Are Media Spots Outdated?

[Higgins 3,618]

Out of the last 25 new members to sign up how many are actually still active? The percentage is likely scary low. It's hard enough to recruit new members to our little corner of the internet, but even if they check out the site AND then create an account AND then create a player, the chances of them actually staying active until at least 200 TPE are so small. Each step along the way there is a bottleneck, where many people drop off.

 

Retainment starts with the core of how TPE is earned. The core of VHL is point tasks which are one of Graphics, Writing, or Podcasts. People who enjoy working with Photoshop and have creative minds likely enjoy messing around with creating unique and different pieces of VHL artwork. Podcasters use their platform to convey their ideas freely without the constraints of writing and sometimes partner up to basically have a conversation about the league. Some people enjoy writing and making up stories, but writing is arguably the only point task that feels like school work.

 

It is possible media spots are outdated. Quickly here is some changes to media spot writing.

 

Earn TPE based on word counts - Every 50 words in your media spot earns you 1 TPE. Basically lowers the word count from 450 words to 300 words for a 6 TPE point task and allows people to stop writing whenever they want, there's no commitment to hit the mandatory word count.

 

Special topics - It is possible during 2-3 weeks of the season, spread out, there is a designated topic presented to media spot writers. Where the goal isn't a word count, but creating a piece that could generate league discussion. Examples could be mock draft week, trade rumor week, highlight a first gen player week, all-star week, mid-season award predictions week, playoff match-up week, etc. People love lists and rankings, so word counts can be reduced to maybe a minimum of 200 or set depending on the week.

 

More ideas are welcome.

 

 

[FacePuncher 1,343]

media spots do kinda suck

[Da Trifecta 1,899]

Both of these ideas literally sound like it could make me want to start writing again

[Will 4,660]

i do find it has gotten harder and harder for me to sit down a write a media spot

[Higgins 3,618]

I usually open a 1 TPE article thread and if I reach 450 words I will copy and paste in into a media spot thread. Can't deal with the pressure I guess.

[FacePuncher 1,343]

I would say start giving 1 TPE at 150 though. Because 1) don't want to cheapen fan 590s and 2) when's the last time you saw a quality 50 word article?

[Will 4,660]

17 minutes ago, Higgins said:

I usually open a 1 TPE article thread and if I reach 450 words I will copy and paste in into a media spot thread. Can't deal with the pressure I guess.

 

I usually end up leaving a tab open creating a topic in the MS forum for several days. Sometimes it get finished, sometimes I just give up. 

[Smarch 3,156]

Twas nice knowing you VHL Magazine 

[Higgins 3,618]

4 minutes ago, Will said:

 

I usually end up leaving a tab open creating a topic in the MS forum for several days. Sometimes it get finished, sometimes I just give up. 

 

wow i bet there is so many outstanding and revolutionary articles we have missed out on over the years due to this practice

 

[Higgins 3,618]

3 minutes ago, Smarch said:

Twas nice knowing you VHL Magazine 

 

when i was on the magazine as a writer it was the main motivator for be producing an article every week, being part of something bigger, getting that auto 7 TPE (guess all media spots are auto 6 now anyways), and not having to format anything myself.

 

Magazine wouldn't die, because if you want 7 TPE you would need to produce 350+ words anyways and thats under that system I came up with off the top of my head.

[Kendrick 4,741]

Nope

[Jala 922]

Damn millenials. Want the TPE without doing the work.

 

Also, I dunno about other LRs but it was like 5 days (Weds - Sun) without a new post in my team LR. That's also a factor in why people don't stick around.

[Higgins 3,618]

9 minutes ago, Jala said:

Damn millenials. Want the TPE without doing the work.

 

Also, I dunno about other LRs but it was like 5 days (Weds - Sun) without a new post in my team LR. That's also a factor in why people don't stick around.

 

Be the one to make the post

[Higgins 3,618]

Anyway we want recruitment to work, and the people we want to recruit are younger, well if I had to guess they're enthusiasm to write it low.

[Devise 4,475]

12 minutes ago, Higgins said:

Anyway we want recruitment to work, and the people we want to recruit are younger, well if I had to guess they're enthusiasm to write it low.

 

Yeah but in order to replace the PT system we need more than just a forum with a weekly check in. I said it in a cast at one point, but the future of a place like this if you want to take a real next step is to actually make this a proper game. You give it a website, you take the forum and strip some of it down aka player pages and all that and integrate all that into it's own system linked to the sim and you have players gain attributes and update their own players proper. Could/should even make a mobile app for it as well. In that system it's not a PT leagaue but checking in and doing things to earn points in game, with the forum then only being the place for discussion. 

 

That is the thing, you could code things to read the data that we get from the sim and then give people some front end presentation to all that. All this of course takes work (and money) but I feel like that is the actual forward place for sim leagues. 

[JardyB10 4,865]

Media Spots are literally the reason I joined 7 years ago. I enjoyed creative writing, and I enjoyed hockey and fantasy RP type things, and VHL happened to be a very specific thing I could do all of those things. Sure, I haven't written many (if any) since I started simming, but that's in no small part because I started simming.

 

You know as well as I do that DT is full of it when he says "These ideas might make me want to write again," that what he really means is "I might write a few articles before returning to not write." I'm not trying to pick on him, but it's just like when members are like, "My interest in the league might respark if I was given X job," and then they get the job and they still end up going inactive. Decreasing the effective 6 TPE word count isn't going to get more people writing. If they don't want to write, they're not going to.

 

If anything, we could make a 3-4 TPE MS option that has a word count of 250-300 or something. Maybe you can do two of those (if it's 3 TPE), but you can't do one of those and one 6-PT. That way, it's less pressure than a 6-PT, but worth more than welfare.

 

As for specific topic PTs, we've talked about it before, and it could probably use more discussion. I think what was brought up before is that maybe you'd get extra TPE for writing about a specific topic. I actually like your suggested version here better. If someone wants to write about something else that week, they don't get a TPE "penalty" for it, but they just have to hit the word count. The only potential issue is QC.

[Da Trifecta 1,899]

8 minutes ago, JardyB10 said:

Media Spots are literally the reason I joined 7 years ago. I enjoyed creative writing, and I enjoyed hockey and fantasy RP type things, and VHL happened to be a very specific thing I could do all of those things. Sure, I haven't written many (if any) since I started simming, but that's in no small part because I started simming.

 

You know as well as I do that DT is full of it when he says "These ideas might make me want to write again," that what he really means is "I might write a few articles before returning to not write." I'm not trying to pick on him, but it's just like when members are like, "My interest in the league might respark if I was given X job," and then they get the job and they still end up going inactive. Decreasing the effective 6 TPE word count isn't going to get more people writing. If they don't want to write, they're not going to.

 

If anything, we could make a 3-4 TPE MS option that has a word count of 250-300 or something. Maybe you can do two of those (if it's 3 TPE), but you can't do one of those and one 6-PT. That way, it's less pressure than a 6-PT, but worth more than welfare.

 

As for specific topic PTs, we've talked about it before, and it could probably use more discussion. I think what was brought up before is that maybe you'd get extra TPE for writing about a specific topic. I actually like your suggested version here better. If someone wants to write about something else that week, they don't get a TPE "penalty" for it, but they just have to hit the word count. The only potential issue is QC.

 

Hold the fuck up, are you really trying to say that I won't write again? I have been writing for the mag recently and just stopped because lack of motivation. If implemented I would write because I could literally aim for anything I want. So honestly don't bring me into this when you clearly don't know shit about if I would write again or not.

[Higgins 3,618]

@JardyB10 you are by far the minority, plus you're already invested in the league. I like writing but to find a new and intesting topic for 450 words every week gets harder and I only imagine it's even harder for a new member who's growing up in a world of instant gratification.

 

Over ten weeks one could write 4500 words for 60 TPE or write 10 words for 20 TPE on welfare. I haven't done any research I just wrote this article on a whim to generate discussion and float out ideas, but it would be interesting to see how many new members are writing media spots consistently.

[JardyB10 4,865]

1 hour ago, Higgins said:

@JardyB10 you are by far the minority, plus you're already invested in the league. I like writing but to find a new and intesting topic for 450 words every week gets harder and I only imagine it's even harder for a new member who's growing up in a world of instant gratification.

 

Over ten weeks one could write 4500 words for 60 TPE or write 10 words for 20 TPE on welfare. I haven't done any research I just wrote this article on a whim to generate discussion and float out ideas, but it would be interesting to see how many new members are writing media spots consistently.

Fair enough, I just don't think 300 words is that big of a difference. And any less than 300 is too little imo.

[frescoelmo 1,276]

I would contest that the issue isn't necessarily that media spots are outdated, but that the league's automation has really drained the overall league activity.  By activity I mean engagement.  What do graders do now?  Are there even graders anymore?  Why spend 1-2 hours writing an article when I can type three words and claim 66% of it (guilty as charged, and even then I forget every other week)?  I can claim 5 points a week doing practically nothing...  It's not outdated, we're just not engaged in the league anymore.  Like @JardyB10 mentioned earlier, I was partially drawn to this league by the opportunity to be creative in my writing...  but I was moreso drawn to it by the competitiveness and means of getting involved (great community, best one I've been around).  Now I could be wrong seeing as I'm not very active (although I still run the chat room with fong) but then again media spots have been the bread and butter of sim leagues since I started over ten years ago...  so I'm probably not far off.

[Devise 4,475]

5 minutes ago, frescoelmo said:

but then again media spots have been the bread and butter of sim leagues since I started over ten years ago...  so I'm probably not far off

 

I think that is kinda the biggest point as to why they are so outdated. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with the system, but 10 years ago we were just beginning to enter the world where everyone had the internet on tiny devices in their pocket. I bet you the amount of people who view this site on mobile, claim welfare on an Tablet or Smart Phone has gone up huge in that time. I mean consider back in the day even when I joined you couldn't even claim welfare. 

 

I do think however even if we were to go to a check in league, which is something I'm not against at all, that we should find other ways to reward people for being creative and writing. I think the Magazine is a great outlet for that honestly. More people getting involved and submitting articles, and giving the magazine more of a visual platform to showcase that information would be a great thing if you were too supplement out of our traditional point task system. 

 

But if welfare were changed to a check in, and then you can tier it up to 6 TPE based on number of players, total TPE earned as a member or something to that affect it'd be fine. Then just load up on the things first gens can earn, and let people who have been here for ages earn 6 a week for free without much issue imo. 

Edited February 20, 2017 by Devise

[JardyB10 4,865]

1 hour ago, Da Trifecta said:

 

Hold the fuck up, are you really trying to say that I won't write again?

That's literally not at all what I said. I did say, I wasn't picking on you specifically, and was just using you as a general example of something I've seen over and over and over. I literally did say that I'm sure you WILL return to writing, for a time. But I think you're lying to yourself if you think 150 fewer words will suddenly and PERMANENTLY revive your writing motivation. And I was more or less trying to say that no one should ever make a decision based on someone else making a statement that is framed "If we do X then I think that may or may not help motivate me personally maybe."

 

But I also did say I liked the idea of his 2nd point, and that it would be a general good thing.

 

So no, I really never did say that you'll never write again. Saying that with 150 fewer words you can suddenly aim for anything you want is not a reasonable assumption, IMO.

[JardyB10 4,865]

Also, while I'm not saying Welfare was a necessarily a bad idea, this is exactly why I was against implementing it in the first place.

[Devise 4,475]

4 minutes ago, JardyB10 said:

Also, while I'm not saying Welfare was a necessarily a bad idea, this is exactly why I was against implementing it in the first place.

 

Yeah but aren't you just operating on wishful thinking then? Given the sheer number of members who claim welfare, it's obvious if we didn't respond with a system where people could maintain a player and just hang out here that we'd either not be operating today or instead be operating with half the member base. 

[JardyB10 4,865]

Just now, Devise said:

 

Yeah but aren't you just operating on wishful thinking then? Given the sheer number of members who claim welfare, it's obvious if we didn't respond with a system where people could maintain a player and just hang out here that we'd either not be operating today or instead be operating with half the member base. 

That's quite possible, if not likely, sure. But the culture changed with Welfare, that led to things like non-graded PTs and discussions such as this. We put in Welfare to attract the "SHL-type" members, for lack of a better term. But even those types haven't really stuck around because then we're just some weird SHL-VHL hybrid, so they may as well stick with SHL. Maybe if the culture didn't shift we would have attracted different types of members who preferred the old VHL type. Or not, maybe we would have died, I don't know, I'm not a wizard. But I'd almost rather shut down then continuing to dumb everything down until we're just a worse version of the SHL.