SC2SEA.com - Starcraft 2 SEA eSports Community Site

**TheGentleman** · Sat, 21st-Jul-2012, 11:31 AM

For all intents and purposes this forum is an Etch-a-Sketch for the news writers.

Journalists (as I will now call you) have the ability to post in this forum and create articles. Here you can draft your "news reports" and after they have been proofed I will move them to the "Latest News" area on the front page of this site.

Welcome!

Updated: Current Specialisation:

It's become apparent to me that having specialisations hasn't really worked thus far with everyone just reporting whatever news is out regardless of whether it was their speciality or not. So for the most part I've removed specialisations... just post whatever is news when you can

. In addition I've added a new column called "Commitments" where I mention particular articles you have committed yourself to releasing on a regular basis. You are still expected to meet the minimum of 2 (ideally 4 or more) articles per month.

News Team "Dead Poets Society"	Commitments	Specialty
breadfan
dingobloo
MezjE	Roster Review (Fortnightly*)
Mox	Roster Review (Fortnightly*)
Rogue		NZ News
Switch
TheGentleman (c)	SC2SEA Wrap up (Monthly)	Organisation of News Team
ZizLah

* The Roster Review is a fortnightly report. Either MezjE or Mox may do it just as long as it gets done. Teamwork yay!!

New: News Team Statistics:

+ [2012 - July] +

New: Where to get news:

Battle.net US: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/
Battle.net SEA: http://sea.battle.net/sc2/en/
Team Liquid: http://www.teamliquid.net/
GosuGamers: http://gosugamers.net/starcraft2/
ESFI World: http://esfiworld.com/news/sc2

The purpose of this forum

A draft area to play around before your product is polished and ready to go.
Unsure? Need someone to proofread for you? Thats what this forum is for!
To prevent duplication - If you want to write an article, I feel its best to "shotgun" it by creating the topic here then posting it then editing in content later. So when other journalist come to the forums they can see what is already being worked on.
After demonstrating ability writers will be given direct news posting permission, but feel free to continue to use this forum for draft purposes.

Aim of news posts

To bring news to people quickly in a concise, interesting and well written way.
Each news post should take less than 15 mins to do.
It should be a concise wrap up that has links to sources and more information.
Much like the WCG post i did here http://www.sc2sea.com/showthread.php?t=5352
Most of the time there is no need for battle reports or detailed analysis.
People want to read information fast, and also pretty pictures help enhance the reading experience, so use at least one (and credit appropriately)!

DRAFT and READY messages:

PLEASE READ THIS!!

I would like to request that all members of this society put the word "DRAFT" at the top of all articles they are working on and I will ignore these until you change the word to "READY" indicating that they have been completed. These articles will subsequently be proofed for spelling errors, accurate links, references, etcetera etcetera before being moved to the "Latest News" forum where your work will be admired by all. Thanks

Formatting:

Guide formating your posts: http://www.sc2sea.com/showthread.php?t=2720

Moved: Team Meetings:

+ [show] +

Team Meeting 1.
When: 21st of August 2012 at 8:00PM AEST.
Location: Skype.
Duration: 31 minutes and 47 seconds.
Audio: OGG (26.9MB) and MP3 (29.1MB) (Available upon request).

+ [Also a YouTube link for Audio:] +

+ [Meeting Minutes] +

Participants:

breadfan
dingobloo
Loach
MezjE
Mox
nirvAnA
Rogue
TheGentleman

Topics discussed:

Performance.
Autonomy and expectations.
TheGentleman's StarCraft news team analogy.
Article types and examples.

Performance:

Not everyone is reaching the bare minimum requirements.
Minimum requirements are at least 2 articles a month.
Consequences do exist for those not holding their weight the worst of which would be exclusion from the news team.
Ideally 1 article a week per person resulting in about 7 articles a week.
Keep me informed. The SC2SEA News Team is a commitment and it is your responsibility to ensure that you're doing what is expected of you. Occasionally life gets in the way and it cannot always be helped but if I know that you're preoccupied then the team is not waiting on you to do something that inevitably won't end up getting done.

Autonomy:

Ideally you should all be able to work on your own accord. TheGentleman should not need to specifically assign individual news items to each member of the team. Part of your job is to keep an eye on the news yourself and report what you see, especially if it is your speciality.
Getting the news on SC2SEA while it is still new news is important.
Don't feel limited to your speciality. Most of the specialities cross over in one way or another for example the ACL is not only SEA News but also Tournament news so if you see news pop up and no one is covering it feel free to cover it yourself.
Keep an eye on the dead poets society forum for topics which people have already claimed.
Occasionally people from outside of the news team who are unaware of the dead poets society forum will post news and even if you have claimed the topic there's not much you can do about that.

Link at 8:55: http://www.sc2sea.com/showthread.php?t=5364 (welcome thread for old specialities).

News Team "Dead Poets Society"	Specialty
breadfan	Tournaments.
dingobloo	SEA News (also Tournaments)
Loach	World News (also Tournaments)
MezjE	Transfers.
Mox	SEA Pros and Profiling.
Rogue	NZ News.
TheGentleman (c)	All, Recaps, Organisation.

TheGentleman's StarCraft news team analogy:

"You can think of me as an overloard and you guys as my zerglings. I won't be attacking so I don't expect you guys to do that but I'm more than happy to sac myself scouting so I do expect you to do that. Zerglings can attack though so if you want to go well and truly beyond what I expect then feel free to go for your life" - TheGentleman

Article types and examples:

3 types of articles; long, medium and small.
Example of a long article: SC2SEA Wrap Up or a review of a major tournament. Long articles generally take a while to create due to editing, research and their lengthy size.
Long articles are generally writing team territory.
Because our goal is to release the news as soon as possible we're aiming for medium and small articles.
Medium articles should take roughly 15 minutes to make.
Small articles should take around 5 minutes to make.
Gosu Gamers (http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft2/) and Team Liquid (http://www.teamliquid.net/) are excellent sources of world news. Also keep an eye on StarCraft 2's main website as well (http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/ and http://sea.battle.net/sc2/en/).

Link at 22:03: http://www.sc2sea.com/showthread.php?t=5685 (small article example).
Link at 24:23: http://www.sc2sea.com/showthread.php?t=5680 (medium article example).

Small articles are generally just 1 paragraph and a quote or link to an external source where people can read more about it.
Medium articles are generally 3 or so paragraphs long have images, links, player flags and race icons. A bit more formatting than a small article but a lot less than a long article.

Questions:

Q: Is there an easy way to get to the Dead Poets Society forum?
A: Bookmark it (Since the meeting there is now a link under the SC2SEA search tool to the forum visible only by News Team members).

Thanks were had

**nirvAnA** · Sat, 21st-Jul-2012, 12:32 PM

welcome fellow dead poets!!!!!!

breadfan · Sat, 21st-Jul-2012, 1:23 PM

Glad to be here

MezjE · Sat, 21st-Jul-2012, 2:09 PM

Glad to be of service, I will do a draft post about roster switches etc tomorrow, as for now I have a formal to get ready for. SUIT UP!

Quick Comments

	nirvAnA:	go get em tiger/barney lol!
	breadfan:	have a blast man

Loach · Sat, 21st-Jul-2012, 2:28 PM

This is gonna be awesome (= and by the looks of things i'm gonna be working closely with mr BREADFAN! YEA!!!

**VoxMSI.Rogue** · Sat, 21st-Jul-2012, 3:53 PM

sup bitches ^_^

Mox · Sat, 21st-Jul-2012, 6:11 PM

Awesome! I'm really looking forward to this!

**TheGentleman** · Tue, 7th-Aug-2012, 8:39 AM

The first week of the new news team was rather successful with a number of articles being released... The same cannot be said for this week.

And so it has come to my attention that we need a plan.

THE PLAN!

Short term goal:

The plan is for me to set realistic goals that will act as the bare minimum I would expect of you. Specifically 1 posts per fortnight for a total minimum of 26 each over a year. Between the current 7 of us that's 182 articles... which isn't much but as I said... it's the minimum. I know that not every week you're not going to be able to meet the minimum expectations *that some weeks you'll release multiple articles and others not so many but this is OK with me, do what you need to but please meet the minimum posts I require each month.

As I stated in my first wrap up, achievements for quality poster of the month will not be exclusive to unknown members if our community and remember that it's also quality poster not quality post. That is to say many small items can and often are just as good as one large item. But of course you are all my journalists and the expectations I set above are minimums of what you should be aiming to achieve... so naturally you have to go beyond my expectations to achieve that achievement. Harsh I know but you're harshest on the ones you care about.

Long term goal:

The overall long term goal is for SC2SEA to become a major international and SEA region news hub. Ideally we would be releasing as much news as gosu gamers or team liquid but with a heavy SEA flavour.

News Articles:

News articles do not need to take much more than 20 minutes to prepare (depending on their complexity of course, e.g SC2SEA wrap up, roster review and interviews are obvious and notable exceptions to the rule). Simply put, if someone else has already written an article feel free just to make a news thread bringing the topic to attention, provide a picture, a brief summary and some links rather than rewrite it as an assignment like your high school English teacher would expect.

Meetings:

In one months time I will arrange a meeting for us all and we can discuss how we think "the plan" has gone and perhaps even come up with a better one.

Summary:

Please note that just because I provided a minimum does not mean you shouldn't go beyond what I've requested. I would greatly appreciate 1 or more articles per week from each of you but I didn't want to set an unrealistic starting goal.

I appreciate the time all of you are giving to help improve the overall quality if this website. If you have any questions feel free to ask away in either the dead poets Skype channel or to me directly via Skype.

So what is TheGentleman doing for the news team?

Life has been extremely busy over the past 3 weeks for me, suffice to say I've bitten more off than I can chew and don't even have time to play Starcraft atm. Despite this I am focused on using my spare time to prepare the fortnightly SC2SEA wrap up, manage the news team through posts like this one (which was written on the bus on my way to work) and also prepare some non-news related threads which are aimed towards helping improve your news articles.

**nirvAnA** · Tue, 7th-Aug-2012, 1:26 PM

1 posts per fortnight sounds very reasonable indeed!

I think if everyone covers their areas well then it will be automatic and there will be content flowing evenly from all areas. Apart from I guess the Major Areas

"mlg recaps" - breadfan
"transfers" - mezje
"sc2sea newsletters" - thegentleman

There should be minor news pieces which are updated more frequently. Maybe someone can be assigned to cover TL, someone gosugamers / reddit and we can just summarise / rewrite / post the best news from there + add some minimum original content.

breadfan · Mon, 20th-Aug-2012, 6:16 PM

Something I wanted to put on the table for the skype talk - over the past few weeks that uni has been picking up, I haven't been as active, however there are times I've planned to write an article to see it either already written, or someone has already made plans for it in skype. I'm happy to not do stuff if others are jumping at the chance to do them, it's just if we are talking minimums there has already been this situation where I have been trying to get stuff written with limited time, but am just not able to organise anything.

It might have been exacerbated by my trip to WCS as I haven't caught anyone on skype, but basically I'm just concerned with the current write about whatever approach if I have to meet this requirement between uni and work commitments. It's only a problem during exams, but with semester 1/3 over already that's pretty much all I have left.

**TheGentleman** · Wed, 22nd-Aug-2012, 12:45 PM

Team Meeting 1.
When: 21st of August 2012 at 8:00PM AEST.
Location: Skype.
Duration: 31 minutes and 47 seconds.
Audio: OGG (26.9MB) and MP3 (29.1MB) (Available upon request).

+ [Also a YouTube link for Audio:] +

+ [Meeting Minutes] +

Participants:

breadfan
dingobloo
Loach
MezjE
Mox
nirvAnA
Rogue
TheGentleman

Topics discussed:

Performance.
Autonomy and expectations.
TheGentleman's StarCraft news team analogy.
Article types and examples.

Performance:

Not everyone is reaching the bare minimum requirements.
Minimum requirements are at least 2 articles a month.
Consequences do exist for those not holding their weight the worst of which would be exclusion from the news team.
Ideally 1 article a week per person resulting in about 7 articles a week.
Keep me informed. The SC2SEA News Team is a commitment and it is your responsibility to ensure that you're doing what is expected of you. Occasionally life gets in the way and it cannot always be helped but if I know that you're preoccupied then the team is not waiting on you to do something that inevitably won't end up getting done.

Autonomy:

Ideally you should all be able to work on your own accord. TheGentleman should not need to specifically assign individual news items to each member of the team. Part of your job is to keep an eye on the news yourself and report what you see, especially if it is your speciality.
Getting the news on SC2SEA while it is still new news is important.
Don't feel limited to your speciality. Most of the specialities cross over in one way or another for example the ACL is not only SEA News but also Tournament news so if you see news pop up and no one is covering it feel free to cover it yourself.
Keep an eye on the dead poets society forum for topics which people have already claimed.
Occasionally people from outside of the news team who are unaware of the dead poets society forum will post news and even if you have claimed the topic there's not much you can do about that.

Link at 8:55: http://www.sc2sea.com/showthread.php?t=5364 (welcome thread for old specialities).

News Team "Dead Poets Society"	Specialty
breadfan	Tournaments.
dingobloo	SEA News (also Tournaments)
Loach	World News (also Tournaments)
MezjE	Transfers.
Mox	SEA Pros and Profiling.
Rogue	NZ News.
TheGentleman (c)	All, Recaps, Organisation.

TheGentleman's StarCraft news team analogy:

"You can think of me as an overloard and you guys as my zerglings. I won't be attacking so I don't expect you guys to do that but I'm more than happy to sac myself scouting so I do expect you to do that. Zerglings can attack though so if you want to go well and truly beyond what I expect then feel free to go for your life" - TheGentleman

Article types and examples:

3 types of articles; long, medium and small.
Example of a long article: SC2SEA Wrap Up or a review of a major tournament. Long articles generally take a while to create due to editing, research and their lengthy size.
Long articles are generally writing team territory.
Because our goal is to release the news as soon as possible we're aiming for medium and small articles.
Medium articles should take roughly 15 minutes to make.
Small articles should take around 5 minutes to make.
Gosu Gamers (http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft2/) and Team Liquid (http://www.teamliquid.net/) are excellent sources of world news. Also keep an eye on StarCraft 2's main website as well (http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/ and http://sea.battle.net/sc2/en/).

Link at 22:03: http://www.sc2sea.com/showthread.php?t=5685 (small article example).
Link at 24:23: http://www.sc2sea.com/showthread.php?t=5680 (medium article example).

Small articles are generally just 1 paragraph and a quote or link to an external source where people can read more about it.
Medium articles are generally 3 or so paragraphs long have images, links, player flags and race icons. A bit more formatting than a small article but a lot less than a long article.

Questions:

Q: Is there an easy way to get to the Dead Poets Society forum?
A: Bookmark it (Since the meeting there is now a link under the SC2SEA search tool to the forum visible only by News Team members).

Thanks were had

**nirvAnA** · Wed, 22nd-Aug-2012, 3:25 PM

Thanks for this really nice summary.

Something I wanna add in. Everyone here is a volunteer, like TheGentleman and Myself (the site loses money every month as a community site without the shop) as are all of you who set aside your time to help do community work for the benefit of the masses. So first of all, we really respect and appreciate everyone who has stepped in and decided to commit themselves to this role. We know you want to do your part and help improve and build the scene and in this role its through news coverage, promotion and exposure of eSports. With that being said, if we're doing it, lets do it well, which is kinda the basis for The Gentleman's first meeting. So although we may have seemed slightly strict / harsh please just take the best out of it.

I am loving the improvements to the news team this week, especially from the 3-4 of you (you know who you are). For the rest the only way from here is up, examples and expectations have been set and we hope to see good stuff in the future - so yea if we're doing it, lets do it in the best way we can.

Quick Comments

VoxMSI.Rogue:

<3

**TheGentleman** · Tue, 1st-Jan-2013, 3:39 PM

LOL NECRO IN THE DPS FORUMS... jks.

I just wanted to let you guys know the news team statistics for the second half of this year. I will now reset the statistics for this up and coming year. I thank you all for your effort as it has been a huge year and you are all amazing!!