# Approval of user submitted news



## Sausage Head (Apr 1, 2011)

I was actually going to suggest this yesterday, but I didn't really have reason enough to do so.
And now...
It's too late.
User-Submitted news gets spammed full of old news, or today (April Fools' Day) shit jokes.
It might be hard for GBAtemp staff to approve every news post, so I have another solution:
A "sub-section" for news awaiting for approval, if urgent news is ever posted.

Who agrees?


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## MelodieOctavia (Apr 1, 2011)

This is what the staff are for, and even though they don't always get to the dupe topics and old news right away, they do get it every time, and most of the time they're on the ball. 

No reason for redundant moderation.


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## Rydian (Apr 1, 2011)

Stuff only makes it to the front page when a staff member consciously goes through the effort of putting it there, no worries.


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## Sausage Head (Apr 1, 2011)

Yes, front page posts are never bad posts but the category itself - "User-Submitted News" is full of old news/not properly formatted news/fake news


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## Rydian (Apr 1, 2011)

The current user-submitted news thing IS what you're talking about, it's where everything is.  When somebody uses the "submit to front page" option then it goes into something you all don't see.


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## Sausage Head (Apr 1, 2011)

Yes, and when that button is pressed, certain staff members will check if it is frontpage worthy.
Else, they won't untill they see it for themselves, already posted and flamed.


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## MelodieOctavia (Apr 1, 2011)

You see that button below everyone's signature? Yeah, if you wondered what the report button was for, this would be one of those situations. Click it, type in your complaint and all will be well.

The only reason a staff member wouldn't see a topic that should by all rights be locked, is because no one had reported it.

Every time you file a report, every moderator can see it, and until it is resolved, the notification stays there.


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## Rydian (Apr 1, 2011)

If it's frontpage-worthy it's not flamed.

If it's not front-page worthy but the poster thinks it is, there's nothing to stop them from submitting it like that anyways if they think so.

If you're suggesting that stuff submitted to the front page is hidden from view, that's not going to improve the quality of submissions, and we like to keep user involvement, so as long as it's hidden other users can't participate in the discussions.


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## Sausage Head (Apr 1, 2011)

I'm not talking about front page posts, but about the user submitted news in general.
It'd be better if they were disapproved before a normal user can see them than to get closed threads that fill up every page.


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## Rydian (Apr 1, 2011)

The point is not just stuff for the front page, in fact most of the stuff there doesn't get front-paged because it's a discussion forum as well.

A change is planned.


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## twiztidsinz (Apr 1, 2011)

Sausage Head said:
			
		

> I was actually going to suggest this yesterday, but I didn't really have reason enough to do so.


And tomorrow there won't be a reason to either.


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## Sausage Head (Apr 1, 2011)

Almost every news post from this guy
This
this
and
this
(all excluding april fools' crap  (where some of them are believed to be actual news by the poster))
and that's probably not everything


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## Rydian (Apr 1, 2011)

None of those are submitted for entry into the front page, thus they would not be hidden.

EDIT: Or if they were, somebody already denied them.


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## Ikki (Apr 1, 2011)

Like this.


The LaytonxWright one is kinda okay since it generates so much hype.


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## Rydian (Apr 1, 2011)

Again, not submitted for the front page.

The user-submitted news is also a discussion forum, you can't magically improve the quality of posts there just like you can't do it for other forums.  People are going to submit some stupid shit, period.


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## Sausage Head (Apr 1, 2011)

I'm not talking about front page submitted news only.


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## Rydian (Apr 1, 2011)

Well, what's the problem you're trying to solve?


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## MelodieOctavia (Apr 1, 2011)

He's trying to say the USN is full of crap posts and Mods don't get to them in time.


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## Devin (Apr 1, 2011)

Rydian said:
			
		

> Well, what's the problem you're trying to solve?



The user submitted news forum is being cluttered with nonsense, and news is constantly being reposted. His idea is to make a sub forum, so that news can be "pending" until a moderator deems it fit to go to the actual user submitted news forum.

Amirite?


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## Rydian (Apr 1, 2011)

The people that post crap often can't even find the 3DS section, no way are they going to find a sub-forum.

As for the april fools' thing, I don't think one day out of a year is enough to make a sub-forum, and people would just post jokes in the main one anyways.


EDIT:


			
				Devin said:
			
		

> Rydian said:
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Requiring staff approval of topics is going to be Just Fucking Annoying™ (on both ends), and people would post elsewhere to get around that.


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## Sausage Head (Apr 1, 2011)

I was actually going to suggest this yesterday, but I didn't really have reason enough to do so.
And now...
It's too late.
User-Submitted news gets spammed full of old news, or today (April Fools' Day) shit jokes.
It might be hard for GBAtemp staff to approve every news post, so I have another solution:
A "sub-section" for news awaiting for approval, if urgent news is ever posted.

Who agrees?


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## Sausage Head (Apr 1, 2011)

Devin said:
			
		

> Rydian said:
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This is what I meant.
I don't know the part where I was unclear on, but whatever


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## Rydian (Apr 1, 2011)

It can work two ways.

1 - Users choose to post there.
Users can simply choose not tom or won't see it.

2 - It's mandatory/automatic and needs approval.
As you saw, there's people who THINK they have news for the front page, but they don't.  You can't stop them from posting before they post, they're going to attempt to submit it anyways.


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## Sterling (Apr 2, 2011)

I agree with any USN submissions being checked for approval. Also, perhaps a search function built into the post like Ask GBAtemp. The function would search the title and subtitle, and the body for a similar article here on the temp. Not sure how to work around the ask gbatemp one though. (Perhaps a popup window?


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## KingdomBlade (Apr 2, 2011)

Ikki said:
			
		

> Like this.
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> The LaytonxWright one is kinda okay since it generates so much hype.



How is that spam news exactly?  
	

	
	
		
		

		
			








 It's damn related to video games. I suppose that the news that MADE THE FRONT PAGE a few months ago that Christopher Tin was being awarded a Grammy for his work on Civilization IV was Spam too?


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## Ikki (Apr 2, 2011)

KingdomBlade said:
			
		

> Ikki said:
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I never used the word "spam"

It's just not relevant enough to make a news thread about it.


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## KingdomBlade (Apr 2, 2011)

Ikki said:
			
		

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So a video game getting getting into a prestigious festival that was only previously accessible to films is NOT relevant enough?

Well... I dunno about you but I think that's a large achievement for games.


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## twiztidsinz (Apr 2, 2011)

Ikki said:
			
		

> KingdomBlade said:
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And I don't think you're relevant enough, so gtfo.


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## Rydian (Apr 2, 2011)

Argentum Vir said:
			
		

> I agree with any USN submissions being checked for approval.


_How and why_?
The USN is both an approval-waiting forum, and a discussion forum.

What, if something's not good enough for the front page it's not good enough for the site at all? :\

If you're asking about the forums being split/changed, _it's planned_.


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## Ikki (Apr 2, 2011)

KingdomBlade said:
			
		

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Yeah, don't misunderstand me. I think that too but it's not really that interesting for the average user.
USN is to submit news and discuss about them.


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## Guild McCommunist (Apr 2, 2011)

This is a stupid idea.

First off, you're just dumping a shit load of work on the Mag Staff all because a few idiots posted non-news into the USN. A good majority of USN submissions are considered worthy news.

And why should relatively frequent news posting members such as myself suffer from a whole process of judging just because we want to help the community? News is submitted to help members stay updated on the latest news (or to suck up to the staff for a sweet yellow name). Taking away a user right to submit news really hampers community involvement.

Even if something isn't major news, it's news. That's why it's in the User Submitted News and not on the front page. That LA Noire thing is completely news, definitely not front page worthy but worth keeping in the USN.

This is just a dumb proposal.


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## KingdomBlade (Apr 2, 2011)

Guild McCommunist said:
			
		

> This is a stupid idea.
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> First off, you're just dumping a shit load of work on the Mag Staff all because a few idiots posted non-news into the USN. A good majority of USN submissions are considered worthy news.
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This a million times. This just eliminates the purpose of it being called User Submitted News if it needs to be approved by the staff. Just because it's not the most important news in the world doesn't mean someone wouldn't want to read it or discuss about it.


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## shadowmanwkp (Apr 2, 2011)

Approving topics a piece is redundant, you first check it, then it may be reported and it may need another check for the front page. News is also put up a lot slower, because not all staff can review news at rocket speed. Sorry, but this idea ain't gonna work.

A good idea is a minimum amount of post required to enter. It's in place for the trading forum, so why not for the USN? People with more posts have more experience with the rules and they tend to read them more often than people who only have a few posts. IMHO, this would be the best (temporary) solution.


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## Sterling (Apr 2, 2011)

Rydian said:
			
		

> Argentum Vir said:
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No no, I know it's planned, but for future reference, _topics_ should be approved. Posts are alright. I don't know how this works right now, but a pop-up window similar to PMs should work. (Looks like a red box with the words and such with a source displayed.) If it looks like it's formatted acceptably, a single button click will have it approved (right below the option to view in another window.) It may take a bit of custom coding (Okay alot if there isn't any sort of function), but this is for future reference.


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## Rydian (Apr 2, 2011)

I'm not going to condone extra work on the staff to approve every topic when the people who DO post shit would just go into other forums that don't need approval (and again, not everything in USN is meant to be submitted to the first page anyways).

Lots of extra work for very little benefit that can be worked around with minimal effort.


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## Sterling (Apr 2, 2011)

Rydian said:
			
		

> I'm not going to condone extra work on the staff to approve every topic when the people who DO post shit would just go into other forums that don't need approval (and again, not everything in USN is meant to be submitted to the first page anyways).
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> Lots of extra work for very little benefit that can be worked around with minimal effort.


Well, I know it would be a lot of work, and I understand that it's very little benefit, but when something get's posted without a source, or it's not just unformatted, it's formatted badly, it only get's locked. The front page of the USN is just atrocious at the moment. At the very least when a post gets locked, get someone to hide it or move it, or something.


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## Rydian (Apr 2, 2011)

Posts get locked when they're duplicates or fake info, not for being formatted improperly for the front page.  We don't front-page user posts anymore anyways, we make a new posts and link back to the original thread for the on-going discussion, so there's not even a point to that.


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## Sterling (Apr 2, 2011)

:sadface: Well, you staff have what you want to do all laid out. The forum changes cannot come swiftly enough for me. :/ Also, the dump of the century is down they lane, not on me.


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## Rydian (Apr 2, 2011)

I'm annoyed by the way USN is done as well, don't get me wrong, but requiring approval for topics there is not the answer.


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## Sterling (Apr 2, 2011)

Rydian said:
			
		

> I'm annoyed by the way USN is done as well, don't get me wrong, but requiring approval for topics there is not the answer.


Well, it is by far the best suggested solution so far. Mostly because there hasn't been many other suggestions.


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## Rydian (Apr 2, 2011)

Splitting USN into various topics was one, a change is coming but I'm not sure on the details.

The heart of the matter this thread aims at is users posting stupid shit, *and there's no preemptive fix for that*.  Like I said, if it requires approval before it can be viewed, they'll post it elsewhere (unless they want it on the front page, but in that case they just submit it into the system when posting into that forum like the one guy who was just copy-pasting articles kept doing).


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## Sausage Head (Apr 1, 2011)

I was actually going to suggest this yesterday, but I didn't really have reason enough to do so.
And now...
It's too late.
User-Submitted news gets spammed full of old news, or today (April Fools' Day) shit jokes.
It might be hard for GBAtemp staff to approve every news post, so I have another solution:
A "sub-section" for news awaiting for approval, if urgent news is ever posted.

Who agrees?


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## Bladexdsl (Apr 3, 2011)

maybe just activate it on april 1st to stop all the retard jokers.


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