Where being professional counts...
 

Maybe it's just me, but the news update for Spawn seems in a way ... lazy. I don't think that's the case, but I think it could have been done much better.

You will never see a newspaper or any other source for news publish an interview instead of an article. A proper article should be written, with quotations from the interview.

There are also a lot of spelling and grammatical errors, as well as some unprofessional things.

• "A few days ago, Nat had an interview with Mog about Spawn, here's how it went." Who is Nat? Who is Mog? There should be a colon at the end, and you should say something like "here's a transcript of the interview".
• "hosted Playerworld of Spawn.", "What is your Staff position at Spawn?" Incorrect capitalization.
• "Considering the fact that I am banned everwhere else, I had nowhere to go except underdeveloped playerworlds and two of the hosted servers." Should we really be advertising banned players as some of the role models of Graal?
• "I would to say that the current state of what Spawn is at now, was mainly due to hard work and dedication." Incorrect grammar, this is why you should write an article and paraphrase what they say, or get permission to copyedit what they say.
• "Wich is the content?" This should have easily been caught by reading over the interview.
• "Yeah, I've played that =P." This just looks unprofessional, at the very least, one of the forum emoticons could have been used.
• "Thanks Alot" 'a lot' is two words, and it does not need to be capitalized like that.

I'm not trying to throw stones at the news team or Nataxo, or anyone else, but I think a level of professionalism should be expected in these news posts. I'm obsessive about this kind of thing though, so it could just be me, but I have a feeling other people probably feel the same way. If I was trying Graal out for the first time, and I looked at that entry, I probably would have closed the game.

Using "alot" used to net anyone in one of my English classes an automatic "E". We learned that it was two separate words fast.

Who is chris vimes?

The OP's name.

And let's just make it so news posts have to go through the PWA ;)

'certianly', 'Intresting'

Not a fan of the interview either but when it comes to professionalism and Graal, news is not the biggest issue ever.

Have you looked at Graal lately?

Have you looked at Graal lately?

Do you think it is 'professional' to put pictures of your character in the news posts?

Ha. I remember my English teacher stopping the class half way through the year and writing "A LOT" on the board and talking for about 5 minutes how it is two seperate words >_<

I was more frustrated with the absurd length of the entry with absolutely no title or hierarchal formating. Not sure who approved it for the news feed, but I'd say they were half asleep.

Spawn sucks

Same, if you used it more then once in a paper the teacher started taking points off of other papers even.

but I agree, I know that there is the News Admin team, but I thought Cyan3 was supposed to check over Nat's posts because she is mexican and doesn't know as much english grammar as other people.

Nataxo shouldn't have been added to the team, over and out.

Blame affirmative action

If you really did read over your sentences you would have found out that using "thought" there doesn't make any sense.

Or you just suck

I'm really sorry and will take more steps in the future to check the news articles before they get released on the login server and hopefully prevent this issue from happening again.

Alright, I've spoken to Nataxo and she has agreed to get at least 2 people to proof read the news before it goes on the graal bible resolving this problem in the future. Again I'm really sorry and will try harder to prevent it.

I'd approve of those two people first if I were you

I'd suggest kia and Masa but I doubt if masa or Kia would do it.

Currently the 2 people is me and the person the news is written for.

Actually, I've been helping Nataxo with her grammar on all of her articles since she started. This is the only time where I wasn't online to assist her with it, so she went ahead and posted it because she wanted to try something new. Feel free to post out any grammatical errors in the articles prior to this one, but if you've got time to sit and deliberate about my grammar, then maybe you should be focusing your efforts on writing news (hell, maybe even logging onto servers) outside of Graal Kingdoms.

I'm not really sure what he's ranting about. The majority of posters are Era players, including the OP.

Are the majority of posters News Administrators too?

Usually I also proof read Nataxo's articles when they are on the graal bible but for this article in question I didn't get a chance to proof read. I've not said anything about your grammar nor am I going to. The reason I'm responding to this thread is to say sorry and to suggest improvements that could be made by the news team as a whole to provide a better service for the graalonline community.

If anyone has any suggestions on how we can improve please send me or Nataxo a forum pm we'd be happy to read them.

As for Graal Kingdoms I have strong commitments with the server taken up most of my time on graal when I'm not focusing on news duties.

Maybe you should be the News Administrator Asst. then, instead of some 11 years old kid without subscription

No, but the majority of them can probably write a decent article without needing you to hold their hand




You can hold mine if you want to though

As long as Nataxo's grammar is improving, as she seems to be an intelligent girl, I see no problems.

I appreciate Nataxo, and maybe she has been preoccupied, but her last activities show she was viewing the forums. Rufus, why are you responding for Nataxo when she is perfectly capable of responding herself?

she hasn't proven herself capable yet in this thread which is odd considering she's been online and posting frequently since the day the thread was made.

Oh so it's bitterness then. Like it or not though, Nataxo got the position of Assistant News Administrator and it was known from the start that she's not great with her grammar. Aside from this one article, she has had a nice set of articles and no one complained then. No one seemed to point out that Cyan3 only posts news about Graal Kingdoms, even though he completely ignores that there's actually other servers out there. No one seemed to complain that our newly appointed graphic artist is blatantly sticking himself in everything he's made so far either. It's apparent what this actually is, and it's certainly not an intervention.

She's not going to get fired, so if you want professionalism then maybe the most useful thing to do would be to assist her, or at least push her into a more 'suitable' direction. I wasn't bothered when fixing her articles, nor was I bothered reading this unedited interview. What does bother me is that she is getting jumped on by people who have just been waiting for her to slip up, and rather than helping her to perhaps progress in her weak areas, would rather sit and ***** about them, how she needs several people to read over her articles, and even stupid things like her age. If you think you'd be better in her position, you're hardly showing it with your bitter public fronts, and it is embarrassing to say the least.

How am I responding for Nataxo? I'm responding with my opinion. I wasn't aware we all had to bash her in order to contribute to this thread.

It's rare to find such an enthusiastic person on Graal who wants to work because they feel they are making a difference -- helping, rather than for the power/fame(lol). Nataxo is one of those rare people, I don't think she gets much publicity for it(I don't see her name of the articles). I didn't exactly agree with her getting the job in the first place because of her grammar, but she more than makes up for it with her enthusiasm and effort. Most of the time apparently she gets it proofread, so what's the BIG problem? It certainly hasn't been one up until now.

More importantly, Graal was worse off before she got the job, because not only were the news articles in worse quality, but it was rare for news to even be posted! Come on people, lighten up. I see no reason to discourage one of the few people who are just trying to help.

Maybe she should just quote all of you and post a picture of 'Troll Spray'. Seems to have worked so well for you.

Nataxo has read this thread, I already spoke to her today. I volunteered (to Felix; forgot to mention it to her) to help look over her articles as well.

Yeah, sorry about that, though I haven't done a whole lot really... only the thing about Spawn, which did have me in it, and I apologize for that.

The only other thing I made was this...

http://graal.net/images/3/3c/Gknewsmay302009.png

The rest was done before that for Era.

I'm not bitter at all, and your concerns are misplaced. I respect Nataxo, and I wish her the best of luck. Chris seems quite involved, but that doesn't seem to be a problem. I don't want to see Nataxo fired, and it is obvious you believe I feel differently. I've told Nataxo if she needs help I am willing to help her, so I obviously have offered to assist her. As was seen in this post, I've defended Nataxo by explaining how to use features of the Graal Bible to be sure which users submitted news articles.

If I have time, I check articles or pages and if I see something wrong, I fix it or notify the appropriate person. For example Cyan had a link that was wrong in his profile and I pointed it out to him. However, I am quite busy with Zone, much like you are developing Bomy Island.

It seems obvious that you think I still have an interest in the position, but this is not true. I am devoted to Zone, and I don't have the time to be gallivanting on other servers finding information for news articles for servers other than Zone.

To be honest, the way I feel about it is that the global news admins should be working with server managers to have staff posting news on Graal.net, as the global news admins (Cyan and Nataxo) should not need to post an article each week for each classic server.

I believe their focus should be on improving Graal Bible articles, as I believe that is part of the global news admin position. I also believe the global news admins should be working to encourage server staff to participate in submitting news for the login screen. That is the beauty of the Graal Bible, anyone can submit news. It doesn't take a fancy title to submit news, it just takes dedication.

Alright, yes I've been reading this thread since a few days ago, but really Felix mentioned everything that I wanted to say. I'm sorry and now that I read some constructive-criticism comments from certian people I've realized how I can improve my articles. (thx)

As for my grammar, I think with the help I've got I'm able to improve even though it's not my strong point :).

Sure, at first I also lol'd when Nataxo was announced Asst. News Admin, but her enthusiasm and will makes her the right person for the job. She actually explores Graal and tries to create articles to share with the rest of us. She isn't in it for the power or fame, she's just in it because she has fun doing what she does. So one article had poor grammar, big ****ing deal? So far she has been doing fine and has been receiving help from members of the community.

She's actually present on other servers and tries to interact with the community, the same can't be said about others involved with the Graal news.

Maybe you should stop trolling every single time you post and actually try to be useful for once.

Haha you were singing a completely different tune when she was hired. So Rufus can't defend a friend?

It's ok, she's proven herself capable by actually doing her god damn job and doing it well. She doesn't have to prove anything to anyone in this thread, her job is to post news and that's what she's been joyfully doing.

I enjoy your enthusiasm. I am sure that if you work hard at it, and listen to the constructive criticism, and advice, you will do fine.

For me, Graal is a great place for developing skills, whether it be personal or constructive. I believe that's what Nataxo is doing and she's doing it well.