the number of it's participants. The workload ability of FD does not.
It is good that this black hole of non-responsiveness is gone.

There are hundreds, even thousands of players that desperately WANT to fill up the void that exists in ED story wise. Noone cares about BG stories? Well, the players that play it do. We have backstories for each of our factions, we have storylines and strategies we follow. We'd like to share them.

And really, there are ways to have AI check player generated content and curate it. With sentiment analysis, key word analysis, natural language processing and whatever not.



The state that Galnet was in, was:
FD made people work for them, for free. FD did not offer them anything in return (except having their work eventually published on an obscure website and in an alternate universe). And then FD did not even have the basic politeness to answer them after they worked to generate content for FD's system and money in their freetime.

Either you mean it, then you think how you can make it work, or you don't.



I am sorry, Rubbernuke, that 70% of your work was never accepted. Probably we - as Alliance players - have a bit shorter temper when it comes to being neglected storywise. Like... getting a second main story character, being... the former Fed president. Story leftovers from other people's tables.

 

[Schlack]

One of the difficulties that player generated stories in future will face is that cmdrs who have put so much effort in to limited effect (for editorial/capacity/other reasons) have become demotivated and it will be a hard slog for FD to get those cmdrs engaging again. I'm sure FD are aware of this and haven't made this decision lightly but it does endanger the longevity of cmdrs interaction with the game.

 

[Apos]

There was a whole community set up to help people get stories published, if you had trouble you should have dropped in so we could help. I had a rejection rate of about 70% so I would not exactly say I was 'the anointed one', its a matter of learning what format FD wants. I can remember getting frustrated too when lots of my stories were rejected but I kept at it.



Perhaps you would have preferred my other idea that I almost did about the Alliance destablising a legitimate government to suit its own agenda in Leesti?



I'm truly sorry I griefed the Alliance and AEDC with words.

Perhaps you should have asked for help writing and increased your chances? Like I said above a whole community was set up to help with this. If I understand what Ed is saying, it could be under the new system stories might have more dev time so they can help edit stuff a bit as well. Maybe it fits in the automated PG news templates.

From experience BGS stories don't get published often- I submitted a story about Utopia getting 100% bubble flips in Powerplay (2 years of work), it never got in game which was a bit annoying but I moved on. I would have loved it if an Alliance writer (or anyone) came along and wrote about how democracy was being cleansed on Antals orders and replaced with dictatorships to suit his rule. Does it take away 'ownership'? No, it simply makes the events more three-dimensional. And I don't think ownership of events is preposterous, I simply thought getting a reference to it at all would be fun while I poke fun at Mahon. From an outside perspective Leesti was a colourful gov change.

If people can't write about opposing opinions or use events without being attacked then whats the point though? It means negative propaganda could never be written about any action. That does mean that the opposite side would need to be published too, which is probably where this angst came from to begin with.

Anyway, I'm glad GalNet submissions will be back someday.

Just like your management of Antal, you are nothing but a vulture living off the successes of others to be relevant.