Hello folks,

The front page has been a topic of a lot of discussion since this forum was created. For a long time it was Admin's pet project, and when she disappeared no one really picked it up. However, it keeps being brought up, so clearly people still want it, so I've volunteered to help spearhead the project to finally get it off the ground. We've already discussed some details among the moderators, and Welder is looking into possible software options for it, but we wanted to get input from the community on what they wanted from a front page. First, though, here's a brief walkthrough of the model the mods have been discussing, so you understand the sort of framework we're going for.

The primary goal of the front page will be to show off the work that gets done on our forums. To that end, the main body of it will be a series of weekly features about the various facets of our community's creative endeavors. Each of these features will be headed by a Content Czar, who will collect pieces written by various contributors and pick one each week to send to me for publication. Content Czars will be volunteers from the community who are close to the various areas.

A few pieces of organic weekly material already exist in the community: YMtC has their Card of the Week, and the M:EM has a weekly M:EMory, both of which are excellent showcases for the creative work on hand here. I also would love to have a weekly NGA Constructed deck feature, since that format is a major part of what sets us apart. Beyond that a few other ideas that have been floated are a Casual Constructed feature, some Limited strategy writing, and perhaps another NGA Constructed article focusing on casual/commander play and new set releases. The DotP section could probably also get a weekly decklist, since we've become somewhat of a hub for that community. We'd also make space for non-recurring sections if they fit with the intent of the page.

Beyond that, though, we're open to suggestions. For instance, as you may have noticed, I am primarily on the Magic side of things, and don't really have a clue what the D&D and PBP sides might want out of this. One thought is a side-bar that lists the games currently open for sign-up, to entice in potential new players, but in terms of regular content I have no idea, and my speculation isn't going to be as effective as the suggestions of the people actually involved in that area.

It's important to note here that I can't promise any particular feature will be implemented: I'm not the software person, so I can't guarantee that it'll be technically feasible, and on content, it's important to keep in mind that this page will be representative of the NGA brand and thus needs to be kept to certain content standards, some of which are beyond my control. Right now we're looking for a few things:

• Feedback on the general model. Does this seem like what you wanted out of the front page?
• Suggestions for content features. What would you like to make or see?
• Volunteers for Content Czars. Having people managing the individual sections is vital to making this work so that all the responsibility doesn't fall completely on my shoulders.

Thanks,
Lazarus

I would be a czar but I dont know anything so bad idea there.

What I would like to see for YMTC is the reigning cotw, preferably rendered nicely. I would also like links to our 3 major contests when they are ongoing (that is Pro Tour YMTC, YMTC champs and Card of the Year)

yeah, in these discussions I've often floated the suggestion of a write-along series for Pro Tour YMtC, which I'd be happy to write. similar things could definitely be doable for Champs and CotY.

We could just link to the latest thread. A write-along series seems to not have much content tk put in.

The D&D community could share ongoing stories about their campaigns.

I suggest having the front page take a blog-like format, so it's easy to implement, it can be linked to our forum accounts, and we have the flexibility to post whatever we need to post.

I don't really have the time to be a czar, but I would happily contribute on behalf of YMtC and NGA Constructed.

The 39 page Anime thread. I think it is front page worthy.

my thought had been to use the write-along to discuss the goals and outcomes of the criteria, as well as to highlight some of the winning designs. plus maybe follow through some "celebrity" contestants for storylining, probably the people who placed highly in the last iteration. maybe not that though.

I want to avoid a blog format because previous articles get buried too quickly with one of those. Welder is currently looking into possibilities, but my goal is something akin to the old Wizards of the Coast website, with small teasers for various article types and a few sidebars and other features. That way content doesn't immediately disappear from view as soon as someone else adds something.

Also, speaking purely as Lazarus and not for the mod team as a whole, I feel like it's important to have some filtration. While I want the front page to represent the community, letting it function as a joint blog for hundreds of people seems like an invitation for chaos, and would be a poor ambassador for the NGA community at large. Having a guiding hand can help keep it organized and reflecting what we can be at our best, and also keeps content more varied by controlling the flow of certain types of features, so that we don't drive away people who might be interested in our less-frequented areas. That's the point of the Czar system. I could see granting the Czars the ability to publish directly so that I don't have to be directly involved, though. We would have to create a new usergroup, but I imagine that's doable.

I agres. Filtration is good. If there is none, I promise to spam until there is some or I ger banned.

(Not actually. I dont like being banned. Im sure PoPa would totally do that though)

The more I think about this the more I like it

Hello all, I've made this conversation a global post so we can get input from all our different areas. We want as much input from our community as a whole as possible, so please let us know what you guys would like to see out of this project.

I'm a bit of a rabblerouser but when it comes to NGAC I'm comfortable telling someone about the format. I'd have CKY do anything involving NGAC but he's super busy so idk.



Also I like the idea of a front page.

I mainly just post on YMTC these days, so I'll just talk about stuff relating to that.

We should definitely have something related to the CotW. Ideally you could get somebody to make the card into a render as well, so we have a nice looking image that can go into the archives or something.

Other than that, major contests should be announced/advertised. What exactly qualifies as major is up for interpretation, but stuff like the currently running YMTC Pro Tour thing should definitely count. Razor's idea of providing a writeup to go along with the contest is nice, but might be too much work compared to the payoff.

Maybe this could be an excuse to revamp the Community Sets subforum as well. I was a fan of the idea behind Starstill, but since I didn't get into the set as it was starting, I found that it was really hard to get involved. Mainly because the entire design process lacked structure/documentation and I wasn't going to go back and read through a thousand posts spread across dozens of threads just to get a general idea of how the set was progressing. Maybe in the future if we design another community set, whoever was moderating the process would be able to do weekly or monthly writeups detailing important points in the design process such as agreed up flavor/structure/mechanics, important upcoming submission threads/deadlines, and more. This would help keep the information regarding what is going on centralized and organized, as well as draw attention to the process and hopefully boost participation.

In addition to the Highlighted M:EMories, the M:EM could probably re-release works that were originally serialized (Such as War of the Wheel) if we need to fill holes in the content schedule.

Ideally, I'd like to see our front page update daily with regular features. Say M:EM on Saturday, CotW on Sunday, NGAC Deck spotlight on Monday, something from the RPG area on Tuesday, Maybe a different Flavor/M:EM entry (like dossiers, serial, or some sort of Know Your Lore) on Wednesday, DotP on Thursday, maybe a summary of the week's DLCRs from Limited on friday?

I'd like to see a new piece from the M:EM that is dropped in pieces, a short chapter every week over the course of a month or so.

~SE++

I always imagine the front page would look like a newspaper or the old daily magic front page, with several larger thumbnail whatever they are called for the big news and smaller ones for smaller articles. Certain articles would stay up for several days or longer and other boxes can change faster.

That idea was floated in the mod lounge and is something I think would work great. As Squinty mentions a new thing might be even better, but there's a lot of merit to exposing people to M:EM's classics, and a lot of us haven't read them yet anyway.


This was my goal, although I was planning to aim for just weekdays. But if we find ourself with enough content I would be happy to roll over to weekends too.

For Card of the Week, I think it'd be cool to get a short blurb written about the card, either by its creator, its nominator, or barring that just TP's thoughts, so putting it up as soon as the poll closes wouldn't quite work, but maybe slotting it in for Monday or Tuesday.

That's basically what I want as well.

On the subject of content from the M:EM ~
I, personally, would want to see for the Highlighted M:EMories something done akin to how OCR posts their ReMixes on their front page -- to edit in the replies for that week's chosen work into the article itself (Example to show what I mean.) This does mean a little editorial work, but ultimately it's just a copy/paste job. My point being is that the Highlighted M:EMory on the front page would not be what is currently being discussed for the week, so that the article on the front page would have some actual content in it instead of waiting for posts/comments. If, as I expect it would be, the thread is run on both the front page and the M:EM forum, then I expect most people would only post on one place or the other.

If memory serves, War of the Wheel has been the only project to date we've had that had a release on a weekly schedule. Seasons of Dusk (an Innistrad anthology which is currently not in the NGA side of our Archives) had a serialized release, but that was a three-part release over a longer period of time. However, I could see a possible serialization out of the Alara and Innistrad anthologies we've put out.

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Personally, I don't. It's just people discussing what anime they're watching/have watched. I would much prefer putting the 106 anime reviews from your thread (counted from the current OP) up on the front page over time. That, to me, feels like much more substantial content than what's in the anime thread.

So the idea of a 'This week in NGA...' is a really neat idea, and I like the idea of it being a thing.

But...

I can only speak for myself, but when Im looking for a new community or some information, the more barriers you put between me and the actual sub-forum or information Im looking for, the less time Im going to spend trying. And since we're only a forum, I think thats worth considering. The idea is good, and should be a part of NGA in some way, but navigation barriers in front of content are costly when every topic and hobby is dime a dozen for websites about them.

WotW was weekly for its whole run.
Seasons and Fragments were both serialized in chapters, we could easily do one-story-at-a-time through them.
Phantoms of the Past was mostly a weekly serial but crippled by my inability to keep a consistent schedule. Also, it's way shorter than WotW
We could probably work through the Jackie arc and/or Beryl arc as serials. The deeply connected shorts sometimes have that sort of feel to them.