Anyone feel that LFS News needs some content and a bit more activity??? A while back they were really good with some interesting reads, but now I go back quite often and it is the same top news and nothing particularly interesting (because it is old). Not a lot of official news is around about LFS, but there are some things going on in the community and leagues, right?

http://www.lfsnews.net/

Been ages since ive visited that site. -for the reason u said.

- a news site with... ...no news.

I mailed them something about the danish championship 2 weeks ago, but no one noticed it i guess..

But it seems to be dead, sadly enough....

Well, vectrex, the admin is "kind of" (a lot) busy IRL atm. I'm packed with stuff too, and the most important guys, the writers, dont contribute atm. We'll see, what we can do about some sort of "relaunch"

I'm all for keeping news pages filled with actual news, but I can't say I'm all that fussed about seeing just race results - the league/club websites will already have those to check.

I think it'd be nice if there was some kind of up-to-date blog or something we could read and comment on. Something that any of the 3 guys could write in, telling us what they're doing or what they're thinking about.

Just so that we know what's going on and that they've not forgotten us

You can get the results elsewhere, but LFS News usually gives a little more insight into the events so it's not exactly the same thing, is it? Some of these reports are actually entertaining stuff IMO

Quote from Vykos69 :

Well, vectrex, the admin is "kind of" (a lot) busy IRL atm. I'm packed with stuff too, and the most important guys, the writers, dont contribute atm. We'll see, what we can do about some sort of "relaunch"

It doesn't really need a relaunch, it just needs admins who can control it better. If Vectrex is the only one primarily in control, and some things need to go through him... then that is kind of a one-man news resource if you think about it. It should really be a larger group of editors and admins if it was going to be a decent LFS news resource.

I've always wondered why the staff is so slow, and kind of figured Vectrex was the only head person running it

I think you're right Tweaker.If I remember correctly, when I was part of the editor team there were 3 chief editors (who were in charge of the general lfs-news).If 2 of them at least are busy with RL stuff it's going to have an effect on updates of course.

The race reports themselves are not interesting or relevant enough for the broad majority I think, so what you need is a steady stream of news on top of the race reports, league news, people joining teams and such.It worked quite well in the past, and I'm sure it could again.And I can't imagine it would be very hard finding additional people that would like to help out if Veccie and Vykos can't find the time for it atm

Ok, I'll cut in here and explain a bit...

The site is obviously quite dead/inactive now, I can't deny that.

To cut a long story short this is of course partly my fault, but there're also a few factors I can't control. One important factor is the appreciation from the visitors of all the work the newswriters put into writing articles, and this already began to go slightly downhill back when I removed the ability to post comments anonymously. Articles with almost no comments will seem like no-one care about/reads the articles, and is what I believe caused the drop of news activity in general. Another thing is that I can't/won't force people to post news/articles or comments for that matter. On top of that I started to get more and more inactive and had less time to keep up with all the good stuff going on.

As "the head person" of the site I know I maybe should've done some things differently, like for example getting new/more staff members long time ago.

About the "one-man news resource" thing I have to add this: I control the site yes, but since the start I've always given people access when they asked for it, or permission to post in another section if that was the case. Regarding preferences of admins and chief-editors, the only difference is that they can put news to top news, and admins can delete news.

The future?

Well, if there's anyone here who's willing to help updating the site, and have at least a little knowledge from doing similar things, you are more than welcome to join. I can setup email accounts to those wanting one, and forward news emails as well. I can also give more control to a selected group of people who can be trusted and control it properly (although it's not really that much more that can be controlled).

The "up-to-date blog" idea Dajmin mentions is a good idea I think, and kinda reminds me of RudiTurbo's hotlap news, which were quite popular back then. Any similar blog alike thing might be interesting for people to read, if there's anyone with interesting things to say.

On a final note I'd like apologize to those who have sent emails, and got no response in the past few months. It has been a busy summer...

Yeah I know how it is VecTreX.

I just was curious what might happen to LFS News because the only thing you could do is recruit some new admins that are willing to post articles, but most of all manage it. I don't think it would be hard to choose any new candidates, there are plenty of great people that could help with news on the site.

Since the last news post on LFS News, there has been quite a lot happening in leagues.... results for seasons coming soon, new seasons/leagues announced, etc. I would just suggest having people apply for an LFS News Editor or Staff position, it's the only thing to keep it alive. Because not a lot of people are visiting it anymore... and we can't keep coming back to the same news post for a month or more :o

Quote from VecTreX :

One important factor is the appreciation from the visitors of all the work the newswriters put into writing articles, and this already began to go slightly downhill back when I removed the ability to post comments anonymously. Articles with almost no comments will seem like no-one care about/reads the articles, and is what I believe caused the drop of news activity in general.

Yes it's a pity that you need to create an account to post now. I guess people just don't want to create yet another account, have their email in yet another database and have to remember another password and so on...

What was the problem with anonymous posting?

Were spam bots writing on the site? Could you get round that with a number authorisation like on this site? http://www.michael-please-stay-in-f1.com/

Or were people posting as someone else? Maybe you could have an optional login, where you don't need to give an email address, and that could stop other people posting in your name, but still allow anonymous posting with unregistered name?

Just suggestions, I'm not experienced with websites so I don't know if it would work, but I did notice the massive dropoff of comments and missed seeing them some time ago. I hope some people want to write at LFS News again because it's a nice site.

would be better if something could be done with Victor so the login tied in with you LFSW login details

Quote from nikimere :

would be better if something could be done with Victor so the login tied in with you LFSW login details

But that is a bit risky (no pun intended) because Scavier would be giving the user/password lists to 3rd party web site...?

Maybe the site could get more hits if it was somehow integrated with this forum?

Quote from Scawen :

Were spam bots writing on the site? Could you get round that with a number authorisation like on this site? http://www.michael-please-stay-in-f1.com/

Unfortunately captcha's, as they are known, aren't a very good option. Screen-readers cant understand them, which is unfortunately. Perhaps ironically a lot of blog / forum spamming software implements OCR technology to get around it, more often than not much better than a screen reader (see: http://sam.zoy.org/pwntcha/)

Real time block lists (akismet), word filters, url counts, referal ip filters, in combination all help by far more than captcha's these days. So there are solutions out there

I have to agree that LFS-news was a valued resource, and where possible I'll volunteer myself to assist and help out

Quote from Scawen :

What was the problem with anonymous posting?

People posting as someone else, spam(not bots) and some illegal stuff were the main reasons back then... It had come to a point where it happened very often and was quite annoying and misleading.

Quote from the_angry_angel :

... and where possible I'll volunteer myself to assist and help out

Sounds cool :cool: (check your PM)

Now that's a creative solution to spambots

Not even any news since July. There has been a lot going on since then. League champions, new leagues starting, big events, etc etc.

It is nice to see it all summarized in one site, but is anything going to happen? :o

Quote from Tweaker :

...but is anything going to happen? :o

I hope so, but a few people will need to write to Vectrex and volunteer as Admins or article writers. :up:

Quote from VecTreX :

Well, if there's anyone here who's willing to help updating the site, and have at least a little knowledge from doing similar things, you are more than welcome to join. I can setup email accounts to those wanting one, and forward news emails as well. I can also give more control to a selected group of people who can be trusted and control it properly (although it's not really that much more that can be controlled).

Well, what can I say... The queue of volunteers is quite empty atm.

I guess posting news/articles isn't the most attractive "job" these days, or maybe the site just needs to be updated to suit the needs of today.

Quote from Tweaker :

Not even any news since July. There has been a lot going on since then. League champions, new leagues starting, big events, etc etc.

I've actually thought about taking site down many times since then, exactly because of that, and because I don't like seeing the site "untouched" myself. But I always changed my mind and let it stay there, sort of acting as an archive rather than a news site, for those few who still browse the site.

I have no intention of closing the site at all, and things will probably change sooner or later. I have plenty of things I want to add or do to the site, and right now I just wish I had a button I could click, and my thoughts were converted to code (I guess Scawen would like the same sometimes). New content is of course needed, and I also want to get back at posting news again... When that time comes I don't know, but I hope soon.

Well for news reports of events and big 'happenings', I am sure anyone would be available to do that. I'd offer to do it even, since that isn't much of a hard job or anything. Writing long articles of a race, well they are nice to read, but not every one of them is necessary to have on LFS News imo. They could always have a good report on your site, or their own league site somewhere.

As long as there is some updates on what is going on with LFS and the community, you can just have small news reports that aren't too long, and the site will easily be active again. There are many new leagues, quite a few big events, and the onslaught of new patches/updates from the devs is really prevalent at the moment. What you need to do is have news that is exclusively on LFS News only, so that people will link the story to others, and expand its appeal to other simmers.

I'd hate to see the site go down myself because LFS's large community-connected sites are slowly going downhill right now if something isn't done. And in my opinion it just kills LFS and its exposure. I've hit myself many times over not getting LFS Files back up in time, but it is "time and money", and its relaunch is something I highly anticipate. So I can see where you are coming from with how you feel about wanting to change it or do something new. But all I can say is, it hurts LFS as a whole when sites like these aren't around or active

Just a quick note here to let you know I've made a news post on LFS News about getting new newswriters, and starting a potential community blog.

www.lfsnews.net

Check it out

A small update:

There are now 4 admins and 1 webmaster (being VecTrex) and together we're discussing options etc. behind the scenes.
All emails to LFS News will be forwarded to me (at least, not sure about the others) and for the time being there shouldn't be any delays to me reacting to them.

Please let your fellow racers know that LFS News will, hopefully, be back soon!

Thats great...

Here's a content suggestion.

How about a single, comprehensive and easy to view list of all forthcoming race events (say a month or so ahead of time) from all the various LFS leagues and competitions, including details of race times and whether or not non-participants are able to spectate? Each league or competition could send their information to LFS News, and everyone would know that LFSN is the place to check for all forthcoming events.

Sorry if this already exists somewhere, but I've been unable to find it if it does - and if it does, can someone tell me where I can find it!

Something similar to BBC Sport's football website? With the football teams being racingteams and Premiership, SPL etc. being the leagues.

We would have to discuss it with the main man, but I like the idea!