As you might have noticed, HonestGamers has a limited number of staff members that is nearly the lowest that it's ever been since the site was large enough to attract regular contributors. I've been working with several freelancers to produce quality content for the site and I've been very pleased with the results. It ensures that our editorial content remains frequent and excellent.
However, tha tleaves the question of Review of the Week. With several staff members struggling to avoid burnout, or with staff members otherwise obligated and only able to help out in an emergency situation, that leaves us without enough staff members to ensure long-term success of the system.
Review of the Week is important to the site, a final tradition--even if it's not daily--of the Review of the Day tradition that for years was so popular on GameFAQs. I initially took it upon myself to do Review of the Week topics myself as I say Review of the Day dying over on that other site, and I was successful for several years. I'm just not in a position to resume that, at least not yet, and so the question becomes: how do we continue forward?
In the past, freelancers have offered to step in and carry some of the load. Before we lost several staff members who were helping out with Review of the Week, that notion was rejected. However, the time has come to reconsider and the general consensus among staff is that the time is right to let other people step in and contribute to the topic.
The way it would work is this: if you are contributing freelance reviews and you would like to join the rotation, let us know in this topic. We'll consider all applications of interest and will add you to the official rota if we feel that you make a good addition. Then you would be expected to post the topic within a short time of the end of the week. Review of the Week initially ran from around 9PM (PST) on Saturday to the same time the next Saturday. When I was doing the topics weekly, I very rarely failed to post one around that time each week. Since then, we've fallen extremely short of that goal, but a good idea would be to have any people involved in the rota in the future stick as close to that as possible. Timly RotW topics are better for everyone.
If you're interested, qualified and able to produce timely topics, then hopefully we can assemble a new rota of four people, probably to include one or two current staff members. Freelancers will be able to post their topic and staff members will update the winning review so that it receives 'Featured' status. Please do note that staff members will have veto power. Reviews posted at the staff or freelance level would continue to be excluded, plus a RotW poster should not--even as a joke--give himself the winning position on weeks where the number of user submissions exceeds the limit of 3. If a RotW is thrown together and clearly represents a failure to provide a topic that is up to the standard site users rightfully expect, that person will likely be removed from the rota and the topic in question may also be removed.
Questions and discussion are welcome within this topic, as are volunteers. Let's try to get a rota together fairly quickly so that no one has a chance to develop additional burnout!
However, tha tleaves the question of Review of the Week. With several staff members struggling to avoid burnout, or with staff members otherwise obligated and only able to help out in an emergency situation, that leaves us without enough staff members to ensure long-term success of the system.
Review of the Week is important to the site, a final tradition--even if it's not daily--of the Review of the Day tradition that for years was so popular on GameFAQs. I initially took it upon myself to do Review of the Week topics myself as I say Review of the Day dying over on that other site, and I was successful for several years. I'm just not in a position to resume that, at least not yet, and so the question becomes: how do we continue forward?
In the past, freelancers have offered to step in and carry some of the load. Before we lost several staff members who were helping out with Review of the Week, that notion was rejected. However, the time has come to reconsider and the general consensus among staff is that the time is right to let other people step in and contribute to the topic.
The way it would work is this: if you are contributing freelance reviews and you would like to join the rotation, let us know in this topic. We'll consider all applications of interest and will add you to the official rota if we feel that you make a good addition. Then you would be expected to post the topic within a short time of the end of the week. Review of the Week initially ran from around 9PM (PST) on Saturday to the same time the next Saturday. When I was doing the topics weekly, I very rarely failed to post one around that time each week. Since then, we've fallen extremely short of that goal, but a good idea would be to have any people involved in the rota in the future stick as close to that as possible. Timly RotW topics are better for everyone.
If you're interested, qualified and able to produce timely topics, then hopefully we can assemble a new rota of four people, probably to include one or two current staff members. Freelancers will be able to post their topic and staff members will update the winning review so that it receives 'Featured' status. Please do note that staff members will have veto power. Reviews posted at the staff or freelance level would continue to be excluded, plus a RotW poster should not--even as a joke--give himself the winning position on weeks where the number of user submissions exceeds the limit of 3. If a RotW is thrown together and clearly represents a failure to provide a topic that is up to the standard site users rightfully expect, that person will likely be removed from the rota and the topic in question may also be removed.
Questions and discussion are welcome within this topic, as are volunteers. Let's try to get a rota together fairly quickly so that no one has a chance to develop additional burnout!
"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." - John F. Kennedy on reality
"What if everything you see is more than what you see--the person next to you is a warrior and the space that appears empty is a secret door to another world? What if something appears that shouldn't? You either dismiss it, or you accept that there is much more to the world than you think. Perhaps it really is a doorway, and if you choose to go inside, you'll find many unexpected things." - Shigeru Miyamoto on secret doors to another world
"What if everything you see is more than what you see--the person next to you is a warrior and the space that appears empty is a secret door to another world? What if something appears that shouldn't? You either dismiss it, or you accept that there is much more to the world than you think. Perhaps it really is a doorway, and if you choose to go inside, you'll find many unexpected things." - Shigeru Miyamoto on secret doors to another world
