Another incentive for new members

[Head_Monkey]

I had a thought as to how to motivate these new members who want something for nothing...

As some of you may or may not know, this site has a front page http://www.newsgab.com/ . And on this page there are news stories, written my members. And I know that most of you never visit the front page, cause if you did, you would have read my article errr rant and left me lots of positive comments...

So here's the thought:

A new member writes 1 article for the front page. It gets approved and posted by the blog team / mod team / whoever gets the job, and they get full access to the site!

I added the "approved" bit to avoid the standard noob coming along, posting a one liner of nonsense, then getting full access to the booty.

Seriously, writing an article is not THAT hard. All you need is a topic, an opinion, yer favourite addictive beverage, and a spare 5 minutes to bang something together. For some, it will give much needed rest to the celeb pics forum and yer forearms...

Thoughts???

[Xray]

Sounds good. I never look at the front page, but that sounds like a good idea.

[Zen_ish]

It's a good idea but I think it might be a little extravagant for the common drooler that is looking for some T&A. Don't forget that 50% of the population is below average intelligence.
Unless of course that was your whole idea... (to cull the herd)

[Head_Monkey]

It's a good idea but I think it might be a little extravagant for the common drooler that is looking for some T&A. Don't forget that 50% of the population is below average intelligence.
Unless of course that was your whole idea... (to cull the herd)

You seem to forget that this is a NEWS related site. And people should be rewarded for contributing to the news content, and not the T&A content...

Besides, encouraging people to use their brain may help to reduce the "below average intelligence" you say we have here...

As for the herd... them safety labels are the key...

[fadeout001]

I think it is a good idea in theory but I don't think they should have permanent access or true full access. I think we could do that as a trial where if they did contribute a worthwhile article, rant, opinion, whatever you want to call it they could have 1 or 2 days of free access to the NSFW area but I would leave out the Explict and vids section. As it stands any who would do this would be the leechers on the site which means if they were given access we would most likely never hear from them or see them make any posts. Also for any temporary access given they would most likely take whatever they could before the time ran out and we would never hear from them or see them again. This would mean we would get an influx of articles but then the site would die off as people have no more reason to contribute anything since they now have access to the items they really wanted.

I can see how the idea behind it would be to try and improve membership and/or contributions but really it would just allow people to leech off the site easier and it would come with the added problem that people may plagiarize other peoples work in order to gain access. I just don't see it helping out the community in the long run.

[Head_Monkey]

I think it is a good idea in theory but I don't think they should have permanent access or true full access. I think we could do that as a trial where if they did contribute a worthwhile article, rant, opinion, whatever you want to call it they could have 1 or 2 days of free access to the NSFW area but I would leave out the Explict and vids section. As it stands any who would do this would be the leechers on the site which means if they were given access we would most likely never hear from them or see them make any posts. Also for any temporary access given they would most likely take whatever they could before the time ran out and we would never hear from them or see them again. This would mean we would get an influx of articles but then the site would die off as people have no more reason to contribute anything since they now have access to the items they really wanted.

I can see how the idea behind it would be to try and improve membership and/or contributions but really it would just allow people to leech off the site easier and it would come with the added problem that people may plagiarize other peoples work in order to gain access. I just don't see it helping out the community in the long run.

I agree with the limited access bit, but I'm not sure if this can be implemented board wise.

As for ripping off other peoples work, the media do it all the time, so why can't we??? But seriously, we need to get more people posting news and opinions, otherwise the site will turn in to another T&A site, and that's not what the boss wants... So if in the beginning, a few "almost identical" posts get thru, so be it. Besides, it would only give them temporary full access, which would buy us some time to check out their posts.

[fadeout001]

Yeah I wasn't even really sure if we would care about plagiarism or not but the fact remains some people would just copy and paste an article written by someone else and try and pass it off as their own just to gain access. I would say if this did get implemented they contribute one and it gets checked out by who ever gets the job before they gain access. If it is found to be pretty much a copy and paste I would say they don't get access.

If they copy and pasted a news article though then it should be a requirement that they write out their own personal feeling about the subject and that way we could add it into the current news section or wherever it needed to be put that way we could have something that could potentially generate discussions.

[Shaft]

How do I write a story on the frontpage?

[computer2slow]

Write an original story and submit it to chief.

[fadeout001]

How do I write a story on the frontpage?

C2S answered the question but if you are going to write a story in hopes of getting access you should know that this will not be the case unless Chief decides to implement this. This was started as a way of discussing this issue and has not been applied yet. Writing one will show some dedication to the site but as of right now will not earn you any further access than what you have now.

[Shaft]

ok thanx guys. I have a good idea of what to write.

[Head_Monkey]

ok thanx guys. I have a good idea of what to write.

The first step is to PM Chief and ask to be added to the Bloggers group. Once that has happened, you will eb given access to the Bloggers forum which will give you a run-down on posting on the front page.

Also, you will need to write your OWN articles. I've checked out a few of your posts / comments, and they are "copy and paste" efforts from other sites. While this may work to get topics started, you really need to express your own opinion to get anywhere on this site.

Over to you...

[slacubflax]

How about adding the Attachments button to the Quick Reply box ?
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[Chief]

How about adding the Attachments button to the Quick Reply box ?

We'll soon be updating to version 4.0 of our forum software soon mate so will look to add a number of mods following the upgrade.

Cheers

Chief