scratz wrote on Sep 28, 2011, 12:37:
Personally, I think you could better accomplish this with a live feed section somewhere on the page. The retro format of your site is kind of comfortingly familiar to those of us that have been reading you for many years, but its probably not doing you much good in growing readership. I know I return to the site habitually throughout the day during random downtime at work hoping for new stories. A steady feed would probably rack up a lot more hits if everyone knew they could expect new stories every time they landed.
Incidentally, if you really want to grow a base, you might want to consider a means of cleaning up your comments section. I've been posting to Blues' off-and-on under various names since, oh, I dunno, '98 maybe, and what used to be a fun community of like minded gamers with a shared passion for the industry has degraded into a bunch of whiny asshats with kneejerk hate for everything (seems like some of your most regular posters are just trolling out of boredom). Its just not terribly inviting.
That's really not intended as a criticism, its just an observation from a long time reader that wants you to succeed.
Obviously some days are busier and and some slower, but I think more of a steady feed is preferable than one lump sum for the day and another for Into teh Blue - though one lump sum makes sense at evening when you're signing off. I'd guess most people check in at several points over the day and it's always nice to see fresh stuff available.
As for the forums, if you don't like the posters, use the Ignore function. That's why it's there. I think you're glossing over somewhat and forget that gaming and the community was also a LOT smaller back in the day. Things were fresh and games were being made by gamers for gamers instead of the mass-consumption whoring we have going on now. People have a lot of legitimate reasons for their gripes. People shouldn't have to walk on eggshells and couch everything like its an encounter session. Maybe a lot of us are getting into "Get off my lawn!" mode, but it's only because we see something we once cherished moving in a direction we don't like. That miffs us and we need to vent now and then. If people can't handle a little flaming they need to toughen up - so long as it's not racist/bigoted in nature.
Re: the comments sections themselves, bringing comments up to date with flat and inline functions to see who's responding to who would be nice though.
"The horse I bet on was so slow, the jockey kept a diary of the trip." - Henny Youngman