Attention: Concerns about CEoM Participants Writing News Items

A news item is just information. It may or may not lead to a discussion.
It is just there.
In my case at least, I post such items, which have some engineering interest and may not be seen by other CEans. It is up to the reader to pursue it further or not.

The poster is doing a post man's job. He/She does not create the item.

I generally post such on the News Talk section. If technology is the main burden of the piece then I do post it under a suitable category.

One option is to make a rule that all such items must be posted in News Talk and will not count for credits. The admin has the option of moving wrongly posted messages to the NewsTalk at its discretion.

From my perception, I feel writing news article is not a joke.They should be awarded atleast some minimum points.I feel that some worthy technical questions,debate topics have been moved to chit chat section.

SarathKumar ChandrasekaranFrom my perception, I feel writing news article is not a joke.They should be awarded atleast some minimum points.I feel that some worthy technical questions,debate topics have been moved to chit chat section.

We never said it's a joke. In fact, we pay all our authors to cover latest updates. If any of our members believe that they want to write news for CE; please get in touch with @#-Link-Snipped-# .

When members write news - it often clashes with the articles our authors are preparing; resulting into duplicates or our authors having to drop it because someone already covered it briefly. We want to avoid that situation.

For the debates: Yes, we do need some guidelines on what can go into Debate and what's a general chatter.

The In-Focus section has this to say in one place:
Quote:
1. University Results Expected? - Tell us.
2. Spotted a news item you think is worth mentioning - Tell us.
3. Have a college event, tech fest, talk or anything - Tell us.
4. Saw something important on TV - tell us.
5. Read something interesting in Magazine/Newspaper - Share it with us.
Endquote

Item 2 and 5 above may cause some posts that clash with Voice.

Happens to me occasionally (more often than i like) even though I try a search before posting. May be the above guidelines can be revised in the light of the current discussions.

A short mention can act as a tip to the VoiCE authors. It may have pointers to the latest news we missed.

Kaustubh KatdareA short mention can act as a tip to the VoiCE authors. It may have pointers to the latest news we missed.

Agreed. I was quite surprise when none of the VoiCE author covered outstanding features of Jolla Sailfish OS & it's Android compatibilty.
This could've generated good discussion.

Why not have a dedicated thread in which a CEan can share interesting latest news, and later on VoiCEan can cover that news in depth, if they like the topic ?

A long thread becomes very unmanageable. Better start new threads or just tip the authors through profile messages. But be aware that the authors may not be well versed with the updates inside out. Jolla Sailfish was an important update; but it got skipped. We try to cover as many important and interesting topics; but things get skipped 😀

Voice authors cannot be faulted. One cannot be all over the place like the TV news channel battalions. CE is not a cover all news service.
What is important is that whatever is covered is done well.

A year or so back I saw a post in another forum where an ex CEan was grousing about tech news on CE being very late and outdated. Even if true at that time, he could have himself done something about it instead leaving CE and venting his spleen elsewhere.

There are many of us, who are otherwise busy and find it difficult to keep abreast of all tech news especially in areas removed from our own interest. Voice fills that void.

Well, I do remember that incident. We've, since then, taken various steps to ensure that our news isn't 'outdated'. Things have improved a lot; but a lot needs to be done as well.

Starting October 01, we'll be more disciplined in our approach and the kind of news we'll cover and the depth we'll offer. So the quantity of news may come down; but the quality will definitely go up.

There's one advantage we have. Even if the main news item misses critical points; others can cover them up through comments. That's exactly in sync with collective knowledge building we've been doing here on CE.