Newshub 2.0 is Here!

@Femboy Do you have tools (like Google Analytics I guess) to see any in- and out-going events for that page?

How many people actually look at the news hub each day/week and are reading stuff there?

Some thoughts on that news hub:

At the moment, it feels more like a dedicated page to promote random links, not a classic news section where I can read it like a newspaper and comment on it, which I would expect with such a name. It acts more like a starting/home page for people who have just installed FAF and do not know how to change the default tab to Play.

I know this is mostly because of the missing resources of a dedicated Volunteer for creating news, but nevertheless the limitation of 200 chars for the news content (=fancy link description) makes it not easy to write an actually interesting article.

IMHO People just shift directly into the forum, discord or popular YouTube channels for any recent news to read, and in the end they can even interact with it.

The value for the click is too little on that page, that someone would look frequently at the news hub - Even with all the great work that was spent on that design, with all the other channels it will always fall behind.

Maybe it needs a different approach, like a very big news article every season with current growing stats about FAF (played games, amount of registered players), news from the moderation team (how many processed reports, etc), any open position to fill, results of the seasons and tournaments. Mixed in with some hot YouTube stuff.

And in the meantime, there will be a pinned thread for the last big article in its own sub-forum where people can interact. I have seen similar stuff on Reddit for TV series where people talk after watching it. (like a Post-Episode Discussion, example: Post-News #32 Discussion in our case)

I forgot there was a news page, I just look at the forums. Now that I look at the news page I see it has no news on it, even though there is a tournament tomorrow.

@thomashiatt said in Newshub 2.0 is Here!:

I forgot there was a news page, I just look at the forums. Now that I look at the news page I see it has no news on it, even though there is a tournament tomorrow.

https://forum.faforever.com/topic/4999/newshub-needs-help-volunteer-position

@magge the links arent random (don't really know how would you think they are random) they are recent casts or forum posts or other helpful links for new players or just resources

I agree with you, its more of a home page. However, since the client lacks a home page of sorts, the newshub has always been sort of that. A re-do would be a plus but right now I'm more focused on finishing the new website and right now just maintaining the newshub functional.

If there is not enough manpower to copy paste things from the forum to the news page, then perhaps the news page doesn't need to exist and the forum can just be put there in a tab on the client. Everyone could easily check the news or tournament subforums and get things directly from the source and not be mislead by a lack of new news.

Making the front page of the client the forum would probably cut the number of active players (or at least the ones who have the client set to open to the news page) in half.

I for one like the snazzy news page, even though it's not always up to date.

@femboy said in Newshub 2.0 is Here!:

don't really know how would you think they are random

The word 'News' implicated for my understanding a main focus on well and long written articles, short announcements or crisp information, but most links and sections are pointing to non-related news stuff aka resources which feels random or misplaced to me in that tab.

I had no offending meaning. Sorry if it might have looked in that way. I know that for many of my random points you are not responsible for, was just brainstorming about the news hub in general to see what other people think about. I could be wrong as well and all was just a senior moment.

@magge dont worries, you didnt say anything even remotely rude. Feedback is always appreciated to do a better job.

I agree, it is random from the perspective of it just being News, but it acts more akin to a homepage. So it should be seen as the Home page of the client over a news page, maybe the client should rename it to "Home" instead so its less confusing.

Every new forum topic should be moved to word press API and mixed up with week long news. Week long news are boring, I want new content every launch.

@eternal that sounds pretty awful. Imagine opening the client and seeing "can't open FAF" or "I had error" as news xdxd. You need some sort of manual filtering or the bad stuff will come up