34 replies to this topic

[devilhunter]

Hello everybody.

Our system has increased in size and features considerably since the upgrade to version 3, and we're looking for a few people among the community that have some spare time and interest to help us out in a few departments.
We are looking for some Authors for our Front Page.
Our Front Page is the main page that people see when they visit us, and it gets thousands of views each month.
Currently it's a bit empty there, so we would like to populate it a bit more.


If you have time and like to write some things, we would like to cover the following things on our Front Page :
- mac gaming and upcoming games for OSX
- porting and current Hot Ports
- Wine, Cider and related Software (like CrossOver updates or new Wine builds)
- or some mini reviews related to gaming hardware/peripherals/software (iMac/Joystick/Gaming Mouse/Monitor/etc...)

You can reply here if you are interested and we'll sort something out.


The current requirements for a Front Page Author are:
- English Language required.
If you are a native English speaker or you were/are good in English Classes in School, you'll do fine.
- Articles have to be written by yourself.
No copy/paste from Wikipedia/other Review/News sites (except Quotes from the original Articles)
- Articles have to be original and at least similar to this structure. (article with pictures)
Good readable Paragraphs, some pictures/banners, not just a single chunk of text.
- some minor photoshop/pixelmator knowledge.
For editing the photos/pictures/icons/banners necessary for your article.
- some spare time and will to help out
- and the guts to do this regularly!


You should write at least 1 Article every Week ( or perhaps 1 in 2 weeks if we get more Authors, more Authors make it easier for everybody )
That effectively means, you sit down for one or two hours once in a Week and write something up. Nothing else is required, only if you want to do more on your Part


If you are an Author/Editor for another Blog/Site, you can write a bit for us too, and we'll drop a line to your Website in your Articles.
So again, we're not just looking for only 1 Author, we're looking o build an entire Team of it.
Front Page Authors here will get a custom Rank.

So if you'd like to try your Hand at writing, feel free to drop us a line here (or make your first Article with one of the topics mentioned above, that would be even better )
If you don't know how to write these articles, you can look how other News Sites do this, a good Example of a review would be Arstechnica.



-dev

[Demondays1]

Ok, I read the requirements, it looks good! I will write 1 article a week, maybe more if I have the time Now is there going to be like a random chooser or? I will try my best to get this spot and try my best to make articles. Wish everyone good luck and have a good time in this community!

[devilhunter]

Demondays1, on 20 April 2012 - 03:40 PM, said:

Ok, I read the requirements, it looks good! I will write 1 article a week, maybe more if I have the time Now is there going to be like a random chooser or? I will try my best to get this spot and try my best to make articles. Wish everyone good luck and have a good time in this community!

Splendid!
There will be no selected Article for this, each Author's Article (when there are more Authors) will be displayed on the Front Page. The more the merrier.
You can start making an Article when you have time, and then PM it to me.
We will then see how this fits best on the Front Page.

If this system works and Authors get some experience, Author Groups can be set up to directly submit to the front page.

[KGameLover1]

I'll do it!

[cluthz]

I can drop in an article from time to time.

I have no doubt we have many capable people here and this could be great, but we need a strict policy with quality control and such.
Maybe a similar section to the "Tutorial pages", let's call it f.ex "Articles" where the mods can import them to the front page.
This way you could already have articles in advance to swap into the front page every week, and articles that are good and yet not "Front Page"-material could be read by members.

[devilhunter]

cluthz, on 20 April 2012 - 07:16 PM, said:

I can drop in an article from time to time.

I have no doubt we have many capable people here and this could be great, but we need a strict policy with quality control and such.
Maybe a similar section to the "Tutorial pages", let's call it f.ex "Articles" where the mods can import them to the front page.
This way you could already have articles in advance to swap into the front page every week, and articles that are good and yet not "Front Page"-material could be read by members.

You're on a hot trail, mate.
We admins have a handy little button here on all posts that is called 'Promote to Article'
That would require another section where People can post these Articles however.
Lets see if this whole Idea works, and while we're at it go with a more or less strict template on how these Articles look like, then we'll go with the Article section.

@KGameLover1
same goes for you, write up something that covers the themes mentioned above and PM me when you got time.

Remember, these are not tutorials or how to's, just plain and simple Articles/reviews. If you guys are good at writing (which i am not unfortunately), these things will just flow out.

[KGameLover1]

I sent you my article.
I write professionally for a newspaper, but not about games, so it might be a little rough around the edges.

[DankoB]

Great idea....I'm also willing to screen articles dev. I've been meaning to sit down and do an article on the newest Wineskin release.

[Hrachya]

I'll enter. I think I will be done with my review tomorrow. I will drop a PM to Dev. Also, I found this link very useful for writing: http://deamer.wordpr...-great-reviews/

[cybershark]

interesting thing

If I find some time I pm you.

[devilhunter]

KGameLover1's Article is now up on the Front Page.
(formatted  a bit by me)

Articles by the community go by the Category: "Community Articles"

I went with "Upcoming Mac Release: Deus Ex - Human Revolution (Official Port)" as the title, because we would need to differ the official Ports with ours.
So that new users (or anybody else) does not confuse official Ports by Companies with ours from the Port Database when we post some 'Featured Ports'
But the "Upcoming Mac Release" does not fit quite well in the title.

If anybody has a good idea how the two titles should begin, drop a line here.

I was thinking about:
Featured Port: xyz... (for our Ports)
and
Official Port: xyz (for official releases)

But not all official Games that we would feature on the front page are 'Ports', some can even be original and not Ported.

[KGameLover1]

devilhunter, on 21 April 2012 - 03:06 PM, said:

KGameLover1's Article is now up on the Front Page.
(formatted  a bit by me)

Articles by the community go by the Category: "Community Articles"

I went with "Upcoming Mac Release: Deus Ex - Human Revolution (Official Port)" as the title, because we would need to differ the official Ports with ours.
So that new users (or anybody else) does not confuse official Ports by Companies with ours from the Port Database when we post some 'Featured Ports'
But the "Upcoming Mac Release" does not fit quite well in the title.

If anybody has a good idea how the two titles should begin, drop a line here.

I was thinking about:
Featured Port: xyz... (for our Ports)
and
Official Port: xyz (for official releases)

But not all official Games that we would feature on the front page are 'Ports', some can even be original and not Ported.

Yay!

Anyway, featured/official sounds about right.

[syao]

How about 'Official Release'?  The article text could then differentiate between ported and native releases.

[devilhunter]

syao, on 21 April 2012 - 05:22 PM, said:

How about 'Official Release'?  The article text could then differentiate between ported and native releases.

Was thinking about that too, but 'Official Release' seems a bit weird. This could look like it was released officially by us.

[hmtinc]

i think i have a  article for the front page... will send it to you Devilhunter

[moussaillon]

Btw it would be nice to add a "follow" button on the front page, as new articles will show up more frequently

[Demondays1]

devilhunter, on 20 April 2012 - 06:09 PM, said:

Splendid!
There will be no selected Article for this, each Author's Article (when there are more Authors) will be displayed on the Front Page. The more the merrier.
You can start making an Article when you have time, and then PM it to me.
We will then see how this fits best on the Front Page.

If this system works and Authors get some experience, Author Groups can be set up to directly submit to the front page.

Finally, came up with an article of the game I wanted to review.

Sent it to you in a PM!

[Hrachya]

Done. PM sent.

[devilhunter]

I've been pepping up the Front Page a bit for the community articles. (ribbons, categories, tags, etc.)

For the Articles, i'll be preparing a little system that won't result in chaos (own subcategory, News Team), and should help people get some quality articles out.

[devilhunter]

moussaillon, on 21 April 2012 - 10:32 PM, said:

Btw it would be nice to add a "follow" button on the front page, as new articles will show up more frequently

There is a Follow Button for this. Just not for the whole front page.
Click on a category on the right that interests you (like Community Articles), then click the follow button above.

[hmtinc]

devilhunter, on 22 April 2012 - 10:42 PM, said:

There is a Follow Button for this. Just not for the whole front page.
Click on a category on the right that interests you (like Community Articles), then click the follow button above.

devilhunter i sent you my article

[devilhunter]

hmtinc, on 22 April 2012 - 10:48 PM, said:

devilhunter i sent you my article

Yes i saw, thank you.
I think in general we should come up with a template for this kind of stuff.
I'll be setting something up this week or the next for this.

[BLACKNIGHT]

I try my hand @ an article is there a specific format???

[hmtinc]

devilhunter, on 22 April 2012 - 10:52 PM, said:

Yes i saw, thank you.
I think in general we should come up with a template for this kind of stuff.
I'll be setting something up this week or the next for this.

so do i have to re write the article to a certain format ?

[wMin17]

Although, I don't use photoshop much, I recently took the introduction course and I take Advanced Writing in school (an extra course that requires a teacher recommendation and signature).  I can drop in an article time to time

[arrianj]

I would like to join the writing team if possible. I have a strong mastery of the English language and its grammar, and I have previous experience in writing reviews, from a previous news site I ran by myself. I am able to write well thought out articles, with in-depth analyses and  opinions. I am very familiar with digital photo manipulation, namely with Photoshop CS5 and CS6. Feel free to message me for more details or questions.

[waves]

Topic BUMP

I am now looking for authors again for the Front Page.

We should be able to update the thing at least weekly or bi-weekly.

For those interested please talk with me about it on our irc channel or Private message.

Cheers

[loco]

Minor bump:

We also have our Facebook page, accessible via: http://www.facebook.com/PortingTeam

Want to reach out to our members? Want to help the Porting Team grow?
We currently have over 700 fans on Facebook, and this has the potential to grow much more.

I'm looking for people interested in engaging our Facebook fans by posting on the page regularly, with relevant content from this forum. This can be anything from occasional questions (Favourite Mac game etc), to posting hot topics from the forum with a link back, and anything else relevant to the Porting Team. Promote activity on the page, drive traffic back to the Porting Team.

To qualify, you need either of these two:

• Be a member of the administrative team (admins & moderators).
  
• Have a post count of 500+ and a clean reputation.

Send me a PM if you're interested.

[Skylarzz]

Hi...Wow...just browsing through literally every forum topic ever....I would love to help you guys out on Front Page Articles, if any positions are open lemme know and I'll PM a quickie of how I write and hopefully, just hopefully I could help out

[cluthz]

We would love to get more content to put on the front page.
Having a team doing articles didn't really work out, but members can submit articles here:
http://portingteam.c...icles-drop-box/

If you have an article just post it there!
It will go thru a little validation/editing, where you are included, before it's posted on the front page.

If someone manages to produce some high quality articles I'm pretty sure we'll make a new author team!