Article Shelf Life?

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Sue Wentz
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Article Shelf Life?

Post by Sue Wentz »

Please forgive me if I'm choosing the wrong part of the forum to ask this.

I was gearing up to write an article or two, and wanting to make sure I wasn't covering the same ground twice, I tried to check my old ones. Except for the two most recent, they're all missing. Looking at other published articles, it seems like there are several that are multiple years' old, then a gap, and then articles all under six months old - is this correct? (I enjoy writing, so I'm a little disappointed.)
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Rochelle Bos
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Re: Article Shelf Life?

Post by Rochelle Bos »

Yes, unless they are pinned to not delete they automatically disappear after 6 months
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The Admin
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Re: Article Shelf Life?

Post by The Admin »

What do you guys think?
At the moment, we delete articles about 6 months unless the Steward chooses to keep it permanently. We did this to clean up old information that would not be relevant anymore.
Do you think we should leave it as it is?
Would you prefer that we never delete articles?
Something else?
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Carole Hanson
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Re: Article Shelf Life?

Post by Carole Hanson »

Perhaps an external archive could be created? Articles could be sorted by month and year?
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Randall Allen
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Re: Article Shelf Life?

Post by Randall Allen »

I used to write articles about historic mixed breed horses that changed the game for their respective divisions. I didn't do it for the money, the Sim money is actually quite meaningless at this stage of the game. I did it to preserve history and so players could look back. When I realized all my hard work just got deleted, I stopped writing on this particular site.

Should some useless NW3 race preview articles get deleted? Probably. Should historical articles that take an hour or two researching, editing and writing get deleted? Probably not.
Hope Bentley
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Re: Article Shelf Life?

Post by Hope Bentley »

There was a Black Wolf article that Randall wrote many years ago! I wish it was still there.. amongst other articles on many great mixed breed horses… that were founding stallions or mares. Certain Historical articles should be kept!

Stallions
*Silver Kitty Cat
*Macha Taima
*Rockin to the Stars & more
Past Stallions
*Black Wolf *Blue Montana Gold *Fire Fire *Streakin Goldstrip
*Bear Encounter *Blood Red Sun *Held High and other greats
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Sue Wentz
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Re: Article Shelf Life?

Post by Sue Wentz »

I think Randall brings up a great point. With the current six month policy in place, there's very little incentive for the experienced players like himself to take the time to share their wisdom or write historically interesting articles, while there's always all kinds of incentive for new players to write lots of articles from their comparably limited understanding.

With that in mind, although it stings a bit, I can understand why my articles as a new player lacked historical value. But, for instance, I'd also done an interview with a SC winning trainer, which I'm very disappointed to see gone because I think that did have some merit.

I'd vote with Randall and Hope. Historically valuable articles, especially about horses and trainers, should probably be kept. Newbie articles or even race previews are probably of limited value long term.
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The Admin
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Re: Article Shelf Life?

Post by The Admin »

How would it be determined which articles should stay? Who decides? The author? Or should we keep them all?
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Diane Townsend
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Re: Article Shelf Life?

Post by Diane Townsend »

Its the main reason I stopped doing articles. I loved doing the articles on Triple Crown winners but it was a lot of work and most (but strangely not all) have been deleted.

I think race previews/reviews should be automatically deleted and Hall Of Fame type articles be automatically kept. Some of the articles for new players "don't make the same mistakes as me" are quite good but some are poorly constructed.

Maybe have a button when submitting a article where the author can submit a request that the article be considered to be kept?
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Nicole Marie
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Re: Article Shelf Life?

Post by Nicole Marie »

Randall Allen wrote: 9 months ago I did it to preserve history and so players could look back. When I realized all my hard work just got deleted, I stopped writing on this particular site.
Yeah, some of my articles I don't think are relevant after six months, but I've written some about famous horses who have been pensioned or have passed away (and had a few others in the works) and those take a lot of time, and I don't know that I'd have bothered with the ones I've already done if I knew they weren't going to be something available to reference back.
Some of the articles for new players "don't make the same mistakes as me" are quite good but some are poorly constructed.
Some articles also seem to just be copy pasted from the help section with maybe a sentence or two of author commentary, and honestly I don't know why those are accepted at all but they definitely don't need to be kept for posterity. But Hall of Fame, major race news (like when we get another Triple Crown winner, someone will be writing about that), articles about the legacy of players/horses I think absolutely deserve to stay, especially since those often take a ton of time.
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Wc Lee
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Re: Article Shelf Life?

Post by Wc Lee »

The Admin wrote: 9 months ago How would it be determined which articles should stay? Who decides? The author? Or should we keep them all?
You can use the views counter to identify popular articles. All of the forum posts show a view counters that tells people how many views a particular forum message has been read. I assume something similar can be done for the Feature News Articles. Come up with a threshold as to how many views would make an article worth saving. Refresh the counter every 6 months or so. If an article has not reach the threshold then it can be deleted.
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Lori Hamill
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Re: Article Shelf Life?

Post by Lori Hamill »

Sue Wentz wrote: 9 months ago Please forgive me if I'm choosing the wrong part of the forum to ask this.

I was gearing up to write an article or two, and wanting to make sure I wasn't covering the same ground twice, I tried to check my old ones. Except for the two most recent, they're all missing. Looking at other published articles, it seems like there are several that are multiple years' old, then a gap, and then articles all under six months old - is this correct? (I enjoy writing, so I'm a little disappointed.)
I didn't see any articles for Sue Wentz when I looked. Not even recent ones? Are you perhaps writing under a different name?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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The Admin
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Re: Article Shelf Life?

Post by The Admin »

Let's try this. When you submit an article, you also get to suggest whether your article should be kept for 6 months or "forever". This change has been implemented.
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Sue Wentz
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Re: Article Shelf Life?

Post by Sue Wentz »

Lori Hamill wrote: 9 months ago I didn't see any articles for Sue Wentz when I looked. Not even recent ones? Are you perhaps writing under a different name?
There's still one under Racing, and another one under Breeding, Lori. Both by Sue Wentz. There'd been at least five or six more before that which have been wiped from the archives. Anyway, It was losing the trainer interview that still hurts the most. I'll see if I still have that anywhere on my hard drive, and maybe revise and repost it.

The Admin wrote: 9 months ago Let's try this. When you submit an article, you also get to suggest whether your article should be kept for 6 months or "forever". This change has been implemented.
I really appreciate the change! Thank you!

I'll be keeping my fingers crossed and hoping to see more words of wisdom and historically interesting articles from the experienced folks!
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