So, I have recently noticed a flood of short news articles being published in quick succession. While I'm sure some readers are enjoying them, the flood has unfortunately overtaken editorial and review articles, pushing them off of the front page sometimes in a matter of 2 to 3 days.
The result is that people who tend to check the website for thought/editorial articles once a week may have missed a good number of them. Not to mention that having them off the front page so quickly may also discourage authors from putting in the time to write them in the first place.
On the other hand, I understand the need to publish the news articles while they happen, for they need to be read while they are still relevant. And I'm sure there's a good section of the userbase who enjoy keeping up with what's happening outside of Films & Dramas. So getting rid of the news article is not really the solution.
So an idea could be creating a section dedicated to them, apart from the editorial articles section. To drive traffic to that section, you could create a separate banner for only those articles on the front page, which can and should rotate quickly.
Another idea would be to move the section to the feeds (perhaps a specialized section within that page), and have users subscribe to if they are interested in the content.
Just my two cents!
Addendrum:
@Moonchild and I had an interesting discussion regarding the value of speculative articles, which are a big part of the flood of published bite-sized "news". So since both issues are related, I'm adding a link to her suggestion as well: https://kisskh.at/discussions/suggestions/59579-filtering-out-articles-about-role-offers-to-actors-actresses
If you can, check it out and vote for that as well.
I'm an upcoming article writer myself so it kind of gets rid of my motivation to write because not many people will be able to view it before it disappears from the front page.Hwayi:
Exactly my thoughts in regards to this issue. I have since stopped working on articles I have been planning and organizing since months ago because the last article didn't even last a week (but I spent a year just collecting the data for it). And that was before the news started being published every couple of hours, so I can just imagine the frustration of recently published writers.
Of course, news is always important but for me personally, I like to read editorials, reviews, etc. If I really wanted to see the news, I can go to soompi to view it because most of the news articles written on MDL are of Korean news.
I'm of the same mind. I would rather the content be opt-in, so if I don't really care about it, I could simply not subscribe to it.
I'll find it out eventually anyway when I possibly see the drama on MDL, read the description, and maybe add it to my list. I don't need to know beforehand, especially if cast changes are made later anyway.NoirRoseHeart:
That's my take on it as well. While news about production details may be interesting to me, news about "Actor A" got offered a role in "Drama B" seem more like a tweet than an article to me (and not at all interesting).
Currently most of the articles are just short translations/paraphrasing of the source which is usually a Naver article at most taking a day to write (since they are usually published on MDL a day later than the Naver article).Luna Skylar:
Indeed, I think that like magazines and/or online newspapers, a way to section the articles would bring some order to what's happening. Precisely because these bite-sized news articles aren't unique to MDL (but they are taken from a source and simply re-published or shared) they could just be given a side-banner. Or, again, a specialized section in the feeds users could subscribe to.
I still believe that the big, front banner should be reserved for editorial/review articles since those are unique to MDL. Meaning, they have been written with the MDL userbase in mind. The effort taken to write an article should be reflected in the way they are handled by the website, even more so since MDL authors do this for the love of it (we aren't paid, even if writing is a job in and of itself).
Honestly, one of the feature that got me hooked on MDL and become a regular user is the Editorial Articles. I used to go there everyday -before i discover feeds- just to see if there are new articles which I can get insights and recommendations from.ocean:
Exactly, it was the same for me as well. And it was reading those articles that inspire me to write for MDL as well. I thought that an article a day was a sweet-spot since it allowed that article to stay in the limelight for a week, lending it weight. Alas, that is not the situation now, which is quite sad.
It is also a shame that the Articles in which the writer has put so much effort, time, energy, are easily burried by articles which might be copied/translated from news sites.
And it is this sentiment (that the effort is being wasted) that will dissuade people from writing more in-depth articles. At least, it has with me. I had a series ("Motifs in K-Dramas") planned in a similar vein to my "Popular Visual Cues in K-Dramas" which I'm putting on hold for now precisely because I don't think it's currently worth the time investment in an article that will be pushed off the front page in a matter of days (if not hours, at the rate we're going!).
please also post your voting link in these two subsections in Forum for writersCho Na:
Sure, although feel free to share the link anywhere you'd like. I kid you not, I thought of you when I was writing this suggestion. I thought that at the rate things were going, we'd need Cho Na to do a gem compilation per month, lol! Oh, and yes, I barely use the feeds as well but I figured that was a good place as any to share the link. I'll post the link to the forums you suggested tomorrow :).
I've always loved MDL editorials ever since I found this site, so to see them overtaken by all those news stuff is really jarring, to say the least. (I can't imagine how it feels for people like you, who actually write a lot of the editorials.)kura2ninja:
Thank you for adding your vote! Indeed, I was lucky enough that my last article at least lasted around 4 or 5 days in the rotating banner (though it was pushed off the first spot hours after it was published). However, this week has been insane with an article posted every few hours. I feel for the authors that took time to think, organize & write their articles (as well as the editors who took care to get rid of any pesky grammatical mistakes or pitch in ideas to elevate the work) only for the said piece to live a few days before being swept away.
Skye-N-Rain:
Voted. This is something we have been working on. Both news pieces and editorials that writers have spent many, many hours coming up with have a place on MDL and our solution will reflect that.
Thank you for dropping by, @Skye-N-Rain. It's really encouraging to read that there's a planned solution to have editorials and news co-exist rather than compete in MDL. I look forward to seeing the execution of your vision. :)
