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Lately I have felt the need to say this, so here goes...
Back in the good ol' day of World of Minecraft (Actually quite recently) when Lunick and the other popular staff members ran the show World of Minecraft was legendary. I must say, the posts that would appear on the front page were perfectly worded, the pictures suited the colour scheme/dimensions of the page, it looked pretty. The posts were entertaining, not always informative. It was not boring.
I don't know who was managing the posts that appear on the front page at that time, but it seems they had the tinest bit of knowledge in the field of marketing, as opposed to whoever is running the show now. I love World of Minecraft (Well, I did) it is one of my favourite servers (Well, it was) which is why I don't want to see this happen. There are so many spelling/grammatical mistakes on the front page and I find that pathetic. Considering it actually costs money to run a website like this, you guys should actually care about your image and how others see you. You obviously don't, or you do, but you have no idea what you're doing. Even if the spelling/grammar was perfect, the nature of the posts is boring. Nobody wants to read constant posts about how the "server is back up" and about how "we are putting in this new feature" people want entertainment. That's what Minecraft is, a video game, it is a form of entertainment.
I remember when Lunick randomly made posts such as "Realms to watch". This was in the time of World of Minecraft: Realms. Since then, so many important people have left and I must say this community has gone downhill and it hasn't stopped going downhill. I am trying to help, I'm asking the staff to pull their fingers out and do something about this because I am confident when I say I'm not the only one that thinks the staff can do a little better. Actually, way better. It disheartens me to know that what was such a successful Minecraft community is now getting less attention than I am getting on my Facebook profile.
Look at the pictures on the front page. It's ugly. That is the cold, hard truth. The sizes are off (look at how many of them are stretched!) and the colouring needs more attention as well.
I'd also like to see staff pay more attention to WHAT THEY'RE SAYING. When posting about the winners of a contest it's usually not a good idea to say "3rd place goes too... NOBODY! :D BECAUSE NOBODY ENTERED THE DAMN CONTEST" you're essentially telling the world about how unpopular World of Minecraft has become. Very unprofessional.
Rant over -.-
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The front page is supposed to be informative, and should also be entertaining. I don't just speak for myself, I do have friends that used to play on World of Minecraft and have the same opinion. I don't get why you're arguing here, I'm actually trying to help.
"I'd much rather have a messy front page than have 15 people complain about how they didn't read about build moves" that is laziness. You can create entertaining posts AND informative ones, you can add humour to informative posts, make them more intriguing, more comprehensive and more accessible. It's a sloppy job and that's the truth.
This isn't just about informative posts, either. It's also about posts that are supposedly entertaining. The contest results? The pictures could be a lot better quality IMHO, and what is written can be more entertaining. I'm not actually trying to get into an argument here, and I'm not trying to say you are incapable of doing the job well, I'm saying it can be done better and I speak not only for myself when I say there can be improvement.
I feel as though I'm wasting my time... Staff don't like to be corrected, even when they know it's the truth. It's not my server/website, so obviously I don't really have a say. I sincerely hope you take my advice. It goes for the Facebook page, too. Very poorly managed.
*edit*
I will stress once again how pathetic it is that I am seeing grammatical errors/spelling mistakes in the posts. A certain someone told me how they are constantly having to secretly edit the posts to correct them.
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I thankyou for your feedback and will act accordingly when I next make a front page post.
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But. They're not supposed to be entertaining. I believe Any user should be able to look at a post on the front page and know everything important in 2 minutes. A lot of our users are between 8-12 years old. They get on the website, glance at the front page, read it real fast, and then go do something else. I hardly expect them to come to a forum for entertainment. With all the other forms of entertainment they have, this website is the one they spend the least amount of time on.
As for the pictures, I agree they could be better quality. All the pictures you're talking about have just been screenshots taken in game, and then uploaded directly to this site. That's the quickest way for us to do.
The reason that the front page was more entertaining back in those days, was because it wasn't as informative. Lots of things the staff did, we didn't bother to tell the userbase. That caused a lot of anger in the community. Now we're trying a 100% transparent strategy. So everyone in the community can easily see all changes made, and be a part of all the changes that are planned. There's not much room left over for also providing entertainment.
Nearly every staff member also works a full time job. We don't get paid, or gain anything from this. The front page posts you see are normally "Just got home from work, I have about 30 minutes to a hour to spend doing this, but the community needs to know what is happening". A lot of times we don't have time to read and reread posts to make sure they're perfect.
I do encourage you to bring up any specific complaints/solutions in person with one of the head staff members on irc, either in #World of Minecraft or in private message. However, any posts like this on the forums always seem to start arguments, even when they aren't intended to.
I am locking this before it gets out of hand.
WoM Coins: 3343
Hmm.
By nobody, you mean you. Lots of users don't look past the front page, even to go look at the active topics. So when we don't put changes on the front page, we have to deal with half our users saying they had no idea that something was happening, and that they want another chance to do it because they didn't read the forums. And when the server goes down, even for a hour or so, 2 or 3 different posts always pop up asking when it'll be back. That not only proves that people don't look through the active topics, it also shows that people want us to post and tell them when we get things running again. Anyway, I'd much rather have a messy front page than have to do deal with 15 people who didn't read about build moves.
That post wasn't made by a staff member. And yes, it was very disappointing that nobody took part in the competition, especially considering the prizes were real world prizes. Showing people that they could have easily won 25 or 50 dollars hopefully encouraged them to participate in the next competition.
Also, you seem to name a lot of problems, but not so many answers. The only solution I got from your entire post was, 'Make the pictures prettier'. And, 'The staff can do better.' The front page is supposed to be informative. If people want minecraft entertainment, that's what the game is for. Or irc. Or the forum games section. Or any of the active topics. The front page is "If I only have 2 minutes to check World of Minecraft, these things are what I NEED to know is happening."